Bear His Bond: Wylde Den Two (Alaskan Den Men Book 9) (8 page)

Brax’s head crooked to the side until he could see around Everett.

She shivered from the icy glare. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it’s not the bitch that’s your weakness but your little brother. Didn’t like it when my father had him killed for trespassing on our territory, did you? Poor little boy,” he continued in a singsong pattern.

She eased around until she could see Everett’s face. Stark shadows hid a portion but she could see the truth of Brax’s words in what she could see. “Is it true? Did you kill someone, Everett?”

He turned his head and locked gazes with her. Truth stared back.

“Oh, my bad.” Brax laughed, the sound a garbled mess as he spat blood. “She didn’t know.”

“I killed to protect myself and my brother, Pepper. I swear to you on my life.”

What could she say to that? Her eyes darted between each Wylde brother and she knew Everett told the truth.

From the way his shoulders flexed, if Brax didn’t back off, he’d be eating his words. A part of her wanted him to continue with more, but she didn’t want the murder she saw written on Everett’s expression to manifest in a dead body to report.

“Shut the fuck up, Brax. Don’t go there, man.” Rone shot a warning to Brax as he pushed forward and stood as a wall of naked muscle in front of Everett.

Everett struggled to push past his brother. Darkness crossed over his face and her heart ached for him. The man who fought and bled to protect her life with no concern for his own.

“You were a bastard, cast out of your own den by your family. We took you in. Why, Brax? Why?”

“I don’t belong with you. You’re weak, nothing compared to the strength of an ice bear.” She looked on in silence as rose to his knees. “I get this land back for my elder. I’ll be the new second-in-command.”

Everett snarled and lunged forward. “You’ll never get this land!” Everett lips barely moved as he spoke. She stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. He jerked his head around, a growl rolling up the back of his throat, before turning back to Brax.

Everett nailed his brother with a stone cold look and they briefly shared something no one else understood. After a moment Rone gave a swift nod and stepped to the side.

Her gaze followed Everett as he approached Brax who now knelt, blood seeping from wounds on his chest.

“Before you leave my land tell me if it was worth it. Worth betraying the one family who accepted you into their homes and hearts and never once treated you like the bastard you are.”

“All you did was accept a killer into your fold. Besides, you wouldn’t understand what it’s like being raised by a human. My mother was weak just like your father. I grew up without a den, without a family and I’m stronger for it. When I came of age and shifted for the first time, my mother abandoned me on this land and to my father’s mercy.” Everett advanced on him, buried a fist in Brax’s hair and hauled back.

“What do you mean killer?”

“Finally the boy genius has a clue.” Brax’s eyes grew colder every passing second. Any colder and death would look warm and fuzzy in comparison. This guy had some serious anger issues no amount of therapy could fix.

“The price to prove loyalty at the time.” Brax shrugged as though the life of another human being meant nothing.

“And your father still shunned you while my father showed you love. And mercy to heal the rift and prevent a war. When he should have killed you.” Everett balled his fist and lashed out. “And now, you want to take land that never belonged to your den and betray us all.”

“It’s the only way I could earn my spot next to my father. You and your stupid brothers never suspected me until you found me yesterday. If I’d waited a couple of hours, you’d all be dead and I’d be the rightful owner of this land.”

Up until then the shifters she understood as the ice bear’s half brothers spoke up. “Shut up, Brax.”

“Father promised a place for me in the family.” He lowered his head and narrowed his eyes on her.

She noticed the shift in him a second too late.

“And it’s worth killing you to make sure my plan continues.”

Having the advantage of the higher ground, Brax shifted midair and lunged.

Everett countered, but couldn’t shift fast enough. Electricity filled the clearing they occupied and served as the only warning.

Moored to the air as if it belonged, tingling sparks of magick suddenly surrounded them and pricked at her skin, causing a wash of surprise to flush the length of her back. From her left, pristine white fur brushed past all of them with a preternatural speed as another bear busted into the clearing. Between one second and the next the new bear had his jaws wrapped around Brax’s throat. The sound of bones shattering hit her ears before her eyes caught up with what just happened.

With another gust of energy, a man well over six feet and wider than a semi-truck with shoulder-length white hair stood naked over Brax, who was now dead. In fact, she was the only one with a stitch of clothing on. No one else seemed to be bothered by this fact either.

She gathered the end of her scarf in her hands. It was that or let her mind race with the endless possibilities of what happened now.

