THREE
The following morning Dylan woke early. There were two bedrooms in the cabin, and Chris had politely moved his own futon into his room in anticipation of Sarah’s arrival. He was passed out heavy on the floor, snoring dreamily and loudly, his eyes shifting under their eyelids. If he starts barking or running in one spot, we’re in trouble, Dylan smirked to himself, standing up forcing the floorboards to creak under his feet. He rubbed his eyes, and saw the creamy light of the sun hatching through the clouds. The buzz of mosquitoes outside, somewhere a distant loon call, laughed back.
The events of last night flooded back to him. It was always this way, after changing back into human-form. While as a bear, there was little in the way of human thought, there was only the present, the now, as Lilah liked to call it. Scents, sounds, taste. All the senses burning like a margin of flame. It wasn’t until he slid back into his muscular arms and sculpted chest and dark black hair that things began to reorganize, the mind trying to sort its way through thought processes that were distinctly different. He could recall his time as a bear like any other memory.
And yet, there was always something hallucinatory to it, like looking back on an event you hadn’t actually been there to witness. He remembered Sarah, the way she undressed, each article of clothing deliberate. The shy way she had tried to hide the small horns of her breasts, the limpid gaze of vulnerability. And then, they had both turned. She was smaller than him, a shade lighter, like auburn that had been touched with sunlight. They had run along the cliffs above the beach, embracing the freedom of the bear-form. It had been quite late when they’d finally returned, and as if reversing time, she had put on her clothes again with a touch of hesitancy and they had returned to the cabin without a single word.
I think I made the right choice, he wanted to confide in Chris, as he walked into the kitchen, feeling rejuvenated from his experience with the mysterious girl. He was speechless when he opened the door and saw her stooped in front of the makeshift larder. She was barefoot and her toes were craned as she squatted, peering into their supply of canned fruit. She had a spoon in her mouth. Her eyes widened, like a deer caught in the headlights, and he realized she was only half-dressed. The black thong she had had on last night did little to cover the smooth pale length of her thighs, or the seductive angle of her buttocks, which folded out from her tight back. She had on a short green undershirt but it was loose enough that as she stretched he could see the rippling expanse of her stomach, flat and muscled. The hem of the thong was low below her navel and he could distinctly make out the divot of her labia standing out against the fabric.
“Oh!” she gasped, and then seemed to realize what she looked like and stood up quickly in a show of false modesty, the spoon still in her mouth. The buds of both nipples corkscrewed against the green T-shirt.
“Uh,” Dylan said, quickly turning his eyes toward the stove and scratching his head, more as a distraction for himself. “Glad… glad to see you’re up.”
“Yeah, I was, uh…” she removed the spoon from her mouth and he saw her wince in embarrassment, “just still really hungry from last night. I mean, with changing… I mean, back and forth, bear to human. I always get… hungry.”
The awkwardness was palpable and Dylan knew that if Chris were up and awake he’d probably be bristling with laughter. As it was, there was only the two of them and he cleared his throat and made a b-line for the stove.
“Well, I’ll get some breakfast started, then. Chris usually makes dinner… but he loves to sleep late, so that usually means I have to do breakfasts. I was thinking… I mean, if you’re not still sick of salmon… a salmon egg’s Benedict, yeah?”
“That, that sounds great,” Sarah said more softly, and hugged her chest. “Just let me… get some pants on, first.” She bolted back to her bedroom and slammed the door – almost loud enough to wake Chris. Dylan couldn’t help but sneak a look at her as she passed. Her buttocks bounced with careless abandon as she skirted toward the door and he felt something akin to desire strike a nerve.
She returned several minutes later in a pair of raggedy jeans with holes in the knees and he blushed, as if it were a delayed after-effect of having seen her in her underwear.
“Very grunge,” he observed comically, trying to act normal. As if a half-naked girl in my kitchen were a normal thing, he thought with some bemusement.
She didn’t seem to understand, until he motioned to her jeans she blushed. “Oh, heh… they’re actually from a friend. Kind of a good luck charm.”
He went to work but was acutely aware of her standing off to one side as if he’d walked in on her doing something indecent. He spoke over his shoulder as he broke the eggs, asking her to make some milk from the powder. She obeyed almost instantly but there was still something… distant about her.
Dylan frowned, even as the eggs began to sizzle in the heavy cast iron pan. Not five minutes earlier he had been excited to see her, eager to work on the rapport they had seemed to excel at only the night before. On the beach she had been open, laughing. Now she seemed withdrawn. Did I do something wrong, he wondered.
