The Bear’s Nanny by Erin Havoc

12

KIERAN

MY HEART SLAMS against my ribs, my blood turning to lava within my veins. It shouldn’t have happened like this. They shouldn’t have broken into our territory again, not so soon. Not when Astrid’s here, and Owen’s here, and they could get hurt.

I burst out of the house, my gaze darting from side to side. These fuckers dared to invade our borders again. Owen felt it. He felt it even before my bear did. The kid’s dislike for threatening shifters comes in handy right now.

Theo bursts out of the door next. His teeth bared, he locks his gaze with mine. “These fuckers,” he roars, and I get what he’s feeling.

My bear roars in response; he can smell the invaders. The stink pervades this place, and it’s all I can smell. It invades my nostrils, offensive and repugnant. My stomach flips, and my bear raises his hackles, ready for a fight. Our heart pumps, and my animal draws closer. He claws at me from the inside, demanding to be let out.

Asher and Nick leave next. Nick’s already peeling out his shirt, and for a moment, I want to call him out and tell him Astrid’s here. She might be watching. But there’s no time.

“Where’s Wyatt?” I growl, ripping my shirt off, hoping she’s not peeking from the window. My bear claws harder, and he pushes close, too close. My cheekbones already shift, and I won’t keep him back for long. But though we can communicate in our bear forms, it’s very limited. I wouldn’t be able to ask about our alpha, the one who should be here.

Theo takes a deep inhale. “If you want me to guess,” he says, tilting his lips into a cruel smile, “he’s already there. I smell blood.”

My jaw clenching, I follow his lead and sniff the wind. He’s right. There’s blood in the air, which means they’re close, and Wyatt didn’t wait for us. Like every other time, he went ahead by himself, wanting to solve shit without putting us in harm’s way. He forgets we’re a fucking clan. If we go down, we go down together.

I take one last look at the house. Will they be all right? I want to go after these fucking invaders, the bears who killed my sister, and I want to rip each of their heads off. Wyatt knows it. He knows I won’t leave one fucker breathing after what they did to my sister.

She just wanted out. What kind of clan forces its members to stay? What kind of alpha hunts down a cub? We have rules, yes, and we have punishment and a enforcer. It’s the only way of making things work. But my sister had a baby, and she wanted exile. She chose it. They gave her death instead.

My bear roars, and I think of my sister and Owen and Astrid. I lost my closest, my only family, because I was too far away to save her. My nephew almost died the same way. He would have been gone if human police hadn’t found him. I had to thank humans for saving his life. The very species we avoid the most because they’d get us killed in no time.

In another twist of fate, I fall in love with one of them. She’s beautiful and sweet and pure light. And I’d die defending her if that’s what it takes. In my mind, images of my sister’s mangled body and Astrid and Owen whirl around together. The past and the future. The possibility of losing it all.

My breath hitches and I can’t pull air in. My bear has the upper hand. I can’t, and I won’t hold him back any longer. With a roar, my bear explodes from within me. The change takes some time to happen when you’re a beginner. The breaking and mending of bones is frightening; the sound of your very body cracking mutes all else. Fur sprouts in agonizingly slow motion and the bones of your face break and mend until you have a snout. But when you’re old like me? When you’ve felt the calling of the wild thousands of times, and you have such a close connection to your bear, it’s easy to let him rise. He knows we don’t have the luxury of waiting. He knows our mate might be in danger.

It happens fast. My spine elongates, my body grows. I slam my eyes shut and, when I open them again, my vision has changed. The darkness is bright as day, and I can hear everything.

I put my snout up and sniff around until I catch the scent of the invaders, several of them.

I shoot a glance at my brothers. They shift too, dropping to their hands and knees. Theo sets off without a glance back. As our enforcer, he’s our alpha’s right-hand man, and he won’t waste a moment if Wyatt’s in danger. Asher must smell the same thing I do because he juts his bear's snout to the house.

Stay, he says.

I grind my jaw shut. My bear paces impatiently, slamming his front paws to the ground. The smell of blood reeks stronger. Nick runs off. Asher starts after him. My claws dig into the ground. I look back over my shoulder. Astrid’s locked inside. She’s safe. And she’ll be safer once they’re all dead.

I can’t hold my bear back any longer. We rush into the forest, slowing our pace down here and there to sniff our way. Our legs pump, and we dart deeper into the woods, between trees, down the stream. They were careful, not crossing water, just trudging alongside it — they want us to find them.

