ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (103 page)

I circled out a little wider and found herbs and remedial leaves. The forest was full of plants that could help and heal, if only you knew what to look out for. My mother had taught me the way her mother had taught her. Before long I’d found a handful of different leaves that would help with pain and healing.

When I reached the bear it was starting to wake up. It made low growling sounds and shifted around awkwardly. It pawed at its head. When it put a front paw down on the ground it growled long and loud.

“Take it nice and easy,” I said in a soothing voice. It didn’t matter who or what you were, living beings responded to soothing tones. The bear hadn’t noticed me there, and it jerked away from me when it heard my voice. It squirmed and grunted, fighting the pain in favor of flight mode. I stayed low on the ground and held out my hands, palms down.

“I’m not going to hurt you, it’s okay,” I said softly. The bear looked at me like it was calculating something. Wondering who I was and why I wasn’t scared. Bears, especially the size of this one, have virtually no natural enemies besides humans. But even then I wasn’t much of a threat. I had no weapons and I was about a quarter of its size.

“It’s pretty late in the year for you to be up, huh big fella?” I said, my voice still low. I picked up the leaves I’d been working with, and tore them into smaller pieces. Tearing the leaves allowed what was inside them to come out. “Bears around these parts hibernate by the time the first snow falls.” I kept talking.

The forest had an icy chill to it, and it felt like it was getting colder still. I wore jeans and a thick jacket, and still I was cold. My feet were frozen in the Moccasins I’d made for myself. It was easier to move around the forest when I could feel what was under my feet. Boots would have been warmer, but that would have meant stomping around, and it also meant I’d have to go into town.

I never went into town.

The bear complained in small grunts, pulling my attention back to it. I could almost physically feel its pain. Empathy was my problem. I couldn’t stand people or animals being hurt. Their pain became my pain, and being around humans had too much of it. Humans were cruel and quick to hurt anything around them that had life. That was why I kept to myself. My mother was the same. And her mother before her. It was a curse, sometimes. The people we encountered on the very odd occasion called us altruists, and it was because of the pain that seemed to surround us in the real world that we chose to draw away into the woods.

I didn’t know what I was, if labels really worked for me. All I knew was that I couldn’t be around people. There was too much pain.

I stood up slowly, the leaves ready, and moved towards the bear. I kept talking, keeping my voice low. The bear closed its eyes – strange. Animals didn’t usually do that, not when there was a possible threat. He must have felt a lot worse than I thought.

“Hey, not before you get some of this inside of you,” I said. “Then you can sleep. I held the torn leaves out in an open palm. The bear jerked its head back at the sharp smell. It sniffed, its large black nose moving, taking in everything I was offering, and probably my own scent, too.

“Come on, big guy,” I said. I moved my hand slowly towards the bear, careful not to startle it with quick movements. My fingers touched its muzzle, and if a bear could look surprised, this one did. I prodded my fingers closer to his lips – a risky move but this bear wouldn’t attack me, not now – and it opened its mouth.

“That’s it,” I said and put some leaves on its tongue. I’d seen my mother do this so many times. It was natural. I supposed altruists may have had a curse, but we had a gift with animals. I’d never heard of an altruist being killed by a wild animals, no matter how close and personal they got. I touched the bear’s hairy chin, and it closed its mouth again.

I looked at the majestic animal for just a moment longer.  The forest around us was quiet, something foreign hanging in the air. I only noticed it now that my focus wasn’t on taking care of the animal anymore. It was something I hadn’t felt before, something thick and palpable, even though I couldn’t place it. It was time for me to get back home.

I turned and walked into the trees, leaving the bear behind.

The cabin I’d grown up in was deeper into the forest. It was part of an old tree, hollowed out by some natural force ages ago. Half of the walls were wood and part of the tree itself. From the outside it looked like it was the base of the tree, and it was overgrown with a tangle of vines and ivy. That was where I’d gotten my name.

I opened the door, hidden by loose vines, and stepped into the house. It was cold with my absence. I walked over to the hearth and made a fire and blew on my fingers. It would warm up soon.

In the bedroom I got rid of my clothes, the jeans and the jacket, and I shrugged into a white long-sleeved dress instead. The material was soft and silky on my skin, and I preferred the wavy, free-flowing material around my legs to the restricting, coarse material of my jeans. I pulled my hair free from the band that held it back, and it fell over my shoulders in loose waves. It was long, almost to my hips.

The house slowly warmed up, and I made myself a thin broth for lunch. I didn’t need much.

There was a knock on the door. I frowned. I never had visitors. Maybe they would go away if I waited.

Another knock. I took a deep breath, and took a chance. I opened the door.

A man stood there, large and muscular. The same feeling was in the air that I’d felt earlier, but it was stronger now, so I noticed it right away. Thick and urging, and strangely magnetic. I took a deep breath. I felt like it was wrapping round me tightly. It was this man, I realized. It had to be. Maybe he had been close by in the woods when I’d tended to the bear.

He was rugged, a bit shabby but in a wild way, not a neglected one. And he was pale. He looked like he was about to pass out. The suspicion inside of me gave way to sympathy. The man swayed and I pushed my thoughts aside.

“Are you alright?” I asked. He didn’t answer. His eyes rolled back.

“Come inside, you need to lie down,” I said, hooking my arm underneath his and around his back, trying to give him some support. “You’re white as a sheet!”

My skin tingled where I touched him. I hadn’t touched a human in a while, and definitely not ever a man. The sensation washed over me like a wave. That strange magnetic force in the air was more concentrated on his body.

I helped him inside, and let him sink onto the couch. He barely made it. I ladled broth into his mouth, trying to give him something that he could draw strength from. He swallowed, and I left him to recover.

