Tracking the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 1) Read online

  “Yggdrasil is dying.”

  I flinched away from the new voice. Experience was quickly leading me to believe that the life of a hermit would be best. Most of the people I’d met in the last few weeks hated me, or had tried to kill me. Sometimes both.

  A gentle hand clasped my shoulder and I turned my head to catch sight of the speaker.

  At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I thought she was beautiful. She wasn’t the idea I’d measured myself against all through my child and young adulthood. She wasn’t especially tall or leggy. She wasn’t slim like Brandi or Millie, either.

  She was nearly as voluptuous as me, with pleasantly rounded hips and a bust that strained at the thin linen dress she wore. Her fiery hair was piled atop her head in a loose bun. Her eyes examined the tree, instead of me, which was the only reason I was daring to breathe.

  My most recent encounter with Freyr was still fresh in my mind. That, along with the histories and myths that Chance had shared during our long days of hiking, made me almost certain of the woman’s identity. But it wasn’t possible, was it? She was dead. Which meant I was talking to a ghost. Regular old ghosts were bad enough. What would the ghost of a goddess do if I pissed her off?

  “Um…what?” I finally managed. She turned her head slightly and I caught the briefest glimpse of an amused smile on her full, perfect lips. The sudden urge to kiss her seized me. I hadn’t ever felt such fierce desire before meeting Chance, and even then, it was reserved only for him. It was weird, since I’d never had that particular urge before. But the longer I looked at her soft countenance, I realized why.

  I doubted anyone who looked at her could help but love her. She was love. Freya, from all the accounts that Chance had given me, was supposed to be a Goddess of Love. I’d seen Greek mythology in movies and on television, and thought that maybe she was the contemporary of Eros or Aphrodite. But it wasn’t just sexual love that the sight of Freya inspired.

  A dizzying barrage of pictures flitted through my mind. Images of family and friends. Lazy afternoons on the porch with Luke and Millie, talking and waiting for the sun tea to steep. Mom and Dad curled up on the sofa, watching the morning news while Aunt Carol, single then, braided my hair before school. The embraces of my teammates after a hard game. Millie assuring me I was alright. Millie driving me home.

  And on top of all that, warmth unfurled like a flower in my belly. My hand dropped to my stomach, and I swore I could feel the phantom kick of a child.

  “Was that a baby?” I gasped, pressing my hand harder against my stomach. It felt as flat as ever.

  “It could be.” Freya shrugged. “It is a possibility. A faint maybe. If you both survive, there will be children in your future.”

  “What is this place?” I wondered aloud. “It looks creepy as hell. Why is the world tree dying?”

  Freya pursed her lips. “Because I decided to kill it.”

  “What? Why?”

  She shook her lovely head, as if that were the wrong question to ask. Geez, I could see how she and Freyr were related. They were both vague and extremely unhelpful.

  “Without Idun’s apples to sustain them, the Aesir and the Vanir will both die. The dark and light elves will fight for control of their respective remains, if the frost giants don’t get to them first.”

  “You wanted a war?” I said, taken aback. “Why would the Norse Goddess of Love want war?”

  “I do not want war. It is the fallout of my choice, but I did not want it to come to that.”

  “If you don’t want war, then come back with me,” I urged. Maybe if I brought his sister back, Freyr would forget this stupid war. I could go back to being myself, with my shitty life. Well, less so because I now had Chance to return to.

  “I cannot,” she said simply, her gaze flicking to the distant branches above us. “Even if I wished to, there is no way for me to return.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. “There’s got to be a way.”

  “Thor’s strike threw me from Asgard but I did not land in any of the nine worlds on Yggdrasil’s branches. In short, I’m in a sort of limbo. I faded from Heimdall’s sight because I am essentially nowhere.”

  Fear slid like a shard of ice into my stomach, chasing away the warm maternal feelings I’d had only minutes before. “If this is limbo, then how am I here with you?”

  She smiled wanly. “Because my clever brother has earned himself a favor or two from half-born Hel. He sent the spirit of a shield maiden to you. She trekked through here, on her way to you. Her spirit alone allows me to speak to you. When you wake, I will be beyond reach once again.”

