Love at First Mate - Badlands Territory

My bear roars from inside and it takes superhuman effort to hold back the shift. But I have to, because I need more info even as a red haze clouds my vision.

“What else did you see? Hear? Anything!” I’m yelling, I know it, and fucking Robert looks terrified as he leans down, resting his hands on the tops of his thighs like he’s going to pass out.

“When I came in the back door, I heard something…” He’s searching his memory and I force myself to hold back. Roaring in his face might make me feel better, but it’s not going to get me any answers. “Something about she had something that belonged to him. That’s all I remember. Something about how she put them in a really bad position and she’s going to fix it.”

Fix what? If she was in trouble, why didn’t she tell me?

I feel the burning tingle start in my gut as my skin stretches, and I know, this time I won’t be able to hold him back.

My jaw pops, my bones thicken and just before I lose the last of my human form, I reach into my pocket, pull out the little box and hand it to Robert.

“You keep that until I come for it.” My voice is deep, gravely, and I watch Robert nod as the last of the shift happens and I take a deep sniff of the air.

If they think she has something of theirs, she would have it at her house, so that’s where I’m headed.

Through the park and the woods, my grizzly is in a blind rage. When the first hint of her scent hits, my grizzly is roaring and running faster than we’ve ever moved.

The scent is stronger, we get closer to her house and there’s no doubt she’s there.

We smell her fear.

Someone is going to pay.Chapter 11WynterOrwell’s fingers twitch as he paces my living room.

His two friends, Raymond and some guy who just calls himself ‘D’, ransack my bedroom, swearing and throwing things as I sit in a chair at my small dinette table, twisting and untwisting a scrap of napkin, wondering why I’m not more frightened.

“Where is the money?” Orwell screams in my face, spit flying onto my skin, and his breath is a dumpster fire of beer, cigarettes and a disregard for dental hygiene.

There’s a clench in my stomach as I glare up at him. How I ever even dated this guy, for the life of me I can’t understand now.

He’s a cliché. Bad tattoos, a scar on his cheek, black leather jacket and an utter lack of originality.

Sure, he’s got that bad boy thing, and for most girls would be considered good looking. But seeing him through new eyes, I realize just how lost I must have been to have bought into the down on his luck, society has treated me so wrong sing-song story that he performed so well.

The only good thing is, when I figured out the whole game he was playing, I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t care about him really, I think I was trying to save him, save anybody after not being able to save my mom.

So leaving in the middle of the night with the sack of money I had promised to give him so he could make another ‘investment’, not only didn’t feel bad.

It felt good.

It felt right.

Except, my lack of experience when it comes to gun deals, and cartels, and general underground arms deals is clearly not working in my favor right now.

“You find anything?” Orwell yells over his shoulder as he shoves his jacket back with both hands, putting them on his hips and exposing a black pistol shoved into a holster.

He turns back to glare at me as Ray and D come out of my bedroom, shaking their heads.

“Nothing in there.” D comes over and leans down in front of my face. “Is it here or not?”

“I can’t remember,” I snap back on a shrug. I should be terrified, but deep down I feel focused.

Orwell’s manipulation of me was a beautifully orchestrated symphony. A young girl, a dead mother, a sizable inheritance…this wasn’t his first time at the rodeo and grief does strange things to your brain, but that fog has lifted.

I’m not the same lost girl that left Bowling Green in her VW bus unsure where she would end up.

“Fucking bitch.” D stands up, swings back and smacks my left cheek, sending a bright flash of pain across my face.

The shock stalls my breath for a moment, but instead of shrinking or feeling tears spring to my eyes, I start laughing.

Which apparently he doesn’t appreciate, because he gives me a matching smack on my other cheek, only hard enough that stars dance in my eyes this time, and for a second I can’t hear anything but the sound of my blood rushing in my ears.