The same ghost white eyes she saw in the other bears stared first at her, his expression blank, before turning to Everett and his brothers. “There’s no room for traitors among any of us. Brother or not.”

Ahh. He must be the fourth brother she lost track of minutes before the all-out brawl had gone down.

“Now that I’ve cleaned up the mess, I don’t expect there to be any more trouble between our dens.”

“You killed on our land.”

“As did you once upon a time. Shall we call it even then, brother?”

“We’re not brothers,” Everett bit out a little too harshly for her liking.

“Keep a level head, man. Let it go.” Her eyes darted to Everett, who didn’t seem as if he wanted to let things go despite how much Rone advised him. Both Wylde brothers closed ranks around Everett while the third she still didn’t know stood by her side.

Rone held Everett’s gaze while he spoke to the newcomer. “We see you here again and there won’t be a free pass.”

“Understood.” Brother number four towered over his siblings by half a head, no sign of remorse for his actions in his stance or eyes. “Grab the baggage,” he snapped. “You have some explaining to do to your Elder.”

He turned back and nailed Everett with a piercing stare. They stood like that for what felt like a solid five minutes before he spoke. “You were kind to someone who never should have existed. He was right about one thing, though. Our father is weak. He was the reason your brother died at my father’s bidding. Brax was young enough and fool enough to fall prey to a father that never wanted him. Something I’ll see gets corrected on my own terms.” He paused, his gaze shifting through the trees a few seconds before it returned back to Everett. “You should know this— I and those who follow me do not share the same beliefs, and the old man is on the way out. When I assume the seat as Elder, an alliance would be welcome by me.”

All three grizzlies stood shoulder to shoulder, a lethal force when they had to be. Each turned on their heels and walked away without another word. What the hell did that mean? A yes? A no? Or go screw yourself?

Fog tumbled around their feet and she could tell the effect of what Brax put in the water grated on their senses, if not their skin too.

She rubbed a flat palm along the length of her forehead. GAH. Shifter customs hurt her brain.

“The fireweed. You… you use it to counter the poison,” she stuttered, unable to look away from the white-eyed ice bear. Mix it with some yarrow as a tea.”

“Thank you, human.”

“It’s Pepper.”

“Pepper,” he repeated in a slow drawl.

“Maybe we’ll see you around.” Why the hell did she keep talking?

He smiled in answer.

Everett approached her and pulled her in close with a soft kiss. She twined the ends of her scarf and only looked up when he slipped a finger beneath her chin. Slowly he nodded as though silently finding some answer he’d been seeking and turned back to call over his shoulder, “What’s your name, ice bear?”

“Bram, but friends call me Reaper.” He’d already started up the path, every muscle in his body contorting with each step.

No kidding.

Both her and Everett’s brows climbed a little at that.

“Until then, Reaper,” Everett answered, but the ice bear had already crested the ridge and disappeared from sight.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Pepper pulled from his arms and walked beside him, her gaze glued to the damn ground. Her fingers worked the cloth of her scarf like a priest did his rosary.

His bear roared in his mind still in protective mode. Now that the poison had burned through his system, his bear was back and in full mating force. With the danger gone, the adrenaline still pumped through his veins and his bear saw an outlet for the pent-up energy and it sure the hell had nothing to do with a long evening run and everything to do with the very quiet human walking beside him. His human. His mate.

Step after step, as they made their way back to his brother’s place a quarter of a mile beyond the ridge that separated their homes, the silence thickened into a dense fog.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked quietly. His brothers and Kohl, another werebear from a neighboring pack, walked ahead but he knew they could hear every word between them no matter how low he kept his voice. With the way his heart rate tripled in the last thirty seconds they probably knew he toed the line of a heart attack.

She wrapped her arms around herself, her small fingers digging into the flesh of her arms.

Her eyebrows furrowed, but she didn’t answer. Could he blame her? What she witnessed had to be unnerving to say the least. He would never forget the pain of witnessing his brother’s death. And to now know they’d harbored his killer. Tremors started in his fingers and worked their way up his arms until an iron fist tightened in his chest. He couldn’t get angry now. If he wanted a relationship, fury and guilt had no place in his life. The past would have to stay there if he wanted a future with her.

He tore a hand through his hair and slowed their pace with a gentle hand to her shoulder.

“What is it, Everett?” From where he stood his chances didn’t look so hot. All because he didn’t want to risk opening himself up to her and risk getting hurt. Wasn’t he already hurting?

