Redeem The Bear (4 page)

When he finally pulled away, he whispered, “I wanted to kiss you first.”

A scream tore through the woods, and then another. Smoke touched the sensitive lining of her nose, and Daniel looked in the direction of the cabins with narrowed eyes.

“Come on,” he breathed. “Something’s wrong.”

The screaming turned to roaring as they ran through the woods, back toward the clan. She gasped in horror as they skidded into the clearing. All of the houses were burning, engulfed in giant flames that reached for the sky. And everywhere, bears fought.

A man stood back against the tree line and she recognized him. He was the Long Claw representative that had come to speak with her father and the council two days before.

Daniel’s chest heaved as he panted for breath, but black fury took his eyes as he watched the stranger.

“Run, Corin. Don’t look back, just run west toward Bear Valley. Tell them what’s happened here. I’ll find you if I’m able.”

Her family and friends were out there, being slaughtered. “I can’t leave!”

He spun and gripped her shoulders, then kissed her fiercely. “Do as I say. Go!”

She turned just as his bear ripped from him. Not grizzly or brown bear. Not even a rare Andean graced his family tree. Daniel’s bear was all that remained of an ancient lineage of giant short-faced bears.

She’d always been in aw
e of watching his animal, but today he’d asked her to run and she trusted him. She looked back in time to see him clash with a grizzly twice his size. He wasn’t big enough to do battle with the adults yet, but he fought the enemy viciously.

Something hit her from the side like a falling brick wall and she flew into the trunk of a tree. Fur and claws flashed before her as her vision cleared, and just as an unfamiliar black bear lifted her paw to end Corin’s life, a mass of fur and muscle hit her from the side a
nd sent the she-bear sprawling.

Daniel!

His eyes were panicked when he swiveled his head to her. Run, his look said as he lunged for the bear who had tried to kill her.

Two brown bears crashed through the woods toward them and
Corin lurched upward, trying to clear her head. With an echoing slap, Daniel sent the brown bear’s limp body tumbling down a ravine, and he spun to face the grizzlies.

She owed him. Get to Bear Valley, he’d said. If she could only get help for her people…

Pumping her legs, she pushed faster and faster until the brutal fight disappeared behind her. He was trying to give her time.

As long as she lived, she woul
d never forget the roar of Daniel’s pain as it echoed through the woods.

Corin jerked awake and pain shot up her
spine with the motion. She’d fallen asleep against the window of the truck, and now her stiff neck didn’t want to turn to the left.

“We’re here,”
Hannah said. Her green eyes were soft and sympathetic, and Corin hoped she hadn’t been talking in her sleep.

Massaging life back into her neck, Corin opened the door and stepped out. “Where’s here?”

“We’re about a quarter of a mile south from where the Long Claws have chosen to do battle,” Riker said.

From the somber tilt of his lips, what he really meant was they were a quarter of a mile away from where he was going to lose some of his people tomorrow.
Maybe all of them.

The hummers and jeeps pulled to a stop in a straight line behind Riker’s truck
, and the shifters began to unload.

She made her way
north through the trees, and Anya followed behind.

“Where are you going?” her friend asked.

“I want to see the battlefield.” Before it was haunted, preferably.

But when she arrived that the edge of a grove of pines, she realized she’d been wrong. This place was already haunted by ghosts. A dark-headed, dark-eyed figure stood across the meadow on the other side, and when she blinked, he was gone.

Shaking her head, she scanned the trees, but no one was there.

“What is it?” Anya asked
, catching up. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Corin’
s heart pounded against her chest as she compared the shadowy figure with the Daniel of her memories.

As quiet as a breath, she whispered, “I think I have.”

Back pressed against the rough bark of a lodge pole pine, Brooks stared into the woods before him. Shit. She’d seen him. Running his hand roughly over his hair, he tried to calm his erratic heartbeat.

So what if she’
d seen him? Riker had to know the Long Claws were here already. Brooks had wanted to study the battlefield to assess any unnecessary risks in the meadow he’d chosen.

What the hell was that fool woman thinking, coming out here alone?
Sure, the alliance didn’t end until midnight tonight, and by shifter law, they couldn’t fight before the battle tomorrow morning, but still. His people weren’t exactly known for minding the rules.

She could’ve gotten herself killed.

Wait. Why the fuck did he care? If she was dumb enough to go traipsing through the woods on the eve before battle alone, she was beyond his helping.

Why wouldn’t his damned heart sto
p trying to leap from his chest? When he’d seen her, he had felt…something. The temptation to peek around the tree and see if she was still on the other side of the clearing was so great, his insides were being shredded with every moment that he stood hidden in the shadows of the forest.

He hadn’t been able to tell her eye color from this distance, but they were light. Wide
and pretty, and he perceived shock in them when she’d seen at him. There was a spark of something there before he’d ducked behind the tree. Her chestnut colored hair was long and shone with bronze highlights in the sun, and her skin was fair and fragile, like porcelain.

Despair struck him in the gut. She would die tomorrow. How could anyone so fra
il survive what was coming for her clan?

Closing his eyes, he muttered an oath and rocked his head back against the tree. He didn’t have time or energy to waste on worrying over the enemy. She was a part of the clan who had killed Nathan. She was the problem
, and Brooks would wield his vengeance like a sword at dawn.

The woman would have to die, and the weak sympathies inside of him would have to be suppressed.

He limped away, but here, he was able to. Back at camp, he’d have to appear as strong as the Long Claw alpha was supposed to. Alpha challenges had been brutal and bloody, and Omar had ripped into the tendons of his leg just before Brooks’ victory. Bad timing, but he wouldn’t let it slow him down.

