Bear My Soul (Fire Bears Book 1) (3 page)

“I know you,” a deep voice said.

Rory cracked her eye open to see Cody standing right in front of her. He seemed to take up much more space than he actually did, and she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed because Cowboy Hat had skedaddled. “Nope, I’m certain you don’t.”

Cody narrowed those gorgeous baby blues and nodded slowly. His smile was uncertain, as if he thought she was playing a game with him. “Yeah, I do. You’re Rory.”

“Puma!” the cashier yelled out.

Rory offered him a too bright smile and ducked around him. Geez, he was a giant. She had to journey around his massive shoulders to get to the register.

“Puma?” he asked.

Damn skippy! She was way too intelligent to use her real name. She paid for the pizza and gave a little flutter of her fingers until Cody moved out of the way, then stepped through the door.

“What are you doing here?” he asked from right behind her.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply and to psych herself up, to rotate his direction and face the man she’d been scared of ever since she realized he could have a permanent stake in her life.

“I’m visiting family,” she murmured, opening her eyes and turning around. She came face to nipples with his barrel chest. Arching her neck, she looked up into his curious gaze. Holy mayo, she’d bred with a Titan.

Gripping the pizza, she asked, “I also wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, his eyebrows drawing down in concern. “Shoot. Ask me anything.”

“Is there something you…” Shit, how did she word this so that she could back out of the conversation easily? “Do you have anything strange or maybe supernatural in your medical history?”

Cody’s face went comically blank.

A knocking on the pizzeria window pane sounded, and they both turned. The girl he’d been sitting next to, the pretty brunette with glossy pink lips and an impatient quirk to her dark eyebrows, held up her hands in a
what-the-hell
gesture.

“I’ll be right in,” he said, as if she could hear him through the glass. Turning to Rory, he leaned down and asked, “What are you talking about? Supernatural what? Like ghosts?”

He did look truly baffled, and clearly, she’d been right in the first place that he didn’t know anything about people shifting into bears, but she had to know for sure. She was in the thick of it now, so she might as well be thorough before she slunk back into oblivion. “There’s nothing special about you? No superpowers or anything?”

He straightened his spine and crossed his arms over his chest. A defensive posture if she’d ever seen one, but that was fine. She was using the pizza box as a shield to keep a safe distance between them.

“No, Rory. I don’t have any superpowers. Is this some kind of joke?” He looked around suspiciously. “Are you videotaping this or something? Because I have to tell you, I’ve been followed around by two little old ladies all day, and now you come back after, what has it been? Six years? The whole day has felt weird.”

“Of course I’m not videotaping,” she rushed out, utterly frustrated at the dead end she’d found. He was obviously not a bear shifter like Aaron, and now she’d wasted both of their time. “Well, it was lovely to see you again, Cody, but my pizza is getting cold and your girlfriend looks pissed. I’ll see you around.”

She turned and walked away, and this time, thankfully, Cody didn’t follow her.

Just as well. What good was rekindling any kind of friendship with the man if he was a risk to Aaron’s secret?

Stupid tears.

Stupid tears and stupid emotions.

Cody had looked damned good. Rory’s feelings were all mixed up. He was the father of her child, and she’d always cared for him, a complete stranger. Damn him for tethering her heart to him. She couldn’t look at Aaron without remembering Cody and that night. And now, after seeing him again, she’d have to go through the mourning process all over again. She used to imagine having this perfect family. She’d made up personality traits she admired in him, and when she’d taken Aaron out to the park or to the movies, she’d always imagined what it would be like if Cody was there. Which was stupid because she didn’t even know him.

She settled the pizza on one of the rocking chairs on Aunt Leona’s front porch so she could wipe her eyes and plaster on a happy smile. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for Aaron to get upset. Not until she had the cage set up somewhere safe and private.

Thinking about the cage brought on another wave of grief. It was a ridiculous notion, but she’d hoped that Cody would somehow help her figure out a way not to cage her son during his Changes anymore.

Dammit!
She sagged into a rocking chair as her shoulders slumped under the defeat. She’d been silly, wishing that Cody would just magically understand what she needed and come to her rescue. That wasn’t what happened in the real world. Men didn’t do stuff like that. All of her hopes of Cody being able to help her with Aaron—and the tiny bear that sat waiting just under his skin—were dashed the second his face went blank in confusion. He wasn’t like Aaron. He couldn’t be part of this. She was back to being all alone and scared for her child’s future.

The blow was crushing.

She sobbed as quietly as she could, leaned over her knees with her arms gripped around her stomach. Dark now, it felt safer outside than inside with her aunt and son to witness her breakdown.

“She isn’t my girlfriend,” Cody said, breaking the blissful silence of the night.

Rory jerked her head up and gasped, then wiped her eyes furiously. “I’m not crying because you have a girlfriend. This isn’t even about you.”

