Betray the Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #4)(8)

He spat onto the mud beside his feet and yelled, “Again!”

****

This was a terrible idea. Anya fidgeted in the bus seat and reminded herself to breathe for the tenth time in the past hour. Every mile that drew her closer to Bear Valley made her panic a little more. Already, it felt like the oxygen had been sucked from the bus and she eyed the window latches as the closest means of escape.

Nathan didn’t love her. He couldn’t if he could throw her to an enemy clan so easily. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

Maybe she should just run away. Make her way in the world alone and hope Nathan never caught up to her to make good on his promise to kill her if she didn’t succeed. Perhaps over time, he’d just forget about her completely. She chewed on her thumbnail and stared out the window as the blur of green alder and pine passed by. No, he’d hunt her to the ends of the earth if he felt she’d slighted him. That’s what he was doing with Joanna now. She’d never escape his wrath.

Plus she needed the sanctuary of the Long Claw Clan. It was too risky to live in the human world. She had to succeed on this mission or she’d be doomed to a painful end.

“Where are you headed?” an older woman with blue-tinged hair and thick glasses asked from the seat beside her. She smelled like hairspray.

“Sheridan,” she squeaked. Humans were terrifying. And why did the woman feel obligated to sit right beside her when there were so many empty seats on the bus?

“Ah, small town girl, huh? I’m going farther down the line to visit my daughter and grandchildren.” She pointed to Anya’s naked ring finger. “You’re not married yet?”

Anya shook her head. Honestly, she didn’t even know if she was mated, much less involved in the human tradition of marriage.

“Ah, well you have plenty of time.” Her voice cracked with age. “You’re young still. Of course, in my day everyone got married young. I was seventeen when I married my first husband, Stewart.”

“Your first husband?” She thought humans were monogamous, but perhaps she’d been mistaken.

“He died in the war. Took me years to get over him and move on, but I wasn’t made to be alone forever. Besides, Stewart wouldn’t have wanted me mourning him for the rest of my days. He was selfless like that.”

She thought of how Nathan couldn’t let go of anyone he deemed his, and felt wistfulness for a relationship like the one the old woman had shared with Stewart.

Anya gave her a polite smile and turned her head toward the window once again. Her reflection in the pane looked scared, and she closed her eyes against the sight of her weakness. It wasn’t a new reflection. She’d been like this for the past two years. Sometimes she hated the person she had become, and now she would be a spy in a pathetic attempt to remain mated to a man who didn’t care for her. She swallowed bile down and hoped she wasn’t going to be sick right here in front of all these humans.

The bus pulled through a town, a small one compared to some of the others the bus had taken her through since leaving Wyoming. An old, dilapidated sign read Welcome to Sheridan, and she stiffened. This was it. Nathan had told her she was to get off here.

This was the first time she had ridden a bus, and she leaned forward on the edge of her seat. Would the bus driver stop, or was she supposed to tell him this was where she was supposed to get off? The main drag wasn’t that long, and they were coming to the end of it.

“Sir,” she called, hefting her wheeled luggage and scrambling over the old woman. “I need to get off here.”

The bus driver was a handsome man, with caramel colored skin and a bright white smile. His eyes found hers in the rearview mirror and he braked. “You sure?”

“Is that okay?” she asked timidly. She hated disappointing anyone and the man was frowning at her.

“Of course, it’s just…I’ve never dropped anyone off here. Not many people live in these parts. This is usually just a drive-through town.”

“This is Sheridan, Montana, right? At the base of the Big Horn Mountain range?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Okay,” she said, relieved. “This is it, thank you.”

The door hissed and opened, and she gave the bus driver one more timid wave before she stepped onto the pavement and lowered her floral-patterned luggage to the ground. The doors closed as the bus pulled out, and she stood here like an idiot in the dust shower.

Tasting grit, she scrunched up her face and turned in a full circle. Right. Now what. She scanned the town, but it seemed to be almost abandoned except for a few cars in front of an old diner and a police cruiser in front of the law enforcement office at the end of the street. Nathan hadn’t really explained how to get to Bear Valley from here, only that she needed to get creative. Whatever that meant. She knew the direction at least, so she pulled up the handle on her suitcase and dragged it along behind her, grateful she’d strapped sneakers to her feet when she’d dressed this morning. There were roughly thirty miles from here to the center hub of Bear Valley, if Nathan’s directions were right. She tried to estimate how long it would take her to walk that, but the number was too depressing to dwell on for long.

By mile three, her stomach growled and she would’ve cut off her own pinky for a tall glass of ice cold Pepsi. Maybe she was lacking the creativity Nathan had assumed she harbored. This was probably not at all what he’d had in mind, but it wasn’t as if she could just go ask a human to give her a ride to bear shifter territory. They were probably already going to skin her alive. If she showed up with humans, the Bear Valley Clan would torture her.