Buck wouldn't begrudge Jessie his pleasure though, so he left the bar and put it out of his mind as he climbed behind the wheel of his old pickup truck. The truck had been on the ranch since the Kincaids were all children. Jessie, who they called Mechanic Bear, had kept it running.
By the time Buck made it back to the ranch and walked through the front door of his house, he was feeling ready for bed. He had an early morning the next day, as usual. Buck checked his phone as he got ready to go to sleep and found there was still no text. He slipped out of his clothes and climbed under the blankets in his boxers, setting his phone next to the bed as his alarm clock. He checked the screen one last time.
Buck gritted his teeth and growled. He was a patient, hard-working man, but he had plenty of feelings inside him. His inner grizzly roared violently, so loud that Buck had to cover his ears. He squeezed his eyes closed at the sound of his inner beast wailing.
He had to see Maria. He wanted to drive down to the Bright Institute and find her right then and there. But Drew's words gave him pause. Buck couldn't just go to the Institute in the middle of the night and demand to see her. That was just wrong and immature. Buck would never do that.
He growled and flopped violently on the bed, smashing his fists into the mattress. He turned off the lamp on his bedside table and forced his eyes closed, trying to make himself go to sleep. He had to be up for work in five hours.
He knew he never should have gone out with Jessie tonight. Buck’s younger brother had encouraged him to take a break from work for the first time in years. Instead of a break, Jessie had spent most of the evening trying to get Buck to agree to help him build his new cabin.
Buck tossed and turned throughout the night, trying to contain the demands of his grizzly. When his alarm went off in the morning, he groggily pulled himself out of bed. He'd barely slept at all, and he felt like garbage. Buck had learned a long time ago that he had to battle the lazy parts of himself if he wanted to take care of his family and the legacy of his clan. Nothing important came easily in life. Buck had known that since an early age. It had been the mantra he'd lived by.
He picked up his phone and checked for messages from Maria.
“Something terrible has happened. We can never be together.”
Buck shot out of bed, feeling adrenaline pulse through his blood. He'd waited all his life for his one special someone. There she was, so close and so perfect. All he wanted was to start their lives together and give her absolutely everything he had to give. Something bad had happened to her. If someone hurt her, he didn’t know what he’d do. His grizzly roared inside him, demanding Buck protect his mate.
That was it. He was going to go down to the Bright Institute to find her. He would protect her no matter what. Even if she didn’t want him to.
As Buck drove into town in his pickup, Drew’s words played over in his mind, telling him that he should leave her alone. But he couldn't. He knew that she needed him.
That vulnerable sweet look in her eyes called out to him across time and space. One thing was for sure, he was going to meet his mate today, and he would help her with whatever was wrong.
He drove up to the parking lot of the state-of-the-art new facility that had been built by Corey Bright and his wife Willow, Fate Mountain’s resident romance novelist. The story of Corey and Willow’s love had been no less fraught with trouble than Drew and Quinn’s. In the end, they had created the Bright Institute for Shifters to give back to the community they loved so much.
Buck took a deep breath and let it out before sliding out of the truck and slamming the door closed. He marched up the front steps of the Bright Institute and walked through the wide glass doors into the huge foyer. It was walled with windows that let in the early morning sunlight. The Institute had dorms and a cafeteria and many other amenities and resources for the students they served. Most of the students were still at breakfast or even in bed this early in the morning it seemed. There wasn’t anyone around.
Buck had heard the Bright Institute for Shifters had been making strides in several areas, including technology and science, led by Corey Bright himself. The Institute had brought a whole new kind of culture to Fate Mountain which Buck hadn't been sure about in the beginning. Now, Buck appreciated everything the Brights were doing for the town. Corey had moved to Fate Mountain at the end of the war. Since then, he’d been on Fate Mountain's search and rescue team, the Rescue Bears. Buck knew Corey still participated in rescue missions, even after becoming a billionaire.
Buck continued down the wide hallway and turned into the cafeteria where students carried trays along the buffet line. Everyone on Fate Mountain knew that the institute wasn't a typical university. It served all ages between late teen and elderly. The school taught many skills that were not always offered in traditional universities.
There were classes on finances, housekeeping, life planning. A whole myriad of other technical skills like plumbing and mechanics. Traditional academic studies like science, medicine, botany, mathematics, literature, fine art. Applied arts like textiles, knitting, jewelry making. For the most part, the Bright Institute for Shifters tried its best to serve its students with whatever they needed to learn.
Buck looked around the cafeteria for Maria, but didn't see her. She would have stood out in the crowd. She was a petite and curvy human female with long brown hair and dusty tan skin. Most of the Institute’s students were burly male veteran shifters. The thought of her in the middle of these males sent a jolt of possessiveness through him.
He growled and his grizzly thrashed behind his eyes. He had to find her. He’d picked up the subtle sweet scent of his mate the moment he entered the institute. Even though it was buried and disguised under the other smells, his grizzly was sure his mate had been here.
“Can I help you?” asked a pretty woman with kinky hair she wore tied up in a sash. She wore a gray designer dress with red flats, and simple but well-applied makeup. She offered her manicured hand to Buck and introduced herself.