As though sensing his discomfort she broke the silence. “Listen, about last night…” she began.
“It’s okay,” he interrupted, and then didn’t really know why he’d been so quick to cut her off. “It’s uhm… I mean, I know we’re supposed to be engaged,” the word sounded alien in his mouth, “but I didn’t… I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. I’ve been changing back and forth, bear to human, so much on the island, I didn’t stop to consider your feelings… I know it’s sort of…”
“Intimate,” she filled in.
“Yeah,” he said, “other than Chris, Lilah’s the only one I’ve changed in front of.”
“Lilah?” she asked, her voice was mostly curious, but there was something of an edge to it as well.
Jealousy, Dylan wondered.
He laughed quickly. “My kid sister. She’s an adept shifter. Kind of a prodigy.”
She opened her mouth and mimed an ahh sound. “It’s not that… I’m glad you showed me the island. And… and it is refreshing, to be able to change with another person. It’s just,” she looked away quickly, “I guess the whole marriage thing crept up on me. I’ve known, objectively, I was going to get married for a long time… but, it didn’t really hit me until last night. I just feel scrambled.”
He gave an understanding nod. “Just like these eggs.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, more or less. Anyway… it’s… it’s not you…”
“Take as much time as you need,” Dylan said, and looked back at the pan quickly. Even though she was still a stranger to him, those words had hit a nerve. As much as he wanted to believe that her reticence now was due to her own feelings – and perhaps her own misgivings – it was impossible for him to fully extricate himself from the equation. Other than the island, he was the only new variable in her life, and if she was having trouble accepting the circumstances, than he was invariably at the center of it.
Already, his mind was racing, trying to decipher some sort of solution that would put them both back on equal and stable ground. There is no stability with emotions like these, he thought sagely, and then for the umpteenth time since he’d been on the island, worried that Chris’ somewhat pedantic (if unerringly wise) ways were rubbing off on him.
“Maybe you’d better wake up the old bear,” he said, thumbing toward the door of his own room. There was still an audible growling sound as Chris snored away, like an idling chainsaw.
***
The next few days passed without incident, becoming a kind of blur for all three of them. For the most part, Chris stayed out of the way of Dylan and Sarah, as if encouraging them to get to know each other better without his supervision or intervention. There was a sense of politeness between Dylan and Sarah that almost seemed formalized. They would greet each other, smile, share pleasantries, try to help out with the daily chores whenever possible, but it was as if each polite gesture was somehow placating a deeper anxiety.
For Sarah, it was like walking on the thread of a spider-web, even though she knew that the majority of the tension they were all feeling was mostly because of her. She was the outsider who had invaded the men’s private world and as much as she tried to act normal and take it all in stride, something was holding her back.
That first day, fresh off the floatplane’s wing, she had vowed to take charge. It was only natural, considering she had been thrown into a situation that wasn’t her charge. She couldn’t blame the men either; Dylan had done, and seemingly continued to do, his best to be welcoming, but both of them seemed to be skirting the elephant in the room.
We’re supposed to get married. It wasn’t that the notion of marriage particularly appalled her. Part of her training had been learning to accept it as a casual fact and she had to admit the idea of it excited her, deep down. The idea of finding a mate, of being able to share her life with a common soul, and of course, of the more physical aspects, thrilled her. She blushed, even though no one was in the cabin at this time of day. Dylan always left early in the morning, whether she was awake or not. If she was, she got to enjoy his famous breakfasts, which were always filling and gave her energy for the rest of the day.
But it was lonely sometimes to wake up to an empty cabin. Although Chris slept late, these days he too had taken to leaving the cabin early, reveling in the domestic duties of the island, such as lugging water up from the creek, cleaning, clearing brush, or maintaining the many trails that circulated over the island like a webbed circuitry. The latter was an odd duty, considering more often than not, Dylan preferred to roam as a bear, and Chris usually realized in hindsight that it would be quicker to get from point A to point B by simply bushwhacking.
She sighed and tossed her dishes in the sink and felt little motivation to clean them. Instead, she slipped on a pair of running shoes and her shorts and decided to go for a run. At least I’ll give Chris’ hard work a sense of purpose, that way, she resigned.
It was cloudy out, the perfect weather for running. The Pacific weather was very fickle though, one moment it could be raining, the next it could be sunny and blistering hot, and the next, snowing. The coast seemed to inhabit this temperament throughout. Even the sparse wildlife, which consisted mainly of rabbits, the occasional doe and her fawns, and a multitude of birds, shifted back and forth between capricious braveness and sheer timidity.
