Once Upon a Shifter (127 page)

Alexi reached out and touched his shoulder and he flinched. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He had a long, nasty gash on his nose. His chest was raked with claw marks, with blood gushing down his skin.

“We have to go,” he said, with a strained, raspy voice.

“Your chest…”

“Will heal. I have to get you out of here. Back to the crew.”

He lifted her up in his hands and ran down the mountain. He ran fast and nimble, leaping over logs and ducking under trees, protecting Alexi from the branches with his body.

He was moving so fast. She closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting for the painful fall that never came. The ground evened out and before long they were back at the camp with Beckett running over and trying to take her from Ellis’ arms. He refused and carried her to her cabin. He opened the door and placed her on her bed.

“Are you okay?” he asked, cupping her cheek.

“I’m more worried about you,” she said, sitting up and looking at his chest. His wounds were healed. All that was left was a red line and dried blood.
How is that possible?

“I guess I have some explaining to do,” he said, covering his lower half with the blanket.

“A little bit.”

“I’m a bear shifter,” he said. “We all are.”

“You’re a werebear?” she asked in shock. She had heard the legends of shifters but she thought they were just fantasy. As real as the Easter Bunny, leprechauns or Kanye West’s over-inflated sense of self-importance.

She brushed her fingertips over the healed cuts on his chest, that minutes ago were bleeding profusely. “How could I not have seen it before? The changing color eyes, your unnatural strength, Barbara scaring those two guys off and her shredded clothes after. It all makes sense.”

“Are you angry?” he asked.

She shook her head and ran her fingers down his bicep. “I think it’s cool. Sexy.”

Redness flushed up his neck.

“How did you become a werebear?”

His tense shoulders relaxed. “I was born one. We all were. But you can also be turned.”

“Turned?”

“If you found a true mate for life you can be turned. But it’s dangerous. It takes a strong human to be able to stand a transformation.”

“The Flint Crew. Are they all bear shifters too?”

He nodded. “But don’t worry. As long as you’re here. You’ll be safe.”

“But you won’t,” she said. She felt awful that he got into a fight for her and almost died. She traced the new scar along his nose. What if they came back and he didn’t survive this time. What if Keene or Quint or Beckett got hurt, or worse…

She wouldn’t be able to live with herself. She knew Greg and once he wanted something he stopped at nothing to get it. He would be back and he would come to win. He might have fifty werebears on his payroll. Maybe even more. The Hudson Crew would never be safe as long as she was here. There was only one thing she could do to protect them. To repay their friendship.

She would have to leave.

Alexi woke up in the middle of the night.
How do you sneak away from a pack of werebears?
It turns out that it was easier than she thought.

Keene snored so loudly that they all seemed to be heavy sleepers. She tiptoed down the steps of her front stoop, avoiding the stair that creaked, and sneaked past Keene’s vibrating cabin. It sounded like someone was holding a megaphone to a bulldozer in there.

When she was far enough away from the cabins she turned and took one last look. She zeroed in on Ellis’ cabin and held her bag to her aching chest.
I didn’t want it to be this way
, she told him in her mind.
I love you. That’s why I have to go.

She turned and quietly opened her car door. She stepped into her expensive Lexus, a gift from Greg, and looked at herself in the review mirror. She swallowed hard and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Not now. You can fall apart later.

She turned the key in the ignition and, once again, drove away to a life on the run.

nine

Ellis leapt out of bed in excitement and rushed out the door. He sniffed the air as he jumped down the steps of his cabin.
Her smell is weaker.
A twinge of panic hit him.

He ran around back, careful not to make too much noise. He didn’t want to wake his sleeping beauty. He jumped up to look through the tiny bedroom window. Her bed was empty and already made.

Her bed is never made.

He ran to the front door and knocked. His bear was groaning inside as if something was wrong. He listened to hear her footsteps or fumbling around inside but there was only silence.

He opened the door. “Alexi?”

His mouth and shoulders dropped as all evidence of her existence had disappeared. Her dirty clothes no longer littered the floor and her open suitcase was missing from the couch.

There was a letter on the bedside table.

