Boarlander Cursed Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 5) (11 page)

No. She looked over at Bash as he pushed toward her through the thinning cars. His furious gaze wasn’t on her. It was behind her—on Clinton. They were trying to help her. She had to believe that right now.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed her legs harder. She had to buy them time to cut him off. Her thighs burned, and her lungs were on fire. The terror had done something awful to her chest, making the air she dragged in with every pant too thick.

She was so close to the tree line now, but the grass was un-mowed and taller, so she had to lift her knees higher. Clinton was right behind her. She could hear him breathing, hear the snarl in his chest that punched with every breath. She could hear his massive paws flattening the grass, and she imagined his breath on the back of her neck.

She was going to be killed by the one she loved.

Muscles burning, Alyssa pushed through the first row of trees and took off at an angle, but her sneaker caught a loop of tree root, and she screamed as she went down hard. She rolled over just in time to see Clinton bearing down on her with such speed and such precision, there would be no surviving this. And behind him came a herd of monsters.

Everything slowed.

A giant black boar with blazing blue eyes and long, razor sharp tusks.

Bash’s black grizzly.

A brown bear with fire in his eyes, mouth open as he gained on Clinton.

An enormous silverback gorilla, charging closer to Clinton with long, powerful arms, his smooth black lips curled back over long canines.

A white tiger, snarling in an expression that promised pain. Audrey. She was trying to save Alyssa, too, but they were all too late. She wouldn’t get to say goodbye to her friends.

And in that moment, something became clear to her.

I want to hurt you. I want to bite you.
Clinton had tried to warn her away, and she hadn’t listened.

“Clinton, don’t!” Alyssa screamed as he skidded to a stop over her, paws bigger than her face on either side of her head. Tears streamed out from corners of her eyes as she locked gazes with him. There was no hesitation as he curled his lips back, exposing impossibly long, sharp teeth. And then he clamped his jaw over her shoulder.

The pain was excruciating. She shrieked, waiting for him to shake her and tear her limb from limb, but as quickly as he’d slammed those powerful jaws down around her flesh, he released her.

And then everything resumed real time when Clinton was blasted sideways. The Boarlanders had him. Ripping, shredding, clawing, snarling, roaring. They all fought like injured animals, driven by desperation.

Clinton was winning. He was pushing them back toward her. Audrey was thrown off. Kirk, too. Clinton in all his rage was coming back to finish her off.

Clutching her bleeding shoulder, she winced at the pain that rippled down every nerve ending in her body. Her blood was boiling, her veins exploding with the heat. Alyssa retched and struggled to sit up.

Kill me.

It would be easier to die than endure this pain. To endure the betrayal. To endure an empty life where she didn’t know who she was.

She sat on her knees in the shade of the evergreens, her yellow Team Clinton shirt turning crimson. She dared a look at her shoulder and gagged again. Her skin was tattered, hanging in strips and gushing, but that wasn’t the most terrifying thing. A soft rumble bellowed up from her like a demon escaping hell.

“Let him alone!” she screamed at Bash and Mason.

The boar and the black grizzly disengaged and backed off as she stood. Fury fed her now, and it was a helluva lot more powerful with all this adrenaline dumping into her dying system.

“If anyone is going to bleed this asshole, it’ll be me.” Her voice sounded like a monster.

Ally appeared through the trees, hands out in a soothing gesture, but fuck that.

“Don’t come any closer,” Alyssa snarled.

Ally froze like the smart woman she was, and the Boarlanders backed away slowly.

“Alyssa,” Ally pleaded, “don’t kill him.”

Kill him? She was small and frail. She’d been running from a predator a minute ago. She had blunt nails and blunt teeth and was no match for Clinton the fucking grizzly bear. All she had was rage. And that rage was so deep and so wide that it bellowed up from her like magma spewing from a volcano. Alyssa closed her eyes against the pain, allowing the anger to burst out of her.

She inhaled quick and screamed a horrifying sound that tapered into a roar and then into a long growl. With a rumble in her chest, she landed on four feet and stared down in horror at her giant paws. Long, curved claws had replaced her useless fingernails, and her paws were massive as she flattened them against the earth. Fur covered her body, black on the coarse under-layer and lightening to a dove gray on top. She could smell everything. She could smell the fear wafting from the Boarlanders, acrid and bitter against her new nose. She could hear their pounding heartbeats and see every defined strand of fur on their bodies. Power rippled through her in a wave as she swung her furious gaze to Clinton.

He’d been hers, and look what he’d done. He’d claimed her, put a bear in her, and all without her consent.
Consent
—that word had meant so much to him, and now this?

Alyssa hated what he’d done.

Clinton was a full-grown, mature bruin, blond fur waving in the early storm winds. His eyes were blazing silver as he raked his gaze appraisingly over her body, but she wasn’t flattered. Not now. Not when he’d forced this after all his lies and betrayal.

