Bear's Gold (Erotic Shifter Fairy Tales) (19 page)

Enthralled in her father’s
recounting, she set her drink on the porch rail and turned on the seat and
faced him.

“What did the woman shaman do to me?
Mom said something about wrapping my wrist and giving me this coin.” Rifling
into her pants pocket, she pulled out the wooden coin with the bear carving and
held it up to her father.

Pulling it from her fingers, he
rubbed his thumb along the worn carving. “When she gave this to you it was
still rough, course from her fresh carving. Your mother refused to come into
the woman’s house. She stood outside and waited with Danny and Stevie. The
woman did more than just those two things. She meditated, spoke to the spirits,
and prayed over you. After that was done she carved the coin, braided your hair
around a raven feather, and wrote a letter to you.”

“I don’t recall any letter.”

“I still have it. After bringing you
home, you had a fever for days, like she said would happen, but when it broke,
you just opened your eyes. I don’t know why I didn’t give you the letter at the
time. Maybe because you didn’t remember anything that happened when you
awakened.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to traumatize you all over again. I told
myself that I would know when the time was right. I guess the time has finally
come.”

When her father began to rise from
the seat, she asked, “What is the significance of the bear, Dad? They’ve always
fascinated me, but I’ve feared them as well.”

Then I ended up in an entire town
filled with bear shifters.
What are the odds?

“The shaman said you were bitten by
the bear. The reason for the raven feather was that Raven Spirits seem to
connect to bears in some Native American folklore. Apparently it was a younger bear
that got you, why the minor damage. I reported that to the rangers but they
never found the elusive bears, just tracks that led nowhere.”

As her father went into the house,
she sat there in a mental shock of sorts, as her mind tried to piece together
the knowledge of her attack.
A bear.

Staring down at her right wrist, she
saw those marks again; small teeth had cut and marked her flesh so deeply that the
scar never went away. Doing something that she’d never allowed before she
traced the scratches and odd shaped impressions and felt the raised flesh
beneath the pads of her fingers, heat seemed to surround it. At the same time,
she began to feel a pulsing in her shoulder.

Theo’s bite. 

Images and flashes of present and
past events began to flood her mind. Her pulse rate increased and her breathing
became fast and broken. It was as if her father’s words had been some sort of
key to unlock her memories. However, the mental pictures were so fractured she
couldn’t get a clear image of what had happened in the woods. Sweat began the
run along her face and spine as she struggled to make sense of so much at once.

“Riley?”

She could only imagine how she
looked to her father when he came back out. His eyes were stretched wide and
filled with worry as he raced to her side.

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“No, you’re not.” Kneeling on the porch
in front of her, he took her hands. “You’re like ice. I shouldn’t have told you
what happened.”

“No.” She cupped her father’s face.
She could feel his advanced age against her palm in the supple loose skin
around his jawline. “You did the right thing. Now please read the letter to
me.”

Nodding, he slipped the leather tie
from the rolled, yellowed paper then opened the letter.

There is a myth and legend among the
Karok people that a spirit will search the world for its mate. There is no form
barriers that will stop the connection of the two; animal or human. Human
becomes animal. Animal becomes human. Once the spirits are linked nothing on
Mother Earth’s soil can keep one from the other. The gods will guide the two to
a complete one.

Her father stopped reading and
looked up at her. When he used his thumb to brush the tears from her cheek,
Riley realized she was crying.

“I’m sorry if this upset you. I’m
not completely sure what the meaning of this is. I’ve tried to figure it out over
the years as you moved from one job to another, one city to another. I knew you
searched for something, or someone. However, this letter still remained an
enigma to me.”

“Because it wasn’t meant for you,
Dad. But for me.” Holding her hand open, she took back her coin and the letter
that her Dad placed in her hands.

He gave a dry chuckle. “You’re
probably right.” Getting up, he sat next to her again. “So what do you think it
means?”

Smiling she looked at her father.
“It means that I should never have left.”

“Home?”

“Home.” She smiled and almost became
giddy with joy. “But not Sans Town.”

Her father frowned. “Where? Oregon?”

“Den County.” She rose from the
porch swing and felt that her future was clearer at that moment than it had
ever been her whole life.

Rising, her father stepped to her
and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s in Den County, Riley?”

“The man I love. Two boys and my
life.”

She could see the clouds of
confusion in her father’s eyes, then they became clear again and he smiled.

“Whatever it is, claim it, Riley,
and don’t let it go.”

Throwing her arms around her father,
she hugged him with all the love and understanding he’d shown her through her
life. “I will.” Pulling away, she said, “Tell Mom I love her and I will call
her in a few days.”

Rushing down the steps, she went to
her car and climbed in. Her things were still piled high in the back. She
hadn’t unloaded it. Through the day she kept putting it off, telling everyone
and herself that she would get to it later. However, now she realized she had
never been meant to stay. As she backed down the driveway, her heart began to
lift with assurance of her decision.

Looking at her watch, she realized
that she barely had four hours before night fall and the start of the Bear Run
in Den County. If she was going to get the man who had claimed her heart, she
needed to get to him before he settled for another.

On the drive, she rolled down the
window and allowed the wind to blow into the car and the memories of the past
to take over her mind. She recalled that day. The excitement she had felt going
out into the mysterious forest.  That day she hadn’t realized how far from her
family’s camper she’d traveled. At some point she had climbed a tree with a low
hanging branch, just like her big brother had taught her. She’d taken a moment
to look out of the land and had been taken by all the beauty she saw.

