BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (97 page)

Bruce nodded. He knew what was going on. If there was someone that knew, it was Murray. They were in trouble. Not yet, as Dwayne had said, but it was coming. And with Tara trying to kill Jenna, he already had his hands full.

They sat side by side until the sun came up. Dwayne finally got up.

“Well, that’s me,” he said and headed off into the trees, going to god-knew-where. Bruce got up too, and started his route back down the mountain. The night had been a rough one, and his muscles ached. The change had hurt him, doing it that fast, and the amount of blood he’d had a few nights in the row couldn’t give him enough energy now. He’d almost depleted his levels.

He walked down past his own cabin, and knocked on Jenna’s door. She was up, and she opened.

“How are you doing?” he asked. She looked haunted, with dark circles around her eyes, and her cheeks were sunken into her face, lifting out the contours of her skull so that she looked dead on her feet.

“Come in,” she said and her voice was empty. She stepped to the side and Bruce walked in. When Jenna closed the door she held onto her one arm with the other hand. She looked lost, even in her own home.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asked again.

“Alive,” Jenna answered, her face still an expressionless mask. “Thanks to you.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t lose you,” Bruce said, and Jenna’s face crumpled. She started crying and he pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her body. He felt her sobbing against him, and he held onto her. He wanted her to know that he would keep her safe, that he was a fortress she could run to.

Her sobbing blew over and then calmed down. She hiccupped against him and he could feel the wetness of her tears soak through his shirt.

“Marry me,” he said. Jenna stilled in his arms.

“What?” she asked.

He would have liked to wait for the right time to propose. He would have liked to tell her everything first and have her decide with all the knowledge. There were a lot of things he would have liked, but what he wanted most was to have her alive. If he waited maybe it would be too late.

“Marry me, Jenna,” he said. “I can’t bear to lose you.”

Chapter 1

Bruce stood outside his cabin between the trees and breathed in deeply. The air smelled like winter. It wasn’t there yet, but it was coming. The Syracuse Mountains caps were capped with snow and it seemed like the white blanket creeped further and further down the mountainside, closer to the valley.

It was impossible to step outside now without a coat, and then the wind still cut to the bone. It was going to be a hard winter, harder than it had been for a while.

But not yet. The winter wasn’t coming just yet.

He’d been out hunting again through the night. He did it to keep control of his beast, so that the bear in him wouldn’t rip out of his body when he didn’t want it to. Being a shapeshifter wasn’t always easy, but he’d learned over the years how to deal with it.

Now, with his face turned toward the east, in human form, he felt the blood of the animals he’d hunted, surging through his veins and resonating with the animal inside of him.

The sun rose over the mountains and cast light onto the valley, chasing away the silver shadows of night and arriving in a chorus of color. The village was still asleep, but they wouldn’t be for long. But no one was going to rush off to work today. No one was going to open up shop and make a living like any other day.

No, today was a day for celebration. Bruce and Jenna were getting married.

It hadn’t come about the way Bruce would have liked it to. He’d always thought that when he found the one, the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with, it was going to be more romantic.

Not that it wasn’t romantic with Jenna – every moment he spent with her was a combination of an electrical surge and the soft warmth of peace and love. It was addicting all in itself. But he would have liked to court her for longer, and made the proposal something romantic with rose petals, or a picnic by the lake, or something.

Not the odd way in which he’d asked her, the night after she’d been attacked by the leopard. The wereleopard. Tara, the alpha of his pack of misfit shapeshifters up in the mountains. 

But he loved her, that much he knew. And he couldn’t stomach the thought of losing her. He’d had to offer her his protection, make it so that if Tara challenged Jenna, she had to challenge Bruce first.

That was safer. Bruce would rather die himself than lose Jenna. It was the only way out he could see if Jenna didn’t want to leave Williamsburg with him. Which she hadn’t wanted to, he’d asked.

He took a deep breath and blew it out with a shudder. Excitement hung in the air. He could almost taste it. Marriage was a big thing in the village, and everyone was involved. Bruce and Jenna didn’t have to pay for anything. The villagers took care of everything from the venue and the cake and the sermon all the way through to the food and the alcohol, instead of wedding gifts.

It was sweet. It was close and personal.

It was terrifying.

