BULL: MC ROMANCE (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 6) (85 page)

Chapter Eight

Victoria left work early for the first time in almost a year around two weeks later and made her way quickly to the pharmacy. It was even colder now and she had brought out the double scarf and glove combo she had chosen when it all started and the ice seemed to be inside her. When she was looking at the shelves, she felt almost embarrassed. She couldn’t even explain why she wanted to do this in the first place. But maybe she already knew the answer.

Things had been okay for a day or two. The feeling of dread she had every time she opened her eyes clung to her, but she got used to it quickly and after a week she was so accustomed to it she felt almost protected. It was nice to know that someone out there was looking out for her. She had worked as usual and gone about her days as if nothing had changed. She avoided Helen’s requests for boozy nights out and rolled her eyes as she listened to her go on and on about her latest sugar daddy. She tried again to get Victoria to go and work at the club with her. She could tell she was feeling down and thought that she should quit her job and make some real money.

“Honestly, Helen, I’m fine,” she had told her. And in a way, she actually meant it. 

After the second week had passed, she felt movement. It was low in her belly and rose up to her ribcage. It seemed to lay dormant during the day, but then when the world went dark, it began. Some nights she would wake and feel like she was being pummeled from the inside out. Like her intestines were being wrapped around its fists and dragged up and down.

“Help me,” she would whisper through the dark, just hoping one of them would listen.

She placed the test on the counter in front of the cashier and he bagged it up. She spent the last of her cash on it and walked home slowly, delaying the inevitable.

In her bathroom she watched the clock for two minutes before she dared to pick up the white stick and check the result. She almost expected it to say she wasn’t, that she was in fact crazy and that she had imagined the whole thing. At least then she could go and root through her chest of drawers and find the leaflet for the shrink. She exhaled and said aloud, “I hope you’re all finding this funny,” and then she stood up and swiped the test from the side of the sink.

Two pink lines….

Pregnant.

“Fantastic,” she smiled.

She closed her eyes and willed him to her:
Come and get me… I know now… The time is right… Come and get me…

She lay in bed and looked up to the ceiling. The presence seemed stronger and the movements inside of her were powerful. Her belly was round, swollen, and protruding, and she knew it was going to happen. It was like her acceptance was all that was needed to bring the pregnancy to full term.

All around her the hum of what could have been an engine started. Light flashed before her eyes before she felt weightless once more.

The next thing she knew, she was waking up in a completely different room, in a beautiful house, with a gorgeous baby boy in a bassinet beside her. Victoria looked around and at the adorable little creature next to her. He was bright white skinned with large dark eyes and a cute little wisp of white hair.

“Hey, cutie,” she whispered as she ran her hand down his cheek.

“Oh, you’re awake.” The man’s voice came from the hallway and he joined her with fruit juice and toast on a tray. “I thought you might like these.”

It was the man from the bar. The alien man who had started it all and taken her to the ship. Victoria looked up at him, bewildered, and shook her head.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“You’re being rewarded,” he moved closer to her and tipped her chin up so her lips met his, before he kissed her so deliciously slow that she thought she was going to melt in his arms.

“Rewarded?” she asked when they broke away.

“You’re the mother of The Lord’s heir… you are going to be looked after more than you could have ever dreamed.”

She looked down at the baby and then up to him.

“But… you?” she said.

“I’m a guardian,” he whispered, “I’ve been watching you for a very long time and I handpicked you for this, Victoria. The time had come, and it was right for you. This is your destiny.”

She sank back into the bouncing soft sheets and pulled her baby onto her chest. He was amazing. A wonderful mix of alien royalty and human humility. Victoria then looked up to the wonderful alien guardian by her side and felt the warmth spread throughout her body. She had finally got her happy ending… Her life had finally taken on some meaning. And she couldn’t have been happier.

THE END

Cynthia Wilde

Copyright ©2015 by Cynthia Wilde. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Thank you so much for your interest in my work

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter One

I put on my work uniform, tied my hair in a ponytail, and looked myself in the mirror. Every day, I had to make sure I looked as non-threatening as possible to all the kiddies. My uniform, which had cartoony animals on it, such as a giraffe, elephant, and monkey, made me feel not so intimidating, but I still had to work on my “resting bitchy face”. When I relaxed myself, I realized just how snarly I looked, like I was going to bite someone’s head off if they even looked at me. I practiced smiling, and when I decided that I didn’t look like a homicidal killer, it was time to work.

As I left the changing station, a fellow zookeeper past me by. “Morning, Stacy,” he greeted, a twinkle in his eyes.
Yeah, in your dreams,
I thought. No wonder I had a bitch face.

