Bear Run: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Pine Ridge Bear Shifters Book 1) (3 page)

He stared at her, unbelieving. And for the first time, he
saw it, he truly saw it. They were both running away from their old lives,
lives lived in darkness and shame. Lives put on them by others. They had been
pressed to believe and accept things that went against their grains, but inside
they had known it was wrong, they had yearned for a way to break their bonds
and attain something more, something higher, something better. And finally they
had reached their breaking points and burst free.

But their old lives were greedy,
and wouldn’t let them go that easily.

“So that’s why you don’t have any
clothes,” she said. “You were running away from Black Valley when Pa shot you.”

Gently, he released her hand. “Not
running away,” he said. “Breaking free.”

She nodded, accepting that. “I
guess ‘running away’ isn’t very manly.”

He shook his head. “It’s not right,
either. I’m not running
away
. I’m
running
toward
.” Unable to help
himself, he reached out and cupped her cheek. It was dirty what with all their
knocking about through the woods, but he relished her smooth skin and the way
her eyes widened, just slightly.

“Toward what?” she said, sounding
breathless.

His hand started to drop away. “I ...
don’t know. I only know that I want what the outside world has.”

She smiled tremulously. Was she
crying? If so, he thought it was in happiness. “What, like rock’n’roll?” she
said.

He smiled back. “Yes. Like Elvis
Pressley.”

Together, they moved off, into the
woods, him leading the way.

“So where are we going?” she said.
“Pine Ridge? I think that’s the nearest town.”

He frowned. “I might get there, but
first I want to find my family.”

“Your ...
family
? But wouldn’t they be in Black Valley?”

“No. I was raised here, in the
forest, by my own ma and pa, and my brothers and sisters.”

“So you did have a last name once?”

He smiled, but it was a sad smile.
“Once.”

“Were they all bear shifters?”

He nodded. “One by one, though,
they died. Snake-bit. Hunters. Bear trap that got infected. Conflicts with the
Black Valley bears. At last I realized that the only way to survive was to join
them. The Black Valley shifters. So I went to them and pledged my loyalty to
Kane. He’s the alpha.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

She sucked in a breath. “Jesus. You
poor thing.”

A momentary flash of anger rose in
him, then faded. He didn’t want her pity, or anyone’s, and it made him furious
that anyone would think he deserved pity. He was his own man, damn it, in
charge of his own fate, and he needed sympathy from no one. He knew she didn’t
mean it that way, though, but was only trying to show her sympathy. It was
something he’d rarely had directed at him, however, the sympathy of others, and
he didn’t know how to handle it.

Seeming to realize she had walked
into it, she stammered, “I-I only meant, it’s very sad. What you went through.”
She frowned, and he thought it was a very cute frown. “How old are you? I mean,
how long were you in Black Valley?”

“I ... don’t know. Not exactly. We
didn’t keep track of the years. But I think I was with them for fourteen
winters.” He smiled. “That’s how we counted the years. I guess you in the
outside world have some fancy-pants way of counting.”

She smiled back, seeming to enjoy
his lighter tone. “Yeah,” she said. “Real fancy. It’s called a cal-en-dar.”

“We had one of those once. Used it
for toilet paper.”

“I guess that answers the question to
that old joke.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Joke?”

“Yeah. You know, does a bear shit
in the woods? I guess so—if he’s got a calendar!” She laughed and slapped her
knee, and he thought she looked even cuter than when she frowned.

He laughed, too. “Fun-
ny
,” he said.

“That would make you, what,
twenty-six?” She bit her lip. “I’m twenty-four. I was supposed to go to
college, but Ma died, and Pa told me I needed to stay home and take her place
in the household, and that anyway girls had no place in college, especially,
well, girls like me ... so I stayed home.” She made a noise of frustration.
“That sounds so lame, saying it like that. I hate that.” She sighed. “I guess
it
was
lame. I should have fought
harder, should have insisted on going out on my own. But Pa always told me I was
wrong to want to leave, and Bradley said fat cows don’t need to waste their
time going to school to find a man.”

Taggart sniffed. “You’re not fat.
You’re perfect.”

She brightened. Sniffing a little,
she said, “You think so?”

“I know so.” He patted his cock,
which was no longer hard, but that could change at a moment’s notice. “He
thinks so, too.”

She blushed. Perhaps pointedly
changing the subject, she said, “So where are we going? I mean, where are you
going? I guess I need to decide if I’m going with you.”

For a moment fear seized him. He
had just met her, but already he couldn’t imagine her leaving him. He wanted to
take her in his arms and smother her with kisses, then tear off her clothes and
...