On top of everything, he’d stolen her humanity.

She bunched her muscles and charged, power pulsing through her body with every step. She was fucking invincible in this body, fueled by her anger. So fast, she barreled down on him. The surrounding forest blurred to nothing but an ugly patchwork of brown and green as she leapt through the air.

Clinton caught her full in the chest and was rammed backward against a massive tree trunk. She clawed and bit and slapped and bled him without pity because he deserved to be punished. The dull sensation of pain on her shoulder was annoying, but nothing more. The Boarlanders backed away. They were going to let her have this kill. They were letting her have vengeance.

Why wasn’t Clinton fighting back?

He was ducking her, trying to escape her death blows, trying to protect his neck from her canines. Coward. Coward! She wished she had her human voice so she could tell him how sad he’d made her. How angry. But since she didn’t, she could only tell him with pain.

The air smelled like iron, and her paws were wet. Clinton’s fur was matted and splattered with crimson, and now she felt sick. Sick, sick, sick. Sick of fighting. Sick of hurting. With a strange, long sob, she went limp on top of him and hoped the Boarlanders killed her because she’d hurt him.

Him.

She’d hurt her mate, her love. Clinton threw his arm over her back, and there was a long, soft rumbling sound coming from his chest. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. It was the sound of mourning. So she matched it with a heartbroken sound of her own.

The Fates had given them to each other so young, and what had she and Clinton done with that time?

They’d ruined each other.

Her body broke and shrunk. Muscles reshaped, bones snapped, and pain rippled through her body in tsunami waves. She fell backward as Clinton took his human form. It looked painful, and she grimaced away from the sight. That’s what she looked like now.

The Boarlanders looked so sad. So sad.

Everything felt surreal as Alyssa rested on her folded legs in the dirt. Warmth streamed from her body, but she stared in horror as a long gash on her arm shrank, then closed up completely. There was that shifter healing. Shifter. She was one of them now. Them. A sob wrenched through her as she wrapped her arms around her middle. She was shivering. So cold.

There was a man in the woods with a phone pointed at her, but Harrison was human again and to him in a moment. He took the phone from him and slammed it against a tree. His bare body was rigid as he yelled at the stranger. “Have some respect! She’s naked, you asshole!”

Naked. Alyssa looked down at her bare skin, and twin tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Clinton said, his voice breaking on the apology as he rocked on his knees in the dirt.

His eyes were so raw, and he smelled of something new. Regret? Guilt? Unhappiness to be sure.

Her shoulders shook, and a whimper clawed up her throat. Even after everything, the thought of hurting him made her sick. But this had to be said because he’d done something really, horribly bad.

In a strangled whisper, she told him, “You aren’t forgiven.”

Alyssa ran her finger across the scar on the outside of her big toe—the scar she’d gotten the day she’d been taken. Taken from Saratoga, taken from Clinton, taken from her parents, taken from her life. She hadn’t ever noticed it before, but now it was there, more proof she was Shae.

Such a hollowness filled her middle, and now she felt as if she were hovering just outside of her body. She was nothing more than a lost balloon floating toward the sun. What a lonely feeling.

Her bear rumbled inside of her, but she was getting used to that. Two days of self-banishment in 1010 with nothing but her bear to talk to, and they were getting to know each other quite well.

Harrison had called her “dominant” on the way to the trailer park from the Lumberjack Wars. She’d told the Boarlanders she wanted to go home, but Harrison said she couldn’t. Not until she had control of her bear. He said, for now, Boarland Mobile Park had to be her home.

Another knock sounded on her door, but she ignored it like all the rest. She didn’t want to be talked down from feeling. From coping. She wanted to think about all of this in private. Wanted to mourn the loss of her humanity, the loss of herself, the loss of her name and her hometown and her story, all if it.

Her phone sat face up on the laminate wood flooring in front of her. She was sitting under the AC unit in 1010 because the droning sound calmed her animal for some reason.

Mom was calling again.

Feeling numb, Alyssa reached for it and accepted the call.

“Alyssa? Are you there?”

“When you call me that name, it sounds like more lies.”

Mom went quiet for a minute, and then softly she said, “Would you like me to call you Shae?”

“I don’t know.” Alyssa shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know anything.”

“Baby, can I just explain?” Mom was crying. Alyssa could hear it in her voice. She was trying to be strong and steady, but that little tremor and sniff gave her away.

“Sure.” Alyssa’s voice sounded hollow, even to herself.

