by Ava Frost
A rustle in the trees across from where Oron’s truck was parked, startled her, and she sat up straight, readying herself to sprint into the house if it was any stranger or worse yet, Gareth. But instead of any person, it was a large black bear with a shiny coat. Alison froze and carefully placed the mug down on the small stump next to her, careful not to make any sudden moves. This was the last thing she expected. Her legs felt paralyzed with fear, but her brain kept telling her to run. The bear stopped and lowered his head in line with his back, looking straight towards her and then he nodded a few times. She had no clue if the bear was warning her to stay put, or if it was telling her that she was about to become his lunch. She looked sideways towards the door which still stood open, then glanced over at the bear. A quick calculation told her that if she moved really fast, she would get to the door before the bear got to her. He was only a few feet further away from her than she was from the door. She cursed herself for not staying in the cabin and shuffled her feet slightly, pointing her legs in the direction of the door. If she pushed off now and ran as fast as she could she could make it. She didn’t take her eyes off the bear, but as she launched herself forward with all her might, the bear growled and stumped his paws on the ground. Alison ran blindly towards the house, her focus centralized on the path ahead, the stairs and the door, as everything around her faded. Her heart was pumping wildly in her chest and her lungs were on fire, not because of the distance she had to run, as she was pretty fit, but because of the fear she felt. It was as if the adrenaline in her body had been laced with acid and it was burning every fiber of her being. She had never been so scared in her entire life. She literally dove into the cabin, rolled on to her back and kicked the door closed with her foot before leaping up and throwing the latch down. With trembling fingers she backed away from the door, half expecting the bear to come crashing into it, but there was nothing, not even a sound. Nervously she moved closer to the window to look outside, but as she hooked the makeshift curtain with her index finger to pull it to the side, it was Oron’s face she met.
“Would you mind letting me in?”
In a panic she unlatched the door, tugged it open and grabbed his arm, “There’s bear out there! Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re not hurt, it was so big. He was out there just now!” she mumbled incoherently, unable to string together a reasonable sentence.
“Alison, calm down. Deep breaths,” he said as he cupped her shoulders with his big strong hands.
She took a few deep breaths, and then slumped against him, only to realize he was naked, again. She pushed away from him, she had instantly gone from paralyzing fear to irritation and anger, she glared at him.
“Where the hell have you been and why the fuck are you walking around naked again?” she demanded and took a step back.
He scratched the back of his head and then walked over to his closet to take out a pair of sweats to put on.
“Oron, there are wild animals out here, and you prance around like a fucking naturalist. Unless you’re some sort of Dr. Dolittle and the animals come here for group therapy, I demand to know what’s going on.”
Oron went to turn on the kettle, completely silent at first, as if he was searching for answers, and it made Alison feel all the more nervous. He was acting stranger by the day, and she wasn’t sure if she could be in any relationship with a man like him. As hot as he was, it was no longer about good looks and great sex, it was about compatibility. She promised herself that she would never again depend on a man, or his happiness to make her happy. She closed her eyes and forced her insecurities deep into file thirteen of her mind and then opened her eyes. She felt as if she had just switched off her humanity, because right now she felt hardened and cold and ready to fight.
“So where the fuck were you?” she demanded again, “You must know that I’m not going to just hang around for a fuck every time the mood hits.”
Oron placed a cup of coffee on the small table and pulled out a chair to sit down. He regarded her with such intensity that she could feel his gaze burn into her skin. No, I’m not going to soften up. I deserve to know!
“Sit down Alison,” he ordered and gestured to the chair closest to her.
“I’ll stand.”
“Sit down, trust me, you’ll need it.”
That made her think twice, and with a tsk and an eye roll she pulled the chair out and flopped down on it like a teenager about to be raked over the coals.
He took a sip of his coffee as if he was trying to delay the inevitable. At this point several things were fluttering through her mind. Was he going to tell her that Gareth was dead, or locked up, or that she had to move back to her place? Then it dawned on her.
“Listen, I know you’re not into relationships, so if you’re worried that I might grow attached to you because of two heated moments, you can relax,” she said.
He shook his head and stretched his arms back locking his fingers behind his head, “Thank you for clearing that up, but that wasn’t exactly why I needed to talk to you.”
“Then what is it?”
“There are things about me that you won’t understand,” he started and then paused and stood up. He walked over to the bookshelf and took down the leather bound book she loved so much.
He placed it in front of her and turned the pages until he got to around the middle of the book, the page had sketches of people and monsters, some looking like dogs walking on their hind legs, and other creatures that appeared to be half human and half animal. None of it made any sense to her, so she tilted her head and looked up at him, “What does this have to do with anything?”
“I’m a shifter,” he said flatly, “What you see there on that page is a collection of beasts throughout the ages that had been documented and researched. This book,” he said and ran his fingers across the pages, “belonged to a society of humans called the Ronul’s. They were shifter hunters.”
