“What do you mean, no one's been able to protect you?” he asked. “What happened?”
“It was fate,” she said in a cracking voice. “After my parents died, I was left with my sister in the inner city. I didn't think things could get much worse. But then I got kidnapped by very bad men. They snatched me on the way home from school one day, intent on selling me into sex slavery.
“I was stupid enough to think that after I was rescued from my kidnappers I would finally be all right. We moved to Fate Mountain. I enrolled in the Bright Institute. I was learning botany, and I finally felt like I had a purpose in life. I finally felt like I could step out from under Rosa’s shadow. But then this happened. I was turned into this thing, this angry, out of control animal, who only wants to destroy everything in her path. Buck, I can't be with you. I can't be what you need me to be.”
“I only want you.”
“You don't know me.”
“Who bit you, Maria?”
“I need you to leave now, Buck,” she said.
The memories of that night came flashing forward in her mind, and she felt her inner animal roar. She stood from the rolled up wool blanket she’d put next to the fire and began pacing her cave. Buck stood with his hands open and his arms outstretched, a questioning look on his face.
She could feel his concern. Her inner animal hated it. She wanted nothing to do with his care. No one could help her. Especially Buck and his strange animal power over her lioness. The inner beast would never permit that. She couldn't distinguish its thoughts from her own. She growled and scratched and snarled, demanding she make Buck leave now. Buck stepped closer, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
“Maria, just come with me. I can take care of you. I can get you help. I promise. I'll do whatever it takes. Please, just let me help you,” he begged.
Her inner beast rose inside her and surged out through her eyes. Her canine teeth grew long in her mouth and her claws extended from her human hands.
“Get away from me!” she screeched.
She lunged at Buck, hissing and snarling, showing her feral teeth. She bit at his neck and he jumped away, just in time to avoid her bite. Repulsion filled his eyes.
“Okay Maria,” he said. “You win. I’ll leave now. But this isn’t over.”
“Don’t come back,” she growled.
He turned and fled her cave. She could smell his emotions swirling in the air. The animal retracted into its cave deep inside her mind. Maria sank to the ground on her folded up blanket next to the fire. The tears came in a flood. They stormed down her cheeks in sobs that she couldn't control. In that moment, it was just Maria, the twenty-year-old girl alone in a cold, damp cave, weeping for her lost chance at love. And it was all her own fault.
Chapter 5
Buck jogged out of the cave and down the trail, away from Maria. The look in her eyes and the sight of her fangs lunging at his jugular had sent a disturbing shiver down his spine. He couldn't get the sight of it out of his mind. Although he knew he could physically dominate her in both human and animal form, he simply could not see her like that.
He would not give up on her though. Her feral animal had a hold of her psyche. That just made him more determined to give her everything she needed to heal. He would come back another day.
He’d have to take care of her from afar until she was ready to face the pain of her past. No matter how much he wanted to be with her, the crazed look in her human eyes had just been too much.
He still didn't understand what had happened at the Institute the night she was bitten. He did get the sense that her life had been fraught with torment. Now she couldn't handle the delicate balance of power with her new inner animal.
Buck would do everything in his power to help her lead a normal life. She needed love and his strong arms around her every day, letting her know how valuable she was. He barely knew the girl, but from the moment he’d laid eyes on her picture on the screen, he was certain that she was his. She belonged to him and he would never let her go.
Buck drove the front loader full of logs down the mountain and back to Timber Bear Ranch. He parked in the wide gravel driveway in front of the houses and barn.
Jessie was marking off the boundaries for his new log cabin in a flat spot between Leland’s and Buck’s houses.
“Is that going to be enough logs for my cabin?” Jessie asked as Buck approached.
“Probably not. I only worked half a day today,” Buck said.
“That's not like you,” Jessie said, picking up a can of energy drink and taking a deep swig.
“I had a strange day.”
“Are you ready to help me start building?” Jessie asked.
“I can’t today.”
Buck walked away, leaving Jessie standing stunned in the spot that was marked off to be his living room. Buck went inside and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He chugged it down as if it might wash away the memory of the look in Maria's feral eyes.
Her fangs had brushed the skin of his neck when she'd lunged at him. He'd barely been able to sidestep out of her way. Seeing her beautiful human face contorted by the out of control animal had sent him running. He was irritated at himself for that, and he refused to let it scare him away from his mate for long.
He had to find out what had happened to Maria at the Institute that night. If he knew exactly how she had been turned, he might be able to be more helpful to her.
He finished his bottle of water and went back outside. He hopped into the driver's seat of his old pickup truck and turned on the radio.
Buck listened to music as he drove down the mountain road into town. He tapped the wheel along with the rhythm of the music and hummed for a moment, letting his positive nature come back to the forefront. He had to stay strong.
Buck made it to the Bright Institute and went straight to the office of the director, Corey Bright. Corey’s assistant sat outside of the office and stopped Buck before he could walk through the door.