Absently, she wondered if it had anything to do with them as shifters. Maybe they can sense the alternating current of human and bear, she thought to herself, looking up through the canopy and starting at a slow jog. Soon, the wind was whistling in her ears and she felt endorphins pumping through her veins, filling her with a general sense of well-being. The main trail she liked to use wound its way like a sporadic tributary over the main rise of the island, and then circled the bluffs and ended up down on the beach Dylan had taken her that first night.
She blushed again, hating herself for it. It was a terrible habit, and every time she felt blood rushing to her cheeks and her eyes watering it was another small reminder of all the ways she wasn’t in control. She increased her speed, cursing under breath. Running was a good way to distract herself but today it wasn’t working.
As she worked her way around the bluffs, following familiar roots and rocks in the path, and re-learning the different smells that represented sections of the trial – old man’s beard here, the spicy tang of wild ginger underfoot there – her frustration only increased. What am I doing on this island, she wanted to scream. Down a steep incline that made several switchbacks down to the ocean she almost didn’t notice another sound that was echoing in sync with her heart-rate.
Consciously, she slowed down. Through a veil of ferns and cedar boughs, she could see a shape out on the waves in the bay. It was small, just big enough for the four figures that were sitting or standing in its white painted hull. A small outboard hummed against the crash of waves. Sarah ducked down further and pulled the green headband further over her forehead to conceal the white flesh, which might give her away.
Very slowly, she crept down through the bushes of salal and ferns, trying to get a better look. She was enraptured by the thrill of sneaking up on a quarry, even if it was something as innocuous as a boat. At one point, she went down on all fours and slithered on her belly over the moss – how ladylike I must look now, she mused, wishing her parents could see her now.
Through another gap in the salal she propped herself on her elbows and looked down. It was definitely a small boat with a pulsing outboard. Too small to have made it all the way here on its own, though; part of another vessel? She frowned. Chris had been quite adamant that this island was, in his own words, a ‘protected enclave’, whatever that meant. She figured money had passed hands at some point among the clans and turned the island into a park.
“It’s off limits,” Chris’ voice echoed in her head, “the public isn’t allowed on it.”
The four men in the small white boat seemed to fit the description of public. All four were tall, middle-aged, except for the one manning the outboard who looked to be in his early twenties, around Sarah’s age, but all of them were wearing camo outfits, head to toe. They looked like a motley regiment of amateur soldiers. She suppressed a grin.
The grin disappeared quickly when she saw one of the men turn and noticed the giant rifle slung over his back. Its heavy wooden stock was burnished dark like burnt umber, and the pitch black muzzle was the color of graphite. Now, as they drew closer, she saw they all had guns, different makes and sizes, but all high powered rifles. She gulped. Hunters.
There was a natural predisposition for shifters to fear hunters. While in bear form, they were virtually inseparable in appearance from their wild cousins. In their long history, it had not been uncommon for one or another shifter to have met their end at the long sight of a firearm, she knew the old stories well. The elders toyed with the term occupational hazard, which she hated. It was more than that.
She ducked lower, even though she was in human form. Some primal fear rose up and she found herself breathing hard into the moist-smelling ground. Her black hair fell over the headband and she froze, instinct reeling, the only movement was of her half-closed eyes watching the boat.
No, not hunters, she realized. Poachers. Which was even worse. While she knew that she had to be careful of hunters, hunters generally had their own code of ethics, the same way bears did. Kill what you need, use everything, honor the kill. But poachers were a different matter. You couldn’t reason with them, they were ruled by greed and bloodlust. And more often than not, they were unpredictable because of the very fact that they were engaging in illicit activities. A cornered poacher is more dangerous than a cornered bear, she reminded herself, recalling an old mantra her grandmother had taught her.
She watched them another ten minutes as the boat veered over the bay. The men occasionally looked out toward the island and she felt a chill every time they did. They were looking for something, animal sign, no doubt. It wasn’t until the sound of the engine had dispersed and the white boat had become a blinking lash on the other side of the bay did she dare stand up again. Her legs and neck hurt from the awkward position and she felt her muscles crack as she straightened.
The others. She had to tell the others.
She turned back up the slope, not even feeling the burning in her legs until she was back on the path. Her breath caught in her throat like a burr and she sprinted back toward the cabin. Her scalp felt like a thousand needles were pressing into it from every direction and sweat ran off her eyebrows, trying to blind her.