I started checking each cage to make sure the animals had an adequate supply of food. The monkeys still had plenty of fruit in their cages, the elephant was busy munching on some oranges, the giraffes were eating from the trees behind their fences, and I saw another zookeeper throwing fish into the mouth of a walrus, so it looked like all the cages were accounted for. Except for one.

Behind the cage, I saw the bear. It was a large grizzly, and it always gave the onlookers a stare that sort of freaked some people out. It was a very odd bear. I’d heard it hadn’t been with the zoo that long actually. He’d arrived just before my time apparently. This was supposedly a temporary place for him before they found a more permanent home. I wasn’t really sure. I wasn’t privy to that kind of information. But, what I was aware of what that its trough wasn’t filled, so I grabbed his special slop from the prep room. It looked like someone had been getting ready for work, or ready to feed him or something, because someone had left their uniform and a bag just outside the cage. I typed in the keypad combo that gave me access to the trough. It was easy to remember because they used the same combo for all the pads, even the ones on the inside of the cages. When I started dumping an amalgam of fish, raw steak, and other meat byproducts into its trough, it came up to me and nuzzled my hand with its nose.

“Who’s a good boy?” I asked him. To me, this bear was like a big puppy. Everyone thought that he was scary and many zookeepers neglected him attention wise.  I was the only one who seemed to care. In fact, we were getting so close that it felt ok to give him a little pat on the head as I left the cage. Thankfully my instincts were on, and he didn’t bite my hand off.

“Bye, Barry,” I said as I left, making sure to lock the door. That was my cliché name for the bear.  I had named him that, but I still made an inner eye roll every time I said it. As I left, I had to sigh. That bear was the highlight of my day, and I didn’t know why. Before coming to work  here, I’d thought I’d be starry-eyed over the more exotic animals, such as the tigers, gorillas, and the manatees, but instead I found myself relating to an animal that you could find in the local woods if you were lucky, or unlucky, enough.

I spent the rest of my day cleaning out the cages, keeping the food and water in check, and giving the sickly animals their medication. Being at the peak of summer, I was sweating and wished I could take this uniform off already, but I was determined to finish my rounds. It was my job, after all.

It may not pay much, but it’s just a summer job. Besides, it will look great on your qualifications when you finally decide to get your dream job,
I kept thinking.

As I tried reassuring myself, I looked at my phone. Just an hour and a half left and I could return to my apartment. I began making last minute checks of every single cage out there until finally I arrived at Barry’s cage. I expected to see him sitting all by his lonesome, and was shocked to see his cage was empty.

I entered to make sure. The cage had an environment that kind off simulating a bear’s habitat. I walked past the small stream as I looked to see if he was gone. At the end of the cage, there was a giant concrete structure poured in a shape to simulate a cave. Maybe he was resting? I peered inside, but there wasn’t anything there.

“Maybe one of the zookeepers moved him for some reason,” I said to myself. Of course, there wasn’t anything on the schedule to confirm this, but you never knew with these guys. I decided to leave the cage and find the nearest zookeeper I could find to figure out what was up. Unfortunately, it was the same guy that was always hitting on me. He was a lanky creep, and he never got the hint.

“What do you want, Stacy?” he asked.

Yes, I know that is my name. Now, could you please stop saying it?

“Do you know what’s going on with the bear cage? I can’t seem to find the bear, and I don’t think they moved him.”

“Let me check with the others, hon,” he replied.

Please don’t call me hon.

In a matter of minutes, zookeepers were standing at the cage, and everyone testified that there were no plans to move the bear. Of course, all the blame began shifting to me.

“Didn’t you feed it?” one asked. “Did you make sure to lock the cage?”

“Of course I did,” I replied. I remembered myself locking it up tightly. There was no way that I messed up.

The eyes were all still staring at me, but I just ignored them. Eventually, their fingers stopped pointing. Our boss, an older man who looked like a shaved orangutan, ordered us to search the entire vicinity of the zoo. The intercoms began announcing that the zoo would be closing early and to please head to the nearest exit.

For the next hour, I spent what energy I had left searching every nook and cranny that the zoo had to offer. It was a bear, not a poison dart frog, yet it was nowhere to be seen. This was getting bizarre. A wall surrounded the zoo, so it wasn’t as though it could have escaped. The front and back doors were heavily guarded. How could a grizzly bear just disappear like this?

“Maybe he’s a Houdini bear,” one of the guards commented, thinking how clever he was.

The zookeepers were freaking out, but relieved that no one had been harmed, whatever had happened. In fact, many of them seemed to be more concerned over the public backlash they might receive if the bear were found wandering around the streets, than they were about the fact he was gone. It was true that the potential lawsuit if someone were to be attacked by our animal was the last thing any zoo needed.

