Unleashed By her Bear by Felicity Heaton

Chapter 6

Rune was done with the female.

As dawn broke, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink, and threading the cragged white peaks of the mountains with gold, he finally moved. His legs were stiff from standing on the deck guarding her.

Avoiding her.

He stretched, trying to get some heat back into his cold muscles, refusing to let her see any weakness in him. Her question continued to run around his mind, a handful of words he couldn’t shake, despite how badly he wanted to rid himself of them.

Wolf hadn’t said a word since then.

She had fallen silent, but she hadn’t been asleep. His acute senses had tracked her every movement, his hearing detecting every breath she took. Every sigh. Did she regret pushing him? He didn’t care. He told himself that as he opened the cabin door. He didn’t care about anything to do with this wolf.

Her gaze instantly landed on him. He growled and flashed fangs at her, and her eyes dropped to her bare knees. He stomped over to her and untied the rope from the chair, almost started untying her wrists too and stopped himself. Wolf could walk to Black Ridge without the use of her hands.

He moved around her.

Felt her gaze on the back of his neck.

Rune turned on her and roared right in her face.

Her shoulders tensed and she curled inwards, angling her body slightly away from him, so her glossy black waves obscured her face. He huffed, denied the urge to apologise to her that ran through him, and strode to the door.

“Move it,” he grunted.

“You can’t seriously expect me to walk with my hands tied behind my back?”

“Don’t need your hands to walk. Just your feet.” He refused to look back at her as he reached the deck.

She huffed. “My leg is still healing. What if I trip?”

“Then you’ll fall on your fucking face and learn not to trip again.” He was being unreasonable. He knew that, and hated it. Something about her pushed all the wrong buttons in him though, and his gut said it wasn’t just because she was a wolf.

“Asshole,” she bit out. “I’m not going anywhere until you untie me.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. The look in her eyes and the mulish twist to her lips said she meant that. She actually thought she could negotiate with him and get him to do what she wanted.

Rune strode back into the cabin, stooped as he reached her and hefted her over his shoulder. “You won’t walk, I’ll carry you. Won’t be comfortable up there.”

He accidentally bumped her feet on the back of the chair as he turned with her.

“Son of a bitch.” She wriggled against him. As if that was going to make him put her down. With her hands tied behind her back, there wasn’t much she could do to hurt him. She angled her head and sank a fang into his right biceps.

Fine, maybe she could hurt him.

He slid her a look. She stilled and released him, her eyes edging to meet his, a flare of regret in them.

“You’re right. Making you walk is more of a punishment.” He rolled his shoulder and dropped her on her ass.

She grunted as she hit the deck on her back, grimaced and then glared up at him. “Punishment? For what? For accidentally wandering into your damned territory?”

Her eyes slowly widened, understanding dawning in them.

Rune turned away from her before she could say it.

It didn’t stop her.

“This is because I asked about that ink on your neck.” She grunted and shuffled, and he looked back at her to find her on her knees, pressing her cheek to the wooden boards and trying to lever herself up onto her feet. She huffed and sank against the boards after a few failed attempts, and looked at him. “If I promise not to ask about it again, will you at least help me up?”

He would help her up, but only because some stupid part of him felt bad about the fact he needed to punish her just because she had asked about his ink. She wasn’t the first person to ask about it, and she wouldn’t be the last. He hadn’t reacted badly when people had seen it in the past, or even when they had asked about it.

But for some reason, her asking about it had infuriated him.

Rune strode back to her, bent and grabbed her by the rope that tightly bound her wrists. He pulled her up onto her feet and stared at the rope, waged a war with himself that was over too quickly, the part of him that wanted to keep her bound no match for the side that told him he was being a dick.

He untied the rope.

Seized her wrist before she could sprint off into the woods.

“Don’t even think about running.” He tightened his grip on her arm. “You run and I will chase you.”

She looked across at him, her bright amber eyes warmed by the first light of day, made all the more striking by it. “I won’t run.”

Because she wanted something from his pride, or maybe just Saint. He could see it in her eyes. It irritated him for some reason, made him feel that she would talk to Saint when he got her to Black Ridge, while she insisted on not talking to him. Why wouldn’t she talk to him? Sure, he didn’t have the same charm Saint had, didn’t possess that easy-going and calming air his alpha could put on, but those were hardly reasons for her to refuse to answer Rune’s questions.

Maybe it was because she viewed him as a threat.

Or maybe she thought he was incapable of doing whatever it was she thought Saint could do for her.

He huffed at that and started walking, keeping hold of her arm instead of releasing her as he had intended. “Keep up, Wolf.”

He didn’t care if she didn’t want to talk to him, if she didn’t want anything to do with him, because he wanted nothing to do with her.

Rune marched her through the forest, heading west, towards Black Ridge. He turned right when he picked up the animal trail, followed a branch of it that led downwards and broadened, forming a path that was wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

After they had been walking for close to an hour, his gaze slid to the wolf. She hadn’t complained once about his speed and she had kept up with him despite her injured ankle. She was hobbling badly though, and there was a flicker of pain in her amber eyes whenever she tried to place her weight on her right leg. He glanced down at it and felt like a dick all over again for making her walk on it.

