Chapter 23

Willow pushed closer to Bruin’s side as he pulled her out into the waiting room, where the mood was tense and anticipatory. She shuddered. That man’s thought-forms had been intense, and dark and he hadn’t thought of the babies as babies, but rather monsters. “Bruin, you’ve got to tell someone in there.”

Bruin stared across the room, his expression worried. “I did,” he said.

Crap. He was telepathic, she’d already figured that out, but then most of these other guys in here seemed to be, too. He had to be talking to someone. The lusty cry of a baby in the room they’d just left made her stiffen. There would be a commotion- surely, if that scary looking man snatched up a baby, people would try to stop him. The cry of the baby was joined by the cry of another. Willow held tight to Bruin, listening hard. She realized Bruin was just as stiff as she was. He was waiting for what might happen just as surely as she was and he was going to let it happen!

She opened her mouth to protest, but the door opened behind them and Trevor stood there, his face set, a determined, purple thought-form twisting around him. Willow blocked herself. She did not want to see it.

He held up his hand. “Both babies are born. Two males. Both are… normal.”

Normal? Willow looked up at Bruin to see what his reaction was to the strange declaration. He had relaxed and was nodding his head. The rest of the people in the room began to murmur. No one seemed excited that the babies had arrived, but rather, they all seemed only placated.

“Bruin,” Willow whispered, leaning in close to him. “Can you take me home?” It was time for them to talk. Get it all out there.

Bruin’s expression was one of bitter resignation, like he’d expected this. She didn’t understand at first, until she caught the slanted, checkered orange of his thought-form. He thought she wanted to be done with him.

She kissed him lightly on his cheek, right over one of his delectable dimples. “Take me to your home.”

Relief washed through his face, so stark she could almost hear it. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door. As they went, she watched him do that strange thing he did, where he gathered thoughts and directed them outward in a stream. They shot off from him like a laser beam and disappeared so quickly she couldn’t track the movement. His telepathy.

Once in the truck, Willow’s phone chimed in her pocket. She pulled it out. Her mother wanted to know if she was coming home.

Willow stared at the text for a long time before carefully crafting a reply. I’m with my angel. Don’t wait up. I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can, but for now, we’ve got a lot going on. I’m safe. I love you.

Gently, Willow muted the text conversation and put the phone back in her pocket. She didn’t have any energy to devote to her mother just then. She was already approaching overload.

The sun had dropped behind the horizon. Willow’s bedtime was approaching, but she felt not remotely tired. Too much was going on. Her every purpose in life was culminating, and from here on out, she would be different than she was before.

She stared ahead at the road they were driving on for a long time, her thoughts twisting. As they left and threaded their way through back roads, she decided she was going to start asking her questions. There were a lot of them.

“I want to know what’s going on,” she said quietly.

“Right,” Bruin said, his voice even, his tone saying it was time.

She jumped right in. “Why do Rogue’s sisters think of me as their sister? Even Ella, the one we just met. Why is Ella hiding the fact that she’s also currently in labor from everyone in that room? She’s hiding something else, too, but she guarded it so fiercely I didn’t pry. Are you telepathic? What exactly does it mean when you think of yourself as a bear and as your friends as wolves? Why is Conri so conflicted about how he feels about you, his brother- his twin! Why do you care so much about the tattoo on your shoulder? Who told you that you were a bad person and why do you believe them? Why was that guy planning on killing those babies, and why was everyone going to let him? Even you? What does normal mean? Is he still going to kill them?” She sputtered to a stop, then asked her last question, the one that took all. “How do I fit in?”

Bruin took a deep breath in through his nose, then slowed and took a steep right into a hidden driveway that was sloped downward. He pulled in behind a practical sedan and a lump of blackened metal that once had been a truck, and parked, then hopped out. She let him come around to get her this time. He was building up his answers and his courage to tell her the absolute truth, and she was glad.

He opened her door, put his hand on her left leg, and swung her body around so she was facing out, her head in line with his. He kissed her chastely. Sweetly.

Then he stepped backward, kicked off his boots into the grass, and… changed.

His bulk and his brawn expanded through the chest and the shoulders, and hair erupted from his body the same color as what he had on his face and head. He grew a foot, two feet, and his hands turned to paws with… with monster-sized claws made for gouging and tearing. His clothes ripped from his body with a Velcro sound, falling in pieces to the grass.

