I screamed. The sound broke into a sob as the world tilted and darkened around me.
This was it. This was how it ended.
Not in a hospital. Not even at the hands of those bikers.
A bear.
I was about to be mauled to death by a bear on Bear Mountain.
Well, I guess that tracked.
Darkness clawed at the edges of my vision, but even as the world tilted, the pain and terror suddenly faded away, and a new scent overwhelmed me. Sweet, warm, and comforting—like hazelnuts.
On a dessert I’d never get to finish.
6/
let’s do this!
leif
When I was turned three years ago, I discovered a shocking truth: my grizzly wasn’t hard to put up with at all. Unlike my human, he didn’t care what others thought of him, kept quiet when I decided to quit my job and sign up with the RCMP, and even let me keep my love of hot Bikram yoga without too much grumbling. All in all, he’d been a surprisingly chill dude.
Until now.
Have to find her. Have to get to her. Have to make sure she’s safe.
I stalked the length of the station’s cell, back and forth, like a wild animal trapped unfairly in a cage.
“Stop pacing. You’re giving me a fucking headache,” the Iron Claw MC growled.
He smelled like a much rougher version of the cognac my dad preferred for his last drink of the night. And though I hadn’t seen him before today, there was something faintly familiar about his scent—an undertone that reminded me of one of the Bear Mountain residents I’d met during the whirlwind of pre-denning season introductions. But I couldn’t quite place who.
He was probably a full Ayaska black bear like Takoda, judging by the similar light umber tint of his skin and the way he’d dared to speak to my hard-ass boss. And though he was just as stuck in here as I was, he leaned casually against the wall with his arms crossed, watching me with an annoyed expression. Like I was overreacting.
He obviously didn’t understand.
“I can’t just sit here!” I shot him a glare without breaking stride. “She’s out there—my mate is out there—and I’m stuck in this stupid cell!”
The Iron Claw arched a dark eyebrow, his amber eyes glinting. “We’ve got a name, don’t we?”
“What?”
“She said it back at the bar. She’s got a sister. First name, Noelle. Last name Winters—until the Tuk’Mara’s maul wifes her in the spring. That’s enough to go on for a Dudley.”
The implication in his tone made me stop mid-step and turn to face him. “What the hell are you suggesting?”
The Iron Claw just smirked and nodded toward the computer sitting on top of the station desk I shared with Takoda. “You’ve got access to the right databases. All we have to do is track her down as soon as Horse lets us out of here.”
Horse. Takoda had pretty much stabled Sentinel—or Senty, as I called him when I snuck him apples behind my superior officer’s back—for the winter. Senty wasn’t the only horse in the stable we were responsible for during hibernation season—one of my more enjoyable duties in a dead mountain town. Takoda, however, was the only person I knew, in, well, life, who still used a horse as his primary mode of transportation. So it didn’t take much to figure out who the MC meant.
My heart tripped over his suggestion: that I go behind Takoda’s back to get the information I needed to track down Noelle Winters’ sister. The bone-deep need to see her clashed with the undeniable wrongness of misusing RCMP resources—especially after getting myself arrested.
“That’s—that’s not just unethical,” I reminded him. And myself. “It’s illegal!”
The Iron Claw shrugged. “And?”
“You’re basically talking aboutstalkingher.” I wanted the words to taste sour in my mouth, but my no-longer-chill grizzly growled in complete agreement with the criminal who’d broken my nose and probably ruined any chance I had of staying in the RCMP with an arrest on my record less than four months into my first assignment.
