Rock Star Romance: Dan (Contemporary New Adult Rockstar Bad Boy Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 4) (38 page)

Sasha’s nose twitched as a foreign scent caught
his attention. He looked around the woods, grunting to himself as he tried to
identify the person that the scent belonged to. Female, human, fertile; the
thoughts were more impulse than thought in his ursine brain, and Sasha
struggled to bring his human consciousness to the forefront. The scent did not
belong to anyone he knew from the town of Green Tree; that much Sasha was able
to bring himself to think. He opened his mind, finding the warm and comforting
presences of the rest of his clan, scattered through the woods on their own
solitary errands—hunting, enjoying the cool, moist air of springtime or the
glowing moon, some of them foraging.
Stranger,
he thought—the one word a
huge effort. As his human consciousness began to assert itself, Sasha found
thinking in words easier.
Stranger—in the woods. Steer clear.
The Nita
clan had managed to avoid detection from both the town itself and the people of
the area—hikers, conservationists, and loggers—by avoiding them; it was one of
Sasha’s many responsibilities as the Alpha of the group to warn his clan
brethren whenever something like this happened. With any luck, the stranger was
simply lost, would find her way out of the woods and into town, and that would
be the end of it. Someone just passing through; that was the hope that
flickered in Sasha’s mind.

He went back to foraging, thinking in the human
part of his mind about the state of his clan as a whole. Bears—of all of the
types of shifters—had special problems; they didn’t breed quite as ably as the
wolves, or as plentifully as lions, who seemed to constantly be bearing twins.
While they were human, or at least half-human, it seemed to Sasha as if some of
their trouble was the fact that their animal natures were not as easily
reconciled with human living. Bears in the wild were solitary creatures, males
mating with females and then leaving shortly afterward, the young going off on
their own after a few seasons. Werebears like himself and the other men of his
clan were much more social than their strictly-animal counterparts; but they
were still insular.
We will have to reach out to other clans,
Sasha
thought. Fights had started to break out amongst his brothers—it was time for
many of them, particularly for Sasha, to find a mate, and tensions were high,
especially now that spring had arrived. Sasha had had to send away the few
females born into the clan over the years since he had assumed the Alpha title;
they were too closely related to the other members of the clan, and if mating
urges held sway, they would have a high rate of miscarriages and birth defects
in the offspring. Where wild bears mated in a system of serial monogamy,
werebears mated for life, bonding with their mates. It would have been a
disaster for the clan as a whole if Sasha had not sent the women away as they
reached the proper age for mating.

He wandered through the woods, sniffing and
snuffling, considering the problem even as he contemplated what he wanted to
eat. If he wanted to keep the clan stable, he would have to find mates for his
brothers; and in the back of his mind, Sasha knew that some of his temper in
recent weeks had come from his own need to mate. The spring brought it on in
all of them—the drive from their animal minds to take advantage of the
lengthening days and the safety that summer and autumn provided. It wasn’t
something that anyone could avoid, and Sasha knew that sooner or later he would
come up hard against the realities of the situation, if he didn’t take action
now.

As he was contemplating which of the other clans
to approach, the foreign scent filled Sasha’s nose again—stronger this time,
with an undercurrent of fear like burned gunpowder. The scent disrupted Sasha’s
thoughts and he looked around in the darkness. If the woman had come this deep
into the woods, she was lost indeed; he would have to take some kind of action,
and perhaps steer her in another direction, back towards the town.
Has
anyone seen the stranger?
Sasha called out mentally. He needed to place
her—whoever she was—in order to know how to handle the situation. The fear that
Sasha could smell on the woman’s scent was more intense than the simple anxiety
of being lost in the woods, and Sasha had run afoul of wolves in recent weeks,
taking advantage of the improved weather and the better hunting. No wolf pack
would challenge a bear without good reason, but a human was another thing
entirely.

Flickers of thought reached him; Sasha realized
that he had to be the closest to the woman of the members of his clan. He felt
a rising sense of irritation that his time in the woods would be marred by the
necessity of attending to a human woman who didn’t have the sense to avoid
getting lost and exposing herself to the dangers that wild animals presented.
Sasha lumbered in the direction of the scent, grumbling to himself in little
growls as he made his way through the thick underbrush and tightly packed trees.
The last thing he needed on a night like this was to have to steer some woman
back to the road—she’d probably be frightened and scream at him the moment he
showed up. In the distance, Sasha heard the telltale sound of a howl carrying
through the air; the local wolf pack was nearby. He had to get to her quickly.
She’s
about to blunder on wolves,
Sasha thought, projecting his mental voice to
the other members of his clan.
I need some backup. Armand, James, Holt—fall
in with me.
Sasha hurried his movements, torn between the impressive
presence that his bear form would make—a better guarantee of deterring
wolves—and the nimbleness and speed of his human form. Even if the human
stranger irritated him, he didn’t want her to be attacked.

