Redeem The Bear (10 page)

Her jaws hurt so badly and she was losing her grip. This was it. She
couldn’t hold on any longer. Not with him thrashing like this.

A blur of black fur rushed the edge of her vision
, and the grizzly flew sideways just as she released him. Joanna, snarling and bloodied, was tumbling end over end with the enemy bear.

Something was happening near the center of the field. Men were shouting. Men? Bears were changing back to their human forms in the middle of battle? They would die within seconds. More yelling
, but Corin was already running after the grizzly. He was hurting Joanna. Ducking a flying claw from a fighting pair of black bears, she scrabbled for footing on the dewy grass and latched onto his neck again. She couldn’t fail this time. It wasn’t just her who would die. Joanna would go with her. The grizzly was fighting for his life and exceptionally dangerous to two bears half his size.

She clamped down and held on as Joanna clawed at him. Another blazing cut sliced through her back, but if a bear was going to kill her from behind, there was nothing she could do about it now.

The bear went limp, and his eyes glassed over as he stared at the haunted meadow grass in front of his face. When Corin looked up, Joanna was watching a bear streak across the field with wide eyes. A small, muddy blonde grizzly was running toward the tree line, but why was she retreating?

Unless she wasn’t retre
ating.

She wasn’t Bear Valley, not anymore. Merit was headed for camp.

Men’s yelling was becoming increasingly louder, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the murderous look on Merit’s face. What was she after?

She grunted
in horror with the realization. Hannah!

Joanna had engaged with another b
lack bear and Anya was running to help her, and the panic in Joanna’s eyes gutted Corin. Her friend bellowed a short roar.
Go.

Hesitating only long enough to make sure Anya reached the fight, she took off after Merit, paws punching the ground as she pushed herself faster and faster. Warmth was trickling
down her back, but there wasn’t time to worry about that. Merit had already disappeared into the trees.

Ducking around a charging sun bear, Corin panted and pushed her ruined body faster.

Hannah was human and defenseless.

T
he oracle had been right to visit Riker’s dream.

The medical t
ent was thrashed, and everywhere spilled supplies and tables lay useless in the mud. An old, gray-faced bear lay still near a splintered pine and Hannah screamed, “Daria,” over and over like it would bring the old healer back.

Merit circled Hannah, about to lunge
, and there was no time to slow down and mourn the great loss.

Hannah was crying as she lifted her face to Merit. “Why?” she screamed.

Merit huffed a cruel sounding laugh and lurched toward her.

Shielding her face, Hannah crumpled against Daria’s body as Corin flew over her and hit Merit in the chest.

The grizzly fell backward, and kicked Corin in the stomach so hard, she went sprawling against a tree. The rough bark scraped her side as she slid down it, but Merit was already upright again. Out of time, Corin scrabbled forward and latched onto Merit’s back leg. The loud crack of snapping bone echoed through the woods. She wished she could tell Hannah to run, but she couldn’t get out more than a growl, and the tiny human was looking frantically around for something. No broken table leg or stick was going to put Merit off of the murder she intended though.

Roaring in anger and pain, the grizzly spun and raked a vicious volley of resounding slaps against Corin’
s face and neck. Pain was everything, burning brightly as Merit’s claws slashed her again and again.

She could see it now. Her doom was coming as Merit reared back and lifted her paw. One side of the grizzly’s lip was curled up with smug satisfaction as she limped closer and tensed her arm to deal the final blow.

Corin closed her eyes as the six inch claws arched toward her face.

Boom
, boom, boom.
The echo of gunfire rocked the woods and Merit stood stunned above Corin. Hannah stood ten feet away with what looked like a Glock raised in her shaking hands.

The birds
fled and the breeze didn’t dare to life a single leaf. All was quite except for the sound of men’s angry voices that drifted through the trees from the haunted meadow.

Merit slid a shocked glance to
Hannah, and grunted once before she fell backward. Two more shallow breaths, and the grizzly stilled in a crumpled heap.

A sob escaped Hannah’s thr
oat as she rushed toward Corin. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she chanted. “What do I do?” Her fingers fluttered over Corin’s neck, barely touching the fine ends of her matted fur.

“Anya!” she screamed. “Anya, h
elp me!” Her voice was petrified and hoarse, and the panic in it scared Corin.

She must look bad to frighten brave Hannah.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Hannah sobbed as she searched the upended supplies for something.

Everything hurt so badly,
Corin would pass out soon.

The men’s shouting was closer now
, and footsteps pounded against the forest.

“No.” Brooks tone was so bleak.

He stood in the shadow of the quiet woods, cut, bleeding and naked. His eyes, so dark and empty the last time she’d seen him, were silver and full of horror as he looked at her now. At least he felt something.

She tried to
curl her lips back in a reassuring smile as he rushed to her. What was he doing here? The battle wasn’t over.

“Change back,” he demanded, panic lacing his voice.

She didn’t have the energy, but she couldn’t tell him so. Her arm pricked and Hannah emptied something cold into her veins. Her heart started pounding faster and her body hummed.

“Corin, I need you to change back,” Brooks pleaded.

Closing her eyes against the pain, she melted into her human form, and Brooks scooped her up and set her on a table Hannah had righted.

Whatever Han
nah had given her was making Corin uncomfortable and too alert. The pain burned through her cells like she’d swallowed magma, and it was destroying her from the inside out.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said through chattering teeth.

