Reign: A Royal Military Romance (35 page)

For a moment, Delilah looked right into his eyes, and Miles knew that she wasn’t fooled, that she knew exactly what it was and why it was still in his truck.

Then she smiled.

“Not at all,” she said.

I
t was
a short drive back to her dad’s house, and Delilah was quiet the whole way, her mind spinning. For one, she shouldn’t have had so many drinks — she wasn’t quite drunk, but just tipsy enough that she was afraid she’d make a questionable decision.

For two, Miles still had that sleeping bag. It had to be totally worn out and disgusting by now, but seeing it there, in this truck, just like it had been all those years ago gave her
feelings
. Soft, squishy, nostalgic, wasn’t-that-a-happy-time feelings, and that wasn’t at all what she wanted.

Hell, she hadn’t wanted to come back to Fjords at all. She’d been done with it for years, a nowhere town that she didn’t have a reason to ever visit again. Aside from Miles, growing up hadn’t been any fun at all. Most of the shifter pack either mocked her or just ignored her being smart and getting good grades — anyone who wanted more out of life than a job on a fishing boat and three kids was reaching above their station, the sentiment went.

But then the sleeping bag was still there. Miles was still there, and despite being surrounded by macho
asshats
, he was still Miles, funny and warm and charming and...

Stop it
, she thought as the truck pulled into the gravel driveway in front of her dad’s house. She hadn’t given him a single direction.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the door.

Miles turned off the truck and started getting out himself. “I’ll walk you up.”

“I’m okay,” she said, quickly. Delilah knew what happened when men walked women to their front doors.

He ignored her, getting out of the truck and walking around to her side, though she hopped out without waiting for his help. In silence, they walked the short concrete walk to the front door, Delilah already fishing for her keys in her purse. She practically ran up the front steps, putting a key in the deadbolt while Miles was still behind her.

“Hey,” he said, putting one big hand on her arm. “Is everything OK? You got weird all of a sudden, in the truck.”

Delilah swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just —” she waved her arm around in the air, indicating
this
or maybe
that stuff that happened
or maybe
everything
, even she wasn’t totally sure.

“Sorry,” he said, looking down and half-smiling. “Dumb question.”

His hand was still on her arm, and Delilah took a step away from the door. How could she run away from the one person in Fjords who wanted her to be there?

“Look, despite the shitty circumstances, it was great catching up with you,” he said.

Now they were facing each other, not too far apart. Delilah could hear her heartbeat, loud as anything, crashing through her ears. Her hand was still on the key, in the deadbolt.

“I had a good time,” Delilah said. She looked down as Miles’s hand slid up her arm to her shoulder.

This can’t happen
, she thought.
This should absolutely not be happening
.

“Can I see you again?” he asked. He was closer now, his tall frame looming over her, his face tilted down.

Delilah closed her eyes and tried to fight against herself. Every single fiber of her being wanted her to tilt her face up, stand on her toes, and kiss him, but she knew she couldn’t. If she did, she would only end up hurting him again.

“This is a bad idea,” she said.

“I don’t care,” Miles said, simply.

Then he kissed her.

For a moment, everything went perfectly still, and the whole universe narrowed to just them, standing under an ugly porch light, the world spinning around them.

Then Miles brought his hand up to the side of her face, his calloused thumb running softly along her cheekbone, and Delilah stepped in closer to him, let him wrap his arms around her again.

It felt exactly right.

Then Delilah pulled away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his hand trailing after her. His voice was full of hurt, and she looked back at him for one second, his eyes pained.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t. I’m leaving again in a couple of days, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“What—” Miles started to say, but Delilah turned the key in the knob and practically leapt through the door, her heart pounding.

Inside, she collapsed onto the ugly brown couch, still half-full of Time magazines, and she stayed there, motionless, until she heard Miles’s truck drive away.

What did I do?
she thought.

T
he phone rang
three times before Miles’s father picked it up.

“Kamchatka residence,” he said gruffly.

“Is Nathan back yet?”

“No,” his father growled. “I said I’d have him call you when he got back. Now stop calling.”

“Sorry,” Miles said, and his father hung up the phone without saying anything else.

That was how they ended most of their conversations, whether in person or on the phone. His younger brother was hours late. The two of them had made plans to drive up to the national forest that morning and spend the day shifted, just two bears in their wild state in the middle of nowhere.

