My Past Laid Bear Read online

  Abram looked at her. “Libraries? Yeah,” he said. “I’ve never been to one before, but they’re common enough.

  “It sounds so amazing.” She quickly came over and sat down next to him. “I’ve always loved reading, but it’s so hard to get books. My mother would try and get them for me when she could, but you know how the clans are about these things.”

  She smiled at him, and he felt his heart start beating again as he looked down at her. Just what was this effect that she was having on him? Abram ran his hand through his hair, trying to tell himself that it was just the drink that he’d had earlier or the fact that it was so late at night, even though he knew better. He’d heard stories about what happened when a shifter came into contact with the person who was destined to be their mate, but he’d never put much stock into it. Now, suddenly, he was feeling overwhelmed by his contact with this woman called Norah, as if their meeting with one another was destiny.

  “I could show you, sometime,” he said. “I mean… I know you might not want to go out among the humans. Most shifters don’t…”

  “I would,” she said, quickly. A little too quickly. He looked at her quizzically, surprised by her sudden reaction. She was looking up at him, those blue eyes gleaming with excitement.

  “Well, all right,” he said. “But, you know, that uncle of yours probably isn’t going to like it.”

  “He doesn’t have to know, does he?” she said, her lips curving into a smile.

  Abram continued to look at her. Then he smiled back. Had he really thought her some sort of shy, shrinking violet? He was suddenly getting an entirely new perspective on this girl he had just met. He nodded then reached down and took her hand again.

  “Meet me tomorrow morning,” he said. “Out by the edge of the village, where nobody will be able to see us. I’ll wait for you there.”

  And then, because he wanted far too much to kiss her, he excused himself from her house. It was too soon, he knew. But his heart was racing.

  CHAPTER 4

  The morning light broke bright and early over the village. Norah crept through the underbrush, nervous with anticipation about what she was going to do. She wasn’t a rule breaker by any means, and she didn’t know what had come over her. The thought of actually going out into the human city hadn’t even crossed her mind, but when Abram had asked her, she had been so eager that she had immediately said yes.

  Creeping along, she saw him waiting for her. Hurrying on quick feet, she made her way toward him. He heard her and turned, immediately seeing her. A grin came over his face.

  “Hey,” he said when he saw her.

  “Hi.” She smiled back. There was something about him that made her heart feel funny. She wasn’t certain what it was. Perhaps the stories were true, that meeting someone special was fate. She didn’t know. But ever since Abram had come to her house, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Now, he took her by the hand and, looking around to be sure that there was nobody around, he pulled her with him down through the trees, along the pathways that led out of the village.

  She thought that they were going to shift so as to move faster through the forest, but instead Abram remained in his human form as they hurried through the trees. The city was not too far away, and even as a person she was able to sense the thousands of people rushing about, as well as the cars and everything else in the city. It wasn’t as big as some human cities she had heard about, but it was certainly much larger than any of the shifter villagers she had ever been in.

  “I’m a little nervous,” she said as they crested the edge of the forest and she got her first sight of the human city far below, the edge of a street just coming into the view and cars moving past.

  “Don’t be. I know enough about the place to keep us both safe,” said Abram. “And I have friends there. We’ll be fine.”

  Continuing to hold her hand and not letting go, he pulled her with him, and they walked along a narrow path until they came to the edge of the street. Only once they were there did he finally let her go, but only so he could direct her underneath a small bridge, helping her up. She pulled herself over it and finally came to her feet so that she could see myriad small buildings directly in front of her. It was nothing like she had imagined, and she immediately realized that the humans were even more complex than she had thought.

  “This is so amazing,” she said out loud as Abram came to stand beside her. The human city was huge—so much bigger than the village of the Iron Fur Clan. There were a few trucks in the village that were used out of necessity, but there were cars here of all different types and colors and sizes. The people too were so different, she immediately realized as she saw them driving past in those cars.

  “Come on,” said Abram, taking her by the hand again. Together they walked over the bridge and across a sidewalk into the complex of buildings. Though it was morning, the humans were already busy, Norah noticed. They walked past a little shop where people were lining up to buy different types of food and drinks. She smelled something lovely inside and paused by the front door.

  “What’s that scent?” she asked. It was strong in her nose.

  “Coffee,” said Abram.

  “That’s coffee? But it doesn’t smell anything like the coffee back in the village.”

  “I think that’s because this is gourmet coffee,” chuckled Abram. “Really fancy stuff.”

  Norah’s eyes widened. Fancy coffee? She’d never imagined that there could be anything fancy about coffee. She always thought of coffee as the dark black bitter brew that the older men in the village drank in the morning before going off to work on this or that. But this smelled like something heavenly and pure. She almost wanted to try it herself. Abram tugged on her hand though, and they were walking down the street again.

