A Lion Shame (Bear Creek Grizzlies Book 3) (13 page)

S
J felt worse
than she had at nine months pregnant in the middle of August without air conditioning. She wanted to jump out of her skin and scream and throw things and just do
something
to help Dakota. To get moving. To change anything. To get away from Tate so she could clear her thoughts and figure out how the hell to get Dakota and herself away from the cabin alive. SJ didn't believe it when Tate said everything would be fine. She couldn't rely on them. She'd never rely on a man again, even if they seemed to know what they were talking about. They didn't love Dakota like she did. SJ was all she had.

So SJ got into the car on her own and double-checked the directions, which were simple enough when there was only one road to follow. Simon gave her a small handheld radio and made her test it before she started driving, and then it was just SJ and her thoughts in the car. At least it wasn't snowing.

She concentrated on breathing, slow and steady, just like when she started having contractions and had been terrified out of her mind. She hadn't been ready to be someone's mother. And a year later, SJ couldn't imagine her life as anything else. Her vision blurred as she stared out the windshield and SJ had to dash tears from her eyes. She'd find a way. Dakota would be fine. Even if all SJ could do before the drug dealers killed her was buy some time for that jaguar to get off the roof and into the cabin to protect Dakota, it would be worth the sacrifice. Rosie would take good care of Dakota.

SJ shoved away those thoughts and focused on everything being just fine. She needed a back-up plan, though. Driving the fully-loaded car up to the cabin was a stupid idea. It gave the drug dealers everything they wanted in one go.

The burner phone Tate gave her to call the drug dealers sat in the cup holder next to her, and SJ jumped as it started ringing. Her hand shook as she reached for it, pulling the car onto the shoulder so she wouldn't accidentally run into the ditch if the drug dealers called to change the plan. She squeezed her eyes shut as she answered. "H-hello?"

"It's Tate. Everything's fine."

SJ exhaled in a gust and almost threw the phone through the window. "You scared the hell out of me."

"I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you before you left, but Simon didn't really give me a chance, so... I thought I'd call."

"While I'm in the middle of the scariest damn drive of my entire life, you want to chat?"

"I thought a distraction might be good," he said.

SJ rubbed her forehead, praying for patience and for the man to get a clue. "Not for me."

She expected him to say something asshole-y and hang up, but instead the silence stretched and he just breathed. Just as SJ was about to scream from the tension, Tate sighed. "There's a lot I need to tell you, Sarah Jane, but you're right. This isn't a good time. I just wanted to say I'm sorry. That's not enough, I know, and I should never have raised my voice or said those things to you. I was angry, but that doesn't make it okay. So I'm very sorry. If you'll let me make it up to you, I'd like to take you on a date. A proper date. When things settle down and everything."

He trailed off by the time he got to the word 'date,' until everything after it sounded rambly and nervous. It was a good thing SJ had pulled over, because she sure as hell would have stomped on the brakes and caused an accident the moment he apologized. She couldn't formulate a thought, trying to process what he'd said and asked for, and finally shook her head. "I can't — I can't really think about this right now, Tate. Thank you for the apology. I appreciate that. I don't know what's going to happen, and I really don't think I can —" She cut herself off, furious that she'd already backtracked. She needed to be single for a while. She didn't want to date anyone. There was too much else going on. "Let me start over. I just got out of a bad relationship and had a rebound guy act like a total jackass."

She paused long enough for him to get the message, and when Tate grumbled his agreement about the jackass part, SJ went on. "So I'm going to be by myself for a while, and focus on my daughter and Rosie. That's my plan. I don't know if there's room for you in it."

Another long silence, and she braced for the angry tirade. None came.

Instead, Tate took a deeper breath. "Okay. I look forward to finding that out. Drive safe, okay? We're not far behind and everyone is already in position. Finn called to say they heard Dakota crying. She might not be happy, but she's alive and there."

"Thank you," SJ whispered. Tate said something else she didn't hear, then the connection dropped and SJ just sat there in the car and tried to calm her racing heart. They heard Dakota crying. For a wild second, she considered calling Tate back and asking them to somehow record the baby's cries, so SJ could hear for herself.

But she set the phone aside and put the car in gear, pulling back onto the lonely highway. She only made one other stop, at a small stand of trees not far from the road, and fiddled with some of the compartments on the car. Watching Tate from the other side of the garage hadn't really given her an understanding of how all that stuff worked, but she managed to figure out enough to get what she wanted.

SJ checked and double-checked the time as she drove, worried that the shitty clock in the sedan was slow or fast and would end up screwing everything up. Her stomach roiled with nerves until she almost pulled over again to throw up, but she clenched her jaw and forced the bile back. No time.

She focused on breathing as the road sloped up and toward ground that looked more like how Tate had described the cabin's surroundings. By the odometer, she was getting close to the location. And just as she started to panic, thinking she'd made a wrong turn or gone too far, something moved in the trees. SJ sucked in a breath, ready to scream, but a dark gray wolf watched her with unblinking gold eyes. It waited at the edge of the trees, nearly invisible, and as the car slowed, the wolf deliberately lowered its head in a kind of nod, then nudged its nose in the direction she was going.

