Bear Love (3 page)

Pain filled Mike as one of the lion shifters raked a claw
down his back. He felt blood seep into his thick fur, almost burning hot. The
big cat had latched onto him tight with all four claws. Mike shook himself
violently. The lion shifted balance and clung tighter, but at least it couldn’t
rake him while it was holding on like that.

The other two had blasted into him
from both sides and were raking and chewing on his shoulders and the back of
his neck. He raged and bit. Growling out his fury, he threw himself to the
ground and rolled back and forth, hoping to crush the bastards. All three
scattered.

When he rose, dizzy from blood loss
and on fire with pain, they were already surrounding him, lifting their teeth
back from long, bloody canines. Blood even dripped from their manes. Damn, the
things had really chewed him up good.

He was starting to think this was a
bad idea. It had seemed like a good one at the time. He couldn’t drive fast
enough to catch up with Jess, but he could shift and lope down the mountain
until he was able to get ahead of her on the endless switchbacks. He was still
debating how that meeting would have gone. It had been a shock to smell the
reek of strange shifters—he’d never smelled lion before, not even at a zoo—and
a greater shock to see them advancing on Jess and her friend when he’d finally
caught up to them. He hadn’t even hesitated in coming to her defense. Now,
though, she was lost in the woods and he was about to get massacred. He could
handle one or two lions, sure, but three was pushing it.

The fourth one, whom he’d almost
knocked off the road, climbed to its clawed feet, shaking the blood from its
side.
That
blood, at least, came from
it and not Mike.

Shit
,
he thought.
Four of these devils is too
many.

It pissed him off to admit that he
was outmatched, but he knew he was as the fourth lion joined the other three
and together they began circling him. Any moment and they would leap on him
again, all at once, and he’d be finished.

You
can’t die
, he thought.
You’ve just
met your mate!
And if he died, she would too, he had no doubt, or meet a
fate worse than death.

The lions leapt.

With an enraged bellow, Mike
charged forward. He swatted one of the felines away, felt another lose its hold
on his side, and growled in pain as the other two landed on his flanks and dug
in.

He threw himself to the ground
again and felt a bump. Good. He’d hurt at least one of the asshats. The other
one fell away as Mike climbed to his feet and blundered forward. He smashed through
the pine trees bordering the road and bounded downhill, away from the lions.

From the sounds of their growls,
they gave chase.

He could smell Jess and Suzy ahead.
Damn it all. He couldn’t lead the lions to the girls. Changing course, he
angled away, going at a forty-five degree angle from the ladies.

He could only hope the lions
followed him, not Jess and Suzy.
He
might be able to survive a running fight through a snow-covered forest at night
against a pride of lion shifters.

Well, at least for awhile.

Heart pounding, Jess ran. Tree limbs slashed at her face,
showering snow and slicing at her cheeks. More snow crunched underfoot, sucking
at her stylish faux-fur boots, making running difficult. Her breaths exploded
from her mouth in little puffs of steam. Some yards off to the side, she could
hear Suzy’s footfalls and rapid breaths.

“I think I hear them behind us!” Suzy
gasped.

Jess could hear very little over
the sound of her own heart smashing in her ears, but she believed Suzy.

“Run faster!” she said, and
followed her own advice.

The night was black beneath the
trees, but here and there the moonlight cut down between clouds, illuminating
the floor of the forest and preventing Jess from dashing herself against a tree
or jutting boulder. Luckily little undergrowth grew here and the spaces between
the trees yawned wide. Ahead, Jess thought she saw a bright patch that might be
a break in the forest.

“There!” she said, pointing.
Hopefully Suzy saw her gesture. “Go that way!”

They ran toward the bright patch
and burst out into a clearing. Before them, a light drift of snow settled on
the roofs of a dozen or so log cabins arranged loosely along the slope. Jess
and Suzy slowed, then stopped for a moment, panting. The scene was idyllic, all
those sleepy snow-covered cabins overlooking a grand vista, what little could
be seen of it at this hour: white-capped peaks mounting toward the dark horizon.
Jess could sense them if she couldn’t see them very clearly.

