ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (102 page)

Aalem’s eyes were hard black pebbles.  It was audacious to just stand in the open, but he doubted Vince Torres had any real help with him, otherwise he wouldn’t hide in the bushes.  

“You don’t pick and choose, Joe.  I said take care of it.” 

Joe thought quickly.  There may be a chance, but he would need to move fast.  “Fine, but know it’s not right.” 

Vince and Randy nodded to each other and moved further back, stripping their clothes as quickly as they could.  The adrenaline and anger made the shift quick for Vince.  He saw a flash of appreciation cross Randy’s face before he doubled over, head nearly touching the ground.  Moments later, he was staring out of the woods, a snarl peeling his huge muzzle back from long teeth.  His reddish brown fur was bristled and he pawed at the ground, ready to run. 

Joe walked ahead of Aalem, a fine sheen of sweat coating his face.  He wouldn’t have time to shift.  He would have to do it in human form.

“What’s happening out there?”  Sydney demanded as soon as the men stood before her.  “We heard yelling and a shot.” 

Aalem smiled.  “It’s of no concern.” 

Joe moved back, sliding his thumb over the safety of his rifle. 

“You have been useful, as I expected.  Joe, take the child.”

“No!”  Sydney screamed, trying to shield Dakota with her body.  She kicked outward with her legs as Joe moved. 

He raised the rifle and brought the butt down on Aalem’s head.  The little man staggered, his face pure disbelief. 

Sydney was completely still, she too couldn’t believe what she had seen. 

“What are you doing?”  Aalem asked with something he wasn’t used to: fear. 

“You can’t just kill a child!  It won’t bring your brother back, so why do it?” 

Annette and Sydney watched uneasily as the two men bantered back and forth in their language.  They both hid Dakota behind their backs.  Sydney whispered for her to keep her eyes squeezed shut. 

Aalem’s disbelief was replaced by his righteous anger.  “We kill the infidel!  We make them pay!” 

“You said I was an infidel.” 

“You’re not natural.  Allah may use you here, but…”  He shrugged, blood running from his temple in a steady stream.  “You will never see paradise.”

Joe raised the rifle as Aalem’s eyes bulged and his hands shot forward.  The shot went straight through his heart.  Aalem slid down the stone wall, glassy eyed.  He didn’t move again. 

Joe cut the zip ties and helped the women to their feet.  He looked into Sydney’s eyes. 

“I couldn’t let the little girl die.  We were supposed to be in this for money.  A ransom or something from America.”  He shook his head.  “I hope your husband will have mercy on me.” 

Sydney nodded.  She didn’t know what to say, except thank you. 

“We must be careful.  There’s two more guards and Bridgette.” 

“Where are they?”

“In the woods searching.” 

Sydney twisted her mouth.  “They won’t be for long.” 

Bridgette thought she should shift.  She smelled werewolf so heave it made her bones and skin yearn to break free; but werewolves can’t use guns, and guns are faster.  She stepped carelessly on a stick and froze.  Movement came from her right, and she had just enough time to see the largest werewolf she had ever seen charge at her before teeth clamped onto her neck. 

Vince pulled one of the guards down as easily as he had pulled deer down in the past.  The man ran with his forgotten gun away from Vince, breaking past the tree line.  Vince was on him and swiped a wide gnash across the man’s neck that opened his jugular immediately.  Vince stepped over him as the front door of the house opened and Sydney walked out with Annette and Dakota. 

Dakota’s face lit up.  “Mommy, look!  Big wolf!” 

Vince glared at Joe and roared.  Joe held up one hand and slowly lowered his body so he could slide the rifle down the steps. 

Stanley rushed towards the house with his weapon drawn. 

Sydney started shaking her head and waving her hands.  “No!  Don’t shoot him!  He saved us!” 

Vince grunted in his werewolf form.  Stanley ran up the steps and pulled Annette into his arms. 

Sydney stared into the yard and smiled at Vince, her legs shaky with relief.  Rustling and fast movement from the opposite side of the yard turned her attention away from Vince.  She could hear snarling and something like deep barks.  The final soldier crashed through the brush, but two werewolves grabbed him and pulled him back.  They stepped out without the soldier a moment later. 

