“He doesn’t feel right for this,” Muriel said softly. “Someone is trying to kill off the Cress line, and the reason Ethan is still standing is because whoever is doing this doesn’t know about his lineage. Yet. I just can’t think of a single reason that makes any sense for him to kill off his own family. Not when he’s lost his parents. I think there is something dark going on with Ethan, but I’m not convinced it had anything to do with Trent’s death.”
The grandfather clock in Samantha’s living room chimed and Reese shot up. “I’m late. Trinity is going to kill me!” She ran for the door. “I’ll talk to you about this more when I get off work,” she called over her shoulder.
A quick drive down East First Street and she spun out trying to turn into Buckeye’s back parking lot. Parked and strapped in her apron, Reese rushed to check in for her shift and grabbed a couple of menus for two men waiting to be seated. With her plastered upon smile, she led them to her section.
Buckeyes was all dark browns and sticky wooden floors. A bar took up the back wall and the kitchen lay beyond that in the way back. That’s were she took the verbal lashing of her life from Trinity the moment she made her way to grab her customers’ drinks.
“I swear I’m going to fire you, Evans. Give me one more excuse and your ass is gone.” Trinity’s overly hair sprayed bob shook stiffly with every angry shake of her head as she spoke. Her blue-gray eyes weren’t silver yet, but damn she smelled like bear.
“I’m really sorry.”
“You always say you’re sorry, but you don’t work any harder to be on time!”
Now, that wasn’t really fair, because she’d been late three times this week. And that was only because everything had gone to hell. But before that, she’d never been late to a shift. Reese opened her mouth to say as much, but Nells, the cook, dinged the bell on the counter, signifying a couple of hot plates of food were ready to take out to a table.
It was probably best if she didn’t argue with Trinity anyway. The woman was a grizzly and ever since her mate had been killed by Bron, she was a little unstable in the anger department. In Bron’s defense though, Dodger had been a murderous asshole and deserved his end.
Clenching her teeth, Reese murmured another apology and ran the hot food as an excuse to escape the myriad of curse words Trinity was peppering at the kitchen staff.
The shift at Buckeyes had dragged on and on as she served the hungry patrons of Joseph. Eight hours of burger running, cleaning spills, refilling drinks, and rushing to close checks for impatient customers and her feet were tired, her back ached, and her mind was utterly frazzled at the clutter taking up her headspace. She’d forgotten three different tables’ drinks, she was so flustered.
Closing time meant an empty parking lot under the lone street light. Gravel crunched under her shoes as Reese made her way to the truck with a take-out box of chicken wings in hand. She was about halfway there when a ranger’s green SUV blasted around the corner and skidded to a stop in front of her.
Rieland sat in the front seat with tears tracking down her cheeks. “Get in.” Her voice cracked on the last word, like she hadn’t talked in a while.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Dammit, Reese. Get in! Ethan’s hurt and the idiot needs you.”
Panic filled her throat. Hurt? She hadn’t figured out everything with him, but she wasn’t ready to lose him before she did.
A sob wrenched from Rieland and her shoulders sagged. “I’ll tell you what happened on the way, but for chrissakes, get in. He’s up in the mountains and you’re wasting time he doesn’t have.”
“Oh my God,” Reese cried, hopping into the passenger seat. “Why is he in the mountains?”
“There was a poacher,” Rieland bawled. “I don’t know what happened, but a couple of days ago he came back to camp from the tower and he was different—scary. He couldn’t stop shifting. Man, bear, man, bear. He attacked two of us who were trying to calm him down. Then he disappeared into the mountains late last night and we’ve been tracking him all day. But when we found him, he’d been shot clean through and we can’t move him. He won’t change back.”
“And you think I can get him to change back?” Reese asked, holding onto the grab bar while Rieland hit a pot hold deeper than hell on the way out of town.
“I don’t know, but if you can’t, he’s stuck out there, bleeding out.”
Reese’s mouth went dry as cotton as Rieland blasted up the dirt road that weaved through the mountain passes toward the Seven Devils.
