“Last April. I sat in the back because I was too scared to talk to you. I tried to build up the courage after your show. You and your friends did some shots up at the bar right near where I was sitting. Not your brother, though. He didn’t drink anything, but you did. And you were smiling along with them, and I wished more than anything that I could be brave and just say hi. And I chickened out because that’s what I do. So, you see, I don’t have much experience talking to other people. And when I do, I mostly annoy them by being too quiet or yammerin’ on about nothing. I’m trying not to annoy you because then I know you won’t want to help me anymore. And right now, you feel like my last shot at surviving this.”
You will survive, and you’ll be happy again. His nostrils flared as he inhaled. He swallowed hard and pushed air past his ruined vocal chords. “I swear it. And you should’ve come and talked to me that night.”
“Are your friends bear shifters, too?”
“Yeah. There are three crews of us who live around these parts. Two lumberjack crews and a cutter crew. I belong to the Ashe Crew.”
“Will I have to belong to a crew, too?”
“Depends on who Turned you.”
Dread slammed air out of her lungs, and she clenched her hands in her lap. “I guess I won’t belong to any crew then.”
“You’ll want to. Your animal will crave companionship. She’ll crave comradery with her own kind. It’ll take ten human friends to give you the fulfillment of one shifter in your life.”
“Would you have talked to me if I approached you at Sammy’s Bar last year?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I was still human?”
He pulled her boot from her foot and ignored her question, which was answer enough. Brighton didn’t like humans, and if she was a betting woman, she’d put down money that his animosity had something to do with the scars on his body.
He suddenly seemed very busy removing her other shoe, then her socks. She tried to draw away from him, but he gripped her ankles and steadied her. Panic flared through her limbs as he held her trapped.
“Modest?” he asked in that husky whisper of his.
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to get over that. If you Change while you have clothes on, you’ll shred them. Stand up.”
Shakily, she did so.
“You were mishandled,” he whispered, leaning forward in his chair, and pushing her sweater up. “You don’t have to tell me what happened for me to figure that much out. Every time I move toward you, you take a step back.” He pulled the zipper of her jeans down, then stood. “I’m not him, though, and I’d never hurt you.” He pulled the hem of her sweater until it was off over her head and draped on the arm of the rocking chair. “Tell me what you feel.”
“I feel confused that I want you to touch me, but it gets hard to breathe, and I feel trapped.”
“Tell me to stop anytime, and I will. I won’t be disappointed in you.” His eyes traveled to the black bra that cupped her breasts, then to the matching black panties that showed through the V of her opened jeans.
“Tell me how you feel,” she murmured. “Right now. What are you thinking?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up in a pained look, and he made a single click sound behind his teeth. “Best if I don’t.”
“You’re not playing fair.”
Brighton knelt down and pulled her jeans to her ankles, then steadied her as she stepped out of them. Slowly, his eyes looking up at hers, he leaned forward and grazed his teeth against her bare thigh, then kissed her skin, drawing up gooseflesh where his lips touched her.
“I’m going to kill the man who hurt you,” he whispered, promise in his voice.
She believed him. After seeing his terrifying animal, she knew he was capable of dark deeds.
“I like the way you look,” he said, drawing his hand up the back of her knee.
“Even when I’m too skinny?” she challenged him, throwing his words back at him.
He stood, then brushed his lips against her neck. “When you let your bear out, she’ll let you eat again like you need to.”
Her breath was coming in fast, shallow pants now as she reveled in the feel of his beard against the sensitive skin of her throat.
“Inhale deeply,” he demanded. “You smell that? The bitter scent is your fear. Fear the man who claimed you has caused. The heady scent, though, that’s arousal. Yours and mine.”
“Yours?” she squeaked out.
He slid his fingers down to her wrist, then placed her hand against his rigid erection that pressed against the seam of his jeans.
“Whoever said you were a plain Jane is blind. You aren’t plain to me. You’re beautiful.”
His bicep flexed as he dragged her hand up the length of him. Her breath stuttered as she imagined how much pain his thickness would cause her. Confusion swirled inside of her. Fear overpowered desire, and she took a step back, clenched her hands by her side, and hated herself for being so bad at this.
“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” she murmured, eyes on the ground as shame burned up her neck.
“Good,” he whispered, feet planted right where they’d been.
“Good?” She looked up, the frown on her face so deep, her forehead ached.
“This will work best if you can verbalize what you do and don’t want me to do. What you are and aren’t ready for.”
“And what is the this you’re talking about?”
“I told you. I’m going to make you better. I think you can’t shift because of several reasons, but the big one is that your bear was born during trauma. And next, I think she’s submissive. Really submissive. I think you need to lighten that bag full of demons you’re carrying around before she’ll force her way out of you.”
“That sounds painful.”
He made an anguished expression as he swallowed, then forced his whisper again. “Which part? Dealing with your demons or your bear forcing her way out of you?”
“Both.”
His smile was nothing shy of sympathetic. “I know you can do it.”
And that right there was the most important six words she’d ever heard. She didn’t know everything about Brighton, not yet. But now she knew enough. He was a good man. Trustworthy. Brighton wouldn’t hurt her.