“It wasn’t like we planned on never telling you. That’s not how it started out. But you’re our only daughter, and when you were taken, it was awful. Clinton came back from the woods, half-dead, panicked, screaming about how someone took you. I was in shock. He had been beaten so badly, I barely recognized his face, and he was saying you were gone. Just…gone. His parents wanted to move him away to protect him in case the IESS came back, but he wouldn’t leave us.” Mom’s voice upped an octave, and she sniffed a few times before she continued. “He wouldn’t leave us. And the police were telling us that after forty-eight hours, the chances of finding you alive were slim, but every time, your dad and I started to think ‘what if?’ What if you were dead? Clinton was right there, telling us you didn’t feel dead to him. And he was bonded to you, baby. He had this instinct we couldn’t understand, but he was sure. He was so sure you were still out there somewhere. And so we went to work. Dad quit his job to track you full time, and Clinton dropped out of school. He was going to these terrifying, dark places to gather information, and every time he left I was so afraid we would lose him, too, and his parents would have to go through the same thing that we were. But he never gave up on you. Never. Not for a moment. And when he found you, baby…when he negotiated for you, he knew there was no way he was coming back out of there, but it didn’t matter to him. He was so happy. He was hugging us, crying, promising us he would get you back safe, but we had to take care. Once he went in and took your place, we had nothing to bargain with anymore. So we had to keep you safe, change your name, and move. We started a whole new life, terrified every day they would come back for you.”

Alyssa cupped her hand over her mouth as her shoulders shook and tears streamed down her face. For two days, she’d thought about how this all affected her, but she hadn’t realized how hard it had been on her parents, or on Clinton. It didn’t excuse the lies, but it made her understand them better.

“We were going to tell you when Clinton escaped. He called us on the road, and we were so happy he was alive. So happy he was out, but there was something wrong with him. He sounded different. He wasn’t…” Mom blew out a long breath. “He wasn’t okay to come back for you. They’d done something awful to him in there that took that boy away from us, away from his parents, and away from you. He said he wished he’d died in there.” Mom sobbed, and her voice thickened. “And your dad and I could tell he meant it with all his heart, and you had been in there for the same amount of time, enduring God-knows-what, but you were okay. You weren’t using drugs to cope with that awful time, or drinking, or hating yourself or hating the world. You weren’t having to deal with any of that because you didn’t have any memory of it. And we wanted to
keep
you. Dad and I wanted to keep you safe from what Clinton was going through, and he wanted the same, so we kept up the lie. We weren’t trying to hurt you, baby. We were trying to save you.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry it happened, and I’m sorry you had to make all those hard decisions. Please forgive me.”

“For what, Alyssa? You did nothing wrong.”

“For putting you and dad through that. I can’t imagine how scared you must’ve been. Two years!” She shrugged and looked up at the sagging ceiling of 1010. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“Never. We would never. You’ll always be our little girl.” Mom swallowed hard. “Clinton told us what he did to you.”

“Mom—”

“No, you listen. I know you’re mad at him. I
know
it. He didn’t go about it the right way, but you should know that bear in your middle was always the plan.”

“Whose plan?”

“Yours. You and Clinton were bonded early when you were just little kids. And oh, it terrified your dad and me. Watching you fall so hard for a boy with a bear in him? But as the years went on, and we saw Clinton’s character, how he took care of you, stuck up for you at school, was so devoted to you, and pushed you to be better, to be stronger… He became a son we’d never had. And we were glad he picked you, and that you picked him back because he was so steadfast. I even had a dress picked out for your wedding because I just knew I was gonna be the mother of the bride as soon as you two turned eighteen. You were just so confident in him, and you always had great taste in people. You told us when you were fourteen that someday Clinton would claim you, and you would be like him. You told us you two were already talking about it, but he wanted to wait until you were older so that the bear wouldn’t scare you. He wanted to give you time to be human. You would come home so angry.” Mom laughed thickly. “It was all you fought about. You two got along so well, but you would get mad because he was putting off Turning you. But I knew it wasn’t because he didn’t want to claim you. He just wanted to make it special. And he’s gutted now because he failed at that. He didn’t do it the right way, but you have to realize, he’s waited his whole life for that moment. If his bear was still okay, and if he hadn’t gone into that damned facility, he would’ve made it a beautiful declaration for you. But his bear got scared of losing you, and Clinton couldn’t help himself. You’ve known you loved him for a few weeks, but that boy, that man, has loved you with everything he has since he was ten. Please, honey, for your sake and for his, give him a chance to explain himself.”

Alyssa heaved a sigh and hugged the phone closer to her ear. “Okay, mom.”

“I love you, baby.”

Her lips twitched up in the first smile in days. “I love you, too.”

And when she hung up, she rested her head back against the wall and tracked Nards’s progress over her leg and into the bathroom. The little field mouse with the giant testicles had a potato chip in his mouth, bringing dinner back for his lady mouse, Nipples.

Another knock sounded at the front door, and this time she didn’t ignore it.

This time, she got up and wiped her cheeks and straightened her spine. It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and face the outside world.

It was time to move on.