My Hero Bear (8 page)

He shifted back into bear form and resumed his attack. Rory watched in horror as another tree toppled over, roots and all.

Rory wept openly. What kind of mental anguish could drive a man like Dylan mad like this? There had to be something dark inside him, gnawing away at him like a disease.

She couldn’t tell if he was punishing himself. Like he felt some unfathomable guilt and the only way to relieve the pressure was to hurt himself. Or maybe his mind had gone back to his years on the battlefield. Maybe at that moment, he didn’t even realize he was back home. Maybe Dylan was still fighting against some horrible, imaginary foe.

Maybe all of the above.

Knowing Dylan was the source of destruction in this forest, Rory came to a horrible realization. She looked back out into the clearing. All of those fallen trees. The hundreds, possibly thousands of dead tree lying broken and splintered.

Dylan had done all of it.

How many nights had he spent out here like this, all alone, tormented and suffering? Her heart broke at the thought. The man had been through so much, and there was no one here to save him when he came home. When he needed help the most.

But now Rory was here. She didn’t know if she could break through to him. A part of her thought the best thing to do was to let him rage until he was too tired to continue. Like the way he must’ve done all those other nights when he’d gone on a rampage.

But it felt too cruel. Rory needed to stop this.

Rory’s heartbeat hammered against her rib cage as she approached the torn up circle of violence where Dylan battled his invisible demons. She had no idea what she was doing. She just acted on instinct.

Her presence might be enough, she thought. Her and Dylan had known each other for years. He’d always been protective of her, even when they were kids. Even before they’d fallen in love with each other.

She hoped that the mere sight of her might have some sort of calming effect. It wasn’t much of a plan, but she had nothing else. She needed to figure out some way to soothe the savage beast.

The plan, of course, could go terribly wrong. There was no guarantee that Dylan would even recognize her in his current state. He hadn’t seemed to know who she was back in the house. At the time, he seemed like he was more in control of himself than he was now. Now, he seemed completely unaware. It was a risk she had to take.

She moved forward slowly on trembling legs. Rory wasn’t the type of girl to be intimidated easily, but she’d never encountered anything like this.

Dylan’s strength was mind blowing. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen and now she faced the daunting task of trying to stop him. But how do you stop a force of nature? She might as well try to calm a hurricane or divert a tidal wave. It seemed impossible.

Rory refused to believe in the impossible, not when it came to Dylan. Growing up, she knew it was impossible that he would ever love her. Yet somehow that had happened. When he went off to war, she thought it was impossible for him to come home alive. But he managed that somehow, too.

So getting through to him, parting the red mist of rage that consumed him, that had to be possible, too.

Dylan lifted his snout in the air, catching her scent. He spun around in a blur of torn up soil and debris. His jaws opened wide and a mighty roar tore through the dark night.

Rory’s hands shook as she lifted them up, palms out towards the furious bear. It occurred to her she would be safer if she shifted into bear form, but she hoped that the sound of her voice and the sight of her face would be the things that got through to Dylan. Besides, if he saw another bear approaching him, he might take it as a threat.

And there was no way Rory could ever hope to survive against a creature like Dylan.

She continued to edged forward, inch by inch. Her quaking knees tried to betray her. They tried to keep her from advancing. It was through sheer strength of will alone that she managed to move forward.

Dylan growled at her, low and threatening. His golden eyes seemed to glow in the dark. Those eyes showed no signs of recognition. All she saw in those eyes was fury.

Dylan had told her he’d killed people. How many men stared into these eyes at the end? Were these golden eyes the last thing they ever saw? She shuddered at the thought.

It was so difficult for her to reconcile the two versions of Dylan that she knew. There was the strong but gentle boy she’d grown up with. Then there was this. The dark tormented version of him.

This was the version Dylan warned her about. This was the part of him that made Dylan think he and Rory should never be together.

Whatever had happened to him when he went off and joined the military, it had changed him. That was certain. But she knew that a part of him was still that gentle giant who had defended her when she was being picked on. Part of him was still that man who gathered her up in his arms when she was crying and brushed away her tears.

That man was still inside the beast raging in front of her. And that man was worth fighting for.

“Dylan,” she said, her voice low and soothing.

The threatening growl from the giant bear’s throat fell silent. He cocked his head sideways and looked at her. Something flickered behind those amber eyes.

“Dylan, it’s me. Aurora.” She used her full name. The name that only he called her. His special name for her, just his and hers.

Something definitely changed in the bear’s demeanor. Some of the stiffness went out of the creature’s limbs. Dylan was far from relaxed, but he no longer looked like he was about to pounce and tear her throat out.

“Dylan, I want you to come back to me,” she said. “Shift back for me.”

The bear blinked at her. Once. Twice. Then the air seemed to shimmer and the bear was gone. Dylan was standing in front of her, bathed in sweat and blood. But at least it was Dylan.

Still, there was something wrong with his eyes. They still burned like molten gold. He wasn’t all there yet. She needed to do something more. Something to break through to him. There was only one thing she could think of.

