Bear-ly Human (Bear Claw Security Book 4) (10 page)

H
era paced
in front of her dad’s office, not wanting to go in. She’d showered and gotten changed after getting back to the house. She could sense from Hercules’s face that he wasn’t going to want to talk immediately after this. As much as she’d wanted to.

It was a like a storm she’d seen coming but couldn’t prevent. Just moments after they’d made love, after he’d given her generous, mind-blowing pleasure, as usual, she’d seen the beginning of the storm clouds and hadn’t known what to do. She’d seen him go to sleep in the boat next to her, restless.

And then the nightmares had taken over.

She couldn’t remember it happening like that when they were together before. Then again, they only had short periods together during trips. Or maybe the war had kept him busy enough with other torturous things there was no room for whatever had been tormenting him today.

He’d grabbed his arm like he’d been stabbed, but it didn’t seem like anything war related. And he’d thrashed, capsizing the boat, and might have even drowned if she hadn’t had the foresight to just get him to shore even if she couldn’t wake him up.

She ran a hand through her still-drying hair as her dad opened the office door to her.

“Come in,” he said.

She walked in, and he pushed a chair in front of his desk for her and then walked around and sat behind it.

“You want to tell me what the hell just went on?” he asked angrily.

“I’m a grown woman,” she shot back. “More than grown at this point. I’ve served my country in ways you couldn’t even imagine, even if I could tell you about them. I’ve helped you at your company. I’ve never abandoned you and Mom. But you need to stop thinking you have the right to take that tone with me. Like I’m some kind of… child.”

“You’re my child,” he said, putting his hands on the desk.

She sat forward. “I’m in my thirties now, Dad. You need to let go.”

“What happened out there? I don’t care how old you are. That man nearly drowned you.”

“That man is my fiancé. And it’s none of your business what he’s going through.”

“What the hell does banking do to a person that could make him like that?” Her dad shook his head. “That was terrifying, Val. And what if we hadn’t been there?”

“He didn’t hurt me,” she said. “He woke up. We were just in a shallow lake.”

“He has PTSD, doesn’t he?” Rob asked, folding his arms. “What if he has nightmares at night? What if he hurts you?” He narrowed his eyes. “He’s not a banker at all, is he? He’s someone from the military, right?”

She lowered her eyes. As much as she wanted the moral high ground at the moment, she was humiliated for being caught in her lie.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, looking tired and aged as he slumped back in his chair. “Why would you lie?”

She shrugged. “I guess I should tell you the full lie, then, right?” She didn’t care anymore. She was tired of lying. “He’s not my fiancé either. He’s just a friend from the military that I begged to come out and help me so I didn’t have to end up with someone you hooked me up with!”

Her dad narrowed his eyes. “Are you just telling me this so I won’t look further into him?”

“He’s none of your business. Don’t you get that?” she asked. “Why won’t you just leave it alone? We had a rough afternoon. We should be together. Instead, I’m here answering you like I owe you something.”

“You do owe me something,” her father snapped. “You owe me and your mother an explanation.”

They sat there, heaving at each other, and then she let out a long breath. Her heart was still pounding from what had happened with Hercules and from telling her father everything. And what the fallout from that would be.

But her dad had drawn conclusions from Hercules’s freakout, and she didn’t want him pressing into things he shouldn’t, things Hercules didn’t even want to tell her.

It was better to just give up the lie and let her dad think it was related to the military.

“The men I’ve brought would make fine mates,” he muttered, slumping lower in his chair like even he didn’t believe it.

“Even Bentley?”

He grimaced, then gave her a rueful smile. “No. I’m sorry about that one. But what about Dean? He seems nice.”

“I guess I should correct something,” she said. “Just between you and me. Since you’re going to be prying anyhow. Hercules may be a friend from my time in the army, but I’m also in love with him. And while he only came here to be my bodyguard, I’m hoping to propose to him. He’s my mate, Father.”

Her dad stared at her, aghast. “So you brought him here to trick him into marrying you?”

