Chapter Eleven – Cynthia

She had been afraid that they were going to lock her up, but they didn’t. The four huge men, with Rex riding his bike behind them, drove her into town and put her in a house there. It was a very nice place, a little dated but in good repair. She paced up and down the bedroom upstairs. Occasional murmured voices or angry words made their way to her, but not enough for her to make any sense of it.

They were bears. They could turn into bears. She was on an island full of bear shifters. Her mind churned over this fact, unable to really process it. How was it possible? Was it some sort of government experiment?

She glanced at the window. It was standard, didn’t look like it was nailed shut or anything. If she opened it and was able to lower herself to the ground… what would she do? Hit the ground running and run all the way to the ocean before she was caught and dragged back?

No. There was no point in running away. She had to stay here, watch carefully, and figure out what to do. They weren’t going to hurt her. At least, she didn’t think they would hurt her.

If she left, though, then James Smith would have access to her again. She didn’t know if he had meant to hurt her or not on that road, but the hatred in his eyes made her shiver. If there were people to fear on this island, he certainly was one of them.

She glanced down at her hands and wrists. Small bruises were starting to form where she had beaten the cellar door. A shiver ran down her spine. The way he’d thrown her around like a ragdoll… he hadn’t meant to hurt her, she knew that in her gut, but he could have. He didn’t, but he could have.

With a shaky breath, Cynthia wrapped her arms around her middle. She felt bad that she had freaked out so badly in front of Tamara. Despite it all, she couldn’t forget the excited look on the little girl’s face before she started to shift. And Cynthia had responded by screaming. It was perfectly reasonable to freak out like she had to see a person turn into a bear before her eyes, but it was Tamara. Her reaction had frightened the little girl…

Maybe it’s not real, she thought, pinching her arm. “Maybe this is just a dream.” The pinch hurt and she winced. “Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe there are no bears. Maybe I need to be locked away in a white padded room. Maybe I’m on drugs and I don’t know it.”

Maybe James Smith was a drug dealer who had drugged her.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and she froze, eyes locked on the door. There was a knock, and then an impatient huff and the door swung open. Rex stood on the other side, accompanied by a well-dressed, black-haired man. He smiled softly at her as he stepped in.

“I don’t believe we were properly introduced. My name is Kurtis.” His arms were held loosely at his side, his whole posture relaxed and non-threatening. “I’m sure that you have a lot of questions that you would like answered.”

“Not really.” Cynthia shook her head. There were plenty of questions, but she didn’t want to stick around to have them answered. “I just want to go home.”

Kurtis’ smile faltered. “Like we said before, we can’t let you go just yet. I’m sorry, I know it’s not what you want to hear.”

“You have no right to keep me a prisoner, I have done nothing wrong!”

Kurtis nodded slowly. “That is very true. You haven’t done anything wrong. If people were to find out about us, though, it could mean the end of our way of life—our very existence. We just want to make sure you understand the significance of keeping our secret. In the meantime, Rex here has volunteered to let you stay with him. You don’t have to. You could stay here, or we could get you a hotel room.”

Cynthia glanced at Rex’s hopeful expression. She rubbed her arms. He had been very angry that Tyrell had locked her up. And earlier he had said he loved her…

Was there more to him than she realized? Could it be that he really did care, and it had nothing to do with Tyrell? If there was anything she knew, though, it was that he wasn’t going to hurt her. He wanted to see her safe. She chewed on her lip, wondering if it was a good idea, but found the idea of sitting in a house or hotel all by herself too much to bear.

She nodded. “I would like that.”

Rex’s smile widened. He strode in and reached for her hand. “Thank you, Cynthia. For trusting me.”

She nodded stiffly, uncertain how else to respond.

“Good. Then you may leave. Just don’t leave the island,” Kurtis said. “We are looking for James Smith. He’s gone on the lamb, but there are only so many hiding places on the island. Once he’s dealt with, then we can revisit the issue again.”

