The Witness and the Bear: (Werebear Shifter Romance) (10 page)

Jenny squinted at him. “You’ve changed.”

Head canted, he asked, “For better or worse?”

“Better,” Jenny said thickly. “Definitely better.”

Summer days stretched on and on in the paradise of Bear Valley. Quiet sanctuary clung to this place, filling Hannah with the warmth of safety and the confidence that she’d somehow found the exact place she was meant to be. By the end of the first week, she’d met almost every member of Riker’s clan and was growing to know her place among them.

She’d started work with Jenny taking care of the cattle and had settled into a routine. Riker woke her early in the mornings to spend an extra hour in her arms before he made breakfast while she showered. If it wasn’t Tues
day breakfast with Banks, they dined together in his kitchen. He’d escort her the short walk to the cattle fences, talking easily all the while like they’d known each other their whole lives. His flirty fingers would caress her back and tangle with her hand as he stalled leaving for his alpha duties. And every morning, without fail, he’d always look back at her as he walked away, like he wanted to commit her face to memory before he started his day.

She loved him wholly, without hesitation or reservation. He was everything her life had been missing. Riker gave her purpose. His happiness seeped into her
, and she began to hope the curse had been lifted from her life. It had taken the supernatural to make it happen, but as the days drifted by, she began to forget the taint Stone had infused into her past.

Little by little, she
found herself again.

Evenings after Riker came home from his alpha duties were devoted to talking
and touch. Laughter filled the home, warming it where it had felt cold and lonely before. Dinners were taken with each other, or with Jenny and Blaine, and every night, she fell into bed with Riker, bone deep tired from a hard day’s work. And nightly, he claimed her body, filling her with a satisfaction she hadn’t known existed. She’d never tire of touching him. Her powerful bear, the one so respected by his people, worshipped her body and strengthened their bond with every kiss and every stroke.

She could be happy here with him. For the first time in a lo
ng time, she imagined a future.

“What are you staring at?” Jenny asked, swatting her in the butt.

Hannah leaned against the door frame of the barn. “The mountains. I swear I’ll never get over this view.” It always reminded her of how fortunate she was to be here, alive.

“Shane found a calf without a momma and brought her
in a little while ago. You want to feed her?”

“Poor baby.
Yeah, show me what to do.”

Hannah sank onto a stacked hay bale and watched Jenny mix powdered formula with water in an oversized bottle. Giant nipple in place, she handed it over and led her to the very last stall. The smell of hay and animal filled her senses, and dust drifted in swirling dances as her shoes shuffled against the floor. This was her favorite time of day, when she anticipated going home to Riker. Only half an hour more and she’d be burrowed against him.

The calf was a slight little thing, dark fur crusted with afterbirth the mother hadn’t licked clean. Some of them just didn’t make good mothers. Predators were easily detected by Shane and Jenny, as well as the other two shifters who worked the cattle alongside her. Sometimes the cows just up and left their newborns when their nurturing instincts failed to kick in. Not often, but it happened. At least that’s what Jenny had explained while she was training her.

This shaky baby had been abandoned and Hannah made a pitying clicking sound behind her teeth. Popping the large bottle nipple into its mouth, she knelt beside it as it drank hungrily. “She’ll need to be fed throughout the night, right?”

Jenny leaned against the stall door and rested her chin over her arms. “Yeah, Shane said I could take her home and feed her tonight. She won’t make it until the morning if we don’t give her the extra attention.”

“You have a place to keep her?”

“I can rig up a pen outside, up against the house. That way I’ll hear when she’s hungry.”

“Guess you’re out on fence building then,” Riker said from outside the stall.

Hannah’s heart leapt into her throat and she strained her neck to see him.

Shifting her weight, Jenny turned and huffed a short, humorless laugh. “Why would I want to help with fence building?”

“Because your man volunteered to fix it with me.” Riker appeared behind the stall door and his lightened eyes landed on her. Relief and happiness danced in the gray planes. “That storm last week felled an old tree and it crushed part of the fence on the border of clan property. I thought we could all go out there together and bring dinner along.”

