Leah took a couple of steps outside and peeped across the low hedge separating their houses. His place looked dark - not that that was unusual - but just a bit darker than normal. As though he wasn’t even home. But how could that be, when he himself had admitted to her that he never left his house?
Well anyway, if he wanted to hide himself away from her also, that was his problem, not hers. Leah took a deep breath, suppressing the sting in her chest that had first developed hours before when she’d messaged him and not had a response.
She shook her head and walked back inside, returning to the neatly lined up bottles of essential oils she’d left in her otherwise pristine kitchen. Sniffing the various combinations one by one, none of them seemed quite right.
No matter how hard she tried to concentrate, it was no use, though. Angry or hurt, she couldn’t stop herself from feeling something. Something that affected her ability to work.
Alone. Yes, that was it. Out here in this new place that had turned out to be not as safe as she’d hoped; she suddenly felt very alone.
Chapter Seven
After a short drive in the back of a windowless van, Matt reached the supposed base; an old warehouse that looked somewhat like an impromptu command center from any generic espionage movie. Were these guys for real?
There was a lot of activity. Blindfolded and handcuffed men were being led through the warehouse and locked away somewhere in another part of the building. At the same time, the entire team of people involved in the action - they identified themselves as “the Alliance” - deposited weapons, communication equipment, and other items on their respective desks.
Matt took a seat at an unoccupied table and just observed. It was like a strange dream, like he had found himself in the middle of a Hollywood movie, and he was the only one aware that none of this was in any way normal.
As Matt looked around, his brain tried to make sense of it all. These people were like him. He’d seen it.
That meant that either all of them were as crazy as he was, or that his self-identified delusions were true. He’d convinced himself that the things he experienced were in his head for so long, it was near impossible to accept the opposite.
And what about Leah? She didn’t know anything about this stuff, so she had to be even more confused than he was right now. To think he burst into her bedroom fully shifted… No wonder she’d been shocked. And he couldn’t do a bloody thing about it!
“It’s really you. I can’t believe it,” a voice spoke behind him.
Matt jumped up from his chair and turned to find a man with a vaguely familiar face stand before him. He reminded him of a very distant past. Could it be? He wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words.
“Matty! Shit, do you even remember me?” The man smiled, but his eyes didn’t look happy.
“Jamie?” Matt asked after a few long seconds.
Relief washed over Jamie’s face. “You do recognize me. I was worried. It’s been such a long time, since…”
“What the hell is going on here?” Matt asked, but Jamie didn’t get the chance to answer.
“Mr. Argyle, is it? How wonderful to make your acquaintance.” A slightly sinister looking middle-aged man wearing a suit reminiscent of 1920s gangster movies offered his hand to Matt. Where the hell had he come from?
“Blacke. Adrian Blacke.”
“Uhh, Matt Argyle,” Matt mumbled while exchanging a puzzled look with Jamie, who didn’t seem too happy to see the strange man.
“It’s so good to see a lost one of ours returned to his own people, don’t you think, Abbott-” Why was he referring to Jamie by that name? “Despite the trials of your difficult childhood, I trust you’ll feel at home in no time at all.” The man, Blacke, flashed a row of white, be-it crooked teeth.
“My childhood was fine,” Matt remarked - his troubles didn’t start until around his seventeenth birthday - but Blacke wasn’t listening. Instead, he waved at Jamie, taking him aside and leaving Matt standing on his own just out of earshot.
Matt observed the conversation while instinctively reaching into his right pocket. Empty. Damn, he should ask Jamie about his phone.
As the chat in front of Matt went on, it became obvious that Jamie didn’t like this Blacke character much at all, and Matt couldn’t blame him. The man had a strange vibe around him which Matt didn’t appreciate either.
It took a few more minutes for Jamie to return, sporting a tense expression on his face.
“Is everything okay?” Matt asked.
“Blacke wants you to stay here for a while until I can arrange something for you locally.”
“Arrange what?”
“A place, whatever. I told him you could just come back to Edinburgh with me, but-”
“Why do I need a new place? And what were those skinheads trying to do exactly?”
Jamie scrutinized him for a moment. “You mean, you want to go back? To the house they held you prisoner in?”
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t held prisoner anywhere!” Matt felt himself getting riled up, causing his skin to tingle again, ready for another transformation.
“But they took you, from the beach, when we were kids,” Jamie argued.
“That may be so, but Molly raised me as her own. I was never locked up or anything.” Deep breaths. Calm down. Don’t tear this new change of clothes as well.
“Then why didn’t you try to escape, to come back to us?” Jamie asked.
“Dude, I was eight. After Mom and Dad died-”
“What do you mean Mom and Dad died?! They’re not dead!”
Matt was shocked into silence for a moment. “That was a lie… Of course. A lie to get me to go along with them willingly.” He sighed, relieved to feel his muscles relax before the unthinkable would happen again. “Okay, I think we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Indeed,” Jamie agreed.
They didn’t get the chance for it just yet, because, at that moment, the large bear/human who had intervened at the house turned up. Henry.