“No,” she said, standing and looking down at him for emphasis. “I would never trick him. I brought him here for a second chance. We were involved before.”

“And we never knew about that either,” he grumbled. Then he stood to face her. “So you were involved before, and you think he’s your mate, and he left you? That doesn’t sound like a mate to me.”

“He’s… complicated,” she said. She didn’t want to say it was her fault, that she’d pushed him in the exact ways her father was pushing now.

But now she was realizing the cold truth of it. They were never going to stop prying into his past. Even if she could let it go, her dad wouldn’t. His company wouldn’t.

She was the only heir. The only one who could take over. Those involved with the company would want to know about the man who would own half a stake as her spouse.

She heard the front door open and yanked the office door open to look out. She saw Hercules walking in, looking bedraggled and damp, next to Dean, who was trying to keep things light with small talk.

Herc’s brown eyes met hers and then quickly looked away, and he spun and took the stairs two at a time up to his room, avoiding her.

Of course he was. Knowing him as she did, he was probably profoundly embarrassed. Hercules saw himself as a warrior, a perfect soldier. The fact that she’d had to save him would rankle for a good long time.

She needed to start working on that, not be here arguing with her father.

She felt her dad come around her and shut the door. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Please. I’m sorry. Just talk to me a little longer, okay? Then I’ll have said my piece and I’m done.”

She slumped into her chair. “Fine. But nothing you say can change my mind.”

“So you’re planning to propose,” he said wearily, running a hand through his graying hair.

“Yes,” she said, looking into eyes that were so like hers.

“And then what happens after that? What happens with the company?” he asked.

“I can work remotely.”

“So you’d go live with him,” her father said. “Where?”

“New York. Upstate. In the country. It’s pretty there.”

Her father sighed. “I need you to take the company, Val. It has to stay in the family.”

She nodded carefully. “But what if I do that some years from now? What if at first, Hercules and I stay together, where he’s comfortable.”

“Right,” her father said angrily. “Because it matters if he’s comfortable. That’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter to you that you’re hooking up with some crazy vet who nearly got you killed and has no financial prospects!”

Then her father’s face went blank and pale in the middle of his speech, and Hera’s heart fell as she slowly turned to see Hercules standing at the newly opened door.

Looking paler than usual. His hand was just grazing the doorknob, like if he touched it more, it would burn him.

“I heard yelling,” he said blankly, pushing his hair back. “I wanted to make sure Hera was okay.”

“Hera?”

Hercules ran a hand through his hair. “Valerie.”

“It’s fine,” her father said sharply, pulling Hercules into the room and shutting the door. Hercules backed into the wall, jerking out of her much smaller father’s hold and staying as far from them as he could. “I already know about your little secret.”

Hercules looked at Hera, and she hated the betrayal she saw there.

“I gathered that from you calling me a crazy vet with no financial prospects.” He took a step forward then, backing Hera’s dad to his chair behind the desk and looming over him. “But why do I feel like the real thing that bothers you is you didn’t choose me for her, you control freak?”

Her dad went deeply red and stuttered for a moment, unable to speak.

“And I don’t know what misapprehension you’re under, but I’m not planning to make my problems your daughter’s problems. I’m just here as her bodyguard.”

“But I thought—” her dad stuttered.

Hercules put up a hand. He looked truly terrifying when he was angry. “I forgot for a moment that I was a crazy vet who would threaten her life. I forgot that people like you would never understand me. I forgot Valerie would have to choose between a comfortable life with people like you and a life in the dark with me.”

“I want a life in the dark with you,” Hera said, reaching out for him.

He stepped back as if he thought he would contaminate her. “You don’t know anything about my life,” he spat. “So stop acting like you know it would work.” He ran a hand angrily through his hair. “It’s all happening again. Just like I knew it would.”

Then he stormed out of the office, and Hera sent a withering glare at her father before storming after him.

“What’s going on?” Bentley asked, meeting up with them as she followed Herc through the hallway.

