Bait This! (A 300 Moons Book) (7 page)

A
s if on its own
, the magic gathered in Hedda’s hands.

“
Obtundo,
” she heard herself say.

A shock wave rippled through the air toward the big brown bear. It hit him in his massive chest, but most of it seemed to roll right off. This was beyond the usual shifter magic resistance. What was going on with him?

The blast, which should have knocked him off his feet, had at least stunned him. Hedda didn’t waste any time. She turned and dashed into the trees before he could recover.

She ran through the undergrowth, slender branches, like fingers, sliding along her clothing. Each footstep brought up the scent of pine needles as they bent to mold themselves to the bottoms of her sneakers. The occasional blades of long grass tried to cling to her calves.

The magic did this, made her so irresistible even the plants desired her when it built up too much.

She had released so much magic already today, but it must be teeming just beneath the surface from her fright.

Hedda forced herself to slow down and listen.

Sounds of the woods came back to her. Owls, the wind in the trees.

No thrashing of a bear through the woods behind her, no shuddering footsteps.

Tickling on her forearm alerted her to a length of English ivy that had unwound from the tree beside her to wrap loosely around her elbow.

Hedda brushed it off and took a step forward. There was a groaning sound as the tree that housed the ivy stretched its branches after her.

Rustling in the trees overhead got her moving again.

She tried walking slowly and getting her breath under control. The squirrels from the trees above came down close and followed along, but didn’t try to touch her.

A bird began to alight on her shoulder.

Hedda closed her eyes and envisioned the crisp blue light of the magic settling down, the effervescence fading.

The bird veered into the darkness at the last moment, its wing brushing her cheek like a kiss.

How had it come to this?

She had paid her penance, she thought. But everything Hedda touched went mad.

She thought of the Copper Creek post office, and David’s face appeared before her eyes. He was a nice guy with a kind smile. He’d always ogled her, like the others did. But he seemed to feel bad about it, and that was unique.

How many parcels and packages of magic stones had he dutifully stamped and given her tracking slips for before he asked her to have coffee with him? How many cups of coffee before she had let him kiss her?

She would never forget the feeling. She had been so cautious, so curious about his touch.

He had kissed her full out like she was the fountain of youth and he was on his death bed.

She’d pulled backed.

“What if I were ugly?” she asked.

“What?” he’d blinked at her, half drunk with lust.

“What if I weren’t beautiful? Do you only like me because of the way I look?” she’d asked again.

“N-no, I love you no matter how you look,” he said, already leaning in to continue the kiss.

But she had pushed him away and promised him another cup of coffee tomorrow.

The next day she had gone to the top of the mountain above the cottage and expelled her magic until it was depleted. A stand of trees lay on their sides, dead to her force, but it was done.

She’d trotted down the mountain, trying to ignore the few neighbors she met. They stared, after her, probably wondering why she looked different.

Down at the post office, she had waited her turn in line with her day’s parcel.

Her heart throbbed in her chest with excitement and fear. Would he still like her? Would he still want to kiss her? There was no other way to know for certain what his feelings were.

At last she stood before him.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a bored way.

She drew back.

“Ma’am?” he asked.

“David?” she murmured.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

She drew the package tight against her chest and backed away.

When she reached the door an older woman was coming in.

“Are you coming or going?” the woman asked in an irritated way.

Hedda sobbed and ran out the door of the post office.

The little town that had for a time seemed so bright and cheerful was gray once more and the details blurred behind her tears.

A few hours later the trouble had happened at the mine.

Hedda had missed the omen in her excitement.

The next time she visited the trees she’d struck on top of the mountain she recognized that their trunks had fallen in a pattern to form an Eye of Darkness.

And when she heard the screams that evening of the mine tragedy, her magic was depleted by her own hand, leaving her powerless to help.

T
he moment
his mate was out of danger, Derek’s adrenaline waned and the world slammed in, terrifying him with scents so intense they seemed like living things. Vision faded to the back of his consciousness as the scent of the female rushed to the foreground.

He had frightened her, that much was certain. Though he also knew he had not harmed her. The sugar of her breath, and the bouquet of spices beckoning to him from between her legs had beguiled him. He could still feel the rough texture of the fabric separating her sex from his questing snout.

When she shooed him away he had been overwhelmed with inchoate fury.

Derek wanted.

The female wanted.

Derek should take. He wasn’t a cub.

But he wasn’t Derek, not really. The human Derek roared and screamed behind the bars. But the brown bear did not acknowledge him.