These were the people that were in danger because of Bruce. It would have been better if he could just leave, but he wasn’t going without Jenna. And if he stayed, the people in the town were always in danger. Tara was a force of nature to be reckoned with, and the other shifters were loyal to the death to her, not because of respect but because of fear. Put fear and animals in the same room and it got ugly.

The Family, the pack he belonged to, didn’t know he was getting married. They would know eventually, but he hadn’t told them, not even Cleveland.

The bird of prey shifter was more loyal to him than to Tara and it was him that had told Bruce about mating Jenna to ensure her safety. But Bruce didn’t want to tell him, because Tara was a loose cannon and she could get into people’s heads. It just wasn’t safe.

Bruce emerged from the trees and started walking into town. Here and there people were up and about, taking care of the livestock, waving at him and calling out their excitement about the wedding. He waved back and laughed. A thrill went through him.

No matter how much he belonged to a pack of shapeshifters, belonging to a community of friends like this was just something else. And sometimes, he would only admit to himself and no one else, it was something better.

He walked to the trees that started on the other side of the row of shops. The trail was clear, trodden more often by many feet, and finally it came out onto the cemetery.

Bruce had no relatives here. He’d only been in the town for five years, or just a bit more. Everyone he loved here was still alive, save for the few elders he hadn’t known so well that had passed away. But Jenna’s parents were here, and he was driven to visit their graves. Jenna wouldn’t be there today. She was getting ready for the ceremony that was going to take place at midday. It was a relief because he wanted to see her parents alone.

Bruce had never known Jenna’s father, and only spoken to her mother a handful of times. He stood in front of the graves, practically strangers, and sighed.

“Today your daughter will become my wife,” he said. “And I will do what I can to keep her safe. She’s as precious to me as must have been to both of you, and I will lay down my life for her if I have to.”

It was as close to asking their blessing as he could get, but somehow it still didn’t feel like enough. There was more pressing on him.

He took another deep breath and glanced around him. He didn’t want anyone around, didn’t want anyone to hear what he was going to say next. But he had to say it out loud. He had to get it off his chest or it was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

He had a feeling it was going to, anyway.

“I have to lie to her,” he said. “To tell her what I really am is only to put her in more danger. For that I am sorry. She deserves the truth and I know I’m not worthy of her love. But her safety means more to me than my honor.” He took yet another deep breath, struggling to breathe under the weight of his confession. “For that I truly am sorry.”

He turned his back to the graves and walked into the trees, straining his ears for any sound. If anyone had heard his confession… it had felt awkward speaking it out loud. But all he heard was the sound of birds calling to each other in the trees, the sound that always accompanied the dawn. He picked up speed and broke out of the trees back into the village.

The next stop was the Banbury Inn, the local watering hole. It was the regular visiting spot for all the men in the town, and the odd woman that liked liquor. It was almost always open, and Murphy behind the bar was the whole village’s grandfather, so to speak.

When he walked inside he let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting before he walked over to the bar and sat down. Murphy stood behind it, hands folded on his big belly, looking like he just woke up. His apron looked like it was the one from the night before.

“You’re in here early,” Murphy said.

“Just here for a drink. Big day and all.”

Murphy eyed him, but found a bottle of whiskey and poured him two fingers.

“Cold feet?” he asked. Bruce shook his head and threw back the contents of the glass. It wasn’t cold feet, was it? No. He wasn’t scared to
marry
Jenna. He was scared he couldn’t protect her. It wasn’t the same thing. Not marrying at all would be worse, so definitely not cold feet.

“What’s eating you?” Murphy asked.

“I guess the same thing that eats every groom on the big day. Marriage is a big deal.” It wasn’t the same thing at all, but he was the only one to know that.

Murphy nodded. He’d never tied the knot, but everyone listened to his snippets of wisdom anyway.

“Jenna is a good woman. She’ll make you very happy.”

He pegged Bruce with a hard look, and Bruce knew what was coming before Murphy opened his mouth again. He nodded even before Murphy started talking.

“If you hurt her,” it came, “I’m going to make you sorry you ever met her.”

Bruce sighed and pushed his glass toward Murphy for a refill. He believed the man. His intentions were good and Jenna was like a daughter to most of the older men in town. But Bruce was strong enough to take Murphy out without blinking. Preternatural strength just wasn’t the same thing. That wasn’t what he was worried about.

