Guardian Bears: Karl (11 page)

“Very well, how can I assist you?”

Karl took a deep, calming breath. “I’m going to need to know how you wolves learn to control your animals. I’ve no experience outside of bears.”

Even there, he had precious little. He’d learned himself, of course, but he’d been young then, young enough that his memories of the process were vague at best now. The only person he’d taught was Marcus, another of the Guardian Bears. Marcus hadn’t known about his heritage when he joined the military, and Karl and the other bear shifters he’d met there had had to introduce him to his heritage themselves.

But he’d been a young man still, and in no danger of losing control of his bear. It wasn’t the same situation at all.

“I will tell you what I can, Karl,” Harper said, voice full of doubt. But there was something else mixed in with it, something that he couldn’t quite place. Was that a note of hope? “It won’t help, but if you are set on this ill-advised course, you may as well have the best chance possible of success.”

Karl grabbed some paper and a pen and started to take notes.

T
he moon was
high in the sky as Allison followed Karl out behind her house. In the moonlight, the black rocks of the mountains to the North seemed to loom large, calling to her.

Karl sat cross-legged on the hard earth, setting a candle down in front of himself and lighting it. Allison approached warily, sinking to her knees across from him.

“This isn’t, um, witchcraft or something, is it?” she asked.

Karl barked a surprised laugh and looked up at her. “No, no it’s not. If you ever see real witchcraft, trust me, you’ll know. This is just a visualization tool for you, a way to help you see your wolf. There’s nothing magical about it.”

Allison frowned a little at that.
It’s going to help me turn into a wolf but it’s
not
magic? What can magic do?
But that question could wait until she’d gotten past her current problems; there wasn’t any point in digging into things deeper than she had to.

More important was dealing with the problem that had so many people wanting her dead. Including the man sitting opposite her, until he’d had a change of heart. That was another strange thought that she had to try to push aside. There was no point in thinking about it, but that didn’t make it easy to ignore.

At least
he
didn’t trigger her fight or flight response, unlike the hunters. Despite the danger he represented, she felt safe with him – and it wasn’t just her human side. Now that she had a name for the other part of her, the shadow that had haunted her thoughts, she could see how much of her reaction to people had been coming from her wolf. And her wolf was completely at ease with Karl, no matter how dangerous he was.

Maybe she knows better than me,
Allison thought. It was a nice idea, to be able to turn the question over to the wolf-soul inside her, but that was also the part of her that had thought mauling Jeremy was a good idea. She couldn’t trust those instincts, could she?

“What do I do?” Brushing aside the worries, she looked across the candle at Karl. He smiled back, gesturing at the flame.

“Just focus on the flame, and let your mind drift. You’ll meet your wolf and you can make friends with her, come to an understanding.”

As though it would be so simple
. Allison snorted, doubting it would work out that way. A flash of pain in Karl’s eyes told her all she needed to know about the chances of it working. But she couldn’t disappoint him by not trying, and besides, maybe it would get her somewhere.

She lowered her gaze to the flame, trying to let go of the thoughts in her mind. It reminded her of the times she’d tried to meditate, following instructions from a book – and just like those few attempts, she found she couldn’t focus on what she was doing.

“This isn’t working,” she said.

“Give it time,” Karl replied. Getting to his feet in a simple, flowing motion, he walked around behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. Allison took a deep breath and tried again, willing herself to relax.

To her surprise, it worked better this time. Karl’s reassuring presence behind her, his strong hands touching her, made it easy to let go of everything else and see only the flame. And something else inside it, a reflection in the flickering light.

She blinked, and suddenly it was clear. The candle wasn’t alone now, she saw it reflected in the eyes of a great gray wolf crouching across from her, looking her in the eyes. Its teeth were bared in a snarl, and she could see the all-consuming hunger in its eyes.

As she gazed into the wolf, the wolf looked back into her, judging. Sizing her up like prey, and liking the look of its chances. Allison leaned backward into Karl’s hands, drawing confidence from his closeness. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the predator across from her, though, and she felt pinned like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Don’t be silly,
she told herself, trying to be firm.
That’s just part of me. Okay, so it’s the part of me that’s hungry and angry and wants blood, but it’s still
me
.

“Hello,” she said aloud, feeling foolish as soon as she said it. She reached out with one hand, moving slowly, trying not to startle the wolf. Its lips drew back, showing off fangs, but it didn’t move.

Carefully, gently, she leaned in and offered her hand to sniff. For a moment she thought the wolf wasn’t going to respond, it sat so still. Then it
moved
.

Faster than she could follow, it leaped across the gap between them. All she could see were its eyes and its teeth as it went for her neck, and she screamed, pressing backward against Karl. A blinding pain filled her as the animal’s teeth found her throat, and then she was thrashing in Karl’s arms.

“Shush, shush, it’s okay,” he was saying. “Whatever you saw can’t hurt you.”

Trembling, she brought a hand to her neck, feeling the unbroken skin and relaxing. No wound, no blood, no sign of the wolf attack.

“It seemed so real,” she whispered, clinging to Karl. “I thought I was dying!”

“It
was
real,” he told her, stroking her hair. She felt him relax. “Just not physical. If your wolf attacked you, that means it doesn’t see you as part of it – but you have to show it that it’s wrong. That you’re the same person, split in two.”

“And how the hell do I do that?” Allison demanded. She felt bad immediately – it wasn’t Karl’s fault she was finding this difficult, after all. He was doing his best to help, and she was the one who was failing. But she needed someone to direct her frustration at.