*
Chris was the only one home when she barged into the cabin, panting. Sweat caked her body making it feel like a second skin, smothering her naked legs and fusing the tank-top to her firm narrow bodice. She collapsed on the edge of the sink as the big man watched her shovel a handful of water into her mouth before she could speak again.
“Poachers. In the bay,” she pointed uselessly in the direction of the ocean.
Chris was usually calm and collected, even in the direst situations, taking it on himself to lighten the mood and approach a problem as objectively as possible. But that single word, poachers, seemed to ignite something behind his eyes as he stood up with a start, causing the chair he was sitting on to reel back onto the planks of the floor.
“Sarah, sit down… take a breath and explain,” he motioned toward the table.
She did as she was beckoned while noticing that there were an array of fishing hooks and lures and flies on the table. Another one of his domestic hobbies, she supposed. She took in a deep breath and found it easier.
“I was going for a run… you know, I always take the main trail, the one that goes around the bluffs,” he nodded, urging her to get to the point, “and as I was making my way down to the beach, I heard a sound. I looked toward the bay and saw a boat. At first, I just thought they were tourists or fishermen or something. But then I saw… they had guns. All of them.”
A cruel arc twisted over Chris’ heavy lips, and he looked away from her toward the window, as if contemplating something. “You’re sure you saw what you saw?” he asked, and she nodded. “That could be trouble.”
“Maybe they’ll just pass by,” she asked, hoping she was right.
“Maybe,” he agreed, but something was bothering him. “Most of these islands don’t have game big enough to worry about. There’s deer, sure, some feral goats but no big game. It’s a well-known fact. However… there have been stories, around the fishing villages, the mainland… about this island.”
Fear clutched at her heart and she was almost afraid to say anything. “What kinds of stories?”
He shifted his weight and reached out, shutting the blue tin case that housed his fishing lures. “The kind about us,” he said at last, “people saying they’ve spotted grizzlies on the island, down by the shore or a black or brown shape disappearing into the undergrowth. Just stories… and most people dismiss them. How could a grizzly possibly get here from the mainland?” he asked rhetorically. Sarah resisted the urge to follow with by floatplane.
“You said most people dismiss them.”
“Aye,” another pregnant pause, “but if there’s one thing a poacher or big game trophy hunter can’t resist: it’s those urban rumors. The ones that can’t possibly be true, but just might be. I told Dylan all about this of course… we’re both very careful about changing and touring the shoreline, just in case there is some wary hunter or fisherman out for a leisurely boat ride. But the stories are still there.”
“You think they’ve come looking for us? I mean… I mean bears?”
Chris shrugged. “I’d rather not have to ask them. But it is worrying. I’ll get on the horn and let the council know we might have some trouble… if anything, they can send a coast guard to do a ‘routine tour’ around the island. Other than that, we should put a hold on transformations.”
He said all of this, counting it off on his fingers with a judicious pause between each item. There was something definitively mature about him, despite his off-handedly simple nature. Like he could really take charge when he needed to, if the situation required it. With a pang, she realized he embodied, in as many ways, the attributes she had always been lacking in abundance. She merely nodded and then her eyes grew wider.
“What about Dylan? He doesn’t know about them… where is he?”
The patron caught the knife-edge in her voice and his eyes widened too and something like Shit passed barely as a whisper through his lips as he stood up again. “We’d better find him… I don’t think we’re in any real danger, but…”
“I’ll check the west side of the island,” Sarah finished his sentence for him, heading for the door, “you check the east.” With that, she was out the door again and didn’t turn back to see if Chris was following her.
Her legs felt weak, still achy like jelly from the hard sprint back from the beach, but she tried to focus on her breathing as she followed some of the side paths that veered toward the tributaries and little streams that circulated over the island like a fresh-water web. Dylan always seemed to enjoy those areas best, places where he could stand in the middle of the creek and snap at the salmon, which were just tapering off in their spawning season.
She could already smell the decay of dead and dying fish long before she reached the flowing creek. There was a convent of eagles on one rocky shore, all gorging themselves on dead salmon, which was red in their beaks. They gave her an inquisitive look and then hurriedly returned their attention to their scavenged kill. She looked up and down the creek but couldn’t see any sign of him. She decided to head upstream. In all likelihood, if there was good salmon hunting, it would be higher up, which is where Dylan would most likely be.
Her feet skidded over the slippery stones until she reached the small pool. There were dorsal fins of tired salmon, trying to keep themselves afloat but no sign of Dylan. She let out a breath of relief. Maybe she’d missed him. Maybe, she thought, he’d already returned to the cabin and I missed him, and here I am panting hoarsely at a pond full of dead fish worrying for nothing.
