Page 14 of Handcuffed to the Bear

It was nonsense, mostly. He wasn’t even sure if the words mattered, at least not as much as the sound of his voice.

But she seemed to be listening. She was still panting shallowly, but her tufted ears twitched. When she shifted again, it happened with the same suddenness as before, her muscular furry body collapsing into her human one.

Jack shifted his weight just enough that he was no longer flattening her. Now they were lying side by side on the prickly carpet of pine needles beneath the trees. He turned his cuffed hand so he could close his fingers over hers.

“That’s good. Slow breaths. Just focus on your body. Feel this?” He squeezed her hand. “That’s real. I’m real. You’re here and you’re okay. Slow breaths.”

“They had no right,” she snarled, her voice choked. “They had no—fucking—right!”

Then there was silence, her chest heaving as she gasped.

“You with me?” Jack asked quietly.

Silence, then a shaky, “I ... I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

“It’s all right. Everybody gets scared sometimes. Everyone loses it.”

“Not you,” she mumbled.

“Yes, me. Absolutely, me. And I’ll tell you all about it later, but not right now, because right now I need to know if you feel like you can get up.”

She wiped her face, which was Jack’s first cue that she was crying. She wasn’t sobbing, but quiet tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes. “I guess so. Can’t stay here, right? Lions will eat us.”

“That’s the spirit. But don’t worry. I won’t let them eat you.”

The words just slipped out, startling him at least as much as her. She pushed herself up on her elbows and regarded him with a scowl. “You can’t promise that, Agent Ross.”

“Jack,” he said. He got to his knees and offered her a hand up. “I keep telling you, Jack is fine. At this point I think it’s silly to stand on ceremony, don’t you?”

Casey managed to smile weakly as she accepted the help. “Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls you’ve been naked with.”

“Nope, just you.”

Now her smile was genuine enough to bring out the dimples. “I’m the only woman you’ve ever been naked with? Don’t worry, I promise I won’t tell.”

At that, Jack managed a real laugh for the first time since waking up. “I’m glad my secret is safe with you.”

She brushed his chest lightly with her fingertips, below the stinging cuts she’d raked across his pecs. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t mean to.” He found himself responding to the soft brush of her fingertips much more intensely than he’d expected, and shifted a little to break the connection before his body betrayed him in ways that were impossible to hide while naked. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

He kept hold of her hand and set a brisk pace down the side of the ridge they’d just come up. He breathed a little easier once the trees had swallowed them and blocked the view of the higher ridges to the east.

Casey’s fingers rested in his. The short handcuff chain meant their hands were always brushing against each other anyway. This way he could keep her from bumping into him, and help guide her over obstacles. Whether because she recognized the usefulness of it, or just didn’t want to let go of his hand, she made no effort to break his grip, but instead curled her fingers around his.

“But what can wedo?” she asked as she stumbled along in his wake, casting frequent glances in the direction of the higher hills, now hidden, where the flash of light had come from, now hidden by trees. “I hate feeling so helpless.”

“Me too. But we’re not.”

Casey scowled. “We’re up against a bunch of lion shifters, and we have absolutely nothing but our bare hands to fight them with. We can’t even shift. I’d say that makes us pretty helpless!”

“You have to remember, though, we still have the most important tool of all. The one no one can ever take from us.” Jack tapped his temple. “This.”

“You know what, Jack?” She snatched a handful of leaves from a bush as she passed it and ripped them off, scattering the fragments. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop throwing platitudes at me to make me feel better. In spite of what happened back there, I swear I’m not going to fall down and start crying again if you don’t coddle me. I know exactly how fucking screwed we are.”

“It’s not just a platitude. Yeah, we’re in trouble. There’s no denying it. But you have to remember, all the things we don’t have right now—clothes, guns, modern manufactured tools—are things we haven’t really had very long, evolutionarily speaking. We survived for millions of years against lions and other large predators using nothing but exactly what we have right now: our bare hands, and our wits.”

“And that’s why the average life expectancy was about fifteen,” Casey said dryly.

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