Blake, Her Bad Bear: A Paranormal Bad Boy Romance (12 page)

Patiently, he waited for the fatigue and after-glow of sex to bring her back around. He continued to hold her under the sheets, her breasts pressed against his chest, hard and brown. His other hand was wrapped around her lower back, and one of her legs was firmly entwined over his thigh. His left leg had moved between her legs and she had gripped it between her thighs like a python—he could still feel the scratchy tuft of her pubic hair, the moist folds of her labia pressed tightly against his own skin.

But now, as she opened her eyes and he stroked her face, he saw that the same tension had returned to her face. She bit her lower lip and looked away.
She’s still hiding something, something she doesn’t want to tell me,
he realized, and guided her chin back to his face.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured.

“It’s, it’s nothing,” Lily said.

Blake held her chin with his thumb. Something at the periphery of his awareness had already triggered, but he couldn’t tell what it was and fixed her with a stare. “I think we’re past that now, don’t you?” he asked.

Lily trembled. “It’s… I don’t know how to say it. With everything now, it… it almost doesn’t even seem important, but it is,” she began, and took a deep breath. “The last time I was here, the last time we made love. I think I knew something was different, but I was too afraid. It’s why I left, without telling you. Because I’d come to Beaver Creek before on another assignment. I didn’t count on meeting you. I didn’t count on us…” she blushed. “But then things kept bugging me. And, and I decided I had to test a theory.”

Blake sensed that this was very difficult for her, and vowed that whatever she had to tell him, he’d be there. “Go on,” he murmured.

“I was getting sick,” she said, “so I decided to buy a pregnancy test. I think I already knew, but… then when I did the test, it was positive, Blake. I… I’m pregnant.”

Blake felt his stomach drop, but for some reason the news didn’t terrify him as much as he expected. After everything else that was happening, Lily had been right—it was difficult to know what to freak out about and what to accept with reassuring calmness. He rubbed her chin again and didn’t break eye contact.

“I see,” he said. “And you think it’s mine?”

“You’re the only one I’ve… I’ve had sex with in a long time,” Lily said and started trembling again. Blake sensed fear in her, a deep unwavering fear at her core.
She’s normally so strong,
he mused,
but this is something she never thought she’d have to deal with—and certainly not alone.
He tried to smile.

“That’s why you came back a second time, isn’t it?” he grinned in spite of himself.

Lily cocked her head. “At… at first, yes. Then my managing editor said there was a story here. It’s all so fucked up, I just, I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Blake reached down under the covers and his palm flattened against her belly. His touch was incomparably warm, and his face strained as he focused on the sensation. Then, satisfied, he brought his hand back to her face and stroked her cheek.

“It’s okay, now, Lily,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I thought you’d be,” she struggled, “I don’t know—angry, or disappointed, or something. How can you be so calm about all this?”

Blake kissed her nose. “I wouldn’t say I’m not surprised, Lily,” he said. “I don’t know if I ever expected this to happen. But I’m not angry, or disappointed. I don’t know what I am right now. But this does change things. There’s only one thing I know for certain. And I don’t even know how I know I’m certain about it—it’s just… a feeling.”

“What is it?” Lily asked timidly.

“The way I feel about you,” he said.

Lily blushed again and ducked her head in under his chin. Blake kissed the top of her head and hugged her tighter. The sun from outside had dwindled in the clouds, and there was an electricity in the air, one which he could detect simply by listening to way it moved through the holes between the rafters. A storm was coming, and a big one.

In the distance, thunder rang out like a warning and he hugged Lily tighter.

Life keeps throwing curveballs
, he thought, and looked down at his lover who had fallen asleep again, even though her brow was still creased with worry. Gently, he stroked her hair back over one ear until she moaned softly and snuggled closer.

“Well, bring it on,” he murmured out loud.

