Chapter 7

Star turned over in her sleep. Her hand brushed Brody’s bare chest, and her instincts drew her into the bubble of his warmth. Without fully waking up, she gravitated toward him, curling as closely into his side as possible, using his arm as a pillow.

Her touch made him stir and turn toward her. His arms circled her and pulled her against him, and he nuzzled her hair. “It’s morning again,” he softly whispered.

She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t want to know about morning. Only the nights mattered to her. For three days, she lived with Brody in his secret hide-out behind the waterfall. They roamed the forests as bears by day. They hunted and foraged for food and mated under the shadowy canopy. At night, they curled up together in his cave, a thick warm tangle of furry, contented bodies.

Last night was the first time since he first brought her here that they made love and slept together as man and woman. Star couldn’t decide which she liked best. The bear in her loved his bear self, his fur and his smell and his massive bulk. The woman in her wanted his smooth chest and his chiseled abs and shoulders pulsing over her and against her. She wanted his kisses and his tongue. She didn’t get that as a bear.

Her eyes peeked open. The cave dampened the sunlight outside. She could pretend a little longer that was only the moonlight. She traced the swirls and twining vines springing up out of his hips to spread their psychedelic patterns over his chest and around his neck. She let her mind wander over their meaning. She didn’t get them as a bear, either.

What would he be if he didn’t have those tattoos? They grew out of his very core and wound down around his legs. They made him more a man than he would have been if he was clean. They ate into his bones and fed him on their underground source.

He dragged his fingertips over her shoulders and down her chest. He touched her ribs and her shoulder blades. He memorized every inch of her skin with the same fascinated wonder. He imprinted her into his being.

“I’m thirsty.”

“There’s a waterfall outside. Maybe you noticed it.”

“I don’t want to go out there. I can’t face another day. Let’s stay in here for the day.”

“… For the whole day? You’re crazy.” Brody put his head back to get a better look at her. “I was thinking of going home today.”

“Home? Isn’t this home?” Star asked.

“You know what I mean.” Brody said with a smile.

“I know what you mean, but I won’t let you go.”

Brody guffawed with laughter. “You won’t, won’t you? What are you going to do to stop me?”

Star made a grab at his balls and clamped them in her vise-like fist. “I’ll keep these until you come crawling back begging for forgiveness.”

He tightened his core against the pain and twisted one of her nipples hard. “And I’ll keep this until you learn to behave.”

She howled in mock rage, but he overpowered her and wrestled her onto her back. She lashed at him with her fists, but he grappled her wrists to the ground and pinned her flat. She kicked and struggled, but he straddled her across her stomach and held her down. “Don’t even think about it.”

“You freak! Let me up. I’ll tear you apart.”

“I won’t let you up until you calm down and listen to me.”

Star pretended to fight back. She tried to bite the hands holding her, but wound up laughing at her own efforts instead. Brody pinned both her wrists with one hand. He tip-toed the fingers of his other hand up her stomach to her ribs. Then he dug his fingertips into her ribs and tickled her until she screamed.

“Do you promise to behave yourself?”

“Yes! I promise. Let me go, you cruel wife-beater!”

“You’re not my wife – not yet, and I can be a lot crueler than this. I’ll hold you here and tickle you until you cry uncle.”

“Uncle! What is this, some kind of incest den? Leave me alone, you...you thing!”

His eyes widened. “Thing? Is that the best you can do? Come on. Bring out the big cuss words. I want to hear all the nasty names you can call me.”

“Leave me alone! All right! All right! You win. I submit.”

“Do you promise to behave yourself?”

“Yes!”

“Let me hear you promise. I won’t let you go until you do.”

“I promise.”

Brody glared down at her for a moment. Then, in one swift motion, he let go of her wrists and leapt clear.

Star narrowed her eyes at him from her place and growled out, “you demon.”

He darted in and planted a quick kiss on her lips. “You love it, baby. Now come on and be serious. I really think we both need to go home today.”

She lay back on the bed and crossed her arms. “I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here forever.”

“I want to stay here forever, too, but our families will be worried about us. We’ve been away for three days, and neither of our tribes knows where we are or where we were going. You don’t have to talk to anybody. Just leave them word you’re all right.”

“For all we know, they could have killed each other by now.”

“Exactly,” Brody picked up his jeans from the floor. He hadn’t worn them since he came to meet Star at the waterfall three days before. He pulled them on and buckled his belt.

Star sat up. “All right, but I’ll only go if you promise we’ll come straight back here as soon as we’ve seen everyone is still alive and the apocalypse hasn’t wiped everybody out.”

“I promise.”

Star put on her bra and T-shirt. Her panties were still clean from the shower she took before leaving home. “I guess I never really intended to spend three whole days up here. I hate to imagine what my family thinks happened to me.”

“Now do you see why we have to go back?”

“What if they ask where I’ve been?”

Brody shrugged. “I can’t help you there. Lie if you have to. It doesn’t make a heap of difference.”

“If I tell them the truth, they’ll forbid me to see you again.”

“Then we’ll run away. We’ll go off and live with the Mackenzies or the MacAllisters or the Dodds. They can’t exactly stop us from doing that, and I’m sure the other tribes would be happy to tell them to stick their childish feud where the ‘sun don’t shine’.”

