The Bear's Forbidden Wolf: A Hot Paranormal Fantasy Saga with Witches, Werewolves and Werebears (Weres and Witches of Silver Lake Book 4) (14 page)

‡

P
ain wracked Jackson’s
body as he swatted the air in front of him, but hit nothing. Daring to check out his surroundings now that he was able to breathe better, he opened his eyes, but it took a few seconds for him to figure out that he was in his bed at home in his bear form. What the fuck had happened?

Ainsley had her back to him, dressed in a pair of his boxers and his University of Tennessee sweatshirt, looking adorable. She was sleeping on top of the bedspread and had dragged a throw over her shoulders. Clearly, she didn’t want to be tempted at intimacy.

He, however, wanted to throw caution to the wind. Jackson growled softly and was tempted to grab her, but he didn’t because he feared he might hurt her. Being this close to his mate had his bear going crazy.

Jackson shifted into his human form. Ainsley must have been dead to the world as she barely roused. He slipped out from under the covers and moved as quietly as possible to the bathroom. Everything was a jumbled mess. The last thing he remembered was climbing in the shower in his human form. So how the hell had he shifted into his bear form?

Everything was a blur before that. One minute he was in the woods and the next he was back at his house.
Think
. He had been enjoying a pleasant run on the trail—with Ainsley. Their purpose for being there was to find the location of Shamus’s murder, but Jackson had no idea what they’d found, if anything.

First things first, he glanced at the mirror to check his injuries and halted.

“Holy fuck.” His body was laced with scrapes and gouges. An ugly welt that had recently closed ran across his throat. The possibly life-altering slice was still tender to the touch, despite his bear healing most of the wounds.

If he was so incapacitated, how the hell had he made it back to the house? Ainsley wasn’t strong enough to carry him. The images of wolves charging at him flitted across his mind and helped jar his memory. He shouldn’t have had a problem handling multiple wolves, but they all came at him at once, attacking strategic places.

He would bat one away, only to find three others attacking him in every vulnerable spot. There had been a lot of pain and mental fog. Then, as if they all decided to die on their own, the last two wolves jumped off his body and bled to death.
Sure they did.
Clearly, his injuries were still messing with his mind.

Jackson needed answers and returned to the bedroom. The clock read 3:18 am. Damn, it was too early to wake her. He edged closer to the bed, ready to crawl in when she sat up, leaned over, and flicked on the lamp on the night table. She must have forgotten about him and crawled under the sheet. His inner bear roared.

Mine, mate.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, my. You’re awake. And very naked.” She turned her head away. “How do you feel?”

Shit. Only now did he remember how shy she had been. Then again, she must recognize that being this close to one’s mate wasn’t a good idea—especially given her makeup as part Changeling.

“Battered, but alive. Listen, you go back to sleep. I’ll dress and rest in the living room.”

With the sheet wrapped around her, she placed her feet on the floor and stood. “No, you need to rest. I’ll sleep out there.”

In all honesty, he wanted answers more than rest. “How about I fix us something to eat and you can tell me what went down.”

She looked off to the side. “You don’t remember?”

“Only bits and pieces.”

He grabbed some clean clothes and pulled them on. Feeling almost human, he followed her out to the galley style kitchen. Coffee was first on the agenda. She stepped next to him, and his internal sensors shot to high alert.
Bad bear.

“How about I make us some eggs and you rest?” she asked.

Normally, he’d never let someone barge into his kitchen and take over, but right now, he wasn’t up to speed. Besides, the two of them couldn’t move around in there without touching. “Sure.”

Jackson sat at the table in the corner of the small kitchen. “Tell me what happened, including how you got me to change into my bear.”

She pulled the eggs and milk from the refrigerator. “You tell me what you remember and I’ll fill in the gaps.”

“Okay. I’ll start with where it became fuzzy. I heard voices and motioned for you to stay back while I went to check out what the men were doing. I remember hearing some snippets of conversation, but it wasn’t anything concrete. Seconds later, four wolves came at me. I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting that many so fast.”

She nodded in sympathy. “When I arrived, you had all four of them attacking you. The one at your throat was about to take a fatal bite.” She bent over and pulled open a few cabinet doors.

“Mixing bowls are above the stove.”

“Thanks.”

He didn’t like that she hadn’t followed his instructions, but if she had, he would be dead. “If you saw them attack me, then how did you stay alive? Hell, they nearly killed me.”

She cracked the eggs into the found bowl. “Yeah, about that. Remember, I told you my father was a Wendayan?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can do this.”

He looked down at his hands for a mere second before her words registered. He glanced up, and Ainsley was nowhere to be seen. One second she was there, and the next she wasn’t.

“Whoa! What the hell?” Suddenly, she reappeared right in front of him, and he blinked then opened his eyes wide.

“I have a special talent.”

“That’s more than special. You freakin’ disappeared!”

She leveled him with a stare. “Yes, I did.”

This was too much to comprehend. “People can’t just disappear.”

“Some witches can.”

She’d just blown his mind. “But you never left the kitchen.”

“No, I didn’t, which is how I was able to rip those wolves off your body, and they had no idea what was happening.” A small smile lifted her lips. “Those fuckers just pawed at the air, and even lifted their little heads, willing me to rip out their throats.”

