Bear Meets Bride: A Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (4 page)

The four men in the small white boat seemed to fit the description of
public.
All four were tall, middle-aged, except for the one manning the outboard who looked to be in his early twenties, around Sarah’s age, but all of them were wearing camo outfits, head to toe. They looked like a motley regiment of amateur soldiers. She suppressed a grin.

The grin disappeared quickly when she saw one of the men turn and noticed the giant rifle slung over his back. Its heavy wooden stock was burnished dark like burnt umber, and the pitch black muzzle was the color of graphite. Now, as they drew closer, she saw they all had guns, different makes and sizes, but all high powered rifles. She gulped.
Hunters.

There was a natural predisposition for shifters to fear hunters. While in bear form, they were virtually inseparable in appearance from their wild cousins. In their long history, it had not been uncommon for one or another shifter to have met their end at the long sight of a firearm, she knew the old stories well. The elders toyed with the term occupational hazard, which she hated. It was more than that.

She ducked lower, even though she was in human form. Some primal fear rose up and she found herself breathing hard into the moist-smelling ground. Her black hair fell over the headband and she froze, instinct reeling, the only movement was of her half-closed eyes watching the boat.

No, not hunters, she realized.
Poachers
. Which was even worse. While she knew that she had to be careful of hunters, hunters generally had their own code of ethics, the same way bears did. Kill what you need, use everything, honor the kill. But poachers were a different matter. You couldn’t reason with them, they were ruled by greed and bloodlust. And more often than not, they were unpredictable because of the very fact that they were engaging in illicit activities.
A cornered poacher is more dangerous than a cornered bear
, she reminded herself, recalling an old mantra her grandmother had taught her.

She watched them another ten minutes as the boat veered over the bay. The men occasionally looked out toward the island and she felt a chill every time they did. They were looking for something, animal sign, no doubt. It wasn’t until the sound of the engine had dispersed and the white boat had become a blinking lash on the other side of the bay did she dare stand up again. Her legs and neck hurt from the awkward position and she felt her muscles crack as she straightened.

The others. She had to tell the others.

She turned back up the slope, not even feeling the burning in her legs until she was back on the path. Her breath caught in her throat like a burr and she sprinted back toward the cabin. Her scalp felt like a thousand needles were pressing into it from every direction and sweat ran off her eyebrows, trying to blind her.

*

Chris was the only one home when she barged into the cabin, panting. Sweat caked her body making it feel like a second skin, smothering her naked legs and fusing the tank-top to her firm narrow bodice. She collapsed on the edge of the sink as the big man watched her shovel a handful of water into her mouth before she could speak again.

“Poachers. In the bay,” she pointed uselessly in the direction of the ocean.

Chris was usually calm and collected, even in the direst situations, taking it on himself to lighten the mood and approach a problem as objectively as possible. But that single word, poachers, seemed to ignite something behind his eyes as he stood up with a start, causing the chair he was sitting on to reel back onto the planks of the floor.

“Sarah, sit down… take a breath and explain,” he motioned toward the table.

She did as she was beckoned while noticing that there were an array of fishing hooks and lures and flies on the table. Another one of his domestic hobbies, she supposed. She took in a deep breath and found it easier.

“I was going for a run… you know, I always take the main trail, the one that goes around the bluffs,” he nodded, urging her to get to the point, “and as I was making my way down to the beach, I heard a sound. I looked toward the bay and saw a boat. At first, I just thought they were tourists or fishermen or something. But then I saw… they had guns. All of them.”

A cruel arc twisted over Chris’ heavy lips, and he looked away from her toward the window, as if contemplating something. “You’re sure you saw what you saw?” he asked, and she nodded. “That could be trouble.”

“Maybe they’ll just pass by,” she asked, hoping she was right.

“Maybe,” he agreed, but something was bothering him. “Most of these islands don’t have game big enough to worry about. There’s deer, sure, some feral goats but no big game. It’s a well-known fact. However… there have been stories, around the fishing villages, the mainland… about this island.”

Fear clutched at her heart and she was almost afraid to say anything. “What kinds of stories?”

He shifted his weight and reached out, shutting the blue tin case that housed his fishing lures. “The kind about us,” he said at last, “people saying they’ve spotted grizzlies on the island, down by the shore or a black or brown shape disappearing into the undergrowth. Just stories… and most people dismiss them. How could a grizzly possibly get here from the mainland?” he asked rhetorically. Sarah resisted the urge to follow with
by floatplane
.

“You said most people dismiss them.”

“Aye,” another pregnant pause, “but if there’s one thing a poacher or big game trophy hunter can’t resist: it’s those urban rumors. The ones that can’t possibly be true, but just might be. I told Dylan all about this of course… we’re both very careful about changing and touring the shoreline, just in case there is some wary hunter or fisherman out for a leisurely boat ride. But the stories are still there.”

“You think they’ve come looking for us? I mean… I mean bears?”

Chris shrugged. “I’d rather not have to ask them. But it is worrying. I’ll get on the horn and let the council know we might have some trouble… if anything, they can send a coast guard to do a ‘routine tour’ around the island. Other than that, we should put a hold on transformations.”

He said all of this, counting it off on his fingers with a judicious pause between each item. There was something definitively mature about him, despite his off-handedly simple nature. Like he could really take charge when he needed to, if the situation required it. With a pang, she realized he embodied, in as many ways, the attributes she had always been lacking in abundance. She merely nodded and then her eyes grew wider.

“What about Dylan? He doesn’t know about them… where is he?”