Alison felt like she had just entered the twilight zone. This story was so far-fetched she couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“Seriously, you expect me to believe such an absurd story? Of all the breakup lines I’ve ever heard this is by far the best, but a simple–I don’t like you–would have sufficed.”
“Well that would have been a lot easier,” he said watching her intently.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and blew the air out of her lungs, “Okay so, let’s pretend you’re whatever you say you are. What else is there to it?”
Oron rolled his shoulders, and she had to force herself not to look at the way his muscles contorted.
“When a shifter finds a woman, or rather a mate, he can’t stay away from her, which is what has happened to me...”
She interrupted and held up her hand, “Excuse me, a mate?”
“Yes, it happened when you first came to town. When I first saw you and since then I haven’t been able to stay away from you. My instinct was to protect you at all costs.”
That was a bit unsettling. He had been watching her for a year, and she never knew?
“You’ve been stalking me?”
He shook his head in denial, “No, I’ve been watching over you.”
“In other words… stalking me, and now you want to spring this news about bears and shifters on me?”
“It’s only fair that I warned you, now that we’ve mated.”
“Mated!? Do I look like a fucking animal to you?” she burst out laughing hysterically.
“Made love…” he corrected, but it was too late.
Her tone changed from laughter to anger as she kicked the chair back and walked over to where her weekend bag stood. She wasn’t going to subject herself to this, she would much rather face Gareth, than deal with Oron and his weird and wacky ways. For once in her life, she just wanted normal.
“Alison, it’s all true, the bear you saw earlier, that was me, and my bear wanted you.”
That did it, she spun around and grabbed his trucks keys, “You’re fucking impossible,” she
muttered, “You’ve been living in these woods for too long, you need to get out and get a fucking life.”
She shouldered him out of the way and stalked to the door then stopped and turned around, “I’m taking your truck. I’m sure Maurice can come pick you up and take you to it.”
“Alison…” he started but she would have nothing of it.
She stalked out and slammed the door shut behind her.
Chapter 12
A week later, Alison sat quietly in her apartment, hands in her hair and staring blankly at the cereal in front of her. Since she walked out on Oron she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind. Despite his absurd tales of bear shifters, and the fact that he had been stalking her for a year, she still missed him.
The stalking she could live with, after having calmed down after her initial temper tantrum, she felt rather flattered that he had been so taken by her when she first came to Big Bear. She had been slightly overweight then, so if he had been attracted to her just as she was, it meant that the attraction was more than just skin deep. But the whole story about shifters was just too much. He was a complete mystery to her, and the more she thought about it all the more she started questioning her reality. She had seen him naked on more than one occasion, casually walking into the cabin as if it was the most natural thing on the planet. And then the incident with the bear that day, it was all too much of a coincidence. He had said that the black bear was him, but even as she put two and two together her brain would not accept it. She had run for the cabin without looking back to see if the bear had stormed her, and then a few seconds later, it was Oron knocking on the door to be let in.
A relentless knocking on her apartment door drew her out of her thoughts and she rolled her eyes. She knew that it could only be one person, and as she went to open the door she stood with a deadpan expression on her face.
“I need to talk to you,” Gareth demanded.
“Then talk.”
“In private, I promise I won’t do anything, but it’s important.”
The day she walked away from Oron, something in her snapped, she was no longer the poor little damsel who bent like a tree in the wind being blown in all directions. She had adopted a callous attitude, one that made her feel in control and strong. Tears were no longer apart of her biological or emotional composition, and neither was the feeling of fear. It was almost as if her empathy meter had flat lined and her heart had turned to concrete.
“Everything is always important when you are concerned.”
Gareth’s gaze rested on her and she raised a brow, “What?”
“You’ve changed, I don’t know if I like this new you.”
“You didn’t like the old me either, so live with it, what do you want?”
Gareth shrugged and brushed past her, then looked around the apartment, “It’s a bit of a crappy place for you.”
“In your opinion, and your opinion doesn’t count. Now speak and get the hell out of here.”
He raised his hands in surrender and nodded, “It’s about your boss, Maurice?”
Curiously she narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, “What about him?”
“Maybe you should sit down.”
“Oh for god sakes, just tell me what you came here to tell me and fuck off.”
Gareth smirked and walked over to the window, “It’s easier said than done, but in short, as farfetched as this may sound, he is not who, or rather what, you think he is.”
She was starting to lose her patience with this cloak and dagger stuff quite fast. No one seems to be who they say they are. And she had heard this particular line far too many times in the last month.
“Do share,” she prompted blankly.
“There’s this book, it contains the secrets of…”
“Shifters and bears, and wolves and all kinds of shit that makes absolutely no sense, so you were also caught in the trap?” she finished her sentence for him.
Gareth’s surprise look was comical and she had to bite back a giggle.
“You know about the book?”
She rolled her eyes, “I’ve seen it, and it’s a bunch of bull, made up by someone and fabricated to make people believe the most absurd things,” she muttered and went to sit behind her cereal bowl.
“You’ve seen it? Where?” he asked as he pulled out a chair.
“Oron’s place, he has a collection of books, and the book was on his bookshelf,” she shrugged.