CHAPTER SIX

They were awoken by a shotgun blast that echoed off the inside of the small shack and caused both Blake and Lily to stagger awake in fright. Blake gathered his senses quickly. He noticed that the rain from the previous night had stopped at least. The early morning air was frosty and bit through the sheets. He made out two things immediately: first, the two young men standing in the doorway, one with a semi-automatic shotgun, matte black, in one hand; second, that his wounds had healed considerably during their hiding out in the shack. There was still a faint tingling and lightness in his shoulder where Tanis had ripped him open, but Lily’s cleaning and bandage job had been extremely professional.

Lily was awake now and hid behind Blake who put up both hands. She held the sheet to cover her breasts, but the two men didn’t seem as interested in the young woman as they did with the Beta of the Ursa Majors. The first man came in and Blake recognized him as being another of Connor’s men, but both wore sporting leather jackets. Blake’s attention, however, was firmly locked on the giant shotgun which the man then pointed at him.

“Well, if it isn’t the murderer himself,” the first man snarled.

“It’s not what you think,” Blake said resolutely, keeping his voice firm. “I didn’t kill Ogre—I’ve been set up, and you know it. Ogre and I had no beef.” There was no point in bringing up Tanis. If the other men suspected his disappearance, as well, they kept it to themselves.

“Get up, Blake, now,” the first man said, gesturing with the gun. “We have orders to take you before Melissa. She’ll decide your fate. Now!” For the first time he seemed to notice Lily cowering behind the sheets and made a screw y face. “And who’s this? A bloody human?”

“Leave her alone, she’s got nothing to do with this,” Blake said. “She found me injured and she helped me, that’s all. She doesn’t know anything about us… or anything else for that matter. Just leave her be.”

The second man shrugged. “Connor didn’t say nothing ‘bout no human woman,” he said.

“Shut up,” the first man said. “Fine! Fine, we’ll take her with us.”

“She’s got
nothing
to do with this… just let her go,” Blake said levelly. Even though he was naked, injured, and at the business end of a shotgun, the authority in his voice still caused the two men to take a step back, as if they were spellbound by something inherent in the Beta’s mere presence.

“No, I’m not taking risks. You! Get dressed, as well,” the first man said, throttling the shot gun. “You’re both coming with us.”

Quietly, Blake stood up and dressed in the spare clothes—then, holding up the sheet as a sort of veil, Lily changed behind it. Neither of them said a word, but Blake gave her a stern and uncompromising look which she couldn’t decipher. She was used to dangerous assignments, but this went beyond that. The two men shepherded them out of the shack, and Lily blinked back at the risking yolk of sun which was cascading golden light across the field. She kept her hands up, but Blake instinctively put himself between her and the other men.

Now in the daylight, Blake saw the second man had a small handgun tucked into the back of his pants. His mind was racing furiously. He supposed he should thank his lucky stars that the two men hadn’t simply open fired execution style when they’d found him—if they knew about Tanis, how Blake had unwittingly killed him, that may have been enough incentive.
Best keep that a secret for now
, he thought. What troubled him was that it wasn’t Connor he was being sent to meet, it was Melissa.
What does she have to do with this?
he wondered.

His mind was still racing by the time the four of them reached the road. Lily’s old Camry was right where she’d left it, but there was an old Jeep parked behind it. It had once been an Army green color, but age and weather had long ago rusted most of the paint away.

“Get in the back,” the first man said, still holding the shot gun.

Blake grimaced and opened the back door for Lily to get in. As she passed, he gave her a solid wink and she understood the cue. The shifter with the shotgun approached on the passenger side beside them, and prepared to open his own door while the first man circled around the road to the driver’s side. It was now or never.

Blake took one quick step back, dragging his foot. The first man looked down at the sound, and the Beta reached outward, forcing the barrel of the shotgun in a sweeping arc. The shifter was unprepared—he hadn’t truly expected the half-injured Beta to counterattack—and let out a squeal of surprise as he tripped backward. It all happened in a flash. His finger slammed down on the trigger and a booming ignition funneled out of the shotgun. The angle of the barrel had made it halfway across the Jeep, and the shot took out both the passenger and driver’s side door windows.