He was no Lowe though.

He wasn’t going to carry her through the forest like a princess as Lowe had with his female, Cameo.

He did however slow when he reached a sweeping bend in the track that was now wide enough for three people, one that had been made decades ago by loggers when they had reached this part of the valley. Before Saint had apparently run them off his property. The forest was trying to take back the track, but enough animals used it to keep it serviceable. Rune had caught a few cougars up here in the past—the animal kind—finding them sunning themselves on the dirt. There weren’t many places in the forest where the sun could reach the forest floor like it could here.

Rune tugged the wolf to the bend in the trail, where trees had been cut down around a bluff that overlooked the valley. The sun bathed the forest and mountains in golden light, warming the steep granite cliffs of the peaks and softening the green slopes that had formed below them where pebbles and rocks had been washed from those sheer faces.

Wolf stepped past him.

His gaze shifted to her.

Her bright amber eyes darted over everything and she went very still, a predator on the hunt. What was it she was hunting out there? He looked there too, trying to sense whether others were there, the ones she was running from. He couldn’t detect anyone out there, but there were a few animals moving around.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, catching his attention.

Rune slid her a look.

“It’s beautiful and it’s my home. Everything from that side of the valley…” He pointed to the mountains across the basin from him and then swung his arm right. “Up to the glacier is Black Ridge land. Don’t be getting ideas about moving in, Wolf.”

She looked at him, something in her eyes that he couldn’t decipher, that set him on edge.

“What?” he growled.

She shook her head, causing the black waves of her hair to brush her shoulders and catch on the thick material of the fleece she wore. His fleece.

“Nothing. Just… It’s odd to hear a male call something beautiful.”

He looked at her, a thought rising unbidden, one that instantly had his mood souring.

She was beautiful.

He huffed and turned away from her to glare at the valley. “I call it like I see it.”

The valley was beautiful. When he had reached this place after Saint had freed him from the cages, from a dark and lightless existence, he had found this place too beautiful. It hadn’t seemed real. It had looked like a dream to him, something impossible, and it wasn’t only because it was a stunning valley. It was everything about this place. The wide-open spaces. The air. The sky. The freedom. Everything about this valley had hit him hard, and it had taken him years to grow used to waking up and stepping out of his cabin door to see mountains and forests.

If he could say he was used to it.

Sometimes, he woke in a cold sweat from a nightmare, was convinced he would open his eyes to find himself in a dark cell like the one he had called home in the early days of his captivity, caged with other bear shifters like him, their only light a flickering bulb that the hunters switched on for a few hours a day, when the time of the fights was drawing near.

When he opened his eyes and found aged wood staring back at him, when he hauled his ass out of bed to go to his deck, he was awed by this place all over again. Moved to tears at times.

She would have loved this place.

He rubbed the back of his neck, deeply aware of the ink there.

Saw a flash of another number, marring pale skin splashed with blood.

143-B.

Grace.

Rune squeezed his eyes shut, denying the memories that surged to the surface. When Wolf looked at him and he had the feeling she was going to ask him what was wrong, he grabbed her arm in a bruising grip and pulled her with him towards the trail that cut down through the forest towards the creek.

Opened his eyes and looked at his hand on her wrist as a strange steadiness flowed through him, calming his mind and holding back the images that had started to flood it despite his best attempts to purge them.

What was it about the wolf that made her affect him in ways that left him feeling as if he was spinning, unsteady and off-balance—torn between holding her gently and lashing out at her?

He released her when she looked between his hand on her arm and his face, and he feared she was going to go ahead and ask him what was wrong.

“Keep up.” He scoured the route ahead of them, part of his senses locked on her as the rest charted everything in the forest as it closed in around them again.

They had reached a point where the slope became gentler when he sensed movement ahead of him. His senses locked onto it. Not a shifter or a human. An animal.

Rune focused harder on that animal, trying to determine the species of it.

Bear.

“Pick up the pace, Wolf,” Rune growled, backtracked to her and grabbed her arm.

He strode forwards, not regulating his pace this time, uncaring of whether or not Wolf could keep up with him. He needed to see which bear it was.

“You could go a little slower,” the wolf snapped and then muttered, “For a moment there, I thought maybe you had feelings. My bad.”

He bared his teeth at her and kept marching her through the woods. He recognised this place. Water ran somewhere off to his right, trickling and filling the forest with the sound of it as it cut through the dirt and the roots. That stream led to a pool, one that then fed into the creek via another stream that twisted and wound its way down the sloping side of the valley, becoming a small waterfall in places.

Rune’s senses placed the bear at the pool.

He shoved Wolf back against the thick trunk of a pine and glared at her. “Wait here.”

She glared right back at him. “And what if I don’t?”

He narrowed his eyes on hers. “You get to find out what it’s like to be mauled by an angry bear.”

“What is your problem?” She huffed and rolled her eyes, but he knew it was all for show. Her pulse had spiked when he had threatened her, and her fingers trembled slightly as she folded her arms across her chest and gripped the material of the fleece, tugging it into her fists. She gave him a pointed look. “Off you go then. Good riddance. Won’t miss you.”