The thought was amusing and she shook her head, feeling foolish, but still relieved, and gripped her hips with both hands as she started back the way she came.
Then it came. A shot, like the trunk of an old growth fir splitting in a wind storm; something full of energy and rage, sharp as a thunderclap. It echoed, entering her body and working its way down to her toes, and she realized she’d stopped breathing. Another shot, this time she could tell the direction it was coming from, and took off running again. She couldn’t even think, her body reacted on its own and she had the distinct impression of watching it move without being able to consciously interact with it.
The only thing that ran through her head was No. It was cloudy, yes, but there was no lightning. She hadn’t imagined the gunshots; they were real and close. Her feet slipped again and up ahead she heard a scream and a series of growls. The screams were screams of pain, agony ripping itself from the throat of someone and she tried not to picture Dylan or Chris’ face.
The noise was coming from down near the western beach, closest to the cabin, and her foot snagged a root, causing her to slam against a tree trunk. It ripped the air out of her, and she felt her side burning, but continued on. The screams were louder as she saw the glint of blue between the trees and leapt down through the underbrush towards the shore, whether into the cross-hairs of a poacher’s rifle she knew not. Only that she had to reach Dylan.
The shoreline was chaos. The white outboard motor was facing out to the ocean. All four men were either in, or attempting to get in, and she saw the screams were coming from the youngest of them. Two older men were hauling him into the ribbed cask of the boat, one of them raising a rifle one-handed and aiming onto the beach. The youngest looked white, with blood-loss or fear or both, Sarah couldn’t say. Something dark trailed behind the men in the water like ink, and she realized with a sickening lurch that it was blood.
He was wounded and holding his ribs. The camo vest was torn, shredded, and she couldn’t tell what was flesh and what was material. Geezus, what happened, she thought, breaking free of some brush and jumping down onto the hard stones. She followed the line of sight of the poacher’s rifle back toward the beach and saw a grizzly snarling at the men. He was enormous, a tawny golden brown, and his teeth were white and sharp. It wasn’t Dylan – Dylan was black, black as night. It could only be…
“Chris!” she shouted aloud, without realizing her voice had acted of its own accord.
The grizzly turned at the outburst, his black eyes locked on her like pulsing stones, and his muzzle raised in a half-snarl. When he saw whom it was, his muzzle softened, and Sarah could see something red seeping from his shoulder. More blood, she realized.
The men in the boat had started to move further out in the bay but they saw her, too. Something like panic and confusion warped their faces as they tried to grasp at the situation – a snarling grizzly and a young girl, both apparently acquainted. It was only a moment. She saw him raise his gun, leveling down the sight, for another shot.
“Run!” Sarah said, ducking toward the cover of the shoreline herself.
Chris, even in bear form, seemed to understand her urgency, if not her exact words, and galumphed on his own vector toward the safety of the tree-line. Another shout rang out, eaten up by the crash of waves, and Sarah looked over her shoulder. Stones next to Chris’ massive body sparked, shaken by some invisible force and she let out another sharp exhalation of relief.
In the darkness of the canopy, she looked back and saw the outboard heading due east, toward one of the other islands. Toward their ship, she guessed, skidding on her hands and knees toward where Chris had pierced the tree-line himself. She found him, a huge brown hill in the forest, slumped against another fallen tree, his breathing slow and ragged.
Dylan was beside him, his hand on the bear’s slope of a head, dressed in only his pants. As Sarah got closer she saw that his head was bleeding from a vicious cut that ran from the right side of his brow, above his eye. Blood was still dripping over one eyebrow, although it was dark around the wound where other blood had dried. He turned at the approach of the girl, and like Chris, his face softened like tallow as soon as he saw who it was.
“Chris…” He couldn’t speak and winced, falling backward and shooting out a hand to support himself. “Dizzy, can’t…” He shook his head, and the muscles in his forearm stood out like riven valleys. “Are they gone?”
Sarah collapsed next to Chris as well, but her eyes were on Dylan. “What… what happened??”
“Can’t remember,” Dylan said. “I was down on the shoreline, coming back to the cabin. I heard a sound, like thunder. Before I could look up to see where it had come from, there was blackness. Pain. A pressure like a hammer on me.” He reached up and touched the wound.
Sarah already had her shirt off and was ripping desperately at the thin fabric. Beads of sweat trickled down her breastbone, swerving slow arcs between her breasts, and disappearing under the fabric of her bra. She pressed a folded piece of shirt to his head and he winced again. “They shot you,” she said flatly.
