Free Redeem The Bear by T.S. Joyce Page B

this war? You won’t save all of these people?” she asked as her last hope lay in the coming sunrise.
    “It’s beyond me now,” he said, void of emotion. “If that’s what you came for, your mission was doomed before you even met me.”
    She swallowed back crippling emotion as he plucked his pants from the grass and disappeared around the tree.
    A night with her enemy hadn’t saved her people.
    A night with Brooks had only proved that her Daniel really was dead.

Chapter Nine
     
    Brooks didn’t offer his hand this time as he led her toward the meadow separating their camps. The moon hung low and it illuminated the gently waving grass in an eerie glow. Corin balked as Brooks took his first step into the field of whispers.
    “I don’t think we should go through there.” Her instincts were screaming to back away slowly.
    “Why?” he asked in a hard voice.
    “It’s haunted.”
    His face morphed from interested to completely closed off. “Spirits don’t come around creatures like me, Corin. Come.”
    Creatures like him? Dark? Soulless? What did that even mean?
    “Why did you choose this place?” The first tendrils of suspicion touched her heart. “What does it mean to you?”
    A cold smile crooked his lips but failed to reach his eyes. “I fought Bear Valley for my first battle in this meadow. The souls you hear whispering against your neck? They are the unsettled ghosts of my people and yours. We lost that battle, but today will be different. This is the place I choose to end Bear Valley, where my battles began.”
    Horrified, she shook her head in denial that he would plan this. The second she thought she knew him, thought he had a heart somewhere in his dark, echoing chest cavity, his words pulled the hope right from her. Seething that she’d been so stupid, she brushed by him.
    “I can get back to my people just fine from here.”
    She wasn’t going to look back, no matter what. He could watch her go all he wanted. The wind picked up and lifted her hair and she covered her ears as the whispers began again.
    Corin, Corin, the wind hissed, and she froze as terror seized her muscles. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. How were the voices inside her head?
    Sh e could tell the exact moment Brooks stepped into the meadow behind her, because the ghosts quieted like they’d never even been here at all. Brooks scooped her up like she weighed nothing and strode with long, steady strides until they reached the other side.
    His black eyes smoldered like a fire just gone out. “You’re good, Corin. They wouldn’t reach out to you if you weren’t. Not even I could taint you. Run.”
    Frightened, she looked around but they were alone in the woods. “Run from what?”
    “Run from this war. Go get in one of those jeeps and leave this place. Swear to me you’ll leave.”
    “And leave my people?” She shook her head , sad that he didn’t really know her at all. “I can’t.”
    “Did you come to me tonight to beg for me to end this? Is that the only reason?”
    “No.” Her lip quivered and she bit it hard to hide her weakness. “I came because you’re mine. You stood in front of the Kodiak council and asked for me. I know we were just kids, but it was real. You’re different now—empty. It makes me hate the Long Claws for whatever they’ve done to you.”
    “I’m not him,” he growled low.
    “You saved my life once at the cost of your own. I can’t ask you to do it a second time, but I can’t leave my people.” She wrapped her fingers around the necklace that clung to her throat beneath her shirt. She rarely thought of it anymore because it was just a part of her. Something she’d worn in memory of a past she would never get over. With a firm tug, she broke the thin chain and held it between them. The gold medallion shone in the moonlight and as it twisted in her grip, the script D blurred. “You gave this to me for my thirteenth birthday.”
    His eyes went wide and his mouth hung open