Even now, her stomach ached a little
remembering the need for food that had brought her down from the tree. She hadn’t
remembered to scan the land around her feet and dropped down right before a
young bear.

Recalling Bernie’s small size in her
lap, she realized that the bear in the woods that long ago day was a little
older than Bernie. When he had risen up on his back legs, he towered over her
by a foot and made a roaring sound.

Riley recalled how she’d been more
mesmerized by the deep black fur and the contrasting white front paw. The bear
had taken a few steps toward her, roaring more as if he was trying to scare her
off.

It was the sight of the bigger bear
that came barreling through the bushes that had caused her to scream. Reaching
down she’d picked up a branch to protect herself. However before she could
swing it, she recalled the lightening speed of the young bear as he dropped
back to all fours and came between her and the adult bear. When the young bear
seized her wrists in his mouth, she dropped the stick. His hold wasn’t long and
Riley recalled seeing her own blood combined with his salvia on her hand that
had caused her to faint.

When she awakened, she’d been in her
own room with her family around her and nothing but a black void of the bear
event, until now.

Chapter
Thirteen

“Riley?” Jack Ruxpin’s face was
filled with concern as he stared at her standing on his front porch.

Just as she’d figured, Jack was
married, so he would not be out at the run. Lifting his card before him, the
one he’d given her with his address on it, she smiled. “Hi, Jack. Sorry to bang
on your door and disturb you and your wife.”

“What are you doing here? Not
another accident?” He glanced over her shoulder and looked at her car in dusk’s
light; without a dent.

“No, sir. I’m here for Theo,” she
confessed.

“Theo’s not here.”

“I know. He should be at the run. I
need you to tell me where it’s happening.”

Shaking his head slowly, Jack
stepped on to the porch. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You didn’t take
finding out about us so well. Seeing all those big bears out there just maybe
your undoing.”

“I can handle it.”

“I’m not sure you can.”

Tilting her head, she asked, “What
aren’t you telling me?”

“Do you understand the point of the
Bear Run?” He folded rested his hands on his hips.

Did she? She had an obscure thought
in her mind of a group of the large animals running the forest for fun. “Why
don’t you enlighten me.”

He gave a hard nod. “It’s mating
time.”

What?
“I’m not trying to be incorrect in
my assumptions so please explain more.” Her time with the before she’d made a
lot of
wrong
suppositions and ignored some clear clues, she didn’t want
to do that again.

“The most important part of the
Frost Moon Festival is the last night, the run. It is a time when all the
mature unattached male and female shifters into the woods. They allow their
bear-instinct to take over and lead them to their life mate.”

Her pulse began to race hearing Jack’s
words. “What happens when they locate each other?”

“The male places three bites on the willing
female and claims her.”

The word claim made her shoulder and
arm tingle. She recalled Theo telling her she would change unless she’d been
given three bites.
Three bites
. “After he claims her?”

“They are mates. Husbands and wife.
Nothing but death can separate the strong bond. You ready for that kind of
commitment, Riley? Accepting Theo’s Bear?”

Smiling, she said, “I know what I’m
in for, Mr. Ruxpin. I’m willing to face more than my fears to be with Theo.”

He stared at her, his gaze assessing
her features as if he was trying to assure himself he was not sending her to
her own doom.

Nodding, he said, “Fine. I’ll tell
you. But, Riley, if you’re not one hundred and ninety-nine percent sure you
want him, bear and all, then let him claim someone else. That Were-bear has
been through enough.”

She understood the older man’s
warning, he needed to protect a fellow Den member from heartache.

“I don’t plan to hurt him…again.”

“Then I wish you luck.” He gave her
directions to the site.

On her way down the steps, he called
her name.

Pausing, she turned to face him.

“One last thing. When you get to the
site, you will see a bunch of vacant cars and a lot of clothes all over the
place. You’ll be way overdressed if you go into the woods as you are.” He
winked at her.

Heat flushed Riley’s face. That was
something she didn’t know, or hadn’t realized that they were nude before they
shifted. However, her mind recalled the night she’d spied Theo out of the guest
room window; bare in the moonlight.

Waving at the old mechanic, she got
back into her car and peeled away in a hurry. The sun had practically finished
setting, there wasn’t much light left in the sky. Following Jack’s direction,
she found the side road that would allow her to bypass the town cement barriers
and then cut left to a wider road.

Three miles down the rocky road that
ran along the river, she finally braked at a wide clearing. Just as Jack had
said, there were vacant cars and piles of folded clothes littered the hoods.  Turning
off her car, she left her key in her ignition as she climbed out. It seemed so
quiet. She wasn’t sure which direction to go.

Not wanting to waste anymore time,
she used her inner courage to strip out of her clothes. Placing them on the
front of her car, she stood there for a moment and looked around, wondering
which path to take.

Only thing she was sure about was
that the Great Indian Spirits had guided her this far and she would have to
trust them to take her to Theo. Reaching back to her clothes, she dug out the
coin from her pocket and held it in her right palm and squeezed. Opening her
heart and mind, she put her faith on connecting the mind-link with Theo.

She didn’t know if it worked without
him being inside of her, but she let her heart lead. When she began to feel a
tug and urging in a certain direction, she went that way. Not second guessing,
she took off in a run, realizing time was not on her side. Theo could have
already found someone else.