Whimpering, she sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. "You don"t understand."
"Tell me."
Silence. Then: "I blame myself."
He"d been about to put on his jeans, but with her words, that no longer mattered. Like him, Songan"s attention was locked on her.
"Why?" he asked. Should he try to comfort her or give her some s.p.a.ce?
"We"d argued," she whispered, not looking up. "Maybe the worst disagreement we"ve ever had. She tried to get me to admit that these mountains are in my blood and I was being a fool for trying to stay away.
I told her it was my life. She"d done her job. Now it was my turn to make my decisions."
"You were right," he ventured, though he wasn"t sure about such things. "It is your life."
"Yeah. Maybe."
Barely able to hear her, he waited her out by turning his attention to getting dressed. Songan was doing the same.
"The thing is," she said at length, "Mom was right. I was a fool for not admitting she knew what she was talking about."
"Why not?"
She tried to blow a lock of hair off her face. "I was so d.a.m.n sure I was doing the right thing when I left Chinook. That finding myself could only happen if I was living somewhere else. I didn"t want to admit I"d wasted all that time."
"It wasn"t wasted. You have a career."
"Yeah, the same one Mom did. Doesn"t that say something? She and I are so much alike-were so much alike." She gnawed on her lower lip. "This forest never let her go. It kept her here. I think-maybe part of her envied me for getting away, but she absolutely believed I"d return. She wanted to spare me all that struggling."
Rane hadn"t looked up during her speech. He wasn"t sure how aware she was of his and Songan"s presence.
"What are you saying?" he asked. Much as he wanted to spare her more pain, he didn"t believe he had a choice but had to continue. "You think the argument made it impossible for her to concentrate on where she was or what she was doing? It made her careless?"
He didn"t know how to comfort women, had never been shown how such things were done, and yet he had no doubt he was doing the right thing when he walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. At least she wasn"t crying. Tears undid him.
122.
"Rane, your mother was murdered. Shot. We"ll never know if anything she did or didn"t do would have prevented that from happening."
When Rane looked up at him with agony-filled eyes, it took all he had not to apologize.
"She shouldn"t have died."
"I agree. But you feeling guilty doesn"t change anything. You can"t bring her back to life. She wouldn"t want you doing this to yourself."
"Easier said than done."
Much as he hated hearing that, at least her spark was back. "Were you able to function after that argument? You didn"t take to bed and pull the covers over your head."
"Of course not."
"Then?"
When she shrugged, he reluctantly took his hands off her.
"I lost the most important person in my life under horrific circ.u.mstances," she said after a moment.
"Don"t blame me because my thinking"s messed up."
"We don"t," Songan said. "We never will."
Rane looked at where she"d left her socks and boots. Much as he preferred her naked, Ber picked them up and handed them to her. She didn"t seem as devastated as when she"d made her confession, but his guess was she still had a long way to go before she was at peace with herself. From the moment she"d learned of her mother"s death, she"d harbored the hope that she could somehow redeem herself by coming here. A snowstorm would stop most people, but not only was she still determined, she wasn"t alone.
Songan and he were here.
"What do you think?" he asked Songan, who was tying his boots but hadn"t yet put on his shirt.
"There"s more wind than snow. If we take off right now-"
Songan held up a hand and jerked his head at the window. "What was that?"
"The wind?" Rane asked softly.
"Maybe." Songan didn"t look convinced.
Uneasy, Ber slipped over to the small window. The close-growing trees made studying their surroundings all but impossible. It was far from a whiteout out there but cold enough that the snow was sticking. He hated the idea of letting Rane go outside, but if the snow kept up, the ground might stay covered until spring.
I don"t see anything, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn"t form. Something had him on alert.
"What if it"s them?" Rane whispered. "Whoever killed my mother." Why anyone would come here in this weather made no sense-unless there was evidence to hide. As another possibility struck, he turned toward Songan.
"People knew she was coming up here," he said. "What if someone followed us?"
123.
Songan shook his head. "We would have heard, sensed. But if they were already up here-"
"Doing what?" Rane interrupted.
Feeling his way, Ber voiced his theory that whoever had shot her mother and dragged her away from the kill spot must have been concerned he"d left clues behind. "You told some folks you were going to check out Wolverine," he told her. "If I"m right, and I don"t know if I am, maybe they were already here when we arrived."
"Doing what? That"s what I need to know."
Putting action behind her words, she shook out a sock and put it on. He longed to grab it, the other sock and her boots from her. That done, he"d hold her down and rip off her clothes. Then he"d caress her until they both forgot everything else.
Sensing eyes on him, he looked at Songan. "You can"t," the elk shifter silently warned. "She needs to do this."
But what if it was dangerous out there?
"Wait," he told Rane. "Let Songan and me check things first."
"No. No way. This is my agenda. My obsession." She tapped her chest.
Maybe it had once been, but s.e.x and more had changed things.
