Unbearable Desire (Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance) (Bear Valley Clan Book 1) (8 page)

Her breathing was slow and even, swishing gently across his ears as he held her closely.  His world was constricted down to a pinpoint now.  There was Noelle and there was nothing else.  No outside world, no clan, no politics, no dissension. No interfering humans hell-bent on destruction. There was nothing but her breath, her body and the slight contented smile that played about her lips as she slept. He watched her in the dark of the cave, the darkness as total as the night's blackness outside of the crack in the rock wall, but his sensitive eyes could still trace every curve of her body. 

As his gaze wandered up her wondrous breasts, he felt the world grow dim for a moment.  Blinking confusedly, he licked his lips only to find his mouth as dry and parched as the desert.

He pushed himself up on to his elbow, hearing his blood thud in his ears.  The darkness swirled around for a second and searing pain shot upward from the wound on his side.

As the pain stabbed through his belly hot and horrible, Noelle's eyes flew open.  "Kai?" she whispered fearfully in the dark.

"Noelle." His words came out in a strangled gasp.  He pinwheeled his hand in front of him, clutching and clawing until he could feel her reassuring presence.

"Holy shit, Kai, you're burning up," she gasped as she touched his tight, fevered skin.

Kai's heart thumped wildly in his chest.  "It is nothing," he lied, gritting his teeth through the pain.

"Like hell it is," Noelle spat.  She sat up in the dark and rooted around on the floor until she found her clothes. "We have to take you to a hospital, now."

"No!" Kai roared. 

She pulled up short and stared at him, her bright eyes shining in the dark. "You were shot, Kai."

"Ayla will heal me," he panted.  "I cannot go into the territory of humans."

"Kai," she whispered, kneeling down close. "I'm human."

He blinked for a moment. "That is different, you are my mate."

"I'm not going to argue with you.  We need to get you out of this dirty, dusty cave. You never even cleaned that wound. Fuck, I am such an idiot." She grabbed her shoes and shoved them on to her feet, then whirled around to face him. The moonlight pouring through the crack in the cave wall illuminated her from behind.  Her silhouette was as fierce and ferocious as any bear's.  Kai bent his head.

"I will go to Ayla," he nodded and pulled himself up to his feet.  The pain caught him, stabbing him in the gut like a twisting knife.  He fell forward and Noelle caught him up in her arms.

"But you must help me," he exhaled and his heart twisted in agony.

It was a silent, strange struggle to move through the woods in the dead at night.  We made a strange team, me relying on Kai's night vision, Kai relying on me to hold his fevered body upright. He moved through the chill air still naked, but that fact didn't even register with me.  What registered was the feverish heat that rose off of his skin in waves.

"Be careful now," he warned, "that root."

Obediently, I lifted my foot, my toe catching against the exposed gnarled root of an ancient, shadowy tree.  The brilliant moonlight could not pierce the canopy above us, and the lower we went in elevation, the more dense the forests became.  I could hear small scurrying noises in the underbrush ahead of us, and the flutter of night wings overhead.  The scent of pine hung heavy in the air, as did the dark, deep scent of the earth.  It could have been almost romantic if I wasn't sick with worry.

Kai wasn't human. I had no idea how to help him when he was hurt.  He had demanded I take him to this woman he called 'Ayla,' and I blindly obeyed, worried enough that I couldn't find it in me to argue with him. Besides, what the heck would a hospital do when he suddenly lost control of himself and turned into a bear?

"We are almost there," he murmured.  His voice was weakening, and thick with pain.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

He heaved a sigh that sounded sorrowful. "My den."

"Your...?"

"We are here."

I could see nothing in the dark.  Nothing but an even darker shadow ahead of me.  Kai limped forward and I scurried to hold him up.

The darkness swallowed us.  I heard soft grunting noises and the deep low rumble of a growl.  "Kai?" I half whispered, half shrieked.

Kai echoed the noise with a rumble of his own.  I felt the air shimmer and vibrate, and then the moonlight caught the silhouette of a man walking out of the shadow.

"Kai?" the man whispered, his voice heavy with sleep. "What has happened?" He looked at me and in the moonlight I could see his face twist into a shocked snarl.  I shrank against Kai.

"Faron, wake Ayla.  I was hurt."

"I will do this," the man he called Faron answered.  "And the human?"

"She stays with me," Kai answered, his voice tight.

