BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (82 page)

BY

ALEXIS DIAMOND

Chapter 1

Bruce looked out the window, noted the position of the sun. It would be a while before the town’s folk were going to turn in for the night. He really had to get out to the forest.

His skin burned like he was running a fever, but he knew from experience that that wasn’t what it was. He glanced around the pub. Banbury Inn was filled with regulars, grouped around small tables in the main area, or on stools at the bar. Murphy stood behind it polishing glasses.

The Inn was the one place the adults came together after a hard day’s work to spend time together and wind down. It was the oldest building in town, dating from the time Williamsburg was founded almost a century ago. It was filled with people who made a living the mountains.

Williamsburg lay at the foot of the Syracuse Mountain Range, in Syracuse Valley. Traveling to Williamsburg was like traveling back in time. There was barely cell phone signal and if you wanted internet connection you had to go down the mountain a bit more to Rhodestown.

No one really bothered with that. They survived in the mountains because that was what they had always done, what their ancestors had done.

When the sun was below the horizon, Bruce got up and mock-stretched.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” he said to Murphy behind the bar. Murphy rested his arms on his oversized belly, still holding the glass and rag, and smiled.

“Mountain air getting to you, Brucie?” he asked.

Bruce chuckled. “After five years I think I’ve gotten used to it,” he said and left the bar, relieved he didn’t have to explain more than that.

He turned left from the bar, and followed the road until it ran into a dusty trail that led into the trees. He followed it, relying on his acute night vision to navigate his way up the mountain. The ground was steep and traveling got harder and harder, but Bruce was used to it.

When he was high enough that Williamsburg was just a small strip in the valley below, he looked around, listening into the night. Besides the hoot of an owl and the scurrying feet of night creatures in the trees, he was completely alone.

He turned his attention inward, focusing on the movement of his blood through his veins. He was aware of the very existence of his cells, the way his body moved and breathed. He felt the pull of the moon, different than it used to be when he lived in the city, and he set the beast free.

His bones moved under his skin. Popping sounds accompanied the change as his body reinvented itself. It was painful as much as it was strange. The first couple of times Bruce had changed it had driven him into a panic attack. But that had been almost fifteen years ago, when the shapeshifter inside of him hit its puberty. Now at thirty years old he’d changed more times than he could count.

When he’d changed completely, he sat back on his haunches, curled up his nose, and growled. It always felt like a sort of freedom to let the bear out. A grizzly bear was common in these parts and he didn’t have to hide as much as he just needed to avoid people.

As a bear he weighed almost nine hundred pounds. That was four times more than he weighed as a person. It was big even for a bear. Where did the extra weight come from during the change? No one had been able to figure that out yet.

The human world wasn’t ready for shapeshifters. Not yet. Maybe eventually they would get there, but shapeshifters had to lay low. The only group of people that knew about them and believed they were more than just a myth was a group of hunters that called themselves the Assassins. The name itself should have given away that they believed they were taking out humans, but they refused to see it that way.

The Assassins had been on his trail before he’d left the city at the coast, but since he’d arrived in the mountains there had been no sign.

He worked his way through the woods. He needed meat to keep the change at bay, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to control it. Normal bears could fill in their diet with plants and insects. He couldn’t.

He sat down next to a tree and waited. When it was quiet for some time the night creatures came out of hiding. He moved fast, faster than a bear his size should have been able to move, and managed to grab the hare. It was bloody and cruel but it was life. A hare wasn’t nearly enough, but he still had the rest of the night.

Somewhere after midnight he heard the howl of a wolf. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. There were werewolves in the area. Two of them were a part of the Family, what they called the pack he’d joined after he’d come from the city. It was either Rosa or Stephen. They were a mated couple and they hunted together more often than not. If it was a foreign wolf, they would hear about it the next day.

Tara was the alpha and she didn’t allow visitors unless they had a very good reason.

Bruce finished his hunt, and by the time the first bird called his question into the dawn, he shifted back to human form.

He had to get used to his human form a lot more than he ever had when he changed into a bear. It felt like being a bear was what he was born to be. Being a man just let him fit into the world.

When the sun rose up over the horizon, painting the world with the greens and grays that belonged to the Syracuse Mountains, Bruce walked into the town. Williamsburg was still asleep, and he preferred the village like this, when there weren’t so many prying eyes around.

Sometimes it was a challenge living in a town where everyone knew everyone.

The first people crawled out of their cabins into the street. There were fields and cattle to tend to. For a small settlement they managed to generate a lot.

Jenna was one of the people first out. When Bruce saw her he sped up, smiling before she turned and saw him. She had a basket of clothes in her hands and she returned his smile.

“You’re out early,” he said.

“My mom needs some help, she’s feeling a bit off so I thought I’d do the laundry for her.” She didn’t ask about seeing him. He was always out this early.

“Do you want to grab lunch later?” she asked. She worked at the local hair dresser.

When Bruce had just come into town, Jenna had been out in the woods. He hadn’t seen her until nightfall, when he’d headed into the trees to change. She’d been trapped under a fallen tree and no one had been able to hear her call for help. He’d already shifted, and she’d been terrified. But he’d managed to shift off the log and disappeared.

Later he’d come back and helped her to the village as a human.

He’d almost lost control after that, not having had the time to hunt, but it had been worth it. Jenna was one of the few young women in town, and she was beautiful. She had auburn hair that hung to her waist, and she had curves in all the right places. In the city, the average woman was too skinny. They all went on fad diets and worried about their size.

Out here the women were beautiful, voluptuous, the size a woman should be.

