Authors: Anya Nowlan
“Don’t disappoint me,” Ryder’s voice echoed behind her as she rushed down the corridor, the jaded laughter of Ryder and Troy following her like a bad memory.
***
Callie gasped for breath, the wind whipping at her fur. She scraped at the earth under her paws, taking a whiff of the cold soil and letting the scent of it fill her lungs. It had been so long since she’d last run free, and she was determined to enjoy it, her worries be damned. Her matte brown coat was slick against her large form, the prickly hairs smoothed back by the howling winds. The landscape was bowing under the weight of the wind, and Callie reveled in the all-encompassing noise of the Montana Cabinet Mountains. There was nothing quite like being back home, even if her clan was looked at as little more than unexpected guests at best and marauders at worst. Callie let out a long roar, listening to it reverberate across the valley for no one but herself. The first snow would be coming soon. She couldn’t wait for the blanket of whiteness to fall down and cover all the lands, hiding any imperfections. Snow had been the thing she had missed the most during her time in Texas, right after vast open grounds, of course.
She’d just kept running the moment she had got away from Ryder. Instead of going back to the small lodge she shared with a few of the other single female bears, she had made a beeline for the woods and shifted as soon as she could. It had been hours since she got away from the Bitterroot clan and it felt bittersweet.
It’s not right to feel so good about getting away from your people,
Callie thought to herself, shifting back into human form. She wrapped the jacket tighter around her shoulders. As a bear, the wind was more an annoyance than anything else. As a human, it was cold and nipped at her flesh. She was sorely lacking a pair of strong arms to pull her into a tight embrace and sweet words to make her discomfort and confusion drift away. She needed Jonah, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
The last conversation they had ended in a disaster. Callie winced inwardly as she remembered how she accused him of not caring about his roots, and he bit back by telling her that she should know where her loyalties lay. He didn’t make her choose between the clan and him, but he might as well have. Callie was back with her people and not with Jonah – wasn’t that choice enough? The entire trip home had been wrought with regrets and long talks with herself. She missed him as soon as she had stepped out of the house, and by the time she hit Colorado, the pain was almost blinding. Their bears had grown so tightly together that the threat of ripping them apart hurt her to the core. Not only did her human object, her bear was none too thrilled either.
How can I choose between love and my clan?
Callie asked herself, pursing her lips as she stood surrounded by the winds and the constant tumbling of dying leaves. Autumn was beautiful in Montana, but Callie had to imagine that she was far from seeing all the colors it had to offer. She was too depressed to see all the joy she knew she could have.
Why couldn’t I have just stayed with Jonah? I wouldn’t be here, Ryder wouldn’t be holding my relationship over my head… they wouldn’t be looking at me as if I was a traitor… and I wouldn’t be missing him so badly,
Callie thought quietly, the hot threat of tears welling in her eyes making her shake her head silently. But, she knew why she was there. Her clan had been there for her when Christopher died. The clan had supported both her and her brother when her parents passed in a clan war long ago. Through thick and thin, they’d been there for her. Every clan had its good times and bad, but hers had deserved her loyalties.
But hasn’t Jonah earned it as well?
The thought was too bitter to gulp down. They’d been together for only a year but it felt so much longer. She knew they were still young, she was just 23 and Jonah 25, but it felt right. It felt exactly like she’d imagined it to feel like when she found the one bear or person that she could share her life with. They clicked immediately, though they were painfully different. She had always prided herself on being passionate and full of fire but remaining rational and levelheaded even during the most heated moments of anger. Jonah was nothing like that – he was stoic to a fault, but lit up like a bright flame when anything he held dear was threatened. A gentle, wounded soul, but still a werebear ready to strike when his loved ones were threatened.
Then, logic and reason would all be out the door, and there was only room for emotions and reactions. She loved that about him, but it made their rare and far between fights that much more animated. He’d speak from the heart, and she couldn’t help but ignore her feelings and go with her rationality instead. That had been the main culprit why she was standing in the middle of the Cabinet Mountains alone now. If she had just got over her stubborn streak, odds were that she and Jonah could have figured a way out of it all. Or at least a way to explain it to both clans without bringing down the lightshow that they had now.
