by T. S. Joyce
No time for a seatbelt, she turned the key in the ignition and the truck roared to life. A torpedo hit the side of it and rocked the truck up on two wheels. A scream clawed its way out of her throat. The roaring of the bears was deafening as the truck slammed back onto all four wheels. She gripped the wheel and hit the gas. She threw snow behind her as the deep-treaded tires caught traction and catapulted her forward. The chair was adjusted for Aux’s long legs, which meant she had to sit on the edge of the seat to reach the wheel and pedals.
She followed the tracks they’d made down the mountain this morning, weaving this way and that through the woods. When she dared a look in the rearview mirror Brick was right behind her, charging down the mountain with Aux right on his tail.
Aux looked shredded. They both did. Their faces were covered in wet crimson and Brick was limping badly on his front right leg. A huge chunk of flesh hung from him, but he wasn’t slowing down.
With a yell, she hit the gas and did her best to control the truck. It was plenty powerful enough to handle the deep snow, but there was ice under this snow and the back-end slid when she had to make turns.
He was getting closer. Closer.
Brick swatted the back of the tow truck with his paw and sent her sliding sideways. She screamed as she catapulted toward a tree.
In a blur, Aux charged up alongside her and hit the truck with his shoulder. She missed the tree by inches but still didn’t have control. She eased onto the brakes as she skidded sideways down the mountain. A roar was so loud and so close that she hunched her shoulders and waited for a claw to burst through the window at any moment. Beside the rig, the bears were locked up. Aux was on top of his brother and she looked over just in time to see his paw in the air. His six-inch curved black claws came raking down on the gray bear. She ripped her gaze away before he connected with flesh.
She turned the wheel back and forth, evening the rig out. She steadied it enough to hit the gas again and barrel down the mountain.
The bears stayed where they were, savagely fighting.
Tears streaming down her face, Gwen left the sanctuary she’d found.
As it turned out…Aux’s mountain wasn’t a safe haven at all.
It was a little pocket of hidden Hell the humans didn’t know about.
The murder of crows flew through the snowy woods before her, but they didn’t follow her out of Aux’s territory.
They stayed with the bears.
As she left all of the monsters behind, she did as Aux had ordered—Gwen drove straight through the snow until she found other humans.
A crack had started in her heart when she’d seen Aux turn into that animal. The crack grew wider and deeper with every mile she put between her and the happiness she’d found on Aux’s mountain.
Chapter Nine
Ten days and ten hours.
Ten days and ten hours is how long it took Aux to stop looking over his shoulder. To stop waiting for the cops to show up. To stop thinking catastrophically every time someone stopped to talk to him as he cut trees off the roads. To stop worrying about a mob showing up once people found out what he was.
Ten days and ten hours until he realized Gwen had kept his secret.
His insides ached. They ached and felt hollow, and nothing fulfilled him any longer because she was gone. She’d been scared. He’d seen it in her eyes as she’d run for the tow truck.
God, she’d done so good. She’d done exactly as he’d asked.
Brick wasn’t dead. That part would come back to haunt him later.
He’d had his chance. Never in his life would he have thought he could best Moore, or even Brick, but this time was different. He’d had something important to protect.
Gwen was important.
Oh, he wouldn’t ever see her again. His time with his mate had come to an end, and at times he found it unfair. Why had he been born to this cursed lineage? Why couldn’t he have been a normal man who could’ve made her happy?
That wasn’t his story though.
Bear shifters were born understanding their curse. It was part of why he and his brothers had made that pact all those years ago. They wouldn’t curse another generation with the pain, the loneliness, and the war they fought with their animals every day.
He’d been resolved to break the curse until Gwen had given him a taste of relief. A taste of joy. A taste of freedom. A taste of feeling like a goddamn normal man for a little while.
She’d given him a gift she would never understand, and it had to be enough to last his whole life.
He’d shown mercy to Brick and left him there to bleed out or survive. When he’d come back later only a pile of red snow remained. Mercy wasn’t natural to bear shifters, but Gwen had taught him so much in their short time together.
Brick hadn’t even been conscious by the end of that fight. If Moore decided to finish Brick’s job someday, at least Aux could die knowing he didn’t kill something that couldn’t fight back.
Ten days and ten hours, and he stood in the open doorway of his bedroom for the first time since she’d left. He stared at her open duffle bag and that stupid blow dryer she loved so much.
Every part of his body hurt as he made his way to Gwen’s things and knelt down next to them.
He missed her, but most of all he missed the man he was when she was with him.
For the first time in his life, he’d felt good. He’d felt like he was good.
He felt worth-a-damn.
A human woman had done that for him.
And now, in this moment, he made a decision that broke all the rules again.
Ten days and ten hours, and he was going to reach for her because she was a good and loyal secret-keeper. He was tired of his life being forfeit.
He was tired of being something only worthy of being snuffed out of existence.
