Page 3 of Wooded Bliss (Mated to the Monster: Season 3)

THATCHER

The woods are dark and ominous. It feels like the shadows leer and groan as they reach for me. My gut clenches, the forest around me giving off a creepy vibe in a way it never does during the day. Tree branches reach for me.

What happens when they grab me? Will I ever be able to escape them? Will they pull me deeper into the shadows?

I frantically look around. While I don’t sense anything near me, something could be lurking in the shadows. Is there a monster out there? Are they watching me?

When I reach for my bear, I’m met with nothing. There’s an empty chasm where my bear should be. My soul feels as if it’s been ripped apart and only tatters remain. Where is my bear? What will I do if I can’t shift?

My feet freeze in place as everything around me grows even darker. I look up to the sky in the hope of seeing the moon or some stars, but only inky black sky greets me. Where is Mother Moon? Where is her light?

The tree canopy turns denser, blocking out any hope of seeing when the moon peeks out from behind the clouds. Even beyond the clouds, light wouldn’t penetrate the leaves. There’s nothing.

Nothing.

I try to move, to run, and get away from the ominous feeling, but I can’t. I can’t move my feet. I look down, expecting to find some reason why I can’t take a step, but I don’t see anything.

Fear grips me in a way I’ve never experienced before.

While I’m trying to figure out what is holding me captive, I hear something moving through the brush in the forest around me. I peer into the darkness, but I don’t see anything. The sound of heavy breathing grows louder and louder.

Whatever is stomping around in the woods, just outside of where I can see, gets closer. I can feel the ground shake beneath my feet. Whoever is out there, whatever is out there, is big. Willing my feet to move is still useless.

Why can’t I move? Why am I stuck here?

The world shifts around me slightly and the forest becomes less dense, creating a small clearing around me.

Two bears break through the tree line, and I can feel the fear rolling off of them. Even while they snarl, it’s clear they’re running from something. I look behind them, but the only thing I can see are the shadows creeping closer.

The way the bears are looking around, their heads going from side to side wildly, makes me wonder if they can see me. My mouth falls open and a shout tries to work its way up my throat, but no sound comes out. No matter what I do, I can’t say or do anything.

When the bears look my way, realization slams into me. How did I not notice? I scream in my head, wanting to gain the attention of my parents.

Mom!

Dad!

They look at me, but it’s like they’re looking right through me. Can they not see me? Tears prick the back of my eyes. I desperately want to move closer to them, to hug them, to soothe the fear I can see written all over their furry faces.

But I can’t.

My heart is pounding in my chest, and it feels like I can’t take a full breath. It feels like I know what is about to happen. Dread fills me and weighs me down making my chest feel tight, and an ache starts to work its way through my body.

I want to scream at the bears to move, to run, to hide. But I can’t do a damn thing.

Two hunters who have shadows wrapped around them like clothing, step through a break in the trees behind the bears. Two gunshots ring out, shattering the darkness in a way that makes it feel like my soul is breaking.

Everything stops for a heartbeat before I drop to my knees and a scream rips from my chest as the bears fall to the ground. I don’t know if it’s my screams, finally given voice, or the gunshots that reverberate through the darkness around me.

My eyes snap open and I sit up in bed, feeling trapped by the sheets which are twisted around my body and drenched in sweat. Air is sawing in and out of my lungs as the world blurs around me. When things come back into focus, I see my bedroom surrounding me, but I’m still not sure whether I’m safe or not.

Even though it was just a dream, panic still fills me. It all felt so real, even though I wasn’t there when my parents were killed.

Circe showing up and the way thoughts of my parents have been creeping into my mind lately is probably why I had the nightmare. When my parents died, the nightmares started but had gotten better over the years. The nightmares are part of the reason I ended up moving out of the house where Ripp and Grady still live.

Waking my brothers up because I was having a nightmare wasn’t something I was interested in doing. We each had enough to deal with, and I wasn’t going to put my shit, my pain, my grief, on their shoulders as well.

Knowing there’s no way I’ll be going back to bed; I make my way toward the bathroom to get my day started and to wash the sweat away.

“It’s okay to miss them,” my bear whispers.

“Of course I miss them,” I growl back and feel him retreat toward the back of my mind.

I sigh and allow myself to zone out, hoping I don’t fixate on my parents and the grief I still carry around with me. It won’t bring them back, nothing will. Holding onto their memories is one thing, but there are times when I feel like I’m being haunted by them more than anything else.

It’s a rare thing for my brothers and I to talk about them, but they’re constant specters on the edge of our consciousness. Their death isn’t the only thing that haunts us; everything that happened after does as well.

We should have been surrounded by the pack and had them to lean on as we worked through our grief. Being left alone to wallow should never have happened.

But it did.

It was a slow process at first with just a few people slipping away and the families sticking around. But then it was like the flood gates opened and everyone was leaving. I had never seen anything like it and I’m still not sure why it happened at all.

Not only did we lose our parents, but we lost everyone who we considered our family. Family. It’s what the pack was…until it wasn’t.

“Let’s go see brothers,” my bear softly suggests, pulling me from my dark whirling thoughts.

Dawn is just breaking, and soft light begins filtering through the canopy as I walk out of my cabin and head toward where Ripp and Grady live. Once upon a time, it was the main pack house. All the leadership families lived there and there is enough space for anyone who came to visit from other packs.

Once the writing was on the wall and the cabins and homes started to empty out, I took the opportunity to move out into my own home. When our parents were alive it wouldn’t have happened until I found my mate, but I didn’t see the reason to wait. I was still close for the sake of my brothers, but I needed some room.

The fact that everyone left, scattering around the country and joining other packs, compounded the loss we felt. Now, my brothers and I are the only ones left.

It shouldn’t have gone down the way it did.

“No, it shouldn’t have,” my bear tries to soothe me.

I wasn’t the only one affected by the way bears left the pack, moving far away from Whispering Pines and never looking back. My bear felt every loss right along with me. The bears we grew up with, the ones we played with and explored the woods with, were there and then they were gone.

I love my brothers and we’ve always been friends and family but losing the rest of our friends and all the people we grew up with, left a mark.

Ripp blames himself even if he hasn’t said it and I haven’t asked. I don’t want him to think I blame him, not even for a moment. But I can see the strain it’s put on him.

He believes he’s not worthy of being the Alpha. Even though I have faith in him, I can understand why he would believe that. What else could he think when everyone left before even giving him a chance to be the leader that they needed?

I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m not going to get answers about why everyone left. That doesn’t mean it’s easier to live with the emptiness their absence has left behind.

When I walk up to the main house, I take a moment to look over the large building. It used to be teeming with life, but now it feels hollow. Wylie runs wilderness tours out of this place with Grady helping him from time to time, but nothing is going to bring the life back without the pack growing again.

After stepping into the house, the quiet feels oppressive. Honestly, it’s far too big of a home for just Ripp and Grady. If they didn’t have a cleaning service coming in once a week, I don’t think they would be able to maintain it. We’ve tried to talk Ripp into opening it up for short term rentals or making it into a B I won’t survive any more loss in my life.