So Much To Bear (A Werebear Erotic Romance) Page 8

  Jennifer was surprised at the amount of avoidance she had to do; she had thought that, shamed as they were, the rest of the town would steer clear of her house entirely. Most of her neighbors managed to keep away, leaving her to her own miasma of grief, but the local news came calling, and that was something that Jennifer knew she would be best not to entirely avoid or put off. She let them come as far as the front porch, and sat down to be interviewed. “So, Jennifer, what really happened while you were in the woods?” the interviewer asked her, right after introducing her on tape. Jennifer shrugged.

  “I got lost deep in the forest,” she said simply. “Before my parents died, my mom taught me how to find edible plants, and my dad used to take me in the woods a lot. But I guess I got further in than I knew that night.” The lie came easily when it wasn’t being delivered to the man she had considered her best friend since high school. “I found my way out and there was this crazy mob of people who thought I’d been killed by some beast—even when I was right there in front of them.” Jennifer set her jaw. “I will say that I thought it was reckless and horribly irresponsible of the mayor and his son to whip everyone into an insane frenzy out to kill someone.” The interviewer’s eyes widened at the bald statement of fact.

  “What do you think was really in the woods—the thing, the person?” Jennifer pressed her lips together.

  “It was a person. I think that everyone lost their minds, and they saw something in nothing, and they killed a guy.”

  “But he disappeared—a normal human wouldn’t have survived that.” Jennifer shrugged.

  “You of all people should know that the news is full of humans surviving things they shouldn’t. I don’t know that he survived. Maybe he had just enough strength to stagger away from the water. Maybe he got pulled downstream. Nobody knows.” Jennifer swallowed as surreptitiously as possible, denying the possibility in her mind. If she knew for sure that Damon was dead, she didn’t know if she could sustain any hope.

  “Do you think the mayor should be recalled?” Jennifer shrugged again.

  “I would hate to think that he was motivated by anything other than good intentions, but I definitely think he should be investigated—as should his son, Liam. Someone impartial should look into just how everything went down.” She swallowed again and set her jaw. “It’s been an exhausting few days. I hope you’ll excuse me.” The interviewer finished the piece and quickly left, seeming to read something in Jennifer’s reticence that made her eager to leave the porch and get back to the news desk.

  The next day, Jennifer had to play host to the mayor himself; she didn’t invite him in, but she offered him a glass of water, remembering her parents’ oft-repeated catechism about guests. “After how you behaved,” Jennifer said, sitting down several feet away from him, “I wonder that you have the nerve to come here.” Liam’s father shrugged.

  “I’m just wondering about a few things, Jennifer.” Jennifer rolled her eyes. She had never been over-awed by the mayor; he was a slightly pudgy, balding man, and had started running to fat when Jennifer had been a teenager. At one point in his life he had been lean and muscular, like his son—not as attractive, but with a kind of ambition that had secured him a wife, based on his prestige and power rather than for his looks.

  “I’m sure you wonder about a lot of things, Mayor.” Jennifer shifted in her seat, wishing that she could just send him packing with a flea in his ear about his stupid son.

  “I understand you’re upset—it must have seemed like a dreadful calamity, what happened to that…” The mayor paused. “Jennifer, you saw it as well as I did. That man wasn’t a man.” Jennifer shrugged.

  “I saw an angry mob attack someone who was living in the forest not harming anyone, led by you and your snake of a son. That’s what I saw. If there’s justice in the world, you’ll both be charged with some kind of crime.” The mayor made a wry face, looking down at his feet for a moment.

  “All that notwithstanding, I was hoping you would clarify something for me.” Jennifer took a deep breath, controlling her impatience. The mayor may not be a good type of human being, but he was not stupid. She would need to guard her tongue and not let his cruelty and manipulation get to her.

  “What do you need clarified?” Jennifer crossed her arms over her chest, pinning the man down with a stare.

  “What exactly did happen to you while you were in the woods?” Jennifer shrugged.

  “I already told the news. I was lost. I found some food while I was looking for a way out.” She narrowed her eyes, staring at him more intently. “It seems to me like if you were really concerned about my well-being; you would have organized a search party much sooner than you did. I was in the woods all night, another day, and another night. If you really believed Liam’s story, I would think you’d be in the woods the next day to find my body.”

  “Liam needed a little time to recover from his injuries,” the mayor said smoothly. “And of course, we thought you were dead; so there was no real hurry involved at that point. Recovering the body of someone without a family… well, you can see.” Jennifer snorted.

  “Glad to know that I am held in high enough esteem by this town to be the subject of a lynch mob, but not in high enough esteem to try and discover if Liam might have been mistaken. Just what injuries did Liam have, Mr. Mayor? Because when I saw him running scared out of the woods, he was unharmed.” The mayor’s eyes widened.

  “Perhaps he ran into the beast he saw after he left you,” the mayor said, his voice hinting that that would be the official story. “He may have assumed you had been killed, and said that he saw it by mistake.” Jennifer shook her head.