“Bullshit. I can hear the lie in your voice.” The chair beside her creaked under his weight as he sank down onto the worn rocking chair.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I followed you. I have something to say. Something I wish I could’ve said a long time ago, but when I woke up after we were together, you were just gone. I looked for you,” he admitted low, elbows on his knees and hands clasped in front of him. “I thought it would be easy to track you down because the name Rory isn’t that common, but I came up empty.”

Afraid the lump in her throat would make her voice sound strange, she nodded and snuck a glance at his rigid profile. He was angry.

“You know, you don’t always have to run away,” he gritted out, swinging his gaze to her. “Even if things get tough, sometimes it could be worth it to stick around.”

“I had a reason for running, Cody.”

“Which was?”

It didn’t feel right telling him everything. Not when she didn’t trust him, but she could give him something. “You said her name when we were together.”

Cody’s eyes flashed, and he leaned back into the chair, studying her. “Whose name?”

“Sarah’s. You whispered it right at the end.” Mortification burned her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze to the toes of her tennis shoes. “Right when we were finishing. I thought you had been there with me. I know that sounds stupid, but I liked you. It was this instant gravitational pull to you, but you hadn’t really been there with me. You were thinking of her. Of Sarah. I didn’t want to be some woman’s replacement for the night. Obviously, you still loved her. I didn’t run, Cody. I bowed out of a race I couldn’t win.”

Cody scrubbed his oversize hands down his face, and when he looked at her again, he looked exhausted or devastated, or perhaps both. “Sarah was part of the reason I wanted to talk to you. She was the reason I tried so hard to find you again. You saved me from an awful fate, Rory. I’d bonded to this girl, Sarah, when I was young. Too young maybe, but it wasn’t in my control.”

“Bonded?”

“It’s like…it’s like being in love, but harder.”

“Harder how?”

“It’s nearly impossible to fall out of that kind of devotion, even if the person you’ve bonded to isn’t healthy for you. All I could see for the longest time was her, and then you came along. One night with you, and everything was clear again. I was able to let her go because of you. I wanted to thank you. In this insane way that I have no power to explain to you, you saved me that night.” Cody shrugged, as if his tight-fitting thermal sweater was growing uncomfortable. “So…thank you, Rory I-Never-Figured-Out-What-Your-Last-Name-Was.”

She huffed a soft laugh and said, “Dodson. My last name is Dodson.”

“Dodson,” he repeated in a quiet voice.

The porch light flipped on, illuminating what was probably a serious case of raccoon eyes and twin mascara rivers running down her cheeks. But above the panic of how zombie-like she must look was the realization that the door was opening.

“No!” she yelled. Too late.

Aunt Leona’s eyes went wide as she looked at Rory, then Cody, just as Aaron ran past her legs.

“Oh dear,” her aunt said as Aaron skidded to a stop with a grin on his face.

“We’re going to check the mail and look for lizards and fireflies. Is that pizza?”

Rory had frozen under the avalanche of shock. She’d led Cody—human, untrustworthy Cody—right to her son. She could feel him staring over her shoulder, and her heart lurched at what he must be seeing right now. Platinum blond hair, blue eyes, and dimples that matched his own.

Aaron’s gaze drifted from her face to just above her shoulder, and his smile faltered. He shrunk back toward Aunt Leona’s legs, then squinted. “Daddy Cody?”

Shee-yit.

Rory dared a glance at Cody. The blood had drained from his face entirely, leaving him pale as a phantom, mouth hanging slightly open as his chest heaved against the tight fabric of his sweater. His clear blue eyes shifted to hers in an accusatory glare. “Does he bear my mark?”

Rory shook her head, baffled. “I don’t know what that means.”

“This,” he said through clenched teeth. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and exposed a light brown birthmark.

Her heart pounded, and a tiny shocked sound squelched from her throat. It was bigger than Aaron’s, but the exact same shape. It looked like a strawberry.

“Rory,” he said as a muscle under his eye twitched, “tell me now.” His eyes had gone wide, and his words quaked.

“Baby, come here.” She held out her arms as Aaron walked toward her, then cuddled him up in her lap. With a deep inhalation, she pulled back the collar of his blue striped sweater, exposing the miniature mark.

Cody’s face went utterly blank as he stared at it. Moments dragged on, and Aaron began to fidget.

The boy turned in her lap and handed Cody the paperclip he was still clutching. “I gave my other one to Aunt Leona, but you can have mine.”

Life filtered back into Cody’s eyes as he lowered his gaze to the paperclip nestled against Aaron’s tiny palm. “Thank you,” he said on a breath, taking the gift. “What’s your name?” His voice had gone deep and emotional.

“Aaron Daniel Dodson.” He smiled and snuggled against Rory, wrapping his slender arms around her neck.

“That’s a fine name. I’m Cody Leland Keller.”

“Leland?” Aaron asked, his tiny nose scrunched.

