Bearly Healed: Pacific Northwest Bears: (Shifter Romance)

“
Y
ou don’t know me
, Cash,” she said, her anger rising.

“Oh yes I do, Sprite. I know you better than anyone. And I plan on knowing everything about you.” Cash leaned forward getting incredibly close. “Cassidy, don’t make this hard on yourself. I’m going to win. I’m going to have you, keep you safe, protect you, and love you. You just have to yield.” Then he touched his mouth to hers. Cassie froze, his lips were hot and strong. She could still smell the sugar coming off of him. It was mixed with the scent of sawdust. A weird combination that worked on this man.

When her lips stayed closed under his, he pulled back and brought his hand under her chin. He looked into her eyes. “Yield, Sprite,” he ordered.

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T
here were worse
ways to travel. On a bumpy bus, the back of a broke down motorcycle, hell even a wagon being pulled by a disgruntled donkey. None of these were even close to the luxury of flying in a private jet. Cassie knew this, part of her even accepted it. The deep down part that thought it was totally kickass that she was laying on the long couch of the plush cabin. Her feet propped upon pillows. A cold beverage at her elbow delivered by a very nice flight attendant named Monica.

Who the hell named their kid Monica? That wasn’t a nice thing to think. Again, something she knew but didn’t want to admit. She had reduced the number of emotions in her usually vast repertoire to pissed, snarky, really pissed and morbidly depressed.

Life was sweet, at least it had been. She lived in an amazing house with her best friend Effie and Effie’s husband Dax. Dax wasn’t just her legal husband; he was also her mate. Dax was a shifter, as in he could turn into a cougar. Effie was human, although the way she explained it she was mostly human now. And just a little bit shifter. Which made sense she guessed. Shifters lived longer than humans. No one would want to be married to someone that always looked half your age or worse, younger.

Her best friend in the world had found a man that worshipped the ground she walked on. Literally. She was his one true mate. The one soul meant for him in all the world. She was his beginning, his middle, and his end.

Cassie didn’t understand it. Couldn’t get how someone could put every one of their own selfish desires aside for someone else. She’d grown up in a mismatch family of her mom, her aunts, some random cousins and lots of “uncles” that she was in no way related to. Her family was a mess of drunks, losers, layabouts, and generally useless people.

She was pulled from her family not for any horrendous abuse, but from neglect. Too many adults that didn’t care if a four-year-old had food. Or whether a six-year-old had a bath in more than two weeks. Cassie was the kid that always smelled bad at school. Her clothes were dirty, her shoes were too small, and she was always hungry.

Those years made Cassie the fighter she had grown up to be. Except now, there wasn’t any fight left in her. She was down before her accident; now she was sunk.

Three months back, Effie and Dax had headed off to the Washington peninsula to meet up with the Rochon family for Christmas. They said it wasn’t a good idea for her to go. She didn’t mind; she had big plans to party it up with her girls from the roller derby. Which she did. Then she hit the late night party with the crew from the tattoo shop where she worked.

It got a little fuzzy after that. She remembered tequila. A lot of it, then nothing. Apparently she had given her keys over to a friend that assured her and everyone else they were good to drive. Jesse had a few drinks, but police said speed was a bigger factor in her accident.

Since she had no memory of the accident, she only knew what others told her. They hit a telephone pole. She was pinned in the car for over an hour before they could cut her out. Her friend Jesse had a broken wrist and some serious bruising.

Cassie, though, had been hurt worse. She’d read the medical report once just to make sure she understood what she was being treated for. The report stated head trauma, severe enough that she was in a medically induced coma for almost two weeks to let the swelling in her brain go down. While she was out, they’d removed her spleen. Apparently, you don’t have to have one of those to live.

What had it ever done for her anyway? Although now she was sporting another scar that ran down the middle of her torso, from the bottom of her rib cage to below her navel. Oddly it was one of the rare spaces she hadn’t chosen to get a tattoo since she figured eventually her bad eating habits would catch up to her, and she didn’t want some cute tattoo all stretched out. Now it didn’t matter, the red line down her stomach was physical and metaphorical like she’d been split down the middle.