“Well.” Jenny tossed the suckling calf a calculating look. “If I take her to the house
now, she should be good for at least a few hours. If Hannah comes, we can get the food gathered quickly and meet you boys out there. Where’s the damaged part?”

“Out by the old well.”

“Hannah, are you game?” Jenny asked.

Of course she was. Hanging out in the woods with her favorite people and the promise of an evening picnic?
She pulled the empty bottle from the calf’s mouth and nodded. “You know I am.”

“Good.” Riker bumped his palms against the wooden door and grinned. “Oh,” he said, turning back. “You’re looking hot today, Michaels.”

Hannah giggled and shook her head. Ever since he’d learned her last name, he tried to fit it into some discussion each day. Probably because she still called him Riker over his first name. She liked the playfulness of her last name on his lips though, so she’d never complain. “You’re not looking so bad yourself.”

With a wink
and a smoldering smirk that oozed sexy male confidence, he left Hannah to try and find her breath again.

Jenny hoisted the little calf over her shoulders and Hannah carried the bottle and
a bag of dry formula as they picked their way down the trails that led to her house. Calf settled in the back of the house, and food gathered in plastic containers, Hannah ticked off plates, plastic ware, napkins, and bottled waters one last time before she hoisted the bag of food and followed Jenny out the front door.

Their laughter echoed through the evening woods, and Jenny swung
the folded picnic blanket from side to side while they talked. A trio of men headed back from work at the corn fields waved to them and Hannah called out a greeting. Birds flapped lazily in the branches above, dry leaves rustled in the wind and everything was right and perfect with the world.

“Today was the best day,” she chirped happily.

Holding a branch away from the trail, Jenny waved her past. “You say that every day. There they are.”

Voices sounded from somewhere in the woods and Hannah followed the deep vibrations of Riker’s laughter. She was honed into it like a bug on a light. A
chainsaw revved and Blaine cut at the downed tree while Riker unloaded fencing supplies from a trailer hooked up to an old four wheeler. Work gloves protected his hands, and the muscles in his forearms strained and rippled as he lifted equipment. She couldn’t wait to get him home. To have him draped across her body and gritting out her name.

As if he could hear her thoughts, his eyes lifted to her and a naughty smile played his lips.
“Hey, you.” Straightening, he took the bag from her, set it on the seat of the ATV and pulled her in close. The scent of pine and animal and tantalizing male clung to his skin and she darted her tongue out to taste it.

“Careful
now,” he growled against her ear. “We’ve got a while yet before I can take you home.”

Work first, play later, and with those sentiments, she helped Jenny and Riker haul the wooden logs Blaine cut from the fallen tree. And when he and Riker set to the task of repairing the fence, she and Jenny spread out the giant blanket they’d brought and organized food onto plates.

With her stomach finally satisfied, Hannah eased her back onto the blanket, rested her head in Riker’s lap as he leaned back on locked elbows.

“If you wer
e a bear,” Riker told Blaine, “you’d be a polar bear.”

“What? I’d
be a grizzly. The biggest.”

Hannah laughed. “Riker’s already taken that position, good sir. Besides, polar bears are awesome. Apex predators, camouflaged to match their surroundings? I don’t think he meant to, but Riker just paid you a compliment.”

“Pygmy Polar Bear,” Riker amended, and he dodged the watermelon rind Blaine chucked at him.

Hannah studied the sharp lines of
Riker’s jaw above her. “Wait, can we be bears?”

“No.” Jenny’s voice sounded sad. “Shifter is genetic. You don’t get turned with a bite. You just bleed a lot.”

Blaine popped a grape into his mouth and drew a knee comfortably up to his chest. “But if I was—”

“Oh
, shut up,” Jenny said, laughing. And just like that, the sadness Hannah had imagined was gone.

The shadows of evening had lengthened until they darkened the woods completely, but the moon and stars were bright enough to illuminate the woods. Riker
’s fingers brushed through her hair and he smiled down at her with dancing eyes.

The crack of a gunshot shattered the still night and Riker’s body stiffened under her.

A short pepper of gunfire sounded and he pulled her up. His body hummed with tension.

“Is it hunters?” Jenny breathed.

Nostrils flared, Riker shook his head. “Jenny, take Hannah back to your house and stay there until we come get you.”