He felt a throbbing in his cock and
made himself think of other things, if only so he didn’t scare her off.

“I’m going to the cabin where my
family used to live,” he said. “Papa and Mama had already died when I left, and
so had most of my brothers and sisters, but there was still one. There was
still Mike. I ... want to see if he’s still there.”

She seemed to think about it. “I’ll
go with you,” she said at last. “We’ll go find your old home, then decide from
there.” Smiling a little, she added, “Maybe you’ll find some clothes there.”

He chuckled. “They would be small
for me. Not even Papa was as large as I am. Mike might have turned out to be
big. He was my older brother, and we resembled each other.” Wistfully, he
muttered, “I wonder if it’s still possible that he could be there.”

She had slung her rifle over her
shoulder, so she had both hands free. With one, she took his hand again, and he
luxuriated in the contact.

“We’ll find out together,” she
said.

And, like that, he knew his world
had changed forever.

****

Should she kiss him? She really wanted to tilt her head up
and go for a kiss, but she hesitated. What if he didn’t return it?

Worse, maybe, what if he
did
?

That was the kicker, damnit. She had
been raised to believe there were demons in the world and that anyone who
didn’t believe what Ma and Pa did were aiding them. The hellspawn, as Pa called
them. The hellspawn and their sympathizers.
Cohorts
of the Darkness.
When shifters exploded onto the scene a few years ago, Pa
and Bradley had seemed to undergo a semi-religious experience. An “awakening”,
Pa had called it. They suddenly realized that the
shifters
were the demons. They had been impersonating people all
along, but really they were agents of the Devil. It all made sense now. There
really were “demons among us”, as Pa liked to say.

Alice had been taught to believe in
the Devil, and sin, and part of her really did, but it was hard to see demons
in bears and wolves and the other shifter forms. They were animals, for Pete’s
sake! When she pointed this out to her pa, he replied, “You can’t trust an
animal, girl. He’ll turn on ya—like that!” And he’d snapped his fingers under
her nose so violently that she’d flinched.

But Pa had been
wrong
.

Right?

Taggart was brave and strong and
true and funny. He had defended her from Deke and had pledged to start a new
life, away from darkness and stupidity, just like she had.

But he was still a shifter.

Could
they be trusted? Would he really turn on her—like (snap!)
that
?

Alice chewed on her lower lip,
debating with herself, and the moment passed. Taggart was scanning the forest
again.

“The cabin’s this way, I think,” he
said.

“You don’t know?”

He made a rueful face that caused
her heart to skip a beat. “It’s been a long time, you know,” he said. “Too
long.” The ruefulness in his handsome features became tinged with a hint of
sadness. They were still holding hands, and she gave his a gentle squeeze. When
they let go, his eyes were clear. “Yes,” he said, sniffing the air—
Like an animal! Like a damned animal!
she could just hear her father saying—“It’s this way.”

They trooped in the desired
direction for so long her legs started go cramp, and she could feel her shirt
clinging to the small of her back (and everywhere else, really). Taggart was
covered in sweat and little nicks from the branches that constantly whacked
him, since he was in the lead. He healed fast, though. Already the cuts Deke
had inflicted on him had sealed up and were fading, although she thought it
likely they would scar. The bullet wounds (entrance and exit) were still red
and angry, but they had closed up, too. Well, the exit would was
almost
closed up. That one was bigger
and angrier.

Taggart shoved aside a branch to
reveal a turbulent river or creek gushing down a rocky channel. Alice stopped
to admire the view. It was beautiful, with the sunlight sparking off pools and
eddies, and a fish leaping up from the water, glinting like a diamond and then
vanishing. But it was a problem.

“How are we going to get across?”
she said.

He rubbed his whiskered jaw. “Too
deep for me to Shift and wade across. Might be shallower down a bit. Then you
could ride on my back when we go across. Don’t know how far up a shallow bit
is.”

“I thought you knew the forest.”

“Not this part. Black Valley is a
distance away, thank goodness.”

She examined the trees around them,
then craned her head up. The conifers stretched halfway to the sky, it seemed.
Definitely as tall as the river was wide.

“If you Shifted, could you push
over a tree? We could use it as a bridge.”

He studied the trees. “The roots
are deep here, but maybe one along the river’s edge ...” He peered up and down
the bank. “There! That one might work.”

