Bad Blood Bear (Bad Blood Shifters Book 1) Read online

  It would be good to work again, but Tank had been putting off doing anything about it. He had enough money to carry him through for quite a while, so there was no rush. But there was more to it than that. He didn’t know if he had enough control over his bear to be going out, working in people’s homes. He’d had another idea, but he didn’t know if it would pan out.

  And he knew the real reason went beyond that. Starting a business meant putting down roots here. Pledging to Flynn—a lion—as his alpha, committing to this fucked-up crew, leaving his old life behind for good.

  He knew he couldn’t go back, but he somehow couldn’t seem to make himself go forward either. He was stuck in this limbo, and he didn’t know how to get out.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Still thinking about it, I guess.”

  Flynn nodded, taking a sip of whiskey and handing the bottle over. “Thinking about the business, or thinking about whether you want to stay here at all?”

  That was the question they’d been dancing around for the last few weeks. And Tank didn’t know what to tell him.

  “This has been a fucked-up day, Flynn,” was all he could manage. “Not a good time to be making decisions.”

  Flynn nodded, then got up with a sigh. He stopped at the doorway and looked back. “I need you to help me with this crew,” he said. “You’re the only halfway sane one out of all of them.”

  Tank gave a laugh that didn’t really have much humor in it. “If I’m the sanest one, we’re in worse shape than I thought.”

  Flynn gave his famous crooked grin. “You just figuring that out?”

  Tank held up the bottle questioningly. Flynn shook his head. “Looks like you need it even more than I do, today.”

  Tank just nodded.

  Flynn opened his mouth as if to say something else, then shook his head again and walked out, leaving Tank staring at his phone once more.

  But this time, instead of an empty cabin full of ghosts, his mind’s eye saw a lively face with vivid blue eyes, dark and shadowed. A shabby figure with her head held high, knife in hand, ready to fight the world.

  Chapter 6

  Lissa sat on her makeshift couch-bed after Tank left, shaking. She was losing it. First she was biting some stranger in the diner, and then he followed her and invaded her squat and she jumped on him again, and then she went all attack-demon and threatened to kill him.

  This was why she couldn’t be around people. She wondered if he would report her to the police, for being a danger to herself and others. Maybe not, though—it would be hard to explain about following her home.

  Blood, the demon said. Bad blood.

  Stop thinking about blood, she told herself. Whatever was wrong with her, it wasn’t a demon, and it didn’t want blood. It probably was only a tapeworm. She took a deep breath, steadying herself. Yep, that’s what it was. A wild, aggressive tapeworm. Pretty soon she was going to go to a clinic and make them take it out.

  Then she could be normal again, right? She could get a job, and not worry about food orgies and wanting to bite perfectly nice men with kissable lips.

  She wasn’t turning into a demon, or a vampire. Or a zombie. That bite mark on her shoulder was a total coincidence.

  There was no reason she should have freaked when Tank almost bit her there again. He wasn’t even biting hard, like Brother Damien. Just taking sexy nibbles.

  No. Don’t think about Brother Damien. Or attack tapeworms or zombies. Or that cold hollow feeling in her middle that was way too much like terror.

  Lissa Ramsey did not get scared. She definitely did not get terrified. You had to keep your shit together on the street, and you couldn’t do that if you let terror take over.

  Whatever happened to you, you had to believe you would get out of it.

  She’d get out of this, too. She’d get better. She just didn’t know how or when.

  Right now, she had to think about something else. Tank was an excellent thing to think about. Those huge shoulders and those sexy abs. And the little dimple under his scruff that made her want to kiss it.

  After she kissed those lips again. None of her boyfriends had ever kissed like that. Definitely not Edward, the guy she’d hooked up with in the People of Ursus. He was sweet and had a nice body from doing farm work all the time. But face it, a guy who grew up in a cult, with no movies or internet or dating, didn’t exactly acquire a lot of sexual know-how. She practically had to show him what went where.