We’re
safe,
she thought.
The lions won’t attack
us if there are people around.

“I don’t get it,” Suzy said,
inspecting the cabins. “There’s no smoke from the chimneys.”

Jess looked. Suzy was right: the
chimneys were idle. Despair overwhelmed her.

“They must be abandoned,” Jess said.

“Damn.”

“Maybe we can still use them. Hole
up in one. Barricade the doors.”

Suzy snapped her fingers. “If these
cabins have ever been used, there might be things left behind. Guns, maybe.
Knives.”

They set off, threading their way
through the silent buildings.

“We can’t just pick the first one,”
Suzy said. “Gotta make it a little more difficult for Bryce and his cronies.”

“Maybe the snow will mask our
smell,” Jess said.

“I hope so, but we can’t count on
it." A few minutes later, she said, "How about that one?”

They arrived before a large cabin
on the edge of the subdivision. Snow heaped on its roof and caked its stone
chimney, but there was something inviting about the building nevertheless,
something homey. Suzy leapt up the three stairs to the porch and pounded on the
front door. No one answered. She tried the door. Locked. Jess tried a window,
then another. The third one proved to be unlocked, and she shoved it open and
crawled inside. Suzy followed. A flurry of snow followed them inside, and Jess
slammed the window closed.

“Shit!” Suzy said. She stamped her
feet and shivered dramatically.

“Wish we could light the
fireplace,” Jess said, blowing on her hands. Why couldn’t she have grabbed some
gloves?

“We can’t?” said Suzy.

“Nope. One, the smoke might draw
the lions in. Two, we don’t have any firewood.”

They looked around. The cabin was
completely empty. No furniture, no wood, no guns. Nothing.

“Damn it all,” Suzy said. “The
rotten luck. We can’t even barricade the doors. Should we risk going back out?
You know, keep going through the woods until we find someone that can help us?”

Jess thought about it. “I don’t
think so. We’d probably run into Bryce if we did, or get hurt somehow. Or get
lost and freeze to death. No, it’s lucky we found this place. Let’s just hope
the snow covers our smell.”

“Ride it out till morning, huh?”

Jess sighed. “Wish I’d brought my
phone with me.”

“Me, too. And this place doesn’t
even have a landline.” Suzy chewed her lip. “You really think it will be safe
by morning?”

“Well, we can’t stay here forever.
And can’t weres only change under a full moon?”

Suzy laughed as she peeked out the
window. “That’s werewolves, and just in movies. It’s not a full moon now. No,
they can change anytime, I think. Maybe it’s different from shifter type to
shifter type. I don’t know.”

Jess moved beside her and peered
through the blinds.

“It just looks black outside,” she
said.

Suzy made a
mmm
noise. “Guess we should stay away from the windows. And we
can’t turn on any lights, or the heater, or anything?”

“We probably shouldn’t.”

Suzy glanced at her, and though the
room was dark, lit only by the scant light that filtered in through the blinds,
Jess could see the naked fear in her face. Suzy’s eyes glistened with moisture.
Her shaking returned, and she crossed her arms over her chest and huddled
against herself.

Jess wrapped her arms around her
friend. Together, the two slid down a wall and held each other while the wind
howled outside and somewhere a pack of lion shifters hunted them.
And Mike?
Jess wondered.
Is he still fighting for his life out there?
The thought entered her mind that he might be dead, dead because of her, and
horror overwhelmed her. Suddenly tears filled her eyes.
This is my fault
, she thought.
All
my fault. If only I’d had that drink with him, none of this would have
happened.

Emotion welled up in her, more than
she could contain, and she began to cry. Suzy wept louder, giving into it, too,
finally, and they cried together in the night. Gradually, though, Jess felt the
emotions pass, and when her tears dried she felt lighter somehow. Stronger.

“We’ll get through this,” she said,
though her voice was still thick. “We’ll make it, don’t you worry.”

Suzy wiped at her eyes. “When did
you get so brave?”

Jess laughed, surprising herself.
“Must have been during the divorce. Andrew’s lawyer was a shark.”

