Unleashed By her Bear by Felicity Heaton
Chapter 11
Callie’s harsh pants were the only sound in the still world, seemed to echo through the sparse trees as she focused on following a faint track in the brown earth. She wasn’t sure how Rune could see it, but then maybe he didn’t need to be able to make it out among the old pine needles and fallen birch leaves in order to know where it was. He knew this valley, and knew it well judging by how easily he cut a path across the side of the mountain, gradually taking them higher and higher.
Either that or he was really good at pretending he knew where he was going.
She lifted her head and fixed her gaze on his broad back as he strode ahead of her at a clipped pace, one she hadn’t failed to notice was steadily slowing as the hours wore on. She hadn’t had a break since they had last spoken to each other and her feet were getting sore in her borrowed boots.
And the air between her and Rune was thick, heavy and choking.
Callie had been mulling over the way he had looked at her as if she was a ghost, how he had transformed before her eyes, going from a dark and dangerous brute who had been laying down the law with her to a soft, almost tender male who had looked as if he was lost.
Or maybe he had lost something.
She had the feeling there was a reason he didn’t want her to fight, a reason why it would tip him over the edge, and her gut said it had to do with a female.
And that number inked on the back of his neck.
She stared at the spot where it was hidden behind the collar of his black fleece.
Thought about what Knox had told her and the things she had seen for herself.
Were Archangel the reason Rune had a darker side, one that was apparently violent?
Her boot scuffed the uneven ground when she failed to lift her foot high enough and she braced her hands in front of her as she tipped forwards, fearing she would fall on her face.
Rune’s strong hand locked around her wrist, keeping her upright. As soon as she had her balance again and wasn’t in danger of falling, he released her and carried on walking.
“I need to take a break.” She leaned forwards and braced her hands against her thighs, and then rubbed the back of her right hand across her forehead, clearing the dampness away. She unzipped her hoodie slightly, enough that cool air washed over her chest through her grey T-shirt, bringing her temperature down.
Rune gave her a look that commanded her to keep moving.
Callie gave him a look that said it wasn’t going to happen.
She limped to a nice thick trunk and sagged against it, exhaling hard as her aching body instantly felt a whole lot better.
The big bear huffed.
Stomped back to her.
He looked as if he wanted to bark an order at her, but then his expression shifted, losing some of the hardness, and he glanced at her leg.
“You can rest a short distance ahead. I know a nice spot.” He looked over his shoulder and ran a hand over his close-cropped dark hair, an awkward gesture that made her believe he wasn’t lying to her in order to get her to keep moving without kicking up a fuss.
She had figured out a few things about Rune, and this was one of them. He grew awkward whenever he did something nice for her, and shortly afterwards that war would erupt in his pale blue eyes—a battle between that softer side he was working damned hard to keep hidden and the side that growled at everything around him, treating the world as if everyone and everything in it was out to get him.
“Fine,” she muttered and pushed away from the tree, already missing the support of it. She hobbled along behind Rune, trying to keep as much of her weight off her healing ankle as possible as she followed him up the incline. It was starting to feel better, wasn’t giving her too much trouble, but she didn’t want to press her luck.
The last thing she needed was Rune tossing her over his shoulder again because she was slowing him down.
Ahead of them, the trees began to thin. Callie squinted, peering beyond them. Was that a clearing? If it was, then it wasn’t among trees. There was pure dark green beyond a patch of brighter green land, and she thought she could make out the sky.
Everything became clear as she neared it.
It was a sweeping curve of open land, a clearing that had grass on both sides of a worn track, and where the ground dropped away to her left and directly in front of her, there were shrubs and then the tops of trees. Mountains rose around her, snow dusting their peaks still, a sharp contrast to the sheer granite faces on some of them, and below those bands of grey were slopes of vivid green and then more dark treetops.
It was stunning.
Callie walked forwards, passing Rune, drawn to the edge of the clearing where the grass dropped away steeply towards the bushes and trees. She waved her hand in front of her face, wafting insects away, not wanting them to spoil this moment.
She turned to look at Rune as he grunted.
Held back her smile as he hefted a section of log and carried it over to her. He set it down and busied himself with dusting the dirt off his fleece and jeans, paying far too much attention to what he was doing.
If he was worried she was going to thank him, or maybe even swoon over his thoughtfulness, he didn’t need to be. She knew him well enough now to know he would only growl and bare fangs at her, unable to accept her gratitude. She silently thanked him instead as she took a seat, sighed at how comfortable it was and how nice it felt to be sitting down, with the sun on her back and such a beautiful view spread before her.
