Bear Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #2)(27)

Exhaling a shaky breath, she began taking pictures of the river bears. And as the afternoon wore on, and the hours ticked by, she relaxed into a false sense of safety as she saw the world through the lens. It was an excellent coping mechanism since it distanced her from the monster grizzlies that were so close. A few long, charging strides and they could be on her, but here, looking through the lens of her camera, Lena could pretend she was at the zoo, taking pictures of caged animals like when she was a kid. Only here, Jenner was the cage.

After taking a shot of one of the brown bears standing atop the shallow waterfall catching a jumping salmon in mid-air, she grinned at Jenner and showed it to him.

“Money shot,” she whispered. The bear was massive with a muscular hump between its mature shoulders, frozen on her camera, water drops streaming from the tail of the fish as it sailed through the air and straight toward the grizzly’s open jaws.

Jenner scrolled through a couple more, a vacant smile on his lips until suddenly he jerked to a stop and lifted his gaze back to the river. “Shit,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Titus is king here, and I’m not up for a brawl with him,” Jenner said low as he shouldered her backpack.

Lena looked across to the other side of a river where an enormous brown bear was lumbering toward the fishing grounds, head low. The two bears nearest him, both puny in size comparatively, scattered when they saw him. As he approached the bank, it became clear he was a fighter because his face was scarred and one of his ears was missing. His neck was nearly bald of fur from all the scars in that area. Shit indeed.

Heart hammering, Lena picked up her tripod and backed away slowly. Jenner’s hand was on the back of her neck, pushing her low as they moved away. Now, some of the bears Titus had intimidated off the river were headed their way, and Jenner muttered another curse as he pulled the rifle off his shoulder and slid a bullet into the chamber with the distinct crack of metal on metal. “Don’t stop moving. Slow and steady and don’t give any of them your back.”

“Okay, but Jenner, they’re coming this way.” She held her camera steady at her chest and took picture after picture of the two bears running toward them, their eyes unfocused as they glanced back behind them at Titus.

“I see them.”

“Jenner, they’re still coming. I don’t think they see us.”

“Heyayay,” Jenner said low.

Both bears swung their gaze directly at them before startling toward the left.

“Good bears. You see us? We’re not here to hurt you.” One curved toward them, ears flat, but Jenner called, “No no no no.” His gun was up now as Lena continued backing toward the woods. He let off a low rumbling growl in his chest, and the bear veered away, eyeing them warily as it galloped for the woods behind the other one.

It all made sense now, that growl Jenner could make—the one that sounded so real—the one that could turn her on one moment and electrify the fine hairs on her body the next. He’d learned that out here. He’d practiced it so he could talk to the bears. Jenner Silver had learned how to fit into the dominance hierarchy with some of the most fearsome apex predators in existence. No wonder he was such a sought-after guide, and no wonder he had such a high success rate.

Jenner was as close to a grizzly as a human could make himself.

As she passed through the tree line, Jenner’s hand clutching her jacket to keep her from tripping, a dark figure climbed up the river ledge. Lena gripped Jenner’s arm and jerked her chin toward the river. Jenner had been searching the woods for the runaway bears, but at her gesture, he slid his gaze to where Titus was climbing up onto the grassy flatland.

“Go,” Jenner whispered, pushing her behind a thick grove of evergreen trees.

She whimpered as the titan began to make his way in their direction. Jenner clapped his hand over her mouth and froze behind the tree cover. She couldn’t watch Titus stalking them, so Lena focused instead on the muscle in Jenner’s sharp jaw that twitched as he clenched his teeth. His eyes were fierce, intense on whatever Titus was doing, and there was no mistaking the color now. Dark brown, even darker than hers, and it wasn’t just his pupils dilated either. The black middles were pinpoints as his gaze arched slowly with Titus’s movement.

“Come on,” he said on a breath, pulling her backward and to the right. “He’s confused between our scent and the other bears. We have to go now. Fast but steady, okay?”

Jenner removed his hand from her mouth, but she couldn’t speak now if she wanted to, so she nodded.

Behind them, a bear roared so loud the birds flew from the canopy above them. The hairs rose on the back of Lena’s neck as she bolted in the direction they’d tied the horses.

The next two miles were brutal. With every step she grew more and more exhausted, and behind her, Jenner kept up constant whispered encouragement for her to keep going. The backs of her heels were blistered in her hiking boots by the time she heard the snort of one of the horses, and her limbs tingled like they’d fallen asleep. She blamed that on the adrenaline dump into her bloodstream. Any moment now, she knew Titus was going to appear beside them or she would hear his terrifying roar again.

Without a word, Jenner helped her into Gunner’s saddle, packed her horse with the supplies they’d brought, then untied them all. He swung up onto his own horse and nudged him into a trot through the piney woods. And unlike their ride here earlier, Jenner didn’t ignore her and trust her to follow. He looked back every few seconds, as if he couldn’t keep his eyes off her when danger was this near.