Callie sighed, brushing a curly lock of dark hair out of her face. Bear’s Grove was down low in the valley, errant lights flickering behind the windows of the shops and houses. She hadn’t been down there in so long, but Callie had the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t be a popular character there now. She might have had friends there, but the Bitterroot clan was not high on anyone’s lists after the stunts they’d been pulling. Ryder had gone so far as to burn down not only the Arders’ trucks, but had almost caused the diner to burn down by lighting up Susie’s hauler. And if there was one thing that lumberjacks didn’t like then it was someone messing with their waffles. Things had only escalated since then.
Ryder had sent out groups of his more rabid followers to harass the Arder clan members and even some local business owners, probably looking for a way into someone’s wallet again. He wasn’t past threats and shows of dominance anymore, and that scared Callie as much as it did the rest of the bears. At the same time, she knew that a strong leader was something a lot of them couldn’t pass up. Especially with the humiliation they had borne at the hands of the Kadin pack.
Callie found herself staring at a distant patch of thick forest, catching the slightest hint of a smoke pillar. The corners of her mouth twitched and then turned into a smile, the unhappy glint that had been stuck in her brown eyes quickly lifting. She knew what it meant when there was smoke coming from that particular bit of land. It meant that Jonah had to be home. Callie chewed on her lower lip, warming herself with the thought of seeing him again. He’d returned to her life so suddenly when she’d made the decision to write to him a few years back, and when he’d shown up at her door one dark night, she’d willingly lost herself in him. Juggling studying for a law degree and the heat of a werebear romance had been a task well worth taking on.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen him for more than a week now. It made her insides twist angrily, and she had to resist the urge to run to him right away. The call was hard to ignore. She’d thought she’d felt him enter the area the night before, but she’d put it off as just her nerves playing tricks on her. What was a woman to do with the knowledge that her one and only love was within reach, but any conversation she had with him could mean that she becomes a liability to her clan and he to his?
I hate this,
Callie thought, whipping around and heading back towards the woods. She couldn’t look at that thin pillar of smoke any longer. If she did, her heart might break before she could convince her brain that she needed to see him.
CHAPTER THREE
The pigskin spun easily between his hands as he rolled it across his fingers and threw it from one hand to the other. Jonah’s eyes were downcast as he listened to the animated arguments around him. The Warren twins were locked in disagreement as usual, their equally as big bodies getting more and more puffed up with aggravation. The Barrister boys were mostly reserved, letting Damian do most of the talking as he outlined a plan on how to push back the Bitterroots fast and hard. They were sitting high on the bleachers, overlooking the football field. Despite the small size of Bear’s Grove, it had one of the best high school football teams in the state. The national reps constantly hung out at the games, trying to figure out what made the teams so good year after year. Little did they know that it only took a bunch of werebears to make losing almost impossible.
Jonah smirked to himself as Arrow, one of the Warren brothers, suggested just calling the Bitterroots out and having a fair fight between Alphas. An honorable idea, but one that Ryder would never stick to. Not with his current mindset, anyway. Jonah could feel the expectant eyes of his old crew sitting on him, waiting for him to say something. He’d called the meeting, after all. Jonah was surrounded by ten of the strongest, most fearsome werebears the younger generation of the Arder clan had to offer, and instead of strategizing his mind kept wandering off to Callie. He could imagine her naked, sprawled out on their rickety bed back in Texas, her gorgeous curls spread around her head like a halo, and her luscious breasts and full curves calling to him. Jonah squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, not noticing that he was squeezing the football so hard that his knuckles were turning white.
Snap out of it, Jonah,
he told himself. But it was damn hard. Alice had casually dropped that Callie had been talking about him back at the Bitterroot camp, and in a moment of desperate longing, he’d told her to ask her to meet him that evening. Now, he was completely screwed. There was no focusing if there was even the faintest hope of seeing his chosen one in a few hours.