"He"s right," Songan said. "Even the way Ber and I are now, our hearing is keener than yours, our sight sharper."
Somehow he and Songan were standing side by side with the window behind them. No matter that they might be rivals for Rane"s body, they"d just formed a united front.
"Wait here," he told her. "As soon as we know things are safe, we-" Gla.s.s shattered, spraying shards everywhere. A m.u.f.fled pop immediately followed.
"Someone"s shooting!" Rane yelled, but he already knew that. So did Songan, who dropped to his knees at the same instant he did. Rane hit the floor on her belly, causing his heart to stutter. To his relief, he saw no sign of blood when she lifted her head.
A second shot followed the first. That bullet also tore a jagged hole in the door that was opposite the window. Cold air rushed into the cabin. In contrast to the sudden chill, heat raged through him. A roar exploded from his chest. His shoulders, chest and arms started to expand.
Fighting the drive to become a grizzly, he crawled over to Rane and hauled her against the wall under the window. Hopefully the shards hadn"t cut her.
Also crawling, Songan joined them. The elk shifter"s eyes were darkening, his nostrils flaring. He gripped Ber"s forearm. "I don"t dare shift. If I do, I could forget this."
"I won"t."
"What are you thinking?" Rane insisted. "d.a.m.n it, no, you aren"t going out there."
"If I don"t," Ber said, "they might kill us."
124.
Songan"s grip tightened. "They might anyway."
"Stay with her," he said.
"You? No. I"m-"
"I"m the predator," he pointed out. "One of us has to stay with her."
"I"m not helpless," Rane said.
"Maybe not but you"re not a shifter. You don"t understand survival the way we do." That silenced her.
"I"m not going to tell you to be careful," Songan told her, "because that"s a given. Roar if you need me."
Standing where he couldn"t be seen from outside, Ber tore off the clothing he"d just put on. He still felt where Songan had grabbed him, and Rane"s eyes were filled with fear and something else, but he didn"t dare let those things distract him.
In the past, changing had always been a conscious effort, a move dictated by practical matters. Today was different. Unstoppable.
Barely aware of the two pairs of eyes on him, he moved as far as he dared into the middle of the room so he"d have more s.p.a.ce in which to become a bear. As his neck thickened and thick brown hair began covering his human skin, he realized he wouldn"t be able to get through the door once the transformation was complete. Songan must have had the same thought because, springing to his feet, the elk shifter yanked open the door.
The moment Ber stepped outside, snow and wind buffeted him. Glorying in what he accepted as nature"s gift, he surrendered to the inner force he might never understand. Moment by moment he became less human and more animal. Bigger. Stronger. Solid. At home here.
As a bear, his eyesight wasn"t as sharp as he"d like, but his sense of smell and hearing made up for it.
With paws and claws instead of feet, he easily dismissed the cold, snow-dusted ground. Not even a blizzard could penetrate his thick fur. A heart capable of supplying a half-ton body sped blood through his veins.
Because the door was opposite the window, he doubted the shooter had seen him come out. But if more than one person was involved- As if in answer to his question, another pop rocked the air. A bullet slammed into the just-closed door, sending wood splinters onto the snow. Grateful for the shooter"s poor marksmanship, he whirled to the right and bounded into the trees. Whoever had shot out the window wouldn"t have had time to run around the cabin, which meant at least two would-be marksmen were out there. As for whether whoever had just fired had seen him turn into a bear, h.e.l.l, it didn"t matter.
He"d heard people maintain bears were lumbering, clumsy creatures, but they were wrong. Given reason, he could move as silently as any deer. Lifting his heavy head and inhaling, he caught the stench of 125.
gunpowder and a hint of human. Much as he wanted to charge, he forced himself to be patient. To think.
Plan.
Three shots, the first two twins of each other, the last sounding different.
Two would-be killers with separate weapons.
One knew he was out here and in grizzly form. The other didn"t.
One had deliberately shot at Rane and come within inches of striking her. The second had fired at him.
Growling under his breath, Ber slipped through the trees heading for where the first shots had come from and whoever had tried to kill Rane.
126.
Chapter Nineteen.
"Why isn"t he still shooting?" Rane demanded of Songan. "My G.o.d, if Ber has been hit-"
"He hasn"t."
"How do you know?"
"We would have heard him."
Songan was right. There were rifles with enough firepower to bring down a grizzly, but that wasn"t what had just torn into the door. Going by the sounds, she surmised the shooter was using a deer rifle, maybe a 30-30 since that was the caliber of choice for local hunters. Ber might be wounded but thank goodness not dead. No, not wounded. Ber would have let them know if he needed help.
"There"s more than one man out there," Songan said.
"You"re sure?"
"Yes."
Instead of asking for an explanation, she accepted what Songan had told her. So much had changed since she"d fed off Songan and Ber"s bodies. Watching snowflakes enter through the shattered window, she ached to go back in time. "Two," she said unnecessarily. "Trying to kill us."