He’d had worse.

With one last glance back to the sliver of clearing that still showed through the thicket of trees, he made his way back to the trail that would lead to his clan’s camp.

If he saw the woman tomorrow, he couldn’t hesitate. If at dawn, she stood between him and victory, he would kill her.

****

“Come on,” Anya whispered. “It’s dangerous for us to be out here alone.”

“You aren’t alone,” a deep baritone voice sounded behind them.

Startled, Corin was rattled free of her daydream. Chase stood against a tree with his arms crossed. Disapproval was written all over his face and Corin cowered, exposing her neck.

“Cut that shit out, Corin. You can’t be doing that tomorrow morning. I’m depending on you to have Anya’s back, not expose it. Find your fight, girl.” He turned and called over his shoulder, “If you decide to come prancing around the battlefield, do bring an escort. A brown bear at the very least.”

She couldn’t tell exactly what he said after that
, but she was pretty sure he called her a
runty black bear
. Not kind.

She flipped him off behind his back and he growled like he could see h
er. When she looked at Anya, her friend had sucked her lips into her mouth and looked like she was stifling a smile. Chase did this kind of crap in training all the time, and it was downright unsettling. The man could always tell when she was slacking, even if he wasn’t looking at her.

Raise your knees higher, Corin.

Stop talking, Corin.

I said twenty-five push-ups, Corin. You only did
seven.

Roll your eyes at me again and you’ll do three more laps. Okay, three more laps, Corin.

The man’s instincts were obnoxious.

She kicked a pinecone into the forest and Chase shook his head in front of them
and sighed. Whatever. Even if he did have eyes in the back of his head, she would only have to deal with his bossiness for one more day. Then she’d be a ghost bear and wouldn’t ever have to do high knees again. Maybe she would haunt him for fun.

Turning, she squinted at the clearing behind her one last time. She hadn’t believed in ghosts before, but then there had been the shade at the edge of the woods. Now she didn’t know what to
think.

Riker stood in the back of his truck, addressing the gathered shifters. Corin s
kirted the edges and settled next to Joanna.

“The treaty still holds until midnight tonight, which means none of you are to engage in a fight with any members of the Long Claw Clan.”

“Are you sure they’ll follow through with that clan law?” Brad Barker asked from the crowd.

“I’m having a meeting with their new alpha shortly, and I’ll make sure to reiterate no attacks on either camp tonight. To be safe though, we’ll have sentries on shift from now until dawn
, and I want you sleeping dressed and ready for battle. Chase and Juan, you take first shift. Daria is setting up a medical area near the edge of the clearing, and she and Hannah will be preforming first aid there. This will also be off limits from the Long Claws, and likewise, steer clear of their injured. Other than that, anything goes. We’ll set up camp and get a good meal in us. I don’t want you staying up late. Tomorrow could be the most important day in Bear Valley’s history. Some of us won’t come home from this. Some of us will come back scarred.” He clasped his hands behind his back and looked out over his people. “I wanted to stop this war, but it isn’t in our control anymore. The Long Claws will come after us whether we fight now or next week, and I’d rather be prepared. Tomorrow we’ll fight for our land, for our people. You’ll fight for your friends and family. Help each other. Have each other’s backs like the proud Bear Valley shifters who have dotted our lineage before you. Who have battled for peace and honor, and won.” Riker nodded to Juan, who stood leaned against the truck.

Juan turned and pulled the first tent from the back, th
en he handed it to Brody to dole out to the first group.

“
Most are sleeping five to a tent,” Joanna said. “You can stay with me and Anya if you want to.”

“
Sure, thanks.” Except spending her last night on earth in the same tent as two newly mated couples sounded like the least fun slumber party ever. Beggars and choosers, though, so she helped Joanna wrestle their tent to a flat area thirty yards away.

It was a simple set up that didn’t require instructions, so while the boys were unloading supplies, she and Jo put up the tent, and Hannah built hers right next to it.

This would be fun if death weren’t imminent.

By the time camp was set up, the smells of cooking stew simmering over several fire
pits wafted through the woods. Corin was so hungry, her stomach hated her. The bear inside of her was kicking up her instincts to find the nearest blackberry bush and take food matters into her own hands, but she needed more than fruit if she was going to have enough energy for tomorrow. She needed protein.

“Snake,” Juan said casually as he p
ointed to something at her feet

Corin screamed and fell backward off the log she was sitting on.

“That’s your defense mechanism?” Juan asked through uncontrolled laughter.

Corin sat up and brushed leaves from her hair. The snake in question was actually stick
, which made Juan a floppy cock-face for scaring her like that.

The gargantuan shifter seemed to be enjoying himself, his shoulders shaking as he spooned stew from the iron pot over the fire. She wanted to kick embers at him.

“It kind of looks like a snake,” Anya said with her nose scrunched up.

The branch was covered in leaves and didn’t look like anything other than a tree limb.
“It doesn’t, but thanks.”

Hannah snatched the metal bowl from Juan’s hands. She looked positively green and Corin frowned. “Hannah, are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, sitting heavily onto a log Chase had pulled near the fire. “I’m just nervous about tomorrow and my stomach is in knots.”

Joanna was staring at her with this calculating expression, then she shot Anya a significant look. “Maybe you should go see Daria. She can give you something to calm your nerves. Ask her for some ginger.”

Hannah was shoving stew into her maw like she hadn’t eaten in three days, and Juan was still sitting there with his hands hovering in the air like he didn’t understand where his food had gone.