“Matt.” Henry offered his hand. “Good to see you in your usual form.”
Matt accepted the man’s handshake and nodded. It felt good to be back to his normal self as well.
“I see your family reunion is well underway. I must say, when Jamie came to me with the information that you’d been located, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I never expected to capture so many of our enemies as well.”
Enemies? Oh, he must be talking about the guys who had come to take Leah.
“Yeah, I’m not quite sure what went on there. I was hoping you guys had some insights to share.”
“Perhaps we’ll know more after our interrogations.” Henry shrugged off Matt’s question. Just great.
But, of course, that wasn’t the only thing Matt was keen to learn about. As soon as Henry walked off again, he took the time to question Jamie about anything and everything that popped into his head.
That was how he found out that he was indeed a bear. A werebear - as was almost everyone in the Alliance, except for the odd werewolf here and there who had joined the fight. He learned about who the Alliance really was, that Jamie was in charge of a group of them in Edinburgh, and about their shared enemy, the Sons of Domnall. Slowly but surely the new information allowed Matt to piece together what must have happened to him when he was just a kid.
The one thing he couldn’t figure out was how Leah had gotten involved in this mess. Nothing in her reaction to his shifted self suggested she knew anything about what was going on. Even the main intruder’s reaction to seeing Matt’s bear form suggested it was him they were after, not her, which made very little sense. If it was the Sons of Domnall who had arranged for Matt’s abduction as a child, then why did they break into the wrong house?
“It goes without saying that it’s best not to repeat any of this to anyone. I mean anyone human,” Jamie said after answering Matt’s last question.
“Why?”
“
It’s one of our most important rules. If the human world came to know about us, well… you can imagine what would happen. That’s why we don’t even tell our own children until they’re old enough to understand.”
Matt certainly could imagine people would be shocked; Leah certainly had been. Shit, surely he could be honest with her, couldn’t he? Then again, if he had known about any of this, his adult life might have been very different. It was only because of all the secrecy surrounding their kind that he had assumed all of this was in his head and started to pull away from everyone around him.
Perhaps it would have been better to get everything out in the open. It might help someone in his position… Still, he wasn’t sure he could trust Jamie with everything going on in his head. He was his brother, sure, but he didn’t really know him anymore, did he?
“So what if one of us, a bear, for example, hypothetically, were to get involved with a regular human? Then what?”
Jamie gave him a suspicious look. “I see. The woman whose house you were in…”
“Theoretically,” Matt emphasized.
“It wouldn’t be wise for someone like us to get involved with one of them. It would be reckless and stupid.”
Matt heard Jamie’s words, but his tone didn’t sound convinced. There was something his brother wasn’t telling him.
“The only way to be with a human is to live like a human. To deny the bear inside you. Of course, it tends to want to claw its way to the surface in a lot of us, so I’m not sure that would really work.”
“Uhuh.”
Jamie looked around the room, and then leaned in closer to Matt.
“How serious is it?”
“As I said, I was just giving an example.”
“Bullshit, I can see it in your eyes. I know-” Jamie paused when one of the females on the team walked past. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but to hell with it, you’re my little brother, and nobody else can guide you right now… I get it. Really, I do.”
Matt waited while Jamie took a deep breath and continued. “We’re in the same boat, you and I. I too have developed feelings for a human woman. It happens. And it is unwise like I said. If Blacke found out…”
“Blacke, right.” Matt scanned the room, looking for the man in the three-piece suit. “He wouldn’t approve?”
“We’d be in a whole lot of trouble. The Alliance council is very strict when it comes to protecting our secrets and with it the safety of our people. They would stop at nothing…”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
“Nothing. Do what your gut tells you to do, but for fuck’s sake, don’t tell anyone anything about what you’re up to. By now Margaret will have assessed the situation, and probably convinced your girlfriend that she’s been seeing things, and none of it really happened. You’d better hope she agreed to that version of events.”
Damn. Matt dreaded to think what would happen if she didn’t.
“What did you do? You told your girl about who you really are?” Matt asked.
“It’s a long story; she already knew. But Blacke must never find out.”
“I understand.” Clearly, there was a lot left to be said, but this wasn’t the time or the place. First, Matt had to focus on getting out of here without setting off too many alarm bells. He had to get back to Leah at any cost.
Suddenly, in just one evening, his entire life had changed. He’d left his house for the first time in years, found out about his true nature, and come face-to-face with the woman he’d been obsessing about for weeks. Finally, there was a chance there, a hope. If only she could accept him.
“Matt. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re not ready,” Jamie interrupted his thoughts.
“What?”
“You’ve first got to learn how to control this thing. They’ll never let you out there if you randomly shift without intending to. It’s too risky. You could expose all of us.”
He didn’t want to hear it, but Jamie was right. He had to sort himself out. He could only hope that by the end of it, Leah would still be there, waiting for him.
Chapter Eight
The room was cold, uninviting, which was exactly the point. Matt felt his skin tighten with every breath, and it was difficult, no, near impossible to stay in control.
