Anya
Cullen walked toward me. I was scared. Shocked. Confused. He stood stark naked, at the end of my sidewalk holding a wad of torn clothing under his arm. I cocked Martha and pointed her toward the ground. Cullen kept advancing. When he got to the doorway of the vacant unit next to mine, the motion light came on. His ruddy skin glistened with beads of sweat over the hard curves of his muscles. He was huge in every way, from his broad shoulders, thick, sinewy thighs, long feet … and massive cock. I couldn’t help but stare. It was just … well … there … right in front of me.
But, his nakedness was the least shocking thing I’d seen. A bear. Cullen was a bear. Now he was Cullen. Maybe I’d lost my mind completely, or Arkady had slipped something in the Coke I’d ordered from the bar a few hours ago. But, I wasn’t afraid of him just then. I was drawn to him even more than I had been the other night. My body felt pulled to his as if by a tractor beam.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “I would never hurt you. I’m here to protect you.”
He took a step toward me and I raised my gun. I knew instinctively it wouldn’t have helped me even if he had tried to attack me. As the full glare of the porch light hit Cullen’s chest, I saw his chiseled abs were unmarred. He bore not so much as a scratch from the other night. I hadn’t been seeing things. His injuries were as severe as I first thought. But he’d healed from them in a matter of minutes. Bear strength. I lowered my gun. He crossed the distance between us.
“We need to talk,” he said.
I nodded. “You can’t stand out here like that.”
He seemed to have forgotten his nakedness, though for me that was impossible. It was as though I drank it in with more than just my eyes. My every nerve ending seemed tuned to the movement of his body. The way he walked. The way his eyes held me. I wanted to touch him. My knees trembled with the effort of keeping my distance.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I turned and opened the door. “I’m sure.”
Cullen gave me a tight-lipped nod, then moved past me and into my apartment. When I heard the commotion outside, I’d dropped my bath towel. It lay in the middle of my living room floor. Cullen stopped down to retrieve it and tied it around his waist.
“I don’t know what to do here,” I said. “Offer you something to drink? Er … a pot of honey?”
Cullen’s face dropped, then split into a wide grin. His rich laughter vibrated straight down my spine and warmed me from the inside out.
“I need to sit,” I said. I practically collapsed on the end of the couch. Spots swam in front of my eyes. I took a deep breath and got myself under control.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was careless of me to let you find out this way.”
“How was I supposed to find out? I mean, is there a better way?”
Cullen opened his mouth to answer, then took a breath and clamped it shut. He shrugged and held his palms up. “No. I guess there really isn’t. If I’d have told you I was a bear, I doubt you’d have been able to believe it. One way or the other it would have taken you seeing it with your own eyes.”
“I knew,” I blurted. The thought barely had a chance to form in my mind, but it was true. “I mean … not that you were a grizzly bear, exactly. But I knew there was something not normal about you.”
He took the seat on the couch next to me, careful not to touch me. The air between us felt combustible. He seemed as wary as I was about igniting it with his skin against mine.
“Well, I’d argue the point about whether I’m normal. I’m as normal as you are. Shifters are part of your world, you just never knew it before. We don’t reveal ourselves to normal humans. Not ever.”
“Normal humans? Am I not normal?”
Cullen let a breath out and made a slow blink, seeming to want to choose his next words carefully. He settled on, “Not exactly.”
I suppose I should have taken offense at the remark, but the moment he said it, I knew that was true too. Everything that had happened over the last hour … hell … the last few days where he was concerned seemed, well, obvious somehow. It was as if a puzzle piece fell into place for a mystery I hadn’t realized I needed to solve.
“Look, now that you know. Can you feel, or can you understand why it’s so important for you to get as far away from this place as possible? You’re not safe here. What I did tonight and the other night, chasing away those bears, that was just the beginning.”
“They were bears. Those three in the alley?” I rubbed my forehead with three fingers of my right hand. My head started to pound with the gravity of what Cullen was saying.
“Yes. One of them followed you home tonight. That’s who I fought off just now. They’re not going to stop coming after you.”
“What do they want with me?”
Cullen rocketed off the couch. He started to pace. His footsteps were so hard, it shook the foundation. The towel slipped lower on his hips and he fisted it and tied it tighter.
“You asked me if you were normal. The answer is no. Not in the way you’ve ever thought you were. God, I don’t know how to do this. It’s not like there’s a bear mate manual or a hotline you can call.”
“Bear mate? They think I’m one of their mates?”
