Unbearable Desire (Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance) (Bear Valley Clan Book 1) (2 page)

A fish this early in the springtime was a decadence that couldn't be passed up. Kai,stood perfectly still at the banks of the rushing river.

Across from him, the charred remains of the forest fire stood black and silent. The fire had raged for days, taking with it a large swath of territory of the Falls Creek Clan. Before their hibernation. the rival clan had sent an envoy begging to be allowed into the Bear Valley Clan's territory to forage.

Kai had considered their entreaty coldly. Allowing humans to encroach on their land had been an error that did not deserve mercy. He had half a mind to send the envoy back to his alpha with a bright red claw mark as his answer.  But when he considered it with his human mind, he saw an opportunity for his own clan's gain.

And now that the spring had awakened them, his plan could be put into action.

The cold wind whipped down from the snowy peaks behind him, ruffling his black fur. He lifted his head and sniffed, his alpha senses always on high alert.

He could smell the familiar scents of his territory, a land he knew so well he could identify each rock and twig.  But this breeze brought with it a new scent from up on the peak.

The silvery trout was swimming languidly, stupefied by the cold water. Kai knew that he still needed to be careful.  The long winter had dulled his hunting instincts, and hunger was making him hasty.  He snuffled a little, trying to drive that curious new smell out of his flaring nostrils. It was distracting him.

One broad stroke of his heavy paw and the trout was flopping on the riverbank. Kai snapped it up quickly with his powerful jaws and felt the bones of its spine break in his mouth.

He barely tasted the cold flesh as it slid down the throat. The trout was gone in seconds and it had barely touched his hunger.

Kai padded downward along the banks of the river, his sharp eyes scanning the rushing water for any more lost trout. But it was too early in the season, the spawning wouldn’t happen for at least a moon's cycle from now.

The new scent wafted down again and he lifted his shaggy head from his search.  His bear went on high alert, still rattled from the forest fire the previous autumn. New scents meant trouble.

There shouldn't be anything unfamiliar up on Palmer's Peak. The old woman barely came out of doors any more, and though he had been alarmed when the younger woman appeared one day, she proved to be no threat at all. She stuck close to the cabin, and showed no interest in her surroundings. She was the best kind of human; the kind that was afraid of nature and kept to herself. He had watched her for a few weeks and determined fairly quickly that she posed no threat to his clan or the secrecy they required.

But this new scent was alarming him. Maybe it was because he was in his bear form right now. His human mind was pushed aside, and animal instinct now demanded that he assess the threat. Though his belly twisted with hunger, he stopped just before the rockfall and turned back to look up the peak.

Yes there was something new up there and he needed to know what it was.  Or who. His bear growled low in his throat as he started off, every strand of black fur on his neck standing upright. There was something alien about this scent that frightened his animal. It didn't smell like the intruders, with their unwashed bodies and chemical tang.  It smelled like something else entirely. 

As he loped easily over the hard ground, Kai inhaled deeply, letting it wash over his tongue and fill his lungs. It was unlike anything he had ever smelled before. It seemed to permeate all the cells in his body, enlivening them and waking him from his winter stupor. He found himself moving faster now, driven to find the source of it. His bear was nearing a frenzy, pushing his human further and further to the edge of his mind, his animal completely in charge. His human mind feared what his bear might be capable of doing in such a state. He had never felt himself so utterly lost before.

The easiest way to the top was to take the human's road. It would be dangerous to be out and exposed like that.  Making himself vulnerable went against every alpha instinct he possessed, but speed was more important.  He burst out of the woods onto the gravel surface of the roadway, his winter-weak eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. He ran up the mountain as fast as he could, that scent drawing him closer and closer to the squat cabin that had crowned this peak for nearly a hundred years.

When he reached the clearing, he halted, normal animal caution finally kicking in. That scent was everywhere, clinging to the air and hanging heavy in his nose making him crazy with fear and curiosity all at once. He scrambled into the surrounding woods and peered out at the scene before him.