This was all her fault. She’d set Ethan off without any hard proof that he’d hurt Trent, and now he was in trouble. Fuck! Why couldn’t she have just stood her ground and heard him out?
A soft scraping sound brushed her sensitive eardrums with every turn, and Reese squinted at the dark floorboard of her truck. A trio of matchbooks were sliding left and right, then left again with every divot in the road. She pressed her shoe onto them to stop their annoying noise and frowned out the window as something niggled at the edge of her frayed mind.
She’d seen them somewhere before.
Slowly, she lowered her chest and picked up one of the matchbooks pinned under her foot. It was white. No number or words, but it had the forest green ranger logo she’d seen on all the trucks in Ethan’s camp.
“What is this?” she whispered.
Rieland glared at the tiny square in her hand. “It’s one of the matchbooks I give to campers who forget their fire starters. It fell out of the glove box.”
Reese pulled the handle under the dashboard and several more fell out. Wide-eyed, she placed two fingers over the top of the logo and gasped when it matched the burned matchbook Bron had showed her. The one he and Logan had found at the sawmill Trent had been burned alive in.
“You,” she whispered.
Rieland’s sobbing stopped and her eyes narrowed. “Me what?”
“You killed him. You killed Trent.”
A cold, empty smile curved Rieland’s lips, but failed to reach her soulless eyes.
“There’s no poacher, is there?”
“Ding, ding, ding. You’re not quite as stupid as I had you pegged for.”
“Ethan’s okay?”
“Is Ethan okay,” Rieland repeated in a mocking voice. “Give me a fucking break. Ethan is fine and anyway, he’s none of your concern. He’s mine.”
Reese had to get out of here—away from Rieland and whatever dark deed she had planned for her. The road was rough, which slowed the truck enough that she wouldn’t die if she made a jump for it. Not with her shifter healing abilities. Before she could change her mind, Reese kicked the door open and lunged for the tree line.
A screech of rage bellowed out of the truck after her, but she wasn’t about to stick around and find out what Rieland was up to. She tumbled and rolled, then hit the side of a tree hard with her shoulder. A grunt of pain left her lips, but as soon as she was able, she stood and bolted through the dark woods.
The engine of the truck cut off and somewhere behind her, a slamming door echoed through the woods, followed seconds later by a challenging grizzly’s bellow.
“Shhhit,” Reese whispered, pulling her shirt over her head with shaking hands, then fumbling out of her pants. The crazy she-bear had changed and was now hunting her. There was no outrunning a grizzly, and Reese would be damned if she was dying from a bear attack while human.
Her bear was already frantic, in flight mode, and clawing to get out of her, so Reese gave her neck to the moon and let the animal take her body. The pain was blinding for a moment as hair and razor sharp claws burst from her skin. Her face elongated and her teeth drew down as she transitioned into the black bear that lived inside of her.
When she opened her eyes again, Rieland, a massive gray-furred grizzly, stood on her hind legs with a look of pure hatred in her hollow eyes.
This was going to hurt.
Reese lunged upward on her hind legs just as Rieland charged and hit her with the force of an ei
ghteen-wheeler. The wind was knocked out of her, but she scrabbled and clawed like she’d been trained to do in every other bear fight she’d been in. Protecting her neck from the eight-inch long claws Rieland was slashing across her skin, Reese rolled out from under her and ran for the giant trunk of an ancient spruce. If she could just buy herself some time to think, she could outsmart Rieland. The other bear had two hundred pounds on her and vengeance in her heart Reese couldn’t even begin to understand.
Pain raked across her back as she ran, and she crumpled under the force of Rieland’s resounding, clawed slap. The grizzly swiped her hard across the hip and sent her sprawling straight for a tree. Reese grunted with fear as she barreled face first toward the trunk. The crack of her head against the unforgiving bark rattled her ears. She landed on her back as the canopy above began to shatter and fold in on itself. The edges of her vision blurred until the only thing she could see was Rieland, standing over her with such a look of triumph in her eyes.
