Romance: Wanted by the Alpha Lion (A BBW Paranormal Suspense Romance) (Heroes of Shifter Creek Book 2) (125 page)

Chapter Six

Anita sat alone in her office, listening to the sounds of the afternoon happening right outside of her window. She leaned over her desk, her hands folded in front of her as she struggled to wrap her mind around what had just happened, what she had just
let
happen. “What have we done?” she whispered.

No sooner had the question slipped out did she hear a knock on the door. “Come in!” Her voice came out horse and weak.

The door opened and Jori stepped inside, shutting it behind her. “The president just gave his press conference.”

Anita nodded.

Jori sat down in the chair across from her.

Anita could feel her harsh gaze. “What is it, Jori?”

“How could you do it?”

“There are no other choices.”

“I disagree.”

Anita shook her head. It wasn’t a question of agreeing or disagreeing. This was life or death. They were faced with two decisions: a bad one and a horrible one. It seemed that everywhere she looked, the world was forging on and dragging her behind it. The United States had been playing the reactionary role in foreign policy for far too long. This was the only thing she could have done. “I don’t know what you expect from me.”

Jori shrugged. “Maybe to be the woman I used to know?”

“Times are changing. People have to change with it.”

“But, aren’t you afraid at all, about how many lives are going to be affected?”

“Every decision I make affects millions of lives.”

“You know what I mean.”

Anita leaned back into her chair. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You started World War III.”

“It was going to happen anyway.”

Jori nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. Anita could see her eyes brimming with tears. “As a politician, as a tactician, I have stood behind your every decision from the moment you stepped inside of the White House, because I trusted you. You were my white knight, my infallible hero.”

Anita flexed her jaw. “That’s hardly fair.”

“Rhodes, you were my best friend—”

“Were?”

“Yes, were,” Jori replied as she stood up. She turned to leave, but then stopped herself, chancing one last glance back at Anita. “As a friend, there was a time I would have stood by you, no matter what you did. But that version of you would have been the one I met on my first day of middle school. She was the kind little girl with frizzy hair and glasses, who then turned into the scary badass who graduated high school when she was sixteen, and then became the fearless woman who decided to protect and serve. But she was never this. She was never the suit in an office pushing buttons and ending the world.”

She walked out, shutting the door behind her, before Anita could bring herself to say anything by way of a response. She stood up and rounded her desk. Part of her wanted run after Jori, but an even bigger part of her wondered what she could say. Jori wasn’t wrong, after all; she had changed, and this was big. She was having trouble convincing even herself that she had done the right thing, let alone anyone else.

It was as she stood there, her thoughts hanging in the air, that her door swung open, slamming against the wall next to it. Her head snapped up as she blinked twice, taking in the sight of Bruce standing there, looking disheveled with his flushed skin and his coat hanging wide open. “I have been looking for you everywhere.”

Anita shrugged. “I’ve been right here.”

“I heard what you did, and—”

But Anita raised her hand. “Okay, everyone just needs to shut up about ‘what I did’. I didn’t make that decision alone.”

Instead of flaring up on her like she expected, Bruce remained curiously calm. “I just wanted to apologize.” He sighed, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. “I should have found you sooner.”

“What do you mean? You know exactly where I was. I’ve been with the president all afternoon.”

But Bruce didn’t seem to be listening to her. “I needed to tell you not to go to war.”

Anita rolled her eyes. “Well, if that’s what you barged in here to say, then you’re not the only one. You know what? News flash: no one wants to go to war.”

“You don’t understand—”

“What? What don’t I understand exactly? I’ve been here longer than you, and I’m just as qualified as anyone else in this House to make those decisions. I’m so fucking sick and tired of people telling me that I don’t understand.”

Bruce crossed her office in three long strides and grabbed her shoulders. “They want a war.”

Anita glowered into his intense eyes, wondering what the hell he was talking about. “And who are
they
?”

Bruce let her go, stepping away as quickly as he had come. “I’ve already said too much.”

Anita set her jaw. “If you don’t have answers, you can get the hell out.”

“Look, I know I can’t you everything—”

“You haven’t even tried.”