An hour later Vince held Sydney and Dakota close to him as they watched Max set the house on fire.  Bodies had been gathered and stacked neatly inside.  A shudder ran through Sydney’s body.  She looked behind her and saw Randy and Justin speaking quietly with Joe.

“What will happen to him?” 

Vince shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I think he just wants a pack.   He said he was only working for Aalem for the money.” 

“Will they take him in?” 

“They might.” 

Sydney looked up at him.  She was more tired than she could ever remember.  “What about you?  What will you do?” 

The fire reflected in Vince’s eyes as he turned his family towards the waiting vehicles.  “I’m getting out, Syd.  I don’t want to do this anymore.” 

Sydney sighed with relief and laid her head on his shoulder as they walked.  “I hear Tennessee is a lovely place to live.”

Vince laughed out loud.  Life couldn’t be better.  He had his family back.  Both families.

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BONUS

DESIRED

BY THE ALPHA

BEAR

By Sicily Duval

Logan

I stepped into the fresh morning air. The thin layer of snow on the frozen ground crunched under my heavy duty boots, and I breathed in deeply. The air was so cold it burned my lungs on the way in, but it was home, and I liked it that way.

“The truck will be here soon, Logan. You ready?” Harry had his axe over his shoulder. His beard was peppered with gray. He was quite a bit smaller than me, but then again, most men were. I was six feet four, I’ve been called a bulk of a man with wide shoulders and not one inch of fat. I knew I was trim and muscular. I’d been a lumber jack my whole life, following in my father’s footstep when I still had a father to speak of.

Harry had taken me on when my father had passed away, over a decade ago, and we’d been working together as a team ever since.

The truck pulled up. The rest of the team were already huddled on the flatbed, jackets wrapped around them tightly. Some of the men were smoking, and it formed clouds around their faces. Harry hopped on and I followed. The truck dipped when I climbed onto it. We sat down at the edge, dangling our legs as we drove. I didn’t care for smoke, and this way it blew away before it got to us.

“You ever get tired of this kind of life?” I asked Harry once the truck rumbled into the forest.

“Tired how?”

“I don’t know, like you might want some different kind of life. You know, if you had the chance.”

Harry thought about it for a moment. I watched the Douglas Firs slowly pass as the truck drove deeper into the forest, making its own trail now.

“I don’t know. I would have liked to give my girls a better life, but this is all I know how to do. I’d be lousy at a desk job. Probably hack something up before I realize I’m not in the forest anymore.” Harry laughed and I joined him, the rumble of our laughter rolling through the trees.

“How about you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’m happy here. I wouldn’t know what to do outside the forest. This is home. I think I’m more animal than man.” I flashed Harry a lopsided grin, and the older man play-punched me in the shoulder.

But the truth was I was more animal than man. When I hit puberty I’d shifted for the first time. It hadn’t been like it always was in the movies. I hadn’t been called out by the moon, and I definitely didn’t shift into a wolf. I’d become a grumbling Black Bear, dangerous and vicious. I’d never been the cute-and-cuddly kind, I’d been taught how to hunt and skin since I was little. But this was different. What I also found out soon enough was that I could shift at will. When the urge for fresh blood became strong enough it pulled the bear out of me, but if I hunted often enough I could control it. As long as I made sure to roam the forest as an animal now and then, no one around me was in danger, and I didn’t run the risk of exposing myself.

It was actually a pretty sweet deal, all things considered. I knew of stories where people had curses way worse than mine.

There was no way I would let anyone on the team find out. They’d shoot before they listened, as I’d expect them too. Anyone that should have been told in my life was already dead. I had no family left and if it weren’t for the team I saw on a daily basis, it would be just me and the trees on the western slopes of the Cascades.

Being a lumberjack was the best job a Bear shifter could have. I was at home all the time, even when I was away from the cabin at the foot of the mountains where I holed up. There was nowhere in the world I felt more comfortable than between the trees, with the smell of mulch in my nostrils and the crisp air nipping at my skin.