Taggart Shifted, and Alice gasped
at his handsome bear-self, all gray-brown fur and stately muzzle. He leaned
against the tree along the bank, shoving it with all his strength, then rearing
back and smashing into it again. It slowly listed down. Then its roots ripped
up and it went over fast. Its far end hit the opposite bank while its middle
slapped down with a splash, then flexed upward. Its sides glistened with water
and branches radiated out from it, dripping, but she thought it might work as a
bridge as long as its hold on the opposite side held.

Taggart inclined his head toward
her, and, wondering at herself, she reached up to ruffle the fur of his cheek.
He leaned into the contact, as if enjoying it. His fur was so soft! Then he
nodded toward the tree again.

“Good bear,” she teased, and moved
past him, out onto the tree. She stumbled as it rocked beneath her, still
settling, but she blundered forward anyway, propping herself up on branches as
she went along. Some slashed at her face and some tripped her feet, but she
pushed herself off others and clung to still more to prevent herself from
falling. If she fell, she’d plummet into the raging water and in all likelihood
drown. She heard Taggart swear behind her and smiled, knowing he had Shifted.

At last she scampered off of the tree
and turned to await him. He was just behind her. She realized he must have been
going slow in order not to hurry her—or maybe to catch her if she fell. A
renewed warmth spread throughout her chest.

With a growl, Taggart grabbed the
top of the fallen pine in both hands, and, heaving, threw it aside so that the
tree tumbled into the river. Water splashed high, catching the light, and the
green limbs of the tree rotated as the rapids took it, bearing it swiftly
downstream.

“Now no one can follow us over it,”
Taggart said.

“Smart,” she said.

He tapped his temple. “You know
it.”

Taking her arm, he led her up the
slope, slipping through the tall trees on the other side.

“You’re amazing,” Taggart huffed as they slowed to a stop. They
had reached a high place, with a stunning view of the surrounding mountains,
some of whom were capped in white even in summer. Clouds drifted lazily above,
but not too far overhead. It was good to be up high, he thought, not in the
darkness of Black Valley.

“Me?” Alice said. “How?”

“Oh, everything. But I’m talking about
making a bridge out of a tree.”

She snorted. “It was something I
saw in a movie. Anyway, I’m sure you would have thought of it.”

“Maybe, but you
are
the one that thought of it. I’m sure
it saved us a lot of time, too.”

She sort of leaned against him,
just lightly brushing him, then moved back. “I don’t mind taking our time.”

He threw back his head and laughed.
Adrenaline coursed through him, but something else, too, something he hadn’t
felt in a long time: the joy of life.

Impulsively, he took Alice in his
arms and kissed her. He rejoiced at the feel of her lips on his, so tender, so
soft, and he loved the way her body pressed up against his. At the sensation,
his cock throbbed and started to lift.

Alice laughed and jumped back. “We
really have to get you some clothes.”

He grinned wider. “Or maybe we need
to get you fewer clothes.”

She bit her lip cutely and turned
away. “Erm.”

He took a step toward her, but she
held out a hand, palm up, keeping him at bay. “Let’s just get to that cabin of
yours, okay,” she said.

“But I thought ... why not ...?” He
kicked the ground. “The grass is soft, and I love the feel of your body.” There
was more to it than that, though. There was the spark in her eyes, the way she
made him feel whenever they touched, the fact that they were on the same path toward
some sort of new life. They were exploring the same terrain together, and he
could feel it drawing them closer. Too bad she was an outsider, one of Them.
Then he could completely trust her. But he couldn’t deny the strange longing he
felt for her even so.

“I, ah, like
your
body, too,” she said, obviously trying her best not to look at
him. “But my mind is in too much of turmoil to worry about anything else. My
God, my own dad and brother are chasing us!”

He nodded solemnly. “Yes, I can
still smell them. It’s a hard thing.” He hesitated. Should he tell her?

She seemed to sense him holding
something back. “What is it, Taggart?” She turned to look at him at last, but
her eyes stayed on his; they did not stray.

He swung his own gaze out over the
snow-capped mountains. “My brother,” he said, feeling his voice choke.

“Mike?”

“No. Sam. I didn’t tell you about
him.”

“Why not?”

“He ...” Taggart let out a breath,
feeling tears form behind his eyes. He wouldn’t release them, however. He would
keep them caged till the end of his days. “We joined the Black Valley clan at
the same time, for the same reasons. It seemed the only way to survive. If we
didn’t join them they would have killed us or driven us away, and the only
place we could have gone was ...” He hitched his head toward the east, toward Pine
Ridge and civilization in general. She seemed to sense what he meant and
nodded. “We joined together and kept each other sane during our first years
there. But over time I grew to hate it. He ... didn’t.”