****

“Good God, could I be any stupider?” Alexandra
looked around in a state of barely-suppressed panic at the anonymous woods that
loomed around her. She no longer had any idea whatsoever of where her car was;
the light of a nearly-full moon had seemed enough to guide her steps through
the thickly-wooded area back to the town, but somehow she had managed to
thoroughly lose herself in the black-green depths.
Right, great idea,
talking out loud where the wild animals can hear you,
she thought,
staggering to a stop on the clinging, draping underbrush of the forest as she
thought she heard something like movement. Alexandra turned in a slow circle,
thinking fretfully that even if she wanted to get back to her broken-down car,
she wasn’t likely to be able to retrace her steps.

It had seemed so straightforward when she had left
home that afternoon; Alexandra found an uprooted tree in the silver-tinged
light of the moon and sank down on it, sighing. She had decided that instead of
paying the obscene rate for a train ticket, she would just drive. Her car was
only a few years younger than she was—but it had been behaving itself well, and
it wasn’t as though the drive was across state lines. Alexandra had noticed the
old Volvo beginning to run a little hot in the stop-and-go traffic a few towns
back; but she had hoped when she stopped for dinner that the cool-off time
would help it get through the trek.

She had a job interview in two days’ time; she had
already called ahead to the hotel to let them know that she was running late,
but Alexandra was now feeling as though the possibilities of even getting there
were completely hopeless. The car had overheated right in the midst of the
woods, just a mile or two south of the closest town. While Alex had not been
exactly thrilled at the idea of walking two miles or more to get to the nearest
gas station—and therefore arrange a meeting with a roadside assistance guy—she
had decided that there was nothing else for it, and that she would rather not
spend the rest of the night locked in her car in the middle of nowhere.

Alexandra shivered in the slight chill of the air
as the light breeze dried the sweat on her arms and legs. The woods looked—and
felt—so very forbidding. Every few moments, it seemed, there was the sound of
something moving, and in the distance she had heard the unmistakable howls of a
pack of wolves. As she sat, attempting to figure out what she should do next,
Alexandra heard the sounds of the forest around her starting to rise up a
little more: creaky chirps and buzzing of bugs, an inquiring hoot from an
owl—and in the distance an air-splitting shriek from another nocturnal bird.
She swallowed against the tight dryness in her throat, looking around in the
gloomy, pale light.
If I tried to get back to my car, I’d probably only get
even more hopelessly lost,
Alexandra thought bitterly.
But if I keep
going forward, I’m only going to get more lost, too. Congrats, ‘Lex. Your
options are: lost or lost.
She hugged herself, trying to find
something—anything—she could use as a landmark.

Alexandra’s throat tightened again, and she felt
her eyes stinging as tears began to form, rolling down her cheeks. She was
scared, alone, and tired; and though she hated—hated—to cry, at least there
would be no one there in the woods to hear or see her doing it. She hugged her
knees, slipping down the slightly slick surface of the downed log onto the
ground and began to cry in earnest.
All this because I’m too broke for a
fucking train ticket,
she thought bitterly.

Her sobs were interrupted by another howl, and Alexandra
gulped. “Oh my God,” she whispered, uncurling her body. Her heart beat faster
in her chest; that howl had been much, much closer than the previous ones she
had heard. As if to confirm her suspicion, she heard yips, growls, and
movement—only a dozen yards away at most.

All at once, Alexandra was on her feet, her worry
about her job prospects and the broken-down car evaporating in the face of a
much more important concern. She lurched into a run, not even certain of where
she was going, only completely sure that she needed to do whatever she could to
put distance between herself and the wolf pack. They may not have been hunting
her specifically; but that would not stop them from reacting to her
presence—and her fear—if they stumbled across her. For a few moments, relief
flooded through Alexandra; maybe she would be able to get sufficiently far away
that the wolves would go after something else. Maybe the wolves hadn’t noticed
her at all. Maybe she would find a tree she could climb to keep away from the
pack, long enough for them to lose interest.

Her feet caught on the tough, hard-barked roots of
something—one of the huge, towering trees, Alexandra thought—and she tumbled
down onto the ground in a heap, unable to check her forward momentum or even cushion
her fall. All of the air in her lungs left in a fast whooping noise and
Alexandra’s heart beat even faster as she struggled to regain some oxygen. In
the next instant, pain flared up along her sides, and down somewhere below her
knee, a shockwave echoing the sharp prod from her elbow to her shoulder.
Get
up! Get up! Get up or you’ll be dog food, woman!
Alexandra grabbed weakly
at the slippery, pungent branches of a bush, but to no avail. She could hear
the soft, crunching movements of the wolf pack and let out a low, breathless
groan of dread.

****

Sasha heard the growling barks of the wolves as
the scent of the woman he was tracking intensified. Under the sharp, gunpowder
smell of the stranger’s fear, he could detect the smokier, wetter musk of the wild
wolves, along with a faint wisp of familiar scent from the clan members he had
called to help him. He was getting closer and closer to the strange woman; with
any luck, he and the other members of the clan would get to her before the
wolves did—and while he did not exactly enjoy the prospect of trying to steer
an already frightened woman back towards the main road and out of the woods
while in his bear form, Sasha thought it was at least preferable to the
alternative: letting her be ripped apart by the hungry, opportunistic wolves.

