Bearly Consenting: Russet Falls Series (2 page)

Chapter Two

Present Day

“Mrs. A, Mrs. A!” cried Emma, and Avery hurried over to wipe
the paint off her sticky hands.

“Me too! Me too!” Donovan cried and Avery hurried over to
him too.

“Don’t touch the chair!” she nearly cried as Donovan’s
little blue hands reached for his chair.

She threw the dirty paper towels away and surveyed the
damage.

It seemed that everyone had managed to finish their tree
handprint paintings and the paint had mostly stayed on the tables. There were a
few splatters on the floor, but otherwise, it seemed like a success.

She glanced at the clock and saw there were still twenty
minutes left of the day, so she hurried to the bookshelves and grabbed a book
before calling her class to the carpet.

The children sat down in their spots, smiling and
chattering, excited from the art project of the day. Avery settled into her
teacher chair and read a story about a hungry caterpillar, having to stop more
than once to remind some of the students to be quiet.

At last, the day had come to an end, and she helped everyone
get their book bags and lunch boxes and then she safely walked them out to the
buses and breathed a sigh of relief when everyone was boarded.

“It’s exhausting, isn’t it?” her friend, and fellow
Kindergarten teacher, Melissa, asked.

“Yes,” Avery laughed. “I keep hoping each year will get
easier, but I don’t think they do!”

Melissa laughed too. “I don’t think so either, but I’m going
to keep hoping too!”

The chatted about some of the new school policies and then
Avery headed back into her classroom to clean up. It was her night to cook
dinner for herself and her two roommates and she wanted to get home early
enough to prep the pasta that she was making.

She picked up her room, filed a few papers and set out the
lessons for tomorrow. She grabbed her purse out of her desk, and a quick glance
at her phone told her that she had missed six calls from her mother in the past
hour.

“Crap,” she murmured, calling her mother back. She tapped
her foot anxiously as she waited for her mother to answer.

“Avery! I’ve been trying you for over an hour!”

“I know. Sorry, Mom. The end of the school day is crazy. Is
everything okay?”

“No, things are not okay.” Her mom quickly explained, “There
was a terrible fight among the tribes and we lost five members.”

“Five?” Avery gasped. “Oh my gosh!”

“Your father and brother are fine,” her mother said quickly,
“but Russ didn’t make it.”

Russ was Avery’s cousin, and to be perfectly honest, Avery
had never cared for him—he had always been mean and cruel, and he continued to
be that way, as an adult.

But Russ was her mother’s only nephew and she was sad for
her mother. “Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” her mother said, her voice cracking just a bit.
“I knew he was a trouble maker, but he was still my sister’s boy.”

Avery nodded, even though her mother couldn’t see her.

“There’s been a lot of unrest, Avery, and a lot of lives
have been lost this time. There’s going to be a big memorial service for all of
them, as well as the smaller family ceremonies. It would be really nice if you
could come home.”

“Oh, Mom, I don’t know. It’s the end of the school year, and
things are so hectic over here,” she trailed off. She hadn’t been home since
Christmas, and that was perfectly fine by her. She tried to come home as little
as possible.

“Please, Avery. The tribe needs to band together.”

Avery went to speak, but her mother cut her off, already
guessing what she might say. “And don’t tell me that you aren’t part of this
tribe anymore, because you absolutely are. You can move as far away as you
like, but you are still part of this tribe.”

The Atrocitas tribe.

Avery hated them.

They were cruel, thoughtless and manipulative.

Fortunately, her family was one of the few kinder families,
but going home always filled her with dread.

For more than one reason.

She should have stayed in Southern California.

“When is everything, Mom?” she sighed.

“This weekend.”

Taking the time off wasn’t the problem; Avery had more than enough
time. It was just a hassle to have someone else come into her classroom, not to
mention the fact that going home was at the bottom of her priorities list.

She may still technically be a member of the tribe, but in
her heart she was not.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said slowly.