He wanted to live, but until he’d met Gwen he hadn’t known what living meant. He’d only known what surviving meant.
Gripping the handles of her duffle bag, he made his way out of the bedroom he’d refused to go into until her scent had disappeared. God, he’d missed her every second of every minute of every hour.
Today, Aux chose life. Not just survival.
And if Moore or Brick had a problem with his decisions?
Well, then those mother-fuckers were welcome to bring war.
He had something to fight for now.
Chapter Ten
Heartbreak was a consuming experience.
White noise was a part of her life now. The discussions of friends were like static to her now. There was a man who lived alone in the mountains who had real problems. He had a predator inside of him. He might be hurt. Aux lived his quiet life outside of human view. Always hidden, always working, always striving to stay steady, and suddenly, her girlfriends’ complaints about their love lives, their fights with neighbors, their drama with their parents…nothing seemed as important as it used to.
“Have you heard a single thing I’ve said?” Tabby asked from across Gwen’s kitchen island. Her friend was on an hour lunch break from her office down the street and had brought over Rocky Road ice cream. Tabby was trying to get Gwen over her ex, but to be honest, Gwen wasn’t the same girl who’d gotten broken up with. She didn’t think about her ex. She only thought of Aux.
“Tabby?” she murmured. “I think I fell in love with someone I can’t ever have.” Gwen blurted it fast before she turned chicken and swallowed the admission down for the hundredth time.
Her best friend frowned. “The man you met when you crashed?”
Tears stung her eyes and she nodded, unable to answer around the lump in her throat. “He has a big life that I don’t fit into, but I wish I did.”
Tabby pushed her pint of half-eaten Rocky Road ice cream away from herself and cocked her head. “What happened when you disappeared?”
“Everything.” What else could she say? Everything important had happened. “That man saw my ugly insides and said they were pretty. Not just s
aid that…he made me feel it.”
Tabby blinked hard and leaned back in her chair. “Is he who I need to thank for having my friend back the last couple weeks?”
“They say time heals, but for me? It was Aux that started the healing.”
“Then what are you doing here, Gwen?” Tabby reached across the island and held her hands tight. Softer, she asked it again. “What are you doing here?”
Gwen shrugged her shoulders. She missed him like crazy. “Existing.”
“That’s no way to live a life.”
Tabby was right. This wasn’t a way to live, midway between one life and the other. It was as if she was living a half-life, but the problem with half-lives were that they could never be fulfilling.
“I have to get back to work,” Tabby announced, standing. “You know I love our ice cream lunches, but my boss has been breathing down my neck.”
She hugged Gwen and murmured, “If you want something, go and get it, Gwen. I watched you spin out for so long, and you deserve better.”
Tabby didn’t understand though. She didn’t know what Aux was or she wouldn’t encourage her to go and get the life that called to Gwen.
She followed her best friend to the door of her apartment and waved goodbye as Tabby drove away, then she picked up the box the delivery man had apparently delivered without knocking.
It had no return address. Huh.
She brought it inside and opened it with the new pocket knife she’d decided to purchase after all the chainsaw confidence Aux had bestowed upon her.
When she saw what was inside, she hesitated. It was the duffel bag she’d left at Aux’s cabin the day she’d fled back to civilization.
Slowly, she pulled it out of the box and unzipped it. Bobbie was right there on top of her clothes.
An envelope sat in the bottom of the box. Gwen’s name was written on the front in capital letters.
She opened it and pulled out a folded piece of paper and a small stack of photographs. Her thumped against her sternum.
Aux had snuck pictures of her. In awe, she shuffled slowly through the stack of photographs.
One of her feeding Samson while she sat on a hay bale.
One of her running from the momma pig with a big grin on her bruised face like she was mid-laugh.
One of her kneeling by Willamena with a handful of grain offered on her palm.
One of her driving the side-by-side.
One of her cutting wood with a chainsaw, a big grin on her face as she looked at Aux.
All of the pictures she would’ve died to post on social media to get back at her ex, but now? They were the most important personal pictures she had ever seen.
In one, Aux had taken a selfie of himself with her as she cracked open a beer at the bonfire. She was in the middle of talking and had this easy smile on her face she hadn’t seen in years. He wasn’t grinning, but his silver eyes looked happy enough.
She ran her fingertip down the side of his face in that photo and felt so desperately hollow. Handsome bear.
The next was of Samson, only Samson wasn’t the same little runt she’d been feeding. He was sitting by Aux’s work boot near the dining table. He had a round little potbelly and his little snout was up in the air.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispered as she stared at the growing piglet. He was still inside the cabin with Aux.
On the back of that picture, Aux had written, I’m taking care of him for you. Couldn’t bring myself to put him back out in the pen, so now I have a fuckin’ house pig. I’ve taught him how to sit for treats and when he’s in trouble I call him Samson Gwendamir Bane. This is all your fault.
She laughed for the first time in what felt like ages.
Had her heart ever felt so deeply? Had it ever felt so much?
