by Amelia Jade
He wouldn't let her go without a fight.
His bear growled at that thought, letting Tanner know it was ready to fight to defend her at a moment's notice. Although that was not the type of fight he had meant, a part of him felt that the fighting wasn't over yet. Not if he wanted to protect her from the wolves.
Lost deep in thought, the ringing of a phone first sounded like it was coming from a million miles away. He ignored it, assuming that someone else would pick it up, still focused on figuring out how to track down Alyssa. It wasn't until the noise became insistent that he realized it was his cell phone going off. Pulling it from his pocket he glanced at the name on the display before answering it.
"Calan," he said by way of greeting. His friend wouldn't be calling him unless he had found out something from their prisoner.
"I have a town name. Rillanon," Calan said after exchanging pleasantries.
"One moment." He practically lunged for his laptop, waiting impatiently for it to boot up as he pulled up a search page. Entering the name that he was given, Tanner browsed for any relevant pages. There was next to nothing, except a generic information page about estimated population, size, and a few other tidbits that told him nothing important.
"Who the hell has ever heard of this place before?" he raged, scrolling through links. He finally found a link to a news article about a missing teenager. The city officials were asking that the girl please be returned to their care. The wording of the statement was off, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly what was bothering him. Either way, it was a dead end. With Alyssa unaccounted for, he couldn't afford to go halfway across the country.
"You know what the strangest thing is, Tanner? I think I've heard of this place before."
"Really?"
"In my travels I went to a lot of places, saw a lot of things. The name is definitely unique, almost medieval-sounding. All I can remember is that whoever was referring to it, said to stay away from it. It was bad news inside and out."
"I still don't understand what they would be doing sending a pack of wolves to Bear Bluffs. That just doesn't make any sense. There had to be a reason."
"There likely is, we just haven't discovered it yet."
"Okay, well I need to track Alyssa down, somehow."
"What? What do you mean?" Calan's shocked response reminded him that he hadn't informed his friend of her disappearance yet. Filling him in swiftly on what he had found and his suspicions, he outlined his next steps.
"The only thing I can think of so far is that she might be making a run for King City. She had a new car there that should be ready by the time she gets there, especially if she's travelling in bear form."
"That's a long way to go as a bear," Calan commented slowly.
"I know." Although shifting into their bear forms was easy, the wild animal within them gained more strength the longer they were changed. If Alyssa tried to make the entire journey in bear form, she would be nearly insane by the time she got there.
If she got there at all.
"I have to try and find her. I can't let her do this alone. This is too big for any one of us to handle. With the wolves out there, who knows what she might be running into? I have to ensure I get there before her."
Wishing him luck, Calan hung up, promising to spread the word to the others in town to keep their eyes open in case she showed up elsewhere. He tried to call the dealership, but they weren't open yet. It would be another hour and a half before they did. He could be halfway there in that time if he got a move on.
Gravel flew from under his tires as he gunned the truck down the driveway, pouring on the speed as fast as he dared.
As he drove, the loneliness of the journey began to eat at him. The last time he had made this trip, Alyssa had been his copilot. They had barely known each other then, but by the end of the trip, the two of them had managed to keep up a fairly steady conversation. Even when they weren't talking, they were silently enjoying each other's presence.
Now it was a cold silence that the radio could not break. Minutes seemed to stretch into hours, with those false hours taking a day to pass. Coming up over one hill, he looked ahead into the valley below. With a start he sat upright, staring in shock as the last of several snow-white shapes loped lazily into the forest.
The wolves were still nearby.
Despite the perceived length of the journey so far, Tanner hadn't covered all that much ground between him and Bear Bluffs. He debated stopping, but knew that the numbers would be massively in favor of the wolves if he tried to take them on all by himself. His job was to fight smart.
Marking the area where he had seen them so that he wouldn't forget, he pushed onward until he rounded another corner. Confident that they were out of sight, he pulled over to the side of the road. A quick phone call to Jet at the Quencher ensured that the town would be on alert still.
"When I get back, we'll hunt them down," he practically snarled into the phone, hanging up and gunning the truck once more. He didn't like leaving them be, especially knowing they were between the two towns. He just gave thanks, knowing that Alyssa would be past this point in her travels if she was indeed heading to King City.
The car dealer was not being helpful.
"Listen, all I'm asking you to do is call me before you release the car to her. Pretend that you have to call a manager just to confirm it's ready. That's all I'm asking."
"Sir, I don't know you, so I can't do that."
"Listen, she's running away and I just need to talk to her. She needs to know something."
"Sir, I—"
"Okay, how much?" Tanner said, cutting him off before he could continue with his objection.
"What?" The salesman was confused now.
"How much to call me when she comes in?" He repeated it slower this time, hoping the young human would understand.
"I'll give you a thousand, how does that sound?"
"Five." The voice that came back was confident again. The salesman was back in his element, negotiating over a price. The two of them settled on a price of three thousand dollars for him to call Tanner if Alyssa arrived.