  But Tank…for such a Mr. Nice Guy Knight in Shining Armor type, he was a hottie with a capital H. Maybe all caps. Her hoohah was still tingling.

  Too bad it was nothing but a fantasy. Tank was the kind of guy who would want to snuggle with her and have her talk about her feelings and shit, and that couldn’t happen.

  She had to keep her distance, until it was time for her to move on. And there was no way a guy like Tank could handle the demon inside her. No way at all.

  But apparently, Tank was not aware of this fact. Because the next day, Lissa found a cooler of food right under the entrance to her squat. A fresh steak on ice, and a camp stove and a pan to cook it in. Potatoes and a sharp knife to cut them with, and boxes of mac and cheese, the good kind with the melty cheese in a can instead of the powder that needed butter and milk, which was impossible with no fridge and no electricity.

  Apparently, death threats were a turn-on for some guys.

  Two days later there was a bag from the fancy-schmancy Bath and Body store in town, with shampoo that smelled like fruit, and some kind of expensive body wash that Lissa would never have spent money on in a million years. Lissa heated water over the camp stove and washed her hair with the fruity shampoo, and then gave herself a sponge bath with the warm water and body wash.

  It felt amazing. She hadn’t washed her whole body with hot water since she’d left the cult.

  And both times, Tank left money. Enough to keep her fed for weeks, if she was careful.

  But he didn’t show his face. He didn’t come inside. It was like he knew she didn’t want anyone to get close to her.

  Or maybe he was the one who didn’t want to get close. Maybe it was more like feeding a stray dog that you wouldn’t want to bring in the house.

  Not that she wanted to come in his house. At all. Not even to maybe spend a night in his bed, with those abs and that chest and those kissable lips.

  Nope, couldn’t do that. Nope, nope, nope.

  But at night when she went to sleep, all she could see was his face. And the steak kept the demon at bay.

  For now.

  Four days after the shampoo, Lissa figured Tank was done with her. She hadn’t seen him, hadn’t gotten any other little presents.

  Hadn’t even smelled him—that tantalizing warm forest-y scent that had to be the best cologne anywhere ever.

  And the demon was waking up.

  She’d known better than to think the money would keep coming. She’d been hoarding it—no more visits to the diner; no more steak or fresh vegetables or upscale mac and cheese. She was back to noodles and crackers, and some tuna when she couldn’t stand the meat cravings.

  The demon tapeworm was pissed off, though. She’d thought maybe she could starve it out if she didn’t give it meat, but she could feel it stretching and scratching at her soul, wanting.

  It was surprisingly warm out, a beautiful Tennessee Indian summer day, the kind of weather where you could go outside without a jacket, even if it was November.

  But Lissa couldn’t enjoy it. She started to feel lightheaded and feverish, and after a while a headache started pounding her and she went into the coolness of the dark, boarded-up building and lay down on her couch bed, dropping into a restless sleep.

  She awoke to clawing hunger and a red haze of anger. Blood. Hunt. Kill. Devour. Lissa tumbled out of bed onto all fours, shaking.

  Blood. Kill.

  She stumbled through the empty convenience store, blundering into metal shelves, feeling sick and shaky, the need for blood driving her.
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  Shoving the window boards aside, she scrambled out into the night. Her foot caught on the windowsill and she fell again, landing on the hard-packed earth. Her muscles cramped, and she fought off the coming seizure.

  No!

  Something inside her knew she had to contain the hunger, but it took over her body once more. She lifted her head, scenting the night.

  It was dark, the only light coming from the stars twinkling high overhead, but somehow she could see perfectly. Tiny scents floated toward her on the breeze—rabbits heading for their burrows; an owl ghosting overhead.

  Squirrels and possums…her mouth filled with saliva, and she growled.

  The scents were coming from the woods across the road. Tiny furry creatures, hot blood pulsing through their veins.

  Hunt. Kill. Devour.