She nodded once more. Rex grabbed her suitcase and walked her down to his motorbike. Looking at it and then at her suitcase, he frowned. Behind him, Kurtis took the case and said they’d make sure she got it. Rex then handed her a helmet and jumped onto the bike. Cynthia climbed on after him. He was strong and heavily muscled as she wrapped her arms around him, but all she could think of was how Tyrell felt in her arms.

She didn’t even realize they were headed to the docks until Rex parked the bike right beside his boat. She blinked in surprise, jaw hanging open.

“Let me get that.” Rex helped her take off the helmet, then lifted her off the bike. Within a few moments, they were on the boat, headed away from the island and to the open ocean.

“Wait.” Cynthia finally found her voice as she moved back, closer to where Rex steered the boat. “I thought that Kurtis told us not to leave the island.”

Rex snorted. “Kurtis is not my alpha.”

Alpha.

Cynthia pushed aside the strange term, instead focusing on where they were going. She wasn’t sure which way exactly would take them to the mainland, but her heart lifted all the same. Rex wasn’t going to hold her prisoner here. Even if she didn’t have her suitcase of belongings, it hardly mattered. He was going to take her far, far away from the bears and from the memories of Tyrell and the passion that had been between them.

Her heart sunk just as rapidly as it had risen when Rex turned off the boat. They bobbed on the waves and she eyed him warily.

“You don’t have to look like I’m going to eat you,” he said with a small laugh. “I just wanted to be certain that we could talk privately. I know that things can be stifling on the island. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. Sometimes it feels like you can’t take a piss without being asked what volume you got.”

That managed to bring forward a laugh as Cynthia imagined someone doing just that.

Rex smiled at her. “I know it’s a shock. We don’t get a lot of non-shifters out here and honestly… we live in fear of the day when humans find out. There’s a reason we isolated ourselves like this. Our ancestors… Well, let’s say we lost a lot of people in Salem.”

Cynthia winced at that. She could understand why they would be afraid—look at how she had reacted! She could only imagine how much worse it would be if it was somebody with a gun and a need to feel superior to others.

“Sit down,” she encouraged, patting the spot beside her.

Rex sat, his smile broadening now.

“This doesn’t mean that anything is happening here.”

His smile faded but he brushed it off. “I know. The last thing you need is more complications… Tyrell should never have let it gotten this far, for you to get this involved before finding out. It’s just the sort of—” He cut himself off and cleared his throat. “This isn’t about him… but is it true that Tamara shifted?”

Eagerness shone from his eyes. Cynthia glanced away. Tyrell had said that he didn’t want Rex around Tamara because of his negativity. He also said that he had started to look for ways of getting Rex into counseling so that he could be part of Tamara’s life again. Tyrell had also shoved her into a root cellar and locked her in there. What sort of man did that? Did he deserve to have sole custody of a little girl?

He should have told her. He should have sat down and explained things to her, or never have hired her in the first place. He had lied to her, the entire time that they were sleeping together. What sort of man did that?

“Yes,” she said slowly in answer to Rex’s question. “She did. And I reacted badly… I was just so frightened. This little girl that I’ve been watching for the past few months turned into a bear right before me, and now I find out… can you?”

Rex nodded seriously. “I turn into a rather lovely polar bear. But if you think that our bears make us more violent or anything, they don’t.”

She shuddered. “James Smith was going to attack me.”

“And if I find him, he’ll pay for it.” Rex’s eyes darkened. “He’s a real creep. I’ve always thought so. He wants to have a system where females and males are paired based on strength rather than letting us choose our own mates. He was furious when the alphas mated a human. Ever since you arrived, he’s been ranting about humans and… well… he’s a creep.”

Cynthia shivered. That was certainly one way to put it.

“Anyway,” Rex continued, “when we are in our bear forms, we’re in full control, just as we are in our human forms. There are… certain things that are different between us and humans, I suppose. We have very strong instincts. For instance, mine was telling me to go out to the Jarvis farm before I even knew… what happened.”

“Right...”

Rex peered at her for a long moment before he sighed. “Look. I’m not going to lie. I want you to stay, Cynthia. I want you to stay on the island and adjust to, you know, everything. But if you want to leave, I will take you to the mainland.”