But Jamie didn’t let up. He kept goading him, kept attacking. It had started off as a simulated boxing match just like yesterday’s training, but today Jamie had taken things just a little bit further.
“You’ve got to withstand the urge, little brother,” he taunted him while stepping forward, trying to get a right hook in. He was wearing gloves, but Matt’s instincts didn’t know that.
Sure enough, as soon as the leather hit the side of his face, Matt’s back started to sprout fur, and a growl escaped his lips.
“That’s not holding back, in fact, that’s pretty much the opposite,” Jamie remarked.
Matt balled his fists, but the feeling didn’t subside. How could anyone battle the red fog that tried its best to overwhelm him? It didn’t make sense.
“Take a deep breath, focus on something that relaxes you,” Jamie added.
Matt closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. The cold air stung against the inside of his nostrils, reminding him of just the place. Applecross Bay, where they used to come as kids. The air was fresh there too.
The sensation subsided, so he opened his eyes again, just in time to see Jamie’s other gloved fist fly at his face. That did it. Matt’s body twisted and morphed, and within a split second, he was no longer the half-naked man, shivering against the cold of his cell, but a magnificent beast, towering over Jamie’s still human self.
“Enough!” Matt growled, his right paw raised in the air as though he was about to strike.
Jamie lifted his gloves up in defeat. “Fine. How about we take a break, huh?”
Almost instantly, Matt’s limbs and torso contracted again, and the fur made way for smooth skin once more.
“I gotta tell you, if you keep going through clothes like that, we’re going to run out,” Jamie remarked, nodding down at the pile of torn fabric on the floor.
Damn . Matt averted his gaze. He just wasn’t getting it. He knew it was just practice. He knew his brother posed no real threat, and yet his body refused to believe it.
“Tell me again how long it took you to get the hang of this?” Matt asked.
“Pfft… I don’t know. It’s been a while.”
“Do you remember when it first happened? The change, I mean.”
“I think I was about fifteen. Dad had just started training me a couple of months earlier. I couldn’t wait to finally shift. It seemed like the most exciting thing in the world to me. To finally grow up,” Jamie said, a wistful smile playing on his lips.
“Oh yeah? I can tell you it freaked me the hell out when it first happened to me.”
“That’s just because you didn’t know.”
“Yeah, and it hurt like hell too,” Matt added.
“Well, that’s there. Those early days were pretty painful.”
Jamie handed him another pair of track pants, which Matt accepted with a nod. He put them on and sat down on the floor resting his head in his hands. It just wasn’t right. He was in there, being held essentially against his will, and in trying to fight the exact thing he’d been suppressing for all of his adult life, he’d shifted more often in the past forty-eight hours than he had done in years.
And meanwhile, he couldn’t get one specific image out of his head.
Leah’s expression when she’d seen him in her bedroom. The sheer terror in her eyes. It hurt, knowing he’d added to her ordeal by bursting in there looking like a big furry monster. He had to fix it somehow. But how could he do that while he was stuck in here?
“Anyway, how long? How long do you think it’ll be before I can go back home?” Matt asked.
Jamie frowned at him, his head cocked to one side just like he used to do when they were kids, and Matt said something stupid. Jus
t that look made him want to transform all over again and roar.
“You’re not ready.”
“Fine, I’m not ready, but you gotta gimme something! I’ve got responsibilities, and I’m losing my mind here,” Matt argued.
“Bullshit, you’ve got a human girlfriend who is under close watch by Margaret and the rest of the team ever since you recklessly exposed the existence of our entire race to her,” Jamie retorted.
“How was I supposed to know what I could and couldn’t expose when nobody bloody told me what I was, huh?”
They stared each other down, two grown men who were bickering pretty much like how they used to fifteen years ago. In the end, it was Jamie who backed down.
“Look, I can understand the situation you’re in, but you’ve got to understand that these people-” Jamie gestured at the door of Matt’s cell; the main Alliance workspace was just on the other side. “Are scrutinizing your and her every move. If you make contact, you’ll both be in trouble. You don’t want that, do you?”
Matt sighed. No, he didn’t want that at all. But he had to make sure Leah was all right.
“How about you focus on your training,” Jamie insisted. “And I’ll check in on Margaret every so often to figure out what’s happening with your human.”
Matt nodded. Okay. That was a fair compromise, for now.
Although he’d been at the base and interacted a bit with members of his own species for days now, it was still weird to hear Jamie talk about humans like they were so different.
Matt, who had grown up around only humans, was, of course, painfully aware of how badly he’d fitted in with them, but he still couldn’t consider them the other. To him, it was Henry, Margaret, the rest of the team - even Jamie - who still seemed alien.
“And how about this. I’ve finally received the green light from the Alliance Council to let Mom and Dad know you’ve been found. They’re thrilled, obviously, and can’t wait for us all to get together once Blacke signs off on it.”
Scottish Werebear: A New Beginning: A BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Scottish Werebears Book 4) Page 5
