The Bears of Blackrock, Books 1 - 3: The Fenn Clan (43 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Maggie knew the way better than anyone, leaping over fallen trees and relishing in the feel of frozen moss underfoot – a soft reprieve from the stones and twigs of the path. She wasn’t a cat, now. She wouldn’t shift again until it was necessary.

God damn you, White Eagle. God fucking damn you.

He’d tried to hurt her that night, then tried to take her father from her. Now, he was threatening the family of a man she suddenly realized she would die to protect. She couldn’t let the Fenn family suffer such a loss because of her. No matter what the cost might be, she couldn’t let it happen.

Why hadn’t she just left when she had the chance? Everyone would be better off if she’d just left.

The cars were gathering along the roadside already; every member of the Talbot bear clan there to watch a challenge between their chief and the chief of one of the only other bear families within five hundred miles.

Like Romans come out for a day at the colosseum, happily watching men fight to the death like it’s some spectator sport.

Maggie stopped on the hillside just across the road, watching. They’d smell her soon enough.

Richard White Eagle’s car was there, as were his sons.’ Alongside those were her Uncle Paul’s, and her cousins by Uncle Ted.

A familiar SUV pulled up along the roadside – Deacon was early. He was out of the car and nose to the air in an instant, clearly searching for something. Maggie ducked down behind a tree, watching him. He turned toward the peninsula and hauled off into the woods. For a moment she thought he might be fooled by the smell of her family – by other Talbots, but no – she didn’t smell like a bear, and she never had.

Behind Deacon’s car, an armada of trucks rolled up. She watched every member of the Fenn family appear in the road, all rallying around their patriarch as they crossed the dirt path to make their way out onto the peninsula.

The sun wasn’t yet cracking the horizon, but it was growing too close to wait any longer. Maggie rushed down the roadside until she was out of sight, then crossed the road to slink her way through the trees. The smell of agitation should be enough to keep their attention, she hoped, ducking under a fallen trunk to see the shoreline ahead.

Richard White Eagle stood amongst his closest kin, his shirt already off as he prepared himself for the fight. Maggie could see bandages across the man’s back, all of them seeping through with blood – every single one her doing.

Good, she thought. I hope they hurt like hell.

Patrick approached the clearing with his family around him and the differences between the two men were instantly clear, even to a non-shifter. Richard’s family milled around him, their energy high and on edge. Yet Patrick’s family seemed to surround him, like a colony of bees, protective of their queen. Their presence wasn’t out of obligation or potential opportunity. They didn’t fear their chief, they loved him.

Richard White Eagle would never be half the man Patrick Fenn was. Maggie couldn’t let Patrick fall at a lesser man’s hands.

Richard took his place in the clearing, waiting for Patrick Fenn to undress. Maggie watched in pain as each of the Fenns paid honor to their patriarch, collecting his clothes like prayer beads.

Patrick turned to face Richard in the clearing. The horizon began to glow with the creeping approach of dawn.

“Welcome Chief,” Richard said, and the tone was so smug, she wanted to bite his face off. “You accept our challenge, then?”

Patrick straightened. However strong Richard White Eagle was in a fight, Patrick towered over him by several inches. “I do.”

“You would choose this fight for a girl you don’t know? I fail to understand this.”

“I would. She is my grandson’s chosen mate.”

Maggie’s heart shot into her throat. Had Deacon said as much? Was this true?

“But she refused the match.”

Patrick’s voice lowered. “She changed her mind.”

Richard met the gaze of each member of the Fenn family. “You would willingly let an abomination like that muddy your line? Have you no pride in your clan name?”

Deacon surged forward, his mother barely able to hold him back. “Don’t you speak of her like that. You’re not good enough to even speak her name.”

Maggie’s throat tightened. Yet she didn’t have time to process the beauty of someone thinking so highly of her, because her people had not taken kindly to these words. Every Talbot present seethed at him. To them, Deacon didn’t refer to Richard’s dishonorable behavior or his crimes; to them, Deacon insulted natives.

Patrick waved back to his grandson, never taking his eyes off of Richard. Patrick gestured to Richard’s wounds. “If those are her doing, I would say she’d be a welcome addition to our family. Her children will be strong, indeed.”

Richard’s face flushed and he glared at Patrick, as though speaking well of Maggie was blasphemy. “Your line will die because of that girl! You should thank me that you won’t be around to see it. Ready yourself!”

“No!” Maggie screamed, lunging from the trees and sprinting down the hillside to the clearing below. “No! You want me? I’m here!”

Every face around the clearing startled to see her coming, tearing the sweatshirt up over her head as she reached the clearing. She wouldn’t give anyone a chance to refuse.

“Maggie!” Deacon called from behind her, but she ignored him. She set a hand on Patrick Fenn’s shoulder, gently pushing him back. The gesture offered untold respect, but the message was clear – I won’t let you fight for me.

Patrick took a step back, but he did not retreat.

Richard’s eyes were wide and furious, glaring at her from his readied stance. He was seconds from shifting, and she knew how this man liked to fight. If he could take her off guard, he would.

“You’re no match for me, girl,” Richard said, his voice low and dripping with pleasure.

Maggie lowered herself to the ground. “Prove it, old man.”

Richard smiled, glancing toward the Fenn family. “If any of you step in to this fight, it will be a declaration of war. Am I understood?”

Before anyone could respond, Richard moved. It took less than an instant for her uncle to change, lunging toward her in a massive shape of black and teeth. Maggie jumped aside, dodging him with an agility she’d known her whole life. She didn’t need to shift to move like a cat. She took her opportunity, and jumped onto Richard’s back, shifting in mid-air to clamp her teeth into his already wounded neck, and tears her claws into his haunches. He roared, recoiling in pain, but Maggie wouldn’t let him shake her. She loosed her jaws just long enough to bite again, tearing into him anew. He dropped to the ground, rolling onto his back to crush her under his weight. She leapt aside before he could pin her, coming about to face him, backing away toward the surrounding crowd.