He was dipping into his rainy day fund, but it was worth it for her. Tanner Bryant was not going to let his mate walk away without fighting for her. He was in love with her, and that damn well meant something where he was from. Money be damned, he could always make more of that. There was only one Alyssa Williams.
After getting the money from the bank and handing it over, Tanner knew it was time to deal with the wolves. There was nothing more he could do about Alyssa. She would either turn up to claim the car she had paid for, or she wouldn't. He was betting she didn't have enough money to just frivolously throw away a vehicle.
Growling in unison with his bear, he pointed his truck back toward Bear Bluffs and began to head home.
It was time to end the threat to his town.
Chapter Ten
Alyssa
She was exhausted.
The trek had been draining on Alyssa, far more than she had ever anticipated. It had started out well enough, making good time as she used the long, powerful legs of her bear to move at a faster pace than she could have managed as a human. Things had gotten rougher as she went as she tried to constantly reorient herself in the proper direction.
Then the storm had started in earnest. The rain had matted her fur down in clumps and made the footing treacherous. More than once she had lost her balance on a hill and gone for a tumble as mounds of dirt gave way under her weight. The straps of her makeshift harness had come apart under the last one. She now carried the mud-stained bag in her jaws.
Internally her bear was wearing her mental strength down. She found it harder to concentrate with each passing step, forcing herself to a slow, plodding trudge through the wet brush. She was on edge and getting hungry as well. It was not an ideal combination for a bear trapped in the wilderness. The last thing she wanted to do was go hunting for food as her bear. It had happened once and only once, and she ha
d thrown it all back up shortly thereafter. The experience was not one she cared to repeat.
Although she didn't miss the lonely bed she had left behind, Alyssa found herself wishing she had given that up to go join Tanner in his, as opposed to this dreary walk, which showed no signs of ending soon. Judging from the last clearing she had walked through, she was at the halfway point at best.
Again she found herself pining for the warmth and comfort of Tanner's arms. This time her bear growled its agreement, the audible noise startling her for a moment. She paused mid-step in surprise, the ensuing silence the only reason she heard the faint crack of a branch followed by a low yipping sound.
She was being followed.
You idiot, you should have realized this was likely to happen.
Truthfully she had recognized that such an outcome may happen, but she had deemed it unlikely. There was so much forest in and around Bear Bluffs that the odds of her coming across the wolves on her way back to King City was unlikely. Why would she flee back there, after having just left? Those factors combined had led her to into a false sense of security.
Now, exhausted and alone, she had to somehow evade the oncoming hunters…hunters that already had her scent and were closing in fast. Urging her bear back to life, she began to move faster, the muscular legs of her animal propelling her through the forest at a speed even the wolves would be hard-pressed to match.
The unfortunate part was that they could maintain their pace for much longer than she could. Still, if she could put enough distance between them, there would be a higher chance of overall success in evading their grasp. It would be a little while yet before the wolves realized she had become aware of their presence and increased her pace. She would have to use that time well, because the wolves of Rillanon would never give up.
They were the prized trackers from her hometown, the Hunters, though she hadn't realized there were so many of them. Alyssa had suspected from the start, due to their unique coloring, that perhaps they had been sent to track her down, to return her to the fold. Despite her having been gone for over a decade and never having told a soul, they still wanted her back. She was the only one who had been able to stay free for so long. Others had tried, but the Hunters always found their prey. Except for Alyssa, the longest person to escape had lasted no more than a week before being brought back in chains. Alyssa had remained free from their grasp due to luck and sheer dogged determination.
Until now.
They were close. The sounds were getting louder and her muscles were screaming in protest as she urged herself onward, not wanting to give up. She could see a break in the trees up ahead. Perhaps there was a cliff or river, anything she could use to try and evade them. In a situation like this, she would make do with whatever it was.
It was the mountain highway she noted sourly as she exited the last of the trees, heading up the steep embankment. Her ears perked up at the sound of a vehicle getting closer. Perhaps she could hitch a ride to get her safely away from the wolves at least. Her mind began to whirl, coming up with various ways that she might convince someone to take her along with them. Not too many of the options were pleasant, but the howl of a wolf came from very close by. She would do whatever it took to stay out of their clutches.
The last thing she expected to see as she cleared the embankment and stepped on to the road was Tanner's truck screeching to a halt mere feet away from her. She stood frozen to the spot, staring into his face, knowing she was saved. The odds of him being the one to stumble upon her were so infinitely small that she couldn't contemplate them.
The snarl of a wolf came from just behind her. She turned, seeing white blurs moving through the trees at an incredible pace, closing the distance to her quickly. Snatching up the backpack she had dropped in her shock at seeing Tanner, she made a beeline for his truck. She tried to shift mid-run, but ended up taking a tumble, falling to a heap near the rear of his truck.
Picking herself up she watched in horror as white wolves boiled from the trees behind her, snarling and snapping as their blood-red eyes focused eerily on her. Their entire world had narrowed down to the target.
Her.
