BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (100 page)

He still felt guilty about that, like their marriage was somehow built on false pretenses. But he did love her, and that was going to make up for it. He swore that it would.

“Because I couldn’t stand the idea of losing you,” he said. “When that leopard attacked…” he stopped his sentence because he didn’t know what to say without it being a lie. But she made of it what she wanted to hear, and she put her head on his shoulder.

“This is scary,” she said. But she was touching him, and he leaned his cheek against her hair. He breathed in and felt the tension in his chest, in his stomach like a fist.

“I know,” he answered. Because it scared the hell out of him, too. “But I’ll keep you safe, away from this world. And we’ll be happy together, you’ll see.”

He promised himself he would make sure of that.

“Tell me about the others,” she finally said. Bruce swallowed hard. How was he going to do this? He wasn’t even supposed to mention them, he shouldn’t have. By doing it he’d put his whole Family in danger. But if he lied to her now? He would lose her for sure. He’d just promised that life with him wasn’t going to be bad. He had to follow through now.

“There are just a handful,” he said. “A few misfits that have been chased from their original packs.”

“How?” she asked, and Bruce was relieved that he didn’t have to go into detail about the Family. The last thing he wanted was for Jenna to know about Tara, what she really was, why they’d really been together. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened four months ago, with the leopard at her throat.

He started explaining to her about the Assassins, because that was one thing she did need to know about, now that she was compromised. And the topic was so much easier than talking about himself, his shifting, or the Family.

“It’s this whole world I know nothing about,” she said after he explained. “I’ve been going through life with my eyes closed.”

“That’s on purpose. Humans aren’t supposed to know about us. There are reasons we stay hidden and try to keep the secrets. Usually when it does happen that a human knows, it doesn’t work well for any of the parties involved.”

The look on her face pulled him up short. “That’s not going to happen with us,” he added quickly. So help him he would keep her safe. She moved toward him more, and he lifted his arm so she could settle against her body. He was going to make sure she was safe, no matter what. As long as she didn’t find out more about the Family, or meet any of them, he might be able to pull it off.

Chapter 4

“Show me your world,” Jenna said. It had taken her a whole week to get used to the idea of being married to a shapeshifter. It wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind – marriage was always something she’d wanted to do, something the girls in town always talked about as they grew up.

And now that her big moment had come, it was a hell of an anti-climax to think that she really didn’t know her new husband at all.

He’d spent a week sleeping on the couch when he was actually home. She knew he went out most nights. She wondered how it would have worked for them to sleep in the same bed as a couple. He would just never be there, and what was the point of that?

They’d been married a week and she felt further from Bruce than she’d ever felt in the five years of friendship they’d shared. Jenna had thought about leaving him – the idea of breaking off their marriage, of losing the man she loved just as she finally had him, mad her sick. So if she wasn’t willing to let him go despite his preternatural issues, then she was going to have to deal with it.

And she’d decided that the only way she was going to be able to do that, was to get so involved in his life that it became normal to her. After all, it was normal to him, so it wasn’t impossible.

“You’re sure you want to know?” Bruce asked. He eyed her like she was going to say no, but she was sure this was what she wanted. She wanted
him
. All of him. Unfortunately that meant she had to take him with his… abilities. But everyone had faults, right? She bit her nails, and she left her dirty clothes on the floor sometimes. And she was fussy about the toilet seat.

She was aware it wasn’t exactly the same thing, but it was the concept that counted. It had to be. Otherwise, if she thought about it too intensely, she was going to run from the cabin screaming.

She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, trying to keep all the parts of her together. She nodded.

“If we’re going to be together, I want to know who you are. I want to know everything about you. Besides, it would be good for me to know what to expect, so little surprises don’t keep popping up.

They both knew the ‘little surprise’ she was referring to wasn’t so little at all – the moment she’d found him in the woods as a bear and watched him shift back to human form.

That had been enough to scar her emotionally, but she was strong. If she could make it through the death of both her parents and a life in the mountains, she could make it through this.

“I want to know who you are. I want to see what your life is like,” she said.

Bruce swallowed and turned his eyes away, fiddled with sleeve of his jacket, ironed out invisible creases on the bed, looked anywhere but at Jenna.

“What do you have to hide?” she asked.

