Her Wild Bear Page 9

  Tawny gripped him forcefully, relishing his brute strength. She rocked her body a little faster, keeping her pace loving but eager. She felt him harden within her, his breath growing hotter, his passionate grip around her tightening. The thoughts of him wriggling and crying out from her lashes enflamed her desires. But as she considered her own stripped, exposed body at his mercy, it drove her into a fiery, woozy climax, the wicked thrills fulfilling her needs even if they left her feeling a bit ill.

  He groaned with need and Tawny thrust several times fast and hard to satisfy his unspoken demand, her clit still throbbing with delicious sensitivity. He grunted in relief as he lost himself entirely within her, his muscles shivering, moaning in gratified fervor.

  As she held him quietly, his body lost amid enthralling satisfaction, the idea of having him tied and writhing as she tormented him with her ruthless sexual needs again passed uninvited through her mind, filling her with an uneasy giddiness. She winced, alarmed that she felt such a powerful enticement for something so disturbing, and yet the curiosity brewed, undaunted, deep within her.

  She pulled away from Matt, finding her own footing as he slid out. She looked down at the icy water, sensing its brutality and embarrassed by her own dark needs.

  “Maybe we should get me back into town tomorrow,” she suggested. Her voice was tight. “After all, we’re not planning to visit your mother anyway, right?”

  Matt gave her a startled stare, but she refused to meet his eyes. She briefly glanced up into his face, looking sharply away each time until his gaze drifted into the distance. She kept her head low, but looked up to watch his face falling in despair.

  “Of course,” he said. “Your ankle seems to be okay now, and the killer bear is not what he once was.”

  Tawny scrunched her nose inquisitively, her eyes wet. “What do you mean he’s not what he once was?”

  Matt grimaced, but sighed resignedly. “I just mean he’s not likely to hunt you now. We can set out first thing in the morning. By early afternoon you can have a lunch that isn’t wild meat and nuts.”

  Tawny tried to offer him an apologetic smile, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I liked the nuts and meat,” she assured him. “This whole thing has been a wild, crazy adventure for me, Matt. God, I wouldn’t trade these memories for the world.”

  The woods fell quiet. Matt turned away, climbing reluctantly from the water. “But I’ll probably never see you again. You really don’t know me all that well, right? Or is it more that you finally have gotten to know me and don’t like it?”

  “Matt, please,” Tawny begged as she watched him get dressed again. “Look, it’s true that I don’t know you very well — we’ve practically just met. But that’s not the problem. In fact, I almost feel like we’ve known each other forever.”

  Matt sat himself grimly on the grass, his eyes searching the tree tops. “What is it, then?”

  “I’m discovering that I don’t really know myself — that’s what’s wrong. I’m finding out some things about me and I don’t know if I can deal with them. It’s just... I don’t know that I like who I am when I’m with you. I’m sorry.”

  Matt grumbled, picking up little sticks from the grass and tossing them absently to one side.

  “Hey, we didn’t plan on me moving in or anything anyway, did we?” Tawny persisted. “Wasn’t this the plan all along — you help me get back on me feet and then we go back into town when it’s safe?”

  “Yes, it was,” Matt grunted. “Damn it all, I know that’s the only way we can do this. I never really thought you were going to stay here, Tawny. It’s just...”

  Her heart seemed to stop beating as she watched the words freeze on his tongue. “It’s just what?” she managed to insist, her voice cracking with every word. “What is it?”

  Tawny suddenly found herself longing for nothing else except to hear Matt tell her what he was thinking that very instant. Her world bent and twisted, tying itself to that one moment in time that he would say what she desperately needed to hear.

  “Nothing,” he grumbled, pushing himself to his feet.

  A quiet pain tore at Tawny’s soul. She stared at him in despair, her heart crumbling slowly, solemnly, into small pieces. She watched him gather her clothes for her from where she had dropped them minutes earlier with giggling excitement. She clambered awkwardly from the stream, dressing as Matt turned the other way.

  The walk back to the cabin was sullen and silent. Tawny didn’t dare talk; she could only watch the grief ripping him apart. She cursed at herself, at the vile perversions that haunted her and drove icy wedges between her and Matt. She covered her mouth to stifle a sob, realizing that in less than 24 hours it would all be done.

  “I’ll get us something to eat,” Matt sighed as Tawny stepped up onto the porch. “I’ll try to get us something more appetizing than wild boar. Dinner should be something special tonight.”

  “Matt?” Tawny called to him. He stopped, hesitating with his back to her. “Can I come with you?”

  He grimaced, pain piercing through him. He shook his head with sullen resolve. “No,” he said simply. “No, you can’t. You never will.”

  “Can’t we just stop and talk about this?” Tawny pleaded. “Maybe I was too hasty. I’m just really confused, Matt. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”

  Matt turned to her, his face glum but serene. “But you are right,” he said, managing only a hint of a reassuring smile. “That’s the thing, Tawny. You’re right and I know that. We’re too different.”