“Connor Crane bit me.” It was the first time she’d uttered his name aloud since it had happened.
Brighton froze, his eyes going wide. “Connor?”
“I know you know him because he was with you that night at Sammy’s Bar, and he came in with you to eat at Boomer’s the second time I saw you.”
Brighton backed up a step, shaking his head slowly. “No,” he whispered. Agony in his eyes, he sat heavily into his chair and looked up at her.
Get rid of her demons, Brighton had told her. Well, Connor was the biggest demon in her life. She sat on the edge of the rocking chair seat and clasped her hands in her lap. The chilly air bit into her skin, but she didn’t care about that now. Red, hot fury was creeping over her just thinking about the humiliation Connor had put her through.
“Momma said my virginity was the only thing that would secure me a marriage someday, on account of my unsightly face and twig legs. She hits the bottle, and then she makes jokes about me, and it was the same a couple of days before I went to see you at Sammy’s Bar. I was mad and wanted to feel wild. I stayed late that night, trying to muster up the courage to talk to you, but you left with your brother, and I felt awful. Lower than low. I hated myself for not being braver. For not telling Momma to piss off when she says awful things to me and for not going after what I wanted. I wanted you, and I let you walk right by me, within inches, and couldn’t even get the word ‘hello’ past my lips.” Everly swallowed hard and dropped her gaze to her hands. She couldn’t do this if she saw Brighton looking at her like he was. Like she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. She already knew that. “He stayed behind, Connor. Bought me a drink and talked real nice to me. Even got me feeling r
elaxed. He seemed so nice, and he got my number before we left that night. And to my utter surprise, he called me the next day, and the next. We talked for hours on the phone, and he seemed so genuine. He acted happy to talk to me. And I had nothing to compare him to because I hadn’t dated anyone before him, so I thought I’d lucked out and found a keeper. He kissed me on our second date. It was my first,” Everly admitted, daring a glance up.
Brighton looked sick and had his elbows on his knees, chin resting on his clenched fists.
“I took him back to my place on our third date because it felt like the natural progression of things, and dammit, I didn’t know how this all worked.” Tears stung her eyes as she murmured, “He took me from behind the first time. It hurt so badly, but he said it was because I wasn’t very good at it yet. I was so stupid and believed him. I thought if I was better in bed, it wouldn’t hurt like that, and the next time he took me out, he seemed so angry. Like he was disappointed in how unworldly I was. That night we tried again, and I hid how bad it hurt as best I could, but he bit my shoulder at the end and I screamed. I cried and cried after he was through, but he only stood in the doorway of my bedroom with a smirk on his face. He said that now I would be a better match for his needs.” She shrugged. “I was done, though. Good thing because he never called me again. And then the seizures started, and I didn’t have the time or energy to think about the reasons he didn’t want me anymore.” She inhaled and held her breath in her lungs, then looked up at Brighton with the fervent hope that he didn’t hate her now, too.
Brighton scrubbed his hands down his face and let off a shuddering breath as he linked his hands behind his head. His face was contorted with pain. He looked like she felt inside.
“Say something,” she begged.
His Adam’s apple dipped into the small cave at the base of his throat. His eyes were so silver, they were almost white like snow. “I did this to you. I asked the boys if we could go back to Boomer’s and eat, just so I could watch you wait tables again. Connor was an asshole, and his bear was on the hunt for a mate. I hated him, and the feeling was mutual. We never got on. He saw me watching you at the café and asked me about you. I clammed up and never asked to go eat at Boomer’s again because I didn’t want his attention on you.”
She shook her head and touched his hand. “This isn’t your fault.”
He stepped back, out of her reach. “Don’t you see?” he asked in an agonized rasp, his eyes filling with some emotion she couldn’t fathom. “Connor did this because of me. He hurt you because of me. That’s just the way he was. Every seizure you’ve had is on me.”
“Brighton, that’s ridiculous.”
“You don’t understand. Connor claimed the woman I wanted just because he was a fucking prick with a vendetta. And now you’ll pay your whole life because of my interest in you.” He stood and strode off into the night. And right on the edge of the tree line, he hesitated and said over his shoulder, “I can’t avenge you, Ever. Connor is cold in his grave already.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.
A sob wrenched from her throat as she tried to sort through what had just happened. She’d exposed her deepest secret, the one Momma had found out and shamed her with. Now, she was a whore in Momma’s eyes, giving away her virginity to a man who didn’t even want her. Who didn’t even call her. And on top of that, she’d caused Brighton pain just by the admission of her mistakes.
And now Connor was dead, and she didn’t know how to feel.
Was she supposed to feel better when someone she’d once cared for was gone?
Relieved that she’d never see him around town again?
Glad the man who’d hurt her had received swift justice?
Right now, all she could think about was Brighton and how disappointed he’d been that she’d slept with Connor.
Her body went rigid, and this time, no one was here to cradle her head in their lap or look at her with worry in their eyes.
No one was here to care as her lungs burned and her limbs went stiff.