She could stay here for hours. Days.
Might even go as far as building a cabin and living here.
She was sure she had never seen such an incredible view.
Rune stepped up beside her, closer to the edge, and stared out at the valley, his rough features etched in pensive lines as his blue eyes scoured the trees below them.
“What if Carrigan doesn’t come after us?” She kept her eyes locked on Rune as he surveyed the valley. “Aren’t you worried that he’ll go to Black Ridge?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders and moved a step closer to her as he turned slightly, his sharp gaze scanning the valley to her left now. “Carrigan is following us. I’m confident of that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Rune slid her a look. “I have something the male wants.”
Her lips flattened. She hated that. She hated that Carrigan wanted her. She hated that Edward had given her to him. She hated that she had been forced to leave her pack—her family—and that she could never see them again.
It was a weight around her neck, constantly dragging her down, and some days it was hard to find the strength to keep going. She had been on the run for weeks now, but she hadn’t had time to stop and think about everything. Every second of her days and nights had been dedicated to keeping moving, to reaching the White Wolf pack. It was all she had thought about. Surviving. Staying ahead of Carrigan. Getting to Rourke.
Callie looked at Rune.
He had changed everything though.
For the first time since she had fled Carrigan’s pack, she felt safe. That feeling of safety had her starting to think about things, and gods, she wished she could purge it all from her head and her heart.
“What’s wrong? Your mood shifted.” Rune spared her another glance, and then his aquamarine eyes drifted back to her and he lingered.
He had good senses.
Callie forced a smile and looked at the valley. “Just thinking about everything. These last few weeks have been the hardest of my life and I’m worried that everything I’ve done will be for nothing. I’m worried that all I’ve done is infuriate Carrigan by making him chase after me and that when he gets his hands on me, my life is going to be hell. I’m worried that Rourke won’t give me protection… that he’ll hand me back to Carrigan.”
“None of that is going to happen, Callie.” Rune moved another step closer to her, capturing the whole of her attention, sucking the air from her lungs as he gazed down at her, a touch of softness clashing with darkness in his eyes. “I’ll get you to Rourke. Saint seems to think he’s a good male and I’m sure he’ll accept you into the pack. You’ll be safe there.”
She gazed up at Rune, felt deep in her heart that she was safe here too, with him.
That soft edge to his hard gaze made her feel he wanted to tell her that, but that he couldn’t.
He wanted her to know she was safe with him.
He didn’t need to say it for her to know, just as he didn’t need to say it for her to know that if Rourke did reject her that she wouldn’t end up in Carrigan’s hands.
Rune would protect her in his stead.
She sighed, feeling a little awkward herself as she realised how much that comforted her, as the thought of Rune fighting for her freedom made her feel confident that her future was one where she would be in control of her own life.
“This valley is beautiful,” she said, needing to fill the too-comfortable silence.
Rune smiled as he looked at it.
Gods.
It struck her that for all his darkness, for all his ferocity and his scars, and how cold his eyes could be at times, Rune was handsome.
Callie had been sure he didn’t know how to smile, but there it was, and it was stunning, had her heart skipping a beat and her belly fluttering.
“It is beautiful,” he breathed and then slid her another look. The banked heat in his gaze made her want to know what he was thinking and had a blush climbing her cheeks.
She averted her gaze. “How long have you lived here?”
“A little over twenty years, since Saint came to Vancouver and—” He fell silent again.
“And?” Callie risked a glance at him, found him glaring at his boots, his expression rapidly darkening as a wary edge entered his blue eyes.
She wanted to press him to tell her, but she knew it would be a mistake. Instead, she gave him space, time, just sat with him and waited it out, sure he would talk when he was ready.
Rune heaved a long sigh and pivoted to face the valley, his gaze locking onto a point off to her left. Black Ridge.
“This place is home.” His deep voice held a warm note that told her how much he meant that, how deeply he felt that this valley and Black Ridge was the place where he belonged and where he wanted to be for the rest of his life. “The only one I remember. Around eighty years ago, hunters raided my pride. They took me and some others, and killed a whole lot more.”
“Archangel,” she murmured, her voice filled with the hatred she held for that hunter organisation.