Bruce let out a deep breath, looking away from her. “I am not what everyone here assumes I am. I am not a friendly entity. But those that I answer to want a war.”

“Are you a spy?” Anita’s eyes stung with the promise of tears. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she glared at him. “Are you a fucking spy?” She felt dirty just being in the same room as him.

He shook his head. “No. Not exactly.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That I know with all certainty that a war will end us. I should never have drafted that resolution.”

“
We
drafted it.”

“I manipulated you.”

Anita shook her head. “No. No, you couldn’t have known. I… It’s not like the thought didn’t cross my mind, but it’s just that the chance of it happening was so slim that—”

“I knew. I have the resources to know these things, and I knew exactly what would happen.”

Anita’s eyes went wide as she stared at him, her mouth hanging slightly ajar. None of this made any sense… and yet it did. “You did this. You started the war.”

The tears that had welled up in Bruce’s eyes had begun to overflow. The large man Anita had met less than a month before, with his posture and his looks and his attitude, had been reduced to this trembling mess of organic matter standing before her. She wasn’t sure if she was more or less attracted to him because of it.

Even though she would do anything to avoid what was already happening. Even though she hated what he had done, seeing him like this, agonizing over a mistake she didn’t even fully understand, made her heart crumble. He’d saved her more than once. He’d made her feel more alive than anyone had in a long time.

And she could think of nothing to say. Every consolatory phrase felt like a lie. So she took the three necessary steps towards him, wrapped her arms around his torso, and rested her head on his chest.

She could feel it rising and falling as he heaved his sobs, his hands clutching to her relatively small body for dear life. They were both shaking in his pain, and when Anita finally broke out in her sobs of her own, she couldn’t tell whether she was crying for herself, or for him.

They stood there for another moment longer, before Bruce buried his chin in her hair and said, “I regret everything.”

Epilogue

Anita slammed her fists against the door of Bruce’s house. After waiting an entire week to run into him at the White house, and being disappointed on each of the seven days, she had decided she could wait no longer. She needed to see him. “Bruce!” she yelled as soon as she heard the sound of shuffling coming from the other side of the door.

She stared at the aged wood for another moment longer before she started to hear the sound of another voice. Her eyes narrowed as she assumed it was that Lexus woman from the other day. But as she pressed her ear against the door, she realized that that didn’t quite make sense. The other voice was male.

She knocked on the door yet again. “Bruce, I can hear you in there! Why are you avoiding me?”

There was more shuffling and more voices before she heard the back door open and shut. Then, outside, she could hear the rustle of the leaves. She walked across the porch, peering around the side of the house just in time to see what looked like another tiger running into the woods.

A gasp slipped out of her mouth just as the front door was yanked open.

“Rhodes!”

Anita turned to find Bruce’s head peering from inside of his house. She tried to cover up her own embarrassment by charging him. “Where the hell have you been?” She pushed past him into his house.

Bruce scoffed, but shut the door behind her anyway. “I can’t take a couple of days off without you storming my house?”

Anita grimaced at this. “Uhm, after what happened the last time we saw each other? No you fucking can’t.”

“I’ve told you a million times. I can’t tell you anything!” Bruce yelled, stabbing his chest with his finger.

“Well, that’s not enough!”

Bruce approached her, staring her down. “Who do you think you are?”

Anita cocked her head to the right. “I think I’m the person you practically told you were a spy.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “I’m not a fucking spy.”

“So what the hell are you?” Anita asked as the image of the tiger she’d just seen came to mind. “And why do you have a tiger?”

“I don’t have a tiger.” Bruce clamped his jaw shut. His eyes widening as if he thought that he had said far too much.

“Do you have friends with tigers?” Anita demanded. “Are
you
a tiger?”

“That is a ridiculous accusation,” he snapped.

“You’re a ridiculous person,” Anita said, standing her ground, even though she could feel herself becoming more and more engulfed in his scent. Her body was drawn to his, their attraction becoming harder and harder to deny.

He took her face in both of his hands. “I’ve told you. I can’t say anything more.” He dragged her into a kiss, pressing his lips against hers.

