Unleashed By her Bear by Felicity Heaton

Chapter 15

Birdsong filled the silence, heralding the arrival of evening as Rune and Callie followed a wide dirt track that wound through the woods, leading towards a sloping green meadow a few hundred feet away. Beside him, Callie fidgeted with the sleeve of her black hoodie, her amber gaze locked on it.

When he had come around in the glade to find Callie watching over him, she had done her damnedest to convince him he had blacked out from exertion. Rune wasn’t buying it. It might have been decades since he’d had sex, but he had never been the sort to pass out, and something about the way Callie was acting around him now made him suspect she was lying to him.

Why?

He didn’t like it when people lied to him, found he liked it even less when it was Callie spinning tales. The urge to press her to tell him the truth surged through him again but he denied it. The last time he had questioned her about what had happened, she had clammed up and then she had grown snappish when he had pushed her again.

Rune scanned the long sweeping stretch of greenery that ran from the mountain to his left to the taller bushes and trees that edged the river to his right, trying to focus on keeping an ear open and an eye out for potential danger. The last thing he needed was Carrigan sneaking up on him while he was distracted by what had happened.

Callie’s pace picked up. He frowned at her and wanted to ask where she was going, but then he heard it too. He strode after her, towards the source of the sound of water. She disappeared around a bend, a steep wall of naked rock stealing her from view, and Rune growled as he hurried after her, the urge to keep her within his line of sight compelling him to run until he could see her again. He somehow managed to stop himself from sprinting after her like some panicked fool, kept tabs on her with his senses instead.

She had stopped a short distance around the corner.

Rune saw why when he rounded the rock that jutted out onto the track.

A stream tumbled down the mountain to his left, slicing through the dense bushes and babbling over the boulders that cut above the water in places. That water dropped a short distance up the incline, cascaded over bands of rock in a stunning waterfall that caught the evening light, causing a faint rainbow that hung in the still air. Rune tracked the falls to their starting point high up the mountain, where they dropped in a long stream down the sheer face of granite before hitting the gentle grassy slope that hugged the base of the cliff and running towards the greenery.

Callie sighed and looked around, a faraway look in her eyes. “Is there anywhere around here that isn’t beautiful?”

Rune smiled at how in love with the area she sounded—about as in love with it as he was. “Want to rest here a while?”

She met that question with a vigorous nod and was quick to find a boulder to sit on, one that was on the opposite side of the track to the falls, close to where the stream ran across it to join the river behind her.

Rune parked himself on a rock opposite her, his back to the falls and his gaze on her. A feeling came over him again, a fierce, possessive hunger that he found difficult to deny, one that had only grown worse since they had made love.

Her gaze drifted to him, her dark eyebrows pinching and then relaxing as nerves shone in her eyes. He braced himself in response, aware she was going to ask him something and it was going to be something he didn’t like. She always got nervous when she was afraid he might react badly to something.

“You have a lot of scars.” She looked at the mountain and then back at him, but he could see she wanted to avert her gaze again.

Rune sighed. “You’ve seen maybe ten percent of them.”

Thinking about the ones she hadn’t seen had his mood darkening, had memories surfacing that he wanted to deny because he didn’t want to ruin the calm that was growing between them.

For the first time in a long time, he felt comfortable around someone. The thought of wrecking it by revealing things that might create a divide between them or cause her to change her opinion of him was enough to have his temper flaring, even when being in a mood with her was the last thing he wanted.

Because it would only make it easier for him to screw everything up.

It would only make it more likely that she would start viewing him in a different light, one that wasn’t so complimentary.

“You have that look in your eyes again,” she whispered. “The same one you had when you saw Carrigan. Did he… Is he responsible for your scars?”

“Some of them,” Rune grunted, and he wasn’t talking just about his physical scars now. The biggest scar Carrigan had left on him had been emotional, and it was his worst one. “The rest of them came from the arena.”

“Why do you hate Carrigan so much?” Callie lifted her left foot and pressed the sole of her boot to the rock, toyed with her laces as she looked at him.

Waiting.

He stared at her, his heart drumming faster, adrenaline swift to flood him as he considered doing something that would probably ruin what was happening between them.

But he needed her to know.

He needed everything out there, in the open, removing the weight of it from around his neck.

“Carrigan is a traitor. I’m pretty sure if everyone knew what he had done, that there wouldn’t be a single wolf in this world who would do business with him. I’m pretty sure they’d kill him.” Rune fixed his gaze beyond Callie, on the mountains that rose up on the other side of the valley, watching their white peaks changing colour as the sun began to set. “He was captured around thirty-five years ago, maybe a little more, but it was after the hunters brought Maverick to Vancouver.”

