Page 4 of Omega's Bears

Chapter Three

“What are you thinking? You can’t just make these decisions without talking to us.”

“Look, she was on the side of the road. She wrecked her—”

“I don’t care where she was! Jack isn’t going to—”

“Quiet, both of you. We are not going to discuss this right in front of her. Outside.”

“We’re just going to leave her in the den?”

“She’s fine here, Ryan.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about. The den is private.”

“Both of you, stop it. Outside, now.”

The voices recede. I’m fine with that. It means, I can stop trying to decode what they’re talking about. It means, maybe I can go back to sleep. I know I’m in a dangerous situation—what kind of situation wouldn’t be dangerous for me right now? But I’ve picked up on a few key words, the most crucial of which is den. Bears live in dens. Wolves do not. I am willing to bet that, right now, I’m with a clan of bears.

But am I willing to bet my life on it?

I’m longing to be unconscious again. Waking up was painful. My arm feels like it’s on fire, and my head aches fiercely. On top of that, I’m exhausted. I had a long journey to get here, and I haven’t been eating or sleeping as much as I should. I want to fall back under, into sleep, away from the pain and the worry that being awake has brought me. But I don’t think I can take the risk.

Because even if these people are bears, they’re almost certainly the Hell’s Bears. The dangerous clan I’ve only come to as a last resort. And based on the conversation I just heard, they’re not exactly thrilled to see me. So, I need to be alert. I need to prepare myself for whatever’s going to happen when they walk back in here.

Even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I force myself to sit up. I examine my injured arm, flexing my fingers, straightening and bending at the elbow. Nothing seems to be broken, but there’s a gauze bandage tied around my bicep. The sight is encouraging. Whatever the Hell’s Bears might think of my presence in their den, at the very least, they wanted to keep me alive and reasonably healthy. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything—it could just be that they want me in good breeding condition. But that’s still better than being alone or being taken by the wolves.

I take the opportunity to look around the place. One of the voices described it as a den, but it’s nothing like the den I left behind, where my clan and I lived. Our “den” was a house that had been in Leo’s family for generations. It was old, and a bit run down, but that was part of its charm, part of what made it unique and special and ours. I had my very own bedroom with an en-suite bathroom in the den, one of the few privileges of being an omega. My privacy was important.

But I’m not going to have any privacy if I stay here. That much is obvious. This den doesn’t have rooms or walls or en-suite baths. This den isn’t even a house. It’s a cave. It’s a literal cave.

To the bears’ credit, they’ve taken some steps toward making the place homey. But there’s only so much you can do with a cave. There are soft looking furs on the floor, and after a moment, I realize I’ve been lying on a pile of them. I wonder what animal they’re from. They’re not as soft as a mattress, but it’s a lot better than sleeping on cold rock would be. I can also see strings of smoked meat hanging on a wall and a basket of berries on the floor. The sight makes my mouth water, but I don’t dare crawl over and start eating their food without having been invited. That won’t endear me to them.

Why would they choose to live somewhere like this? I don’t understand it. Alaska is freezing. Surely, they’d be happier in a house with central heating, with a refrigerator where they could buy and store real groceries. Is this what life is going to be like with the Hell’s Bears? Will I become feral, an outsider to society, living in a cave in the middle of the woods?

Do I have any alternative?

I think back to the voices I heard as I was waking up and try to count them. There were definitely at least two, but I think there were more. I can’t be sure. Either way, I don’t have a chance at getting past them if they decide they want me here and I decide I want to leave. My fate is entirely in their hands now. I’ve made my choice, and now I have to live with it.

I wonder how long it will take them to decide. Being left alone with the meat on the wall is starting to make me feel a little crazy, and I wonder how long it’s been since I had something to eat. Since I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious, I have no way of telling. I cast about for my backpack, thinking I’ll find one of my granola bars and eat that to hold myself over, but I don’t see it anywhere. Is it possible the bears didn’t find it when they found me? Could it still be lying somewhere by the side of the road, maybe alongside Berto’s crashed bike?

I feel a pang in my chest just thinking of it. I loved all the members of my pack, of course, but Berto was my best friend. The thought of having taken his prized possession, his bike, and destroyed it is awful. He would be devastated if he knew.

Just as I’m getting lost in thoughts of Berto and the family and home I’ve lost, a man steps into the cave, blocking out the light and making the whole place seem more sinister just by his presence. He’s a wall of muscle, his bicep thicker around than my thigh, and yet he carries himself lithely. Without meaning to, I back away from him. I can’t help it. I’m afraid.

It’s not just his size and stature. There’s something unfriendly in his face, something threatening in the way he’s looking at me. I get the feeling he’s not at all happy to see me here. It makes me want to apologize and back away, run from the cave as fast as I can, but he’d catch me. I wouldn’t stand a chance.

So, I stare at him. I don’t try to disguise my fear and fascination, and he doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s staring at me either. It feels as if we’re circling each other, even though neither one of us is moving.

Finally, he speaks. “What are you doing here?”

I don’t have a helpful answer to that question, so I give the true one instead. “I woke up here.”

He growls low in his throat. “You know that isn’t what I mean.”

I’m actually not sure what he means, so I don’t dare to answer again.

The man closes the distance between us, still growling. I can smell his scent now. He’s a bear, for sure. Somehow, though, that knowledge doesn’t make me feel any better. He’s come close enough now that he’s more than just a silhouette, and the details make him even more frightening. His facial hair is trimmed, but sloppily, and the hair on his head is wild. He isn’t wearing a shirt. I can see the tattoo on his shoulder, in the same place as mine, although I can’t make out what it represents. He’s dressed in ratty jeans that look like they might disintegrate and fall right off him, and his feet are bare. He looks wild, in other words, and for the first time, I truly understand what people meant when they told me the Hell’s Bears lived outside of society and law. This is a different kind of person from any I’ve ever met.

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