Dylan was in shock but slowly he was coming around. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I don’t know what happened after that… I looked up and the sky was red. And there were faces… men’s faces, looking at me. I must’ve,” he dealt with a wave of nausea, and continued, “passed out. Shit. Then Chris…”
It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. After the poachers had shot what they assumed was a bear, they’d come ashore to claim their prize but Dylan had already reverted to his naked human form. Imagine the horror and surprise of discovering that they had shot a human man. No, it was worse than that. They had shot a bear who’d had become a man.
To be shot and killed by a hunter was one thing. To have the secret emerge that there were shifters was even worse. A tapestry of worst-case scenarios ran through Sarah’s head in an instant, and she too felt nauseous. At their knees Chris let out a tired heart-breaking sigh. She looked at the wound, already black with dried blood. It had stopped bleeding, and she could find the exit wound – good, she thought. But there was no way to know how much blood he’d lost or if any major arteries or organs had been compromised by the bullet.
“Have to get him back,” Dylan said, struggling through the pain in his head.
“How?” she asked, her voice frantic. I’m more in shock than he is, she realized. “How?” she asked again, forcing herself to be calm.
“Stubborn bastard,” Dylan wiped at the blood covering half his face. It had spattered onto his arm and chest and he looked like he’d just come out of a warzone. “He knows that the longer he stays in bear-form, the easier it will be to heal. Doesn’t matter… how much it hurts… he’ll stay like this… stubborn bastard.”
Sarah balked. There was some truth in that. While as bears, shifters enjoyed a preternatural healing factor, several times that of a healthy human. She marveled at the presence of mind it would have taken, not just to hold shape in the wake of so much pain but to comprehend it as the best strategy for survival, even amidst the chaos. He’s not such a simple mind after all, she thought. He may have looked like a big dumb gentle giant but she suspected Chris was more astute than anyone would dare to guess.
“Then we wait,” she said, and Dylan nodded.
Chris merely let out another huff, as if to acknowledge them and closed his eyes against the tree trunk. Dylan grumbled and staggered off to the bushes, pulling his remaining clothes from a small hollow in a dead tree. He tossed his sweatshirt to Sarah, who gratefully covered herself, and pulled on his own T-shirt and sat down next to her. Chris’ big bear head and nostrils disturbed the dust at her thigh.
“Will he…” she couldn’t bring herself to ask.
Dylan’s arm brushed her shoulder and he held the tattered remains of her shirt to his forehead, trying to wipe away as much of the sticky red blood as possible. “He’s stronger than any of us,” Dylan said. “If anyone can survive, it’s Chris.”
“I…” she bit her lip, and her eyes began to redden.
“I know,” Dylan said, and there were no more words that either could share. Only the coolness of the canopy around them and the slow steady rhythmic breath of Chris at her feet.
She leaned her head on his shoulder and held a palm to her chest to keep the sobs from overtaking her. This can’t be happening, she repeated to herself, but there was no part of her that believed it. Dylan reached around with his free hand and gripped her shoulder, pulling him closer against her. He smelled like the forest, deep and warm and familiar, despite the rank smell of blood that was everywhere. She closed her eyes and let him hold her. This can’t be happening.
*
It was late in the night when Sarah awoke. She couldn’t remember when it was she had fallen asleep. Everything had overloaded her, and she had submitted at last to the dreamless depths of a black sleep, filled only with the occasional recognition of Dylan’s warm body against her, or the panting of Chris in bear-form. She started when she realized Chris was no longer in front of them and the world was sideways.
The muscles in her abdomen sprung her upright and she realized her head had been resting on Dylan’s lap. He was cross-legged, and his hand had been brushing her hair. Her eyes still felt red and abraded by too many tears, or by the act of withholding them.
“Where-?”
Her eyes tried to adjust to the dark and she saw his white face looking back at her.
“Back at the cabin,” he whispered. “He regained consciousness earlier, a few hours ago. I helped him back up to the cabin… the bullet when through his right shoulder, tore some muscles and ligaments, but it looks okay… he’s sleeping now… still has a sense of humor, so…”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” she said angrily.
He lowered his eyes. “You were sleeping so deeply, even after I shook you…” he explained. “I took Chris back, bandaged the wound, and hurried back here.”
She felt a little ashamed to have been so out of things that even Dylan couldn’t have woken her. And yet, he had come back and sat with her well into the night, watching over her. She could see the lines of fatigue under his eyes, despite the cheerful expression that danced back from it. He probably didn’t get any sleep, she realized, and felt bad.
“I’m… sorry,” she said.