Sasha’s luck ran out no more than a few steps
ahead of him; he was nearing the woman, his three most trusted clan-mates
behind him, when the sound of her screaming split the air. Sasha growled as the
scent of blood filled his nose, washing over the pheromones and scents. One of
the wolves had gotten to her—probably the leader. Sasha hurried his lumbering
steps, lurching through the brush.

He barely made out the shape of human limbs,
curled around a body in an attitude of self-protection, in the midst of a knot
of harrying, growling wolves. His ursine eyes caught flashes of the woman’s
blood from where the wolves had snatched at her arms and legs, spattering
across the forest floor. Behind him, Sasha heard Armand, James, and Holt
lumbering to a stop. He let out a barking, growling bawl—alerting the wolves to
his presence. Behind him, James and Armand let out barks of their own,
reinforcing the presence of superior predators.

The wolves looked up from their attack formation,
their yellow-green eyes glowing in the moonlit darkness, and for a few moments
the Alpha of the pack attempted to stare Sasha down. Sasha’s lips twitched as
he growled once more, moving forward a step or two. Fear-scent filled the air,
and in a few heartbeats the group of about six wolves twitched and sidled their
way away, melting into the brush. The only sign of their existence was the
faint rustle of their movements farther away from the site of their potential
kill.

The woman whimpered, and Sasha looked down at her;
he caught sight of one bright eye, peering up through thrown-up arms, along
with light brown hair. Her clothing was in rags where the wolves had attacked,
her arms and legs marked with jagged slashes and punctures from teeth. Sasha
fell to all fours, grunting and chuffing as he carefully approached the woman.
He could smell the fear-scent recede only to intensify once more as the woman
realized that the wolves were away—but there were larger predators, every bit
as deadly if not more so, converging on her. Her whimpers increased in speed
and raised in pitch and Sasha considered how best to deal with her; her breaths
came faster and faster as panic took over, and from the looks of her injuries,
she would not be capable of just getting up and walking out of the woods, even
with a guard of bears protecting her. He groaned, nosing at her foot, trying to
be as non-threatening as it was possible for a large brown bear to be.

The woman tried to squirm away, gasping and
panting, and Sasha debated the usefulness of transforming into his human form;
on the one hand, she would likely find a human—even a naked human—more
comforting than a bear. On the other, the sight of a bear becoming a human was
likely to make her panic, and of course he and the clan had survived by keeping
their dual natures completely a secret, just like all shifters. The woman let
out an impulsive, instinctive scream and then her entire body went limp in the
underbrush, her arms falling about her head, her legs going slack in the midst of
the low-lying branches and shrubs.

For a moment, Sasha took in the sight of her; the
woman was maybe 5’8”, dressed in jeans and a light sweater—just enough for the
slight chill in the spring air—with soft light brown hair that would have
fallen past her shoulders if it wasn’t scattered amongst the loamy soil and
leaves. He snorted as he peered at her, taking in the lush curves of her body:
full breasts, broad hips, thick, strong thighs wrapped in denim. For a moment,
he felt a flicker of his mating drive starting up; the woman was just exactly
his type, or would have been if she wasn’t foolish enough to get lost in the
woods and attacked by wolves.

Coming to a decision, Sasha realized that she
needed medical attention; one of the other members of the clan, a doctor in the
small town of Green Tree, could see to her wounds—and should. Sasha glanced at
the three clan-mates who had followed him.
Tell the others,
he told the
three mentally, projecting an image of himself in human form, carrying the
woman in the direction of the small town they lived in.
She will need to see
Nathan.
Sasha felt the querying mental touches, the suggestion of
“Couldn’t
we just leave her be?”
that was not quite a complete thought. He shook his
head, letting out a low growl. He wouldn’t leave the woman to be attacked
again; and from the looks of the tears and punctures in her skin, she would
need stitches and other medical attention. She might have been injured even
more than the obvious—he had heard the noise she’d made running through the
forest.

Groaning, Sasha crouched down on the ground and
started the transformation into his human form. His preternatural strength
would make it much easier for him to carry the woman into town, but he would
have to just hope that she would remain unconscious long enough for him to get
to the hollow log where his clothing was secreted. And then too, Sasha thought
bleakly, he would have hell to pay if she woke up before he came up with some
explanation. A more human-sounding groan left his throat as Sasha’s bones
tingled and crackled in his body, shifting and moving. He itched all over as
the fur retreated, as his hands transformed from paws, as every molecule of his
body rearranged itself into a human configuration. For a fleeting moment, he
let himself look at the stranger on the ground, feeling a rush of resentment
that he had to change back into his human form on such short notice, long
before he had wanted to. But it wasn’t her fault ultimately; bad luck could
happen to anyone.
Go back to your foraging,
Sasha told the other three
werebears.
There’s no point in all of us losing the best part of the night.