Anita clutched hiss flannel shirt, allowing herself to melt into his kiss for a short moment before she realized what he was doing. “No!” she yelled, shoving him away. “I demand answers, or I will tell Hector what you told me, and then they will dig and dig until they find the answers themselves.”

“You would do that?”

“Hell yes, I would do that. I would expose you in a second.”

“And if I tell you now? If I tell you exactly what I am and you happen to believe me, would you keep that secret?”

Anita hadn’t thought of that, so she lied. “Yes.” Her heart pounded in her chest as she realized just how close she was to the resolution of what had occupied her thoughts for so long.

He scoffed. “Then here it is, if you choose to believe. I was sent here by a nation of extraterrestrial beings to incite a war that would render humans defenseless, against themselves and against us.”

Anita froze.

But he kept talking. “But if you believe that, also know that I have every intention of stopping what I started, no matter what it takes.”

She shook her head. “How the hell would you do that? What’s done is done,” she whispered.

He grabbed her chin, tilting her face up to meet his. “As someone famous once said… Never say never?”

Anita giggled, in spite of herself. “I think you’re full of shit.”

As soon as she got those words out of her mouth, he kissed her again, holding her there until she was sure he’d been lying… about everything.

THE END

The ground is bumpy, here in the Highlands. And even in late summer, there is a chill in the air.  Sophie feels her arms jar as her horse, Midnight, crosses stony ground. The breeze of her passing stirs the leaves and raises gooseflesh on her arms.  The scents and sounds of the forest conspire to make all that secondary; all that matters is the peace, and the rattling, racing joy of the ride. Sophie loves to ride. She has come to the Scottish Highlands with her father, Colonel Anthony Hogarth, the Viscount Boyne, who is here to supervise a garrison on the Highland border, near Aberdeen. This is the first time she has had a chance to ride out alone.

It is the year of our Lord seventeen-hundred and forty. Sophie has been here for two weeks: a round of obligatory balls and parties, strained gatherings among nobles exiled too long from England to remember gentility, and involved in war so long that they carry bigotry like a second skin. It is a good feeling to be out here, in Nature, with the wind and Midnight as her only companions.  Sophia feels like herself for the first time in months. Free.

“Whoa, Midnight. Good. Good girl.”

Sophie leans over to pat the neck of her horse. The forest is completely silent. She feels the sweat from the ride slowly condensing on her neck, trickle between her shoulder-blades beneath the green velvet of her riding gown. Her pale hair has escaped the hairnet, curling onto the back of her neck. She reaches up to adjust it absently, looking around her as she does so with wide hazel-green eyes.

A cry rends the air. Shaking, enraged, Sophie feels herself start with the fright. Part of her wants to hide in the trees. 

This is a dangerous land, full of rebels and outlaws. The noise could be anything at all.

Sophie rides on, listening. She is not the sort to be daunted, and her curiosity is deeper than her fear. Despite her slight frame and wide green eyes, her apparent delicacy, there is a steel in her, a tendency to take action. Nursing her mother in her final illness when she herself was only twelve years old has given Sophie a competency and maturity beyond her years. That was eight years ago. At twenty, she has become the solid core of the household, used to being relied on.

She rides on into a clearing, a gap made by an old, majestic tree falling, giving way to bracken and brush. The light is brighter here, giving her the shivers despite the residual warmth of the hard ride. Her eyes adjust to the light, and in the clearing, suddenly, she notices a man.

She breathes in, sharply, the sudden human presence a shock in this emptiness. Then she looks again.

He is slightly older than her. Perhaps about twenty eight, she judges. He has a strange dignity. Even here in the forest, he is holding himself regally, like a king. He is also a strange grey color, and sweating profusely. She cannot see if he is armed, but he does not look in a fit state to do damage to anyone.

“Hello?” Sophie ventures.

              This could be less straightforward than just asking:

The locals all speak Gaelic, and mostly only that.

“Hello?”

The man replies in perfect English, only slightly accented. And his voice is... well... it has a soothing quality, a deep resonance. Sophie bites her lip.  The voice throbs through her, making her feel alive.

“Perhaps you could help me?”             

And then Sophie notices it. His leg. Where the left calf should be is a confluence of flesh and metal and blood. A snare. She feels shock, and then calm. She is used to blood and wounding.