Taggart wasn’t hard anymore, and
Alice stepped forward and squeezed his arm. He still wouldn’t look at her,
though.

“He didn’t want to come with you?”
Alice said.

“No. I asked, but he refused. He
told me he would give me twenty-four hours and then he would tell Kane, our
alpha.
His
alpha. He’s mine no
longer.”

“Jeez. I’m so sorry. That’s
terrible.”

Taggart scowled. “He could be
hunting us, right now. I’m sure Deke has made his way back to them by now. He’s
told them what direction we’re in. They’ll be able to pick up our trail. The
river won’t confuse them for long. Curse it, we should have waded up the
shallows for a bit to throw them off.”

“We couldn’t. Pa and Bradley are
after us. We couldn’t waste the time.”

He grimaced, baring his teeth at
fate itself. “So it was. But this means we both have family after us. Hunting
us.” He made a fist and raised it at the heavens. “They’re trying to hold us
back. Stop us from becoming ...”

“Becoming what?”

Finally he turned to her. He
lowered his fist and uncurled his fingers. “From becoming what we were meant to
be.”

They stared at each other for a
long moment, the wind whipping about them, making her short hair dance and her
eyes mist, and he felt something lurch in his chest. Some powerful emotion was
building in him, and he could feel his bear grow restless with yearning for something
strange, something inexplicable, something neither he nor it had ever known
before. Whatever it was, he felt sure the answer lay with Alice.

“Come,” he said at last, hearing
the rasp in his voice. “Let’s go find that cabin.”

****

When dark came, a cold wind blew down from the peaks, and
Alice shivered. They’d been walking for hours, and she was sore and tired and
hungry. Worse, she couldn’t help but stare around them in the dimness, the
hairs on the nape of her neck lifted. Were there others out there, watching
them?
Hunting
them? Giant, malicious
bears from a certain scary valley, maybe?

Taggart seemed to sense her unease.
“Don’t worry about the Black Valley shifters,” he said. “I’ll protect you.”

Yeah,
but who’ll protect YOU?
she wanted to say, but didn’t. Male ego and hard
truth didn’t always go well together. Besides, she knew the answer.
I’ve got your back, Tag
, she thought,
gripping her rifle tight.
Nobody better
mess with you while
I’m
around.

She had to smile at her own
protectiveness. It shocked her how close she felt to Taggart after only one day
of knocking around the woods together. She sort of missed being able to see him
clearly. See
all
of him clearly. The
night cloaked him, darn it, save when the moon shone down between a copse of
trees or Alice and Taggart pushed through a clearing. Usually they skirted the
clearings, though, going around the edges. It wouldn’t do to be seen in the
open.

“Can you smell them?” she said.

She thought he shook his head but
couldn’t tell. “No,” he said, as if realizing she couldn’t see him. “But they
could be downwind.”

“You
can
see, though, right?” she said.

She bumped into something—a fallen
log, she thought—and flinched, a startled noise coming from her throat. Firm Taggart-y
hands gently pulled her to the side and set her on the right path. Hopefully,
anyway.

“I can see,” Taggart said. “Just
follow me.”

“If I could see well enough to
follow you, I wouldn’t
need
to follow
you!”

He let out a breath, she thought of
impatience, but instead of snapping at her he reached out a hand and grabbed
her free hand, then tugged her along. The contact was warm and solid, but he
didn’t squeeze her hard, and she liked the feel of his firm, calloused hands.
Here was a man who had lived hard all his life, who
was
hard, in more ways than one. He was almost an elemental of the
forest, she thought, an extension of it, a part of it. He was like some dashing
forest god. How could she, an overly curvy girl from a nothing mountain town, have
interested a guy like
him
?

Was
he interested? She thought so, but there was something in him ... some
reservation, she was sure.

It’s
the same thing I feel
, she realized.
He’s
been taught to hate outsiders, and here I am, the ultimate outsider, someone
raised to hate people—beings—like him.
It made her furious, the ways their
families (if his clan could be called a family) had twisted each of them, if in
different ways. It made her even more furious to think that it had worked.

Because she couldn’t deny that
somewhere in the back of her mind was that silly, stupid, hateful voice that
insisted,
He’s an animal! A demon! He’ll
turn on you! Don’t trust ‘im
! It was her pa’s voice, of course, but somehow
knowing that didn’t make it go away.

Be
quiet!
she scolded her inner Pa. Her inner Bradley just sneered and said,
You know he’s right, you cow.
She
growled at him to shut up, but he only sneered wider.

I’m
going insane
, she thought.
Talking to
ghosts in my head.