This time, Everly died alone.
Chapter Seven
Clearly, Brighton was in over his head. He’d messed up in epic proportions last night and had come back from yet another uncontrolled Change to find Everly out cold just where he’d left her. Worse than that, she’d hit her head on the way down and split the back of her scalp wide open. Seeing her there in the dirt, alone…well, that just about caused another Change.
He had to get this shit under control. He was no good to her the way he was now.
Brighton paced the yard, clutching the note he’d written in his clenched grasp. This place had been a sanctuary—a secret hideout that none of the Ashe Crew, not even Denison, knew about. And now he was going to expose his hidey hole, and for what? A woman.
He shook his head to ward off the angry thoughts. This wasn’t Everly’s fault. It was Connor’s fault. Brighton wished he could kill that sonofabitch all over again.
The sound of a truck picking its way up the gravel road froze him in his tracks. The urge to jog out and meet Tagan and Denison, to tell them to hurry the hell up, was overwhelming, but it clashed with his instincts to stay near Everly.
She hadn’t woken up yet.
He’d spent the night thinking of how to draw her bear from her, but if she didn’t wake up, he couldn’t do anything.
His boots scuffed loose gravel as he began pacing again. The roiling clouds above told of an oncoming storm that fit his mood. Needing to see her face again, he rushed back inside and knelt by the bed. He’d cleaned her cut and tucked her in, but she hadn’t moved in all these hours. Sure, her chest rose and fell steadily, but he’d tried to rouse her twice to no success. God, he wished he could take this burden from her. He was used to pain, but Everly wasn’t strong enough for this. Not yet.
He brushed away a lock of chestnut hair that had fallen across her face. In the muted gray sunlight that drifted through the window, she had all shades of brown highlights in her hair. How had he not noticed that before? Her long, dark lashes brushed her cheeks, and a spray of faint freckles stretched across her tiny nose. Her lips were pursed, as if she were in pain, even in her sleep. And that rattle in her throat… It wasn’t soft snoring—it was growling. Her bear was buried within her, but not deep enough to hide the unrest her animal was feeling.
He was safe to press his lips against her forehead here in the dim room with her sleeping soundly, so he did. He didn’t regret it either. Watching over her all night had done something to him. Now, she pulled at his heart, and he hurt with worry that she wouldn’t survive this after everything he’d promised.
The sound of Tagan’s truck outside drew his attention to the window. He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb, just to reassure himself she was still warm and alive, then stood and strode out of his cabin.
“Holy shit,” Denison drawled as he stepped from the passenger’s side of Tagan’s black Ford truck. “Now this is a trip down memory lane.”
“You know this place?” Tagan asked as he exited his ride.
“Brighton and I used to live here together, back when I first met Danielle. We rented it for a couple of years right when I was getting to know you guys. Look,” he said, pointing to the old tire swing attached to the giant tree in front. “I have a picture of Daniel swinging in that, and another of she and Brighton right over there in that field.” He swung a troubled gaze to Brighton. “I didn’t know you were still renting this place.”
I’m not, he mouthed. I bought it.
His twin brother’s eyes went round as dinner saucers. “You bought it? When? And why didn’t you tell me?”
Brighton ran his hand through his hair and looked down at the corner of the porch. Maybe he should’ve told his brother about this place, but it had been nice having somewhere to hide when his bear got out of control.
“Is this where you disappear to when you leave for days on end?” Denison asked softly.
Brighton nodded once, then handed his a
lpha the letter he’d written. He didn’t have time to get bawled out by his brother. Everly needed help, and he was desperate for any advice they could offer. He trusted Denison and Tagan more than anyone on the planet. If anyone could help him figure this out, they could. Tagan opened the folded paper and read it silently. Denison wised up and read it over his shoulder, and when they were done, they both looked at him with the most shocked expressions he’d ever seen on either of their faces.
“You gotta girl in there?” Denison asked.
“Is she your mate?” Tagan asked low.
No, Brighton mouthed. I don’t think so. That didn’t feel right though, denying her. He shrugged, feeling utterly helpless. I don’t know.
“Well, that’s a yes,” Denison deadpanned.
Brighton narrowed his eyes and spun for the door. Bust his balls all they wanted to, but it didn’t change the fact that another shifter needed their help. And not just any shifter. She’d been claimed by Connor, who had been a member of the Ashe Crew. Everly would be a part of Tagan’s Crew if she survived whatever was happening to her. The quiet alpha who was following closely behind Brighton had a stake in her survival, too.
Tagan took one look at her pallid complexion and thin face and cursed.
Denison came in more slowly, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. “Her animal is barely there.”
The low growling sound rumbled past Everly’s lips, and she curled into herself, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“How long, Brighton?” Tagan asked.
Brighton held up six fingers.
Tagan’s eyebrows nearly touched his hairline and his sky blue eyes sparked. “Six weeks?”
Brighton shook his head and jerked his thumb toward the ceiling.
“Six months?” Denison asked.
She’s Connor’s claim, Brighton wrote on his notepad. She’s never shifted.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Denison argued. “The shift takes place right away.”