“I stopped it,” Brooks said, voice hoarse like he hadn’t used it in a long time. “I saw you running, so focused, and they were going to kill you. Everyone was going to die so I stopped it. Changed and begged Riker to help me stop the war.” He threaded a needle deftly and didn’t give her so much as a warning before the shiny curved instrument pierced her neck.

Hannah sat on the other side, eyes focused, doing the same.
No introductions had been made, but that didn’t seem to matter to them. They were unified over a common goal—to save her.

“Hannah? Thanks for saving me
from Merit.”

A tiny smile curved
the human’s mouth and disappeared as she pulled another stitch. “We saved each other.”

“We proved the oracle wrong, huh?”
Corin’s voice shook more and more as she fought the uncomfortable effects of the medicine.

“
Shhh, you silly bear,” Hannah cooed. “Enough talking now and let us work.”

Corin’s
vision grew dimmer and something cold pressed into the palm of her hand. Brooks closed her fingers over the necklace she’d given him and leaned over her.

And right as darkness crept across his face, he whispered, “I remember.”

****

The meadow looked otherworldly under the midday sun. Brooks stood st
unned, looking out over what he had almost done. Bears had died here today, but the toll was in the tens, not the hundreds. Mace stood silently beside him, along with eight other high ranking members of the Long Claws. They’d been verbally shredding him for his efforts at ending the battle early.

It was hard for him to care about their disappointment when his hands and arms were covered in Corin’s blood.

She had looked so pale when her people hauled her away in one of Bear Valley’s jeeps. Every instinct inside of him screamed to go with her, but he couldn’t. Not with the shit storm he had to deal with here.

Riker approached,
his hands clasped behind his back, his face somber.

“Leave us,” Brooks
said.

Grumbling, his men walked away toward the Long Claw camp.

“How many did you lose?” he asked Bear Valley’s alpha.

“Twelve and our healer. You?”

“Ten.”

“It could have been more.”

“Many more,” Brooks agreed. “One of your bears changed my mind on the necessity of snuffing your people out.”

“Are you going to see her again?”

He looked away so Riker wouldn’t see the weak longing in his eyes. “Probably best I don’t. I’m not the best match for her.”

“No, you’re not.” Riker’s icy blue
gaze found his, daring him to look away first. “But you could be.”

One month
had passed. Three weeks and five days to be exact since the battle at the haunted meadow. Corin had healed, on the outside at least, and the scars she bore didn’t even bother her that much. Everyone had them now, and at least she’d made it away from that day with her life. That was more than she could say for some of the Bear Valley shifters they had buried in the old graveyard in the base of the Bighorn Mountains.

She wiped down a table top in the diner where she worked until it gleamed and moved to the next. Today was slow, and probably the
dark storm clouds that swirled over the sleepy town of Sheridan were to blame for that. Water drummed against the roof and a wave of rain pattered against the large picture window. The reflection there made her pause, wet rag still against the red Formica tabletop.

The diner looked cheery with its sixties themed
crimsons and chromes. But in the middle was her, and she looked like a ghost of her former self. Make-up hid the faint injuries Merit had given her, but it was her inner scars that seemed so much more obvious. Dark circles outlined her eyes, and the hazel color there looked hollow now.

She ha
d found him, then lost him again.

Inhaling deeply, she focused on an old Chevy pickup truck that cruised Main Street out front. It was one of those classic ones with a light green paint job. The driver passed the parking lot of the diner and continued up toward the police station.

“Honey?” Marta asked. She was the sturdy, motherly type who spent much of her time in the diner kitchen making those pies this place was famous for.

Corin straightened her posture. “Yes?”

“I think that table is clean. You’ve been scrubbing the same spot for ten minutes.”

Ten minutes. Where had her mind gone for so long?

Marta pushed her horn rimmed glasses up and into her hair and gave her a kind, if sympathetic, smile. “You’ve been through a lot, what with the bear attack and all. Are you sure you’re ready to come back to work?”

“Oh, I am. I need the money and besides, it helps to keep busy.”

“Are you hurting? I have some Advil in the back that might take the edge off a little.”

It wasn’t the injuries to her face that were the problem. Corin’s back was crisscrossed in claw marks. She tried to walk without stiffness to appear strong, but apparently she hadn’t been doing a good enough job
in front of Marta. Another couple of weeks of shifter healing and she wouldn’t even feel them anymore. She hoped.

“Thank you, but no. I’m fine.” That and her bear would eat her from the inside out if she tried pain medicine again. The first week after the battle had been traumatizing to her animal side.
Now she only used a balm Anya had given her before she slipped into bed each night.

“Okay.” Marta’s frown deepened. “Phone call in the back for you, hon.”

“For me?”

“Yep.” She winged up her eyebrows as if she were just as shocked as
Corin, then began to refill a row of empty napkin holders on the counter.

Crap. Riker was the only one who had ever called this place, and that was to tell her to get her ass back to Bear Valley when Brooks had declared war. This was bad.

Wiping her hands on the frilly white apron over her red checkered server dress, she padded down the back hallway, past the pictures of past employee awards and drawings the owners daughter had colored of the restaurant when she was a child. Past the small, one-stall bathroom and to the door of the office.

The phone sat on the desk,
its old cord coiled like an earthworm after a downpour.

“Hello?” she breathed into the mouthpiece as she sank into the rickety old office chair.

No one answered and she frowned and tried again. “Is anyone there?”