He hugged her close, not seeming to mind that she used him as a punching bag. “That’s the tricky bit. I don’t know. With my bear, I offered him food and we got on right away – but we were both young, and I’d never tried to shut him away.”

They held each other in the warm night air, watching the moon hanging above them. Eventually, Allison sighed and pulled back from him. “I guess I’d better try again.”

The candle had burnt down enough that she lit a new one, and tried to focus.

* * *

W
atching his mate
, Karl tried to focus on projecting confidence into Allison and keeping his doubts buried deep inside himself. She sank back into the trance easily enough, and he told himself that was a good sign.

At least she can contact her animal, that’s an important start.
He tried to ignore the fact that the closeness between her and her wolf was likely because it had grown so strong inside her. Thinking about that couldn’t help.

He rested his hands on her shoulders offering what reassurance he could. Allison’s breathing sped up, and he saw her hands flex open and closed while he watched. Whatever she was seeing as she stared into the flame, it was scaring her.

There was nothing more he could do to help her, no way he could make things easier. Karl had never felt so helpless.

He remembered watching his father struggling to keep his human soul on an equal level with the bear inside him. It had been a hard thing for a young man to see, and now he was going through it again with the woman fate had chosen as his mate.

His father had talked about what it felt like in one of his few lucid moments towards the end. “Don’t worry about me, son,” he’d told Karl. “I ain’t going anywhere. The bear is me too, remember. He just doesn’t remember it.”

“Is this going to happen to me?” Karl remembered asking, seeing the flash of pain across his father’s face.

“No one can say, Karl. It ain’t something that happens to every shifter, but maybe. The important thing is not to let fear of it rule your life. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe not – live your life well, and you won’t have any regrets no matter how you go out.”

Karl had wanted to talk longer, ask more questions, but the bear was rising in his father. He’d been able to see it in the old man’s eyes, to watch the lucid human thoughts slide away.

“Only thing I regret is not spending more time with you and your mother, Karl.” Those were the last words he’d spoken before his bear had taken him. He’d never again shifted back to human after that conversation.

I wish I’d had more time with you, Dad,
Karl thought.
But you taught me a lot in the time we had. I won’t live a life I regret, and when my end comes – no matter how it comes – I
will
have spent my life with my mate.

With fierce determination, he willed Allison to succeed at her impossible task. His bear was with him, and the two of them tried to reach out to her, to give her the strength and confidence she would need to face the rebellious, feral part of her soul.

He remembered his own first shift, his parents around him. They had been there with him, encouraging, loving, reassuring. Karl didn’t know if their presence had helped, but it hadn’t hurt. And he couldn’t do less for the woman he loved.

* * *

T
his time it was different
. Allison looked into the flame and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, no wolf in the darkness, no eyes reflecting the candlelight. Just the darkness around her as she tried to find her balance. Slowly, everything faded from her senses, as though she was drifting off to sleep. Her eyes drifted shut against the light, and there was no sound to hear. The reassuring presence of Karl behind her faded last of all, and she was alone in a cocoon of warm night air.

No, not alone. There was something here with her, a stalking presence in the night.

You want to know what it is to be a wolf?
The words weren’t spoken, they were just
there
in her mind. It was as though she had thought them herself, and she supposed that was true in a way – the wolf was part of her soul, or so Karl said.

She opened her eyes and saw that she wasn’t out behind her house anymore. Senses flooded back to her, more vivid than usual, more powerful and intense. She was moving through the darkness, fast and low, and it reminded her of the dreams that had haunted the edge of her mind night after night. Dreams she’d never remembered when she woke.

Everything seemed to be out of focus, blurring around her as she moved through the darkness. But the scents, those were clear in a way that she had never experienced before. She could smell Jeremy, his aftershave cloying and abrasive, cheap. And she could smell the sweat under it.

She was low to the ground and moving fast, quicker than she had ever been able to run. But now it felt natural, right. Ahead of her, she saw the Blackrock Bar, its lights a beacon in the darkness of the night, and she slowed.

A car outside stank of Jeremy, his scent leaking from it. But the scent was old, hours old, and she knew before she got close that he wasn’t in there now.

Allison knew he’d be in the bar, but somehow in her memory she didn’t. She ranged around the parking lot, staying at a distance, waiting for the scent to reappear. Listening to the noises, so clear and loud, from inside the bar. Voices, the clash of glasses, music, all blurred into a mixture she couldn’t separate. But there, she caught the tone of Jeremy’s voice, scraping on her nerves like nails on a blackboard.

“See you later, Rick,” he called over his shoulder, pushing open the door. Before he could take a step outside, Allison was moving, a fast silent rush towards him. She almost reached him before he noticed her approach.

His reaction was to scream and leap backward, throwing up his arm. Allison felt her teeth close on it, tasted his blood, heard his scream rise in pitch as he pulled away. The impact knocked him back and she tumbled with him, falling into the bar.

She didn’t stop, some instinct telling her that she couldn’t be seen. Her paws hit the floor and she raced for safety, snapping another bite at Jeremy’s face as she passed.

I should be going back
, she realized too late to change direction. Heading into the bar was a nightmare, there was no way she’d escape being seen. But she was already committed, running at full speed for the restroom.

Behind her, more screams from Jeremy, along with shouts of alarm as people started to react. Allison skidded on the restroom tiles, slamming into a stall and stopping, feeling blood dripping from her jaws and feeling a strange mix of elation and nausea.