He shook his head and stood up, stretching his knees, and offered her a hand. The wound on his head was still open and ugly, pink and glaring in the moonlight. It must hurt like a bitch, but he hasn’t complained once. There was still traces of blood caked in his hair. He hadn’t had time to wash himself properly. He’d come straight from the cabin to her.
“C’mon, let’s get back,” Dylan said.
Inside, she changed out of the sweatshirt and put on pants and another fresh tank-top and sweater, and went to check on Chris. He was snoring, as usual, and save for the crude bandage job that was wrapped over one massive tree-trunk arm and shoulder, it was as if nothing had happened at all. It still felt surreal. Her mind tried to tape down the rewind button for her as she knelt beside him.
The gunshots, she could remember. Then running. Then the hunter bleeding terribly into the water, and the poachers raising their guns. Right. They had shot Dylan. And then you changed into a bear and tried to protect him, didn’t you, she reached out and brushed Chris’ forehead. The big man made a mumbling sound and smiled, taken with whatever dream had lapsed behind his closed eyelids. She bent down and kissed his forehead.
“Guess I owe him one,” Dylan said, and she turned quickly. He was standing at the doorway, but his eyes were locked on Chris. It had been traumatic enough for her to see Chris at the edge of his own life but Dylan had grown up with Chris, had chosen him as his patron. He hides his worry better than I do, she brushed at her cheeks, smudging invisible tears.
“How do you feel?” she asked, pushing off the bed.
“Hungry, of course,” he said, but at that instant he blinked rapidly and his hand shot out, gripping the doorframe. “And… probably concussed,” he snickered.
Sarah sat him down on the chair in the living room and dressed the wound on his forehead. Another centimeter or two and the bullet wouldn’t have grazed his skull… it would have entered it, she gulped. It was still gaping, which meant she’d need to sew it. Anticipating the worse, she heard Dylan croak with little joy in his throat.
“Sewing kit. Behind the glasses, top cupboard,” he said, and opened Chris’ blue tackle-kit while she brought down an old Altoids container that had needles and thread in it. “And… bring that lighter, by the stove.”
“What are you-”
“I need you to do something because I can’t do it myself,” he said, abating the fear in his voice by focusing on the movement of his hands. Cleaning the bullet graze on his forehead had caused it to bleed again lightly, bright red like watercolors. “How’s your needlework?”
She fired up the kerosene lamps and put them around the table, trying to get as much light as possible. Meanwhile, Dylan took a pair of needle-nose pliers from Chris’ tackle-kit of fish hooks and used it to bend the sewing needle into an elongated U shape, and then slip one of the higher tensile threads through it. Next, he held the needle with the pliers and used the lighter to coat it with flame. Puffing his cheeks and blowing out through a small O in his lips he handed her the makeshift suture.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said.
“This…” he said, “this is not my kidding face.”
Sarah reluctantly took the needle and thread. “Maybe you should lie down?”
“I think… if I do that, I’m going to throw up,” he wheezed.
“I’m…” she tried to decide on the best way to get at the wound with a careful hand. Resolutely, she swung a leg over top of him and sat down on his lap, straddling him. He gave a little squeak of surprise, but she shushed him. “I’ve never done this before,” she said. “If you don’t want crooked stitches… or to lose an eye, for that matter, then… hold me still. And you hold still, too.”
It was not the most orthodox medical procedure but he reached out and his warm hands steadied on her naked thighs. She felt a shiver and swallowed around the lump in her throat. His hands felt good on her skin, like an electric current, and she almost let out a little sigh of pleasure as they squeezed her soft skin as she made the first pierce of the needle.
Dylan didn’t make so much as a sound but simply stared straight ahead at her collarbone, as if staring through her. He’s not looking at me, she thought. He’s looking past the pain. The first stitch was clumsy and difficult. It was odd to push a needle through the skin, especially live skin, and it made it all the stranger that Dylan didn’t react at all. She couldn’t tell if she was hurting him, and bit her lip.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered, when she was halfway through.
The only hint of life from him was when his grip on her thighs tightened, and she looked down and realized that over the course of stitching him, his hands had accidentally moved further up their thighs, his fingers already underneath the thin fabric of her shorts. Any closer…, she felt her heart beating faster.
But then it was over, and she had tied the last stitch. Reluctantly she stood up, and felt his hands fall away. There was still a ghost sensation of them on her thighs, and she sniffed to avoid the annoying flush that seemed to sweep her whole body.
“All good?” he asked. “How do I look?”
“Wrecked,” she said honestly.
