Bear With Me (Woodland Creek)

by Nicole Blanchard

  When the trees part and I spot the building in the distance I double my speed. The wind pulls, and I don’t need to turn around to know that the vortex is just behind me. In the moments before I reach the building, time seems to stop. I give one last push of speed and propel us through a large plate glass window.

  Sharp pain bites through my shoulder, but I roll off of my side and get to my feet. The storm cellar beneath us is the safest place and we have seconds before that won’t even matter anymore.

  Using my shoulder, I push through the cellar door, slamming it behind us just as the storm reaches the building. The cellar is pitch black and Sully shivers against me. I have the presence of mind to set her down on a chair I’m able to find in the dark. Once she’s settled, I take several steps back, putting as much distance between us as I can.

  The intensity of the moment allowed me to focus on getting Sullivan safe. Now that I’m locked in a room as a tornado ravages the forest around us, I’m more worried about keeping her safe…from me.

  My guttural breaths are the only sound in the small enclosed space. I drop down to my haunches in an effort to focus my racing thoughts and control the urge to completely give in to the beast inside of me. Through sheer will I manage to pull back from the edge. My claws and teeth retract. Skin replaces fur and I crumple to my knees from the strain and rush of adrenaline. She’s safe.

  I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel the soft, hesitant touch of her fingers on my shoulder. My whole body shivers and tenses. I press the flats of my claw-like hands into the cement to keep from reacting. I don’t know if I want to shove her away or put them around her to hold her close again. My beast liked having her little body against me entirely too much. Even now, he’s growling to be let out completely, to make her his.

  “Don’t touch me,” I whisper harshly. Her hand contracts on my shoulder before she releases and takes a few steps backwards.

  “Declan?” she asks. “That’s you, isn’t it? Oh my god. How did…what did…what are you?”

  “Not now.” I grit my teeth together. “Stay over there.”

  I can sense her fear even though she moves to the other side of the small room. “Are we going to be safe here? I heard the tornado sirens.”

  “You’ll be safe from the storm,” I say.

  “And from you?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  I hear her swallow. “You’re not going to hurt me,” she says, even though her voice quavers.

  “As long as you stay over there you should be fine.” I don’t know how true that statement is. She was probably doomed the moment I set eyes on her.

  “What about you? Are you okay?”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’m sick of people deciding what’s best for me. I’ll worry about you if I damn well please. I can feel the blood on my shirt and I know it’s not from me. Now tell me if you’re okay.”

  “None of it will matter if this place doesn’t hold up through the storm. Be quiet so I can hear if it’s passed.”

  I hear her growl a little in her throat and the muscles in my stomach clench. Even though we’re in danger and I know I should be putting as much distance between us as I can, I still want her. If my beast had his way, we would have already been tumbling on the ground.

  I concentrate on my surroundings. I can hear the hum of the generator that must have kicked on after the power went down. The fact that it’s still here and intact is a good sign. Through the wall of concrete, I can hear the howl of the wind. Rolls of thunder vibrate the structure above us and I hear the crack of branches succumbing to the storm.

  When I refocus back on the room the first thing I notice is that Sullivan is standing right next to me. I jerk backward against the wall, but there’s nowhere to go.

  “I need you to do something for me,” I say firmly.

  She takes a few steps toward me, but I back away. “Anything,” she tells me.

  “Walk away. Right now.” But she doesn’t. She continues getting closer “Sully, go.”

  “I can’t,” she whispers.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” she says, just as I hear the tornado reach the building.

  Sullivan

  One second I’m cowering behind a tree, certain that I’m about to be sucked into oblivion and the next a shadow comes rushing at me, scooping me up into its arms. Exhaustion and fear have run riot on my emotions and I can barely keep my eyes open as it races through the forest. The only thing I know is that it smells safe, it smells like Declan.

  I wrap my arms around it and my hands come in contact with his neck. The thoughts and feelings come at me like a shot to the gut. I can see and hear everything around us. I can sense the tornado not far behind and all of the animals fleeing in front. But the thing that strikes me the most is the same thought that keeps repeating in his brain.

  Keep her safe.

  We make it to some sort of building that I don’t recognize and down to a cellar that I hope will withstand the tornado. He sets me down and backs away. I crumple against the wall, my whole body feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck.

  I rub a hand at my eyes and when I look up the thing that saved me is Declan, shirtless, by the door. Which completely blows my mind, even when I consider the crazy shit that I’ve been through the past few weeks. I barely have time to sort through that information before he’s on top of me as the tornado finally hits.

  I cover my ears as the wind whistles through the air. The ceiling above us shakes with the force of multiple impacts and Declan’s warm body presses me even closer to the cold concrete beneath me. Rumbles come with each of his exhalations and I focus on that instead of the disaster happening one floor up.