  “But — are we really?” Tawny objected. “Are we really all that different that we can’t at least talk about the possibilities?”

  “Yes,” Matt insisted sternly. He turned and plodded toward the trees. “Tomorrow we take you back to where you belong.”

  Chapter 16

  “That’s it!” Kyle spat. He covered his mouth with his hand, trying to force himself to keep quiet. Thomas knelt next to him in the dark soil, peering between the brush. “That’s the cabin.”

  Kyle could see Tawny standing on the porch, leaning over the rail, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed bitterly.

  “Oh my God, what has that animal done to her?” Kyle moaned.

  “She’s alive, isn’t she?” Thomas rested a calming hand on Kyle’s shoulder. But his heart thudded painfully in his chest as the fear shredded him inside.

  “I don’t see the beast,” Kyle said. “He’s not around.”

  “He might be out hunting,” Gary suggested.

  Kyle heard one of the men pull out a handgun and rack the slide to put a round in the chamber. The sound of it sent a chill down his spine.

  “Maybe we should go get her now,” Kyle urged. “If the beast’s not here, isn’t this the best time to save her?”

  Thomas patted Kyle calmly. “Stay cool, Kyle. He could come back at any time. We want to be the ones with the element of surprise here.”

  “But if he’s out hunting he could be gone for hours,” Kyle insisted. “Damn it, Thomas, she’s right there! We’d be gone before he knew what was going on!”

  Thomas shook his head. “That’s the last thing we want right now, trust me. We know what we’re doing here.”

  Kyle grumbled and shifted his weight until he was almost comfortable perched on the damp ground. The sun was drifting lower, the terror of nightfall setting in. The walk home would be in the dark.

  He looked up to watch Tawny. Her shoulders were shaking with a hopeless grief, and Kyle felt his heart melting as he watched her. He longed to run to her, to let her know everything would be alright.

  “There he is,” one of the men whispered, pointing to a trail across the clearing. “The damn thing is carrying a deer!”

  “How did he find a deer, boys?” Thomas asked gruffly. “Haven’t you men been hunting those things out of these woods?”

  “We obviously haven’t gotten them all,” Edward spoke up. “Or this one wandered in from somewhere else.”

  Kyle grabb
ed a hold on Thomas’s sleeve. “You’ve been killing off the deer?” he gasped.

  Thomas laughed. “And the elk, and any other large game we can find. We eat what we can and store as much as we have room for. We don’t want to waste anything unnecessarily, but lately we’ve had to dump most of the kills into the quarry. We’ve been trying to starve this monster out of hiding.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” Kyle exclaimed.

  Thomas nodded solemnly. “We do what needs to be done, Kyle. We’re the only ones who can. Keep in mind that it’s us that are about to save that girl up there; don’t ever forget that. Understand?” His voice was tight with warning. Kyle only nodded, deciding to keep quiet.

  Thomas slid the baseball bats from his shoulder and passed them quietly around. “Okay boys,” he rumbled, motioning with one hand, “it’s now or never. Don’t kill it if you don’t have to.”

  Kyle followed behind, staying close to Gary, as the others raced forward. He watched Tawny’s face as they approached, a sudden terror filling her eyes as they closed in.

  With a painful remorse Matt looked longingly up to Tawny as she stood on the porch. Her eyes were quietly sad, but then raised and widened in fear as she stared out at the forest behind him. It was then that he heard the first scuffing of hurried footsteps and the shallow breathing of desperate men.

  Matt turned and tried to duck the first attack — a baseball bat swung at his face — but he took the brunt of it with his arm and cried out in pain. The men surrounded him quickly, punching and kicking brutally as Tawny screamed in horror. Matt dropped the deer and crumpled to the ground as he took the blunt pounding, too startled to react any other way. He felt his sore body swelling with bruised flesh, but the sound of Tawny’s screams roused an anger that crushed any fear. Against the beating, he pushed himself to his feet and began to retaliate.

  “Tawny!” Kyle yelled.

  But Gary hushed him. “Not yet,” he hissed.

  One of the men charged back toward the woods, blood pouring from his face. Matt tossed another to the ground and he fell limp for a minute before emitting moans of pain. Edward cried out as Matt cracked his arm, and yet another of the men fell unconscious as Matt thudded him in the head.

  “Holy God, he’s strong!” Kyle gasped.

  Gary nodded. “We need to wait until he’s been broken down, then we can get Tawny. It’s not safe until then. The last thing we want is that monster catching up to us on our way back in the dark. We need to know he has no reason to follow us.”

  Kyle swallowed his terror and took a step away.

  Tawny couldn’t hear the fray anymore over her own desperate screams. The army had come from nowhere, charging at Matt with ruthless hatred, and now blood muddied the ground.

  In desperate panic she grabbed a rock and ran at the attackers, but when one of the gruff men punched her in the gut she toppled hapless to the ground, forced to watch as the men brutalized Matt. Each thud of a fist on his body made her stomach sick. “Stop!” she screamed. “You’re killing him! Stop it!”

