Reign: A Royal Military Romance (75 page)

J
ake kept hoping
that he could find a time and place to sneak off, just for an hour, so he could shift and get it out of his system, but he never could. He drove with another ranger to the campgrounds on the lake, telling campers to be careful and giving the usual bear safety spiel: keep food in the bear boxes, not the tent, don’t approach bears, make loud noises if they’re nearby.

All he could think about the whole time was Ariana and whether she was safe. He knew he was overreacting, and he knew she was a grown woman, totally capable of keeping herself safe. He just felt responsible for her being here, and for her being a target of the grizzly pack — or, the former grizzly pack. Who knew what they were up to now, with their alpha dead in another state and his mate on the loose.

Besides, he loved her. Wholeheartedly. Desperately. If something happened to her, well—

“Oh, I’m ready for a bear,” said the man Jake had been talking to while on autopilot.

Jake just raised his eyebrows, wondering how exactly someone got “ready” for a bear.

The man reached behind him, into the bed of a pickup truck, and produced a lever action rifle, the kind usually used for hunting moose or elephants.

“This’ll stop just about anything,” the man said.

Jake couldn’t argue. “It’s a federal crime to shoot an endangered species,” he told him.

The man grinned. “I’d never shoot nothing,” he said, obviously lying through his teeth. “Just scare it a little.”

Right
, thought Jake, saying goodbye to the man and walking toward his own truck. He felt like his skin was crawling all over him, but people like that were why it just wasn’t safe for him to shift again. He couldn’t risk getting shot by some redneck with an elephant gun.

Of course,
he thought,
the longer I go without shifting the more dangerous it gets.

What a mindfuck
.

F
inally
, he got back to the station and was relieved, though not really surprised, to see Ariana still sitting there, perfectly safe.

“Told you so,” she said, as he bent over her desk to kiss her.

“I knew you’d be fine,” he said. “Ready to head back?”

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You don’t look great.”

“I need to shift soon,” he said, trying to shrug it off. “I feel a little weird, but I’m fine.”

They drove the road back to the cabin mostly in tired silence, listening to country western radio the whole way there. Jake tried not to worry about the next few days, tried to put Violet out of his mind, along with his own need to shift, but it didn’t work that well.

At last, he pulled into his driveway, tires crunching down the long gravel ribbon, grateful to be at home, where his couch and his bed were, where at least he wouldn’t have to worry about Ariana getting eaten by Violet.

In fact, he almost wanted Violet to show up — he could shift, and he was sure he’d take all of his pent up frustration and rage out on her without hurting anybody else. The best case scenario, really, which was why he was sure it wouldn’t happen. Whatever she was up to, it wasn’t as straightforward as that.

His headlights washed over the front of the cabin quickly, but in that moment Jake saw something strange on his steps. He slammed on his brakes, skidding a little on the gravel, shocking Ariana.

“What is it?” she asked.

Jake slammed the truck into reverse and turned the wheel, pointing his headlights directly at the front door. Both of them held their breaths.

The lump, too small to be a bear, moved a little. It was clearly some sort of animal, though the way it was huddled it was hard to tell exactly what it was.

Then it lifted its head.

It was Regina.

Jake blinked in shock. He’d honestly forgotten about the third shifter from the Alaska pack, the female in heat who’d come with the alpha and his mate to try to seduce him. His hand clenched around the gearshift, and despite himself, he snarled, the animal sound tearing itself from deep in his throat.

“She’s hurt,” Ariana said, next to him.

Before he could do anything, she’d undone her seatbelt and hopped out of the car, walking toward the other woman, her back in his headlights.

Overcome with fury, Jake punched the soft part of the now-empty seat beside him, his fist leaving a deep well. He could just feel the fur begin to prickle beneath his skin, and sweat slid down his face. He spent another moment there, in the cab of his truck, forcing the bear down, forcing himself to stay human.

Then he shut it off and hopped out himself, jogging across the gravel to get to Regina just as Ariana did.

“What do you want?” he growled. Ariana was already kneeling down next to her, saying something softly.

Regina looked up at him, her face bloody from a cut above her eye and tear-stained.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said.

“Was it Violet?” Ariana asked. Already she was pulling the other woman’s clothing away from a series of deep gashes on her torso, Regina gasping in pain.

Regina nodded. “She’s gone crazy,” she whispered. “I don’t know — I tried to talk to her, and she just attacked me for no reason,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d make it back here.”

“You can’t stay,” Jake said, gruffly.

Ariana looked up at him sharply.

“Look at her,” she said.

“She tried to get you killed,” he said, not bothering any longer to hide his anger.

Ariana stood and walked the two steps to Jake, then took him by the arm and pulled him to the edge of the headlights’ glare.