Willow yelped and shot her hands to her mouth, scrambling backward in the truck, pushing with her feet along the bench seat, until her back hit the driver’s side door. She’d expected this, or something like this, and yet, she couldn’t handle it. The bear was massive. He pawed once in the air as his transformation completed itself, then he snuffled and cocked his head in a very Bruin-like way, and dropped onto all fours.

He was coming toward the truck! Fear gripped her, making her tremble and drool. She didn’t want to be afraid, but she could not make herself not be. A bear!

The bear rammed the open passenger door with its head, slamming it shut, then it sat down in the grass rather like a human would. It picked up the boots Bruin had kicked off delicately, awkwardly, but very deliberately, and lined them on their soles, toes touching with the driveway, in the manner anyone would when they first took off their shoes when entering the house.

Willow closed her mouth by pushing up on her jaw with her palm, then she wiped her face once, twice. Her mind would not process this. Would not accept what she was seeing.

She breathed hard, in and out, her chest expanding forcefully, her mind rebelling monstrously. Bear. Bear. Bear. Bear. The bear didn’t even look at her. It scratched its leg, then stretched its neck, then curled its top lip and snuffled again like it was scenting the air. Little by little, she quieted. Her thundering heart returned to normal. The frantic pace of her thoughts slowed and calmed.

She’d known. She really had. She’d known from the first time she’d seen bear in his mind that he was… whatever he was, but she hadn’t been able to believe herself. Her mind called up the image of the tattooed guy near Shay’s bedside who’d seen the babies in her belly as horned monsters. Willow could believe he could turn into a wolf, that guy, with his shrewd, narrow eyes and the quiet, coiled strength in his body, even while it was relaxed. Mac, too. Plenty of the others, too. What about the women? Was Rogue a wolf? Willow shook her head. No, Rogue was whatever she, Willow, was. Not a wolf. Not a bear. A human, and part… angel.

The reality of the situation slammed into Willow like a tackle and she yelped, then covered her mouth, still watching the massive bear on the grass. He flopped over onto his back and rolled like a dog might, then tore at the clover with his claws. Willow laughed in spite of herself. Huge he might be, bear he might be, capable of extreme violence in awful circumstances- he might be that also, but he was still her Bruin.

Willow dropped her hands to her lap, then opened the door she was pressed up against. She put one foot on the ground, then the other, then slammed the door behind her, removing any means of quick escape. She minced along the front of the truck, then took a deep breath, and strode instead, straight to the bear. She stopped only when she was well within his reach, forcing herself to get close. He pushed himself into that goofy human sitting position again, his head much taller than hers.

She held her breath until he stilled, then forced herself to relax. “They really are my sisters,” she breathed.

The bear-Bruin, nodded once.

“The angel, he is their father, too.”

Bruin cocked his massive head to the side, like a smart dog will do when its confused. Willow reached out with a trembling hand, running light fingers over its brown fur. Coarse. Thick. beautiful. The big bear shuddered and its eyes slipped closed.

“There really is a demon, isn’t there?”

Bruin’s entire countenance changed. He heaved himself to his feet and turned in a circle, head high, nose quivering. Then he turned back around to face Willow. He nodded once. Definitively.

“Can you talk to me telepathically?” she said.

He did that inquisitive dog look again, and a thought-form appeared around his head. But it was the laser beam thought-form, and it took off from him and shot to her. She felt it come. Clear speech in her head. Let me try.

She smiled and clapped her hands together. “I can hear you!” She stared hard at him and spoke out loud. “Let me try, now.” But she didn’t need to see his head shake to know it hadn’t worked. She’d created a thought-form like he’d done, a kind of packet to send to him, but she couldn’t figure out how to get it to detach from her and shoot to him. “I can’t do it.”

He waved a ham-sized paw. We’ll practice.

She stared at him, then circled around him, lightly running a finger over his front legs and broad back and fur-covered belly. His thought-forms were all caught in his fur, staying close to his body, and when she stirred one up with her finger, she could feel it, grab it, sense it. “I can read you easier like this.” She bit her lip, thinking. “Your thought-forms are different than when you are-ah, when you are human. Like this they are simpler, with less emotion attached to them. I can get more pure thought.”

Bruin held his paws wide. Take what you want, Willow. Anything I have to give is yours, including my thoughts, emotions, desires, my body, and my life.

Willow shivered. His plain and open declarations always did her in. Even in this form, she could feel his love for her shining out at her. Especially in this form. It felt so good and big and solid, like it would always be there, like nothing could disrupt it.

She circled him, letting his thoughts flow to her. Examining them. Doing her best to be open to everything that disrupted her world view, both her world view as a human, and her world view as someone expecting an angel to come for her.