"Kai?" I squeaked.

"Please do not speak, Noelle." He clutched me closer and pressed his lips to my hair.  "You must not say more in the human tongue than you absolutely have to."

I bent my head. From the shadows, the form of a small bear lumbered forward, then the air shimmered and a small woman stepped forward.  She was older than me, looking to be the age of my mother when she died, and her face had that same kind of weary kindness.  "Kai," she spoke, but her voice was thick with disuse.  "Is she a human, Kai?"

"Ayla, I was wounded," Kai replied, not answering her question.

Ayla bent to him.  When her thin fingers probed the tight, hot flesh around the gunshot wound, Kai sucked in his breath.  Ayla stood up.  "I know herbs that will draw out the infection," she spoke.  "Let me go get them."

"Go," Kai grunted in a strangled whisper.

She took two steps away from us and suddenly dropped to all fours.  She bounded forward as a bear, disappearing into the night.

Kai sagged against me.  "You need to rest," I told him. "You need to sleep."

"I will do this," he moaned.

The man he called Faron came forward and slung his arm underneath Kai, supporting his other side. "He sleeps over here," he told me, his voice tight and formal. Together we half dragged, half carried Kai to a raised area in the cave. It was strewn with pelts and woven cloth, and Kai collapsed into the makeshift bed.

I stood back up again. "You are human?" Faron asked me, not looking me in the eye.

I bristled. "Is that a problem?"

"I do not know yet," he whispered and turned on his heel, stalking away from me.

"Noelle," Kai's voice was barely above a whisper, but I could still hear him as loudly as if his voice were my own thoughts. 

"I'm here."

"Lie with me?"

I bent down, careful not to jar him, and he folded his arms around me.  The heat wafting off of his body was so intense it was almost scalding, but at the same time, I felt it soothe and penetrate the chill in my body.  I tried to relax against him, certain that I would be kept awake in this strange and alien place, but within a few breaths I had fallen asleep.

The world swam into focus slowly.  The first thing I understood was that I was cold.  Kai's arms had slipped from me in the night.  The second I noticed was that it was light outside the cave.  And the third thing I saw was the figures of seven bears standing just outside of the entrance.

I swallowed back my fear and stepped forward.  "Did you help him? I asked, turning to the smaller female. 

She grunted and tossed her head.  I looked back at where Kai was sleeping and saw that his wound had been skillfully bandaged.  "Thank you," I breathed and the female grunted again, turning her head away. 

"Okay, well that's good then.  I need to be getting back up to my sister now," I said.  The way they were looking at me made me nervous.

The air shimmered slightly and Faron stepped forward. "You may not leave."  The strange formality in his voice was even more pronounce that Kai's.

At his words a chill went up my spine.  "Why not?"

Another bear shifted and the man that stepped forward was stooped over, his belly ringed in bandages and his face scabbed over with fresh claw marks that ringed from his ear up to his cheek.  "It is taboo for a human to know the location of our den," the second bear said. 

"Wait..."

"What is the meaning of this?" Kai had appeared at my side somehow.  When he stepped forward, all the assembled bears and humans bent their heads.  All except the one with the bandages, who only sneered.

"Tell me the penalty for revealing oneself to a human, Kai," the sneering bear spoke, raising his voice for all to hear.  A bear in the back let out a low, panicked whine.

"Dov, you have no right...,"

"Tell me the penalty!"

"She is my mate," Kai protested.

"It is taboo." Dov turned to face the assembled bears, his raspy voice gaining strength.  "It is forbidden.  And the penalty for breaking the taboo is death."

"Stop this!"

The familiar voice rooted me to the spot.  I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't even blink my eyes.  Above me, Kai turned and called behind him, "Gray this is none of your concern."

"It is," the familiar voice replied. I heard footfalls on the stone and I shook myself from my trance and turned to face the man who approached.

"Pa."

Everything about my grandfather was different except for his fierce gray eyes.  The stooped, broken man in front of me in no way resembled the iron strength of the grandfather I remembered.  But his voice was the same and his eyes knew me.

"Noelle," he whispered in a choked voice. "Elliebelle."

"What is the meaning of this, father?" Dov snarled.

"Dov, there were no taboos broken here," my Pa croaked as I stared at him barely comprehending. "Noelle is my granddaughter, your niece." He turned and looked me full-on. "And she is not human."

End of Part One

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