“Good, good. I would hate to feel any worse than I look,” he joked.
She absently put the make-shift suture away and poured water in the kettle and put it on top of the stove which was already warm. Dylan went to the small washroom and she heard water from the creek splashing on his face, and then he returned with a fresh shirt on, and several steri-strip bandages over the gash.
Neither of them spoke as Dylan collapsed on one end of the couch, and Sarah took the other, and handed him a blue cup full of tea – it was infused with several dried herbs that Chris himself had picked and left out in the sun. Dylan could detect sage, ginger, yarrow… even something tart, like rosehips.
“I think they’ll come back,” he muttered, after they had been quiet for several minutes.
She turned, her eyes following him over the lip of her cup as she sipped. His black hair was still wet where he’d washed the blood off it, and she caught the edge of his green eyes glaring into the empty fireplace. Behind them, an ember popped in the stove. A drop from the faucet landed on her dirty plates from morning before.
“Why do you think that?”
“They were poachers, weren’t they? That’s the only explanation… and now they know that there’s a bear on this island. Shit, two bears. More than that, they know that the bears are also… us. This is bad, Sarah.”
She merely nodded. She’d already grasped the gravity of the situation, but she let him get there on his own. “And Chris injured… maybe, even killed… one of them,” she breathed aloud. The image of the screaming young man trailing blood was still blazoned like a terrible nightmare in her memory.
“I suppose that’s the one thing we have in common,” he said, “shifters and poachers. Hurt one of us and we’ll hunt down the people that did.”
She shivered, despite the warmth of the hot tea in her hands. “I’m… scared, Dylan…”
He looked toward her, and set his tea on the small oaken table. “I know, me too.” His face straightened in the shadows of the lamps, his gaze a green reverie suddenly frozen like a river mid-winter. “But I won’t let them hurt you…”
She was momentarily alarmed by the devotion in his voice, the firm commitment that seemed unwavering, almost as if she were staring at another person, someone she had never met. Maybe, she thought reluctantly, I haven’t.
“You, or Chris,” he added, and looked at her.
She set her tea on the table as well and watched the steam rise into the air. The ghost sensation of Dylan’s hand on her thighs returned, like a phantom limb; something that wanted to exist, even out of its non-existence. Or its death, but that thought made her immediately sad again and she scooted closer to him. She was intently aware of the fact he was watching her – staring, in fact – as if he couldn’t keep his eyes from her. Or if he did look away, that something tragic would happen.
It was like a kind of heat, like the bright penny of the sun was staring down at her, and she couldn’t bear to meet it lest she go blind. But she didn’t have to. She felt something else, his hand reaching toward her and she let the tips of his fingers guide her face toward him. His face was static, neutral but there was a power behind it that leeched out through those eyes. The gash on his head flickered like a white moth in the lamplight.
Her throat moved again as she tried to say something, but her eyes were already blurring with tears – it was so unlike her. She had always prided herself in being strong, all through her training, even when she’d been thrust from the comfort of her clan to this secluded island, even when she’d seen the hunters departing and one of them raising a rifle.
“You saved him,” she heard Dylan say, and was momentarily taken aback again. “I heard you… I think I was still groggy from the bullet. Chris must’ve changed forms and attacked them… but it was your voice that pulled him back.”
“I… I didn’t know what else to do.”
Dylan smirked and his fingers left her face and fell back in his lap. “Chris has always been the voice of reason. I was the troublemaker when we were younger. Always was. It wasn’t that I tried to look for troubles or make messes… they just always seemed to follow me. But Chris, he was always there to save me. Fix things. I guess I needed that,” his voice drifted, “but that’s my problem. Fact is, the only time Chris becomes as reckless as me… is when someone he cares about is in danger. If you hadn’t called his name… called him back…”
She lowered her eyes. She hadn’t thought about that. It had simply been an impulse to tell him to run. It was pointless to worry about what might have happened – she couldn’t bear that, and more tears began to stream down her face.
“Why are you crying?” Dylan asked, leaning in.
How could she tell him what she felt? She wasn’t certain she even had the words herself, and even if she did, her throat felt constricted, too tight, as if fear had swollen her voice and strangled it out. She merely lifted her chin again and leaned her head toward his. It was like kissing a statue, he was so surprised; her lips met his, warm and smooth, and one of her hands unconsciously went to his face.
“Wait,” he said, softly, and touched her hand. She pulled back, an inch from his face, her eyes fastened to his, irretrievably. “You’re scared…”
“Scared, yes,” she agreed. “I don’t want to be…”