The patron caught the knife-edge in her voice and his eyes widened too and something like
Shit
passed barely as a whisper through his lips as he stood up again. “We’d better find him… I don’t think we’re in any real danger, but…”

“I’ll check the west side of the island,” Sarah finished his sentence for him, heading for the door, “you check the east.” With that, she was out the door again and didn’t turn back to see if Chris was following her.

Her legs felt weak, still achy like jelly from the hard sprint back from the beach, but she tried to focus on her breathing as she followed some of the side paths that veered toward the tributaries and little streams that circulated over the island like a fresh-water web. Dylan always seemed to enjoy those areas best, places where he could stand in the middle of the creek and snap at the salmon, which were just tapering off in their spawning season.

She could already smell the decay of dead and dying fish long before she reached the flowing creek. There was a convent of eagles on one rocky shore, all gorging themselves on dead salmon, which was red in their beaks. They gave her an inquisitive look and then hurriedly returned their attention to their scavenged kill. She looked up and down the creek but couldn’t see any sign of him. She decided to head upstream. In all likelihood, if there was good salmon hunting, it would be higher up, which is where Dylan would most likely be.

Her feet skidded over the slippery stones until she reached the small pool. There were dorsal fins of tired salmon, trying to keep themselves afloat but no sign of Dylan. She let out a breath of relief. Maybe she’d missed him.
Maybe
, she thought,
he’d already returned to the cabin and I missed him, and here I am panting hoarsely at a pond full of dead fish worrying for nothing
.

The thought was amusing and she shook her head, feeling foolish, but still relieved, and gripped her hips with both hands as she started back the way she came.

Then it came. A shot, like the trunk of an old growth fir splitting in a wind storm; something full of energy and rage, sharp as a thunderclap. It echoed, entering her body and working its way down to her toes, and she realized she’d stopped breathing. Another shot, this time she could tell the direction it was coming from, and took off running again. She couldn’t even think, her body reacted on its own and she had the distinct impression of watching it move without being able to consciously interact with it.

The only thing that ran through her head was
No
. It was cloudy, yes, but there was no lightning. She hadn’t imagined the gunshots; they were real and close. Her feet slipped again and up ahead she heard a scream and a series of growls. The screams were screams of pain, agony ripping itself from the throat of someone and she tried not to picture Dylan or Chris’ face.

The noise was coming from down near the western beach, closest to the cabin, and her foot snagged a root, causing her to slam against a tree trunk. It ripped the air out of her, and she felt her side burning, but continued on. The screams were louder as she saw the glint of blue between the trees and leapt down through the underbrush towards the shore, whether into the cross-hairs of a poacher’s rifle she knew not. Only that she had to reach Dylan.

The shoreline was chaos. The white outboard motor was facing out to the ocean. All four men were either in, or attempting to get in, and she saw the screams were coming from the youngest of them. Two older men were hauling him into the ribbed cask of the boat, one of them raising a rifle one-handed and aiming onto the beach. The youngest looked white, with blood-loss or fear or both, Sarah couldn’t say. Something dark trailed behind the men in the water like ink, and she realized with a sickening lurch that it was blood.

He was wounded and holding his ribs. The camo vest was torn, shredded, and she couldn’t tell what was flesh and what was material.
Geezus, what happened
, she thought, breaking free of some brush and jumping down onto the hard stones. She followed the line of sight of the poacher’s rifle back toward the beach and saw a grizzly snarling at the men. He was enormous, a tawny golden brown, and his teeth were white and sharp. It wasn’t Dylan – Dylan was black, black as night. It could only be…

“Chris!” she shouted aloud, without realizing her voice had acted of its own accord.

The grizzly turned at the outburst, his black eyes locked on her like pulsing stones, and his muzzle raised in a half-snarl. When he saw whom it was, his muzzle softened, and Sarah could see something red seeping from his shoulder.
More blood
, she realized.

The men in the boat had started to move further out in the bay but they saw her, too. Something like panic and confusion warped their faces as they tried to grasp at the situation – a snarling grizzly and a young girl, both apparently acquainted. It was only a moment. She saw him raise his gun, leveling down the sight, for another shot.

“Run!” Sarah said, ducking toward the cover of the shoreline herself.

Chris, even in bear form, seemed to understand her urgency, if not her exact words, and galumphed on his own vector toward the safety of the tree-line. Another shout rang out, eaten up by the crash of waves, and Sarah looked over her shoulder. Stones next to Chris’ massive body sparked, shaken by some invisible force and she let out another sharp exhalation of relief.

In the darkness of the canopy, she looked back and saw the outboard heading due east, toward one of the other islands.
Toward their ship
, she guessed, skidding on her hands and knees toward where Chris had pierced the tree-line himself. She found him, a huge brown hill in the forest, slumped against another fallen tree, his breathing slow and ragged.

Dylan was beside him, his hand on the bear’s slope of a head, dressed in only his pants. As Sarah got closer she saw that his head was bleeding from a vicious cut that ran from the right side of his brow, above his eye. Blood was still dripping over one eyebrow, although it was dark around the wound where other blood had dried. He turned at the approach of the girl, and like Chris, his face softened like tallow as soon as he saw who it was.

“Chris…” He couldn’t speak and winced, falling backward and shooting out a hand to support himself. “Dizzy, can’t…” He shook his head, and the muscles in his forearm stood out like riven valleys. “Are they gone?”

Sarah collapsed next to Chris as well, but her eyes were on Dylan. “What… what happened??”

“Can’t remember,” Dylan said. “I was down on the shoreline, coming back to the cabin. I heard a sound, like thunder. Before I could look up to see where it had come from, there was blackness. Pain. A pressure like a hammer on me.” He reached up and touched the wound.