  Lissa climbed to her feet and started running. She crossed the blacktop and thrust herself in among the trees, disregarding the underbrush grasping at her clothes. Fur and meat, blood and death. She followed the scents, picking them up and losing them again as fresher ones caught her attention.

  The hunger rose in her, stronger than before, red before her eyes. She pounced, nearly catching a rabbit, but it darted out of her grasp.

  She growled again and gave chase.

  Her body obeyed her now, fleet and sure-footed, but she couldn’t catch up to her prey. She growled again, scratching at a tree, but her nails were short and blunt and she had no fur. She was supposed to have fur. Something was wrong, and she was hungry, so hungry, and that red rage surged through her…

  The breeze shifted and she raised her head.

  Meat. Not alive, not heated with running from the hunter, tenderized by fear. But fresh, bloody, beginning to char.

  She followed the scent, running faster now, the growl burning in her chest. She burst out of the woods and stopped, disoriented.

  Bright lights and people, and the smell of beer, and meat, meat in the shiny metal box, watch out for the hot, it was hot but it was meat and she craved it. She bolted for the shiny box, oblivious to the people who scattered away from her.

  “What the fuck?”

  “It’s some crazy chick.”

  “Somebody grab her!”

  “She’s going for the grill…”

  It was all gibberish to her ears. She reached into the metal box and grabbed meat, hot and red, the flames teasing her flesh. She tore into it, holding it in both hands, and the juice dripped down her chin onto her chest.

  It felt good going down. It hit her stomach, and she wanted more, more more more, but the people were staring and they wanted to take her meat away. She growled at them, still chewing.

  “Holy shit. Is she growling?”

  “Somebody call the cops.”

  “Bobby is a fucking cop, you idiot. Bobby!”

  “Nah, we can take her.”

  Lissa stopped chewing. The people were a threat. She backed up, still holding the meat, and then they attacked.

  She dropped the meat and fought like the wild thing she was. Teeth and claws, and now her teeth were right and her claws were right and they tore into skin as more and more of them wrestled her down.

  There it was, hot blood, fresh from a living creature, and her demon roared in angry pleasure. And then there was a man with something in his hand that sparked and glowed, and when it touched her, her whole body seized, and her demon cried out in despair as darkness overtook them.

  Tank’s bear lumbered through the night-filled woods. He was Changing every night now, and he always started out heading in the other direction. Any other direction.

  And yet he always ended up here, far too close to town and people, where a huge grizzly bear had no business being.

  Across the street from Lissa’s squat. Night after night he paced the edge of the woods, with just enough sense left not to leave cover and go nosing around the building.

  Or clawing his way inside.

  Tonight was going to be no different…until he caught her scent nearby, on this side of the road.

  He huffed worriedly, his ears going up.

  Lissa shouldn’t be in the woods at night.

  Lissa needed to be protected.

  He followed her trail, snuffing at trees and leaves. She was wandering this way and that, following scent trails that meandered and crisscrossed.

  Hunting? But why?

  Humans didn’t hunt at night.

  Tank’s bear was growing agitated. Something was wrong. Her smell was wrong, her behavior was wrong.

  Bad things were on the wind.

  Then he smelled the people and the cooking food, heard the first screams as she burst out of the woods. He broke into a run, crashing through the trees, and then slid to a stop at the edge of the forest, his claws biting into the soft dirt.

  A house. A party. And danger. Lissa was running at the people, grabbing meat off the grill, snarling and stuffing it in her mouth with ravaging hunger.

  The people closed in. He had to help her. He tried to Change, but Bear had ahold of his body. The people were on Lissa now, she was fighting and he had to help her. Bear was straining and snarling but Tank had to hold him back, he couldn’t let people see them.

  They’d hurt him, hurt him and Lissa both, cutting and shocking and making them do bad things. He couldn’t let them do it but he couldn’t let them hurt Lissa, and he stood frozen at the edge of the woods, all four legs trembling, and then the man with the stun gun shocked Lissa and Tank felt the shock go through his own body, like it had so many times before.