The wolf retreated, but SJ didn't feel so alone. They were with her. She couldn't see them, but they were there. Her heart slowed and some of the shaking left her as she pressed the gas pedal once more. She kept driving. She was getting closer and it was almost over and then she could take Dakota home and relax.

The trees thinned again and then the brush moved. But instead of a wolf, a man stepped out from behind a tree and raised a rifle to his shoulder, aimed at her. SJ rolled down the window, trying not to look at the cold dark metal of the rifle barrel. "I'm here to make a delivery. And a pick-up."

He snorted, his dark eyes cold, and didn't move the rifle. "Anyone else in the car?"

"No. I came alone, just like they said."

The man, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, motioned at the back of the car with the rifle, making SJ flinch. "Pop the trunk."

For a heart-stopping moment, she couldn't find the trunk release on the damn old car, but her shaking fingers found the switch and the trunk released. The man moved slowly to the back, flipping open the trunk, and leaned in to examine the contents. SJ almost puked again, and just as she glanced over her shoulder, debating whether to floor it and try to drive straight through the cabin, she saw something else move in the trees. Another man, also carrying a rifle, pointed the weapon at her. Guarding the other man as he closed the trunk and returned to her side of the car.

The first man tilted his head at where the cabin waited up the hill. "Approach slowly. Try anything crazy and you know what happens. Got it?"

She muttered under her breath and rolled up the window before she said what she really thought, and the sedan chugged up the hill. The car rolled to a stop in a wide clearing in front of a small cabin, and four more men waited outside with weapons drawn. SJ hesitated before putting the car in park. No sign of Dakota. And no sign of the bears or a jaguar on the roof.

One of the men snapped his fingers at her. "Out of the car. Now."

SJ did as she was told, even though the warrior woman part of herself she'd just discovered objected, and moved a few feet away from the car. "My baby. Give me my baby."

"Not yet." The man gestured at the others and they went to the car, starting to tap on the panels and search for the compartments and the drugs. "Is everything there?"

"Mostly."

All four of them froze, and the leader's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"The drugs are there. The money is some place safe." SJ folded her arms over her chest, willing her expression to calm indifference. She needed to be a badass. Someone who didn't give a shit about anything. Even if she wanted to pee her pants. "So here's what's going to happen. You're going to give me my baby. We're walking away. When I feel safe, I'll call and tell you where the money is. Then everyone is happy, everyone has what they want, and no one ends up feeling cheated."

His expression darkened, but he didn't immediately curse her or shoot her. So that was positive. Instead, the dealer debated. The corner of his mouth eventually twitched, almost in a smile, then his face returned to impassivity. "Chuck said you were a meek bitch and wouldn't cause any trouble."

Pain ignited in her jaw as she clenched her teeth, and rage at Chuck and everything he'd put her through boiled up in her chest. It was all Chuck's fault. All his fault. She deserved better. Her lip curled and some crazy spirit possessed her, and she said, "He said the same thing about you."

The drug dealer laughed, a blood-chilling sound, and aimed a pistol right at her chest as the mirth faded from his expression. "Tell me where the money is, bitch."

"Give me my baby, asshole." She held her ground. The bears were there. The wolves were there. The jaguar would get Dakota. It would be okay.

The silence stretched, then the dealer shrugged. "It wasn't that much money." His finger tightened on the trigger and SJ prepared to die.

T
ate knew
Sarah Jane had lost her mind, somewhere on the road between Bear Creek and the cabin. She had to have, to challenge the gun-toting killers like that. The mountain lion was immensely proud of their mate for standing her ground, but Tate feared they'd lose her in a hail of bullets before he ever got a chance to really make things up to her.

When the tall guy's grip tightened on the pistol and his aim changed, Tate said, "I'm going," and launched forward despite Simon's effort to stop him.

The mountain lion tore out of the trees and crashed into the man threatening SJ. The gun went off and SJ screamed and the man died a quick death as the lion tore out his throat. Tate felt nothing as he dispatched the bastard who'd called SJ a bitch, and instead launched himself at the next threat as bears and wolves poured out of the trees. Yells and screams echoed from down the road, where the lookouts met their matches, and more gunfire blasted through the quiet night.

He didn't care about getting shot. He cared about protecting Sarah Jane. He heard Kira's distinctive jaguar roar, and knew the other shifter guarded the baby — but Sarah Jane just heard the baby's cries. Tate saw it on her face when he dragged one of the bastards away from her, and Sarah Jane ran for the cabin. Right through the crossfire. Tate snarled and shouldered Finn aside, chasing after Sarah Jane as she charged right into the unknown.

He fought off the chaos in his brain as the bright flashes from the guns and the sharp smell of fear and spent ammunition hurled him back to another time. To more dangerous times. The world changed around him, from a nighttime forest to a sunny desert. Cold to heat. Terror to terror. He shook it off, almost slamming into the door of the cabin, and focused only on Sarah Jane. She was the center of his universe. She was everything.