Her hip seared in sudden, blinding pain. Every person gathered hollered in protest, even the Talbots. Maggie startled around to find the source of this pain and found another familiar shape – her cousin Graham was a bear now, and she had the claw marks on her haunch to prove it.

Son of a bitch, she thought.

Richard Whit Eagle fought without honor, and he seemed not to care who knew.

She caught movement at her side and spun around, jumping out of the way before Richard could pin her to the rocky ground. Yet her hip was hurting now, and his attack was enough to throw her off balance. She toppled across the ground, skidding into Graham’s reach. She lashed out at him, her claws raking across his face before he could bite her. He recoiled, whimpering, but something else appeared over her. She rolled onto her side, kicking her hind legs up into the chest of Richard White Eagle’s massive shape, but it was too late, he was over her now, pinning her beneath him.

Maggie could hear the voices of the Fenn family, screaming their disapproval, but she prayed they would not step in. She tore Richard’s face, and in the instant he recovered from the new attack, she glanced toward the Fenns.

Deacon was being held back by his grandfather, but as Richard opened his jaws wide over Maggie’s head, Patrick let his grandson go, and Deacon was halfway across the clearing in an instant.

Yet, he didn’t shift. He didn’t barrel into her attacker and knock him away – something else did.

Richard stumbled aside, the wounds in his shoulders weakening him as he fought to stay upright.

Maggie scrambled to get onto her feet and out of the way of the new beast. This bear was different, unlike any bear she’d seen in decades. They were broad and massive – and they were white.

Maggie cowered in shadow of the raging beast as it steadied itself on its hind legs, stood to its full height, and roared in Richard’s face, challenging him and everyone who might come to his aide.

Mom.

“Don’t let him do this to you anymore, brother!”

Maggie turned to see her father struggling just to stay upright. He was held there by Patrick Fenn, still wearing a hospital johnny. Maggie glanced between her wounded father and her bear mother and felt as lost and unsure as the day she’d first discovered she wasn’t one of them.

“This man does not deserve to be your chief!” Maynard called, his eyes trained on her Uncle Paul.

Maggie watched warily as Richard stood to meet Karen Talbot’s challenge, but instead of fighting her, shifted back into a man. “You dare question my place, Maynard! I will have you exiled with your daughter. And you, Karen! What are you doing?”

The massive white bear lowered down onto all fours, the pure white of her fur giving way to warm, honey colored skin. Karen stood up to meet Richard, her tall frame almost as imposing as the bear she’d been a moment before.

Maynard stumbled forward, Patrick still holding him up. “Richard White Eagle challenged his brothers for his place as Chief. And we believed he’d earned that place through fair fight. He did not! My family, listen to me. This man killed our brother! You’ve seen how he fights yourself!” Maynard was clearly using every ounce of strength he had to yell loud enough to be heard over the sound of surf. The Talbots seemed to fidget, swaying uncomfortably. “He lets his sons fight at his side. This is not our way. It never has been!”

“I can’t very well control my son. He made a mistake getting involved, but if anyone thinks I needed a second to defeat this thing, they are sadly mistaken,” Richard said, glaring toward Graham who now stood in his human form again.

“I tell you, I’ve seen his ways. I’ve been forced to fight his way. This man claimed the role of chief by dishonorable means. He is not fit -”

Richard laughed. “Prove it!”

The faces of the Talbot family all turned toward something at Maggie’s back. She turned to find both John and Deacon stepped forward, removing their shirts to show their wounds. She braced for the repercussions. Whether they’d witnessed White Eagle’s dishonor, proclaiming him unfit to the post would backfire. The Talbots would not take kindly to the white man’s involvement in their business.

They let those present see their wounds, Deacon’s worse than John’s. Yet despite their evidence, they did not speak. Maggie felt her chest grow tight.

For white men, they knew more of her family’s ways than she’d ever imagined.

“I was attacked by White Eagle this past night. He challenged my daughter and I chose to fight as her champion. He set his sons upon me, instead. Both of them. He did not even have the stones to fight his own battle.”

The Talbots began to murmur with trepidation.

“Were it not for the Fenn boys and my daughter, he’d have killed me there, and no one would be the wiser. Tell me, brother. Is that how Broken Arrow died, as well?”

“Are you challenging me now, older brother? Do you believe you’d make a better chief than I?”

“No, but I might,” a voice called from the Talbot crowd. Maggie turned to watch her family part in shocked reverence as Uncle Paul stepped forward, his son standing at his side to receive his clothes.

Richard White Eagle instantly went pale.

“Family, I have not spoken of the night my brother challenged me, for I feared to bring shame on us all. But what Maynard says is true. White Eagle did not fight Broken Arrow alone.”

This news dropped like a bomb in that quiet clearing.

“He did not claim the status of chief fairly,” Paul said, his jaw set against emotion.

“How do you know that?” Graham asked, his anger bubbling over.

“Because I was his second,” Paul said, bowing his head in shame.

This news traveled through the crowd like a lit fuse burning toward dynamite.

The looks of the Talbot family changed, eyeing Richard with distrust and fury rather than fear.

“I was given the choice of secrecy or my life. I agreed to keep his cowardice a secret. I have carried the shame of that promise for much of my life.”

Richard stormed forward. “You aren’t half the man it would take to fight me, Paul. Step back before you humiliate yourself.”

“He might not be man enough to fight you, but I am.”

Maggie gasped, turning to watch her mother step toward Richard, glaring him down, fearlessly.