“Of course. Let me see.”

The scent of blood wafts up to her as she nears him, a sharp, metallic brightness in this place of pine-needles and damp earth. The leg seems broken, the teeth of the trap caught solidly. They are deep in the flesh, which is itself soaked in dark blood. The smell is overpowering.

“Won't you… sit down?”

He lifts his brows. “How can I?”

True.

Sophie looks carefully at the man while she gathers her thoughts. That he is a Scotsman is clear. That means he is certainly her father's enemy
,
But he is an injured man.  She cannot leave him here unattended.

She studies him while she thinks. Fine-boned face. Thin lips, well-curved. High, angular cheekbones, grey eyes. She looks down again, suddenly shy. A sudden sweet stab of feeling has distracted her. She shakes her head and concentrates instead on the injury. At least that is something she understands.

She has never faced an injury quite like this one before.  Sophie takes a deep breath. Makes a decision.

“Would you like me to try and remove the trap?”

“You can?” The hope is raw in his voice.

“I could. But it could be dangerous.” She cautions. “When I remove the teeth of the trap, blood will flow. You could bleed to death.”

“Put... bandage. Here. Above the knee.” He gestures. “Stop... bleeding.”

A tourniquet. Of course.

A branch
. Wrapped into the ends of the bandage, it can act like a lever, to help fasten the bandaging tight. Sophie searches frantically for a minute.

“Here!”  She rejoins the path and runs back to the clearing.

The man looks up levelly. She threads the branch quickly, tying the opposite ends of the bandage to it in two firm knots. Takes hold. Starts to twist. The strength in her slender arms is surprising. She bites her lip with concentration.

When the tourniquet seems tight enough, Sophie takes the cold iron of the trap between her hands.

She grips the metal and pulls. Hard. And harder. The man groans. Nothing budges.
No
. Her face creases with the intensity of that thought.
I will not let this have him
.

She pulls again. Her shoulders are burning; she is gasping with the effort.

The teeth part. The trap opens. The man falls slightly to the side, then sits down heavily. The leg is free.

They are both silent for a moment. The only sound is Sophie's strained breathing. The bandage is holding back all but a thread of blood. The smell of it is bright, iron sharp. It catches her throat.

“Are you alright?”

She looks up. Their eyes meet. It is impossible, suddenly, to look away.   They are strange, a caste in the left eye, which makes him look somehow implacably authoritative.  This is a man born to lead.  Sophie feels her blood rise to her face, and a strange pulsing deep inside her, somewhere between her heart and her waist.  Then his eyes close.

Sophie makes a decision.

“I'm going to stay with you until help arrives, Mister...”

He opens his eyes a slit. “Bryce. Bryce Gowan”

“I'm going to stay here with you, Mister Gowan.”

“Bryce.”

He smiles. She smiles back.  It is a beautiful thing, a sudden brightness in the forest. “Bryce.”

They sit for a while.  Bryce is close enough for the warmth of his body to seep through to Sophie, through the cotton of his shirt and the green velvet of her riding-habit.

After a moment, Sophie realises she has not introduced herself.

“Bryce... I didn't introduce myself. I am... Sophie Hogarth. Daughter of...” She stops. She should not, cannot, tell him. He will hate her. And somehow she absolutely does not want his hate.

“You're English, aye?”

Sophie nods.
Yes
. She cannot speak past the lump in her throat.

He is looking at her, his eyes level and grey.

“That's alright, lass.” He pauses. “Whoever your father is; it doesn't make a blind difference. That's not who you are.”

Sophie swallows. No-one has ever said that before.  To have someone see her, first, and not care about her parentage or peerage... that has never happened before.

“Thank you... Bryce.”

“Aye.” He pauses. “And thank you, and all.”

There is silence in the forest for a moment. Blissful, unbroken.

Then, suddenly, a shot rings out. And another. There are voices, and shouts, and orders and the smell of smoke. They are close. And they are coming closer.

***

Bryce tries to stand. Sophie is already on her feet.  She reaches out and pulls him to his feet.

              “Can you walk?”