“We can’t let her die,” she said.

“I’ve survived worse.”

“And don’t you wish someone had taken you in?” Ariana said, accusingly. “If someone had let you into their homes, put you in bed, given you a warm meal, you would have taken it in a
second
and don’t you lie to me.”

Jake just clenched his jaw and looked away.

“As a matter of fact, she wanted you not to get killed, remember that?” Ariana said.

She was right, of course. Regina, another shifter from the Alaska pack, had tried to seduce Jake away from Ariana. If he’d mated with her, the alpha would have left them alone — it was humans who mated with shifters he had the problem with.

“I don’t trust her,” he muttered.

“She’s cut through to the bone,” Ariana said flatly. “You think this is all part of a plan?”

“We’re excellent at healing.”

“That excellent?”

Jake didn’t have an answer. He felt miserable: first he couldn’t shift, and now Regina was here. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of this.

“Fine, let her in,” he said. “If she murders us both and then eats out hearts, it’s your fault.”

For one moment, Ariana looked alarmed. “Do bears do that? Eat hearts?”

Jake just shook his head and walked toward the other woman.

* * *

I
nside the cabin
, Jake brought out a rollaway bed that Ariana hadn’t known he owned and they put Regina on that. She peeled away the other woman’s shirt, doing her best not to hurt her, while Jake grabbed his First Aid supplies.

When he returned, he handed Ariana scissors.

“Just cut her shirt off,” he said. “It’s what they do in the ER.”

She cut Regina’s shirt and bra off. The other woman didn’t protest at all, and even though she glanced a little at Jake, he didn’t seem interested in the other woman’s naked torso. Ariana felt bad for even wondering about it — but after all, hadn’t Regina originally come here for the express purpose of seducing him? Wasn’t she allowed to be a little — just a
little —
concerned?

The gashes were deep, and they wrapped around her side and onto her back. Ariana got her to lie on her other side, just as Jake came back with a suitcase.

“I thought you were getting a first aid kit,” Ariana said.

He put it down and opened it. It was an old-style plastic suitcase, the kind without wheels. Inside was stuffed with neatly-organized medical supplies: gauze, tape, three kinds of tweezers, all the ointments and antiseptics anyone could ever want.

“Can you swallow?” he asked Regina.

“Yeah,” she said.

He took out a medicine bottle and shook loose two big white pills.

“Are those Vicodin?” asked Ariana.

“Morphine,” he said. He handed Regina one pill and a bottle of water, and the woman downed them without blinking.

“Where the hell did you get that?” she asked.

Jake just looked at her, a little cockily, and handed her a pair of long tweezers.

“She’s got some debris in the cuts,” he said. “Help me get it out.”

They worked on Regina in silence for fifteen minutes, listening to her labored breathing and her occasional gasps of pain. Finally, when her wounds were clear, Jake doused her in antiseptic and started taping her up.

“Should we give her stitches?” Ariana asked.

“Do you know how to give stitches?”

Ariana shook her head. “You’re the one with the morphine and the suitcase full of medical supplies,” she said.

“I can get stuff. I can’t give stitches,” he said.

They finished taping the other woman, and then Ariana tugged her pants off and sponged her legs down. She was scratched and bruised up pretty bad, but mostly fine — the only real damage was to her ribcage.

“Pants off,” said Regina in a sing-song voice.

“Morphine’s working,” said Jake.

“Pantssssssss,” said Regina. Jake left and came back with some of his own old work clothes, and together, they sat her up and got her dressed again. Once they had, she was completely asleep, passed out on the cot.

“Let’s go eat dinner,” Jake said.

A
riana cracked
open two beers as Jake reheated the previous night’s spaghetti and meatballs. She perched on a stool at his kitchen counter and watched him load the bowls with the pasta and then the sauce, admiring even the small movements that he made, the way that they moved his muscles against his shirt.

“Parmesan?” he asked.

“Put it on after you microwave it,” she said. “Tastes better.”

She took a gulp of beer, and Jake put the food into the microwave oven, then leaned heavily against the counter.

“You look awful,” Ariana said. It was true: he was a little flushed, almost sweaty. His hair looked a little wild and greasy, and he just looked... unwell.

“When was the last time you shifted?” she asked him.

“Not important,” he said.

“Tell me.”

Jake sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hands. Ariana noticed that he was looking a little hairier than normal, and that just made her worry more. “Five days,” he said, softly. “But it’s fine.”

“Can’t you go shift now?” she said. “Just... run outside and do it real quick?”

“I can’t leave you alone here with her,” he said.

“Go in the bathroom and shift, then.”