There was a new vehicle parked by the door of the cabin. The scent hung around it, as did the scent of humans and civilization. So someone had come up from beyond the valley. The notion made him growl low in his throat. Outsiders were a threat and he wasn't one to deal with threats lightly.  He stretched his claws, digging them into the ground he claimed as his own.

But still that scent was driving him crazy. He crept forward, trying to catch a glimpse through the windows.

A shadow flitted past and suddenly everything was clear to him A new human had come to care for the old woman. She was a female, that much was clear by the scent in the air, but there was something more there too. Something so compelling that the world constricted down to a pinpoint when he spied her shape. It was as if the sun had pierced the clouds and showed a ray of light directly down to guide him. Everything inside of him tumbled inward and he suddenly understood the stories of the elders.

His mate.

He was looking at his mate.

Kai sat back on his haunches in confusion. Humans were forbidden to his kind, a taboo born of necessity. It made no sense and yet there was nothing he could do.

A fated mate was undeniable.

Even though I knew I was being ridiculous, there was still a part of me that believed I could bring my Gran back if I just tried hard enough.

My first weeks at the cabin were spent wracking my brain, trying to find that one special meal, word, trinket or song that would snap Gran out of the fog she existed in and bring her back to me. It was hopeless, but I couldn't stop dreaming of the day she would wake up from her stupor and be my Gran again for good. She had to be in there, I just had to draw her out.

I cooked her old favorites, the comfort foods she used to serve Gabby and me when my mother brought us up to visit. Shepherd's pie, chicken and dumplings, pot roasts; all the recipes from her stained cookbooks.  I went back and forth to the market down at the base of the mountain several times a week to procure the ingredients. 

But nothing brought her back.

After a few weeks of frenzied cheer, despair started to set in.  The world outside the cabin had started to shed the stranglehold of winter, but inside the chill still hung in the air. Her brief moment of lucidity in recognizing me that first day was gone, replaced with paranoid silence. Sometimes she spoke and I would rush to her side, but the words were disjointed and made no sense to me.  For about a week I tried writing down what she was saying.

...bear?...

...never leave me...

...should ?...he wasn't for this...world?...

but I abandoned that project in frustration when I couldn't make sense of what she was saying.

It was the misfiring of a diseased brain, nothing more.

The hopelessness that set in was in direct contrast to the beauty around me. The mountains were waking up again, and with them, the birds. On one especially bright morning, I spied a robin in a birch tree flitting from branch to branch outside of the kitchen window. The bird seemed to be considering carefully, and after a while settled on her choice. As I watched, fascinated, the robin started building her nest, flickering back and forth amidst the trees as she gathers twigs and grasses.  Her busy industry made me feel indolent and I turned away restlessly.

As I shuffled about the cabin, the bright sun pierced the thick windows, sending shafts of light into the gloom. Dust motes danced crazily in the beams. I suddenly felt that same frenzied need for movement that I saw in those dancing glints and that busy bird. 

I needed to get out.

My Gran was asleep, her favorite pastime as of late. Her jaw was hanging open and she was breathing easily and deeply. 

I stepped lightly to the front door and grabbed my snow jacket.  Stepping out onto the porch, I felt the bright sunshine hit my face.  The air felt softer and warmer as a gentle breeze picked up my hair in a sweet caress.

As I inhaled deeply, I could smell the world waking up around me. The deep, rich scent of fertile earth, the piney sap of the evergreens and all around me the heady, lung-bursting smell of the chlorophyll awakening in the trees.  It was that magical pause in the seasons, just before the world is fully awake, as the grip of winter eases until it is gone.

I felt so buoyant that I just had to move. Bounding down the steps, I sprang into the muddy earth, which up until a day ago was still frozen solid. Now it had a slight, mushy spring to it and my toes bounced lightly as I tripped across the field and towards the surrounding woods.

I knew these woods. Gabby and I had scoured the land surrounding our grandparents' cabin, ranging far and free.

Though there were no actual trails around the mountain, it was easy to follow the treeline as a guide.  My shoes were in no shape for a big hike, but nothing was stopping me from just getting a little exercise.