“Oh, thank you sweetheart! I can’t wait to see you. I’ve
missed you so much.”

Avery rolled her eyes. She hadn’t even agreed to come home
yet.

“Mom, I told you I will see what I can do.” It was
Wednesday, so she could probably manage to take off Friday and drive home on
Thursday after school ended. If she left by four in the afternoon, she could
make it to her parent’s house before eight in the evening. And she would
definitely come back on Sunday night.

“Okay! I know that you will make it work though! I’m so
excited to see you, even though it’s for a sad occasion.”

“I know, I know.”

“I have to run now, sweetie. Love you!”

“Love you too, Mom,” Avery muttered as the line went dead.

How the hell had she just been suckered into going home?

She hadn’t even asked her mother who else had been killed.
Her mother would have told her if it had been someone else close to them.

She looked around her classroom and sighed. She would need
to get everything in order if she was going to be out on Friday.

Chapter Three

“Mr. Alexander, I have the papers you needed to sign.”

Drew stopped and gave the assistant a shrewd look. “Nothing
like the last minute,” he murmured, brandishing a pen from his front pocket and
scrawling his signature across it.

“Thank you!” the assistant cried, hurrying back down the
hall with the signed paper, clutching it to her chest as if it was the most
sacred of documents.

Drew rolled his eyes and stepped into the elevator.

The elevator moved so swiftly and silently that Drew didn’t
even feel the descent down thirty stories. He stepped into the marbled lobby,
his shoes clicking across the floor. The doorman nodded at him, opening the
door and Drew stepped out into the bright sunshine.

He wasn’t used to leaving the office this early in the day
and he squinted in the sun, before walking around to the front of his waiting
car and sliding into the driver’s seat. 

His sunglasses were waiting for him on the dashboard.

He slipped them on, started the car and pulled out into the
city traffic.

He hadn’t told anyone where he was going, but he didn’t
really have anyone to tell in the first place.

He settled in, preparing for the three-hour drive. Once he
was out of the city, he would pull over somewhere and change out of his work
clothes. There was no way in hell that he was going to show up back on the
clanlands in his business clothes.

Drew watched as the city began to move into his rearview
mirror and he wondered if he should feel something.

He should feel something.

If someone’s father has died, they normally felt emotions.

Yet, Drew felt nothing.

Maybe he felt nothing because his father had been a ruthless
and cruel son-of-a-bitch.

He would have to keep his feelings to himself when he
returned home.

He watched the familiar landscape as he drove and he felt
himself fill with the usual dread at returning home to the clanlands. His life
certainly hadn’t turned out the way he had planned. He had been young and
stupid when he was barely nineteen. He had made a pact with the devil and now
he spent his life paying for it.

Drew knew that he would need to see Seraphina shortly after
seeing his mother. As he continued his drive, he thought of Seraphina and her
trips into Portland. The way she would just show up in the lobby of his office
or the building where he lived. She was always dressed impeccably, her dark
hair chic and sophisticated, looking nothing like the woman who lived with the
alpha of the tribe.

When Seraphina was on the clanlands, she was dressed
modestly, though still beautiful. Although now Drew only saw ugliness when he
looked at her. She was normally wearing jeans and a sweater, her dark hair
pulled back in a loose ponytail, or a simple braid. Her eyes always bright and
shining. Though now, Drew thought the brightness of her eyes was actually an
eerie glow.

Yet when Seraphina was in Portland, she was every inch of a
posh woman, one with polish and wealth.  Did Ryker, the alpha, know that
Seraphina had those clothes? Had he bought them? Did Ryker even know what Seraphina
was? Or what she had tricked Drew into?

Drew scoffed. Ryker was too busy running a tribe that was
cruel, violent and terrifying. Drew knew that their tribe had a history of
violence and cruelty, but Ryker had taken things to a whole new level. Drew had
only been back to the clanlands a handful of times in the last seven years, but
each visit only showed a tribe more and more focused on evil.

Ryker’s leadership had suited Drew’s father perfectly.