Jenna had emerald green eyes that smiled at him whenever she looked at him. If he’d had a different life he would have courted her. He could imagine the bliss of waking up next to woman like her for the rest of his life. But he couldn’t give away what he was, and he wouldn’t be able to marry someone without showing them every side of him.

Either he was going to have to marry a shapeshifter, or he was going to be alone for the rest of his life. Lying wasn’t an option.

“I’ll see you around lunch time,” he said to her and left her to her chores. He walked the dirt road that twisted through the cabins that were scattered at the edge of the village, until he reached his own. His was the farthest between the trees. It was safer that way. He preferred being as far from the people as he could be, and still be a part of the village.

He drew the curtains so the cabin was dark, and crawled into bed.

He got about five hours sleep when he woke up again. The sun was high up in the sky and there were virtually no shadows as soon as he stepped out of the trees. The sun was hot on his skin and he missed the cool of night.

He waved at some of the villagers as he walked past there shops, and finally he opened the door to the hair dresser. The air-con blasted him when he walked through the door, ruffling his hair. When he was in human form his hair was a shade lighter than when he was a bear, but it was still quite dark. It matched his eyes and people always commented on it.

Jenna was blow-drying Mrs. Schmidt’s hair when he saw her. The old lady sat with her lips pursed, watching Jenna like a hawk, but she wouldn’t find fault with what Jenna was doing. I leaned against the reception desk and Clara, the girl behind it, smiled at him.

“All done, Mrs. Schmidt,” Jenna said and the old lady got up and hugged her. She walked to the desk where Bruce was leaning and paid Carla. He pushed away from the reception desk and walked toward Jenna.

“Ready to go?” Bruce asked and she nodded. They left the hair dresser together and walked down the main road, turning into a side road where there was a café. They greeted the owner and a waitress showed them to their tables. She was younger, barely sixteen, and Bruce hadn’t seen her around the village as often. But Jenna knew everyone.

“Thanks, Lisa,” she said when Lisa gave them their menus. After she disappeared Bruce looked at Jenna.

“How have you been?” he asked. She nodded.

“Good, just the usual,” she said. “Drew’s still after me.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. Drew wasn’t a lot younger than he was, but he was sweet on Jenna and he had a leg up on dating her, because he was just human. Normal, plain and down to earth – not a bad guy – and not the kind of guy Bruce wanted Jenna to have. He didn’t want her to have any guy, if he had to be honest, but he couldn’t stop her from loving someone. She deserved that.

“I don’t know if I should go for it,” she said. “It seems silly to turn him away, he’s not a bad guy and who am I going to find to settle down with? Unless I leave Williamsburg I’m not going to find someone. Who’s going to come here?”

Bruce had been come from the outside world. But that was never going to happen.

“You shouldn’t be with someone just because you think it’s the thing to do. If you don’t really feel something for him – and I mean really feel – then don’t be with him.”

She nodded. “I guess you’re right,” she said, but it didn’t sound convincing.

After lunch Jenna headed back to the hair dresser. Bruce made his way down to the plant. Five days of the week Bruce worked as a lumberjack with the rest of the town’s men. It was easier to fit in that way and still keep contact without being overly social. And he was between the trees even when he was a human. They worked on the other side of the valley, against the ridge that rose up half as high as the Syracuse Mountains, so they stayed far away from his hunting ground and the other shifters.

He returned to his cabin and cleaned. Without a wife it was up to him, and if things went the way it was now, it would be up to him for the rest of his life.

By sundown he walked around his cabin and made his way through the dense trees that grew behind it. He followed a different trail than when he went out to hunt. This one was barely visible and it wound through the trees before it finally disappeared among a patch of rocks. He climbed over it. It was hard work but he liked the exercise, and if it wasn’t for his strength he wouldn’t have been able to get up there.

Humans wouldn’t be able to trail him, they wouldn’t get further than the rocks, and that was peace of mind. That was why they met where they did.

The trees fell away, giving way to rocks and boulders, and finally he was far enough up the mountain to start finding the natural caves. He stayed alert, listening for the sounds of other animals, but besides birds and the occasional squirrel he was alone.

When he got to a plateau, he stopped to catch his breath. He could feel the ground, alive with magic. It prickled along his skin and he took a deep breath. It felt like he was underwater. They were close. He could feel the other shifters.

It was like they were connected with thin lines, like spider webs, and he could feel them coming almost like vibrations.

The first to step onto the plateau were Stephen and Rosa. They were both werewolves but they couldn’t be more opposite as people. Stephen was as big as Rosa was small. He had dark hair and blue eyes. She had blond hair and brown eyes. They walked toward him hand in hand and Bruce could feel their collective power.

Lori arrived almost the same time they did. She was also a bear, but she was the most unattractive woman Bruce had ever met. Where he liked to think that he blended in with society, Lori stood out. She was big-boned and carried herself like a man, with short cropped brown hair and predator eyes that missed nothing.

She nodded at Bruce. He was above her in pack hierarchy only because she was female and he was male. If it came down to a fight Bruce would lose hands down, but nature was chauvinistic even when it came down to animals.

Dwayne and Cleveland arrived at the same time. Dwayne was human, but he was a psychic and he had other magical abilities that helped the Family as a seeing eye. He could feel things, and he knew where the Assassins were, which was the main reason why they’d let him stay.

Bruce wasn’t sure what Cleveland really was. No one really knew for sure. When he shifted he was a bird of prey that looked a lot like an eagle – all shapeshifters needed blood – but when he was a man he had a pale look about him, with pale skin and even paler eyes. He was small and slender, and he didn’t fit in.