  She could hardly tear her eyes away from all the sights and sounds that greeted her. There were just so many things to see. Storefronts were filled with sparkling jewelry the likes of which she could never have even imagined and clothes that were so different from the simple garments that were shipped into the village. She marveled at the beautiful dresses and tried to imagine how she would look in them. Of course, they were entirely impractical. Shifters wore simple clothes because they needed to be able to shift, but it was still fun to think about wearing them.

  “Would you look at that? And that?” she said, pointing out every new thing that she saw to Abram. He laughed, but she didn’t think that he was laughing at her. Rather, she could tell that he was amused by her enthusiasm and was sharing in her good cheer. It was fun. She didn’t think she’d enjoyed herself like this in a very long time, certainly not since she’d come to the village of the Iron Fur Clan.

  She didn’t even care that some of the humans around them seemed to have taken notice of her childlike wonder. Norah was more interested in Abram than in what they thought. They continued their walk though, eventually coming to a downtown area that seemed a little bit busier than the outskirts that they had been walking in.

  “Stay close to me,” he warned. “This place can get a little bit difficult to navigate in, and there are some rules about walking around here you need to follow. You see these lights?” He pointed to a tall sign, where a bright red hand was flashing. Norah nodded, and he described the process of walking through the streets to her. It seemed surprisingly complex, but she did as he said, and soon they were making their way through the crisscrossing streets.

  There was a large, older building in the center of the city, and Norah stopped to look up at it. “What is this place?” she asked, never having seen anything like it in her life. It seemed like something out of one of the human fairy tales her mother had read to her once.

  “I think it’s an old court house. They don’t use it that way anymore, though,” said Abram. “It’s just there for show now.”

  “Really? So, humans just have buildings for decoration?” The thought seemed incredible to her. Her shifter brethren didn’t have anything around without a
definite purpose. It seemed… well, a little wasteful, to be honest. But there was something charming about it too. She continued to look up at it for a little while, noting the spires and the way it looked against the bright blue sky. “It’s so beautiful,” she said.

  “I guess it’s sort of pretty,” said Abram. “I never really thought about it before.” Then he tugged her by the hand and pulled her along. “Come on. The library is this way.”

  A few minutes later, they were facing yet another older building, this one with stone statues along the face. Once again, Norah was marveling at the humans’ ability to create beautiful structures and designs. And she was more than a little amazed by the statues that she was seeing.

  “Are those…”

  “I thought you might be interested in that,” said Abram, grinning.

  Norah stepped forward, hand outstretched, as she touched the growling bear statue in front of the library. It was majestic and captured the likeness of a bear to pure perfection.

  “Their high school mascot is the Bears,” said Abram. “So that’s why they have these statues.”

  “Their… mascot?”

  “Ah… I guess you wouldn’t understand that,” he said. “You see…” He fumblingly tried to explain how humans had sports teams that played games and how they had animal representations for those teams. Norah didn’t exactly understand what he meant, but she found his attempts to explain it to her amusing as they stepped through the doors and into the library. But as soon as they were inside, his attempts to explain anything to her immediately fell on deaf ears because she was in another world entirely.

  So many books…

  “It’s incredible,” she breathed. “Humans really have so much.”

  “Come on. Let’s have a look around,” he said.

  And so, they spent the rest of the day browsing and searching. She was disappointed to realize that she wasn’t able to take any books with her. She didn’t have an address in the city, so she couldn’t get a library card of her own. Abram promised to bring her back someday to read more of the human books whenever they had a chance.

  The sun was setting when they returned to the forest outside their village, and Norah turned to Abram.

  “Thank you for today,” she said, and she rose up on her tiptoes, lightly brushing her lips over his. But before she knew what was happening, Abram was deepening the kiss, his hands on her waist and pulling her to him. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, and immediately she knew everything that she had been holding back since the moment they had met—this was her mate. This was the one who had been fated to come to her, to be with her.

  She closed her eyes and let him hold her there in the cover of the trees, sighing her happiness as light and shadows filtered over them.

  “I can’t wait until the next time,” said Abram when he finally pulled away, kissing her once more on the cheek before disappearing into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 5

  P resent Time

  The bear swiped at Norah, sinking its claws into her shoulder. The pain seared through her, but she managed to hold her ground, tumbling out of the way just in time to avoid the jaws that came down toward her neck. The other bear was aiming to kill her, that much was obvious, but she would not be defeated. She knew that the lives of her husband her child were on the line. She would not lose.

  Norah reared back again, this time aiming with her own claws for the other bear’s face. She swiped furiously and managed to land a blow across its muzzle. It roared angrily as she landed a blow over its eyes, and then this time she was the one to land a bite over its neck. It roared again, and then there was a whorl of energy, and where there had been a bear, there was a man lying on the ground covered in blood.

  He was not dead. Norah shifted to her human form and leaned over him, putting her hand to his wrist to check for a pulse. Alive, but barely. He would make it. His wounds would heal.

  She recognized him as a man from the Iron Fur Clan, though she did not know his name. Abram would recognize him, she was sure, but she had barely known many of the leaders before they had run for their freedom. Sighing, she swiped a hand over her face, feeling suddenly exhausted.