The three hours passed quickly, and Drew pulled off the road
just past Salem, and stopped in a diner to get a drink and change his clothes.
He headed back out to his car, dressed in faded jeans, a worn pair of loafers
and a gray sweater. He got some strange looks from the other diners, and he
could smell that there had been other bears in there recently, thought not from
his clan.

Honestly, Drew didn’t give a shit. He tried to put his
animal instincts as far behind him as possible. His bear awakened at the most
inopportune times, and nearly once a month Drew drove out to the woods and
shifted, just to release the tension that built inside him from not shifting.

Drew was probably the only werebear who had chosen to live
in a city. It was surely not the proper place for someone of such volatile
nature and animal urges. But Drew had been fighting and harnessing those urges
over the past seven years, though he didn’t think his bear would ever remain
calm when he got angry.

Anger was Drew’s biggest trigger.

More than once, Drew had nearly shifted during a meeting or
a heated business call and he had to shut himself in his office and take deep
breaths, focusing on the one thing that had always calmed him down.

Avery.

Drew knew that he and Avery were ancient history; he had
burned that bridge when he got caught up in Seraphina’s terrible mess. But
Avery had always known how to calm Drew down; her mere presence had relaxed
him. So whenever he felt that his bear was ready to rip through, to burst from
his body in the middle of his office, he closed his eyes and pictured Avery’s
face.

In his mind, she was still the young, beautiful creature he
had dated while in high school. Avery had always been too good for him—he knew
that from the moment they had become childhood playmates. Drew would show up to
play in stained, torn clothes, with ripped sneakers, and there had been Avery
in a pretty jumper with two perfect braids down her back.

Avery’s family had cared. Avery’s family had money. Not a
lot of money, but they certainly hadn’t been dirt poor like Drew’s family.

But Avery had never held it against him, had never even
looked at him any differently.

And there she was in his head, still today, her beautiful
chestnut hair hanging loosely down her back, with specks of gold throughout
from the sun. She had deep chocolate eyes, framed by miles and miles of thick
lashes.

Drew shook his head, trying to rid the image of Avery from
his mind. It did no good to think of her now. For all he knew, she could be
married with babies and back on the clanlands. He had the means to keep tabs on
her, but he went out of his way to not find out what she was up to; it would be
too hard to hear.

His car bumped up and down as he turned onto the familiar
dirt path that led to the Atrocitas’ part of the woods. He passed house after
house until he reached the small, broken down and discarded home where his
mother still lived. He parked the car and took a deep breath before getting out
of the car.

“Drew!” his mother cried, coming out the front door and
throwing herself into his arms.

He hugged her awkwardly, patting her back. “I’m sorry, Mom,”
he said quietly. He looked around, hoping that his brother was nearby
somewhere, but there seemed no sign of anyone else.

His mother let out a loud sob and then forced herself away
from his chest. “Come on in, honey, let’s get you settled.”

Drew walked into the house and the first thing he felt was
anger.

“Mom, what happened to getting the floors done?” He looked
down at the broken floorboards. He stepped into the kitchen, already knowing
what he would find.

The kitchen was still broken and run down.

“And what about the kitchen, Mom?”

“I know, I know,” she said, “We didn’t do any of the things
you told us to do.”

“What did you do with the money I gave you? It was more than
enough to re-do the floors and the kitchen. With money to spare!”

His mother wrung her hands out. “I know, but your father-’’

She said no more and Drew didn’t need to ask. Like every
time before, his father must have squandered the money away. Well now that his
father was gone, Drew was going to handle things. He had more than enough money
to take care of his mother, and he certainly wasn’t going to have her living in
filth.

Even if she had let him live in filth as a child.

“I’m taking care of it, Mom.”

“I can do it,” she tried to argue.

“No,” Drew said firmly, “I’ll set everything up.”

His mother nodded vaguely, and the swiped at the tears that
began leaking from the corners of her eyes. “It was all so unexpected,” she
sobbed, and yet Drew wondered if it was. His father had always been up to no
good. Drew believed that maybe things had finally caught up with him.