I set out, keeping the sun on my left shoulder. I had always had an almost eerie sense of direction. Gabby learned to trust my judgment when we'd go out to play, because no matter how far we roamed, I always brought us safely back home again. Those skills had atrophied somewhat from living beyond the valley, but now that I was back in the woods again, I felt those instincts rushing back to keep me safe.

"Hey bear," I called, clapping my hands. 'Hey bear, hey bear."

Springtime meant the bears were waking up again. The cubs would be small and weak, and the mothers would be fiercely protective. The males would be crazed with the need to mate and I was wandering right into their territory. I knew that the worst thing I could do was to startle one, so I sang out loudly, clapping my hands at intervals as I walked over the uneven earth.

"Hey there beary-bear!" I sang, scanning the trees for movement. 

But I was alone in the woods.  Just me and the liquid trilling of birdcalls.

As I walked, the light breeze puffed against my face, blowing away the cobwebs and staleness in my mind. I patted a boulder as I walked by, the one that Gabby and I had scrambled to the top of a million times before, playing King of the Mountain in our own private forest.  I spotted the charred stump of the tree that had been felled by lightning over a decade ago and smiled to see that the two broken points still looked like cat ears. I knelt down and stared at it, remembering how Gabby and I had spent a day convinced it was a stump-cat about to come to life.  The woods were suffused in emotions and memory, taking me back to happier times. I fell quiet, lost in my reverie.

And that's why I didn't notice the bear until I was nearly on top of him.

It was the biggest black bear I had ever seen. He moved like a massive chunk of the mountain itself, as dark as a shadow. The blackness of his fur was total, a true absence of light.  Only his eyes blazed brightly at me, like amber fire, as we both froze and stared each other down.

My heart thumped wildly as I tried to swallow down the bright, coppery taste of panic that gathered in my throat. "Go away," I called, unzipping my jacket and spreading it out to appear larger.  "Go on now, go away."

The bear looked back at me, unmoved.  If I ran, it would chase me down, I could feel it.  My only hope was to drive it off. 

I stamped my foot on the ground so it would feel the vibrations. "Get out of here, bear!" I shouted, much louder.  "Go away and leave me alone!"

The bear took a step forwards and I screamed.  "Go on now, you're scaring me!"

Instantly the bear froze.  He ducked his head as he backed up.

I stared at the bear uncomprehendingly. Had he understood me? That was crazy talk, and yet the instant I said I was scared, he had backed away. "That's it," I encouraged. "Go back to your den, there's no food up here yet anyway."

The bear ducked his head again, almost like he was nodding.  Like he was agreeing with me. 

I stared at him, awestruck and suddenly I didn't want him to go. Maybe it was the days spent talking to Gran and getting to no response in return. But I suddenly wanted to talk to this bear some more.

"I'm sorry I yelled," I said, feeling stupid.  "Thanks."

My brain was screaming at me to stop.  This was the dumbest thing I had ever done.  The bear paused and looked at me again. "You seem like you want to say something," I said,, hearing mania in my voice."You can talk to me if you want." My brain shrieked in protest as I said that, but I still yammered on, "God knows I could use someone to talk to. Especially someone who understands me."

I don't know what I was expecting. In that moment I could almost imagine that dangerous, wild bear opening his mouth and letting human words tumble out. There was so much behind those amber eyes, so much more intelligence and empathy than I had ever understood in an animal before. This was the closest I had ever been to a bear in my life and the thrill of it was making me crave even closer contact.

But he was backing away, disappearing slowly over a small rise.  His amber eyes were still fixed on me, his huge head bowed in that strange posturing of understanding. I felt my hand lift up of its own accord, wanting to reach out and halt his retreat, but he was already over the hill.

And I was alone once more.

The magic of the woods seemed to dissipate the moment the bear disappeared and suddenly I couldn't stand being alone any more. I turned and trotted back where I had came, my unerring sense of direction leading me right back to the cabin and my self-imposed isolation.