The second man ducked just in time to avoid getting a face full of buckshot and swore. At the same time, Lily threw herself into the backseat of the Jeep and Blake wrestled the first shifter for the gun. He was still taken off guard and Blake easily landed two hard blows to the side of the man’s head. He reeled, still half holding the butt of the gun as Blake tore it away and kicked out hard with his foot. His boot caught the man in the stomach and sent him flying backward into the ditch.

At the same time, his bear senses had clicked on again, and he anticipated the second man reclaiming his balance. Out of the corner of his eye, Blake saw him reach for the handgun in his back pocket and level it through the blown out windows. Blake ducked just as two shots zinged over his head, one of them taking off the side mirror.

Lily had made it to the other side of the Jeep, though. Acting on sheer instinct, she opened the passenger door on the driver’s side blindly. It was pure luck, but she felt it impact something and the second man swore again and let out a whoop of pain as the door struck him hard in the side. Blake growled and pointed the shotgun underneath the Jeep and squeezed off a single shot. The sound burned his ears, and he winced, feeling his senses partly disoriented for a moment. When he shook off the concussive sound, there was screaming. Lily looked up at him from the other side of the Jeep and he snarled.

The second man was on the ground, holding one of his legs. Blood was pooling under him and between his fingers where the shotgun blast had nearly severed his ankle, and the poor shifter was growling and scraping, half-mad with the pain

“Oh, geezus,” Lily said, holding her mouth.

Blake growled again. “Get in the Camry, now,” he said bleakly, and Lily obeyed wordlessly. Leaning over the injured shifter, he lifted the muzzle of the gun toward the man’s face. There was terror in his face now, sheer dread, mixed with the pain and agony of his wound. Blake hesitated.
No
, he thought, dropping the gun—that was what Connor wanted. More blood.

Blake leaned down and picked up the small sidearm the man had dropped. It was a Swedish SIG, also matte black, and looked more plastic than anything. Expensive, and reliable. He stuffed it into his borrowed jeans and took stock of the situation.

On other side of the ditch, the first man was groaning as he came to. Blake cocked the shotgun and put it under his arm as he kneeled down and whispered into the second man’s ear. “Someone set me up, brother, and that you have to suffer because of that is my regret—I pray I have the opportunity to make it up to you someday. But for now, I have work to do. You tell Melissa, you tell Connor, that if they want me, they’ll have to come for me themselves,” he hissed.

“You’re mad, Blake!” the second man cried. “You can’t run, the Ursas will hunt you down.”

“I
am
Ursa!” he barked, so fiercely that the wounded shifter cowered again. “Someone had Ogre killed—someone else forced Tanis to do it. You tell the others about
that
! Something’s wrong with our tribe, and I’m not going to stop until I find out what!”

Without another word, he let go of the wounded Ursa and cocked the shotgun. Taking aim, he fired four shots and the tires of the Jeep sagged and whistled as they crumpled. Lily was already waiting for him in the Camry and he ran towards it and jumped into the passenger seat just as she peeled out, leaving both shifters stranded in the dust.

“Oh geezus, Blake,” she murmured. “What’s going on?”

“Clearly, the reports that I was behind Ogre’s death have somehow been substantiated—no doubt with some help from those police we saw.”

“Why would the police, I mean, why would they want to help cover up a murder?”

Blake was busy reloading the shotgun with the ammo he'd gotten out of the Jeep. Each shot clicked into the barrel, and Lily’s attention from driving was momentarily distracted. She brought her eyes back to the road and swerved to the left to avoid a squirrel that had wandered into the road. He gave her a wary look.