He finally looked at her and his eyes were very dark. She thought about all the times she’d thought he looked rough and wild, and she started to understand why.

“I just don’t think it’s such a good idea. I’ve spent my whole life hiding for a reason. People just don’t like what they see when it comes down to shapeshifters. No one likes the idea of brushing shoulders with wild animals, with abominations. To be honest with you, I wasn’t even going to tell you.”

That made Jenna angry. She was upset about the fact that he was willing to keep secrets from her. Secrets that weren’t small.

“Well,” she said and her voice was hard. Good. “It’s not like that worked out for you. I know now, so we need to take the next step.”

“I just don’t want you to see me as a monster,” Bruce said and when he looked at Jenna again his eyes were softer, his face was set with lines of worry. The anger melted away when she saw him, and she leaned toward him until her forehead rested on his shoulder.

“Maybe if I get used to it, if I get to know it, it will just be another part of you, another part that I love.”

It would take time, she knew, but she wanted that with him. He took a deep breath and she could feel him shudder, the weight of what was happening rippling through his body. Or maybe it was something else, like the bear that he had inside of him. She suddenly wasn’t sure.

“I want to meet your pack,” Jenna said after a moment of silence.

Bruce’s head snapped up to her and the atmosphere in the room changed. It became intense and in a way threatening. Jenna felt like she wanted to cower away from Bruce, shrink back in on herself, but she fought the urge.

She asked for this.

“You can never, ever meet the pack,” he said, and his voice was very low and it sounded like a growl rolled from his throat.

“I just want to get to know you better, get to know your life,” Jenna said. She realized she was leaning back, away from Bruce, even though she’d tried not to change her position.

“This is dangerous, Jenna. This isn’t a game, and if they see you…” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath like he was trying to calm himself down. “I can’t introduce you to them.”

Jenna nodded, but she was upset. She’d done her part. She was reaching out to him. She was asking him to show her his world. She could have kept running when she’d seen him. She could have alerted the village. She could have decided to leave him, and maybe one day married someone else. Someone normal.

But she didn’t. She’d chosen to stay by his side. That was what she’d promised at the altar, wasn’t it? That she would stick by him through thick and thin? Well, this was a very good test of her vows to him.

And he was just locking her out, pushing her away.

“Look, why don’t we go out to the café for supper?” Bruce asked, and his voice was light. Jenna could almost feel his effort to bring everything back to normal again, feel him pushing against the atmosphere so that it would let up.

She was relieved that he’d done that – he was scary in a way – but she wasn’t happy. He was shutting her out.

“I’m trying my best here, Bruce,” she said.

He nodded. “I know. But let’s just take this one day at a time, okay? There’s no need to rush into family meetings and reunions and things. Let’s just keep it simple.”

Right, like life with him was going to be simple. She wanted to argue, but instead she just nodded in agreement and they got ready to go.

The night was beautiful when they walked back to the cabin. The meal had gone well, there had been villagers stopping by congratulating the happy couple, there had been friends giving them warm smiles. It had felt the way that it should have been. The way that Jenna imagined it would be when she was married.

But the thought of Bruce as a bear lingered at the back of her mind and tainted the whole night with a shadow. As they walked hand in hand down the winding road that led home, she looked up. The moon was almost full, and there were so many stars it wasn’t necessary for any artificial light.

Jenna thought of the moon and turned her head to Bruce.

“Does the moon get to you?” she asked.

Bruce shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“I’ve heard stories. Does it affect you when it’s fuller.”

He nodded. He didn’t want to talk about it, so she stopped asking. He wasn’t going to give her more than one word answers. She sighed and let go of Bruce’s hand. He glanced at her when she did, but they kept walking and he didn’t say anything. She’d half-hoped he would. She wanted a reaction from him, anything other than this locked down version he was giving her.

When they got to the house he unlocked the door.

“I’m going to head out,” he said in a distant voice. When Jenna turned he was already looking into the trees and he had longing on his face.

“You’re not going to spend time with me?” she asked. He looked at her but his eyes were glassy.

“I have to go,” he said.

Jenna nodded and the moment her head moved he headed off into the trees. He didn’t even say goodbye. It was as if something was pulling at him, drawing him away from her.

And she was curious.