Fear pulsed through Hannah
and dread slammed into her like a derailed freight train. Another rattle of gunfire pierced the night. These hunters weren’t after bears. They were after her.

“Riker,” she gasped.

“I know.” His face was grim with acceptance, strained with fury. “Do as I ask.”

Jenny started to pull at the edges of the blanket as he and Blaine jogged aw
ay, but Riker yelled, “Leave it!” Bear or not, even Hannah could hear the alpha’s command in his voice.

“Jenny,” she said, panicked. “They’re here for me. They’ll kill the clan to get to me.”

Yanking her hand until Hannah’s legs pumped through the woods behind her, Jenny said, “You’re one of us now, girl. Riker says to hide, we hide.”

Hannah searched the woods
behind her where Riker had gone and she saw him running through the trees. She strained to see him again, but the next movement was that of a giant bear running full speed toward the sound of death.

As long as she lived, she’d never forget hiding in the root cellar of Jenny’s house, huddled against her as tears stained their cheeks. Her hands shook like brush in the wind as she clutched onto Jenny’s, and quiet sobs filled her throat. She’d been stupid to forget the
inescapable chains Stone had shackled onto her life.

As long as she lived, she’d never forget the sound of the gunfire
echoing through her paradise woods, or the roaring of the bears.

B
ullets whizzed through the air as Riker savaged the men who’d snuck over their fences. No military garb or fancy weapons. This was a low tech, minimally planned maiming mission. If he had any doubt about why these men were here before, their smell of desperation and lack of training put it to rest. They had come for Hannah.

They’d been careful. The clan members of Bear Valley weren’t being
ousted. As other clan members arrived, Changed and battle ready, these men looked shocked to their cores that a small army of enraged bears had descended on their little murder party.

Which was why every last one of them had to die. No man could be allowed to leave here and speak of what lived in these remote mountains.

He roared his thunderous rage and slapped his claws down the chest of the man who’d shot Rick. The old guard lay motionless and glassy eyed by the fence, and now, so did his murderer. He hadn’t gotten there in time to help the old bear and crimson coated his vision.

All around him, warfare between man and beast
shook the clearing as other shifters made it into the fray. A man sat the fence line, peppering his people with mauling metal. Riker charged, determined to cut down the person responsible for the roars of pain behind him. Lunging for the man, he swatted the gun from his hands and stood to his full height, bellowing so the man would see his death coming. So Riker could witness the fear in his eyes before he slashed him from existence.

Pain ripped through his shoulder, but he was too deep in the blood lust to care about that now.

They threatened his clan’s existence here in the Valley.

They threatened his mate.

He’d kill them all.

****

“Hannah,” Riker bellowed through the woods.

She snapped to attention
, ears strained against the soft dripping sounds of the root cellar.

“I heard him too,” Jenny said. “Let’s go.”

Tumbling from the house, Hannah ran for Riker. He stood just outside the porch light and swayed slightly. Blood ran rivers down his arm but that wasn’t what held her enraptured. A mangled, dead looking man lay limp in Riker’s arms.

She searched the man’s face but it was swollen and disfigured. It wasn’t until she took in his blood crusted hair and the gray temples that she recognized him.

“Jeremy?” she whispered.

Riker grunted, pushed through the house and dropped him heavily on
to the couch.

“I-I don’t understand. What’s he doing here?” Something wasn’t right. Why was
Jeremy storming the Valley with armed gunmen? He was part of this place.

“I found him in the intruder’s car. He’s been tortured. I’m guessing he tried to fight it, but he eventually led them here. Jenny, bring me towels.”

“Blaine?” the trembling woman asked.

“He’s fetching Daria. Your man is fine.
Hannah.” His eyes searched hers, breaking her heart with the sadness that pooled there. “I don’t think he’ll make it. I brought him here—.” Shaking his head, he ran a hand across the back of his neck. “I brought him here so you could say goodbye.”

Eyes wide, she lowered her gaze to her mangled protector. “Did you lose people?”

“We can talk about everything tomorrow.”

“Did you lose people, Riker?”

His throat worked as he swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing out of sight and back. “Two.”