Their apparently noble cause to protect humans from only dangerous non-humans, ones who threatened mortals, was a front that had many immortals fooled. Not her, and not Rune, judging by the anger she could sense in him. Shifter prides and packs all over Canada had been subjected to regular raids, weren’t allowed to live in peace, even though they had done nothing wrong. None of them were a threat to humans. The hunters didn’t care. They attacked at least one or two prides or packs a year, indiscriminately killing and capturing innocent shifters.
“What happened to you?” She resisted the urge to look at the back of his neck, her gaze drawn to the number there as if it was a magnet.
His expression lost all emotion. “They held us in a building. One used as a containment facility. Some of my kin were experimented on and studied, and the rest of us… we were the entertainment.”
Her eyes widened as horror swept through her, a chill tumbling down her spine.
“Entertainment?” Sickness brewed inside her as she looked at the left side of his face, at the scar that darted over his temple and into his short hair, and had taken a nick out of his ear. She had the terrible feeling she knew what he meant by that.
Rune looked at her, a bleak edge to his blue eyes. “You’re wary around me and I have the feeling Knox told you things he shouldn’t have, so you don’t have to pretend you don’t know about the cage fighting.”
Her mouth fell open. “Cage fighting?”
Rune cursed.
Callie shot to her feet. “Knox only told me not to get in the way if you had to fight. My gods… these hunters made you fight the other bears? Your own kin?”
He grunted. “Not just bears. Not just my kin. I’ve fought all kinds in my time.”
Her eyes widened further as something hit her, chilling her blood. She was afraid to ask, wasn’t sure she could bear to hear him confirm what she suspected, but she needed to know.
“You said you came here twenty years ago… and that you were taken from your pride almost eighty years ago. Rune… You’re not telling me you were… Not for that long.”
He shrugged. “No. Yes. I mean… I’m not good at talking about this… I’m not good at talking about anything, really. I’ve spent two decades struggling to adjust to this world, to functioning in society. It’s all so alien to me.”
He looked at the valley again, a lost edge to his expression, and her heart went out to him.
He had been a captive of Archangel for sixty years.
Had been forced to fight other shifters and gods knew what else for sixty years.
Good gods, it was little wonder he acted like this world was out to get him. It was little wonder that whenever he showed her that he was feeling softer emotions he reacted negatively, lashing out at her. He had probably spent those six decades hardening himself to protect himself, destroying any softer emotions that might be used against him or that might be viewed as a weakness by other shifters who fought in the cages, or those who had held him captive.
She had thought her life was bad, and it was, but it was nothing compared to what Rune had endured, to what he had somehow lived through and survived.
He heaved another long sigh.
“I fought in arenas for close to sixty years, but not the same ones. They moved us around. A few decades ago, they brought me to Vancouver. They’d set up a very professional outfit. Damned place looked like a nightclub. Two cages. One smaller one and then the large one where I fought.” Rune shrugged, rolling his shoulders, but they remained stiff, his big body locked in a rigid pose and his eyes fixed on a single point in the distance. “They had at least thirty… maybe forty… shifters there at all times. Turnover was pretty high, but it didn’t seem to bother the hunters. They replaced those who were killed almost immediately, like they had a damned farm somewhere just waiting to supply them with fresh stock for their cages.”
“That’s terrible.”
Rune turned his head towards her and glared at her, as if her pity pissed him off, and she understood why he might feel that way. He was strong. A real fighter. He had survived decades of having to fight for his life, forced to kill in order to live to see another day.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her gut churning with acid that scoured her insides as she caught a flicker of pain in his glacial eyes and knew it was only the tip of the iceberg. She could only imagine how much pain he carried beyond that wall of ice he had built around his heart. “I was nosy and I shouldn’t have been.”
Rune shrugged. “It’s better you know. Now, when the fight comes, you’ll know to stay the hell out of it and out of my way.”
She knew that was what he wanted, that he was used to handling things alone, but she couldn’t let that happen.
When the fight came, she intended to be in the thick of it, whether he liked it or not.
It was her life she was fighting for and he had to know how that felt. He had to know that she needed to take an active role in ensuring that the outcome of the coming fight was in her favour, and her future would be one where she was free.
But that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to be a part of things.
Rune had fought so many battles alone.
She wanted to show him that it didn’t have to be that way, that he didn’t need to shun the help of others, or take on everything alone. She wanted him to see that there were people in this world willing to stand by his side and be there for him, to have his back and make sure nothing bad happened to him.
She wanted to protect him.
And she feared she knew why.
