The Bear Who Loved Me (7 page)

Soft belly. Hot mouth. Hungry lust.

Especially when she moaned against his mouth.

It wasn't his rational mind that smelled the bear. He'd lost all thought the moment she'd opened to him. But something in him smelled
another
.

Male bear.

Coming near.

Young.

Easily conquered.

He spun around, using his body to keep her against the tree while he peered through the darkness.

There
.

A dark silhouette of a bear beginning to shake. He recognized the signs of a shifter at the edge of his strength. And as he watched, the body started shrinking into itself, becoming an adolescent human. The grizzly hump slid down, the head grew more round, and the thick arms and legs became slender. A boy shifter exhausted as he headed toward home.

It was good that the child diminished himself. He would not tolerate another male bear near Becca. Not now. Not before he impregnated her. But this boy was no threat.

He turned back to his woman, using his hands to strip open her blouse. He would lick her breasts and belly. He would bury his tongue between her thighs. He would taste every part of her, letting her know that he was the only one to own her scent. And in so doing, he would mark her as his.

He smelled her arousal and knew she was fertile.

Now.

Boy.

Something about the boy niggled his brain, but he swatted the thought away. Becca was moving against him, her hips pulsing against his superior power, her breath coming in panting gasps as he tasted her neck.

But there was something else in the air. Something dark and rancid that was not Becca and not the boy. It was faint in the still air, but he knew it as
wrong
and that was enough to still his movements. He would not mate in a place that was unsafe.

He turned his head, sniffing the air. Becca stilled as well, and he pressed a finger to her lips. The night was quiet, the breeze negligible. Where was it?

A dark shadow moved in the distant tree. Was that it? He couldn't tell. It was too far away to scent or to see properly. Which is when he focused on the boy.

The boy who was down on the ground. Unmoving.

Alarm pierced through him. Procreating was a primal task for his bear, but so was protecting the young. The Wrong was out there. The young was vulnerable.

Therefore, he attacked.

B
ecca blinked away the lust in time to see unbelievable things flash across her retinas. They were dark shadows, indistinct to her confused mind. So she did what she always did in a crisis. She made a list.

First was the sudden chill of being half dressed in Michigan at midnight. It didn't matter that it was spring. It was still damned cold on her bare belly and heavy breasts. Next was irritation that the man who'd been keeping her flushed and happy was suddenly gone. Her body was pulsing, her mind overridden by desire.

She was not a woman to be distracted by such things. Not usually. But occasionally a man pushed all her buttons and she lost sight of reason. And her clothes. She wasn't proud of the fact, but there it was. She kept herself so locked down that when a man breeched her defenses, she went nuclear meltdown into passion. Clearly that's what had happened.

Which is when her vision finally cleared.

Holy shit, he was a bear.

Item number two. Carl was a freaking
huge
bear. Seeing Marty shift had been mind-blowing enough, but now, in the moonlight, she saw what had to be Carl running full-bear grizzly at something. She pulled her coat together, buttoning it quickly as she tried to make out form from shadow. Carl stopped at a dark lump on the ground, nosing it gently.

A boy!

“Theo!” she screamed and ran forward.

Carl was straddling the child, but at her cry, he turned toward her and roared. Not just a quiet grumble, but a full-out bellow that knocked her back on her heels.

Oh shitshitshitshitshit.
He was going to eat Theo!

“Get away from him!” she screamed.

She had no illusions that she could frighten a five-hundred-pound grizzly, but maybe she could get through to the man inside the bear. She didn't think Carl would ever hurt a child, least of all Theo, but who knew what a bear would do?

“Get away!” she screamed again as she ran forward. Straight at a grizzly. What the hell was she doing? She didn't even have a weapon, and her damned coat had popped open again. But she couldn't stop. Theo needed her.

So she ran while Carl roared at her again.

“Get away!” Damn it, she needed a gun. Or a big rock. Something to…

She heard a pop. It was barely audible over the pounding in her ears, but something had happened. She saw Carl turn his head toward a tree far in the distance.
Good. Look somewhere else.
Maybe she could drag Theo to safety while Carl was distracted. It was a vain hope. No way would an animal let her drag away his dinner while he was looking at a tree, but it was all she had.

Her heels thudded on the cold ground as she just now realized how far it was. The whole clearing was probably the length of two football fields with Theo lying in the center. Carl had cleared the distance in twenty seconds, but she was huffing at only halfway there.

Then she heard Carl roar again, but this time it was at the tree. He leaped forward on all fours as he cleared half the distance to the tree.

Good! Go away!