“How much longer?” she asked
Taggart, trying to keep her voice low. No telling who was out there listening.

“Not long,” he said. “I think we’re
almost—”

He stopped suddenly, and she drew
in a sharp breath. What had he seen? Was it Pa and Bradley? Was it Kane and his
asshole bear shifters?

“Well?” she demanded, starting to
raise her rifle.

There was a smile in Taggart’s
voice. “We’re there,” he said, and she could hear the relief, the expectation.
“I can see the cabin.”

A weird sort of glee rose in her.
Hope
. It fluttered up through her chest
and expanded, filling her, lifting her up. She realized she was smiling, too.

“Well?” she said. “What are we
waiting for? Let’s go!”

Still gripping her hand, Taggart
led the way—never getting too eager, never leading her to trip or stumble—down
an incline and toward a clearing. There! A stripe of moonlit coated a timber
roof. Even from here she could see the cabin was a ruin, holes showing in the
top, grass and ferns crowning the surviving timbers. A couple of the logs
composing the sides had caved in, too, but the cabin still stood, even if it
was weathered and listing and being slowly reclaimed by the forest.

As they approached it, rain began
to patter on Alice’s face, and she looked up to see that the stars and moon
were masked by dark clouds. Thunder rumbled, and lightning lit up an inky bank
of thunderheads, then switched off, returning the world to darkness. Alice
shivered as cold droplets hit her, and she scurried the last few feet, all but
jumping across the threshold of the tilted but homey-looking cabin. Taggart
came in immediately behind her, and there was a protectiveness to his stance,
as if she might need to be saved from some cyclops or something waiting inside.
Or maybe a bear.

Ha!
I’m the one with the gun!
she thought.

She stamped her feet and blew on
her hands, peering into the darkness. “Is this the right place?” she said.

He sniffed loudly, scenting. “This
is it.”

She stared at him, or what she
could see of him, in awe. “You recognize the smell, after all this time?”

“Enough of it, yeah.” He paused,
then with a sly smile added, “I think I can even smell one of Sam’s better
farts.”

“Ha ha.”

“It was a real stinker. Woo! Just
about burned out my nose hairs off.”

“I
said
‘ha ha’.”

He grinned, but she thought it was
more for her benefit than his. It worked, though. She felt lighter and more at
ease.

He didn’t say any more but strode
throughout the rooms. There were only four or five, including one large living
and cooking area. The ceiling in one corner had fallen in, admitting a steady
stream of rain. More thunder boomed, and Alice flinched, then laughed at
herself. Her belly rumbled again, not quite as loud as the thunder, but close,
and she dug out one of her snack bars. She always carried around a few, even
when not hunting (usually for deer, never for any shifters until today, of
course), and sometimes Pa made fun of her about it.
Yer not even hungry
, he’d say.
Yer
jes feedin’ the fat.

Well, she was hungry now, and she
took a big bite and then another. When Taggart returned from inspecting the
rooms, evidently not finding anything of note, she offered him a snack bar of
his own. She knew he must be famished. From what she’d read about bear
shifters, their metabolisms were ridiculously fast and they ate all the time.

“Naw,” he said. “You take it.”

She insisted, shoving it towards
him.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Bull doody. I want you to have
it.” When he still hesitated, she realized that some macho code of his was
preventing him from taking food away from her. Thinking quickly, she said,
“You’re protecting me, right? Well, what good are you to me if you can’t do
your job? You can’t protect anyone if you’re weak from hunger.”

He grunted, maybe in hunger, maybe
in appreciation of her logic, and accepted the snack bar. He ripped the plastic
open and munched loudly, devouring the oat and honey bar with such speed that
she knew he really had been famished. Probably still was, poor thing.

I
could take his mind off it
, she thought, feeling naughty, and her cheeks
burned at the thought. Heat pooled in her middle.

“I have a flashlight,” she said,
and dug inside her jacket, coming up with a slim little light. She hadn’t
wanted to use it in the forest in case one of their enemies (
I have actual enemies!
she thought)
might see the light, but in here, concealed by walls and rain, they should be
okay. She played the beam around the old, weathered walls and floor, noting the
ruins of ancient furniture, then passed the light to Taggart, or tried to. Men
liked toys, right?

“I don’t need that,” he reminded
her, and she felt a little foolish. Of course he could see very well at night.
She knew that.

He moved to a window and looked
out, into the wild rain and darkness.

“Are they still out there?” she
said, coming to stand beside him. She could still feel his heat.

“Who?” he said. “My people or
yours?”