She only took a moment to argue with herself about it before she swapped her jacket for a thicker coat. She glanced around the edge of the house and into the trees. She could see Bruce walked away, weaving through the trunks. She stepped pulled the door closed and waited just a moment before she, too, stepped into the trees.

She followed him, staying far enough behind that he wouldn’t see her. There were times where she thought she’d lost him, but then she saw him again and kept going. She hoped he wouldn’t hear her, or smell her. It made sense that his senses would be sharper, although she wasn’t sure.

After what felt like half an hour of walking he came a pile of boulders that were enormous. She’d never been this far past the village. Bruce climbed up easily and disappeared over the top.

Jenna walked up to the rocks and ran her hands over it. The rocks were smooth and high – much higher than she’d thought. How had Bruce done it?

She tried, but slipped and nearly fell. Two more times and she realized there was no way she was going to get up there with just normal human strength. She stepped back and she was just about to give up, when a crack between to boulders caught her attention.

It was very thin and narrow, and dirt was wedged in there. She tested it with her foot, and it was almost too narrow for her toes, but she managed to get a hold.

A small rock jutted out, just low enough to grab on, and she hoisted herself up. It took her a while, but finally she managed to drag herself onto the top of the rock.

She’d lost a lot of time and there was no way she was going to catch up to Bruce now. She might as well have turned around. But when she looked out over the other side of the boulders, something in the air tugged at her. It was a cross between the feeling she’d had when she’d found Bruce first, and something else that she couldn’t place. Something different – she wanted to say magical.

She slid down to the ground on the other side, which was quite a bit higher than where she’d started. There was only one path that lead through the boulders and rocks, strewn like someone had dropped them. She followed it up the side of the mountain.

As she climbed higher and higher, the atmosphere kept changing. She felt like she wasn’t just leaving the valley and Williamsburg behind, but also reality. The air had a tingle to it, and she got goosebumps. It felt like feathers running over her skin and when she breathed it was so thick, like she was underwater.

She climbed higher and higher, the trees changing, smooth trunks becoming tangled and knotted, like they were wrestling with something. There were no night sounds – no sounds of birds or mountain animals. It was eerily quiet and Jenna could hear her own heart hammering in her chest.

She followed the pull as far as she went, and at some point she stopped climbing up. Instead she changed course and started moving horizontally across the mountain. She crossed a thin stream with water that felt like ice when she stopped to take a drink. Her legs screamed at her, the muscles aching from the awkward angle she’d been climbing for so long. Her chest cramped from the air she was breathing like it was something her body wanted to reject, and a voice at the back of her head told her to turn around and go home.

But the tug was stronger, it pulled her forward. It felt like she was attached to something with a chord that wound into her belly, just beneath her ribs, and she followed it like she was a puppet on a string.

The mountainside suddenly flattened out. The trees got denser again, and there were times where she had to squeeze between trunks so close together she was scared she was going to get stuck.

But she made it through every time.

She started hearing things. She turned her head, sure it was the wind, but a moment later she heard it again. A soft murmur, like a voice. No, not just one. There were more. She turned her head, and when the wind died down she heard it better. Men and women talking, the sounds floated to her but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

She couldn’t see them, either, but the sounds came from ahead. It was the same direction the pull came from, and she followed the voices. She had to squeeze through more trees, but then the trees suddenly thinned out, and she found herself on the edge of a plateau that stretched ahead, bare and empty with no trees, and the disappeared into nothing.

It must have been a cliff on the other side. She would be able to see for miles if she stood at the edge, she thought.

She heard the voices again, and held her breath. People appeared to her side. A big man with dark hair and blue eyes that almost glowed. A small, light-haired woman with dark eyes walked next to him. They were absolute opposites, but somehow they looked the same. They moved with the same fluid grace, and even though they weren’t touching each other, Jenna got the idea that they were a couple.

Another woman stepped into the clearing, a woman that didn’t look much like a woman at all, although Jenna knew she wasn’t a man. She carried herself like one though, and she was muscular with sharp, hard angles that weren’t feminine at all.

The most ordinary man followed with a dark ponytail, and then a light, small little guy with pale hair and eyes. He looked the size of a child, although there was something about the way he walked that suggested he was old. Very, very old.

And then it was Bruce.