“Oh, nothing. Her dad just found out I’m only here as a bodyguard and nothing more.”

Bentley’s eyes lit up. “Seriously?”

Hercules rolled his eyes and kept walking, but Bentley reached out and grabbed Hera’s arm, jerking her back.

“
L
et go
!” she shrieked, batting him off. But he pulled her back again.

“No reason not to now, babe,” he said, coming close.

She barely had time to roll her eyes before he was torn from her with a roar and thrown halfway across the foyer. She looked up to see Hercules, still half naked from the swim, heaving with rage, staring at him with clenched fists.

Her dad stumbled out of the office. “What in the…?” He trailed off as he looked over at Bentley, who was doubled over in pain.

“Just a bodyguard, huh?” Rob said, sneering and folding his arms. “You need to get your story straight.”

Hercules let out a frustrated snarl and picked Hera up with one arm, slinging her over his shoulder.

She knew she should be mad at being manhandled, but she was just glad they would get a chance to talk.

He walked down the hall to her room, opened it with one hand, and then strode in and tossed her easily on the bed.

He shut the door behind them and locked it and then fell to his knees on the carpet, his hands over his face.

Shock fell over her, and she stared at him, aghast. “Hercules?”

He didn’t look at her. Instead, he spoke in a low voice, avoiding her eyes. “Why did you tell him? Did you give up on us?”

She shook her head, then realized he couldn’t see her. She got up and ran over to him. He tried to push her away, but she worked her way under his arms.

“Don’t push me away,” she said, resting against his chest.

“I’m sorry, Hera,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I ruined everything. They all saw it. Outside. It’s best if people do think I’m only a bodyguard. Obviously, I’m not fit to be anything else.”

“No,” she said. “You just need to let me in. So I can help you with whatever you’re dealing with. So I know when it’s coming and what to do when it’s here.”

He pulled back from her, horrified. “I don’t want you to spend your life like that. Nursing me. Pitying me. Dammit, Hera, you need a mate on your level. Someone to watch out for you. Not the other way around.”

“I want you,” she said.

“And I don’t know why!” he said, standing.

She stayed on the ground, startled, and he softened and bent to take her hands and pull her up.

“Moments like last night, or today, are so precious,” he said. “And if I’d been a different person, maybe our lives would be full of those moments, not moments like the one you just saw. But it’s like that. I can’t change it. What I can do is walk out of here and make sure you don’t lose your family just to live with a dangerous, secretive man that can never stand to tell you the truth about who he is.”

Her heart fell. This was him giving up on her. “No,” she said. “We need more time.”

“For what, to screw up?” he asked. He folded his arms. “No. I’m not leaving yet, at least. Because I need to make sure you’re safe. I need Bentley gone. But after that…”

She shoved him in the chest. “After that, you won’t know if I’m safe because you won’t be around to see.”

She saw the impact of that on him, realized he was hurting badly over this, too.

But he had control over the situation. He had all the variables, all the info. She didn’t.

“What makes you so broken that you think you can just run away from me?” she asked. “What happened today in that boat?”

“You said you wouldn’t pry,” he said.

“I can’t help it anymore,” she said. “I lied. I need to pry, for both of us.”

He turned his back on her. “I knew this couldn’t work.”

“That’s right,” she said. “Because you know everything. Yet you won’t tell me anything, even after I’ve let you into my world and showed you everything about it.”

Hercules jerked his finger in the direction of the office. “And what about your family? Do you think they would let me into your world?”

She hesitated.

“I’m not rich like them, Hera. I have some money saved up and a good job, but I could never give you what they have.”

“And they could never give me what you have,” she said.

He stepped forward, reaching for her hair. He fingered a lock in his hand. “And what have I given you, other than trouble and a broken heart?”

“Protection, love,” she said. “That’s what you’ve given me. What you continue to give me. This afternoon was just one moment in a million good ones.”

He shook his head. “And in one bad moment, I could hurt you.”

