Tracking the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 1)(39)

“Thank God,” I breathed.

“I wouldn’t thank anyone just yet.” Chance sat up, grimacing at the pair of us. “I’ve located the fugitive. So I’m supposed to call in, so the others can stop the search.”

“But that’s not fair!” I protested. “He just saved your life. Don’t you owe him a debt or something?”

“I do. That’s why I’m not attacking.”

“That, and you’re too exhausted to fight me,” Luke muttered. Chance glowered up at him.

“I can’t let him go, Lucy. He’s got two nights in the lunar cycle left. He’s dangerous if he’s left alone in that state. And more than that, if he’s caught out in the full moon, he will be killed, not merely held captive.”

I bristled at that. Yes, Chance was the love of my life. I couldn’t imagine the future without him. But Luke was my brother. If this ended badly for him, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to forgive Chance.

Luke laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It’s alright, Luce. This is the way it’s got to be.”

“Bullshit!” I cried. “There has to be another way.”

Chance climbed to his feet, drawing himself up to his full and considerable height. He glanced up at the sky and grimaced. “We’ll only have a few hours to get things set up. The wolves ate most of our food, and absolutely trashed our tent. I might be able to salvage the poles, but it looks like you and I will be sleeping on the ground tonight.”

He managed to find his phone amongst the wreckage and walked away from us, looking for a place with signal. Luke and I began to sort through what was left of the campsite.

“So, that’s your guy?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“My man,” I corrected. He smiled faintly.

“He’s a bit of an asshole, but I suppose you could do worse.”

I began to sort through the tent poles, sorting the ones carved with runes from the rest of the pile. I knew them when I touched them now, because the latent power in them tingled against my palms.

“At his point, I don’t see how I could have done any better.”

***

I’m sure that in any other circumstance the night would have been miserable. The earth was hard packed and cold. I didn’t even have the long flannel shirts that Chance had allowed me to borrow. They weren’t more than scrap now. We’d been able to salvage most of the tent poles that had been charmed, and they’d done their job in keeping Luke caged.

His snarls continued unabated, and I burrowed deeper into Chance’s fur. He curled his big body around mine. His fur helped to keep the night chill away. And now, with my bear spirit, I could hear and understand him better than I had before.

“Will I be like that?” I asked, flinching away from another vicious roar of sound.

“At first. I will teach you. And if he survives the trial tomorrow, I will teach him as well.”

I stroked his soft fur to calm myself. I needed to sleep. I wasn’t going to miss the trail because I’d overslept. The bear spirit kept me alert enough, I didn’t need to add anxiety on top of that. “How likely is that?”

He didn’t answer for a long time, and I was afraid he’d dozed off.

“I’d give it even odds,” he decided. “It was manslaughter. But the death was very public, and has brought even greater scrutiny upon our communities. The judges of the Thing may be less sympathetic as a result.”

I still didn’t get the Norse justice system. I hadn’t really been a straight A student in history or government, so I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but it seemed like the idea of a separate legal system that operated outside of the jurisdiction of the state wasn’t kosher. Especially since they had the power to dispense capital punishment without supervision.

I gazed up at the moon. Next month, I was going to transform into a beast capable of enormous violence. How would this have played out, if I’d been the one to receive the botched medical procedure? Would the Thing be as eager to put me down, if I’d killed a bunch of small town yokels, instead of a high-profile college athlete? Somehow, I doubted it.

Chance’s companions would arrive in the morning, and we’d have members of the Thing casting their vote and passing sentence via Skype. Damned information age. If they’d had to get off their lazy asses and travel to us, maybe we’d actually have time to think of a defense.

“Sleep, Lucy,” Chance said softly. “I’ll brief you on procedure in the morning. We’ll think of something.”

I let my eyes flutter closed, but an imprint of the moon continued to burn brightly on the inside of my eyelids. I was still limited, still human for now and as unable to affect the outcome of tomorrow’s trial.

Freyr had said I could stop Chance from killing Luke. But that hadn’t been the way it had played out. In the end, I’d stopped Luke and Frigg. So what had that meant? Had Freyr been woefully wrong?

Or was my fight still to come?





Chapter Fourteen


Chance


Darren was passing out doughnuts and coffee to the assembled lawmen. None of us looked good. After three weeks of travel and roughing in the mountains, we all looked worse for wear. I’d sustained the most scars, though not many of the other lawmen seemed to believe me when I’d told them that I’d been attacked by Ulfhednar.