It wasn’t that he hated the man, though he had been caged these decades. It was more that they had never communicated freely and he didn’t really know how.

When the bear wanted influence and could control his temper, he would press in on the man, influencing him before he realized it, especially in moments of cusp, when the man was distracted.

But the man seemed overwhelmed with fear at being behind the bars, and would be of no help.

So the bear flung himself through the trees, happy to be free.

At first he followed the female closely.

She was his, that much was certain. Soon she would be ready to receive him, so he could not let her out of the reach of his senses.

But she was not ready for him yet.

And the taste of blood was still on him.

So he stretched his leash on her, and searched for prey.

Derek could smell meat in the woods. It was as though the night were full of nothing but beating hearts and the rush of blood through tiny veins.

The smallest were too fast, and wouldn’t make much of a meal.

But there was something, not a deer and not a squirrel. Its heart beat a thousand miles a minute. It shot through the air, long ears sailing behind it. Delightful.

As he neared it, there was a tug on the mental leash and he scented the trail of the female at the peak of the mountain. She would be descending and he could lose her scent if he allowed her to go without following.

Annoyed, he lumbered on without his meal. Moving quickly was tiresome and his belly grumbled.

Inside his head, the man made complaining sounds and rattled the bars.

Derek shook his head and felt his thick ruff dance around his neck. He had no intention of switching places.

But he would follow the female. Somehow they would claim her. If only she were a bear, it would be much easier.

At the top of the peak, he thrust his snout into the air.

There was the delicious scent of the woman, heading down toward water, teeming with fish. Food and female, the scents of heaven.

But there was also the odor of other humans, long gone. And an awful burning smell that stuck in his nose, ruining the other scents.

What could it be?

“I know what it is!
” the man in his head proclaimed.

Humph.

“It’s the mine, the old coal mine. Let me in, please let me back in,”
the man begged.

Derek the brown bear galumphed down the mountain instead. He would know the truth of it soon enough. The real truth, not the part with the words.

H
edda had calmed herself
.

That particular memory was always sobering, even tonight. Even in the dark and the wind and after being charged at by two bears.

As soon as she had a hold of herself again she noticed the bird.

The bird that had not landed on her shoulder earlier was flying overhead, circling and then fluttering back under the trees to strut and pace on the branches of the trees ahead of her.

The truth hit her in the head like a two by four.

This
was the demon. This was the bird that had flown away from the black bear. The demon had changed hosts, as she had known it would.

It seemed pretty adept at using the bird’s form compared with the bear. But a bird would take very little energy to control, so it had likely been a bird before.

Hedda followed it, hoping it wasn’t as aware of her as she was of it.

If she tracked it long enough, it would have to go back to its source. The source would tell Hedda everything she needed to know about the threat. Maybe it would even be something she could take out on her own.

She allowed herself to picture the joy on her sisters’ faces when she told them that her persistence had paid off and she had ensured that the portal was truly safe.

This was her shot at redemption.

She wasn’t going to screw it up.

D
eep inside the brown bear
, Derek managed to stop screaming.

Once he took the time to notice, the world through the bear’s senses was riveting. The woods, which had been no more than a dark moist backdrop, had turned into a tapestry of life. Scents of animals, plant life and the sparkling water of the creek below swirled before him like colors: rich black soil, green pine needles, crystal blue water and through it all, the seductive drumbeat of Hedda’s heart.

When he calmed, he also noticed that the bear was hungry, but that he was unwilling to let that drumbeat grow softer in his ears.

This realization unexpectedly endeared the creature to Derek. Though he knew it was just a mating instinct, from the inside he saw that it had the flavor of protection and deep affection as well.

The brown bear climbed the mountain easily, though Derek could feel him tiring.

When they reached the top of the ridge, the smells of the abandoned town below rose to meet them.

The bear paused, confused. His body was exhausted, he was hungry.

Derek reached out tentatively, trying to make a mental connection.

I’ll handle it, you rest. You can have another turn soon.

The bear turned the offer over in their mind. Then the big body sighed.

But it wasn’t a sigh.

Derek was suddenly standing on the hillside in his own naked body.

The wind buffeted him and his own belly growled.

Hurriedly, he scrambled down the mountain, afraid he would lose his tenuous idea of where Hedda was.

At first it was easy to know where to go because he could see down the mountain from above. But by the time he was back into the trees, it was harder. He tried to head in the same direction, straight downward. But as he dodged around fallen trees and ditches he began to lose his sense of direction and could only hold onto the idea of moving downhill.

The bear snored in his head, for the first time unable to help him with a scrap of enhanced sound or scent.

