Chapter 9
Lissa leaned back in the seat and waited for the panic to hit her. Strangely, it didn’t. For the first time in a long time, she felt…safe.
She sat there for almost ten minutes, exploring the feeling. Tank gave her occasional sidelong glances, but he didn’t say anything else. Finally she said, “This is very disturbing.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Tank said.
“No, I mean it’s disturbing because I have extremely good creep radar. Even the charming ones that fool everybody—I can tell they’re creeps.”
Tank looked amused. “And you think I’m a creep.”
“No,” she said. “That’s the confusing part. You have no creep vibe at all. You have nice-guy vibe all over you.”
He snorted at that.
“But you keep doing creep things, like stalking me. And kidnapping me and taking me to your evil lair. Hell, that’s beyond creep, it’s serial-killer level shit. And my creep radar is not going off at all.”
He was grinning now. Well, half a grin.
“Maybe it’s broken,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just that good at serial killing. You know, the guy who has a hundred and eight bodies in his yard and everybody’s like, “But he seemed so nice! He even lent me his chainsaw that one time!”
That surprised a giggle out of her. “You don’t really have a chainsaw, do you?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “I live in the woods. But pay no attention to the wood chipper.”
“Nope, definitely not a serial killer,” she said. “They have no sense of humor.”
“I’m just pretending to have a sense of humor,” he said. “Because I’m, you know—”
She finished with him. “That good.”
He gave another reluctant huff of almost-laughter. She remembered the first time she’d gotten a good look at his face, and thinking it looked like he hadn’t smiled in a while.
It turned out she liked making him smile, even a little.
“So,” he said, glancing over at her. “Tell me about this cult you were in.”
She never talked about it to anybody. Who would she tell? But suddenly, she wanted to tell Tank everything. She was so tired of being alone.
Tank drove slowly, listening to Lissa talk about the People of Ursus. She was explaining the drum ceremonies and the prayers to the Bear God. “Of course, I didn’t believe all that shit,” she said. “I just stayed because there was plenty of food and I had a cubicle all to myself.”
Tank gave a huff of laughter and shook his head. “And they had flush toilets?”
She grinned. “The Taj Mahal of cults,” she said. She settled back in her seat. “No, really, they were nice—at first anyway. Some wacky dude like, a hundred years ago, believed he was the Bear God Incarnate. The way they could tell this was, supposedly he could turn into a bear. I guess he was right out of Barnum & Bailey or something.”
Or something. The cult had probably been founded by a bear shifter. Whether he really thought he was some kind of god, or was just a maniacal narcissist, Tank had no idea.
But at least he had the sense not to Turn anyone. Or maybe he’d tried, and it hadn’t worked.
Unlike this Brother Damien bastard, whoever he was.
“Anyway, this first guy gathered a group of nature-loving bear-worshipers and they built a big house and farmed and shit, and pretended he was the god. Then he died, and they didn’t have a Bear God anymore, but on his deathbed he told this one guy, Brother Matthias, that the Bear God would return, and Brother Matthias was the Prophet and he had to keep this whole bear cult thing going until that happened.”
Her voice got warm when she talked about Brother Matthias, and Tank could see her face soften. “By the time I joined, Brother Matthias was this sweet old man. The cult was a nice place, and they raised organic meat and crops and made artisan bread, and sold it all at farmers’ markets. Brother Matthias liked me because I understood computers, and I made them a website and set up a mail-order business to bring in more income.”
Tank grinned. “So you single-handedly brought the Bear God into the twenty-first century?”
“Well, technically he was the Prophet, but yeah.”
Tank was beginning to suspect she was the kind of person who always landed on her feet. And could wrap a sweet old guy like Brother Matthias around her fingers.
“So then what happened?”
“Then Brother Damien showed up,” she said. “And he told us he was the Bear God Incarnate, returned to his people.”
Tank shivered at the chill in her voice. “And they accepted that?”
“They did,” Lissa said. “I didn’t. I told you, creep radar. I knew from the minute I laid eyes on that asshole that he was bad news. I just didn’t get out fast enough.”
She added, “Plus, you know, I was not raised in a cult, so I was aware that people can’t actually turn into bears. But he did this ritual, with lights and fog and drumming, and then poof, he was gone and there was this bear. And then poof, and Brother Damien was back. Just like a Vegas magic trick.”
Tank nodded. “But they believed it,” he said. Ironically, they’d been right and she’d been wrong. Because judging by the bite on her shoulder, Brother Damien didn’t need illusions to turn into a bear.
Her voice got soft. “They’d never seen a Vegas magic trick. Most of them had never even seen TV.”
Poor suckers. “So then Brother Damien became the head of the People of Ursus?”
“Then Brother Matthias died,” she said, her voice hard. That sounded pretty fucking suspicious to Tank, and he had the feeling it did to her too, but he let it slide. That wasn’t what was important now. She went on, “And yeah. Brother Damien took over, and he said he was going to choose a consort and she would be the Vessel of the Bear. Which I’m pretty sure meant having his uber-creep babies. He chose me. And I told you what happened after that.”
He nodded again. That wasn’t the whole story—he could tell she was leaving something out. But it was enough for now. Hell, it was all he could stand hearing.
Some fucking rogue shifter had heard about the People of Ursus and decided to set up his own little kingdom. And he’d done something that was illegal throughout the shifter world—Turned Lissa without her consent, because he wanted a mate.
Or a sex slave.
That bite on her shoulder was a claiming mark. That bastard Damien had Claimed and Turned a completely innocent and unprepared human. The fact that she was alive at all was a testament to her will to survive.
Note to self: Find Brother Damien, and fucking kill him.