  “The only beasts I saw in the woods the other day are all members of this town,” Jennifer told him coldly. “Is there anything else you need to have clarified?” The mayor stood uncomfortably, setting down his water glass and looking away from her.

  “No, I think that settles everything in my mind. Will you be giving any more interviews?” Jennifer shrugged, feeling a kind of insidious pleasure at the half-fearful look that mayor turned on her.

  “If more news people come with questions, I will do my best as an honest person to answer them. But I would really rather not be disturbed before I go back to college in a few days.” The mayor smiled.

  “Of course. This has been a terrible ordeal. Perhaps once you’ve graduated, you can get in touch? I have a few friends who might be able to help you get into a good area for study.” Jennifer’s lips twisted in an involuntary smirk.

  “I am sure you know people, Mayor,” she said, standing and gesturing for him to leave. “But I am also sure that they are probably not the kinds of people in my field that I would like to know. Have a good day.”

  After the mayor’s visit, Jennifer had mostly been left to her own devices. She knew that she was the subject of gossip in the town, but since she fully intended to leave—and leave as permanently as possible—she didn’t care. No one had the courage to say anything to her face, even when she made a quick trip to the supermarket to grab a few items for her dinner.

  The trip made her remember Damon and his daily routine—the clearing of his snares, washing his clothes, gathering wild vegetables. She felt a pang in her heart at the thought of him going about his chores. She wondered—and discarded the thought—whether he might have recovered enough to go about his daily duties. She bought lamb, thinking of the rich, succulent rabbit stew. It was the closest she could come to game meat, and though she tried to duplicate the rough recipe that Damon had thrown together, it didn’t taste anywhere near as good as what the man had made with her help. It was hopeless, Jennifer knew. Nothing tasted like wild vegetables and game. Nothing would ever make her as happy as the brief time she had spent with Damon. She had to know what had happened to him.

  Jennifer let her friends throw her a going-away bash, managing to keep her composure and even pretending to be pleasant. While none of her close friends, save for Robert, had been in the mob, she still fe
lt uncomfortable in their midst. She let them believe that she was making an early return to the university to get a head start on her last semester; it was much easier than admitting what she really had in mind. Robert attended the party and Jennifer danced with him—though she didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as she would have a week before. It was too difficult to dull the memory of him plunging a knife in Damon’s back. If Damon had been killed, it was still Robert’s fault, and something she could never fully forgive him for. If Damon lived, she might be able to completely forgive him one day, but she still thought that things would never be quite the same between them.

  When she left the party by herself, walking home in the darkness, Jennifer said silent goodbyes to all of the landmarks of her mostly happy youth. She had hugged her friends goodbye, not telling them that regardless of what happened with her degree, she had no intention of ever returning to the town. It was nothing but ashes to her now, dull and gray from what she had seen in the woods. Jennifer climbed into her bed, knowing what she had to do the next day and uncertain as to whether she felt more hope or dread at what she might find.

  Chapter Eight

  That night, she woke up again and again, plagued with dreams both tantalizingly pleasant and terrifyingly upsetting. In one, she came to Damon’s cave and found it just the way she had the day of the mob, empty of his presence save for a smear of blood on the floor. Jennifer climbed down from his cave and ran through the woods, searching for any sign of him. Her heart pounded in her chest the same way it had the day of the mob, and she felt the same urgency to locate him. He had to be somewhere—she would know if he had died, would know for certain instead of feeling the deep pangs of uncertainty.

  Jennifer ran through the woods until she felt as though her heart might burst, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had to find him.

  Jennifer heard something moving up ahead and turned to try and see it—but just when she thought she might catch sight of Damon, instead she saw Liam, leering at her the way he had the night she had first met the werebear. “You really are an idiot, you know,” Liam said, coming out of the darkness of the trees. “You should have known better than to think you could just turn me down.” He came towards her with the knife, and Jennifer scrambled backwards, more frightened than she thought she could ever possibly be by Liam. Before he could reach her, she woke up, drenched in sweat, her heart pounding.

  It took her a while to fall back asleep after that, but Jennifer plunged immediately into another dream. She felt warmth, and yellow-orange light filtered through her closed eyelids. Opening them, Jennifer found herself once more in Damon’s cave, wrapped up in blankets on his bed. She trembled, lonely and aching for him. As a soft whimper left her lips, she felt Damon’s warm, strong arms wrapping around her and inhaled the smell of lemony, earthy musk that made her whole body relax. “Where have you been, Jenny?” Damon asked her in a low voice, and Jennifer felt the roughness of his beard against her neck, the soft counterpoint of his lips caressing her sensitive skin. Jennifer moaned, turning her head to catch sight of the man she hungered for.