She looked after Rone and Lorne as they continued on, giving them space.

“We need to keep up. Rone said he’d give us a ride back to town after gathering our things from the cabin.” Instead of pushing her glasses up her nose, which she’d lost at some point, she twisted the ends of her scarf around her fingers, let the material fall and then repeated the process.

He still her hands.

She looked down, unable to meet his gaze. Or unwilling? “I’m all right. We all are. You know I wouldn’t let anything or anyone hurt you right? Please talk to me.” He’d get down on both knees and beg for one smile. Just one. He didn’t care how weak it made him look.

“I know. Thank you, and I owe your brothers a big thanks too. Our cans were toast there for a while. Can we get going now?”

“Pepper, look at me.” He didn’t want her thanks. As far as he was concerned his whole existence started and stopped with her. Pepper looked up at him, and the words he had on the tip of his tongue dissolved, all but forgotten. Her gaze hit him like cold fire, the burn soul deep.

“Really, Ev. I’m fine. You’re fine now and your brothers have already disappeared over the hill. Let’s not make them wait. Plus, we need to call the rangers and get them out here ASAP.” She crossed her arms over her chest as if the topic was closed. He shoved down the frustration that wanted to become a belly deep roar. The little minx.

“Fuck them. I’ll carry you on my back all the way to town if I have to. What I need to know is if you are all right. Are we?” He gathered her hands in his.

The pain her eyes told him everything she wouldn’t put a voice to. “I see.” He took a pace back and his heart dropped to the floor the second her hands slipped from his.

“No, you don’t,” she countered, “but I don’t have the energy to get into all the information my brain is trying to process right now.”

Right. Before today she’d never seen a shifter change and now she not only had witnessed a bloody battle but witnessed one of his kind get killed. And learned he’d been forced to do the same to save himself from the claws of the ice bears when they left the safety of their own lands as cubs. And failed.

Why the hell did he think he could pull a human into his world? His oldest brother Adam didn’t have this problem. His mate had grown up in Claw Ridge and knew more about the shifters than the freaking government did, which said a lot. Pepper didn’t and Everett’s lapse of judgment in thinking they had any kind of future together nearly cost the woman her life.

She pulled away, her gaze lingering on his before she fully turned to follow his brothers.

Like hell this was over.

“We live in a violent world, Pepper,” he called out. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

She stopped. Turned. “Understand? This guy, Reaper, killed a man. A shifter. Right before our eyes.”

Here we go.
He could handle this. Rage and anger went hand in hand with working shit out. It was the silence he couldn’t deal with.

“How is that ‘something to understand?’” she continued as she threw up air quotes.

He cringed. Poor choice of words.

“I didn’t say I was proud of every aspect of what it means to be a werebear, or hell, shifter of any sort. Territory, den law, or understanding the hierarchy of our families… it’s not like your world.”

“Obviously. He killed your brother and then you took him in. How are you going to deal with that? How can you... I don’t know? How can you freaking take that in stride as if it’s old news?” She paused, her gaze dancing between his a moment as she gathered her thoughts. “It took a lot for you not to kill him yourself. I know that. But you guys act like it’s just another day on the job. You’re a pilot, for God’s sake, and you save lives.”

“It did take a lot. Had you not been there, had my brothers not held me back, Pepper, I might have. But just because I’m not lashing out and killing everything in my path out of rage doesn’t mean I’m not hurting. I have to make sure you’re safe first. Then I can deal with everything else. And I work hard every day to help heal the wound I caused in my family by killing that ice bear when they attacked my brother. Every damn day I fight that demon. I’m on the mountain with tourists, their lives are in my hands and I make sure they leave this piece of dirt intact—whole, while I’m not.”

During their argument she’d put several paces between them. The hell with that. There would be no distance, no untold stories between them from now on.

She kept quiet for several moments, “I’m so sorry, Ev. That’s a terrible thing to live with and I can’t begin to understand what you had to deal with to try to save your brother.” She took a couple of steps his direction and his heart soared with hope. “Would that ever happen to me as a human in a shifters world?”

What the fuck did that mean? What the hell was running through her mind for her to cook up that thought?

Pepper blinked back tears, and for the first time he got a glimpse of the fear she hid behind a wall of strength. Because if Pepper Cambridge was one thing it was strong and proud.

“Is that what you really think? That I or anyone else could hurt you like that?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’ve only known you for three months.”