Derek fought back panic.

Just breathe.

Darcy’s voice in his head.

He’d heard his foster sister like that before, a long time ago.

The scent of pine in the forest and his own disorientation tumbled him back into the memory.

Derek had always loved playing in between the apple trees on the Harkness Farms. They were short and gnarled little things, perfect for growing apples to eat.

In spite of their twists and hulk-like shapes, the apple trees were planted in perfect rows. You could go far, far from the farmhouse, pretending you were the captain of the ogre army - your monsters lined up to attack the enemy at your command. Or you could pull a comic book out of your jacket and curl up under a tree to read. Either of these activities could give you privacy from the kids and the animals on the farm.

But when you were lonely, or Mom rang the old dinner bell, you could easily find your way home again by following the row.

The only problem was harvest time.

Every fall, the families of Tarker’s Hollow came. They filled the parking lot with their station wagons, and then had to move on to park in the gravel lot, and then the dirt lot. And when those lots were filled, they pulled onto the grass by the orchard and parked there, too.

It was an exciting time. Derek and the other kids got to help Mom set up the Halloween decorations, and put all the signs on the pumpkins so the visitors knew what they were: Fairytale pumpkins, Heritage pumpkins, Rock Stars, Wee-be-littles, and on and on. The endless varieties delighted them. And it was the one time all the kids in school were mad with jealousy that the Harkness kids
lived
on the farm.

But too soon it became exhausting, and the apple orchard was filled with families picking.

Derek had always been a bit reserved, and he felt the loss of his hiding place.

One fall day when he was seven, he trudged out to the farthest row of trees, hoping to catch a few minutes of quiet playtime, when he heard the sounds of a family invading.

In frustration, he marched back to the farm, past the silo, past the enclosures for farm animals and deer and the duck pond, to the very edge of the cow pasture.

And that was when he saw it.

A hillside covered in pine trees - the farm’s choose-your-own Christmas tree forest.

None of the children ever played there. It was on the other side of the far pasture fence. And it seemed somehow remote and wild. The Christmas trees weren’t planted in perfect rows like the fruit trees.

Derek’s heart beat faster, and he thought back to the rules. Though they never
had
played in the Christmas trees, he could not remember ever being told they
couldn’t
play there.

He wondered if he would be able to hear the dinner bell from so far away.

Before he could sort it out, there was a huge commotion behind him, as yet another station wagon pulled into the rear lot and beeped at a school group that was exiting a big yellow bus and slowly crossing over to the deer enclosure.

Forget it
, he thought to himself.
I’m outta here.

He jumped the fence at the back of the pasture and soon found himself in the baby pines.

But he could still hear the sounds of cars, so he ran deeper into the trees. He ran as fast and as far as he could, until the trees were taller, and he couldn’t hear the cars anymore.

These trees had been planted years ago, and they were now the size to be harvested for the high-ceilinged Victorians in Tarker’s Hollow. Some were maybe even big enough for the buildings on the college campus or the behemoth new construction houses Mom called “monstrosities” that were a bit farther west into Middleton, on the land that had belonged to another farm, before the developers came.

Derek played under the trees. He pretended they were all his and that they were covered in lights. He pretended they were ladies in big dresses and one of them was his real mother. He pretended he was a lumber jack, getting ready to chop them down and float them down the river.

The one thing he did
not
pretend was that he was a bear living in a forest.

Being a bear was the reason his real mother and father didn’t want him.

Derek thought of the unimaginably good feeling of Mom wrapping her arms around him for a warm hug, and he shuddered at the idea of how good it would feel to get a hug from his real mother and father.

So when his nose went all sensitive and his skin prickled a little in the excitement of being in what felt like the real woods, he shook himself like a puppy getting out of a pond and counted by fives to one hundred to stop himself from feeling like a bear.

All afternoon Derek played and explored, but when his belly began to rumble, he decided to head on home.

He looked around for the trees to be getting smaller. But to his dismay, he saw instead that all the trees were large, as far as he could see.

As a matter of fact, the ones he was playing in now looked like regular trees and not Christmas trees at all. There were some pines, but also maples and oaks.

Frightened, he ran in one direction. No Christmas trees.

Then he ran in another direction. No Christmas trees.

His heart pounded and he fought back tears. It was getting dark now.

He felt the bear inside him nose at the air, and he screamed and wrapped his fingers around his nose to stop it.

The tears flew from his eyes and he sobbed uncontrollably.