Cullen whirled on me. His eyes turned dark, almost black. The pupils dilated, taking up almost the whole orb. Grizzly bear eyes. I’d seen him do this before. Again, obvious. Every incredible thing made sense somehow.
“You’re not,” he said, his bear seemed about ready to pop out again. He dropped to his knees and dug his fists into the couch cushions on either side of me, caging me with his arms. He stared at me with such intensity, my heart thundered all the way up to my throat.
“I don’t want to be,” I whispered.
“But you are a bear’s mate. We call it Anam Cara. It’s what you were born to be. It’s in your blood. Think about it. You’ve been drawn to me from the second you saw me. Even now, I can feel your blood heating. You want me to kiss you.”
Fuck. I did. I trembled from it. My insides turned molten when he locked eyes with me and the air seemed to go out of the room. There was nothing in the world in that fraction of a second but Cullen and me. He wasn’t touching me, but he was close. His breath across my cheek intoxicated me. My senses overloaded from the wanting.
“Stop!” I crawled backward, pushing myself up to the back of the couch and out of Cullen’s reach. I perched there like some gargoyle with my knees tucked beneath me.
“I won’t touch you unless you want me to. It’s dangerous for me if I do.”
“What do you mean?”
Cullen sat back on the couch and buried his face in his hands. His distress permeated through me. It took everything in me not to go to him, lift his chin with my fingers and place a tender kiss on those luscious lips of his. Crazy. This whole thing was insanity!
“I don’t have a right to you. It’s against the law for me to claim you.”
“Claim me? What law? There’s bear law?”
He nodded. “Of course. Only clan members can choose their mates. Someone like me has no right.”
“Why?”
“I’m an outlaw. I’ve been banished from my clan lands. I have no brothers. No one to back me up against a challenge from another bear for you. And believe, me, they’ll come.”
Cullen’s grief tore through me and I recognized it as my own. He said he had no clans. No one to back him up. It was the same for me. It seemed we were both out here all alone, searching for something we might never find.
“What did you do to get banished?” I slid down from my perch on the edge of the couch and sat beside him. My fingers hovered over his strong back. He let out a breath and laid my hand on his shoulder. Electricity seemed to spark between us, but Cullen stayed very still.
“I have the misfortune of having a father who betrayed the other clans. We all own claims on a lucrative copper mining operation in the upper peninsula of Michigan. It’s one of only five places in the world where my kind can live safely. I don’t know why he did it, but my father made a play to take over the mines and the lands for himself. He got caught.”
“And you got punished for it?”
Cullen nodded. “Bear law. I told you. I’m part of the James clan. When he got thrown out, so did I.”
“Well, that hardly seems fair. Can’t you, I don’t know, file an appeal?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t really work like that.”
“Well, it should. If I were held responsible for shit my parents did, I’d probably be in jail right now. My mother was a crackhead who overdosed two weeks after my sister and I were born. Last I heard, my father was in jail for killing somebody in a bar fight.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I’d have found you when you were a child. You belonged in Wild Ridge. You could be one of us.”
“A bear?”
He smiled and shook his head. “No. Not a bear. But a bear’s mate, and protected for all the days of your life.”
Warmth flooded through me. I felt a homesick longing for something I didn’t fully understand. But, the way Cullen said it, the way his eyes bored into me, I knew it was true. All my life, I’d never felt like I belonged. I was always just passing through. Maybe he was right.
“So you understand,” Cullen said. He must have seen some dark knowledge pass through my eyes. It both unsettled me and comforted me to know how easily he seemed to understand my thoughts.
“I don’t know. But, I feel something. I just don’t understand it.”
He shifted his weight, putting his face closer to mine. “I can help you understand. But, it’s risky. The more time I spend with you, the easier it will be for them to find me. I can’t protect you against the whole Russian clan.”
“Russian?” My heart raced.
Cullen nodded. “Yes. That’s what I’m trying to make you see. By fate or coincidence, you’ve walked right into another clan’s lair. They know what you are as well as I do. I don’t understand what they’re doing in Blackfoot. These aren’t sanctioned clan lands. They’re far outside their own territory. That alone might be cause to start a clan war with the other North American bears. But that place, that bar. It’s run by the same people who chased you down in that alley the other night. You’re not safe. I can’t protect you against all of them at once. You have to get as far away from here as possible.”
I shook my head. “No. I can’t.”
“Why?”