Lungs
constricting, she rasped, “Who?”

“
Rick and Nate. They were guarding the fences. By the time we got there, it was too late.”

Sagging to her knees beside
Jeremy, a sob wrenched from her throat. The curse hadn’t lifted at all. It had only become more potent while she’d assumed safety in the Valley. Three more men dead because of her. She fluttered her fingers over Jeremy’s hair line because it seemed like the only place on him that wasn’t injured.

“Hey kid.”
Jeremy’s hoarse voice sounded pained.

“What have you done?” she asked.

“Messed up.”

“Did
Stone’s men do this to you?”

“
They picked me up two days after I set foot in New York. Wednesday.”

Wednesday. He’d been in the hands of those monsters for a week. How he was still talking, she couldn’t even fathom.

“I had them convinced I’d die before I gave you away and I thought they’d let me do it. They gave me some drug instead though. I couldn’t think straight. I don’t remember, but I must’ve told them about this place.”

Warm
tears made twin tracks down her face. “Stay with me. We’ll exact revenge together.”

“
Aw, kid,” he wheezed as he lifted a finger to her moist cheek. “I can’t go this one with you.” His breathing slowed, became labored. “You smell of bear. Tell me what Riker means to you.”

“He’s my mate.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I love him.”

“Good. I need to talk to him alone then.”

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow, couldn’t stop the tears from their freefall. Standing, she gave Riker room to kneel beside
Jeremy’s crumpled form. Her mate cast her a somber glance over his shoulder. “I’ll come get you when we’re done.”

Shoulders shaking with the sobs that wracked her body, she turned once at the door.

“Be good, kid,” Jeremy breathed.

By the time Riker found her, cradling the tiny calf in its pen
outside, Jeremy was already gone. Others had gathered outside Jenny’s house, but Riker led her through the mourners and back through the woods to his home. His eyes were filled with hurt, closed off as if he was pulling away from her but she understood. He was alpha and he’d just lost people because of her.

“I have to take care of some things. I’ll be back by morning.” The bleak set of his mouth didn’t lift in his usual goodbye smile as he shut the front door behind him.

Alone in his room, she curled up on the floor and wrapped her arms around her stomach. Knees drawn to her chest, she wept for all she’d done.

****

Three days had passed and she’d barely seen Riker. He was elbow deep in funeral arrangements, fence repair, alpha meetings, visiting the injured, and defensive strategies. He had to douse the flames she’d caused and when he sank into bed in the middle of every night, she could feel it wearing on him.

Sunday morning, she
awoke to an empty bed.

Riker sat in the chair against the wall, watching her with stormy eyes, hands fisted in front of his mouth.

“Morning,” she said with a tentative smile.

“My people are taken care of. I’m taking you back to the city.”

Pain singed her chest and she waited until she was sure her voice wouldn’t quiver with emotion before she spoke. “Which city?”

“New York.”

“They’ll kill me.”

“
Stone has one strong-arm calling the shots for him while he rots in prison. He’s promised a ceasefire on my people if I bring you to him. If I don’t—.” His shoulders lifted to his ears and he looked away.

None of this made any sense. Riker wouldn’t hurt her. He loved her. Even if he hadn’t said it yet, she felt it when he touched her. When he looked at her. Fear
pumped through her veins at the thought of losing her sanctuary, but was her life more important than the people who lived in Bear Valley? After all of the loss, that answer was easy. “Okay. I’ll pack my things.”

“Already done.” He twitched his head toward her duffle bag on the floor beside his feet.

His cold distance hurt. Of course he’d trade her for his people. That’s what made him a good alpha. She’d watched him at Rick, Jeremy, and Nate’s funerals. The fury he kept in check. The heartache that played across his face when he tossed dirt onto their coffins. She didn’t know how he’d done it, but he’d completely detached his heart from hers over the past three dreary days. She almost wished she knew his secret so she wouldn’t hurt so damned much now.

Hannah showered and dressed, leaving her damp tresses to dry as they might. Bag shouldered, she turned for the kit
chen where Riker sat quietly at the dining table. He wouldn’t look at her. Breakfast consisted of a hastily peeled banana and by the time she sank into the passenger seat of a black pick-up truck that sat in front of the house, the people of Bear Valley were up and about, starting their days.