“Jonah?” Damian asked, poking him in the arm. Jonah nodded and exhaled. He looked to each one of them, their faces eager to do whatever he said. While Jackson held sway over all of them, Jonah definitely had the loyalty of the young men who had been his close friends and confidants all through his childhood. All three of the Arder brothers were born leaders, and people flocked to them. It didn’t hurt that many of the young men around him had done a tour in the army and knew what it meant to take orders.
“Yeah. I hear you. I talked to Jackson and I agree that we need to keep this as non-violent as we can,” Jonah said, raising his hand to hush the moans of disagreement that rose immediately. “But, I don’t think it’s going to stay this way for long. You’ve all seen or heard what Ryder’s been doing with his people. Not just the way they destroyed the trucks, but they’ve gone and trashed a few businesses that wouldn’t work with them, and so far they’ve been just short of becoming outright violent. Unless your last name happens to be Arder, of course.” A few grunts of agreement told him he was heading the right way with his thoughts. Though Julian had not been a ‘true’ werebear for very long, what with his former avoidance of shifting, a fight with him or any other Arder meant a serious slap in the face to the whole clan.
“So, I’m saying we need to be ready to fight. Most of you have done okay, but there are a lot of bears in the clan who haven’t had to use their claws or jaws for much more than roaring and scratching their asses. We need to get back into shape. We need to be ready. Jackson said the same. So, I’m going to be calling together some training sessions for the clan. We’ll do it in groups, but we’ll help everyone get back their self-assurance in using their size and strength for their protection. When the time comes. And we hope it won’t,” he said, tossing a stern glance around himself. His friends were young and could be expected to blow things out of proportion faster and harder than the older, more experienced bears. Jonah would have to make sure that his friends knew where he stood on the whole situation and then also make sure that they knew to follow him.
“Anyone got any other suggestions?” Jonah asked, going back to tossing the ball from hand to hand. Sitting there on the bleachers was oddly nostalgic and he was overcome with a sense of calm that had evaded him for a long time. There was nothing like looking across the football field and seeing the wild expanse of the mountains and the green and orange forests, beckoning for him to run and be free once more.
I can’t wait to share this with Calliope,
he thought. A twinge of pain went through his chest.
If she’ll have me.
“I still think we need to hit them before they hit us,” Arrow grumbled, his brother nodding as well. The bears that had gathered were all big, squarely built men, first or second generation werebears – any further down the line and they couldn’t shift anymore. But it also meant that their tempers ran high and even though they were grown men in the eyes of society, Jonah knew well that a werebear matured slowly, and the jagged edges of a ferocious bear took a while to whittle down to society-acceptable norms.
“And do what, Arrow? Kill Ryder? Troy, Alice, Callie, James, Trina, Mary, Blake, Caden… I could go on.” He paused for a moment, his hands balling into fists. It still seemed hard to imagine that Ryder would take the path of the greatest pain when dealing with his former friends, but it seemed to be the harsh reality that was presented to them. Jonah had wondered several times what could have happened to make Ryder turn so violently against all his former beliefs, but he knew that Jackie was the only other person besides Ryder himself, who could tell him what had happened between them. And as much as he loved his twin, he knew that he couldn’t get anything out of her that she didn’t want to share.
“We went to school with a lot of them. Blake and Caden were even on the football team. Mary still sends me Christmas cards. Any drop of werebear blood spilled is a drop too many.” Jonah could hear Jackson’s voice ringing in his ears, but he couldn’t deny that his brother was saying all the right things. “I’m not going to hurt my friends unless they try to hurt me. This is Ryder’s war, and I doubt most of them would be in it if they weren’t commanded to.” The thought was uncomfortable at best. If Jackson were to fly off the handle like that, would he and Julian be able to talk him down? Jonah wasn’t so sure. The leader of a clan had both prestige and power, and unless you wanted to lose your family, you were expected to do as told. Jonah couldn’t help but feel for the bears who found themselves in just such a situation now with Ryder.