“People have fallen in love in less.”

“But two different worlds, right?” She threw his words back at him. Devilish move. With her head tilted so far down her chin rested on her chest he couldn’t help but smile at how her words sounded muffled.

He advanced and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Never. I would rather die than see one hair on your head harmed. And so would any member of my family.”

“I know.” Her voice faltered and her chin trembled. “I’m so confused right now. I don’t…” She scrunched her nose and every drop of energy left her. From where he stood it looked like the weight of today’s events finally hit her. He couldn’t bear it when tears wet her lashes and threatened to spill any second. God, he was a bleeding heart.

“Then where is all of this coming from? Have I once threatened you or put you in harm’s way?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Exasperated, she threw her hands up and stomped off, those damn waders making squeaky thuds all the way up the path. “I’m losing her and don’t know how to fix it,” he mumbled to no one in particular unless the trees could point him true north. Fat chance there.

Fuck.

At his brother’s cabin he stomped up the back steps and yanked open the screen door to find Pepper parked at the counter surrounded by his brothers now dressed in their usual jeans and T-shirts. Anything that was easy to pull on—or off—for a quick shift. He peeked in as he grabbed a set of clothes for himself from the top of the dryer.

Damn them. They already accepted her into the fold, no doubt, with how they hung on every word that left her mouth.

“After a couple of more cups full of this tea everyone should be okay. I’ll be in town for another day so if you have any questions, just call me. But stay out of the water until we can get it cleaned up for you.” They circled around on all sides along with a fresh face to the family, Cherry. He didn’t know how they made the threesome work, but she was the reason behind Lorne and Kohl’s constant smiles lately. Their momma didn’t fully understand the concept but no one from their family interfered. To him, whatever made them happy made him happy. Not that he didn’t like dishing a few jabs when he could.

But not today.

She toyed with the ends of the damn scarf that would survive the freaking apocalypse if there ever were one. The delicate tassels swayed in the soft currents of cool air from the vent above.

“Cherry,” he gave a two finger salute as he worked down the edges of his shirt, “glad to see you’re doing good. You coming by Momma’s this Sunday for dinner?”

A sweet, delicate laugh met his ears. “We better. If Lorne misses two weeks in a row, Mrs. Wylde might hunt us down.” She leaned in for a brief hug and he could feel Pepper’s gaze on him the whole time. Cherry pulled back. “Kohl and Rone were just filling me in on what happened. What in the world got into Brax? I can’t believe it.”

Either could he.

Pepper placed her mug on the countertop to join three others and one for him. Her bright eyes widened. “You guys came in on the tail end of it, and just in time too.”

“Yeah, how did it come to all this? The poisoning of the water and shooting you?” Cherry asked.

“We’re still trying to figure it all out, but I think it all boils down to a man not knowing where he belonged.” He didn’t like the sad tone to Pepper’s voice one bit. As though she spoke from a place of truth. She belonged with him and dammit, she would learn that fact if he had to tie her up and show her every single day of their lives.

“Do you guys have a phone or a radio I can use? I need to call in the rangers.” Pepper’s question tore through his thoughts. She rose from her stool and looked at everyone except him.

“Uh, sure. This way.” Cherry guided Pepper from the kitchen. The second they rounded the corner into the living room, he turned to his brothers. “I fucked up.”

Each one blasted him with a ‘no shit’ look.

“You thought you could be human and she thought being shifter was no different than being human. You both messed up, but you more so. You knew better.”

He deserved that and nor could he argue with Rone’s observations. He tended to tell it like he saw it no matter how abrasive his thoughts came off.

“It’s worse. I didn’t tell her about Spencer, the incident surrounding my twin’s death, and now my bear wants to replace that broken link with her.”

“You mean, like your mom and dad’s connection?”

Everett closed his eyes and nodded. Kohl hit it on the nail.

Lorne nodded. “That’s great, man. I know you’ve been hurting since Spencer died. None of us knew how to help you. Maybe now we don’t have to worry anymore.” His brother crossed his arms and shared a look with his best friend, a look of confidence about them that only mated werebears could pull off.

“If Pepper still wants me.”

“You better get to work on that. I like her.” Lorne added with a hand on his shoulder.

“We all do,” Rone cut in.

“Means a lot, guys. But I don’t know.”

Lorne braced both hands on the counter. “It’ll work out. Trust your instinct.”

Everett snorted. If he had, he wouldn’t be in this mess.