“The identity of shifters—hell, our every existence—is kept in check by being very careful, and avoiding interaction with humans as much as possible,” he said, as if he was reciting some sort of battle manual, something he had learned by rote and was repeating simply on reflex. “But humans outnumber us half a million to one. We’re a dying breed, Lily. So we need help, sometimes. There are humans, abroad and in Beaver Creek, that know about us.”

“And that includes cops?”

Blake rubbed his chin. “It was Damian’s idea,” he said. “Our Alpha. Past tense. He set up a peace treaty with the other shifter gangs in the province. Part of that peace treaty, he knew, would have to involve the authorities. The majority of the police department have no idea about us—think we’re just a bunch of red necks with bikes, and as long as we keep out of their hair they keep out of ours. But there’s at least a handful in the higher ranks that
do
know about us. They’ve been keeping their eye on us, ever since the death of Damian.”

“So you think… you think they’ve set you up?”

He shook his head. “No, they were loyal to Damian. And they know me well enough,” he said. “Someone else set me up, someone inside the gang. And I think I have a good idea who. The question is
why
. Keep going on this road, go straight. We’re going to need to dump this car.”

“Dump my car?” Lily stammered.

“The guys got a good look at it. Chances are the cops probably have the license plate number now, too; can’t afford to take any risks,” he said with militaristic simplicity and put the shotgun in the backseat as he sat back and rubbed his knuckles where he’d hit the first shifter back at the Jeep.

“This is crazy,” Lily said, and hit the dashboard hard enough to bruise her palm. “Fuck! Fuck!”

Blake gave her an uneasy look. It wasn’t like he couldn’t empathize with her. She was cool as ice when it came to her job, and that meant she was always prepared for the unexpected, and even if she came up against something that was bigger than herself, something dangerous—well, she adapted. That was who she was, on a fundamental level. But how could anyone cope with the sheer amount of circumstances that had fallen in her lap?

And she’s pregnant—with my child
, he remembered. That news still lingered in his mind, but somehow it wasn’t as distracting. He looked at Lily again as she gritted her jaw and continued to drive forward, pressing down the gas until the pedal touched the floor. Hard-boiled, sure. But also, soon, a mother.

Blake had never really wondered about fatherhood, or taken the time to consider it being something for him. In part, it was because he’d never met a woman—shifter or human—who he could see himself being with like that. It was all a sort of fantasy. But now, here he was with the feisty Asian reporter on the run from his own people. And she didn’t freeze in the face of danger. He remembered how she had taken his cue and dove into the Jeep, and then hit the second shifter with the door to distract him long enough for Blake to get a shot off. They made a good team, he decided—whatever that was worth.

“Up ahead,” he said softly. They’d been driving for several minutes in silence and he knew she needed the time to sort through things in her head. “My bike is there. We can take that from here. Cover this car with branches, come back for it later.”

“We’re not suspicious on a bike?” she asked with a taunting tone.

“I think we’re suspicious wherever we go,” he said, “but a bike is a bit more inconspicuous than this big thing. Not that I don’t approve. You drive this thing like you were born in the front seat.”

Lily grinned as they pulled over on the flat logging landing and parked the car on the lee side of a stack of abandoned logs that had been forgotten. Moss was already eating its way over them, and it made a perfect cover. It took less than five minutes for them to cover the old Camry with cedar boughs, and Lily wiped her hands on her pant legs and followed Blake to where his bike was parked. She blushed for a moment when he unexpectedly started shedding his clothes again and suddenly stood naked in front of her. She couldn’t help admiring the sheer girth of his manhood, bedded below that swarthy patch of tangled black pubic hair. He gave her a teasing flick with his finger as he pulled on his old clothes and clapped both shoulders of his leather jacket.

“That looks more like I remember you,” she had to admit and swung a leg over the back of the bike, straddling the seat and back of Blake. She had never ridden a motorcycle before, and she felt another pang of helplessness as she gave a final look at the camouflaged Camry. “Where are we going to go?”