Reese gasped for air, fighting for the focus she needed to stay awake.
If she closed her eyes, Rieland would kill her.
She was going to die before she told Ethan how sorry she was that she’d treated him just like everyone else in his life had. Before she got to tell him how much their night together had healed her fears of caring for another.
She was going to take her last breath before she got the chance to tell him how much she loved him.
A whimper of pain and regret clawed its way from her throat as the world went black.
Somewhere far above her, a bear roared.
Chapter Eleven
The stinging slap of a hand against her face woke Reese. She sat upright and gasped at the blistering pain in her back. Her head throbbed so badly, it made her want to retch. She was in bad shape, but what was scarier was she didn’t recognize her surroundings at all. A holey dilapidated roof above her, splintered rafters, dusty light streaming in through wooden walls gone gray with age. Her eyes rolled back in her head, but Rieland slapped her again and ripped her hair back until she met her eyes.
“About fuckin’ time,” the woman growled.
Rieland had pulled her nut-brown tresses into a severe ponytail that made her face look like she’d had it lifted, and was donning the ranger’s uniform she’d had on when she picked her up. Her eyes were predatory and burning silver, and she shoved Reese back onto the filthy wooden floor she’d been lying on.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Reese asked through a parched throat. Even at this soft volume her head felt like it was going to explode.
“Because our games aren’t through yet. You’ve been an irritating little bitch about a bump on the head, and have slept the entire night. But I couldn’t start the festivities without you being conscious. There would be no fun in burning you while you slept. I like to hear the screams, you see?”
Rieland sat on an old stool and struck a match from one of the books from the glove box. Then she blew it out with a devilish grin. Early morning light streamed in through a shattered window and illuminated the floor in soft grays. She was in some sort of abandoned cabin, but a glance outside told her nothing other than she was in the deep woods. She could be on the other side of The Goblin for all she knew.
Trying to pull her hands to the thick, caked warmth on her face, the sound of chains clinked across the floor and stopped her motion. Dread filled her as Reese realized her wrists were shackled to an exposed metal pipe under the broken floorboards. Clenching her hands, she tested its strength as panic seized her throat. Even with a hard pull, it didn’t budge an inch.
“Let me go,” she growled out. “I don’t know your reasons for killing Trent, but this will only make it worse for you. Let me go and we can find you some help.”
“Help,” Rieland asked as her eyebrows arched high. “It’s you who needs help. I’m perfectly equipped to survive what is coming. You, on the other hand, will die slowly, and painfully. It will take minutes, just like it did with Trent. Just like it should’ve taken with Bron and his bitch mate Samantha.”
“Why are you doing this?” She meant to sound tougher, but dammit, she was chained to a cabin and Smoky the Psychotic Bear was over there lighting matches and blowing them out. And the house definitely smelled like some kind of lighter fluid.
“Glad you asked. See, this is why I wanted you awake, Reese. I don’t get to share the why’s with anyone else, and I’ve been dying to tell someone. You’ve been chosen by the last Cress alpha.” She twitched her head to the side. “Or Ethan will be the last Cress alpha after I obliterate Bron.”
“You know?”
“Of course I know. All it took was a little research. He came to Seven Devils all quiet and mysterious and broken. And anyone with eyes in their heads could see his bear was a monster. He would be alpha someday, and I wanted to know where his power came from. It came from that Cress blood running through his veins. The legends say one Cress alpha a generation, and I couldn’t allow Trent and Bron to steal Ethan’s thunder, now could I?”
“You think you’re helping him? Ethan will hate you when he finds out what you’ve done.”