  Tawny remembered where the rifle leaned against the wall inside the cabin and managed to stumble to her feet. She turned to run inside, but stopped as she heard Matt wailing out in agony. The sound of his tortured cry made every part of her freeze in numbing madness. The world collapsed in around her as she stood dumbfounded and helpless.

  She turned to see the men pinning Matt to the ground, several beating him in the stomach, and one burning Matt’s hand with a cigarette lighter while three men held his arm still. “Oh Jesus!” Tawny fell to her knees, horrified by the relentless brutality. “Jesus Christ!”

  Matt writhed in agony, unable to break free. Then his body convulsed and began to swell up. Tawny watched as his arms and legs enlarged, tearing through his buckskin clothes — and then grew hair.

  Stunned into speechlessness, she watched as the men screeched a retreat and scattered a distance away from what had, just a moment ago, been Matt. A ferocious, haunting roar echoed out against the distant hills, and died off as the bear lurched up onto its hind legs. It swatted threateningly, then dropped to all fours, glowering at its attackers with fierce, black eyes.

  Everything fell silent. Tawny could still hear a low roar in her ears — trauma from the yells and screams. She looked around at the men, a scraggly bunch with crude weapons and unkempt beards. Many were nursing wounds, while several still lay unconscious on the ground. Then she stared in confused dismay at the bear. He looked back at her, his expression falling, his hopes crumbling.

  “Now,” Gary whispered into Kyle’s ear. “Move slowly, but put your arm around the girl and lead her back down along the trail.”

  “By myself?” Kyle whimpered quietly.

  “Yes, now!” Gary insisted.

  “What if the monster kills me?”

  “It’s okay,” Gary mumbled. “We have a plan B.”

  “One where I don’t survive?” Kyle gasped.

  “It’s the one where you fail, yes. Now move!” Gary snapped.

  Matt groaned, the sound becoming a low, guttural growl, seeing Tawny’s shocked face looking back at him. He shifted back to human, standing naked, tears forming in his pleading eyes. He watched Tawny’s tender face, her disappointment and her dread. She shivered and stepped away from him.

  “It’s okay,” Kyle whispered to her, his eyes fixed on Matt. He laid an arm hesitantly around her shoulders. “We need to go. Your parents are looking for you.”

  Tawny let Kyle lead her off, but she couldn’t stop looking at Matt as he stood alone in the mud and stared back at her, until he vanished behind the brush and trees along the trail.

  Thomas pulled the bottles of whiskey from his pack, tossing the lids to the ground and stuffing newspaper into the necks. He lit the paper on fire and threw the bottles against the cabin wall. They shattered into flaming shards that engulfed the dry logs. Matt stood motionless and watched in silence. Two large men grabbed the limp deer and hurried into the woods with it, a trickle of blood from its neck leaving a crimson trail behind.

  Except for grunts of pain, the men were quiet as they marched back toward the town. As the night settled in Tawny began to shake violently. “I’m cold,” she murmured, keeping her head low and her gaze on the ground. Kyle took his coat off and wrapped it around her. It didn’t seem to help.

  A long wailing roar reverberated through the forests, the sound of its tormented loneliness seeping into the world around it. Tawny stopped and turned around, her eyes searching the darkened skies behind them. There was an orange glow to the low-hanging clouds that were gathering overhead — a reflection of the flames from the cabin.

  “There’s nothing back there for you,” Gary told her. “There’s nothing back there you want to be a part of. The important thing is that you’re safe now.”

  Chapter 17

  Tawny shivered violently, her mind reeling with horrified thoughts as the evening crickets serenaded the battalion’s march back into Woods Creek. The only other sounds were the muffled moans of injured men and the occasional breeze in the treetops. The air was warm and humid that night, but still shecouldn’t shake the evil chill she felt in the air, even while wearing Kyle’s coat. As they strode down along the rough and narrow road Kyle took her hand cautiously, leading her into a small stone church building near the edge of town. She felt his touch, his warmth, and yet she had to fight the urge to pull away.

  “You’ll be safe here tonight,” Gary reassured Tawny as she followed the others into the large meeting room. “It’s too late tonight to go anywhere else.”

  “I should call my parents,” Tawny said. She cringed as her voice echoed weakly from the walls. “I imagine they’re worried sick about me.”

  “Your parents will be fine until morning,” Gary spoke in calm tones as he placed a soothing hand on her shoulder. She winced and shrank back involuntarily.

  The air was thick and smothering. Tawny gazed around at the dark walls, the cold hearth, and the shadowy bar
against the far wall. She turned to see Kyle’s concerned face as his eyes studied her. She tried desperately to offer a smile, but found herself struggling against confused tears.

  “How are the others?” she asked him, her voice hoarse.

  Kyle’s expression eased as she spoke. “They’re all okay. No one else was hurt; we’ve just all been searching to find you. And now… here you are.”

  Tawny felt a cold sensation shrivel her insides as she looked around the dingy room once more. “Yes,” she agreed. “I’m here now.”