He just shook his head. “Look, you don’t understand — when you go this long, you can’t control it any more. I don’t know what will happen when I shift.” He paused when the microwave dinged and pulled two plates out. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

There it was again, Ariana thought.
I just don’t understand
. She felt something tug at her, deep inside. Despite herself, she wondered one more time what Jake was missing by being with her, instead of another shifter.

Did he miss it? Would be ever miss it, in six months, a year, five years?

She looked up and realized that Jake was just looking at her, and that she had tears in her eyes. He offered her a plates of spaghetti and she took it as he sat next to her.

“It’ll all be fine,” he said, trying to sound soothing even as his voice was rough at the edges.

“I should be comforting you,” she said, miserably winding spaghetti around her fork.

Before Jake could answer, there was a knock at the front door.

J
ake stood
, his plate of pasta still steaming in front of him, as Ariana looked up in some alarm.

“It’s Boone and Coleman,” he said, leaving the kitchen for the front door.

“Why is Boone here?”

“I texted him,” Jake said. She looked a little mad at him, but Jake couldn’t focus on that right now.

“When?”

“Earlier,” Jake called, moving through the cabin. Regina was still asleep on the cot on the floor, snoring just a little. She looked less like a seductress and more like a kid asleep. Suddenly, Jake wondered how old she was: twenty-two, twenty-three? He’d been young and dumb at those ages, he knew, and he felt bad that she’d been pulled into this madness.

He swung the door open and Boone stood there, wearing flannel, jeans, and a leather jacket, practically the pacific northwest uniform.

“Hey,” he said. He’d never been one for a lot of talking.

“Come in,” Jake said. “Coleman with you?”

On the cot on the floor, Regina’s eyes fluttered open.

Boone shook his head. “I haven’t seen him lately,” he told Jake. “You?”

“Me either.”

Boone stood still, looking at Regina on the floor as she woke up, slowly. Ariana came to stand in the doorway to the kitchen.

“You’re the younger one?” Boone said to Regina.

She opened her mouth, then swallowed, tried again. “Yeah,” she said. “Violet fucked me up pretty good.”

“You guys want spaghetti?” Jake asked.

“I ate on the way over,” Boone said. In the doorway, Ariana made a face.

“I’m starving,” said Regina.

T
he four of
them sat around the kitchen table, everyone but Boone eating, Boone just drinking a beer.

“Coleman’s not coming?” Ariana said, stabbing a meatball with her fork. Jake knew she wasn’t thrilled that everyone had just showed up at their house, or that he’d forgotten to tell her that Boone and Coleman were coming, but she could deal with it. They were in deep shit, here.

Boone shrugged and took a gulp of beer, as Regina’s eyes flitted from face to face.

“You guys don’t know?” she asked.

Everyone turned to look at her, a fork halfway to her mouth. She sat up straight and put it down.

“Coleman went back to the Alaska pack,” she said, quietly.

Jake frowned, and saw Boone do the same thing. Coleman couldn’t just rejoin the pack. It wasn’t that easy; once you were cast out, you had to do something to get back in their good graces, to be allowed back. Otherwise he’d just be up in Alaska, living near them but shunned.

“What did he do?” Boone asked in his slow, deep voice.

Regina swallowed and looked down at her food, nervously fidgeting with her fork.

“He went to Brock about the hum— about Ariana.”

Jake slammed one fist onto the table, nearly cracking it and making all the plates and silverware rattle. “Goddamn it,” he roared. Then he pushed his chair back and stormed out of the cabin, slamming the back door open to feel the fresh air on his body.

That fucking asshole
, he thought.
That utter coward wants back in so he fucks up my life instead? I swear to God if I ever see him again I’ll wring his fucking neck and then I’ll hang him from the trees and let the crows eat his eyes out—

“Jake, you okay?” asked a soft, deep voice from the doorway.

Jake looked up from where he’d paced to, his hands both balled into fists at his sides. Fur was just starting to come through his skin, and he realized he was panting and sweating, even in the cool night.

“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth.

“When was the last time you shifted?”

“Why the fuck is everyone asking me that?” Jake shouted. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, you nosy fucking—“

Boone held up his hands, looking totally unperturbed. “Hey,” he said, and Jake slowed his rant. “Let’s just shift now.” He shrugged out of his leather jacket, tossing it onto the steps, and began unbuttoning his shirt.

Jake was still breathing hard, and his palms had indentations from his nails in them. “I can’t,” he said. He rubbed his eyes, his scalp with his hands. “It’s been too long now, I don’t know what will happen, I don’t want to hurt anyone...”

“I’ll guard you,” Boone said. “Ariana can lock the door. We’ll be fine. You’re in bad shape, man.”