  Damon pulled her close, and Jennifer let her hands dance over his body, shaking from the feeling of relief that flooded through her. There was no sign that he had ever been injured; Damon looked the same way he had the last night they had spent together. Damon pulled her around on top of him, settling her body against his as his lips dragged along her jaw before sealing her mouth. Jennifer traced her hands over every inch of him that she could reach, touching and caressing; he was both utterly real and oddly insubstantial at the same time. She rocked her hips against Damon’s, somehow knowing that it was a dream and denying it with every fiber of her being—knowing that it couldn’t possibly last but wanting to do everything she could to prolong the sweet satisfaction of the moment.

  Damon’s hands worked along her body, slipping her clothes away, stripping Jennifer down naked in a matter of heartbeats. He buried his face against her neck, nuzzling and nibbling, holding her tightly against him as they both writhed and twisted against each other. “I’ve missed you so much, Jennifer,” Damon murmured lowly, his voice growling, tight with his desire.

  “I’ve missed you too,” Jennifer admitted breathlessly, turning her head to kiss him hungrily. She could feel the ridge of his hard cock pressing against her and in that moment Jennifer couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to feel him deep inside of her, filling her up the way he had so many times in their night together.

  “I want to know every inch of your body…” Damon told her, his fingernails scratching lightly along her spine, making her shiver. Jennifer heard the whimpering moans leaving her lips, felt the hard, hot, muscular bulk of Damon’s body underneath her; she had no idea when he had gotten naked, but she was glad he was. Jennifer fell into an ocean of sensations, hearing Damon’s voice, feeling his body, tasting and smelling and seeing him as they moved together in bed. It was so satisfying, but she wanted more every moment, wanted to really be with him, wanted to feel him taking her.

  Jennifer woke up from the dream right before she would have had real satisfaction, her eyes opening in the darkness, her body drenched in sweat, shaking with the desire to feel Damon inside of her. It took her a long time to go back to sleep once more, haunted by images of their time together, by the sound of Damon’s voice and the feeling of his hands on her body. It was difficult for her to figure out what sounds and touches were the product of her actual memories and which were the product of the intensely vivid dream she had had of him; Jennifer stopped trying and relaxed into the sensations, wishing she were in the woods already, that she had never left the man that she had to admit to herself she had come to—at least a little bit—love.

  It seemed strange to her, waking up reluctantly the next morning that she could fall in love with anyone so quickly. With Robert, her feelings had developed over time, based on his patience and the gradual unfolding of his charms. With Damon the reaction had been almost immediate; even before she had understood what he really was, she had been intrigued by him, drawn to him like iron filings after a magnet, pulled towards him through the dark woods and up a cliff. She hadn’t been able to avoid noticing his attractions even when she had been concerned at Liam’s apparent desire to possess her for his own—before she had ever seen him transform into a bear.

  Was she crazy? Jennifer considered it seriously as she began putting the house to rights, moving the boxes of things she wanted to keep to the side. Whether Damon had died, simply escaped, or was in the woods, waiting for her, Jennifer knew that she never wanted to come back to the small town she had grown up in. It would take a lot of work, but Jennifer fully intended to sell the house and everything she didn’t want in it, and move on with a fresh start as soon as she graduated. She might stay in touch with Robert, or she might not; she might maintain some of the friendships that she still had in the town, or she might make a clean break and just pretend that part of her life had never happened. Jennifer knew she was reacting, that she should probably take her time and figure out what she really wanted, but for the moment, she was unconcerned by the need to be rational.

  Jennifer set off for the woods in the early morning, wrapped up against the lingering winter chill. She knew that once she got to really hiking, she wouldn’t need the insulation, but she was grateful for it as she made her trek through the town, looking at the plumes of smoke that rose from chimneys, the almost-eerie quiet of the not-quite-awake neighborhood she lived in. She passed the town center, glancing at where the bonfire had been, and shivered at the memory of the angry mob, at the senseless thirst for murder she had seen there only days before. Jennifer set her jaw, taking a deep breath and consigning that ugly day to the past. She would never live in the town again; as soon as she found out the truth of what had happened to Damon, she would never think about the town. Jennifer moved quickly into the tree line, darting into the dappled light and shadow of the forest, and felt a rush of both apprehension and relief.

&nbs
p; She had always enjoyed the woods; even before she’d had any connection to the forest through Damon, Jennifer had liked to explore, had held onto the memories of her father guiding her through the deeper parts. She wondered at the fact that they had apparently all been totally unaware of the fact that a clan and a tribe of werebears inhabited the woods; there were legends of men that became bears, but they were so old they practically had cobwebs on them. Jennifer looked around, finding her way through the green depths, breathing the fresher air and the smell of evergreen trees, the loamy soil underfoot. For a few moments, Jennifer thought she might have gotten herself lost once more; the trees around her seemed unfamiliar, new to her eyes. But she found the trail and made her way along the path, trying to decide how she would deal with the possibility of Damon being dead. Her hands trembled and she felt a rush of cold through her body. He couldn’t be dead, she told herself firmly. He had disappeared from the ground below the cliff, and the brook wasn’t strong enough to carry him away, in spite of what she had said to the contrary.