  “Don’t you have any sentiments you’d like to pass on then?”

  She nodded gravely, drifting over to the trunk of the tree. Its gargantuan size made even the goddess seem like a mere insect in comparison. She brushed her fingers gently over the rotted wood.

  “Death to Asgard,” she whispered. “Death to the Vanir. Death to us all. I will never return Idun to them. The twilight of the gods has begun.”

  The tree shook and whatever force had held me aloft shook as well. I wobbled, trying to keep my balance. Freya leaned over me with a smile and gave me a very gentle shove. She slipped something small into my palm as I teetered backward and fell over the edge.

  “Wake, Lucy Elmsong,” she called as I fell screaming to the ground miles below. “Wake. You must still survive the day.”

  ***

  I bolted upright, or at least tried to. A heavy weight pressed down on top of me. In the first dizzy moments of consciousness, I thought I’d had a nightmare. Maybe I’d dreamed the whole debacle with the wolves. Maybe I’d fallen asleep in Chance’s arms as I had been for the last few weeks.

  Then I spotted the shaggy blonde mop of hair that the huge muscular lump was calling a haircut these days. Ugh. Why was he trying to rock surfer hair? It always looked best short and he knew it. Mom had told him so enough times before she’d died.

  I shoved and shimmied my way out from under his bulk. He rolled off me and landed with a thump on the stone floor. Luke’s bear had apparently taken us both higher into the mountains and had made a home in the cave.

  An awful smell hung in the air, and I soon located the source. A shredded deer carcass was tucked into one corner of the cave, away from the pair of us. I assumed most of the blood on Luke and the cave floor had come from that.

  I smoothed his hair back from his face, wishing I had a towel or even a little water. Poor Luke. These last few weeks must have been a nightmare for him. While I’d been stewing in Fairchild, or fighting or fucking or doing whatever I damned well pleased with Chance, he’d been wandering the woods without supplies or even a clear goal in mind.

  While neither of us had been shut-ins, he’d always been more social than I was. I couldn’t think of a time in recent memory where I’d seen him alone. He studied with his girlfriend of the month in high school. Before he’d left for college, he’d spent most nights out in the living room with Aunt Carol and Uncle Mack, watching the news or whatever war movie Uncle Mack had dragged out of his collection. I couldn’t imagine how lonely his self-imposed isolation must be. He had nothing and no one.

  But that wasn’t true anymore, was it? He had me. And if I could find him again, I was sure I could get Chance to spare him. Chance had said Luke wasn’t in his right mind when he’d attacked Keith Page. So didn’t it follow that he couldn’t have been directly responsible for what had happened? The least they could do is reduce his sentence.

  I propped his head up and wormed my arm beneath his shoulder. We’d slept like this for years, refusing to use the bunk beds our parents had bought for us. We’d shared a womb once upon a time. A bed was nothing to that.

  Luke’s eyes fluttered open a few minutes later. For a moment his expression was one of contentment, and he leaned harder against my shoulder. Then reality seemed to hit, and I saw a veritable kaleidoscope of emotions cross his face.

  Panic struck fir
st. He jerked upright and away from me, scrambling to the other side of the cave. Disgust quickly followed when he backed too far into the corner and came into contact with the deer’s entrails. Finally he settled on fear, as he realized what he was touching and that he had blood on his hands. Again.

  “It’s not human,” I whispered. Luke flinched, as if I’d been screaming the words at him.

  “Lucy…how…why?”

  “You didn’t think I’d let you run off, did you? You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  The uncertainty in his eyes disappeared, replaced instead by cold fury. His hands balled into his fists and he jumped to his feet, looming over me as he had when we were children and he wanted to intimidate me.

  “I told you to stay away.” A hint of his bear’s growl slipped into his tone, adding extra menace to the words.

  Suddenly, I could feel it. The beautiful bear that had come to my rescue was inside of me. Her fur glided just beneath my skin and I was suddenly itching to free her. I knew that it could be that easy. If I just let her through my flimsy human skin, I could change. She’d protect us. She was strong enough for that.