  Memories overtook him, blood and pain and lightning, and his body seized and suddenly he was human again, naked and vulnerable in the shadows at the edge of the trees. He had to make the memories stop, stop stop stop, and he wrapped his arms tight around his bent knees and rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

  A long time later it was quiet, and there was no one left in the backyard.

  Lissa was gone.

  He didn’t save her. He didn’t save Angie.

  He couldn’t even save himself.

  Chapter 7

  Lissa woke lying on a hard mattress in a jail cell.

  She rolled over, groaning. Her whole body hurt, like someone had set her on fire and then pounded her with a mallet.

  She pushed herself up to a sitting position.

  She didn’t remember getting here. Why didn’t she remember? It was all disjointed and crazy, like a fever dream. Hunting rabbits in the woods in the dark with her bare hands, then some kind of party, and hot meat in her hands, and blood—blood in her mouth, blood on her hands.

  She turned her hands over. The nails were crusted with blood, and the valleys between her fingers were sticky.

  Her heart leaped into her throat. What had she done?

  She closed her eyes, trying to think. She had bits and pieces of memories—riding in a car; being examined by an EMT; sitting in a brightly lit room while people pounded her with questions. What had she told them? What name had she used? How much had she given away?

  How long before her demon would go crazy again, and they put her in a psych ward? Or the Arkansas police tracked her down and dragged her back to face what she’d done there?

  She shivered at the thought of locked doors closing behind her for good. This might be the worst trouble she’d ever been in, except for that time just before she left Arkansas. After Brother Damien took a liking to her.

  And she couldn’t remember much of that, either.

  Just running through the woods at night, with blood under her fingernails. The rest of it was a jumbled dream, like last night.

  Except she’d had a demon in her ever since.

  What had Brother Damien done to her? How could she fix it?

  Maybe it couldn’t be fixed. Maybe she belonged in jail, or in a rubber room, tied down and sedated so she couldn’t hurt anyone else.

  Lissa hugged her knees to her body and rested her forehead on them, and tried to keep the hot tears from runni
ng down her face.

  There was a clang and a rattle of metal, and Lissa looked up. A female sheriff’s deputy was standing in front of her cell.

  “I see you’re awake, finally,” she said. “You gonna stay calm now?”

  Lissa nodded. She sure as hell hoped so. But you had to tell them what they wanted to hear, even if you didn’t know if it was true.

  The woman shook her head. “That was some bad shit you took last night, whatever it was,” she said. “Made you real crazy. Don’t suppose it’ll do any good to tell you to stay off it.”

  “I’ll try,” Lissa said. She couldn’t say it wasn’t drugs, because that would mean a psych eval and a 72-hour hold, and despite her fears of what she might do if she got out, she knew that would break her. Jail at least meant she could get a PD, get out and try to figure out how to fix this.

  The woman gazed at her for a minute, then nodded. “Okay. I guess you’re free to go.” She started to unlock the door of the holding cell.

  Lissa was stunned. “I am? Are they—are the charges being dropped?” She didn’t even know what the charges were, but she’d been afraid… She balled her hands into fists so the dried blood wouldn’t show.

  The woman shook her head. “Somebody bailed you out.”

  Lissa stared at her, mind racing. Who would have paid money to bail her out of jail? Who even would have known she was in jail?

  She followed the woman out of the cell and down the hall, feeling numb. Had Brother Damien tracked her down? Had he been watching for police reports, hoping she’d give herself away? Or had her attack made the news?

  She didn’t know which would be worse. A cell followed by a rubber room and restraints, or Brother Damien. But that was impossible. Brother Damien was nothing but a nightmare now.

  The deputy took her to a desk and talked about bond and court appearances, and Lissa signed some papers. The woman put them in a manila envelope with the few possessions Lissa had had in her pockets. As she was about to hand the envelope to Lissa, the deputy hesitated.