“Hi there, I'm Willow Bright, Corey Bright’s mate,” she said. “I don't think I've seen you around here before. Are you a student?”
“No, I'm Buck Kincaid from the Timber Bear Ranch. My oldest brother Leland is the Alpha of our clan. I came here to find my mate, Maria Reyes. Have you seen her?”
“Maria’s mate…” Willow started, her expression going dark. “I should have expected something like this to happen after the incident.”
“What incident?” Buck asked, clenching his fists until they hurt.
“There was a scuffle in Maria's room last night. We haven't seen her since.”
Chapter 2
Maria jerked awake.
Naked and cold, wet and shivering, and alone in the forest. She lifted her hands into view and saw that they were stained red. She tasted the tang of blood on her lips and felt grit under her fingernails. A gut-wrenching cry ripped from her throat and rose into the forest canopy.
Birds broke through the branches, taking to the sky in a shriek and flutter of wings. She gasped as she looked up through the tears streaming from her eyes. The damp leaves and pine needles below her bit into her naked flesh. This was one of a dozen times she'd found herself here in the last two weeks. She thought it was two weeks. She’d lost track of the days.
She sniffed the air, using her new shifter senses to determine where she was in the forest. Maria could make out the faint scent of her mark and the scratch of her claws on the trees nearby. This was her territory, what she'd come to call her home.
She drew herself up to her feet, taking a deep, shuddering breath. This was her life now, the naked, cold, and confused world of a feral shifter. She squeezed her eyes closed and let out one last sob, wrapping her arms around her chest for comfort. Her hair hung in long muddy strands around her face. Her life felt raw and unreal. All she could do was put one foot in the front of the other and walk back to her cave.
Dark thoughts of her past swam in her mind as her bare feet c
runched over the cold forest floor. Her breath blew out before her and her skin pricked into goosebumps. It was early summer on Fate Mountain, but the air was still cold at this elevation, especially in the morning.
When she made it back to her cave, she pulled on her big knit sweater, a pair of sweatpants, and her fur-lined boots, sighing with relief.
Everything she had in her cave, she'd scavenged. That was how she spent the few lucid hours her beast left her with between shifts. Maria never remembered the shift fully, just bits and pieces, like a fever dream.
After dressing and wrapping her muddy hair into a messy bun at the top of her head, she started a fire in her fire pit. The cave she’d chosen was located deep in the forest. It was a good natural shelter that provided ventilation for her campfire. She started her flame using flint she’d found at the campground and got the fire roaring with snapped dry branches. Finally, she put her scavenged tea kettle on the metal rack over the flames.
As she waited for the water to boil, her thoughts drifted back to the night of her first shift. She remembered being bitten. She remembered the pain of the first shift, just nothing during those terrible moments when her crazed lioness had taken over. She’d woken up in her dorm room, everything she owned slashed and broken. When she came to, she remembered what she’d been doing right before the incident.
She’d just signed up for Mate.com.
Her phone was under a pile of torn up clothing and papers. She grabbed the phone and made the hardest text of her life. Then she ran into the wilderness. Naked and barefoot in the night, she decided she would never go back home.
The feral lioness had taken over her life. Almost every day, the beast broke from inside Maria and ravaged the forest, feeding on whatever animals it could catch, tearing apart trees, howling, and screaming. The sounds of her feral roars were one of the few things Maria remembered from those lost hours. It haunted her dreams when she slept, cold and alone in her human form.
Maria had resigned herself to this life. She was broken beyond repair. All she could do was spare those she loved from seeing her like this. It was what she deserved.
She thought of the picture of her mate, Saw Bear. She'd seen him on her telephone screen. The picture he’d uploaded showed a solidly built man with broad shoulders and open, loving eyes. Everything about him called out to her like he was home.
She wanted him so badly she could taste it over the lingering flavor of blood on her lips. A man like Buck did not deserve a creature like her. She tried not to weep again as she poured the water into her tea cup over a handful of tea plants she'd gathered.
Maria had been learning botany at the Bright Institute. Her skills had proven useful in her every day quest to survive. She had once dreamed of running a nursery: growing flowers, cuttings, ornamental plants, even vegetables or medicines, anything her green thumb would grow. She had discovered her love of plants at the Institute. She never would have imagined it, growing up in Los Angeles.
Her sister Rosa had come to Fate Mountain looking for her, following her gift of knowing things without really knowing them. That's when Rosa met her mate, Heath. He was on the Bear Patrol, Fate Mountain's Police Department. The guys called him Cadet Bear, but he'd been on the force for a long time now.
Rosa and Heath had been good enough parents to her, but part of her always felt like they were too busy loving each other to really love her. Not the way she needed. Not after everything she’d been through. It didn’t help that Maria had always felt like she’d disappeared into Rosa’s shadow.
A lot of people told cute stories about how they’d come to Fate Mountain. But Maria’s story was anything but cute. It was a permanent black mark on her soul that she still hadn't been able to shake. Since being turned into a feral animal, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was defective. She'd been marked by fate to be broken, and she had to accept it.