“Ah, but he won’t find out it’s me. And if he does, he’ll just have to listen to reason. I’m helping him reach his potential. He’ll take both clans under him when Bron is dead and everyone finds out he’s a Cress by birth. Do you know what he’s been doing for the past two days? He’s been running an inquisition on every one of his own people. He’s looking for Trent’s murderer for you, and I wondered why. I drove myself crazy with it, really. But then I thought, perhaps it’s because you’d bonded. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. He’s never cared about anyone, but now he’s turning his own clan upside down looking for answers for some shit for brains black bear shifter? You’re pussy much be magical.” She lit another match and blew it out. “Shifters do stupid things when they are unfortunate enough to bond with a mate. All of his efforts were pointless though. He didn’t even bat an eye when I lied about my whereabouts during the fires.”
“Why Ethan? Why didn’t you choose to back Trent?”
“Not Ethan, sugar.” She canted her head and her eyes narrowed with a dark smile. “My son.”
Shock made Reese draw up so fast the claw marks on her back burned. “You’re pregnant?”
“Not yet. But once you’re gone, Ethan will come back to my bed. I heard you the other night, howling his name as he fucked you in the tower. I was there, listening outside the door. You did bond, didn’t you?” Rieland shook her head and made a clicking sound against her teeth. “I can’t have him bonding with anyone when I need his seed. My child, the future Cress alpha, will secure my place in the history books. Under my guidance, we will bring bear shifters back to their former glory. We won’t be sitting on the edge of civilization, hiding from the humans anymore. We will build a fucking army of bears.”
Reese swallowed hard at the empty look in Rieland’s glassy eyes. “Why fire?” she whispered.
A slow smile stretched Rieland’s face. “It was Ethan’s parents who gave me the idea. Their deaths were an accident. Faulty wiring in the house, according to the reports. But when I was researching, I found pictures of the blaze. Ethan had barely made it out alive and stood on the front lawn with his back to whoever photographed the inferno. He was so tiny and alone, and from the looks of it, no one had offered to comfort him when the picture had been taken. But in front of him, the fire was beautiful. There is power in fire. It needs so little, yet gives so much. And once I started researching how to start a fire, and how to make it look like an accident, I was hooked. When I was little, I used to have a cigarette lighter stashed in this shed. I learned to burn things without anyone knowing, and my targets got bigger and bigger.” She rubbed a scuffed toe of her boot across a dark char-mark in the middle of the floor. “I had to stop for a few years because of my responsibilities to the clan, but that picture of Ethan’s house began my love for it again. I picked up right where I’d left off. I?
??ve been saving this shed for a special burn—for you.”
Reese’s stomach went cold as she spoke. Rieland’s voice had turned dreamy when she talked about fire and burning her alive. No amount of begging or pleading was going to get her off this course of destruction she’d planned. Reese bit her lip hard to stop it from trembling and swallowed down her despair. It wouldn’t do any good to go screaming and pleading. Begging for her life would only take her dignity away.
“You ready to burn?” Rieland asked, backing toward the door. An unlit match waited between her fingertips, and with a scraping sound, she dragged it across the striker. “Sweet screams, Reese.”
As the match fell to the floor, the side of the house exploded inward and a mass of fur and teeth flew through the dilapidated walls. Rieland’s scream was cut to nothing as Bron hurled into her and disappeared, crashing through the opposite wall. The roof caved, and Reese shielded her eyes with her forearm as debris fell around her.
Frantically, she pulled at the chain securing her wrists to the floor. How Bron had known to come here was beyond her, but even with Rieland likely being shredded in the side yard, she wasn’t out of this yet. The flames began slowly, then caught onto whatever starter fluid that psychotic woman had doused the place in.
“Bron!” Reese screamed as heat blistered her skin and flames licked the crumbling walls beside her. Sweat trickled down the sides of her face and between her breasts as she fought to loosen the shackles. She couldn’t change into her bear, or the metal would crush her paws. “Help me!”
A tremendous crash sounded as a half fallen wall was ripped backward. And then Ethan was there, making his way through the smoke and rubble, the fire illuminating the intensity of his silver eyes with golds and reds.
A strangled sob of relief left her lips as he jumped over a flaming pile of rubble and skidded to a stop in front of her. He was here, facing the flames that had taken his parents, facing the fear that had driven his extreme reactions to soot on her face and in his bed.