Jake looked up at the bright kitchen window, casting a golden glow over this little patch of woods. Boone was right, of course: he desperately needed to shift, because it wouldn’t be long before he didn’t have the choice anymore. He’d just turn into a grizzly, wherever he was, and probably go on a rampage.

That
was a good way to get shot, even in a town where everyone wasn’t already armed to the teeth with anti-grizzly guns.

Suddenly, realized what Violet was really up to.

She didn’t want to fight him. She wanted him miserable and uncomfortable, so that he’d either shift in public or go after her in bear form, and then someone would kill him.

She knows she can’t kill me, so she’s trying to get someone else to do it
.

“What is it?” Boone asked. He’d stopped unbuttoning his shirt, so he looked kind of like Superman, his hands frozen mid-torso.

“Violet wants humans to kill me,” Jake said. “That’s what she’s doing.”

Boone thought about it for a moment.

“I didn’t think she was that smart,” he said. “Come on. Shift first, politics later.”

Jake began unbuttoning his own shirt just as another vehicle pulled into the driveway.

* * *

“
I
got it
. Stay here,” Ariana said to Regina. The other woman had wolfed down her plate of pasta and was currently chowing down on a peanut butter sandwich, so she just gave a thumbs-up and kept on chewing.

She opened the door, expecting Coleman, but it was a police officer.

“Evening, miss,” she said, taking off her hat.

“Evening,” Ariana said.

“I’m officer McGinley,” she went on. “You mind if I come in?”

“What’s this about?” asked Ariana, who was in no mood to deal with the police just then.

“We received a tip that a fugitive is hiding here,” she said, trying to look past her into the cabin.

That had to be Regina.

“A fugitive,” she said, trying to sound as doubtful as she could.

Jake walked in through the door from the kitchen.

“Hey, Michelle,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Ariana could still see the signs of stress in her boyfriend: the rumpled hair, the slight flush, the sweatiness, but she hoped he looked fine to the policeman.

“Hey, Jake,” said the officer. “We got a call that a fugitive is hiding out here.”

Both of Jake’s eyebrows went up. “Not that I know of,” he said. “Who is it?”

“She’s been identified as Regina Barrow, and she robbed several convenience stores in the last couple days. Anonymous tip said she was here.”

Jake shrugged. “Come on in,” he said, a little bit too loudly. “No Regina here.”

Ariana stepped back, annoyed with Jake. She was sure that the cop didn’t have a warrant to search their place. Why was he just letting him in?

Officer McGinley looked at the cot on the floor. “You’ve got someone staying here?” she asked.

Jake jerked his thumb toward the kitchen. “My buddy Boone,” he said. “He didn’t want to drive back into the mountains after having a few.”

Ariana’s heart beat faster. In a few more steps, they’d all be in the kitchen, and then he’d see Regina and the jig would be up, unless the woman had taken the hint and hidden.

“Smart idea,” the officer said. Then she nodded and walked through, into the kitchen.

The only person there was Boone, washing up the dinner dishes, his beer on the counter next to him.

“Mind if I look through the cabin?” Officer Michelle said. “Sorry about all this, it’s just when we get a tip, we’re supposed to follow up.”

“Be my guest,” said Jake, and Ariana could see the tension in his neck, the cords standing out on it. One by one, he cracked all of his knuckled, and she hoped the cop didn’t know it was a nervous habit of his.

She slumped into a chair and wished Regina hadn’t shown up. Now, not only did she have to worry about a sexy bear-lady being under her own roof, she was apparently a fugitive from justice. Ariana glared hard at Jake, who glared right back. The water sloshed in the sink as Brock washed dishes.

At least one of them is house-trained,
she thought.

From the next room, she heard the officer’s radio crackle, and then her voice, answering it softly. Both Jake and Boone stopped what they were doing and turned their heads, ever-so-slightly. Boone reached out and shut off the water, stopped clinking dishes together in the sink.

Then they exchanged a significant look with each other. Ariana couldn’t hear a thing, but she knew that their hearing was much, much better than hers.

What
?
She mouthed at them, trying furiously to figure out what was going on.

Before they could answer, Officer McGinley came back into the room, still talking quietly into the radio.

“Yeah, no sign of her here,” she was saying. “But you want me to ask him to come with? Could be helpful.”

A crackly voice answered.

“Got it,” she said, and then stood up straight and looked from Jake to Boone.

“There’s been another bear attack,” she said. “A young woman was killed in downtown Evergreen.”

A hush fell over the room, and Ariana’s heart plummeted into her stomach.

“Jake, would you mind coming to the crime scene with me? We could use someone who knows bears a little better than the police.”

Jake and Ariana locked eyes for one moment.

Don’t go,
Ariana thought.
I know you feel worse than you’ll tell me
.

“Sure,” he said.