The first time John had tried to hand the phone over to Alanna with Rawley, she had not reacted well and he’d threatened to shift and show her why it was a bad idea. Now she took the phone, her head starting to pound even with food in her stomach.
“Hello,” Alanna said flatly.
Rawley growled on the other end and Alanna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Rawley was always growling. To some degree, that was a reflex among male bear shifters. But it was the way he did it, making a point of it. He growled to make threats and also to try to sound sexy. It only made Alanna infuriated.
“Hello, my blushing bride,” Rawley finally said. “John treating you like the princess you are?”
The cognitive dissonance threatened to scramble Alanna’s brain, but that was all a part of this too. Rawley knew very well that John had smacked her around to keep her in line, had threatened her, and if nothing else, was holding her against her will. He was holding her brother Alex hostage on top of it, threatening his potential murder or torture constantly. But all of that still wasn’t enough.
“Of course,” Alanna said dutifully. “Everything is just fine.”
“You having breakfast?” Rawley said. “Don’t eat too much. I don’t like my girls too plump.”
“Of course.”
“You sound so nervous,” Rawley said, laughing in that deep bellowing way of his. “Don’t you worry, my love. You’ll get used to it. You’ll love the other girls. They’ll show you the ropes. And I want you to know, I won’t be too hard on you for taking off like you did. You’re a spitfire. That’s what I like about you. Moment I saw you, I wanted to take that fire. I wanted to take it for myself.”
Put it out, you mean, Alanna thought.
“You just sit tight,” Rawley went on. “Daddy’ll meet you two at the lodge. Just got some important business to take care of first and then you and I are getting hitched. God, you’re gonna be a gorgeous bride.”
“And Alex?” Alanna said.
“Yes, I’ll bring him. And once you and I are settled in with the other girls, he can go. I just want to make sure things are set in stone first. Need to get you used to things. Now gimme back to John, sweetheart.”
“Please don’t hurt Alex,” Alanna pleaded.
“I said give him the phone,” Rawley said and she didn’t miss the implicit threat.
Alanna handed the phone back to John and sat back in her seat, her appetite lost.
She folded her hands in her lap and stared down at the little remaining food on her plate. Every time she spoke to Rawley, she felt a little sick and everything seemed a little worse. The eggs on her plate seemed congealed now, the toast crusted with greasy butter. The pretty peach-colored clouds over the snowy mountains outside now looked like a hellscape. That was Rawley’s big power, she supposed. Making everything feel so much worse.
The moment she had first met Rawley, she had thought to herself: this is bad. Even when he had been trying to charm her, she had never been fooled by him, either by his money or his strength or his affable charisma that could turn to violence in the blink of an eye.
It had been a kind of party, sort of like a kegger that teenagers would go to. That’s what it felt like anyway. That’s what bear shifter parties always felt like. They were always big shindigs deep in the woods. This one had been in Park City, Utah. It was a huge event, a gathering of bear sleuths and lone bears too. The kind of party anyone would go to. It had taken up half a forest.
Alanna had only been passing through town with her brother. Since their parents had been killed by hunters when they were just kids, they’d drifted around together. They’d had no sleuth to take care of them, but that was the way with bear shifters. Some ran in groups and some went at it alone. It was somewhat easier to go at it alone when you were fairly assimilated into the human world.
So Alanna and Alex had soldiered on and made the best of it, traveling from town to town and state to state. It was lonely sometimes, but she loved her brother and she liked seeing so much of the country as they’d made their way around, settling for a bit here and there, working some, and exploring the woods as young bears on their own.
She’d never been to Utah until that party in Park City. They’d just come to town. It had been a fun day too, fishing and running and sniffing around other friendly bears. They’d shifted into human form to hit a few bars and sneak into the fancy lodges around the resort town just to make fun of the rich humans and steal continental breakfasts and champagne.
They’d been playing around in a creek not far from the ski slopes when they’d met another shifter who ended up following them back to town and buying them beer. It was that guy, Carl, who’d told them about the party. He’d also given them a warning that neither Alanna or Alex had heeded: watch out for Rawley.
“He runs everything in Utah,” Carl said, as he sipped his IPA. “I mean all over the state. In the bear world anyway. It’s like a protection racket. He preys on bears who are out on their own, who don’t have sleuths. He pillages sleuths and bear communities then makes them pay up for protections for other shifters and if you don’t pay, you’ll be sorry. He’s brutal. But he throws a good party. You probably won’t even meet him, there’ll be so many bears there. I’m just telling you...be careful if you do run into him.”
It had sounded like a joke to Alanna who was twenty-three and felt like she’d been around the block a lot more than most girls her age. A bear shifter mobster with his fingers in every pie? She hadn’t been worried.
Now, she was bruised and she had been kidnapped. John had kept her tied up in the trunk for the first couple hours of their drive after he’d found her. He’d only untied her after she’d promised not to run away again, and when she’d mouthed off after that, she’d been rewarded with a smack.
She shifted in the booth and stared out the window at the snowy mountains where other bears were running free, where she wanted to be running free too.
But in her mind all she saw was Rawley. He was handsome, really. He was a lot older than her. She’d seen him first in his bear form, up on his hindlegs roaring as the party-goers cheered.
There had been a lot to cheer for. He was the biggest bear Alanna had ever seen.
Later he’d shifted into human form and he’d spotted her laughing as she sat on a log next to her brother. He’d brought her a plastic cup of champagne. He was wearing a nice suit. He’d looked just like one of the humans who stayed in the fancy resorts all around Park City. He had brown eyes so light they glimmered and turned to gold.
“Hey there, beautiful. You look like you need company.”
Watch out for Rawley, Carl had said.
It probably wouldn’t have made any difference if she had.
Now she would never know, and now she had to marry him...or Alex would die.
2
Nathan
“Goddamn,” Nathan said, sighing. His laptop was kaput. The battery was shot. He’d known that, but now it wasn’t even powering up. He sat back in his designer side chair at the small dining table next to a floor to ceiling window that looked out on the glorious Black Bear Lake mountains beyond. There was nothing in his email that couldn't wait. Maintenance work orders went right to an app on his phone. Still, he hated dealing with computer stuff.