The truck dropped us off close to a stream higher up than we’ve been before. The clump of trees we had to take care of was on the edge of a cliff. I looked down it and whistled. It was a drop of at least a hundred feet.

We’d been working the side of the mountain in a half-moon, moving up when the bottom was cleared. The men spread out across the forest. We worked in teams of two, tackling the trees together. Harry and I had been working together for a long, long time, and we got to work without talking much. It was easier now that lumberjacks had chainsaws, but Harry was old-school. He was more comfortable with an axe or a two-man saw. Some trees were too wide round for chainsaws to get through properly, so we hacked at it with our axes or sawed back and forth until we got the job done. It was hard work, and I worked up a good sweat, but I liked being busy and using my body.

When the trees fell, we cleared the excess branches and rolled the logs down to the stream where we tied them down. We would float them to the mill at the edge of the village once we finished our quota. Floating the logs down was one of my favorite parts of the day. No noise of men at work, just the sounds of the forest and the low murmur of the men talking. I looked forward to it. It reminded me how alive I was.

“What’s got you asking about this kind of life?” Harry asked when we finally took a lunch break. “Are you getting ants in your pants? Thinking of leaving this line of work?”

I laughed and shook my head. “There’s no way I’m leaving this behind. I was just wondering if it was strange for me to be so happy doing something so mundane. A lot of people want more these days, with the technology getting better and the world getting so much smaller. I don’t think I was born in the right time.”

“Time is a relative thing out here. You can live in the forest and never have anything to do with society. It can be the fifteen hundreds for all you know, and your way of life. There are people out there who do that.”

“Man, that must be something,” I said. I could easily picture it. Living off the land like that? Never having to see people? It sounded like a grand life to me. It was hard enough trying to fit in with these woodsmen, and they were already so removed from society and the ways of the new world. People were meant to co-exist. People formed communities everywhere. But I loved solitude. I loved being alone, and I didn’t often need someone to talk to. I had my mind to keep me busy.

“It’s like those myths about the fairies and the wood sprites,” Harry interrupted my train of thought.

I laughed. “You don’t believe in all that stuff,” I said. “Next thing you’ll be telling me about werewolves.”

Harry snorted. “I’m not talking about stupid things like that, you idiot. I’m talking about the forest maiden. Haven’t you heard the stories?”

I bit off a hunk of dried meat and shook my head, chewing.

“You really have been out of circulation, haven’t you? There’s this myth doing the rounds in the village. My girls used to talk about it when they were in school. It’s about a maiden that lives among the trees deep in the darkest part of the forest.

“You mean beyond the waterfall?” I asked. I knew about that part of the forest. They said it was haunted. I didn’t believe in haunted places and spells like that, but even as a bear I picked up something ominous about that part of the woods and I liked to stay away. Animal instinct was a lot more accurate than human instinct, and I tended to listen to my bear.

“That’s the one. Where the leaves are so dense the sunlight never really reaches the ground, it’s always frozen solid and the air is so cold you have to keep moving to stay alive. A woman lives there, ageless, they say, because she’s been there since the beginning of time. She takes care of herself, lives off the land, and no one comes near her and leaves without being cursed. There have been men that came from that part of the forest, and died of the smallest injuries – scrapes that became infected and they died despite the new medicines. Common colds that developed into pneumonia. The kind of things you hear about the medieval times.”

“Sounds like a story to me. What do they call her?” I didn’t believe in this kind of nonsense. Still, I felt cold despite my jacket, and shivers traveled up and down my spine. I rubbed my arms where goosebumps had popped up.

“No one knows for sure, the stories keep changing. Aspen, Fawn, Laurel, River. Nature stuff like that.”

“I don’t know, it sounds very made-up.”

Harry shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I heard.”

I got up and shook the feeling of foreboding that had settled around us. I didn’t believe in fairy tales. At least, not in any that weren’t my own. It was time to get back to work. “You’re too gullible, Harry. Let’s get cracking.” It was easier to shoot it down than admit it.