She’d fractured her ankle, which normally was just an inconvenience. She also tore some ligaments in her other knee. Which meant even when she woke up she couldn’t walk with crutches. She had been wheelchair bound for months afterward.

Those wounds would heal without any outward signs. There was one injury, though, that there was no hiding. The scar that swooped from her hairline down the right side of her forehead and down past her eyebrow to her cheek. Eighty-four stitches to close the cut. Eighty-four stitches that even after they were removed could be seen. A long red jagged line down her face that couldn’t be covered no matter how much makeup she caked on.

Cassie hated that line. It felt like it was a blinking arrow pointing everyone’s attention straight at her.

True, she was never one to fade into the background. Her short hair was always some crazy color. Often changing week to week. She had tattoos, some that matched Effie’s. Others that were much more complicated. She dressed like a homeless gothic punk most of the time. Not that she called her style that, but Effie had often remarked on those traits.

Now people stared with pity. They clucked their tongues and said things like “you poor thing,” and “I’ll pray for you.” Nice thoughts sure, but not what Cassie wanted to hear. She didn’t want people looking at her for any other reason than her just being outlandish.

Her tattoos were covered now. The awesome garter and nine-millimeter gun tattoo on her thigh hidden by stretch pants. A borrowed oversize t-shirt of Dax’s covered her slight frame but left the pin-up girl tattoo on her arm visible.

The hair that had been orange with red tips was now blonde on top with orange tips. It had grown out during her hospital stay, and even though Effie offered to dye it, she declined. She just had her cut it shorter so it wouldn’t be in the way. The temptation to use her hair to cover her scar would have been futile anyway.

She was always tiny, not that she didn’t eat like a six-year-old. Petite was just who she was, but after her stay in the hospital she was tiny. She even felt it. Her muscles atrophied from being bedridden for so long. Even after she managed to start hobbling around, she tired so easily from the injuries that she often took a pain pill and slept the day away.

Effie was worried. Cassie’s internal radar was well aware of the stress she was putting on her friend. Effie was pregnant now. Her baby was due soon. She should be happy and excited about her new baby. Not worried about her bestie’s downward spiral.

Cass thought it was funny how your rational mind knew good and well that your attitude was shit. But your external persona didn’t seem to care.

That’s where she was now. She just didn’t care.

Dax had come to her and expressed his concern about Effie. He basically wanted her to buck up. She got that. But it wasn’t happening. It was all too much. So instead, she asked to run away.

Luckily, Dax knew just the place. His sister Kenzi was married to Conner Rochon. Dax used to visit there and said staying there was better than a four-star hotel. The Rochon cabin set back into the woods with Connie Rochon, the mother of Conner, who was ready to pamper and coddle might just be the thing.

So that’s why they were flying out to a small airport on the Olympic peninsula to finish their drive into the forest. Effie didn’t think she or Cassie would handle the hours long trip from their vineyard on the other side of the Cascade mountain range.

The rattle of a pill bottle was heard in the back, and Dax and Effie’s eyes went back to Cass shaking out a pill. She popped it into her mouth and washed it back with a bottle of water. She didn’t care if they saw her. Their gazes were part of her life now. The constant watching and analyzing. She tried to ignore it.

She was watching them out of the corner of her eyes. She envied them; they were so fucking gorgeous. Dax looked like he’d stepped out of a men’s magazine, all tall dark and handsome. Although he wasn’t so dark anymore. When Cassie had met him, he’d been dying his hair to tick off his mom, which Cass totally approved of. Today his hair was more of a golden brown, his face clean shaven. Dressed in dark slacks and button up long sleeve shirt in white. Cassie called it his uniform. He was almost always dressed business casual.

Her best friend Effie was a fashion icon in Cassie’s mind. Somehow Effie had found her own style mixing rockabilly with classic fifties chic. Although being pregnant had been a bit of a challenge for someone who normally dressed in tight fitting clothes. Effie had managed to morph her style to accommodate her growing belly. Lots of stretchy pants with trapeze tops. Her hair was done, though. Looking like she’d just come from the salon with a wash and set. And no matter how much Dax complained, she still wore kickass high heels.

They were beautiful together, and their baby would probably come out fashionably forward as well. Cassie, well she looked one step above homeless, but then, who did she have to impress?