  Though I knew his statement was more of his usual bluster, my bear didn’t. She bristled at the tone of challenge in his tone.

  I pushed to my feet, ready to get into his face if I needed to. I didn’t get that far. My leg hurt. It really, really hurt. All of it. If my leg wasn’t achy, crampy or on fire with pain, it tingled or went numb in places, which was its own hell.

  The nerve damage was healing. One night as a bear, and I had already progressed further than medical science said I realistically should expect for recovery. But all the wonder in the world wasn’t going to keep me on my feet.

  “Ow, fuck!” I blurted. My knees wobbled dangerously and I fell backward.

  Luke caught me before I could land in an ungainly heap on the cave floor. We stood awkwardly for a few seconds, trying to figure out exactly how to arrange ourselves. Finally, he helped me lean against the cave wall for support and took a step back so we could look each other in the eye.

  “I know what you said,” I panted. “But I’m still not letting you leave like that.”

  He folded his arms over his bare chest. He’d had the decency to put something on while I’d caught by breath. It was the remainder of one of his old t-shirts. To be fair, the loincloth look wasn’t entirely a bad one, considering his physique, but it wasn’t something I really wanted to see. He fixed me with a glare. He was getting angrier, and I had the feeling if I didn’t look so pathetic, he might have been tempted to shove me.

  “I killed someone, Lucy,” he said quietly. “I mean it. I’m dangerous. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “This isn’t the end of the world,” I said. “Come back with me. I’m sure a case can be made.”

  He turned to glare out of the cave entrance. “It was the end of Keith’s world,” he whispered.

  I wanted to cross the space between us and wrap by arms around his middle. I hated the sadness in his voice. I hated that he was right, and that there was nothing that could be done to right that particular wrong.

  “You can’t just sulk in a cave,” I argued.

  “Why the hell not?” he snapped. “It’s better that way.”

  I slid to the ground and tried to give a brief explanation of what had happened in the weeks immediately after the attack. I left out the part about Sylvia, the possible new were-bear he’d created. I told him instead about Chance. Chance showing up at the diner. Chance rescuing me from the side of the road. Chance and the lies, Chance at the hotel. And finally about Freyr’s warning, that I was the only one who could stop him.

  “Why, though?” he muttered. The tension had finally eased out of his shoulders, even though he wouldn’t look at me. “Why would you stop him? I deserve it.”

  “No, you don’t,” I snapped. “Quit saying that. You didn’t do that on purpose.”

  “I’m not good, Lucy. Don’t you get that? I’m not the guy these Vanir people want. I’m not a hero.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I said, staring at his back. “You are a good guy. A bit impulsive and childish sometimes, but you’re good.”

  He turned back toward me, staring pointedly at my bad leg. “Oh, and if I’m such a saint, exactly how did that happen?”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Just like Keith’s death was an accident,” he sneered. “Boy, I sure am misunderstood.”

  I tossed a small rock at him. It bounced off his abs. Damned show off. “Don’t be an ass.”

  “Can’t change nature,” he muttered bitterly. “I’m not the hero they need, Luce. I’ll just make things worse.”

  “So you’re just going to what, lay down and die?”

  “Maybe I should,” he snapped.

  I stared at him for a long time. Where was this suddenly coming from? He ducked his head, shamefaced and refused to look at me.

  “No matter what you’ve done, you don’t deserve to die,” I whispered. I reached out toward him. He jerked his arm away.

  “How the fuck do you know what I deserve, huh?” He rounded on me, the icy blue of his eyes, so like my own, fading to a rich brown. It was unsettling, seeing his bear peering out of me in his otherwise human face.

  He shoved at my shoulder and I was forced to put my full weight on my injured leg. I wobbled dangerously for several seconds. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, determined not to shout or curse. At least I hadn’t fallen on my ass.

  “See? That right there,” he said, jabbing a finger at me. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t understand,” I gritted out.

  “Of course, you don’t,” he said, and he fixed me a look that I was all too familiar with. It was the one I’d always gotten in high school, when he thought I was being particularly dim about something.