She poured more water over her tea and drank down the warm brew. Her stomach was full of whatever kill her beast had made the night before. After finishing her tea, she stood. Today was a good day to scavenge.
Maria left the cave, taking in a deep breath of the morning air, letting it fill her lungs to capacity. She let the breath out and told herself again it was going to be a good day. She was determined to find something special at the campground that would make the trek worth the energy. She started off down the deer trail on the border of national forest land in a secluded part of the mountain. She wasn't sure exactly who owned the land or where the boundaries of the park were, but she was almost positive no one would ever find her in her cave.
The hike down the mountain was treacherous, but with her new shifter agility and strength, she made it to the campground with the speed of a trained athlete.
She crouched at the perimeter of the campground, hiding behind a stand of crowded willows by a stream. At this time of day, many of the campers were leaving. She could look through the things they had left behind.
She stood from her crouching position and walked around the thick bushes to skirt the edge of the campground. She walked behind the sites and glanced up the trails that led to each one, checking to see if the campers had left yet. The first two campsites she passed were still occupied, so she continued until she found one that was empty.
Jogging up the trail, she felt a rush of excitement that she might find something good. She didn't want the campground authorities to know of her presence, so she had to be careful. Maria hurried to the cabinet the campground provided to protect food from animals and swung open the door. She gasped, unable to believe her luck.
There was a can opener and four cans. One can of corn, two of beans and one of peas. She quickly grabbed each item and shoved it in a pillowcase she’d scavenged on a previous trip.
Maria quickly closed the door and left the campsite. In the next several sites she checked, she found a damp towel, a bar of soap and a muddy wool blanket. The wool blanket was so filthy and heavy she was afraid she might not be able to carry it back to her cave.
She rolled it up and slung it over her shoulder, determined to make it work. The trek up the mountain to her cave took longer than the trek down, but she made it home before the sun faded into evening. She flung the towel and the blanket over a taut line of rope she used for laundry and let them sit there until she could wash them out later.
Maria arranged the cans on her stone shelf and admired them for several moments before turning to start her fire back up. She had a rusty cast-iron pan that she had spent an entire day washing out and curing with fire and deer fat. She set it over her fire and opened a can of corn.
It had been a while since she'd had carbohydrates. Her body craved it and her stomach grumbled. After she'd heated the corn in some deer fat, she scooped it into her mouth with a wooden spoon with a broken handle. It was delicious and filled her stomach with warmth. She felt a mild sense of satisfaction rise to her chest and she sighed.
A smile curved on her lips and for a moment she felt kind of okay. Then her mind wandered back to Saw Bear. She knew she could never have him. Her small victories helped her make it through the day, but they also reminded her that she could never let herself get too comfortable. Happiness and satisfaction only led to wanting more. More love, more acceptance, more hope. But Maria no longer had any hope.
Chapter 3
There was nothing like the smell of freshly cut timber in the morning. The sounds of a classic rock guitar blared in Buck's ears under his protective earmuffs. He pulled the levers on his timber harvester, slicing the saw through the wide trunk of a tall pine tree. He gripped the tree with the claw and used the de-limber to clean the branches from the trunk. He turned the claw, holding the freshly cut log and placed it on his front loader.
Since Buck had taken over timber production and management on Timber Bear Ranch six years ago, they'd had a yearly increase in profits. He’d replanted several stands that were already growing lush and strong and would be ready to harvest again in another ten years. br />
He'd had experts come out to consult him on the process of managing the land, and he knew from their assessment that his process was working quite well. They’d suggested he optimize his production by growing his own saplings, and it was on his to-do list to learn how next year.
He took pride in his work and it made him feel good to be useful to his clan. Even after his oldest brother, Leland, left the ranch following the aftermath of the Great War, Buck had continued doing what he had always done. Worked hard.
He had never really been the leader like Leland, but he had always kept his head down and provided something of service to his clan. That was what he was doing now, instead of searching for his lost mate. Even though Maria’s disappearance had been killing him, he had to keep going. Buck had responsibilities.
When the classic rock playlist came to an end, he turned off the harvester and pulled off his protective earmuffs. Buck jumped from the machine and grabbed his lunch box. Setting his protective earmuffs on the seat of his harvester, he flipped through his phone, looking for his favorite lunchtime playlist. When Buck worked, he liked to listen to classic rock. When he ate his lunch, he preferred classical music like Mozart or Chopin.
Buck took his lunch box and sat on a moss-covered log. He listened to a piano concerto by Beethoven and poured coffee from his thermos into the lid as a mug. Taking a long sip of coffee, he closed his eyes as piano music lilted in his ears.
With a satisfied sigh, he unwrapped his sandwich from the wax paper wrapping and took a bite. It was turkey, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. A good meal after a long morning of work was always truly satisfying.
He kept his music low so he could hear the sounds of the forest as he ate. Songbirds chirped above him in the canopy, adding notes to the music in his ears. It was a lovely day with a bright blue sky overhead. Air wafted across his sweaty brow, cooling him down. When he finished his lunch, he started back to his harvester. Before he could make it, he heard the distinct sound of a mountain lion wailing somewhere close by.