“Holy shit. Then I wasn’t dreaming.” Jackson wasn’t so sure he liked the idea of a woman saving his butt, but he had to admit that she had done a fine job. “Now, I can see why James said you could fight. Did he know of your talent?”

She shrugged. “I never told him.”

That was odd, but then again Naliana was a goddess in charge of the Wendayans. Ainsley poured the eggs in the pan he kept on the stove.

“Thank you for saving my life,” he said, but it sounded almost hollow.

A brief smile crossed her face. “No problem. I had an advantage you didn’t have.”

“That’s the truth. I vaguely remember shifting when we got to my car, so how did I end up in my bear form?”

Heat colored her pretty face. “I seduced you.”

If he’d had any coffee in his mouth, he would have spit it out in surprise. “I don’t remember.” Damn.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t. Your bear responded to me touching you. I was about to call your brother to come help, but then your bear came out and greeted me. Once I rinsed you, you roused enough to crawl into bed. I have to say, you do hog the bed.”

“I don’t remember any of it, but yeah, the bed’s not designed for large animals.” Maybe she had other talents, like erasing his memory. “Once again, thank you. I wouldn’t have healed so quickly had I not shifted.”

“I know.”

Ainsley was something else. Wanting to put that humiliating experience behind him, he focused on the case. “Would you mind leaving your pink blouse with me?”

From the stove, she looked over her shoulder. “I don’t think it’s a good color for you.”

He cracked up, but then stopped as pain shot through him. “I thought perhaps Dr. Williams, the coroner, could collect some DNA off your shirt and compare it to any blood on Shamus. It’s a long shot, but maybe one or more of the same wolves had attacked him too.”

She spun around and clamped a hand over her mouth. “I never thought about blood samples. Tell your doctor to check the inside of my shirt. When I put it on after shifting, my arms and chest were covered in their blood. Your blood is probably on the outside.”

Jackson nodded. “I bet he’ll be able to tell the difference, but he might need a sample of your blood for comparison.”

“Anything he needs. By the way, I did overhear a few things.”

He sat up straighter. “What’s that?”

She explained how one of the men had said that there was sardonyx buried at the bottom of some well, but then another guy said it was only a rumor.

“It might not be,” Jackson said. He’d done a lot of research on that tale. “What else?”

“They said something about not being bothered by that bear again, but I didn’t know if they were referring to Shamus.”

“I can’t think of another bear they might be thinking of, unless it was when Kalan attacked their men at the bunker.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

A minute later, she delivered the eggs then poured the coffee. She sat across from him and he marveled how well she was holding up. “You’re so calm. Have you killed before?” he asked.

“No.”

Now he was even more impressed. “Are you okay with it?”

“No, but I was brought up to be tough.”

“That you are.” It was one of the many traits about her that he was beginning to appreciate.

*

Once Ainsley was
certain Jackson would be okay, she had to get out of there or chance giving into her urges to press up against him and feel his hot body against hers. Her damn wolf was too fascinated by the man. Any other guy might have ranted at her stupid move of trying to save him, but not Jackson. He appreciated what she’d done for him, and that made her want him all the more.

After retrieving her necklace from his glove compartment, she took off. By the time she returned home, it was almost five in the morning, and she needed to return to her wolf form for at least an hour to help heal some of her rather minor wounds. She worried that if there was any evidence of a fight, when she worked on Mr. Ernst’s father, he might call her out on it.

Ainsley undressed then lifted Jackson’s college sweatshirt to her nose and inhaled. It contained his yummy scent. To prevent her from obsessing over it though, she would launder it and then return it to him. She walked over to the small closet that contained her stackable washer-dryer and tossed his clothes in.

Jackson, Jackson. Throughout this whole ordeal, he’d been so nice, despite his initial dislike of her kind, but she could hardly blame him for that when she hated the Changelings just as much.

The image of jumping into the lake to be cleansed appeared in her head. Being free of her altered genes would be a dream come true. The big question now was what did she need to do next? As much as she wanted to locate where Shamus was killed, it didn’t seem to matter now. Most likely, he’d run into those men, or ones like them, and had been attacked.

Her job at the moment was to eliminate all evidence of the fight, heal, and then dress to meet up with Mr. Ernst at eight that morning. She debated wearing her new necklace, but because the stones were sardonyx, she decided against it, as she didn’t need Mr. Ernst eyeing it. She could almost hear Shamus tell her never to take it off, that it would protect her from many things, but she couldn’t chance some Changeling stealing it.

“Sorry, Shamus.”

After resting for an hour as her wolf, she shifted back, checked in the mirror, and concluded she looked fine. She then tossed on her uniform, packed up her portable table and loaded it into the back of her Jetta. Next to it, she placed her case that contained her needles, therapeutic magnets, herbal medicines, and other accessories.

Let’s do this
. With her stomach still upset, she jumped in the car and headed back up the mountain toward the Changeling compound.

This time, when she drove by the site where she’d spotted Shamus, she didn’t look. “We’ll make the men who did this to you pay, Shamus. I promise.”

More determined than ever, she drove to her location. Mr. Ernst’s directions were spot on, and she arrived with a few minutes to spare. A large black SUV sat in the drive in front of a sprawling one-story red brick home that had white shudders and white trim. Mr. Ernst must do quite well for himself if he could afford such a nice home. Because of his father’s failing health, John Ernst had told her he’d moved his dad in with him. He’d never mentioned if there was a Mrs. Ernst, however.