  What feels like an eternity later, the wind finally dies down and the silence is deafening. Declan slowly moves from on top of me and scoots with lightning quickness across the room. I can see the way his body shakes even through the darkness. I fight my own growing panic and confusion. Nonna’s words replay in my head. I don’t know if what we had will last, but it sure as hell deserves the chance to try.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m going to be honest here for your own well-being.” He fights a full-body shiver. “I can’t control myself much longer. So you need to go before I can’t control it anymore.”

  “Was this why you pushed me away that day?” I take a step forward, but stop when a growl reverberates throughout the dark room. “What…I mean I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what are you? How did we get here so fast? How did you know where I was?”

  “Sully, please. Don’t come any closer. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You could have hurt me when we were alone that night and you didn’t.” I take another step and ignore the flash of his now razor-sharp teeth.

  “I was relaxed that night.” He groans. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then, please, make me understand. You owe me that since you gave me a shit explanation about not wanting to see me again.”

  “Don’t you get it? You could end up like that girl in the woods and I won’t risk that. You’re too…”

  I take another step. His body is nearly vibrating with the urge to keep still. “I’m too what?” I whisper.

  He drops his head against the wall with a groan. “You’re too important to me.”

  “If you’re so out-of-control, then how did you manage to find me and bring me to safety? How did you manage to keep control of yourself during the tornado? You’re not making any sense.”

  “Please leave,” comes his ravaged whisper.

  The last step brings me within reaching distance and I finally get a good look at him. I control my reaction so that I don’t spook him even more than he already is. His face is sharper, more defined and his hair has thickened to cover most of his jawline and his eyes are no longer the soft amber that I remembered. Now they’re a bright gold that damn near glows in the darkness, like th
ey did that night in the clearing when he kissed me. His thickly muscled arms that are now covered in light fur. His thighs have ripped through his pants and he lost his shoes somewhere in the forest. My brain trips over the scene in front of me, but after my own surprise magical discovery, I manage to keep my calm.

  “You—you’re some sort of shapeshifter?” In front of my own eyes his face morphs into something both man and beast. He lets out a groan. The concrete under his hands has deep slashes from where he’s clawed through in an effort to keep still. “This is why you pushed me away?”

  “I should have never kissed you,” he says, his chest heaving. “I should have walked away that day.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to hurt me.”

  “You shouldn’t be so sure of that.”

  “But I am.”

  He shakes his head, seeming to disagree with my words. “We’ve spent one night together, Sully. You can’t possibly know that.”

  “I know you came to save me. I know that instead of putting me at risk, you walked away to save me and spared hurting my grandmother. Those are the actions of someone I can trust.” I kneel before him and reach out a hand to touch his shoulder. “I trust you not to hurt me, Declan.”

  He shudders at the contact, his neck arching up. When he looks back down at me his eyes are molten. He seems to struggle with himself before reaching out to me and pulling me into his lap, my legs thrown over one thigh and his arm cradles my back.

  I cup his face with one hand. “This isn’t too bad, is it?” Then I gasp as I realize I can sense him in this form. I see myself crouched by the tree from his point of view. I hear him thinking Keep her safe and I remember the gentle way he held me in his arms.

  “You have no idea,” he growls. “I can smell you like this. It’s driving me crazy touching you right now.”

  “Do you want me to move?” I start to get out of his lap, but his grip tightens around me.

  “No!” he barks out. “I don’t know if it’s safe out there yet. Let’s give it a few minutes.”

  “Okay, we’ll wait.” I rest my head on his chest and take a calming breath. “There’s something I should probably tell you, too. Something about me.”

  “If it’s about your grandfather, I—”

  I put a hand on his cheek and look into his eyes. “No, my grandmother explained. It’s not that, it’s something else.”

  “What is it?” His hand runs up and down my back, soothing me, even though I bet he doesn’t realize it.

  “My family…apparently we all have these…gifts.” I don’t look at him as I speak. “After my parents died in the car accident, I started to be able to sense…things. If I touch something, I can get these visions of things that happened around it in the past or if someone touched it recently, I know their thoughts and things like that. And…”

  “Go on,” he says.

  “Well it’s one of the things that drew me to you in the first place,” I confess. “I haven’t been handling it very well and the night of the party, I was overwhelmed by everything. If I touch someone, you see, I can understand what they’re thinking or sometimes I get memories from their past.” I swallow thickly before continuing and the hand at my back doesn’t stop its gentle strokes. “The first time you touched me, I didn’t want the gift anymore. I hated it. Then, it didn’t work on you. I didn’t know what you were thinking. It was like I was free from this curse. It was so nice to be with you without being bombarded by your thoughts.”

  “So that’s why you were interested in me?” he asks, his voice low.

  “No! God no. I liked you. I like that you seem so big and bad, but you have this other soft side that I think no one else gets to see. I like that your first instinct is always to protect me. I like what we started and I don’t want to give that up. My grandmother told me that you should never let people you care about walk away, so this is me. Not letting you walk away.”

  “I need to touch you now. Just,” his breathing gets rougher, “just tell me if it’s too much. I’ll stop. I can stop.”