Two teams were sent out to hunt for the bear. One team started to review the security camera footage from outside the cage as well as the surrounding areas. The other began searching outside the zoo. There was a small forest behind the zoo, so if a bear somehow did escape, that’s where they would most likely be. I was sent on the second team.

As I looked at my phone, I realized that I should be home by now. I was worried plenty about “Barry” and I was also exhausted, hot and sweaty. How did he disappear like that? Could someone have bear-napped him and if so, who?

During our trip through the woods, we saw nothing that would indicate the bear had been this way. There were no tracks, no droppings, and really no sign of anything bigger than a squirrel.  After exploring every acre, we returned to the zoo and we regrouped with the security team.

“What do you have to report?” the team leader of my group asked us. “We saw no signs of the bear in the woods. We’ll probably have to send the police to search further, but there are absolutely no signs of him” reported Jim, the most senior member of my group.

“Nothing off about the security footage, either,” the zoo search team leader said. “I mean we see the bear moving around a bit in the areas we monitor. We saw Stacy Paddington enter and leave the cage, and we can confirm that she did lock it. Then later the bear does move out of frame from the monitored areas, but he was acting normal.”

“Are there no cameras on the door to the cage?” Jim asked.

“Only on a few areas inside the cage. We have cameras for studying the bear, not to see if he feels like going for a walk outside. But yeah, it seems that must be what he did,” he joked. No one laughed.

This began to remind me of the picture game “Where’s Waldo” as everyone kept saying that they couldn’t find the bear. Of course in my head it was “Where’s Barry?” Finally, everyone was dismissed and allowed to go home as police arrived to take over and converse with the remaining head staff. As I returned to my car, I began pondering just who was responsible for this. Did the bear somehow escape on its own? Was there someone behind this? Why would someone want to steal a bear? As I continued to think this over, I began driving.

When I returned to my apartment, I immediately headed to the bathroom. I took off my uniform and looked at myself in the mirror. I was drenched in sweat, and my makeup wasn’t exactly on very well. I looked like a mess, and the bathtub next to me was tempting. After I wiped off my face, I poured myself a bath and then immersing myself, allowed some of the days fatigue to be soaked out of me. Finally, I got out, dried off and put on my robe before turning on the TV. Already, the media had caught wind of the disappearing act. The Zoo president – yes the zoo has a president - was being interviewed, and they were showing footage of the empty cage. Great, just what the zoo needed. More negative publicity in a year when attendance was already down.

“The Longforest Zoo is known for causing some controversy. In 2009, it was scrutinized for health violations, and in 2013, one of the lions got too close for one boy’s comfort, although thankfully he was unharmed.” the report finished.

“Great,” I said as I shut off the TV. I did have to admit that this zoo wasn’t the best, but it was the only one this town had, and it brought some life to an otherwise pretty dead town.

As I relaxed myself, I received a call from my boyfriend Josh. I answered the call and he began with the worry immediately.

“I saw the news report, are you all right?” Josh asked.

“Yes,” I replied. It started off being a call of concern, but Josh soon changed his tune.

“So when are you going to come see me?” he asked, a bit of impatience in his breath.

“You know my work schedule is really busy, and you live three hours away. Plus, it goes both ways. You don’t have a job, so why don’t you come down here?” I replied.

“I don’t have the money,” Josh replied.

I wanted to call him out on that. Josh had been bragging on Facebook about some new video game he bought. For a fraction of that, he could have seen me. It wasn’t like gas was four dollars a gallon anymore.

“Can’t we just wait until you come back here for college?” I asked.

“But I really want to see you, babe,” he said, sounding pretty pathetic.

“Then come here. I know that you can afford it. Sell one of your games.”

There was silence on the other end, and then the call ended.

Well, fuck you too,
I thought to myself. His gaming was a touchy subject. He played a lot. Too much. Some would say addiction level too much. I grabbed myself a glass of wine and began sipping on it. At least tomorrow was my day off. And if they said I had to come in to search for the bear, it just wasn’t happening. Even though I was concerned for the bear, I needed a break. Besides that, it was confirmed that the bear wasn’t in the zoo or its surroundings, so what would be the point. After a bit, I received a text from Josh. “Sorry, I was in an area with poor signal and the call got dropped,” it read. I decided to ignore it for now. He was clearly hanging up because he knew I had put him in a checkmate, and pushed his buttons to boot. Instead of owning up to it like the strong man he claimed to be, he just ran away.

“Oh well,” I said, and soon fell asleep.