Star grinned. “I’ll tell them that. That will make them really mad.”

He kissed her. “Hurry back as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Star washed her face and hair in the bracing waterfall before she headed down the mountain toward Cunningham Homestead. Now that she tore herself away from Brody’s cave, the prospect of seeing her family again cheered her up no end.

Her mother would know the instant she lay eyes on Star that her daughter had found a mate. Nothing could hide the truth from Rena. Star’s step bounced with bursting energy and excitement. She wanted to announce her love for Brody from the rooftops.

He was right. Star no longer cared whether her family knew she had mated with a Farrell. If they couldn’t handle the truth, that was their problem. She would stick with Brody to the ends of the Earth. They couldn’t do anything to keep her away from him. In her heart, though, she wanted nothing more than to share her happiness with the people she loved.

She wanted her mother to help her plan a huge Bruin wedding; the same way she would have done if Star married, Hyatt or any other Bruin, her parents wanted her to marry. She wanted to receive her father’s blessing and wishes for a happy and prosperous future.

She wanted to make them grandparents and give them the joy of family in their old age. They could choose to shun all those joys and pleasures. She wouldn’t shun them. She would embrace them with her whole heart.

Her pace quickened when she got to the bottom of the hill, but she stopped dead in her tracks when she heard her brother, Walker, talking just beyond the trees. She ducked behind a trunk to listen. “I’m telling you, I smelt Farrell. I smelt them hiding in the bushes just before you called me in to supper, and I smelled them around back when I fired into the dark. There were two of them and they were right outside her window.”

Star’s every nerve tensed. Could he be right? Were the Farrells outside her window that night? Had Brody come to see her? Did he want to talk to her about something?

Brody’s words filtered back into her mind. Why did he try to push her away after that night? Why did he insist their relationship put her in danger? How could he know that if he wasn’t outside her window the night before?

He and someone else came up to her window. He didn’t come to see her or talk to her, or he would have come alone. Was she really in danger that night? Had he done something, or had the other person done something, to put her in danger?

“You’re absolutely certain they were Farrells?” Kaiser asked. “There can’t be any mistake. If we’re gonna take this fight to their doorstep, you better be absolutely sure.”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, Pop. I know their scents. They went after Star, and now they’ve got her. She’s been gone for three days. They could have raped her and dumped her dead body in the ravine by now. We have to attack now. We can’t let them get away with this. The other tribes will stand by us when they find out what those vermin did to Star.”

“You don’t have to say anymore. The rest of the Cunningham tribe is on their way here. As soon as they get here, we’ll arm everyone and march on the Farrells. We’ll put an end to this, one way or the other, and if they’ve got Star, we’ll bring her home.”

Star didn’t wait to hear any more. She raced back the way she came. Her lungs burned by the time she veered off the path and struck out along Craven Creek, but when she heard the waterfall ahead, she almost collided with Brody running the other way.

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “We have to get out of here. They’re marching on the...”

“I know! They think the Farrells kidnapped and killed me the other night when someone came around my bedroom window. Why didn’t you tell me you were there? Why didn’t you tell me Walker almost blew your head off?”

Brody shook his head. “I had to go along. Who knows what Austin would have done if I hadn’t been there? I had to pull rank just to get him to leave his shotgun in the truck. He would have killed Walker and maybe you, too, if I hadn’t been there to stop him. For all I know, he would have kidnapped and killed you, and then we wouldn’t have spent the last three days together.”

She shook his hand off her. “Forget that! Our families are as good as dead. The whole tribe is gathering at the Homestead, and when they get there, they’ll march on the Farrells with every gun they have. They’ll wipe you out.”

Brody gnashed his teeth. “They won’t wipe anybody out because my tribe is marching on the Cunninghams as we speak. Austin is telling everyone an elaborate tale about how Walker shot at us the other night. Now he’s telling everyone Walker kidnapped and killed me. My father called our whole tribe together, and they’re loading up in the trucks right now.”

Star pulled away. “I have to go back to them. I have to help them. I have to stand with them.”

“Them? How can you stand with them when they want to slaughter me and my whole family? Whose side are you really on?”

“How can I know that? Do you think I want to kill you? I can’t stand by and watch the Farrells kill my father and mother and brothers and cousins. What do you take me for?”

“I take you for a Cunningham, and I’m a Farrell. Do you think I want to kill your family? I don’t like this any better than you do.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“How should I know what you’re supposed to do? I don’t know what to do myself.”

Star whirled away. “I have to go back. I have to stand with them.”

Brody didn’t hear her. He was already halfway down the path, heading back to his own territory. Star ran for her life back up the creek to the path, but when she turned to head downhill, she saw she was already too late.

From the winding path, she caught a glimpse of the yard in front of her parents’ house. A dozen cars, pick-ups and monster trucks skidded out of the yard into the road. Men with guns propped against their shoulders balanced in their beds, and arms waved from the windows. War whoops echoed up the hill toward her.

Star stopped at the curve. Her lungs grated for every tortured breath, but there was no point returning to the Homestead. Her tribe was already on their way to confront the Farrells.

Brody said the Farrells were already on their way to confront the Cunninghams. Where would they meet? She followed the roads through a mental map of Bruins’ Mountain. They could meet in only one place: Lachlan’s Meadow.