“It’s a family name. My brothers have the same middle names, too. Kind of strange, huh?”

Aaron nodded. “Are you here to eat some of our pizza?”

Cody huffed a laugh and shook his head. “I came to speak with Rory—I mean, with your mother.”

Aaron looked at the pizza box, then back to Cody, and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. “Will you?”

Cody shook his head and let off a sigh. “Buddy, I don’t… That’s up to your mom.”

“I’m off to dinner with the Blue-Haired Ladies,” Aunt Leona announced as she flounced down the steps, purse in hand. “Don’t wait up. We old ladies get wild and crazy on Friday nights.”

Cody narrowed his eyes at Aunt Leona’s receding back. “Are you the ones who’ve been following me around town all day?”

Apparently, Aunt Leona didn’t hear him, or didn’t want to, because she didn’t even miss a step as she disappeared into the dark.

“He’s into sharing,” Rory explained as Aaron opened the box and looked in wide-eyed wonder at the meat lover’s pie. “That’s what they’ve been learning at preschool. And he’s really very sweet about it. I guess what I’m saying is, we would love for you to eat with us.”

“Yeah, you look like you could eat a whole pizza by yourself, Daddy Cody!”

“Aaron,” Rory warned, shaking her head. “I think you should just call him Cody. That might make him more comfortable.”

Aaron’s face fell. “Why?”

Cody gave the boy a troubled look and rubbed his hand roughly through his cropped, blond hair. “You have him in preschool? The public kind?”

“Of course. He’s five. He’ll be in kindergarten next year, and he needed to learn how to mind his teachers, stand in lines, share, and work well with the other kids. Plus, I have to work for both of us. He goes to school while I work.”

He frowned at the back of her son’s head as Aaron made his way down to the walkway, pizza slice in hand. “Has he Changed yet?”

Warning bells slammed against the inside of her head as she froze. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said carefully.

“Yeah, you do, or you wouldn’t have been asking me about my supernatural family history.”

Instead of answering, she crossed her arms over her stomach and watched Aaron move tufts of bushes aside, probably in search of the lizards Aunt Leona had told him about.

“Look at me,” Cody said in a soft, deep voice.

She slid her gaze to him and gasped. His eyes were the same muddy, golden green that Aaron’s turned to when he was upset, or on the verge of a Change.

He held her in his feral gaze. “When?”

Her breath trembled as she struggled to draw air into her lungs. This was it. This was the moment when she let another soul in on their secret, and he was a stranger. She closed her eyes, bolstering her bravery before she whispered, “He Changed for the first time when he was one.”

“Shit,” Cody murmured, covering his face with his hands, then flinging them away. “Rory, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come to me about him? I have a
kid
, and you left me out of his life completely.”

“I meant to tell you,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes at the memory. “I’d bought plane tickets to come back and let you meet him. He’d just turned one, and I was nervous about flying with a baby, but I did all this research and had this plan to come here anyway during winter break. I was still trying to finish college then. But then he Changed, and I knew if you weren’t like him, and you found out, you would put him in danger—tell someone or report him to the police or something. And I didn’t know anything about what was happening to him. I did research, but all the public library had was lore and myth. Nothing concrete that told me how to help my child through this awful thing he was going through.”

“It isn’t awful.”

“It is for us! He cries and cries around each Change, and it looks so painful. I listen to my baby’s bones break every month. And when he got bigger and his canines came in, I couldn’t comfort him anymore. He turns wild.” She shoved her arm at him and rolled it over to expose the long scars across her forearm.

Cody’s fingers were warm and steady as he slid them down the length of the long-healed claw marks. He dropped her arm and stared at his hands as if he hadn’t given them permission to touch her. Her skin turned cold where his warm fingers had been. Confused at the wash of emotion surging through her at his touch, she covered up the scars and huddled into her sweater deeper.

“What did you do?”

“I built him a cage. Our lives are consumed by when his next Change will be. It used to only be around the full moon, but now he shows symptoms more often, and I don’t know what to do. I need help.”

“That’s why you’ve come back?”

She nodded once.

“It’s not supposed to be like that,” he rasped out. “He can’t be caged, or his animal will grow aggressive and angry.” Cody cut her a pleading look. “You need him to grow into a man who can control the animal inside of him.”

Her face crumpled as the moisture that had been rimming her eyes spilled over. Embarrassed, she wiped her lashes and clenched her fists in her lap. “I know. I can see him getting worse, but I have no tools to help him.”

“Shhh,” Cody hushed her. “Everything will be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

“Are you mad at me?” she asked. It suddenly mattered if he hated her.

“Yeah. I have a son, and I missed all of his life until now. That was your choice. I’m mad as hell, but reaming you out isn’t going to fix what’s been done.” A soft rumbling noise rattled from his chest. His eyes were still feral, and though he was trying to be soft with her, his fists were clenched like hers were.