Rune went to turn away.

She grabbed his arm in a bruising grip, the fierce press of her fingers into his muscles lost on him as her warmth and the softness of her skin hit him hard.

He yanked his arm free of her touch and hissed, “What?”

Her wide eyes held his, darted away from him to scan the forest and then collided with his again. “What is it you’re feeling out there? It’s not—”

She seemed to gather herself, brought up a barrier around her before he could ask what it was that she feared.

And she did fear something.

He studied her for a moment in which she avoided looking at him, affected an air that said she wasn’t bothered by anything when his senses said otherwise. He had shaken her when he had threatened her, but whoever was out there, after her, terrified her.

“It’s a bear.” Those words slipped from him and when she looked at him, worry shimmering in her eyes, he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “The animal kind.”

She sank against the tree, a blush burning up her cheeks as she looked at her bare feet again. Ashamed she had been afraid of a little bear? She didn’t need to be. She hadn’t known what was out there and she was running from someone. It was perfectly reasonable of her to assume that it was her enemy out there, close to her.

He looked at her, the soft part of him that should have died long ago rising to the fore, making him want to ask if she was going to be all right if he left her here alone. He shut it down. It was no concern of his whether she was going to be fine without him. She meant nothing to him. He didn’t know her and he didn’t want to know her.

He stormed away before his irritating need to ask her if she was fine won and pushed the words from him.

As the distance between them grew, that softer part of him faded to the background, vanquished again by the side that had kept him alive for decades, had helped him survive a living hell.

But the moment he spotted the bear ahead of him and caught her scent, the soft part of him rose like a monster to obliterate all trace of hardness in him.

The reason he had wanted Wolf to keep her distance.

He didn’t want her seeing this side of him and he had known it would come to the fore if the bear was one he knew.

Loved.

The female black bear stopped drinking from the wide pool in the clearing and lifted her head, her dark eyes settling on him as her head swung his way.

Misty.

His heart clenched when he looked around the clearing and found no sign of a cub. He looked back at her, hating how lean she looked. Last year must have been hard on her. He hadn’t seen her for a good part of summer into autumn, had been concerned about her, and it turned out he’d had good reason to be worried.

He eased into a crouch and opened his arms to her.

She ambled over to him, grunting and moaning, playful sounds that were her way of greeting him. He moaned back at her, dropped to his knees as she reached him and wrapped his arms around her. He smiled as she nudged him with her head, as she wriggled and wanted to play with him, trying to initiate a wrestling match.

Just as she had when she had been a cub with her sister, Brook.

Gods, those had been good days. He had devoted himself to caring for the twin cubs, had loved watching them growing up, seeing them getting stronger.

He weathered a few gentle nips from Misty as he tried to ease her back so he could get a good look at her, huffed when she wasn’t interested in playing by his rules. She moaned and placed her front paws onto his thighs, rubbed her head against his, her fur tickling him.

Rune wrapped his arms around her neck and ruffled her fur, knowing what she wanted from him. She always had been the more love-hungry of the two sisters.

When he tried to ease her back again this time, she let him. He ran an assessing gaze over her. She was thin, needed to fatten up after her winter sleep.

“You should swing by Black Ridge. Come get some food.” He stroked her right ear and smiled when she licked the wound on his left forearm, the one Wolf had made with her fangs. “Yeah, I got into another fight. I’m good though. Let’s talk about you. Brook has been by already. She has a little boy in tow.”

Rune tried to harden his heart when he looked at Misty, soul-deep aware that the two sisters were getting old now and that last year’s offspring might have been the last for her.

Misty stiffened and Rune wanted to growl as he honed his senses on the forest around him.

And realised the wolf had moved, had disobeyed his orders and had followed him.

He glared over his shoulder at her, keeping one hand in Misty’s fur to calm her.

Wolf’s amber eyes shifted to the bear and she risked a step closer.

Rune wanted to growl when Misty relaxed, irritation swift to flood him. She shouldn’t be so calm around a stranger. It was dangerous. Not everyone who passed through Black Ridge land was a friend of his and the pride’s. He looked at the bear, wanted to chastise her for lowering her guard, but then it struck him that she had good reason to be calm around the wolf.

Wolf was with him and she was wearing his fleece, smelled like him to Misty.

“Do you often stop to talk to animals?” Wolf cast a curious look between him and Misty.

She made him sound like Doctor Dolittle.

“Not often. Misty here is an exception.” He smoothed her black fur, roughed it up a little, and held back his smile as she slapped a big wet kiss on his cheek, licking it. “I’ll always stop for a chat with her or Brook.”

Wolf eyed him closely, the look in her eyes warning him that she was in danger of changing her mind about him, that she had spotted that tiny seed of softness within him—a seed he had wanted to keep hidden from her.

He could see in those eyes that she wanted to mention he had feelings, ones she had thought him incapable of just minutes ago, and when she opened her mouth he expected her to call him on that.

Only a single word tumbled from her rosy lips.

“Why?”