  Standing, she raced back through the woods the way that she had come. The snow was cold, but she barely noticed it nor the blood gushing from the scratches on her own shoulder. The only thought on her mind was returning to Abram and her son.

  She saw the building and made her way toward the door, seeing that Abram was already standing at the entrance, waiting for her with their child in his arms.

  “Norah! You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine,” she said as she came to the door. “But we have to go—now. They’ve found us.”

  She could see the concern in his eyes as she came up to him. He reached out to her, touching the wounds on her arm. But she shook her head, already able to tell that he was going to say. “No, my love…”

  “Norah. Take him and go,” he said. “I’m only holding you back. Without me, you can run faster. You can go further. You’ll be able to get away from them…”

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “We left together, and we’ll stay together. We’re a family. Aren’t you the one who said that?” Norah shook her head. “I’m not leaving you under any circumstances.” Taking their child from his arms, she cradled him. He was starting to squirm, but still he didn’t cry. It was as if he sensed the gravity of the situation and knew that he had to stay still, as if he knew that he couldn’t make any sound right now no matter how disturbed he was by the situation.

  Abram continued to stare at her, and it was obvious that he was wrestling with something, that he was forcing himself to make some decision. Finally, he dropped his head. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll stay together. We’ll continue fighting, the three of us.”

  “Yes. We’ll fight as a family,” said Norah. Then she reached out to him and took him by the hand, remembering suddenly the morning that they had first come together, when she had realized that he was her mate. It was so long ago, now. Many years had passed since that innocent evening. But it still reigned happily in her heart, no matter how much had happened since then.

  Abram had taught her so many things. He was the reason for her happiness. There was no way that she would abandon him now, just as she knew that he would never abandon her. He was her mate, and she knew that together they could accomplish anything. Together, they could protect each other as well as their son. But now, they had to move, and quickly.

  Setting out in the winter snow with the midnight moon overhead, they began to walk in search of someplace that they could settle down. Because of their son, they could not shift, and with Abram’s injury, they had to move slowly. It was a difficult journey because of that, and they found themselves creeping along through the woods, their senses still hindered by the snow that was falling from overhead.

  Worse, they were moving in the territory of other shifters—wolf shifters, to be specific—and if they weren’t careful, they knew that they could incur the wrath of those hunters. And still, they had the Iron Fur Clan hunting them down, ready to find them and bring them back to their village at any moment. There were so many variables that it seemed anything could go wrong.

  They walked throughout the night, and it was only when dawn broke that they finally found a small cabin on the edge of the woods that seemed to have been abandoned. “Hold on,” said Abram.

  Norah held on to Cole, and Abram moved toward the cabin. One moment he was a dark-haired man and the next there was a lean black bear striding toward the structure with ragged movements. The bear paced around the edges of the cabin, nose to the ground. Norah watched as the bear circled it and didn’t move until the bear turned and rose to its feet as if to signal her over.

  Then she practically ran. She was so exhausted that she almost fell to the ground as she pushed the door open, and she didn’t know when she had last felt so cold. She was only grateful for the blankets her son was wrapped up in. He did
n’t seem to have noticed the frigid air outside.

  “Let’s get a fire started right away,” Abram said as he pushed his way through the door.

  Norah nodded. There was some firewood bundled up outside, and within half an hour they had a fire burning in the fireplace, and the abandoned cabin was nice and warm. Soon, the three of them were curled up together fast asleep while Norah dreamed of a future where their family wouldn’t have to run from these threats.

  Would that future ever come? Pushing her face into her mate’s shoulder and holding her son tight to her chest, she promised herself that it would. For the sake of the man that she loved, she would ensure that one day they would have their freedom. One day…

  CHAPTER 6

  “I can hunt, Norah.”

  “You’re still healing.” She knelt down beside him, examining the wound. It looked better than it had in days, and for the first time it looked like the infection that had been threatening to set in had gone away. However, the wound still needed time to get better, and going out to hunt would only make the wound worse. He needed to rest, and getting out and hunting, especially while shifted, would certainly not be the best thing to do.

  “Can’t you let me do this?” he said, reaching out to touch her face. Abram was frustrated that she was treating him like an invalid, she knew that, but she also knew that he needed to trust her on this. She knew a lot about healing. Her mother had been a healer in her time, and though she knew only enough to help him along in this process, he had to let her do what was best in this situation.

  “Please trust me,” she said, placing her hand over his.

  Abram sighed. “Okay.”

  “I won’t be gone long,” she said. “And I won’t go far. I already know there are deer near. I can sense them. I will only get enough for us to get fresh meat.” Reaching over, she traced her hand over Abram’s forehead and smiled. Then she stood and made her way out the door and into the cold. It struck her immediately, and she exhaled slowly, unready to go out again into the frigid winter air. But she knew that she had to do this for the sake of the ones that she loved.