Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance (29 page)

Ivy had never run so fast in her life. And she knew, even as she tore down the make-shift wooded path, that it was the perfectly wrong thing to do. Shooting the bear would have been the thing that would save her life—but barring that, making herself as big as possible, returning the bear’s roar for roar, pretending to be as alpha as she could manage, would have been the best Plan B.

Because if she had learned nothing else from her father’s penchant for living in the middle of the woods with wildlife—wild being the optimum word there—she knew that a human being couldn’t outrun a bear. Or a mountain lion. Or a cougar.

But she ran anyway. In that instant, she became prey, and the bear was in pursuit. She heard him roar behind her, the cover of trees making the sound seem further away than it actually was, she was sure. She hadn’t covered that much ground, surely. But Ivy ran so fast and so far, a stitch began to grow in her side. And still she didn’t stop.

At any moment, she expected the bear to overtake her, but she didn’t dare look behind her to see if it was gaining on her. Instead, she ran, her dark hair flying out behind her, the rifle she’d slung over her back feeling heavier with every step. She swerved around trees, turning off the path into the deeper woods, hoping it would slow the bear down a little. He was still back there—she heard him snort and expected to feel his breath on her neck—and gaining.

I’m dead.

Her survival instinct was strong. The urge to turn and raise the rifle again—surely she’d have time to shoot him, even now—was almost overpowering. She was growing tired, her adrenaline rush waning, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep going.

That’s when she saw it.

Just ahead, the woods broke open into a small clearing, and there in the middle of it was a cabin. She’d forgotten it was there. Her father had stayed there overnight a few times after being out in the woods all day, when he didn’t feel like making the trek all the way back home. It had been abandoned for years. Really, it was little more than a couple-room shack. No running water, no electricity. Hunters had probably thrown it together a hundred years ago just to have some place to go drink beer and keep out of the cold at night.

But now it just might be Ivy’s salvation.

She put on an extra burst of speed, finally daring to glance behind her, just once, now that she had spotted a hiding place, and saw the bear still lumbering after her. The decision to run had been a foolish one, and she’d wildly thought it might be the last dumb choice she ever made, but in spite of the bear’s close proximity—twenty feet, perhaps—she knew she would make it to the front door.

And she’d be saved.

It never occurred to her that turning her head, just briefly, would cause her to trip, spilling her onto the ground, the weight of the backpack she was carrying knocking the wind out of her. Ivy cried out in pain—her foot had slipped into a hole, unseen, twisting her ankle sideways. Her whole foot throbbed, all the way to her toes, and she was afraid to take the time to look, but she thought it might have been instantly bruised.

Her body didn’t stop moving even then, momentum carrying her forward as she slid on her belly, leaving grass stains she knew she’d never get out, at least not with the manual washer. She’d have to waste power on the damned electric one.

And was she really worrying about grass stains while a giant bear was chasing her? She almost laughed at herself as she stopped her progress with her hands, struggling to get to her feet.

Just as she suspected, her ankle was sprained. She couldn’t run anymore. Limping, Ivy headed for the front door, knowing if she could reach it, even dragging her useless foot behind her, it would be her salvation. She hadn’t counted on a sprained ankle, but she was determined to hobble through the pain, just until she could get to the front door, and then…

But the front door was locked.

“Son of a whoring bitch!” She swore under her breath, profanity she’d learned from her father, one of his favorites in fact, as she yanked harder on the latch. It was hardly there, rusty and practically crumbling in her hand, but the door didn’t give.

Locked from the inside, she realized, seeing the bear’s loping bulk out of the corner of her eye. If she could get inside, the door itself would splinter like stuck-together Popsicle sticks if the bear put his weight behind it. But that didn’t matter—she thought, if she could get inside, it would be “out of sight, out of mind,” and the bear would wander back into the woods again.

At least, she hoped.

But she couldn’t get inside, could she?

Because the goddamned door was locked!

Ivy limped around the side of the shack, ignoring the sharp pain shooting up her leg. There was no porch. She wasn’t even sure it was built on a foundation at all. Around the other side was one small window with a single pane of glass, no curtains. The corner was broken, a perfect half circle. She looked inside and found it dim, a bare mattress on the floor, a small bureau in the corner, and nothing else. The window didn’t open.

“God damned witch’s tit fucker!” She swore again—another of her father’s favorites—considering breaking the glass.

Where was the bear now?

She imagined him scenting her presence at the front door, then bursting around the side of the house like a giant, hairy demon with impossibly big teeth. Would that be the last thing she saw before she died.

Ivy, shoot it. Shoot the bear. You have to.

She reached for the rifle, her stomach lurching at the thought. If the bear came around the corner, she’d have no choice. She had to save herself. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d used the rifle to put down an animal. There was plenty of venison in her freezer back home. But this wasn’t a deer or a rabbit picking through her garden, or a coyote stalking her chickens—this was a goddamned bear!