"Get in! Get in!" Tanner was screaming at her from the cab, urging her to get up, to hop into the bed of the truck. Anything that would allow him to take her to safety. Alyssa was frozen, staring at the wolves as they closed in on her. It wasn't until the truck began to back up into her that she realized how terribly in danger she was.
Reacting without thinking she tossed the bag into the back of the truck and then all but threw herself in after it.
"Go! Go! Go!" She yelled at him, slamming the palm of her hand onto the bare metal as encouragement. Tanner needed none; the engine was already roaring as he gunned it. Their pursuers were on the asphalt now, picking up speed as they tried to chase the truck down. At one point it seemed as if they were going to catch her, but as one leaped at her, the truck was finally fast enough to pull away, leaving the lone wolf to roll into a heap.
"Holy shit," she murmured, sitting back into the truck, trying to calm her frantically beating heart so that it didn't explode. That had been too close, and it was all her fault. When danger had come near, she had frozen, her desire to avoid a fight causing her to almost forget to flee. She had always been a pacifist, never wanting to engage others. Now it seemed her preference for peace was coming back to haunt her.
After several minutes of high-speed driving, Tanner slowed the truck, bringing it to a halt. He reached back and opened up the rear window.
"Get in, then let's get out of here quick," he said, his eyes constantly looking past her down the road, likely watching in case the wolves were after them. It seemed logical that they had cars nearby somewhere. They couldn't remain in wolf form forever.
"Yeah, good idea," she replied, swiftly hopping inside and slipping into the passenger seat. The truck was off before the door even closed behind her, leaving Alyssa to fumble for her seatbelt as Tanner put his foot down, going as fast as he dared along the winding roadway.
She glanced over at him, hating the way his gorgeous jaw was so tightly set as he focused on getting them back to Bear Bluffs. He didn't say anything, his eyes flicking back and forth constantly from the road, to the trees on either side, to his rearview mirror, then back again. He was taking no chances, not wanting to risk anyone sneaking up on them.
Guilt grew within her. His current anxiety was all her fault. She had brought the wolves to town, causing harm and fright to everyone in the area. It was her inability to restrain her feelings that had caused Tanner to become so involved. She could have forced the issue, but instead she had let him sway her into staying with him. The dream of a place to be had lured her into a trap that she saw no way out of.
Running away in the middle of the night to spare him had resulted in nothing but Tanner becoming a secondary target of her hunters. Now that they knew she was with him, they would likely try to eliminate him and call it collateral damage. She bristled at the thought, her bear roaring silently within her in agreement. Neither of them wanted that to be the outcome of the situation.
If you don't want to see him hurt by others, why is it okay if you do it?
Sitting back abruptly, Alyssa blinked in surprise as her inner voice spoke up, critical of the actions she had taken the night before. Running away had not only hurt Tanner, but it had almost resulted in her death. That was something she had never wanted to do. She tried to justify it to herself by claiming that it was for his own good.
Bullshit. You just didn't want to own up to the fact that you've known what's going on all along, but haven't told him who and why they are here. At first you wouldn't even admit it to yourself, lady. You're in denial over that, among other things.
Not wanting to listen anymore, she shut the voice out, but the silence made it hard for her.
"Where are we going?" she asked meekly, hoping that Tanner would be willing to talk to her, even after what she had done.
"The Quen
cher. We're going to go back there and hopefully end this once and for all. I'm tired of these wolves causing harm to the people I care about." His face tightened slightly, but she caught no more indication of whether he was referring to her or his friends.
"Why did you leave?" He tried to disguise the hurt in his voice, but she heard it anyway, the sound breaking her heart into a thousand tiny pieces.
"It wasn't supposed to go this way," she said, the excuse sounding dry and lifeless on her tongue.
"How was it supposed to go?"
"I was supposed to get to King City, get my car, and the problem would go away."
"What do you mean?"
But she wasn't ready to tell him the truth yet, so instead of answering, she just kept silent.
"Fine, have it your way," he said after it became clear she wasn't going to respond. This time he didn't try to disguise the anger in his voice, lashing out at her refusal to speak.
In her mind, the sound of her heart breaking further rang loud and clear. All of it because of her own fear.
Chapter Eleven
Tanner
"I say we go out there and teach them a lesson they won't forget!"
Jet was angry, he could tell. Not that Tanner could fault him either; the wolves had intruded upon his territory and injured someone badly, for no visible reason that any of them could figure out.
Well, no one that was willing to share, at least. He glanced over at Alyssa, who stood in the corner with her arms crossed. A number of the more prominent and powerful bears of the Bluffs were in the Quencher, having a meeting as they decided what to do about the wolves, now that Tanner had proven they were still around.
There was minimal opposition to the idea of taking the fight to the other shifters. He could tell that Alyssa was part of that camp, but for the life of him he could not figure out why. Like most everything else she did, the reasons were shrouded in mystery. He cared for her deeply, but until she accepted the fact that they were together, she would never trust him completely.