  I use the hand on his cheek to guide his face down to mine. He buries his lips in my throat, the hair tickling the soft skin there. As soon as his lips touch my throat the world around us melts away. He nuzzles, moving his body over mine until I’m flat on my back with him above me.

  His thick forearm cushions my head from the rough ground and I forget the rest. I try to keep my eyes open, try to learn this foreign side of him, but he nips my skin and my eyes grow weary of focusing on the darkness around us. When he pulls away I peer up at him and find that the fur covering his face has receded and his eyes are back to the soft amber hue.

  “Hey,” I whisper, smiling up at him.

  I expect him to say something sweet, like he did the night of our date. Instead he frowns at me and says, “If you ever do anything as crazy as going out during a tornado warning again, I will personally beat your ass.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  He leans back on his haunches and winces. I remember the blood on my shirt and get to my feet. “We need to get you somewhere we can look at that wound. Your house is nearby. Do you think you can make it?”

  “I’m fine. Let’s just hope it’s still there.” Declan helps me to my feet, pausing to press a soft, sweet kiss to my lips that leaves me breathless once again.

  “You aren’t mad about me not telling you about my gift are you?”

  “As long as you’re not mad about having to date a man who occasionally likes to run around like a bear, then no.”

  My heart soars as he leads me up the stairs. The door is blocked by some debris on the other side, but Declan demonstrates another trait that goes along with his ability to shift into a bear: super strength. He braces his feet on the step and heaves with bulging arms. After two or three pushes that leave my jaw on the floor, he manages to dislodge what turns out to be a huge trunk from where it lay on top of the door.

  He helps me out of the stairwell and sets me down on the ground. The old building is essentially nonexistent. Remnants of the wood and furniture lay around us in a dump. Like it was a child’s block tower that had gotten knocked over. There are no roofs, no walls. Everything has been ripped apart and strewn in every direction across the clearing.

  “C’mon,” Declan says, lifting me up into his arms.

  “Whoa. I would comment on whether or not you could carry me, but I just saw you move a tree the size of a small country.”

  He grins, but I can tell he’s in pain.

  “Are you sure it won’t bother your arm?” I ask.

  “Sully, I’ll be fine. I just want to get you home where I know you’re safe.”

  I gesture with an arm. “Lead the way.”

  He lopes through the clearing with an easy grace that I wouldn’t have expected from such a big man. When I look away from his handsome face and see just how fast we’re going, I yelp, throwing my hands around his neck. I hear his responding chuckle in my ear.

  The next time I look up we’re bounding up the steps to his cabin. He sets me down carefully by his door. He holds onto me with one hand as he unlocks the door with the other and leads me inside.

  He kisses my shoulder and moves past me to the dining room table where he dumps a bunch of medical supplies.

  “Wow, you’re pretty well stocked up. Does this happen often?”

  He shrugs and winces when it jostles the gash on his shoulder. “Sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?”

  “Well, I don’t always remember what happens when I shift. Sometimes I wake up to find myself covered in things like this. I’ve gotten used to doing quick patch jobs.” He sends me a rueful smile.

  I cross to his side and take the antibacterial wash from him. “I’ll help.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he says.

  “You didn’t have to save me,” I respond. He sits quietly, his shoulders bowed. My mouth opens and closes a few times before I manage to find the right words. “How
long have you been able to do that, exactly?” I ask.

  He straightens and looks up at me, those big brown eyes hiding all of his thoughts. “Since I was fourteen. The first time I ever shifted was on the night my father died. I was trying to save him.”

  “What happened?” I deftly clean the wound and apply antibacterial ointment and a bandage.

  “It’s a long story.”

  I move around to his front and he tugs me down to his lap. “Was your father a shifter, too?”

  “I assume so, but I never really asked my grandfather about it after he died. By the time I was old enough to get it under control, he’d passed and then there was no one left.”

  “So you had to go through all of that alone?” That couldn’t have been easy on an orphaned fourteen-year-old. The thought of it makes me want to go and hug him.

  “I did all right,” he says, his shoulders bunched up around his ears as I bandage the wound.

  “All done,” I say. I figure we’ve both had enough of the serious topics for today.

  “Thanks. That should do it.”

  He disposes of the wrappings in the trash and disappears into the bathroom to replace the supplies. “We should be okay if you need me to take you back home.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. You have a lot of time to make up for, mister. You never gave me a second date. Unless you consider rescuing damsels a date.”

  He stays across the room. “I’m still not sure if it’s a good idea for you to stay here.”

  “You don’t really have a choice unless you want to throw me out. I told you I trust you.”

  Declan moves closer. “You aren’t going to give up on this are you?”

  I smile. “Nope.”

  “I’m pretty wiped,” he admits. “Would it be too boring if I suggested we go take a nap? A long one.”

  “No, that sounds like a great idea.”

  I follow Declan down the hall to his bedroom. It’s not very big, but the views into the forest make up for any lack in square footage. The windows nearly cover one wall and when he tugs me down onto the bed, I realize that it’s almost like sleeping outside.