“Who’s Oron?”
“Ugh, you never pay attention, he’s the one who told you to leave me alone at the diner when you pitched up a few weeks ago.”
She could see the gears in his mind spinning out of control as he tried to remember, and then it was like a light switch that went on and Gareth looked at her with some sort of realization flashing in his eyes.
“Oron, well I’ll be damned, so there are two shifters here in Big Bear,” he muttered, more to himself.
“Hang on just one minute, you don’t honestly believe in that crock?” she asked confusedly.
Gareth rode back on the chair and then turned over his wrist, “Do you know what this is?”
Alison frowned, she had seen the strange symbol with the eternity sign and the animal paw print in that book Oron had. Surely none of this could actually be real? She hadn’t really paid any attention to what was written in the book but there was one word she recognized, veiðimaðr, which meant hunter.
“It’s a tattoo,” she said avoiding the obvious question.
“Come on sweet cakes,” he said, and she recoiled, “You know exactly what it represents.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she muttered and stood up to put her bowl in the sink, “I think we’re done here.”
In a flash he was behind her, spinning her around and pressing her back up against the kitchen counter, “Don’t play with me Marjorie…”
“It’s Alison,” she spat out and twisted out of his hold, “Fuck off or I will call the police.”
Gareth threw his head back and laughed, “You know that there’s no way for you to protect your shifter, the Ronuls are going to find them all and get rid of the abomination that they are.”
Alison had no idea what he was talking about, but she suddenly realized that Oron and Maurice’s lives were in danger. If Gareth was, in fact, a hunter as that tattoo signified, he was out for the kill, and if any of this was true, she was in for one major mind blow.
“Out!” she shouted and pointed to the door, “I don’t know what you are talking about and I’m not interested in your games.”
Garth regarded her for a few seconds and then smirked, “I’ll see you around… ALISON,” he said, her name rolling off his tongue like an ominous warning, and then he turned and walked out of the apartment.
Alison rushed toward the door and locked it, then slumped back against it. Her mind was grasping for reason, but none was forthcoming. All this time she had lived, believing that aliens were tall tales told my scientists who had nothing better to do with their time. And mythology was just a way for man to believe in something greater and bigger than himself. But if Gareth had known about this book, and knew about the shifters, then it must have been true. She sunk down on the wing-back chair and stared out in front of her. She was caught up in the twilight zone, in love with a shifter, and had an ex who belonged to some secret hunter organization. Was she seriously the only normal person on the planet? She thought as she tried to come to terms with everything. She thought about Maurice, and tried to remember if there was anything peculiar about him, but nothing came to mind. She thought of all the other people she knew in Big Bear, wondering if any of them were shifters, or just normal people. It was an information overload, and she had no idea what to do. She had been sitting for close on an hour, staring into the distance when it dawned on her. If Gareth was a hunter, or whatever, and Oron and Maurice were bear shifters, that would mean that Gareth might be out there right now, trying to kill them. In a panic she got up and pulle
d on her hiking boots. She had to get to them somehow, and warn them. If anything had happened to Oron, she would be devastated. She rebuked herself for having been so stupid and so ignorant, she had basically handed Oron over to the Ronuls, and now he would be hunted and for all that she knew, he was probably already dead.
She had no car and traveling to the cabin by foot would be a suicide mission on its own. Without a second thought she rushed down the road towards Teddy Bear. If anyone would help her now, it would be Maurice. But when she arrived, the doors were locked, and the windows were covered up with newspapers. The sign on the board that read– Gone on a sabbatical, see you next summer –left her cold. He never closed shop, not even for a day, she thought and tried to peer through some of the openings in the windows, but everything was in darkness. She made her way around the back and spotted the motorcycle Maurice often used to zip around town. This was going to be her ticket to get to Oron, and she could only pray she would get there in time.
Chapter 13
Oron glared at Gareth and the other man who he called Dax. They were both standing in his way. He had been on his way to go see Alison when he encountered them, and the fact that Gareth knew his secret, meant that they had already gotten to Maurice. He clenched his fists and cracked knuckles as he stared them down.
“So are we just going to pussyfoot around each other or are we going to do this?” he challenged.
Dax, the bigger one of the two smirked, “No one’s pussyfooting, we’re just taking the moment to revel in our victory.”
“It ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” Oron ground out. He was seething inside, and his beast was fighting to surface, but he could not shift in the middle of town, and the two hunters knew this.
He was at a disadvantage. Dax had a cross bow and Gareth stood next to him with his hand resting on the hilt of a dagger. Both weapons were made of Adamantine, which is fatal to any shifter. The sound of a motorcycle resonated somewhere behind him, but he wouldn’t take his eyes off of the enemy. If however, he was fast enough, he could quickly hijack the rider and use his motorcycle to get to the woods, where he could transform and have a better chance at killing both Ronuls. He tuned into the noise and could determine the distance accurately, but then he picked up a very familiar scent. The rider was Alison, and that made him look back over his shoulder.