“Dylan, I love you.”

Something shifted in his eyes. The gold faded to emerald green. It was like ice breaking to reveal the man she knew. At least part of him. Dylan seemed to be back, but the torment in his eyes didn’t go away. If anything, he looked more wounded and scarred.

“It happened again, didn’t it?” he asked.

Rory nodded.

“I wish you hadn’t seen that. I never wanted anyone to see that. You must think I’m a monster.”

“No, I think you’re in a lot of pain. The fact that you’re still able to go on means you’re the strongest man I’ve ever known.”

“Not strong enough.”

“What does that mean?”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I was going to keep this secret, but I can’t live with it any more. The guilt is like poison, tearing up my insides. It was me.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s my fault your brother is dead.”

Chapter 6

Rory felt like someone had poured ice water in her veins. She couldn’t believe the words coming out of Dylan’s mouth. Dylan and Hunter had been like brothers. There was no way Dylan could have killed him.

“That’s impossible,” she said. “You would have died before you raised a hand against Hunter.”

“That’s true, but I’m the reason he’s dead. I’m the reason your brother never came home.”

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Rory could barely breathe or stand. She stumbled and her back collided against the solid trunk of a tree.

“You know, I never knew what you all did for the military. All I ever heard was it was some top secret, classified something or other. And no one ever told me what happened to Hunter. Not even you.”

She couldn’t disguise the accusation in her tone. Dylan’s haunted expression grew darker, like the guilt weighed him down.

“We weren’t allowed to tell anyone,” he said. “Even the people we cared about the most.”

“Not knowing what happened made it harder, you know? The truth can’t be worse than all the things I’ve imagined over the years.”

“Maybe I should have told you everything back then. I wanted to protect you from the truth. But I’ll tell you now if you want me to.”

She wondered what “truth” she needed to be protected from? Her brother was dead. What could be worse than that?

“I want to know,” she said.

Dylan nodded somberly. “How much do you know about what we did?”

Rory shrugged. “Not much. You two joined up as part of the Pact between the government and shifters. The rest is a mystery.”

“Your brother and I joined a top secret military squad called the Sin Eaters.”

“The Sin Eaters?”

“Yeah, it’s an all-shifter special forces unit. There were twelve of us in total, broken up into four fire teams of three. Hunter and I were on a fire team together, along with a lion named Dimitri. Hunter was the leader of our fire team.”

“Okay, so what does this have to do with what happened?”

Dylan ran a hand through his long, dark hair, like he was agitated by the memories. “We trained together and we went on missions together. Each fire team was designed to work as a single entity. Three men working as one. It’s how we survived through some of the worst situations you can imagine. But if one member of the team failed, everyone’s life would be in danger.”

“So you messed up when you went on that last mission? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“It was worse than that. I told you Hunter found out about us. He found a letter that you wrote to me.”

Rory nodded. “Yeah, he told you to stay away from me.”

Dylan shook his head. “What I didn’t tell you was that fight happened on the day he died.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, your brother and I fought. Because of that, as commander of our fire team, he ordered me to sit out that mission. He said he couldn’t trust me to have his back anymore. So I was missing from the team that day, and without me there, Hunter and Dimitri never returned from that mission.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened. You weren’t even there.”

“That’s just it. I wasn’t there. I broke up the team and made them weak. I wasn’t there when they needed me, and that’s the reason they died.”

Dylan sank to his knees, defeated. His torso glistened with blood and sweat in the moonlight. Even someone as strong as Dylan couldn’t bear the weight of this guilt on his shoulders.

Things probably would have been different if Dylan had gone out with them that day, she thought. If Dylan and Hunter hadn’t fought, Hunter might still be alive. But if the fight had been caused by Rory’s relationship with Dylan, Dylan wasn’t the only one at fault.

The realization hit her like a punch to the gut.

“If what you say is true, then I’m just as much to blame as you are.”

“Don’t say that,” Dylan said. “This is my fault. Not yours.”

“Well, it was my letter Hunter found. I was the reason he found out about us.”

“No, that’s my fault too. I should’ve hidden the letter better. I should’ve made sure he never found it. Or I could’ve told him the truth in the first place. Long before that information had the power to get him hurt.”

“Yeah, but we both agreed to keep our relationship a secret. At least until you got back home. We didn’t want to bother him about it, at least until we knew for sure that we had a future together.”

“No, this wasn’t your fault. The fault is mine and mine alone. This is why I didn’t tell you about all this before. I didn’t want you to blame yourself.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make. You should have told me the truth. If what you say is true, then this is our guilt to share. You should have never tried to carry it alone.”

“It was a small sacrifice to protect you.”

“A small sacrifice?” she asked. “This guilt is killing you.”

“I’d do anything to keep you from getting hurt.”

“I’ve always loved that about you, but you know I can’t accept your protection if it means you getting hurt. I already lost one man I loved. I can’t lose you, too.”