“I believe I can.” he nods.

Sophie feels a sudden flush, as she steps forward to help him balance.

The touch of his hands was strange and wonderful enough. But he needs her help. She steps beside him, and he puts an arm around her shoulders. His body is warm, heavy, and strangely good to have so close.

They have to be fast.  If he is caught here, he is dead. If she is caught with him, her fate could be as bad.   And she will lose Bryce. Already, that means something.

Behind them, the sound of men is coming closer. They can hear boots on the stony soil, twigs and brush breaking underfoot, the sound becoming steadily louder. They are heading this way.

They are in the shadow of a great tree when they hear a horse whicker in the clearing. They freeze.

They hear the soft snort of another horse, in answer. Midnight is still there. With the saddle from the British military, Midnight will be taken back to the stable, Sophie reassures herself, even as she freezes in terror. The discovery of the horse will, hopefully, keep the men busy.

Bryce gestures behind them. Sophie nods. They walk back, silently.

“Those your boys?” He asks, casually, when they lean on a tree for a moment, out of earshot.

Sophie looks down. “They... I don't think they were my father's troops.”

“Good.” Bryce grunts. “They shot some of mine, back there, I think.”

Sophie draws a breath. How can he sound so calm about that? His men, shot not thirty paces from where they are now; and yet he seems so pragmatic?

“Used to it.” He says, as if he has followed her train of thought.

“My men, but... own free will to be here.”

Sophie nods.

“We should stop.”

“Not here.” Bryce manages. “Almost... home.”

They walk for another twenty minutes. It is getting dark. Bryce is starting to speed up now, as if he knows they are nearing home. Then he stops. Sophie waits and lets her eyes adjust to the darkness.

Perhaps thirty paces ahead of her is the outline of a house. She had imagined a cottage, perhaps. A small dwelling. A lean-to, even.  But here, spread out before her, is a manor, like her uncle's house at home in England, built during the Restoration.

They are at the foot of a wide flight of stairs, the bannisters gracefully carved and low.

“Welcome,” Bryce says quietly, “to my home.”

Sophie feels herself swallow.  She is trying not to seem impolite. She cannot explain that she expected he would live in a peat-roofed cottage, or even like an outlaw, in a shed or barn or stall.

“It's... it's beautiful.”

Bryce smiles, faintly. “Good.”

              They stand at the foot of the stairs together. It is a strange moment, almost a shared homecoming.

“Shall we?”

Sophie nods.

Inside, the house seems warm. And huge. Bryce leans on the door frame, standing at the entrance. Watching her.

She is beautiful, caught in the last, lancing beam of the sunset, a curl loose against her cheek, the surprise widening her eyes. She is looking up at the soaring ceiling with its arching vaults, head is tipped back, her hazel-green eyes wide in the half-light.

Since the moment he saw her in the clearing he has been feeling something strange. He has had many women. More than he remembers, ever since he was fourteen. But this feeling is something new.

He has never felt a simple pleasure in someone's presence like this before. 

Bryce walks forward to her, stumbles through a few steps, and then collapses. Sophie cries out and rushes to him.

The room into which he has fallen is a smaller room, a dining-room, perhaps. There is the remnants of a fire in the grate. Clearly, this place, and the man who owns it are well-tended.

              Sophie stands gracefully and offers him her hand. He takes it, and she leans back, pulling him to his feet. His weight almost unbalances her, for she is slight, and not as tall. 

Together, they reach the table and sit down.  They are silent, each recovering from the exertion of their journey.

After a moment, Bryce rests his hands on the table. Near hers. Neither of them move. 

Bryce clears his throat.

“Thank you. For your help.”

“No... no need.”

Sophie looks down at his hands. The hands of a man used to the battlefield, his nails broken and the fingers hard with muscle. She reaches out. He bridges the gap, takes her hand in his own. They both feel the shock of that, and the warmth.

They sit like that for a moment, in silence.

“I should pull the bell-rope there. Call Mhaire.”

“Let me.”

After about a minute, an older woman appears, with kind eyes in a wrinkled face.  A rapid dialogue in Gaelic follows. The woman looks once at Sophie, nods. Leaves.