Next was a picture of Willamena sitting in a nesting box next looking freaking adorable with her feathers all ruffled up.
She unfolded the notebook paper and read it to herself.
Gwen,
I hope you don’t mind, but I tracked down your address. Figured you would want your things back, and I didn’t know if you would ever come back to my neck of the woods to get them.
I know you were scared when you left, and I’m sorry for it.
I waited. I waited for you to tell the world what I was, but you didn’t. Thank you for that. It’s only me and my brothers left, and we’re doing our best to keep it that way. I never wanted anyone to find out, but you did, and I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t regret that you know me. I mean know both sides of me. It’s nice to have someone out there in the universe know I exist. I never realized what a weight it was to carry the secret until I met you. Anyway, me and the animals are good. It’s too quiet around here now though. Go be the girl you want to be, Gwen. Somewhere out in the Montana mountains, there is a man who thinks you can do anything.
Aux
He’d put his phone number at the bottom of the page.
Gwen inhaled deeply, then exhaled a shaking breath as she held the letter against her chest.
What was she doing here?
Existing?
Tabby had said that was no way to live a life.
And Tabby was right.
Gwen copied his number from the letter into her phone and texted Aux, Hello, Bear Man.
A minute ticked by before her phone lit up with a response. Hey, pretty human.
You’re alive. Send.
Her phone lit up almost instantly. A little banged up, but the scars are worth it. Her phone rang with a request for a video call from Aux.
She panicked a little, yanked her hair out of her ponytail holder, pinched her cheeks so they looked rosier, then accepted the call.
He didn’t say anything at first. He didn’t need to. His eyes were full of emotion as he studied her face, and she understood. She was drinking him in, too. Up until a few minutes ago she thought she would never get the chance to see him again and now here he was, out on some snowy road somewhere, bundled up, those shining silver eyes just as striking as she remembered.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
His lips twitched into an uncertain smile that faded as he murmured, “Good.”
She could breathe for the first time since she’d left him. Since she’d abandoned his truck on Main Street in his hometown in hopes he would find it later. Since she’d began to cope with her feelings on her life and where she was headed, and about what Aux was.
A bear shifter.
She’d been scared at first, but now? Looking into his hope-filled eyes and feeling the same magnetism she’d felt for him at his cabin?
She didn’t know what those crows had been thinking, leading Aux to her, but she was sure grateful they did.
“You protected me from your brother.”
He nodded, and sat on the back of his tow truck with a grunt. “And I would do it again.”
“I know.” She uttered that with confidence because she knew in her heart it was true. Bear or man, he would protect her. “I didn’t tell anyone what you are because I wanted to protect you back,” she murmured.
“I suspected as much.”
“I didn’t know you took all these pictures of me,” she said, holding up the stack of photos he’d sent.
“You said you wanted pictures.”
“You listened.”
“To every word,” he said low.
God, she’d missed his growly voice, and now it made sense because he had an animal inside of him. That had to be such a consuming thing, but he still took time to listen to her. She was a woman who appreciated effort. That was her love language, and he was a damn natural at effort.
As he started telling her about the road he was clearing, she settled into the easy cadence of his voice and the comfort she already had with him. Relief flooded her as she got lost in his smile.
No more just existing.
Now this…tearing down her walls and reveling in the voice of the man who had stolen her heart…this was a good
way to live a life.
Epilogue
Aux’s mountain looked so different without the piled high snow. Now, there were just tufts of it here and there. It was muddy, but her new car could handle it.
She bounced and bumped her way up the road and did her best not to flash back to the day she’d left this place a few weeks ago.
The vision of Brick’s bear barreling toward her was too scary for her mind to hold on to. Today, fear had no hold here.
Nervously, she gripped the steering wheel harder as she hit the gas and gathered some speed to get over a hill.
She should’ve told him she was coming. She should’ve given him some warning. He’d explained that his bear was territorial. What if he was territorial against her?
What if he had just wanted to talk all day every day like they had been, but didn’t want a physical connection? She’d gone and missed his touch too much and just showed up at his place uninvited.
What if she was messing this all up?
When she topped the hill and the cabin came into view, all her worries were put to rest.
Aux was standing in front of a tractor surrounded by a bunch of tools. He was looking at her through the window with the biggest grin on his face. He huffed a frozen breath, shook his head at the ground, then yanked his work gloves off and tossed them onto his tool set. He strode for her, then ran. With a squeal, Gwen put her new car in park and shoved the door open. He caught her before her feet even hit the slushy ground, and his lips were there, right on hers like he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.
Everything was all right.
There was no cawing of crows, or roaring of bears, or howling of wind. It was just Aux and her in a quiet moment that made all her jagged pieces feel whole.
Aux was laughing and growling, laughing and growling, at war with the animal like he always would be, but he was hugging her tight. He kissed across her cheek to her neck, back to her cheek, then buried his face against her throat. The man carried her like she was weightless.