“Sir?” the woman asked, “do you have an appointment with Mr. Bright?”
“This is about Maria Reyes. I'm her mate,” Buck said in an even tone.
Buck might be a steady man, but he acted fast when he needed to. He hated waiting for people to make up their minds about things that should have been decided long ago. He needed to know what happened to Maria, and he wasn't going to wait another minute.
“It's okay, Candace,” a male voice said from down the hall.
“I can talk to you now, Buck,” Corey said, his eyes unreadable through his glasses.
“Thank you,” Buck said, walking towards the inventor of Mate.com. He stepped into Corey's office and sat on the other side of his desk. “Have you been able to figure out what happened to Maria the night of the incident?”
“We have investigated the situation thoroughly. I've even used my random probability generator to determine exactly what happened. We've now come to a satisfactory conclusion.”
“Random probability generator?”
“Yes. It’s proprietary software that we use on the Rescue Bears and the Bear Patrol. We did try to use it to locate her but have been unsuccessful so far. The random probability generator cannot determine the actions of a feral shifter due to lack of data. But we were able to piece together information about the night of the incident.”
“So, what happened?” Buck said, wanting Corey to get to the point.
“We've come to the conclusion that Maria Reyes was alone in her dorm room the night of the incident. She was then visited by a student named Alex Terry. Alex had been admitted to the Institute on a trial basis due to prior behavioral problems and time in jail. But since he was a veteran, we felt it was part of our mission to try to help him. He’d been performing fairly well in his classes and had gotten along with the staff and students. We couldn’t have anticipated he’d bite another student. That kind of behavior is unheard of in the shifter community.”
“Have you found him?” Buck asked, inc
redulous.
“We have some indication of where he might be.”
“Have you gotten the authorities involved?” Buck asked, growing more and more irritated with every word out of Corey’s mouth.
“I've contacted the Bear Patrol. There really is no legal penalty for changing a human against their will. Commander Morris informed me that what happened is considered nothing more than assault. There is a warrant out for his arrest. But they told us not to expect much to come of it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Once someone is shifted, they become a shifter, and human laws don't cover shifter issues. The Bear Patrol can only enforce human laws. Shifters have always policed themselves. Since the Great Shifter Council outed shifters decades ago, the lines have been blurred.”
“This is ridiculous,” Buck growled. “That man must be brought to justice.”
“I don’t disagree with you, Buck, but at this point in time, my hands are tied. There is little I can do.”
“Maria Reyes was a student in your Institute and you failed to protect her,” Buck growled.
“That is true. And I feel responsible. I allowed that man into our community and he betrayed us. He betrayed all of us and Maria most of all. Her sister Rosa and her brother-in-law Heath are beside themselves with worry. We've had search and rescue teams out looking for her all over Fate Mountain for weeks. We need to search your property next.”
“I've already searched my property,” Buck said, not wanting anyone from Corey's crew to find Maria. He may want her to come down off the mountain, but he wasn't going to let anyone else try to force her to do it. Helping Maria was his job and his job alone. He would help her and he would be damned if he would let the people who'd failed her already force her out of her cave. “I'll search it again. You don't have to worry about that.”
“If you find her,” Corey said. “Let us know as soon as possible so we can inform her sister.”
Buck remembered what Maria had said about her sister. As much as he knew Maria was hurting and that her words were not exactly her own, he could sense that she felt inferior to Rosa. As far as he was concerned, he would be the one to take care of her needs from now on.
“I'll let you know if I find anything. You can be sure of that,” Buck lied.
Corey was not concerned enough for Maria in Buck's opinion. She was so hurt and broken by what had happened in her life, he didn't believe anyone there deserved to know what was going on with his mate.
Buck climbed in his truck and started down the road into town. Maria was alone on the mountain with what appeared to be scavenged and thrown together pieces of camping equipment. She was clearly cold and malnourished. Those were things that he could do something about, even if he couldn't help her heal her mind and heart just yet.
He drove up to the Fate Mountain outdoor store and parked outside. Hopping out of his truck, he let out a long sigh as his grizzly let out an irritated growl. His bear was a patient beast, but even he could only take so much. His inner grizzly wanted to go back up the mountain, growl the lion straight out of Maria, mate with her, claim her, and take her right back home.
But Buck knew he could never approach Maria with such barbaric tactics. The poor girl needed gentleness and kindness from him. That would require every ounce of character he had. He knew he could do it.
He walked through the door and smelled the scent of canvas and charcoal. He grabbed a cart and walked down the aisles, throwing things into the basket. He picked up cartons of camping food, a water filter, a lamp, flint, a new kettle, a bunch of dishes and different types of dehydrated camping foods.
He then went to the clothing section and picked up several outfits of warm, weather-proof clothing for Maria in what he hoped was her size. He even grabbed a few new pairs of hiking boots and an insulated sleeping bag. After he had everything, he unloaded his things on the checkout counter.