Another breath and he reached the edge of the clearing. She heard another pop, this one distinctive because she'd been listening for it. A gun? No, she'd heard guns. That wasn't it. But it was something like that, which meant there was someone in the tree shooting at Carl.

“Don't shoot!” she screamed. “He's…”
What? A nice bear?

But Carl reared up on his hind legs, roaring as he tore into the bare branches of the tree.

Shit, shit, shit!

There was nothing she could do for the stupid hunter. Thankfully, she'd reached Theo and skidded to his side on her knees. “Come on, honey. Get up. We got to move, honey.”

She was babbling even as she saw that it wasn't her nephew. This was an older boy with a square jaw and freckles on his dirty face. Something about his nose reminded her of Marty, so she guessed she was looking at Justin. Didn't matter. Either way, she had to get the child to safety.

She leaned down and tried to pick up the boy. Adrenaline helped, but not enough. She managed to flop him around a bit before her arms gave out. Fine. She'd drag him.

“Come on, kiddo.” She grabbed his wrists and started pulling. “We gotta go.”

It was forever away to get back to the weeping willow. The tree line was closer. Getting under cover was the better choice, even if it wasn't nearly far enough away from Carl and the idiot with the gun.

She was just starting to get traction when she glanced down at the boy.

What the hell is that sticking out of his chest?

At first, she'd thought it was blood, but it was a different color of red and…

A dart? What the hell is a dart doing sticking out of him?

The answer hit her, and she started pulling for all she was worth. A tranquilizer dart. Someone had shot the boy…

Oh, shit. He was shooting Carl, too.

She looked back to the roaring grizzly shredding the tree. Her mind raced through all the horrible reports she'd heard about psycho militants holed up in compounds throughout Michigan. That's the only people she could think of who'd be shooting tranq darts in the middle of the night. Psychos with an ax to grind. Maybe against shifters.

Was Carl slowing down? How many times had he been shot? She hadn't heard any more pops, but that didn't mean anything. Given the noise Carl was making, she wouldn't have been able to hear a heavy metal rock band.

She needed help. She needed her damned cell phone.

Pocket. Coat.

Hell, she was an idiot. She had her cell on her. But she couldn't just stand there in the open. Not with someone shooting at them. But it was too far to the tree line. Which meant her best bet was to lay low while she called in reinforcements.

She dropped Justin's arms and flattened herself down between the boy and where Carl now stalked through the trees. She didn't think bears could stalk, but he seemed to be, and she could hear his low growl like the angry rumble of a pissed-off train.

At least he was conscious.

She dragged out her cell and dialed 911 with shaking fingers. Then she held it to her ear while she pulled the dart out of Justin's chest. The drug would already be in his system, but no sense leaving it sitting there in case it hadn't.

“911. How can I help?”

It was that same too-chipper voice that she'd heard earlier tonight. Before, she'd hated the woman for being in Carl's pocket, but now she was grateful. “Help,” she rasped. “I'm at Carl's checkpoint. Justin's here. He's unconscious. Carl's gone bear at the trees and someone's shooting.”

“Keep calm, Becca. Help is on its way.” She heard clicking sounds of a keyboard in the background. “Now tell me exactly what you see.”

Becca looked up, searching for Carl. She couldn't see him and had no idea what that meant. He could have been knocked unconscious by who knew how many shots. Or he could be happily feasting on dead hunter.

“I don't hear him,” she said into the phone. Though there was a mechanical noise. “I can't see—”

Then she did see. Three guys with hoodies on motorcycles heading straight for her. Their headlights flashed across her vision, temporarily blinding her, but she'd seen enough. They came from different directions, though generally south of her position. And they'd seemed to boil out of the trees fast enough that she choked on her fear. They were a ways off, but at that speed, they'd be on her in under a minute.

“Becca!” the voice said. “What's happening?”

“Three motorcycles,” she gasped as she leaped to her feet. She had to get Justin out of the way. If she dragged him far enough to the side, maybe the bastards would roar right past. She fumbled with the boy's arm, dropping the phone in the process, and heaved with all her might.

A foot's progress. Then another.

That was all she got when she saw one of the riders point at her. She had time to recognize moonlight on a gun and know that she was about to die. The very idea froze her up like a Popsicle, and she just stared. Nowhere to run with the bastards only a few dozen feet away from her and closing fast.

Then she heard that roar again. Carl in full grizzly tearing through the trees nearest her. Forty feet away at most, but the sound was loud enough that everyone flinched, including the guy with the gun.

Bang.

Not a tranquilizer this time. She prayed it missed. Couldn't be easy to aim from a motorcycle on rough terrain, right? Since she wasn't screaming in pain, she assumed she was okay. But now what? She couldn't abandon Justin, and she couldn't just stand here and die.