“Maverick was made to fight in the cages too?”

Rune nodded. “He’s a natural though. Unlike me, Maverick was born to fight. I’ve never seen anyone take to life in the arena like Maverick did.”

“He didn’t seem that—”

“What Maverick seems like and what he is are two very different things, Callie.” He cut her off with a hard look, one that made her tense. Or maybe it was the harshness of his tone that had her shoulders going rigid beneath her black top.

He didn’t mean to be brusque, but the thought of her making the same mistake many had before her flooded him with a need to fight and a need to protect her.

“Too many people in this world have thought Maverick harmless and they all paid the price. The turnover in the compound doubled the moment Maverick arrived. I love that bear, but he’s dangerous and he’s too easily seduced by the darker side of his personality.” Rune rubbed the back of his neck, the skin where the hunters had marked him feeling hot beneath his fingertips as he thought about how life at the compound had changed with Maverick’s arrival.

“That… Your ink. Does B stand for bear?” Callie glanced at him and then away, fidgeted with her bootlace again.

He huffed. “I was the eighty-second bear they caught. Maverick’s number is in the two hundreds. Grace was 143-B.”

“Grace?” Callie’s eyes landed on him.

Rune averted his and stared at the mountain again, because while he might be a fighter, it turned out he lacked guts. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Callie as he said this, didn’t want to see the change that would take place in her eyes, some foolish part of him hoping that if he didn’t look at her, that it wouldn’t happen.

She wouldn’t change her mind about him.

He wouldn’t ruin things.

“Grace…” He sighed as he thought about her. “She was a Kermode bear. Petite. Pale hair and jade eyes. Too fragile for such a brutal place. I knew the moment I saw her that without help she wouldn’t survive long. Whether it was in the arena or out in the communal areas of the compound, someone would have gotten too rough with her… so I stepped in.”

Rune hardened his heart as images of Grace filled his mind, tried to let them bounce off him but each one was a spear in his heart, cutting him deeply.

“You protected her.” Callie carefully said each of those words, drawing them out as her gaze drilled into his face. “You fell in love with her.”

Rune closed his eyes.

Apparently, it was all the answer Callie needed.

“What happened to her?” she whispered, the softness of her voice offering him comfort and strength, even as it tore at his heart, ripping open the gashes that his memories of Grace had left in it.

“Carrigan happened.” Rune flicked his eyes open and looked at Callie, needing her to see how badly he wanted Carrigan’s head, how deeply he needed to avenge Grace and make the male pay for everything he had done—not only to him and Grace, but to everyone he had betrayed. He growled. “Carrigan learned quickly that if he sucked up to the hunters by feeding them information that they would take care of him. No fights he couldn’t win. More freedom in the compound. Any female he wanted brought to him and served on a silver fucking platter.”

“Grace,” Callie breathed.

Rune snorted and then chuckled coldly. “Only Grace used everything I’d taught her to cut him up and came running to me and Maverick. I protected her and drove Carrigan away. She was distraught, but unharmed… but—”

He sucked down a deep breath, forcing it past his tight throat as memories of that night roared up on him, as they filled his mind and wrenched at his heart.

“But?” Callie prompted.

He exhaled hard.

Pushed the words out.

“Carrigan told the hunters about what he had seen. He wanted me to pay… maybe wanted Grace to pay too… for not wanting him. He told the hunters about us, that we’d been involved for a number of years, something which was strictly forbidden. No relationships. Flings and fucking were fine, but emotions softened us. Weakened us. Turned us into poor entertainment. The hunters wanted us sharp, hard and cold, like a blade.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and pulled down another hard breath, his heart aching as he thought about what had happened. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Callie, tipped his head forwards and closed his eyes, covering them with his hand. “The hunters… The hunters made me fight.”

“Carrigan?”

He shook his head.

“There was a polar bear. Klaus. Huge bastard. Unbeaten. He had always wanted to fight me, but being two of the best fighters meant we were never matched together. The hunters wanted to keep their prized fighters alive. Klaus was given a shot at me, but on the proviso he didn’t kill me.” Rune rubbed at his eyes as they stung, swallowed hard and tried to clear the lump from his throat. “The hunters told me that if I won, Grace would be spared, and our relationship would be allowed to continue as long as it didn’t interfere with my fights.”

“And if you lost?”