  “Explain to me, then,” I snapped. My leg felt like it had been dipped in a deep fryer. I didn’t think the pain had lessened any, but I was less wobbly. Maybe I was just becoming more accustomed to it.

  “This whole martyr thing you’ve got going on. It all started when Mom and Dad passed. I’m only three minutes younger than you, Lucy; you didn’t have to mother me to death!”

  My mouth popped open. A swell of fury rose and with it came my bear. My hands tightened into fists, and cool metal bit into my palm. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I’d been clutching something in my right hand. I was too angry to look down and see what it was. I glared at Luke, and he glared right back at me.

  “I did no such thing.”

  “Oh, really? Who made excuses for my bad grades? Who covered my ass when I broke curfew?”

  “Don’t you think I would have told you not to do those things if I was being motherly?”

  “But that’s the point!” he said, exasperated. “You never let me take responsibility when I fucked up Lucy! And I majorly fucked up. You know I did.”

  “If you’re talking about the party, you’re wrong. You just made a-”

  “A mistake?” he finished sourly. “A mistake, is that what we’re calling it? Still? I was supposed to pick you up from your game, and I blew it off. I got stupid drunk, and by the time I remembered I had to pick you up, I was in no state to drive. I did it, anyway.”

  “I drank that night, too,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah. You chugged the six pack that I had in the backseat before the cops and the ambulance arrived so they wouldn’t call you on the lie. But you didn’t drive that car, Lucy, I did.”

  “But-”

  “Get mad at me!” he yelled. The sound echoed off the cave walls and bounced back to us.

  “What do you want me to say?” I said wearily. I wanted nothing more than to sink down and bury my face in my hands. I didn’t want to have this conversation now. Not with Chance missing. Not with a pack of werewolves chasing us.

  “I want you to yell at me. Hit me, do something other than this. I wrecked your lif
e. I can feel how much you hate me every time I come home. I thought your anger would hurt, but your silence is worse. Just talk to me. I don’t care if you have to scream it.”

  I didn’t want to yell. I wanted to cry. So, he hadn’t been as selfish or ignorant as I’d assumed. He’d known I was angry. He’d known I was jealous of the perfect life he had, the one I thought I’d wanted. The things I thought I’d needed to have a happy, productive life.

  “Why didn’t you just apologize?” I asked quietly. “That was all I wanted.”

  He flinched. “Brandi didn’t want me to tell.”

  “And she was close to having her juvenile record sealed, so she didn’t want to have anything to do with it.” That at least made a little sense. Luke could be a bit slow when it came to women, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Of course, he’d want to protect Brandi.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  I hadn’t realized how large a weight I’d been lugging around until it suddenly fell off my shoulders. I reached out and this time he let me rest a hand on his shoulder. He was shaking.

  “Do you still want me to get mad?” I asked.

  “Please.” His voice quavered a little.

  I took a deep breath and the words just seemed to flow out of me. All the things I’d wanted to say for years, but hadn’t dared to in front of Aunt Carol and Uncle Mack came spilling out.

  “How could you just leave me behind like that?” I asked, not expecting an answer. It felt good to voice it all the same. “I was just barely out of traction, and you just left! You didn’t even take a semester off to see me after I saved your reputation.”

  “I know,” he said, shaking his head. “I should have.”

  “Damned right,” I said, slapping his arm lightly. “You left me here in Fairchild. Why wouldn’t I be angry?”

  He was silent for a few moments that seemed to stretch a small eternity. Was he angry with me in return? Was he going to morph into a giant bear and attack me? I could feel my own bear, but I wasn’t sure if I could control her just yet. And I was fairly sure I had to wait until the next lunar cycle to let her out to play.

  Then, he let out a loud laugh. He always sounded like a braying donkey when he laughed, and it usually made me giggle even if I didn’t find what he’d said particularly funny. This time, I couldn’t stop myself. This whole situation was simply ludicrous. We were on the run from bears and wolves alike, and I was still miffed he’d left me in Fairchild? It really was laughable.