She crouched down, adrenaline pouring through her body. If she could get that bastard's gun, she could shoot at them. Ridiculous thought to jump at a guy on a motorcycle as he sped past, but what else could she do? Distantly, she heard the wail of sirens. Thank God. She'd just have to hold out for a minute or two.

Then there was Carl, all bear as he tore into the dirt right in front of her. The nearest motorcycle swerved when the bear swiped, skidding dirt as he flew past. She had a moment to register long, sharp claws, but then there was only grizzly as Carl backed up until he was practically on top of her and Justin. He was protecting her, she realized. And thank God, because now she saw the net.

It was a dark blob stretched between the two remaining motorcycles. Were they trying to catch Carl? They'd need a net the size of a Mack truck. Except Carl wasn't looking too steady. He tried to rear up onto his hind legs only to flop forward again. Which is when she saw four little red blobs on his body. Tranquilizer darts. Shit.

Where the hell were the police?

The guys with the net swerved around, clearly regrouping. The third one was out there somewhere, too, and she spun around, looking for him.

There!
With another gun, this one longer and thinner. The tranquilizer gun, and it was aimed at Carl.

“Oh, no you don't!” she bellowed. Then she did the stupidest thing her terrified brain had ever imagined. She leaped up to protect a grizzly bear. After all, if they took down Carl, she was helpless. So she leaped. And by some miracle of luck and adrenaline, she'd guessed right. She felt the dart hit, the impact like a baseball against her ribs. Pain bit—sharp—and she fell backward from the power of it.

She hit Carl's butt, bouncing harmlessly off his fur. She felt him spin around, his claws flashing in the moonlight. Another roar and the sirens and the smear of starlight as her head bounced crazily on the ground.

And then…

Nothing.

B
ecca woke to the sound of muted voices—one male and one female—arguing in heated whispers nearby. Her first thought was that neither one of them was Theo or Carl. The second was that they were arguing over her. Something about it not making sense.

Thank you Ms. Obvious. Nothing about her last twenty-four hours made sense. As she scrolled through her memory, she ticked off all the ridiculously impossible things.

Theo disappearing—possible, but improbable. He was not a boy to run away, not when he knew how freaked she'd get.

Grizzly bear shifters—impossible. No explanation needed.

Theo returning to Gladwin State Park like a salmon swimming upstream—impossible. His home was in Kalamazoo and always had been.

Kissing Carl—completely and totally impossible, except that statistically speaking… nope. Still impossible. She did not fool around with people in Theo's life. It was just too awkward and Mr. Max was firmly in Theo's life. And yet of all the impossible things in her brain, that was the one that made her heart race and her stomach clench. Why did she pick now of all times to suddenly discover her hormones? Idiotic!

People on motorcycles shooting at her—impossible. She just wasn't a person people shot at. She made castle cakes for little girls' birthday parties. She lived in central Michigan, where nothing happened to anybody except maybe frostbite.

So there it was. Everything was impossible, and yet she remembered every gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, erotic moment. So either she was impossible or the rest of the world was. End of discussion.

She sat up, belatedly realizing that she should have opened her eyes and oriented herself a bit first. Especially since the world began to spin the moment she moved her head. She slammed her eyes shut. It was the only thing to do when Carl's man-cabin living room spun like a theme park ride. Fortunately, it was enough to tell her where she was, if not why.

“You're awake.” Female voice. Tonya. The police officer she'd met before.

“Take it slow. You've had a rough go lately.” Mr. Obvious, aka Carl's brother, Alan.

She swallowed and forced out the word. “Theo?”

“Still missing.” Officer Tonya. “But we've got people looking for him everywhere.”

“You had people looking before. What's different now?”

“We've got
more
people looking. And these people have guns.”

Becca winced, not sure if that was a good thing or not. “I need to call home. Maybe he's gone back there.”

“I just talked to Amy. He's not there, and none of his friends have seen him.”

A warm mug was pressed into her hands. “It's ginger tea,” said Alan gently. “It'll settle your stomach and then we can work up to broth.”

“Thanks,” she said as she finally opened her eyes. Alan looked like shit. His face was pale, which didn't do any favors to the lean cut of his jaw. He looked haggard, though his expression was kind.

Officer Gorgeous still looked gorgeous, even with her lips pressed tightly together. Becca looked away rather than feel unequal at a time when she needed all her resources. A glance outside showed early dawn and she frowned. “What time is it?”

“Almost five,” Alan answered. “You got hit by a tranquilizer dart. The doctor's been here and will come back in an hour. But if you're having any pain or discomfort, I can call him now.”