The lion growled as one of the guys lurched out of a side room and almost slammed into Sarah Jane, and Tate ran his claws through the man, leaving a bloody heap behind. All Tate's life was chaos, a search for stability and something meaningful. He'd joined the Legion to find a home and a purpose, and he followed Simon for the same reason after they left the Legion. And still it wasn't enough. Still Tate had an empty place inside him that nothing seemed to fill.

Monique had been like a drug — numbing him to what was really missing. Lulling him into thinking everything was better and complete. And yet it was nothing. She left and he was still... empty.

Until Sarah Jane. She gave him focus. She forced him to confront the chaos in his life and the way he lived, careening from one crisis to another. That chaos drove him crazy, and he was too dumb to realize it. He tried to live everywhere and everything, and ended up loving nothing and no one. Nothing held meaning until he saw her, and he'd almost blown it. Almost ruined it.

The mountain lion growled and Tate's paws slid on the bloody floor as he chased after Sarah Jane. She cried out when she reached the back room, and Tate's heart drop. God, no. Please. Not the baby.

He hadn't prayed in years. Decades, maybe. But he prayed in the eternity of five heartbeats it took for him to round the corner and spot Sarah Jane leaning over a mattress on the floor, a bloody jaguar and a dead man in the corner.

After all the chaos of the yard, the silence inside struck him to his soul. The baby wasn't crying. She didn't make a sound.

S
J blacked
out for a moment when she thought the man pulled the trigger and everything went crazy. She thought she'd been shot but nothing hurt, and then the men and the guns disappeared in a melee of fur and claws and teeth. Growling. She looked down and thought she saw Tate's mountain lion side, chewing on the guy who said Chuck called her a bitch, but a thought raced through her brain like a bolt of lightning.

Dakota
.

SJ ran for the cabin, her heart in her throat, and it felt like a marathon. A million miles between her and her baby. She tripped over a rug in the doorway, and ducked as someone moved inside the cabin and she braced for a bat or a bullet or anything. But something growled next to her and instead Tate was a golden blur of rage that took care of whatever threatened her.

She couldn't stop to thank him. Dakota wasn't crying.

Her baby. She needed her baby.

SJ's breath sobbed in her chest as she shoved doors open, thinking only of the room where Dakota waited. With a jaguar. She prayed the jaguar was still there, still protecting Dakota. The hallway stretched in front of her, and even though she only checked four rooms, it might as well have been four hundred. The last one, the very last room in the back, revealed an old mattress on the floor, blood on the walls, and a tiny, still bundle in the middle of the rumpled sheets. A jaguar lay bloody and silent next to a dead man.

She barely saw them.

SJ launched across the room to the mattress, ignoring as Tate snarled behind her, and reached for Dakota. Dakota.

The baby didn't move. She didn't move. SJ started sobbing before she even touched her, dreading the rest of her life and thinking it was probably best just to walk back into the gunfire, but then... Then Dakota opened her eyes, blinking, and her whole face wobbled. A fat tear rolled down her cheek and she screamed loud enough that SJ's ears rang and buzzed.

It was the sweetest music she'd ever heard.

SJ held Dakota, squeezed her to her chest, and closed her eyes. Something nudged her and she found Tate next to her, trying to push her back to the door, and SJ paused, looking at the jaguar. The big cat raised her head and made a grumbling noise, making the same 'get out of here' gesture that Tate did, so SJ said, "Thank you. More than you can possibly know,
thank you
," and she went.

She stopped short, face to face with a bear, and bit back a scream as Dakota continued to howl. The baby smelled to high heaven, so clearly a diaper change was in order, and she hadn't eaten in God only knew how long. But the bear snorted and made a weird groan, then lumbered down the hall to an open door.

Freedom. Fresh air. Away from the strange noises in the cabin and the encroaching darkness and the nightmare of the last day. SJ followed the bear, only half-aware of the mountain lion pacing behind her, and stumbled into the open. A few naked people stood in the clearing, surrounding the car, and several bodies lay strewn about the clearing. Something large crashed through the trees in the distance, and when SJ stared in that direction, one of the naked men smiled. "Just Cooper going for a run. We've got 'em all. Don't worry."

"Th-thanks," SJ said. Her cheeks burned as she looked the man only in the face, trying not to see any other nudity in her peripheral vision, but by then the bear led her across the clearing to where a new SUV idled behind the drug car.

A young woman sat behind the wheel, but got out to open one of the back doors. "I'm Samantha, one of the wolves. The sheriff, Wyatt, is my big brother. He said you might need some help. I brought diapers and wipes and new clothes and pretty much everything I could think of, so if you want to settle in back here with the little one, I'll drive us to town so you can... Well, you can do whatever you want."

And she smiled. SJ almost burst into tears. She stumbled to a halt and looked around, wanting to say something to Tate, but the mountain lion had disappeared and SJ didn't recognize any of the naked men in the yard as him. Dakota kept screaming, furious at the world, and SJ didn't want to keep her in the cold any longer. So she ducked into the SUV's roomy back seat with a quiet thank you to Samantha, and tried to put the world back together for her baby.

They had one stop to make on the way back to town, and then SJ could make everything right.