Bearly Hanging On (The Jamesburg Shifters #6)(60)
At least she had the views.
It never failed to amaze Jamie, the way the world looked as she swooped to and fro, lazily watching the sun begin its descent along horizon. As the day wore on, she started to worry - not about Ryan, particularly, but that she had no way at all to find him.
One thing about Erik's slightly-offensive assumption that she could magically track those with whom she'd shared an intimate vampire moment was that she was able to get a vague sense when one of them was near. Problem is that it didn't exactly work like a Lo-Jack. She had to find the person or, well, cow, and then she could feel a little tingle in her chest, a flutter in her nose when they were near.
If she had no clue at all where to hunt them down, that didn't do a whole lot of good. Anything would be good. Any kind of direction or clue. Any kind of idea, which she was totally, completely lacking.
Teddy Roosevelt never saw the world like this, Jamie thought as the cold air of looming dusk whipped across the thin membranes of her wings. If he did, there probably wouldn't be much of anything left alive. He probably could have found Bigfoot.
The night creatures began to make themselves known. Fireflies, with their flickering tail lights, which by the way, make a sound like a light switch going off and on, but only if you have ears like Jamie's. To her, the night time was a chorus of songs, overlapping and intertwining, that become a symphony of chaos with a pattern all its own.
Along the Greater James River she silently swung, her ears filled with the click-clack of crawdad claws, the flapping of jumping trout readying themselves for a journey away from the creeping cold, and more than anything, the increasingly intent song of bullfrogs from the marshy banks that edged up to the forest she'd known for most of her life.
She dipped below the tree-line, pulling back her wings and zooming through the branches. The Douglas fir needles brushing her skin reminded her of the tender caresses Ryan gave her when they stole time away. She thought about the one time they'd been able to get alone for long enough for her to touch him the same way, to act out those dreams she'd had. She wanted it again - needed it again - needed to feel his fingers, taste his lips.
Not long, we'll be together again. Keep focused, keep from thinking about all that, she told herself. Keep focused and look. He can't be too far away. Bears don't like getting too far from home, even if there is someone after him.
Problem is, finding someone without any clue where they might be is a hell of a lot harder than—
"Wait!" Jamie said, snapping to attention as a thought occurred. "They'd know where he went. Boston, Cora, Marmite, someone must know where he went. Or at least have more of a clue than I do."
She dove shortly and then opened her wings, catching a gust and shooting back up into the sky. She passed in front of the moon, staring momentarily into the shimmering, samite-like light, letting the cool night bathe her skin the way she wished for Ryan's kisses to do. She turned her head west, and squinted to find the hidden compound.
The trail of moonlight shimmering over the tops of the pines led from where she flapped, bobbing up and down in the night, all the way to where she hoped she'd find some answers. And if nothing else, I can see what Erik's done. I can't believe he's actually putting himself out like this, she thought. But damn if he doesn't always come through when it matters most.
In the distance, about thirty miles from where she was, she could pick up vague sounds through the forest cacophony, if she tilted her head and focused just right. Something was going on down there, so if nothing else, she was going to get a story.
*
"You find him?" Erik called out as Jamie patted to a stop behind him, trotting until her momentum slowed. Erik was shirtless, of course, and pounding away on the side of one of the shacks.
"No," she said. "Looking still, that's why I'm here. Are you... patching a hole?"
"Nope," Erik said with a grunt of effort. "Replacing studs. This roof collapsed, and, er, well, it's a good thing we know them."
Looking past the straining alpha, Jamie caught a glimpse of Atlas and Sara holding the entire roof of the small house, high enough in the air for Erik to get the studs back in place. Ash Morgan, Rex Lee, and West, three of Jamesburg's biggest bears, were cramming support beams between the floor and the ceiling, while Lilah Lee corralled a bunch of screeching pups, kits and cubs.
"Town's all here, huh?" Jamie asked, slightly incredulous. "Holy shit, is that Leon?"
Sure enough, the town drunk-cum-salamander was hauling buckets of water up from a well and pouring them into massive barrels near each dwelling place.
"Jamie," the salamander nodded, suspiciously sober. "Evenin'."
"Er, hey Leon," she said, before turning back to Erik. "What the hell did you do? How did... you didn't threaten to cancel Christmas again, did you?"
"No," he said, as he delivered a final mallet blow that sunk a stud right into place. "Thanksgiving this time."
"Ha-ha," Jamie mocked him. "But seriously, how did you convince all these people to come out here? It's like one of those town dances we used to have before—"
"Heya, heya, heya, heya, heya," Jamie heard. The voices came in increasing pitch, and when she wheeled around, she noticed that the Duncans, Jamesburg's normally-reclusive corgi family, had even showed up. In front was the father, behind him, their mother, and then their three pups in, of course, sequential order. Each of them carried some kind of animal - chicken, lamb, one of them even had a goat.