He’d been in a foul mood all day. Last night, outside her house, he’d kissed Delilah, even though he’d known he shouldn’t. She’d returned the kiss at first, warm and yielding, just like he’d dreamed about.

Then she’d pulled away from him, apologized, rushed into her house and locked the door leaving Miles standing there in the cold, wondering what the hell was going on.

It had felt so good, so natural, to kiss her again, but obviously something was off. Was it him? Had he changed? He still felt like the same guy he’d been seven years ago. Older, sure, a little bit taller, more experienced and probably more responsible, but basically the same person.

And she’d gone away, sure, lived outside the pack and outside the state for all that time, but she still seemed like the same person too: smart as hell, feisty, utterly gorgeous, not about to take shit from anyone.

What had gone wrong? Why had she rejected him
again
, already?

To top it all off, something was up with Nathan. Miles didn’t know exactly what, but he thought that maybe some bear time together might help his little brother out — didn’t bear time help most problems?

Over the past couple of months, Nathan had been acting weird, more sullen and withdrawn than usual, and a couple of times Miles had overheard him and his father, talking quietly.

They’d always stop when Miles came in, but he could hear them talking in low voices. Something about it had made Miles stop for just a moment and wonder what was going on, but he had no idea what that word meant, or if he was even hearing it correctly.

But now, Nathan was hours late, and there was no way to contact him. Miles figured he could probably try Brock if he really wanted to, but he didn’t like the younger man at all. There was something so strange and slimy about him, Miles thought. He’d rather wait around for Nathan all day than speak to Brock on the phone for five minutes.

With nothing to do, Miles tuned on the TV. It was ten years old, probably, and he hardly ever watched it — the signal out where he lived was terrible, and the picture was wiggly and staticky when it came in at all. He flipped through the few channels restlessly, trying to watch some talk show for a few minutes before giving up and pacing around the little house some more.

Finally, there was a knock on the door. Miles jerked open the interior door to find Nathan standing there, staring through the screen door glassy-eyed, like he didn’t quite see his brother.

Miles was unnerved for a moment, then furious.

“Hey,” Nathan said, sounding a little distant, looking somewhere past Miles into his house.

“You’re three hours late,” Miles said, not opening the door yet. How could his brother just look past him like that?

“What the hell? I could have done something else today if you’d just let me know you didn’t want to come over.”

Nathan still didn’t look at him, but he pulled the screen door open and stepped inside, barely looking at his older brother.

“You still wanna shift?” Nathan said. His voice sounded oddly distant, almost bored, like he wasn’t really paying any attention to what he said.

“What’s your problem?” Miles said. He could feel his bear rising to the surface. No one could bring it out of him faster than his brother.

“You think you’re doing me some favor by coming over here three hours late to shift with me?”

“Fine,” Nathan said, his voice still ringing a little hollow. “Can I use the head first?” He began to turn away from Miles, toward the bathroom.

Miles stepped forward and grabbed his brother’s arm. “Only if you’ll fucking look at me,” he said, and yanked his brother toward him.

Then, as the other boy turned, he saw that the back of his white t-shirt had brown and pink splotches on it. Instinctually, Miles knew something was wrong.

“What happened to your back?” he asked, his brother’s arm still in his iron grasp.

“Nothing,” Nathan said, trying to wrench his arm free.

Miles ignored the other man and pulled him closer. Suddenly, he could smell blood — Nathan’s blood — and the singed scent of burned flesh, combined with nervous sweat. He’d been too angry to smell it earlier, but there it was, clear as day.

“What’s wrong with your back?” Miles said, his hand so tight around Nathan’s arm that he knew it would leave a bruise.

“Nothing,” Nathan muttered. He tried again to wrench his arm free, but Miles was still stronger.

Miles looked down at his younger brother. He had a couple inches on him, and at least thirty pounds of muscle. He leaned down, getting his face close to Nathan’s. He wanted to make himself very, very clear.

“Tell me,” he said.

Nathan said nothing.

“You’re burned, I can smell it. Tell me what happened.”

“It’s fine.”

Something in Nathan’s manner was starting to unnerve Miles — his glassy stare, the way he wouldn’t make eye contact with his brother, the dead way he was speaking.

He couldn’t put his finger on it, but this, combined with the kids he’d been hanging out with lately, the way he’d been out until five in the morning most night, gave Miles a bad feeling in the very pit of his stomach.