The thing inside him stirred again, trying to overpower him and take over. It knew he was weak. It would probably turn him into a bear and run into the woods forever with Derek as its prisoner. He would never see Mom again or Johnny or Chance or Darcy or the others.

“No, no, no,” he moaned, throwing himself on the ground and wrapping his arms around a tree trunk to stop himself from running away.

Just then, there was a sound in the trees.

“Derek?” Darcy’s voice was breathless.

He couldn’t answer, but he was pretty sure she could hear him crying. He wanted to be embarrassed, but he was too glad to hear her voice.

His heart still pounded mercilessly though, and the creature in his chest clawed to get out.

“Hey, Derek,” Darcy said in her clear, high voice, “We thought you were lost.”

He couldn’t even nod.

“Is your bear trying to come out?” she asked.

He made a sound of agreement.

“Why didn’t you let him talk to you?” she asked, like it was the simplest thing in the world. “He would know just how to get home. He would use his nose. That’s what my wolf does. That’s how we found you.”

Easy enough for Darcy to say. For some reason, five year old Darcy was in touch with her wolf like none of the others, and she loved it even. While the rest of the kids were sobered by their status as unwanted early shifters, Darcy refused to push back her wolf. She used her heightened senses all the time, hiding them only from Mom, the one person she did want to please.

Seeing that he was still curled up around a tree, Darcy wrapped her chubby little arm around his shoulder and snuggled into him like she always did.

“
Just breathe
,” she whispered to him in her sing-song voice.

The solid feel of her body against his and the soothing sound of her small voice warmed him from the inside out, as if he had taken a big sip of hot chocolate.

Instantly, the fear was gone and the bear relaxed inside of him, no longer trying to get out.

No sooner had he calmed when there was another sound in the trees.

“Who’s there?” a pinched, female voice demanded.

Definitely not Mom.

“Oh, brother,” Darcy muttered.

“Hello?” the voice shouted.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Hopkins,” Darcy shouted back, her clear voice bouncing off the trees. “It’s just me and my brother.”

“Is that one of those Harkness kids?” The voice was closer now.

There was a tromping of boots, and then a woman appeared before them. Mrs. Hopkins, the neighbor. She owned the woods behind Harkness Farms.

“I knew this would happen one day, I knew it. We’re going to see Kate. Now
March
,” she ordered, taking a step toward Derek.

A low growl issued from deep in Darcy’s throat. Mrs. Hopkins either didn’t hear it, or pretended not to notice.

Derek picked himself up and they all began to walk through the trees. At last, they reached the grove of Christmas trees Derek had misplaced.

But Mrs. Hopkins didn’t leave them there.

In silence, they marched through the gate in the cow pasture, past the enclosures, the rear parking, the silo, and right up to the door of the farmhouse. Some of the tourists stopped long enough to stare at the oddly purposeful parade.

Although the front door was never locked, and the kids poured in and out all day, Mrs. Hopkins knocked soundly on it.

Johnny and Chance, who had been playing with cars at the front door, perked up and started paying attention.

“Agnes, come on in,” Mom said when she opened the door. She seemed to be happy to see the lady but Derek’s bear whispered that she was only pretending.

“No, thank you,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “These two troublemakers were trespassing on my property today.”

She indicated Derek and Darcy.

Derek cringed. Darcy stood up straight and tall.

“Derek was lost,” Darcy told Mom. “I went to get him, and we were leaving when she found us.”

Mrs. Hopkins did not acknowledge Darcy in any way. Instead she leaned in to Mom.

“These unwanted kids are only too lucky to have you providing room and board, Kate,” she declared. “I honestly don’t know why you do it. But don’t for one minute think I’ll coddle them the way you do. The next time I find one on my property I’m calling the police.”

Derek studied the ground in shame, but Darcy elbowed him so hard he almost fell over, and he looked up where she was looking.

Mom’s friendly expression had disappeared like a thunderstorm wiping out a sunny day.

“Agnes Hopkins, how
dare
you speak about my children that way? These kids are not
unwanted,
” she said, her tone calm but firm. “I’m very proud of every one of them, and without the comfort of their company, I would be a helpless old widow with nothing better to do all day than to bully innocent children.”

Mom’s face went as red as a tomato. Her flour covered hands planted square on her big round hips.

Mrs. Hopkins stared, speechless, for once.

“Get off my property this instant,” Mom commanded. “And if I find you here again,
I’m
calling the police.”

Derek had never seen anyone so beautiful in all his life.

The faceless birth parents of his imagination slipped into nothingness as he realized that Kate Harkness was, and always would be, his
real
mother.