The truck handled the washed out dirt road much better than
Jeremy’s old station wagon had. The pain in her chest expanded with each passing turn. Jenny walked hand in hand with Blaine, focused somewhere in the woods as they pulled up. Her husband’s face grew hard as Jenny frowned and asked him a question.

Hannah lifted two fingers in a silent goodbye, and as they passed, Blaine wrapped his arms around
his wife’s waist, stopped her from charging the road.

“What the fuck, Riker?” Jenny
yelled, struggling against him.

Riker lifted hooded eyes to t
he rearview mirror, and his jaw clenched.

A chestnut colored bear burst from the woods behind them, but Riker was going too fast for her to ever catch up. Hannah watched her slowly disappear in the side view mirror as her heart shattered all over again. She hadn’t even got to say goodbye to the friends she’d made here.

Biting her lip against the urge to cry, she sank lower into the passenger seat and stared out the window. Bear Valley had only been a stopping place on the way to her demise, and she regretted the day she’d stepped foot on this land. Pissed at the tease of a future, she crossed her arms over her chest and squeezed her eyes closed against the want to scream at Riker and blame him for giving her happiness right when she’d been prepared to die. Two weeks ago, she would’ve gone to Stone’s men if it would’ve saved Jeremy and Jimmy, but now, happiness had softened her, made her selfish. Made her want to live.

Fucking Riker and his abundant affection. The warmth of his touch had come just in time for her to die and the unfairness of it all was too much. And now she’d spend the last of her days in silent misery because the man she loved was working so hard at pulling away from her. Oh, she understood it. He was angry with the hell she’d brought to his peaceful valley, to his people.
And now he was distancing himself so it wouldn’t hurt to let her go.

As if he needed to fill the silence, Riker turned up the volume on the radio to level deafening, and proceeded, for the next three hours it took to get to the airport, drowning his apparent discomfort in old country songs.

Pulling into an airport parking garage, he parked and paid and held out his hand as if he were silently offering to carry her bag. No fuckin’ thanks. “You know, you don’t have to accompany me. You could give me the address and save yourself the plane fare.”

“Part of the agreement was that I’d accompany you there.” Apparently giving up on carrying her bag, he dropped his hand to his side and took off for a ramp that would lead them inside. The
rolling animal noise that trailed him infuriated her even more.

“Growl all you want, Riker, but you don’t have to be here
, so keep your shitty mood to yourself. I want to enjoy my last few hours of life and you’re sucking any peace I might have away from me.”

He turned blazing eyes on her but she didn’t care. He should hear how she felt. It wasn’t fair for him to just dump her and not feel the guilt that should
accompany the betrayal.

“
And I know why you’re really taking me all the way there, you pompous dick face. You’re afraid I’ll run and your people would be at risk of another attack. You don’t know me at all, do you? I wouldn’t save myself to hurt them. I’m done running. I was done before I came to you, but Jeremy wanted to see if you could keep me safe as a last resort. Stupid him...” A sob tore at her throat. Quieter, she said, “Stupid him for not giving up sooner.” He’d still be alive if he had.

Angry at the hot tears that threatened to spill, she sidled
past him and marched up the ramp.

The line to check in was everlasting, or perhaps it just felt that way under Riker’s eternal silent treatment. She wanted to sing just to fill the heavy
void, but she already look half-crazed with her wild hair, cry-reddened cheeks and puffy eyes. Singing would only earn her more worried stares from passersby.

Ignoring him as best she could, she pulled her shoes off and
dropped them in the plastic bin with her duffle bag. Ticket in hand, she stood like a starfish while a TSA agent waved a metal detecting wand over her. Unwilling to wait for Riker, she found her terminal and watched the planes take off and land through the giant windows until her flight was called. Determined not to check on his whereabouts, she filed onto the plane and shoved her duffle bag in the bin above her seat, before sinking into the cushion nearest the window.

Riker followed minutes later, but she’d already faked flight terror and begged a plastic cup of scotch on th
e rocks from a kind stewardess.

“Hannah,” Riker warned as he sat beside her.