“No, you couldn’t,” she said. “You never could.”

He rubbed his head tersely. “I want to think that.”

She came closer, putting her arms around him. “I know you wouldn’t.”

He lowered his head on top of hers. “No one can know that.”

“You can’t know I won’t hurt you.” Her hands squeezed him as if she could just keep him there if she never let go. “I just don’t get why you don’t trust me enough to tell me what happened to you. Do I seem so unreliable?”

“I just can’t face it,” he said. “If I say it, if I talk about it, it becomes real. Then every time you look at me, you think of it. Every time you see me, you think of it. I’d rather leave you and know you could have a good life than tell you and let you look at me the way you’ll look at me once you know.”

Her face fell. “You can’t honestly believe that, sweetheart,” she said. “Nothing about you can change that you’re the sweetest, strongest, most loyal and devoted and handsome man I know.”

He took her arms in his hands, squeezing tightly, but not enough to hurt. His eyes were stormy and hard as they looked down at her.

“Then what if I’m not a man? What if I’m something made in a test tube? Something not human, not shifter? A concoction that was never meant to have a soul?”

She blinked up at him. Her world swirled. What could he possibly mean by that?

“I’m a monster, Hera,” he said, turning his back on her. “And the sooner you understand that, the better.”

She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back. She was still a female bear shifter. She was still strong when she wanted to be. She gathered all her strength and used the element of surprise to yank him back and toss him onto her bed. Then she was down and straddling him before he could fight back, pressing his hands down like he’d done to her so many times.

She was so close to finally knowing everything about him. She wasn’t going to stop now.

“Tell me,” she said. “Everything.”

A single tear moved down his cheek, and her heart split down the center. But she wasn’t stopping here. “You can’t quit there,” she said. “We’re so close. And screw my family. We’ll go where you want to go. We’ll leave them. If they can’t learn to accept you, then I won’t stay with them.”

He looked up at her, handsome and angry and defeated, and sighed. “I guess even if I am going to leave you, you deserve to know. Maybe after you hear, you’ll agree.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just kept her hands on his.

“Can I sit up?” he asked. “I don’t want to talk about it like this.”

She shook her head. “You’ll run.”

“I won’t,” he said flatly. His tone was so dead it scared her. “I’m done running. There’s nowhere to run anymore. Not since you came back.”

She released his arms and sat back, and he sat up against the headboard, putting his hands over his legs.

“I was raised in a lab,” he said. “I don’t know how I got there. They only called me number three. It was illegal, what they were doing. I know because when the shifter authorities, dragons in this case, found them, they were immediately shut down and taken away.”

He shrugged. “They didn’t really know what to do with me, though. I can only guess One and Two must have been failed experiments before me.” He exhaled. “The dragons who found me did tests. The best they could figure was I was some sort of hybrid. The creatures who had me were known for trying to splice dragon blood with other shifters to create new animals. But they said it wasn’t dragon blood mingled with mine. They couldn’t tell me what I was.”

Her mouth was dry. Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t this. She hated her dad for forcing this too soon. Hated the people who’d done that to him. Hated she never in a million years would have been able to guess what happened to him if he hadn’t told her.

He rubbed his head. “I know it has something to do with my hair. They cut it off a lot when I was little. Constantly shaving it, studying it. I don’t know what it means.”

“But your bear,” she said. “Your bear is normal…” She knew she sounded stupid but didn’t know what else to say. They had been in bear form before, and he’d looked just like any pure-blooded bear shifter. If a little lighter in color.

“I look like a normal bear,” he said. “Truthfully, it has always felt like something else was inside me. Something strange. And that has terrified me. Not knowing what it was. Not knowing if it could hurt someone.”

“If that were possible, it would have happened during the war.”

“I hear the reasoning in that,” he said, tired. “But it’s still a fear. But I haven’t explained it all yet.”

“What else could there be?” she asked, twisting her hands. “And none of that makes me see you differently.”