“Let me see,” Miles demanded.

“Let me go, man.”

Miles let Nathan go only to grab the neck of his shirt and, in one giant pull, rip the whole thing apart.

“Hey!” Nathan exclaimed. “What the fuck, man—“ but Miles had him by the arm again, holding him in a painfully tight grip.

Miles’s breath caught in his throat.

It was a
brand
.

Someone had
branded
his brother, burned his skin right off his back.

And it was enormous.

In this middle was an unmistakable grizzly bear, in profile, Ursa Minor inside, just like his own tattoo.

But below that, in big, capital, ugly letters below, were the words TRUE BEAR, a star between them. The thing took up most of Nathan’s back, and a clear fluid was slowly dripping out of it.

“Who did this to you?” Miles snarled. He could feel the white-hot charge of shifting, forced himself to hold his bear back while his brother told him who’d burned this into his flesh.

“It’s nothing,” Nathan said.

“Tell me who fucking
did
this,” Miles said. “I swear to god I will find them and—“

Nathan finally wrenched his arm away and backed away from Miles, looking half insolent and half terrified.

Then it hit Miles: it was
intentional
.

His dumb younger brother had intentionally let himself be branded, a huge thing on his back that Miles knew would heal into ugly scars.

He moved to block the front door, trying to keep Nathan from getting out.

“What kind of idiot are you?” he shouted. He could feel himself slowing losing control. “That’s going to be on your back forever, and it’s going to look shitty once it heals. The fuck does true bear even mean?”

“You wouldn’t know, would you?” Nathan said, his face suddenly filled with disdain. He stood up straight and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “True bear means putting our kind
first,
not being ashamed of what you are.”

Miles ground his teeth together. “What are you saying?” he managed to get out.

“You think you’ve got everyone tricked, but you’re only half bear,” Nathan sneered, suddenly brave. “You talk a big talk, but when it comes down to it, you wouldn’t kill for the pack. We all know you’ve been in love with Delilah for years, and she’s hardly a bear at all.”

For one moment, Miles saw pure white. Without meaning to, he shifted, and in a furious rush he felt the fur and claws come out, tearing through his skin, his teeth suddenly sharpening and growing, the floor getting further away. He tried to say something, but it came out as a roar, and he looked down to see his brother, mid-shift himself.

With one paw he caught Nathan in the shoulder and sent the slightly smaller bear flying into his dining table. It split down the middle and Nathan stood from the rubble, his shoulder bleeding, and he limped back to standing.

On his back, Miles could see the missing fur where the brand had been: an ugly circle with dots in the middle, utterly unreadable.

Nathan roared and tried to lunge at Miles, but Miles sidestepped him easily and dealt him a hard blow on the head as his brother moved past, crashing into a table it a lamp on it, completely shattering it.

Nathan got up again, stumbling a little more. Even in bear form, Miles worried a little — was his brother okay? — But as he thought that, Nathan struck out, raking his claws down Miles’s chest, just barely drawing blood.

In a pure rage, Miles struck out, catching Nathan right across the face. His blood dripped onto the floor of Miles’s house, and Nathan looked at it for just a moment.

Then he charged the screen door, tearing it from its hinges, and loped off into the forest outside Miles’s cabin. Miles tore after him, his claws raking across his small front porch, as he watched the smaller, lighter form of his brother disappear into the forest, the patchy skin on the back where he’d been branded bright red against his nearly-gold fur.

He galloped into the forest at full speed, his bear fully in charge. Nathan was right there in front of him, and the other bear looked over his shoulder.

Nathan fell down a ravine. It wasn’t deep, ten feet at most, but he landed awkwardly at the bottom and the very first thing he did was look up at his brother, face full of fear, before righting himself and tearing away, crashing through the forest with no regard for being seen or heard.

That one second made Miles catch up with his bear. He fought the urge to race after his brother, tackle him, wrestle him to the ground and — well, then what? Was he going to hurt his brother even worse for the crime of hurting himself?

He panted, standing on all fours, watching the space that Nathan had run into. Fury made his long, sharp claws clench into the dirt, but he stood still.

You can’t do anything
, he told himself.
Violence just leads to more violence. Walk away
.

Still in his bear form, he turned and walked in the other direction, his big furry form loping along.