“I don’t really understand,” he said quietly, pushing a
stack of dirty dishes to one end of the couch so he could sit down. The springs
were broken, and Drew nearly sank to the floor; his mother didn’t notice. “What
happened?”

His mother sniffled, and sat down in a rickety old chair
across from him. “He was working on a task with some other tribe members. There
is a girl out there who has royal blood and the tribe wants her to join us.”

That sounded like a pretty summed up explanation.

And he didn’t even know what the hell royal blood was.

Nor did he care.

Drew nodded. “But what was he doing?” Drew asked slowly. He
didn’t even want to use the term Dad for a man that he had despised so much.

“I don’t know, Drew,” his mother said, frustrated. “He
didn’t tell me what he was doing all the time. Just that he was trying to help
get this girl to join our tribe and then there was a big battle with the
Virtus.”

Just the fact that his dad was involved with something that
included the Virtus tribe made Drew think it was a no-good mission.

Drew could see that his mother was fried and there seemed no
more point in trying to talk to her about it. Instead he talked to his mother
about what he had been doing in Portland, spinning the stories to make his
mother happy and leaving out about how he worked all the time, how he had to
commit terrible deeds, and how he coped by sleeping with beautiful but
brainless women.

When he thought he had spent an acceptable amount of time
with his mother, he stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” he answered vaguely, “There are some people I would
like to see.”

“But we’ll see people at the service tomorrow,” she pointed
out.

Drew nodded. “But tomorrow won’t be the right time to catch
up.”

Particularly with one evil bitch.

His mother seemed too tired to argue and she nodded,
watching him as he left.

Drew got in his car and drove to one of the nicer houses in
the area, one that sat elevated above most of the others. He parked the car and
got out, striding across the lawn.

“Hello Drew,” purred a voice and he turned around to see a
young woman come around the side of the house.

He did a double take and stopped in his tracks, not quite
recognizing her at first.

“H-hello, Jade.’’

She laughed in a way that was too mature for her. “I’ve
grown up quite a bit, haven’t I?” she asked, pursing her lips together.

Drew looked her up and down—she certainly had grown up from
the scrawny little thing she had been. She was always hanging around in the
background, listening in to every little thing that Seraphina tried to say to
Drew. And now here she was, grown up, and looking like hell on wheels.

Drew wasn’t sure how old she actually was, but it didn’t
matter because Jade quickly told him.

“I just turned eighteen,” she said, grinning slyly. Her tits
were nearly bursting out of her cream sweater, and her jeans looked like they
had been painted on. Her hair wasn’t the same jet black as her mother’s, but it
was still dark. It hung in a shiny curtain below her shoulders, and her hazel
eyes watched Drew’s every move.

She reminded him of a cat.

He shook his head and refocused his brain. “Where is your
mother?” he asked.

Jade sauntered away, calling over her shoulder, “In the
house!”

Drew walked up to the door and knocked hard.

A moment later the door pulled open and Seraphina stood
there barefoot, her dark hair up in a ponytail, wearing a pair of worn jeans
and a plunging plaid shirt. She smiled widely at Drew, her lips curling up at
the corners.

There was something predatory about her smile.

“Drew,” she murmured, “Come inside.”

Drew knew he didn’t have a choice, so he stepped inside.

“Ryker isn’t home,” Drew said flatly.

“Of course not,” Seraphina said smoothly, “How would I be
able to conduct my business if he was home all the time?”

Drew rolled his eyes.

“Sit down,” Seraphina ordered, gesturing to the living room.

“I’d rather not.”

“It’s not a choice,” she said sharply.

Drew gave her a hard stare and moved to the floral-patterned
couch. He sat down, perching just on the edge.

“Don’t give me that look,” Seraphina snapped quietly,
sitting down on a couch opposite of Drew. “Don’t pretend that you don’t like
what I’ve done for you.”