“I haven’t finished,” he said. “How could I mate with you?” He shook his head. “Your dad needs a line to run his company. How do we know I can reproduce? How can we know if it’ll end up as a monster?”

“You aren’t a monster,” she said firmly. “So nothing that comes from you can be.” She forced him to look in her eyes. “You’ve saved thousands of lives. You have friends who love you.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d just run away with me. If I had never heard about your family. But you deserve a full life. Not a life with someone who didn’t even speak until they were fifteen.”

She sat back on the bed, stunned. “Fifteen?”

“They kept me suppressed in bear form,” he said. “In the dark. The scientists who visited me only came to give me shots and then left. They studied me from behind glass. They treated me like an animal. They called me a monster. I don’t think I’ll ever be over that. I’m probably always going to be something half formed.”

She put a hand up, but he turned away.

“I’m never going to feel like other people do. I’m never going to feel that bonds are easy. Or that I’m entitled to happiness. And when I do, when I start to forget, the ghosts will come back to remind me. And hurt anyone with me. Like they did today on the boat.”

She bit back a sob. What he was saying was the truth for anyone who had been abused, and it was so unfair. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t live good lives if they were only willing.

But maybe for Hercules it was easier to stay in the dark with the scientists and needles than to come out fully into the unknown.

“I know it’s scary, but…”

He looked up at her, a sardonic gleam in his eye that she didn’t like. “Scary?” He waved a hand. “This is scary?” He scoffed. “Ha. Scary is nearly being blown up. Scary is feeling like any day you could be injected with something that will cause you to die. Scary is not being holed up with some pampered debutante and her controlling father.”

She slapped him, anger burning through her. “Don’t you dare act like you don’t remember what I’ve done for you. What we’ve been through together.” She waved at the house. “My history here is just one part of me, like your history is only one part of you.” She caught his hands up in hers. “The rest is our choice. We could make our own history, now, together.” Her eyes narrowed at his defiant expression. “Except for you, big, bad Hercules, because you won’t admit maybe after what you’ve been through, being happy would be the scariest of all.”

He scoffed and tried to look away, but she grabbed his jaw and turned him back. She didn’t like being bossy, but this was his
life
. He deserved more than this, even if it wasn’t with her. Even if it only shook him out of his funk later.

“Because if you let yourself be happy, if you allowed yourself one of those happy, normal lives that other people have, you’d have to admit you were only human. Well, a regular shifter. And then what had happened to you would have been unthinkable. And you couldn’t face that.”

His eyes were wide, his jaw set in a furious slant, and he clearly didn’t think her screed deserved a response.

“But don’t for one second think you’re anything but supremely lovable,” she said, holding his face in her hands. “Because I am so completely in love with you. And if I could hunt down the people who hurt you, I would do it in a second. And if I could take it all back, I would.”

He pushed away her hands, using his strength to easily, gently set her away from him.

She could already see him closing her out, and she didn’t know how to reach across the wide divide between them.

“Won’t you just look at me, please?” she asked. “I’m trying to tell you I love you.”

He looked at her, his face that of someone lost in a snowstorm, unable to see their way. “And I’m telling you I’m too broken to ever be with someone as perfect as you.”

That floored her, and she sat back with a thump as he got off the bed. But then she lunged forward and caught him around the waist. “No, you’re not going to just tell me all of that and walk out on me,” she said. “You can’t!”

He ran his hand through his hair. “There isn’t much more to say. This isn’t how I wanted things to go, but I knew I would have to leave it up to fate. Now you know as much as I do, but even as I say it out loud, I don’t know how I can be with you. How I even considered it.”

“You considered it because it was right,” she said, fighting back angry tears. “Because you love me.”

He blinked down at her, and his expression softened. “I do love you,” he said. “With every part of this monstrous heart in me. I love you enough to give you up.” Then he put his hand on the doorknob and opened it, giving her just one more sad glance.

“I won’t leave until you’re safe,” he said. “But after that, you should find someone on your own.”

And then he was out the door.

And she didn’t have the energy to chase him.