Tracking the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 1)(32)

“Death to Asgard,” she whispered. “Death to the Vanir. Death to us all. I will never return Idun to them. The twilight of the gods has begun.”

The tree shook and whatever force had held me aloft shook as well. I wobbled, trying to keep my balance. Freya leaned over me with a smile and gave me a very gentle shove. She slipped something small into my palm as I teetered backward and fell over the edge.

“Wake, Lucy Elmsong,” she called as I fell screaming to the ground miles below. “Wake. You must still survive the day.”

***

I bolted upright, or at least tried to. A heavy weight pressed down on top of me. In the first dizzy moments of consciousness, I thought I’d had a nightmare. Maybe I’d dreamed the whole debacle with the wolves. Maybe I’d fallen asleep in Chance’s arms as I had been for the last few weeks.

Then I spotted the shaggy blonde mop of hair that the huge muscular lump was calling a haircut these days. Ugh. Why was he trying to rock surfer hair? It always looked best short and he knew it. Mom had told him so enough times before she’d died.

I shoved and shimmied my way out from under his bulk. He rolled off me and landed with a thump on the stone floor. Luke’s bear had apparently taken us both higher into the mountains and had made a home in the cave.

An awful smell hung in the air, and I soon located the source. A shredded deer carcass was tucked into one corner of the cave, away from the pair of us. I assumed most of the blood on Luke and the cave floor had come from that.

I smoothed his hair back from his face, wishing I had a towel or even a little water. Poor Luke. These last few weeks must have been a nightmare for him. While I’d been stewing in Fairchild, or fighting or fucking or doing whatever I damned well pleased with Chance, he’d been wandering the woods without supplies or even a clear goal in mind.

While neither of us had been shut-ins, he’d always been more social than I was. I couldn’t think of a time in recent memory where I’d seen him alone. He studied with his girlfriend of the month in high school. Before he’d left for college, he’d spent most nights out in the living room with Aunt Carol and Uncle Mack, watching the news or whatever war movie Uncle Mack had dragged out of his collection. I couldn’t imagine how lonely his self-imposed isolation must be. He had nothing and no one.

But that wasn’t true anymore, was it? He had me. And if I could find him again, I was sure I could get Chance to spare him. Chance had said Luke wasn’t in his right mind when he’d attacked Keith Page. So didn’t it follow that he couldn’t have been directly responsible for what had happened? The least they could do is reduce his sentence.

I propped his head up and wormed my arm beneath his shoulder. We’d slept like this for years, refusing to use the bunk beds our parents had bought for us. We’d shared a womb once upon a time. A bed was nothing to that.

Luke’s eyes fluttered open a few minutes later. For a moment his expression was one of contentment, and he leaned harder against my shoulder. Then reality seemed to hit, and I saw a veritable kaleidoscope of emotions cross his face.

Panic struck first. He jerked upright and away from me, scrambling to the other side of the cave. Disgust quickly followed when he backed too far into the corner and came into contact with the deer’s entrails. Finally he settled on fear, as he realized what he was touching and that he had blood on his hands. Again.

“It’s not human,” I whispered. Luke flinched, as if I’d been screaming the words at him.

“Lucy…how…why?”

“You didn’t think I’d let you run off, did you? You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

The uncertainty in his eyes disappeared, replaced instead by cold fury. His hands balled into his fists and he jumped to his feet, looming over me as he had when we were children and he wanted to intimidate me.

“I told you to stay away.” A hint of his bear’s growl slipped into his tone, adding extra menace to the words.

Suddenly, I could feel it. The beautiful bear that had come to my rescue was inside of me. Her fur glided just beneath my skin and I was suddenly itching to free her. I knew that it could be that easy. If I just let her through my flimsy human skin, I could change. She’d protect us. She was strong enough for that.

Though I knew his statement was more of his usual bluster, my bear didn’t. She bristled at the tone of challenge in his tone.

I pushed to my feet, ready to get into his face if I needed to. I didn’t get that far. My leg hurt. It really, really hurt. All of it. If my leg wasn’t achy, crampy or on fire with pain, it tingled or went numb in places, which was its own hell.

The nerve damage was healing. One night as a bear, and I had already progressed further than medical science said I realistically should expect for recovery. But all the wonder in the world wasn’t going to keep me on my feet.

“Ow, fuck!” I blurted. My knees wobbled dangerously and I fell backward.

Luke caught me before I could land in an ungainly heap on the cave floor. We stood awkwardly for a few seconds, trying to figure out exactly how to arrange ourselves. Finally, he helped me lean against the cave wall for support and took a step back so we could look each other in the eye.

“I know what you said,” I panted. “But I’m still not letting you leave like that.”

He folded his arms over his bare chest. He’d had the decency to put something on while I’d caught by breath. It was the remainder of one of his old t-shirts. To be fair, the loincloth look wasn’t entirely a bad one, considering his physique, but it wasn’t something I really wanted to see. He fixed me with a glare. He was getting angrier, and I had the feeling if I didn’t look so pathetic, he might have been tempted to shove me.