Suzy barked a startled laugh. Sadly,
she said, “You two were such a cute couple back in college, Jess. What
happened?”

“I don’t think I ever saw the real
Andrew, only the face he wanted me to see. When his banking career took off, he
started to let the real Andrew show through.”

“What do you mean?”

“He began to turn vain—and cruel,
too. He would snap at me for no reason. Sometimes viciously. Accuse me of
terrible things. Put me down. He wouldn’t come home till late, and he was
always traveling.”

“You think he was having an
affair?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But if he
was, that wasn’t, you know,
why
. I
mean, that wasn’t the cause of it all. It was just …
him
. And us, maybe. Something about us just wasn’t working. He would
snap at me, and I would pull away. Or maybe he snapped at me because he sensed
I
was
pulling away.” She let out a
breath that felt caged inside her. “I don’t know. All I know is when I decided
to pull the plug on it at last, he went crazy. Grew enraged. As if somehow I
had challenged him.
He
would tell me
when it was over, he said. It wasn’t over till he’d said it was. I think he
would have left me just as soon as I dropped the divorce, but it would have
been on his terms. He was—is—that much of an asshole. But I couldn’t take the
chance. I needed out, and I needed it fast.”

“So you gave him the house.”

Jess realized she was smiling. “I
got off cheap.”

Suzy squeezed her in a hug. “I’ve
missed you.”

“You, too.” They had been so close
in college, but then Jess had met Andrew, and Suzy had stayed single. For a
long time, Jess and Suzy had stayed BFFs, but it was harder, being part of a
couple and having a single friend. Then Suzy had left the city and returned to
the country where she was from. The mountains. Even then they’d written to each
other and flown to see each other sometimes. But it just wasn’t the same. Now,
though, they were both single—Suzy had never married, even now, ten years after
college—and in the same place.

“You planning on going back to San
Francisco when this is all over?” Suzy said. That was where Jess was from.

“I don’t know. San Fran may not be
big enough for me and Andrew to share.”

“You’re thinking of leaving?”

For some reason, Jess thought of
Mike, and smiled. “Maybe.” Sudden fear for him cut at her heart, and she choked
back a sob.

Apparently understanding, Suzy
squeezed her again. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“You think that was really him?”

“I’d bet on it. In fact—”

Knocking came from the door.

Jess started to gasp, then stopped
herself. She and Suzy stared toward the dim shape of the door, then at each
other. All Jess could see of her friend was the gleam off her eyes and a faint
halo in her hair.

The knocking returned.
Boom. Boom. Boom.

“Oh my God,” Suzy whispered. “You
think it’s Bryce?”

“I …” Jess swallowed.

Having to force herself not to
tremble, she climbed to her feet. When Suzy made motions to get up, Jess helped
her, too, and together they stood facing the door as the person on the other
side knocked again.

Boom.
Boom.

An icy shiver coursed down Jess’s
spine.

“I think we should open it,” she
said.

“But what if—?”

“I don’t think Bryce would knock.
And if he did and we didn’t answer, it would only piss him off worse. This way
he’ll at least pretend to be civil, for awhile.”

Jess sucked in a breath, moved to
the door and opened it.

A man, huge and naked and bleeding,
had been resting his weight against it, and when she opened the door he fell
against her, tumbling them both to the floor. Snow gusted in, swirling about,
alighting in Jess’s hair, which was the only part of her it could get at, since
Mike, and it was definitely Mike, was sprawled atop her. Her legs had wrapped
around his hips, and his groin was very close to hers. Most men would have been
frozen solid and shriveled, naked in this weather, but not a bear shifter, not
just after a shift and a fight.

Even in the dimness, she could see
his tired grin as he stared down at her.

“Well, hello there,” he said, and
kissed her on the lips.

Shocked, she hesitated, then kissed
back, and instantly she could feel him grow hard against her.

Then he gave out a groan, his eyes
rolled up in his head, and he passed out, pinning her to the floor.

“A little help here?” she said, her
words half-muffled by Mike’s body.