Ellis’ stomach rolled and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He held his breath, shuffled over to the table and picked up the letter. It smelled like her. It smelled like sadness.

Dear Ellis,

These last few days with you have been the happiest of my life.

But my past is chasing me and I can’t put you or your brothers in the crosshairs of my mistakes. The only thing that I want more than to be with you is to see you safe.

I’m sorry.

Love

A

The fire alarm sounded as Ellis crumpled up the paper and collapsed on the bed.

“Ready in sixty,” Matteo yelled from outside. The engine of the plane started in the distance.

Ellis shuffled down the steps of the cabin like a zombie with a broken heart.

Shit.
Alexi glanced in her rear view mirror at the flashing police lights.
I wasn’t even speeding.

She pulled to the side of the road, driving over shrubs coated by early morning dew, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn’t as good looking as she was in her early twenties but maybe she could still try charming the cop.

An older man, with a large, round hat and a Sheriff’s badge pinned to his chest, stepped out of the car and approached her.

She rolled down the window and greeted him with her best smile.

“Are you Alexi Winters?” he asked.

Her mouth dropped.

“Turn the car off.”

Ellis buckled up his fire retardant suit as he stared at the wall of the plane with glazed over eyes.

“I’m sorry buddy,” Keene whispered, tapping him on the shoulder.

Ellis stared at the ground and nodded.

How could she leave?
Until he was with her he never realized that life could be that good. And until she left he never realized that life could be this hard.

“This is a big one,” Beckett said, standing in the plane. “We’re going to have to work together to put this one out. The trees are dry down there, the winds are picking up and its spreading fast.”

Beckett approached Ellis and leaned into his ear. “You can sit this one out if you have to,” he whispered.

Ellis shook his head. “I’m with you guys. I’m sorry I was so uncooperative in the past Beckett. I was just…” He looked at his brother with sad, tired eyes. “She changed everything for me. She made me see. From now on I’ll follow orders.”

Beckett squeezed Ellis’ arm and nodded. He stood up and looked out the open door of the plane. “Out in five!”

“Am I under arrest?” Alexi yelled through the steel bars of the holding cell. Nobody answered.

The Sheriff had handcuffed her as soon as she stepped out of her car and brought her to a holding cell in the small police station. The building consisted of a tiny office with stacks of papers piled on the desk and a dying yellow plant in the corner, a bathroom and a holding cell, which looked like a closet with a steel bar door.

The Sheriff had locked her inside, refusing to answer any of her questions or acknowledge her request for a lawyer. It was illegal to hold her here without just cause but these small town Sheriffs played by their own rules. She shook the bars in frustration. The Sheriff sat as his desk playing Solitaire on the computer. He didn’t look up.

She sat down on the wooden bench against the wall. Her stomach grumbled. She had been there for at least three hours, without a snack or even a glass of water.

“Are you going to let me starve in here?” she yelled.

He didn’t look up.

A bell sounded as the front door of the station opened. “Help, help,” Alexi yelled, shaking the bars. “I’ve been kidnapped!”

A man wearing a suit walked into the station and grinned at her.
No. No.
She stepped back until she hit the back wall.
How did he find me?
She had a feeling that Greg was behind this but seeing his face in person made her stomach rock hard.

“Well if it isn’t my fiancee,” he said, approaching her, stroking the stubble on his big jaw. He smiled, flashing his dimples that used to make her smile. Now they made her sick. She was suddenly glad that she was locked behind steel bars where he couldn’t get to her.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. His large muscles bulged through his suit jacket.

“I don’t want to be with you,” she said. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“I can’t. You’re my mate.” He turned away from her and walked over to the Sheriff who was standing at the entrance to his office.

“Good job,” he said, handing over a thick envelope.

A smile broke out across the Sheriff’s yellow-skinned, wrinkled face. He stuffed the envelope into his desk drawer and walked over, fumbling with the keys.

“Yes good job
Sheriff
,” Alexi said sarcastically. “Way to protect the innocent.”

He shrugged and opened the door.

Greg grinned as he approached her. “You’re going to pay for embarrassing me.”