Cullen grabbed my wrists and pulled me toward him. His eyes searched my face. I could feel his pulse beating next to mine.
“My sister,” I said. He’d told me his secrets; now I would tell him mine. “Avery. She disappeared five years ago and that bar was the last place I think she was seen alive. I have to find out if anyone knows what happened to her. No one will help me. The police won’t help me. She was an adult. She was … homeless and troubled.”
Cullen let go of my hands and leaned back against the couch. He shook his head and covered his mouth with his hand. “You know how dangerous this scheme is? I can’t go into that bar after you. They’ll tear me apart before I even take a step.”
“So that’s why you were lurking in the parking lot during my shift tonight?”
He nodded. “I would have. Do you understand? If they tried to hurt you, I would have charged in there, claws out.”
“And you would have died for it.” My voice ripped through my throat and the horror of what he was willing to do nearly knocked me back on my ass. He would die for me. It wasn’t just something he said. He would have bloody well done it.
“Then help me,” I said.
“What?”
“Avery. My sister. I need to find out what happened to her. If I’m this thing you say … a bear’s mate. Is that something that’s hereditary? I mean, how did I catch that?”
“It’s not a virus. And I don’t know exactly how it works. But yeah, you’re born with it. It’s in your blood.”
I stood up and started to pace. My heart and mind raced a mile a minute. I went into the kitchen and pulled a small, square, faded photograph out of my purse. It was the last picture I had of Avery and me together. We’d gone swimming at the quarry. We stood at the top of a cliff wearing matching purple bikinis. We were smiling with our heads pressed together. I handed the picture to Cullen.
He let out a sigh and closed his eyes as he looked at it. “You were twins.”
“Yes,” I said. “Identical. Same DNA. So if I have blood like you say I do, then did she?”
He nodded. “Like I said, I don’t know how it works, exactly. But yeah. I’d say there’s a good chance.”
“So whatever those bears wanted to do to me, they would have wanted her for the same thing?”
“Anya, you can’t go back there. I forbid it.”
I turned on him, my heart racing. “You can’t forbid it. You have no claim on me. No matter what you say about my blood. It’s bear law, remember?”
Fire danced behind his eyes. He rose slowly to his full height and towered over me. He crossed the room in two strides and gripped me by the elbows. Instinct took over. I went up on my tiptoes and craned my neck toward him. Then he crushed his lips down to mine.
I was drowning. The world spun into a kaleidoscope of colors unlike any I’d ever seen. I was one with him. I saw through his eyes. Such power. Such strength. My blood simmered and my skin caught fire. I was starved for him. It was as though my lungs had never held air until this very moment and I had no idea how much I needed it. His towel dropped to the ground and I felt his rigid manhood pressed against me. God, I wanted it. I wanted him. He tore his hands through my hair and we sank to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
“Oh, God,” I gasped. He ran a hand along my ribcage, igniting every inch of my skin. This. Yes. This. How had I waited so long to let him touch me like this?
He growled low. I opened my eyes and stared into the dark pools of his bear eyes. God, I wanted that too. I wanted the man. I wanted the bear. I wanted to sear my skin to his and become a part of him. I was born for this. He told me that, but I didn’t fully understand it until he whispered my name against my ear and licked a trail down the column of my throat and settled between my breasts.
He threw his head back and let out a full bear roar that made me shiver. Then somehow, he found the strength to tear himself away from me. He staggered to his feet and took a step back, his chest heaving. I lay sprawled on the floor in front of him. It took everything in me not to go to my knees and take him into my mouth as his erection bobbed before me. This was unlike any desire I’d ever felt. It was primal, savage, and it would not be denied.
But we had to deny it. Cullen picked up the towel and tucked it around himself. He held his hand out to help me to my feet. My knees felt like rubber, but I stood before him and took a step back, struggling to come back into myself.
“I have a claim on you,” he said, his voice stilted and ragged. “And you have a claim on me. But it’s going to get us both killed.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I understand. But this claim I have on you … if I ask you to help me, does it mean you have to say yes?”
His eyes narrowed with pain as he shook his head. “Anya, don’t. I’m begging you.”
“I don’t have a choice, and you know it. You talk about clans and loyalty. Well, I have my own honor code too. Avery is my sister. She’s part of my clan. I have to find out what happened to her. It might be too late to save her, but it’s not too late to get her justice. Help me. Please.”
He ran a hand across his face. “Fuck. Fuck!”
I smiled. “Good. I go back to the Bluelight tomorrow night. Start thinking.”