What got to him was the fact that a tiny part of him, a part that he shoved away so far it was hidden in the darkest shadows of his soul, was already sorry he’d met Jenna.

Without him in her life, she would be safe. All of this was his fault, and now he was marrying her, not because he loved her – even though he did – but because he feared that if he didn’t, she would die. If that wasn’t a hell of a way to start the ride as a new husband, he didn’t know what was.

“You ready for this, son?” Murphy asked, and Bruce wasn’t sure what he meant – taking care of Jenna, being a husband, doing a wedding today. The answer was ‘no’ on all counts. He threw back the second glass of whiskey and smiled brightly, nodding.

He headed back to his cabin after that. The alcohol had done nothing to make him feel better. With his immune system he just couldn’t get drunk – the curse of being a shapeshifter. And today he really would have been happy to be at least tipsy. He couldn’t remember when last the alcohol had done something to him. Before the change happened the first time? He must have been fifteen or sixteen.

That was what, fifteen years sober? Too much, he thought.

He stepped into the warmth of the cabin and got dressed. He’d gotten himself a wedding outfit from Rhodestown a week ago. They’d waited a month since he’d asked Jenna to marry him. Out here no one stayed engaged for long. There was no point stretching it out. And given how fast their relationship had escalated, getting married so soon wasn’t strange for them.

He put on brand new jeans, black not blue, and black shoes he’d bought and then polished until he could see himself in them. He wore a brown rough leather jacket that was so dark it reminded him of his fur when he was a bear, and underneath it had had on a white shirt and a black tie. It was close to groom’s wear he was going to get.

It wasn’t going to be formal. Murray had told him what to expect after he, too, had threatened him.

By the time it was almost noon, someone knocked on his door. He opened and found Drew on his doorstep. Something inside him lurched, maybe the serious dislike he had for the man. Drew had been with Jenna for a short while and Bruce had been very jealous. But the man smiled and Bruce held back the scowl.

“It’s time,” he said, and Bruce wondered which practical joker had sent Drew of all people. Maybe the sucker had volunteered in an effort to make peace. Well, that wasn’t going to soften Bruce up. He was too on edge about the stuff going on with his pack to let go of his grudge for an idiot like Drew and be friends.

The whole town had gathered and Bruce realized how small the village really was. There were only a couple of hundred people. But the square had been decorated with white streamers and chairs had been taken out of every restaurant, shop and home to let everyone sit down. It was pretty the way nothing matched, all lined up and facing the front.

The preacher stood at the front and nodded at Bruce. He had a white robe on and clutched his bible. The preacher was the only man Bruce hadn’t really ever spoken to. He never spent time in the pub, obviously, and Bruce felt uncomfortable around the man. Being a shapeshifter just didn’t leave a lot of space for God and religion.

Bruce walked to the front and waited there. A couple of minutes later music started playing. Bruce followed the sound to his left and noticed some of the younger ones with guitars and a keyboard. It was quite modern for this backward place.

He felt her before he saw her. Her presence was like the sun, breaking through the clouds, warming his skin. He turned his head to the back of the seating arrangements, and Jenna stood in a white dress at the other end of the aisle. She wore a very simple white dress that clung to her body in all the right places. She didn’t have a veil – instead she had white Wisteria in her hair and her make-up was done in such a way that her green eyes looked greener than ever.

She smiled when she looked at Bruce, and that same warmth that had fallen on him when she’d arrived spilled into his body.

He may have been marrying her to protect her, but the union was definitely not a mistake.

Murray took her arm and walked her down the aisle, and as they came closer Bruce’s throat clenched up and his chest got tight. He cursed himself silently. He wasn’t going to cry in front of her, in front of the whole damn town.

But she looked amazing. And she wanted him. She was all his. He’d waited for this for five years, thinking it was never going to come. He’d loved her since he’d seen her in the woods five years ago, and then helped her out from underneath that fallen tree.

And he’d never thought that this was the path they were going to walk together.

When she finally stood next to him he reached out his hand and touched her with his fingertips, just to be sure it was all real. She smiled.

“You look good,” she said to him.

“You look amazing,” he breathed.

They both turned to the preacher and he started his sermon. Bruce didn’t hear a word of what he was saying. Half of him pulled his attention toward Jenna who stood next to him, and would be at his side for the rest of his life. The other half of him pulled up to the mountains, where his Family were somewhere between the trees.