A man walked over and stood in front of the cash register, giving Buck a toothy grin in greeting.
“How are you today, sir?” the man asked.
Buck could tell the clerk was a shifter by the look in his eyes and the scent that clung to him. From what he knew about the different kinds of shifters on Fate Mountain, this man's scent was distinctly hyena. The man rang up his items, giving Buck a strange look when he started on the woman's clothing.
“It's for my sister-in-law,” Buck said.
“Of course,” the man said, putting everything into several bags.
Buck took the bags and carried them back out to his truck, feeling a sense of dread rising in his gut.
Chapter 6
Maria woke in the night, cold, shivering and naked. She looked up into the stars, panting. The light of the moon cast a pale glow over the branches of the trees above her. She couldn't remember what had happened. She could taste the tang of blood on her lips and she looked down to find the carcass of a deer lying beside her. Its stomach had been torn out, but it was largely intact. She shook her head and her stomach groaned from the meal of raw meat. She sobbed into the night and screamed.
“Why is this happening to me?!”
An owl hooted in the distance and ravens shrieked. The forest was active at night in the deep dark. She sniffed the air to give her an idea how far she was from her cave.
The scent marks told her it wasn't very far, so she pulled herself to standing and gripped the back legs of the dear she had killed. She dragged it with her shifter strength through the rocky forest, the sharp edges of stones and pine needles digging into the skin of her bare feet. She could smell the scent of her body, unwashed and ripe. Her matted hair fell down her back in thick dreadlocks.
She had spent the last two days in and out of feral form, only remembering a few hours here and there when the beast let her go. She knew if she was left in her human form for very long that she would be hungry soon. She'd need the meat from the kill. She hadn’t scavenged since before Buck had been at her cave, and there was no canned food left.
When she made it back to her cave, she went inside to grab the cracked hunting knife she'd found in the campground. It was missing a large chunk of the bottom of the blade, but it still had a good grip, a good point, and was sharp enough to slice off choice chunks of deer meat.
She didn't fear the other animals in the woods coming for the carcass of her kill. She was far more ferocious than anything that lived on Fate Mountain. Mountain lions, bobcats, foxes, coyotes, black bears, none of them were even remotely as ferocious as her own beast. They could never touch her. She didn't know if she even cared if they tried.
When she was done cutting off the best cuts of meat from the deer, she laid it over the grill above her fire. As the meat cooked, she decided to wash up.
She had a large rubber bucket she’d found that she used for wash water. It sat in a rocky corner of her cave. She dunked a washcloth inside and then ran the wet cloth over her muddy skin. She dunked her hair into the bucket as she rubbed it with the last of the soap.
Once her hair was washed and rinsed, she wrapped it in a towel and dried herself off. She dressed in her warmest clothing and sat beside the fire to flip her venison steaks.
When they were done cooking, she sprinkled them with wild herbs and sliced off a bite. She chewed, enjoying the flavor of cooked meat. It filled her stomach and that helped it settle for now. The meat would go bad before she could eat it all, cooked or not. She would have to scavenge the campground or hunt again soon.
When she'd first come to live in her cave, there had been several days where the beast had left her without any food and she'd subsided on early raspberries and water.
After Maria was done eating her freshly cooked venison steak, she got into bed to sleep until morning.
When she awoke the next day, she turned to look out the mouth of her cave. The bright sunlight of midday shone down into the summer forest. The sound of birds chirping in the woods filled her ears and she yawned, stretching her arms and slowly waking up. She wou
ld spend yet another day surviving on the mountain.
She climbed out of her bed made of an old, torn sleeping bag laid over the wool blanket she’d used most of her soap to wash out. She stood to see a dark silhouetted figure step into the entrance of her cave. She shielded her eyes, trying to make out who it was. He took a step forward and his face came into view.
“Buck?” she asked, a mixture of relief and anger in her voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you I would be back to help you,” he said.
“Help me?” she muttered, kneeling by the fire pit.
Her fire had turned to ash so she added kindling to the dwindling embers. She poked the coals and flames caught on the kindling. She threw in some dried branches and soon the fire was blazing again. She grabbed her kettle and went to fill it with fresh water before sitting back down on her wool blanket by the fire.
“I didn't ask for your help,” she said flatly.
He sat beside her with his stuffed hiking backpack and bulging duffle bag. He unzipped the duffel bag to reveal brand new women's outdoor clothing. He unpacked a fleece sweater, long underwear, waterproof socks, insulated pants and a jacket. She sighed involuntarily at the thought of wearing such warm, dry clothing.
He opened the backpack and pulled out camping dishes, a clean grill, a brand-new hunting knife and kettle. He also had a water filter and boxes and boxes of camping food. She looked at the things on the ground next to the fire as she poked her cooked venison steaks with her broken knife.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Because you’re my mate. I must help you,” Buck said.
“You don't even know me, Buck Kincaid. I'm just some broken girl living in a cave. You should leave me alone.”