Rune swallowed again.

Croaked.

“Grace would have to fight Klaus and I would be forced to watch.”

“Gods, Rune,” Callie murmured and he sensed her move, wanted to tell her to stay where she was but couldn’t find his voice. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her, and he sank against her, his strength rushing from him as her scent and her warmth surrounded him and he realised that he hadn’t ruined things between them.

His beautiful wolf still cared about him.

She stroked her hand over his close-cropped hair, the feel of it soothing him, stealing away his hurt.

Hurt that returned as she whispered, “What happened?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and let two words tumble from his lips.

“I lost.”

He had been so confident going into the arena, too confident perhaps. Klaus had proven too strong for him even in his human form and no matter how desperately Rune had fought, the thought of Grace having to fight driving him to win, he hadn’t been able to bring the polar bear down.

When the hunters had dragged him from the cage, he had been exhausted and in phenomenal pain.

But that pain had been nothing to the agony that had swallowed him when they had pushed Grace into the cage. Her terror had hit him hard, her pained and desperate cries as she had valiantly attempted to fight Klaus utterly destroying him.

By the time those cries had ceased, Rune had been a shell of a male. Empty. Numb. The next few weeks had been a blur of grief and rage, of polar moments of staring blankly into nothing and bloodying his hands in brutal fights. Maverick had tried to take care of him, and when that hadn’t helped him, the grizzly had gone after Carrigan.

Only Carrigan had escaped, whisked away to another location by the hunters, placed beyond Rune’s reach.

Until now.

Now, Rune would have the vengeance he needed.

He leaned back, breaking free of Callie’s hold, and tilted his head up. She gazed down at him, her expression soft, her eyes revealing her thoughts to him—she thought he still had feelings for Grace. It was right there in that shimmer of hurt that wasn’t pity for him.

He did, but not in the way he had.

Callie twisted away from him, her eyes on the sky.

An awkward edge to them.

Rune stood, dusted his backside down and stilled as he looked at her. “We should keep moving.”

It wasn’t what he had wanted to say. He had wanted to tell her that while he had loved Grace, he was no longer in love with her. Callie moved before he could find the courage to put those words out there, turned her back to him and crossed the stream that flowed over the track.

He heaved a sigh and followed her, some of the weight settling back on his shoulders as he tried to find a way to tell her and make her see she was wrong to think the things she was. That fight kept him silent as they walked, heading for a grassy stretch of land dotted with bushes. He had thought telling Callie about Grace would change her opinion of him, and maybe it had, but not in the way he had expected it. He had imagined she would look at him as if he was weak and unable to protect her, as if he wasn’t worthy of her because he had already failed to protect another female under his care.

The edge to her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder at him, the flicker of hurt and confusion, and hopelessness, wasn’t at all what he had expected. Mostly because it had confirmed she had feelings for him. She cared about him.

He cared about her too.

Callie stopped a few feet into the meadow and crouched. What was she doing? He closed the distance between them in a handful of strides and frowned down at her. She glanced up at him, the motion causing her to lean back slightly and reveal what she had been doing.

Picking flowers.

Small yellow blooms.

“Spring is definitely here then.” Rune eased into a squat beside her and plucked one of the flowers from her hand. She stilled when he tucked it behind her right ear, hooking her black hair behind it, and looked at him, a confused crinkle to her brow. He smiled softly. “Glacier-lilies look good on you.”

Smelled good too.

He liked to think his bear instincts didn’t make him do crazy things like they did with Saint and the others, making them want to sleep through winter and such, but just the sight of the lily filled him with an urge to eat it.

He stood and held his hand out to Callie.

Froze when his senses detected movement.

Rune looked off to his right, deeper into the meadow, and narrowed his eyes on the grizzly that emerged from behind a bush to rake claws over a clump of the lilies, digging up their bulbs.

The brown bear lifted its head and sniffed the air, his lower lip hanging down, revealing his teeth.

Rune knew when it had caught his scent.

It groaned and swayed, and began walking towards them on stiff legs, every step overly pronounced. Posturing. The male was trying to threaten Rune, really wasn’t happy to see him. He eyed it warily. It wasn’t a bear he knew. It was a decent size for a young male, probably a few hundred pounds already, and was probably just caught up in the season, a slave to its instincts.

It saw Rune as a bear and wanted to brawl.

The grizzly jutted its head forwards and roared.

Rune moved in front of Callie and stood his ground as the animal kept advancing.

“Back off,” he growled.

The bear did the opposite.

It charged him.