The
goddamned bear.

If it had been any other bear, maybe she could have pulled the trigger. Why did it have to be this bear?
The
bear?

Ivy heard a snort from around the corner and that jolted her. She hobbled around the other corner of the house, finding a back door with an equally crumbling latch. Her hands, still red from the rust on the front door handle, grasped and pulled, praying it was unlocked.

But no. The door didn’t budge.

“Mother-fu—” Ivy’s next barrage of profanity was ended when the bear came around the back of the house and saw her.

He stopped and so did she.

Her breath turned to ice in her throat, her whole body frozen in place.

The gun on her back felt like the weight of the world, and she knew, she was going to have to kill this bear, or he was going to kill her. There was nowhere else to go, nowhere to hide. She’d run out of options.

“Please,” she whispered, hearing the quiver in her voice. As if the bear could hear or understand her? He stared at her, his big, shaggy head cocked to one side. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

The bear with the blue eyes didn’t move. His nose quivered, and she imagined he was seeing her as a big, juicy steak. In one sudden move, he could overtake her. She felt the pulse hammering at her throat, saw herself underneath the bear, having her throat torn out, and panicked. She reached back for her rifle, simultaneously yanking on the door again, but it didn’t budge.

With a half-strangled sob, she unslung her rifle, leaning back against the door, a relief to her ankle, knowing she was going to be forced into killing an animal she’d “known” almost her whole life. It was silly, ridiculous, but when she raised her gun, she felt as if she was shooting at her father. But he was already dead. The whole world was dead and gone.

“Go away,” she croaked, pointing her rifle right between the bear’s eyes. He wasn’t close enough to bat it away, but almost. “Just go away.”

Ivy moved a little further away, feeling her hip bump against the latch.

The door she was leaning against opened inward, spilling her onto the floor, and she let out a scream as the gun went off. Ivy heard the bear. He was coming. Two loping steps, maybe three, and she was already sprawled out on the floor, like a nice plump meal already laid out on a plate for him.

She saw his big head appear around the side of the door and she screamed again, her body reacting before her mind could even process what she was seeing. Her good foot shot out—the left one—her tennis shoe catching the edge of it, and the door slammed closed just before the bear could come through it.

Ivy backpedaled on the floor with her one good foot. She couldn’t have stood, even if her ankle wasn’t screaming in pain. Her knees felt like Jell-O, her legs shaking as she pointed her rifle at the now-closed door, fully expecting the thwarted animal to burst through it, roaring, teeth bared.

“Go away,” she whispered to herself, begging the bear she heard snorting outside the cabin door. He was sniffing at the crack underneath it. He could smell her, she was sure of it—her sweat, her fear, her pain, the adrenaline still coursing through her body, making her tremble all over.

She told herself she would shoot it, if it really did come bursting through the thin, wooden barrier separating them. She wouldn’t have a choice, no matter how she felt about it, even if it was the bear her father had won awards taking photographs of. There was no one left to see them anyway. Ivy was the only one who remembered.

Maybe that was why she’d hesitated. Why she’d run instead of pulling the trigger. Why she was here, on the floor of this dirty shack, holding her father’s rifle in her trembling hands and wishing she was anywhere else.

Ivy cocked her head, listening. It was quiet outside. Too quiet. The snort and shuffle of the bear just outside the door was gone. There were no windows up front for her to peer out of, and she didn’t quite trust her legs yet anyway. But she thought the bear might have lost interest and wandered off.

Thank God.

Ivy’s hammering heart started slowing back to a halfway normal rate and she lowered the rifle, leaving it on the floor beside her. She could see her hands shaking in the light coming from the window on the side of the house and she raised them, palms up, seeing they were stained red. It was only berry juice mixed with rust—but it could have just as easily been blood. Hers—or the bear’s. Either prospect made her feel sick to her stomach.

It was the first time she’d thought about anything but escaping the bear since they’d interrupted each other’s berry-picking, and her first real conscious thought was a strawberry lament. All her plump, ripe, just-plucked berries were now spilled all over the forest floor for the animals to come and forage.

So much for strawberry shortcake.

It seemed impossible, but she was actually hungry. Her stomach growled and she growled back at it, knowing she wasn’t going to get what she wanted for dessert—which was, she assessed, far more important than dinner—and she was probably going to have to hole up here for the night, if the condition of her ankle was as bad as it felt. It was already swelling inside her shoe—she could tell. 

You can’t. Nikon’s waiting.

She normally would have brought her father’s dog—the sweet, smart border collie he’d named after his favorite camera—with her, although she was kind of glad she’d left him behind now. He likely would have gone after the bear to protect her, and Nikon would have lost that tussle. He was her only companion, and usually would have tagged along, sniffing the ground and warning her ahead of time of animal threats like bears, but he’d gotten into something that had made him vomit and had spent the past two days recovering.