She processed that slowly as she sipped her ginger tea. Not bad. “Why aren't I in a hospital?” That would be the usual procedure, right?

“Because you're fine,” Bitch Officer said. “And because the paperwork is…inconvenient.”

“I don't give a rat's ass about your paperwork.”

“Fine, then tell me why guys on motorcycles snuck up on Carl.”

Becca frowned, then slowly turned her head to stare at the officer. Sure, the woman had looks, a badge, and attitude to spare, but that didn't mean Becca had to take shit from her. “I don't know. Maybe you could ask them.”

“I'm asking you.”

“They're in the wind,” Alan answered.

Of course they were. Too much to ask that they had caught one of them. “How is the boy?” Becca asked. “Was that Justin? Marty's son?”

“He's fine,” said Alan as he brought over a box of Ritz crackers. “Just sleeping it off. That's normal after a First Change.”

Becca nodded and ventured another sip of tea. “Where's my cell? I need to call Theo.”

“Right here.” Alan handed it to her, then everyone waited in taut silence while she dialed. Straight to voice mail. She sighed, then flipped through her email and texts, hoping for some news. Nothing.

She sighed, then turned to the officer, forcing herself to give the woman some respect, if only because she carried a badge and seemed to have been awake all night, presumably looking for Theo. “Tell me what to do to help.”

The woman seemed to unbend a bit as she stepped forward. Then, as if consciously trying to force herself to be personable, she sat down on the coffee table so she could be more level with Becca. “Tell me what you remember, from the beginning.”

Becca nodded, closing her eyes as she forced herself to remember. She relayed everything as methodically as possible, but damn it, guys with motorcycles and guns had been shooting at her. It was like a bad
Mad Max
movie in a park. And when she finished, she gulped down the last of her tea and tried her best not to freak out.

“You're doing fine,” said Alan.

She nodded, but knew the real critic was Officer Tonya. The woman sat rigidly straight as she studied Becca's face. Then she slowly leaned forward.

“Let me explain some simple facts to you,” she said, each word crisply distinct. “Carl is our alpha. As Maximus, he's our best warrior. He's big, he's smart, and he's careful. You're saying that the first you noticed Justin, he was lying on the ground. That's not possible. Carl would have seen him walking up either in bear or human form. Plus, there's the sound of motorcycles. Any shifter can tell the sound, especially since there's no good reason for them to be in the park at that time of night. Carl would have heard it and called it in long before any attack.”

Becca frowned, thinking back. Oh, she remembered why Carl hadn't seen Justin before or reacted to the motorcycles. She knew what they'd been doing, but she hadn't thought it important for Officer Bitch to know. What she was trying to think of was when the sounds had first come into her awareness. Had they been there long before Carl went grizzly? She couldn't remember. She'd been too absorbed in letting her hormones get their first fix in years.

“Miss Weitz, what really happened? And this time, try telling the truth.”

“That is the truth!” she snapped, pissed that she would have to confess this private detail. It was bad enough that she'd been sucking face while Theo was missing, but to tell it to Tonya was beyond humiliating.

And then a voice came from the other room, the rumble deep and gravelly, but Becca would know it anywhere. It was Carl, his voice rough in a totally sexy way.

“I was distracted.” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I was… we…”

Stunned silence filled the room. And in that moment, Becca's gaze caught and held Carl's. In his eyes, she saw guilt and embarrassment. Probably an exact echo of her own. But more than that, she saw a quiet longing in the way his eyes never wavered from hers. His hands clutched the doorframe to his bedroom; he was clearly swaying on his feet, but his eyes—damn, his eyes—were locked on her.

“How are you?” he rasped.

“I'm fine. I didn't get a half dozen tranq darts in me.” She scanned his body for wounds. He was in sweat pants and without his shirt. Except for the few bandages that dotted his torso, she could see every carved hill and valley of his chest and abdominals. Stunningly beautiful and covered in scars. A zillion of them, some very old. If anything told her exactly what kind of bizarro world she'd landed in, it was his body. Raw and powerful, but also carrying the memory of wounds she could barely comprehend. She wanted to shy away from it. All those scars were like a sign saying Danger! But she couldn't. He mesmerized her.

“I'm fine,” he repeated when she finally looked back into his eyes. “Bears can take a lot.”

Which is when the other two seemed to unfreeze. Alan was on his feet, crossing to where his brother sagged against the doorframe. “A tyrannosaurus rex can't take that much,” he said as he wrapped an arm around Carl's bare trunk. “Let's get you back to bed.”

“No. The couch. And I can walk.”