Her head jerked up and her eyes widened. “You will?”

“Yes. But...” He took her hand. “Please stay.”

Because he thought he loved her? She searched his eyes, looking for any sort of indication of his state of mind. Was he doing this to win her affection? But when she looked into his eyes, he seemed to be completely genuine. She released a shaky breath as her shoulders slumped.

“Why?”

He glanced away, his cheeks coloring. “Why?”

“Why do you want me to stay?”

He took a deep breath. “I told you that I love you.”

“And I told you that you can’t love me because you don’t know me.”

Rex fidgeted, picking at a lose thread in his jeans. “I didn’t really understand what you meant when you said that.”

“I meant that you don’t know me. You can’t love someone who you don’t know, Rex. It’s just not possible.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No.”

He looked up at her again, his gaze intense, something burning in his eyes. “Well… maybe not for you humans. Maybe you don’t have the instincts to know your mate just from sight… smell… It’s different for us bears, you know. Bears, we can know on sight. My parents got married after they had known each other for a day because they knew they were meant for each other. That’s the way it is among us bears.”

She opened her mouth to say that she doubted that it was but closed it again. They could turn into bears. She knew absolutely nothing about them as a people or a culture.

An unexpected pang hit her in the stomach. She had thought that the island was strange. People were a lot closer than she expected. Their views on sex were much more open than she had been used to. They shared land and resources communally to a large extent—nobody on the island went hungry. She had told Tyrell more than once about how much she loved it here, how at home it felt. And he had not once even hinted that there was something more going on. It made her heart ache as much as it made her angry. Why didn’t he trust her?

“Cynthia?” Rex frowned at her. “Are you listening?”

Shit, he had been talking. “Sorry. I got caught up in my own head. What were you saying?”

Rex frowned but didn’t comment. “I said that bears fall in love much quicker than humans seem to. We don’t have to spend a lot of time together in order to get to know one another. And you see, bears… we have this… thing. When two bears who are meant to be together find each other, they know. Whether after a day or a year, they know that they’re destined to be together.”

“Soulmates,” Cynthia whispered.

“We call ‘em just mates. Our bears,” he touched his chest. “They know. I didn’t really want to believe it since you’re not a bear like me. I didn’t think you’d understand. But I can’t breathe when I’m not with you. You are my perfect mate, Cynthia. And I’m sorry if it frightens you, but it’s true.”

It did frighten her. To think that she would have so much power over someone she barely knew… She shivered a little, shoulders hunching. While her mind automatically wanted to reject the notion of soulmates, to say that it was nothing but fantasy, there was an earnestness in Rex’s eyes that could not be faked.

He really believed that they were destined to be together, that she was his one true love. It was all very fairy-tale like. Frighteningly so.

He waited for a beat, then continued. “And I know what I said to Tyrell—I know that was wrong. But he just gets under my skin. And I hated the way he was looking at you like you were some sort of prize. I wanted to rile him up, so that’s why I said what I said. It wasn’t about you. It was all about him.”

That didn’t make it any better, but Cynthia didn’t say so. She looked over the blinding waves, wishing she could see the answers written there. Should she just leave it all behind and forget she had ever been on this island? Or should she stay, try to wrap her mind around it, and maybe find a way to continue to live her? She had never been as happy as she had been here.

And I could always go back to being a vet. An island populated by bears? I’d make bank.

She had to stifle the giggle her thought caused, not wanting to explain to Rex. He seemed heartened by her laugh, though and took her hand.

“Stay with me. Please.”

“I… okay.” Cynthia sighed as she relented. She didn’t want to leave. This island had become her home. Even though it was inhabited by bear shifters, she knew that she’d never find a place she’d fit in as snugly as she did here. “But this doesn’t mean there is anything between us, understand?”

“Of course.” His broad smile spoke to a different thought, but she didn’t bother repeating herself. He’d get the picture soon enough.

Rex turned the boat back toward the island, and Cynthia braced herself for the days to come.