A while later I heard him move. He sat up, looking around him like he didn’t know where he was. I walked to him.

“Are you alright?” I asked. He jerked away from me, obviously startled.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding my hands up, but he shook his head immediately, and then lifted a hand to it like it hurt.

“No, no need,” he said. “I just didn’t see you.” His voice was deep and smooth, and caressed my skin when he spoke. I broke out in shivers. I sat down next to him. I avoided humans, they were dangerous. There were all sorts of myths about me, that I cursed people, and most men that came here wanted to hurt me.

But this one didn’t scare me. There was no danger in the air. Only that strange feeling that hung like a cloud around him. I couldn’t place it.

“Who are you?” I asked. Shivers ran up and down my spine. His lips were mesmerizing when he spoke. My stomach fluttered, and I frowned.

“I’m a woodsman. I got lost, separated from my team. I’m Logan,” he said. That voice, it was like it got inside of me. I smiled.

“I’m Ivy,” I said. The word was foreign on my tongue. I’d never told anyone my own name before. He looked at me like he was hypnotized. My skin got hot, creeping up from the neckline of my dress and flushing over my face. His dark eyes rested on my own eyes, and then slowly traveled down my body. I could almost feel everywhere his eyes touched, like he was physically roaming my body. My breath caught in my throat.

Finally his eyes came back up and rested on my lips. I wondered what it would be like if he put his lips on mine. I’d heard about men. My mother had told me. Every now and then a good one came past, she said. That was, after all, how I came to be. And now this man was here, sitting on my couch, and it felt like he wasn’t as far away as he really was. It felt like his body was against mine already.

Logan

There was something about this woman that made it impossible for me to leave. I couldn’t be away from her, in a different room even, without wanting to be back around her. It was like something inside of me pulled to her, no matter how hard I tried to force myself away.

“Will you be staying long?” Ivy asked on the third day after I’d stumbled into her cabin. I’d wanted to leave, but she’d insisted I stay. She wanted me healthy before I went. I could have healed up at home, but it wasn’t hard for her to persuade me to stay.

She was like a vision. A mirage. She had long blond hair that fell in honey waves all the way down to her hips. When she was inside she wore it loose. She was built like an hourglass, and her dress accentuated it, but she was elegant and graceful. Her eyes were blue and clear like an autumn sky, and she always smelled like summer rain and evergreen.

She was a naturist of some sort. She had to be. She knew the forest like I knew my own living room, and she was one with it in a way that I never was, even as a bear.

On the second day I accompanied her into the woods. She was amazing to watch.

She moved through the trees like a ghost, not making a sound. I wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t see it myself. She knew where to find berries and edible roots that I hadn’t known about in all my years of nature living. And the animals responded to her like nothing I’d seen before. When she walked into the trees it became alive with birds and small animals that had never showed when I’d been around.

“You’re so friendly with the creatures,” I said to her. She was picking berries. She sat on the ground, and her head was so close to my hand I could reach out my fingers and stroke her hair. I fought the urge.

“What do you mean?” she asked. Her hair was tied up, exposing her long, slender neck. Her skin was like porcelain, flawless and smooth.

“The animals come out when you’re around. I’ve never seen so much life in the forest, and I work around these parts every day.”

She shrugged. “People make too much noise. The animals listen, and they know when they must hide. Even men stomping around in the woods won’t work for them. Every movement should with nature, not against it. The animals know.”

As she spoke I looked up. The branches were alive with squirrels and birds.

“It must make hunting easier,” I said.

She looked up at me, and her eyes were filled with horror.

“Hunting?!” she cried out.

I scratched my head, feeling like somehow I’d done something very wrong, but I didn’t know what to say.

“You know…” I started tentatively. “For food.”

She stood up. Her whole body was coiled, like she was ready to strike, and the hurt on her face was so intense it was like I’d struck her or something.

“The animals don’t deserve it,” she said tight-lipped. “You think you can just come here and kill the life of the forests because you’re bigger and stronger? Man thinks he can do anything he feels like. Kill for fun.”

“I didn’t mean for fun,” I said, trying to defend myself. “I meant for food. I don’t agree with hunting as a sport either.”

“We can survive without eating meat.” She was closed to me now. The open, loving person I’d gotten used to the last two days had shut down completely, and I was left with a shell with dark blue eyes that spat fire. “My whole life I have never touched the meat of an animal. It would be cruel to take what they don’t intend to give.”

“You’ve never eaten meat?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it. I’d always thought humans to be a sort of predator. Omnivores, which meant it included meat.

“The forest gives us food, willingly. Like berries.” She gestured to her basket. “And roots. Nuts, fruit if you know where to look. The forest offers it, and we can take it. But animals don’t sacrifice themselves for us to stay alive. And it’s wrong for us to demand it anyway.”

She walked away from me, weaving through the trees. I stumbled, trying to catch up with her. She moved with amazing skill.

“But what about tigers and wolves?” I argued. “They need meat to survive, the don’t eat fruit and nuts. And they have to hunt for their prey, it won’t sacrifice itself willingly. What about them?”

She turned abruptly, her face turned up and she looked me in the eye. “It’s wrong,” she said again, without more of an answer.

I was suddenly aware how close she was. Her body nearly touched mine, and her face was alight with passion. She was beautiful in the haziness of the forest, the dim light surrounding her like an aura. Her lips were slightly parted with the anticipation of another speech.

I picked up my hand and slowly lifted it to her face so I wouldn’t startle her. She gasped, but I kept moving. I brushed a stray strand out of her face. When my fingers touched her skin, something flickered across her face but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Little shocks of electricity traveled up my fingers and into my hand.