Even before I get to them, I know where they’ll be. In our clearing. Our sacred clearing, where we celebrate our mating bonds and the bearing of cubs. Wrath courses through my veins like something acidic, and I throw my head back and roar. My roar is answered by others, and I rush to reach them. These fuckers killed my sister, invaded our lands twice, and now mar our sacred clearing.

Bloodlust fogs my vision, and I burst into the expanse with drops of saliva foaming across my lips. The place is a mess of bodies slamming against one another, teeth biting, paws hitting. We’re slightly outnumbered, but it means nothing. We fight with everything we have. We defend our land and our own with our bodies and our blood.

I find the first bear who’s not one of ours and slam my body against him. He stumbles and turns to me, shifting his attention from Asher. There’s so much rage inside me; I suddenly know this won’t take long at all.

My bear is mad. So freaking mad.

I raise to my hind legs, and the invader does the same, but there’s so much strength in the slam of my paw to his head he can’t keep his balance. He sways, having a hard time standing on two feet, and I waste no time crashing my paws into his face once more. He falls, and I’m on him next.

Bears are usually associated with fuzziness and furry teddies, but there’s nothing more unlike that than an angry bear in the wild. My claws pierce through his skin as if it was butter. I keep going, my teeth joining into the carnage until this bear stops moving.

I turn on my heels, immediately finding the next fucker to slam my body against. My blood boils, and I care nothing about the hits I take. The warmth running down my fur means nothing if I can eliminate them tonight.

Two bears gang up on Wyatt. Even if it wasn’t for the smell, it’s easy to discern my alpha. He’s a huge Kodiak bear, bigger than any of us, born to lead this clan. He’s strong even for bear standards, and he makes it look easy even when his fur glints with red.

I rush into one bear, fighting him, and close my jaw around his thick neck. He roars, but I keep my ground, and he can’t put me down. They won’t put me down. My claws dig into the ground, and I push him back and back until he slams into a tree trunk, and it’s easy to take his life.

This wouldn’t usually be me. But in the woods, in this shifter society, we have different rules. Even if you’re a pacifist, you have to get your hands dirty to get rid of some problems. I wouldn’t usually take pleasure in killing another shifter, not when this world already wants us dead, but this is different. This clan ruined my sister’s life. Her existence meant nothing to them, her husband’s neither. They would have killed my one-year-old nephew if they had the chance. They tried to. They still want it.

The moment I turn to help Asher, wariness takes my gut. My bear throws his head back and sniffs the air. Something’s wrong.

Wyatt’s roar bellows from behind me, and I turn to lock gazes with him. His face is covered in blood, and he stands with two paws over the body of one of the bears he fought moments ago. But his presence presses down on me, his alpha persuasion clogging my throat.

Get out of here! It feels like he’s telling me.

The urgency in the way his presence pushes me down robs me of air. Before I know where I’m supposed to go, I’m leaving, just because of his alpha pull. My bear whimpers low, and I know he wanted to stay and kill these fuckers. But the alpha wants us gone, and the alpha gets what he wants.

The wariness and the alarm grows. My muscles pump me faster through the woods, and I’m beelining for home. I lick the blood off my teeth as I heighten my senses and search through the forest. This alarm, this sense of danger. It's new. It can only come from something so basic and so ingrained in me, I haven’t even understood it yet.

Mate, my bear cries inside my chest. Mate, mate.

Realization hits me like an out-of-control truck. I gasp and pick up my pace, rushing between the trees. My bear could only feel such a pull of danger toward one person, my mate. And I left her behind, alone, like a freaking idiot. An idiot full of bloodlust, who might be on the edge of losing his mate even before he marked her.

I have been ignoring the signs, my bear’s calls, but this is it. Astrid is my mate, or I wouldn’t feel this imminent sense of danger. Unless I find her safe, and that would mean my true mate is out there, in danger, somewhere I can’t reach her...

But I burst into the clearing where we live to find the door destroyed, hanging by one hinge. And the back of a huge polar bear stepping inside, like the place belongs to him.

My vision turns red, and the instincts of protecting her kick in. I should change to my human form. She’ll get so freaking scared seeing us like this, and then knowing I’m a bear... It could go so wrong.

But there’s no time. No matter the consequences, I’ll be sure she’s safe first. And then I’ll deal with them.