“Sure you can. But humor me and let me help.”

“I spend my life humoring you,” Carl groused and his brother grinned in response.

“Because I'm the only one who tolerates your pissy moods.”

The two bickered as only brothers can while Becca cleared a space on the couch. Tonya just watched everything with her coldly assessing gaze. She didn't comment or help while Alan asked his medical questions.

“Any pain?”

“Yes. You.”

“What about headache, nausea?”

“I'm fine.”

“What day is it?”

“The day you tell me what the fuck happened after I passed out.”

“You're a pain in the ass, you know that?”

“Yes. Have we heard from Theo? Is Justin okay? What are we doing to find them?”

Which is when the officer took over, reporting as she might to a commanding officer. It was mostly names and locations rolled out with variations on the phrase “they haven't seen anything unusual.” And while Carl got up to speed, Becca had a chance to look closer at his injuries. His torso was a mass of bruises and small cuts, but one bandage on the top of his arm stood out. It was small by comparison, but it had a dark red spot in the middle.

“What happened here?” she said as she touched the bandage.

She hadn't meant to interrupt. The question just slipped out. It was a measure of how much his mere presence took over her brain that she lost all awareness of everything but him. And while the room went silent, Carl set his hand over hers.

“I have no idea,” he said.

Then Officer Bitch answered. “That's a bullet hole, Miss Weitz. By someone who doesn't understand how to shoot shifters.”

A bullet. Right. The guy with the gun who had missed her when Carl roared.

She felt bile roll through her gut, thoughts mixing with memory, and all of them leading up to horror.

“Oh, shit,” said Alan as he grabbed the wastepaper basket. He was just in time. She barely missed him as she emptied her stomach, ginger tea and crackers pouring out of her in choking gasps.

And while she was still retching, Tonya fired rapid questions at Carl. “Who shot you? What do you remember?”

“There was one guy in the tree. I took care of him. Then I heard the others but couldn't circle back in time. Too fucking slow.”

“You were hit by eight tranquilizer darts,” Alan said as he helped Becca stand and head for the bathroom.

“Then three guys on motorcycles. They were slowing down. Heading for Becca and Justin.”

“Why?”

“What?”

Becca was in the bathroom then, listening through the open door.

“Why did they want Becca? Who shot you?”

“I don't know. And I don't remember. I was fighting. Did you get any of them?”

“Three escaped. The other is in pieces. We're working on an ID, but it'll take a while.”

Silence.

Pieces? Oh. She meant torn apart by a bear. By Carl. Who was a bear. She was going to be sick again. Meanwhile, Officer Tonya wouldn't let it go.

“What was Miss Weitz doing when you were shot?”

“Tonya, she didn't shoot me. She was already down when I got this.”

“You sure?”

“I… yes. I felt her go down.”

Becca could tell by the silence that the woman didn't believe it. Meanwhile, she dried her hands before turning to where Alan waited by the door. He was taller than Carl and had golden brown eyes instead of green, but she could see the family resemblance in the square jut of his jaw and the odd perk to his ears. But most important to her was the way he seemed to understand all the nuances without judgment. Of everyone she'd met in Gladwin, he seemed the most approachable, simply because he listened. So she touched his arm and spoke in a soft undertone.

“What does she mean by someone who doesn't know how to shoot shifters?”

Alan's eyes were on the others, but at her question he turned to her. “Extremities shrink down when a bear shifts back to human. We don't know how it works, but only a shot to the torso will do permanent damage. The rest just seems to disappear.”

She looked through the doorway at the stark white bandage on Carl's arm. “His didn't.”

“It was a pretty big shot. Lethal on a human. And he took it in the meat of his upper arm. It'll be gone the next time he shifts.”

What did she say to that? Lucky him? Except he didn't look so lucky. And she still felt sick at the idea. Meanwhile, Carl was arguing with Officer Bitch, who seemed to think the worst of Becca. And as soon as Becca could breathe without fearing she'd hurl, she was going to give the woman a piece of her mind.

“She didn't attack me, Tonya. I got distracted. It was stupid and irresponsible, but that's on me.”

“Maybe you were drugged.”

“With an aphrodisiac? Do you even hear yourself?”

“It makes no sense, Carl. Why the hell would guys on motorcycles attack you?”

“Not me,” Carl said grimly. “Justin.”

“What?”

Becca had come back into the room and Carl wasted no time in looking straight at her. His eyes were hooded, so she had no clue as to his emotions, but at his words, that didn't matter so much anymore.

“Someone's been taking shifter kids right around their First Change. That's why Bryn was in Kalamazoo. The wolves have lost two already.”