We worked the last couple of trees, and finally it was time to get the last logs down to the river. The tree Harry and I had been working over was a tall one, and the log was long compared to the others. When we rolled it down it caught on trees at the edge of our working area.

“We’re going to have to lift this one,” I called over to Harry, who was on the other end. Harry held thumbs up for me, and two men came over to my side to help me lift the log and balance it on Harry’s end to get it out of the trees. A few men had gathered on his side as well.

“Alright men, on the count of three!” I shouted, and the men with me braced themselves. The log was heavy when it had to be picked up, and we grunted with the effort.

Shouts from the other side sounded, and the log shifted, slipping on the frozen ground on Harry’s side.

“Hold it!” I called, and the men stopped, muscles bulging. Their warm breath made small mist circles in the chilly air. Night was coming, and any heat that was in the air had drained. One of the men shouted from the other side, but I couldn’t hear it.

“They’re lifting it that side so we can move it on this end,” the guy closest to me interpreted.

“Sounds good,” I called back and waved. The men counted and braced themselves again. The idea was that we swing the log while the others lifted it. The team on that side seemed to have had the same idea – miscommunications happen – and instead of us pivoting the log around them, they started forcing it towards us.

“Wait, stop!” I called out. My feet had started slipping and I was on the edge of the cliff. The dirt and leaves around my feet crumpled and scattered, half of it going over the edge.

“Hold it!” the men shouted, but the others didn’t hear, and they kept pushing. I loosened my grip and changed hold, so I was holding onto the log instead of lifting it.

“Grab my hand!” The guy closest to me had his hand out to me. I let go my one hand to grab it. Just then the team on the other end of the log gave another shove. My grip around the wide log was unstable with just one arm, and my feet were on the edge with my heels hanging over.

Then the ground was gone, and my legs dangled in the air. I kicked out, trying to reach the edge, but my arm slipped. I groped for the log but already I was falling. I heard the men’s alarmed shouts, and wide eyes followed me down until I couldn’t see them anymore.

My head knocked against something hard, and a sharp pain drove in between my eyes before everything dimmed. The wind whooshed past my ears. I was still airborne. Then a dull thump told me my body had connected with the ground. And then all lights went out, and darkness swallowed me.

Ivy

I wandered through the forest, following a trail so dim I knew it was the only person that still followed it. I wondered who in times gone by had made this trail. It had been here since long before my family came to live in the forest, and that had been generations ago.

This part of the forest hardly ever saw humans. I was the only one that still came here. It was the darkest part of the forest, and there was something about the trees and the ways the birds were quiet here that scared most people.

I liked it. I needed quiet, and the solitude. No people meant no pain.

I found a bush of wild berries, and picked a handful. They were dark in color, rich at the end of the season, and they tasted sweet on my tongue.

The taste of the berries reminded me of my mother. It’d been three months now since I’d been completely alone out here. She’d just withered away until she’d been almost see-through, thin as a wisp. And one day I was alone. I’d buried her in the darkest part of the forest, where I knew she loved it the most, so the one only visitors she would ever get were the animals.

I heard a low gasping sound on the other side of the trees that surrounded the berry bushes. Any other person would have turned and run. What was better in a forest said to be haunted than scary sounds from the underbrush? But it wasn’t my way to run, this was my home, and I walked toward the sound.

A big Black Bear lay on the ground. It was the biggest bear I’d ever seen, and it was strange that it was out in the open this late in the season. Its eyes were closed and it looked like it had trouble breathing.

“Now what are you doing out here?” I said softly, and came closer little by little. I had no illusions about animals. I may have seen them as my friends, but at the end of the day nature had a pecking order, and I was definitely not on top of the food chain. But I treated animals with respect, and they respected me in return. Everything in nature was just a case of who belonged where and who stuck to the rules.

When I reached the bear I stretched out my hand. Its fur was thick and coarse, but it was covered in dust and twigs and bits of dry leaves, as if it had been in a scuffle somehow. I looked around on the ground. There was no sign of a struggle, no scratches or blood that could suggest a fight.

I approached the bear again. It was definitely hurt, but I didn’t know how. And it wasn’t sickness, that I could tell. This bear had been injured somehow.