The Hunter and the Hunted (Bear Naked 3)

Chapter 27

Brianna 

Brianna stood next to the community board to one side of the student life center, waiting for Jay to get out of his first statistics class. She stood by the board to get out of the way of traffic. She began to read the various notices to pass the time. Most were flyers for various clubs that met on campus. She saw the flyer for the yoga class, now half buried.

Another flyer advertised an event in Fort Hall, a protest of some sort. She looked at it, curious. A local group was trying to convince a museum to return some Shoshone artefacts to the reservation.

She felt a presence behind her. Only half paying attention, she said to Jay, "we should grab some sodas from the cafeteria and then find a seat in the corner, somewhere private..." She turned towards him and paused.

It was not Jay. The man was several inches taller than Brianna. His skin was deep reddish brown and his wavy hair jet black. He wore a V neck T shirt, a bear claw choker drawing her eye to his broad chest. He gave her a cheeky smile. "I would love to grab a soda and go somewhere private sometime, but I am afraid I have class right now," he said. "Moth will kill me if I start skipping this early in the semester."

Brianna blushed. "Sorry," she stammered, "I thought you were someone else." She stared at his chest and abs, not daring to look up into his face. This view, however, was not making her any less flustered.

"Suddenly, I am wishing I was someone else," he joked. "Is this a boyfriend you are waiting for?"

"Just a friend," she said, looking up into his eyes again.

"Awesome," he replied stepping closer.

Brianna's nostrils flared and her eyes widened. So did his. "Wolf?" he mouthed.

Brianna nodded. "Leidulf," she said. "Skinwalker?" He nodded.

"I thought you guys were younger," he said. "My cousin said the pack was in high school with him."

Brianna nodded. "I graduated early, so I am taking some classes, since we are here and all. I am seventeen but I will be eighteen in a couple weeks." I am babbling. And it was really cheesy and slutty to point out that I was about to turn eighteen. I barely know this guy. "Umm, I'm Brianna, Brianna Sage." She held out her hand, trying to retrieve what little dignity she had left.

"Charley Kamadeku," he replied. He held her hand. "Unfortunately, I really do have to get to class, but Brianna?"

"Yes?"

"Happy early birthday." He winked. Then he tapped the board behind her. "Come to our protest. Moth says we need all the support we can get."

With that he was gone. Behind him stood Jay, his mouth agape. Before she could speak, he grabbed her arm and started dragging her towards the cafeteria. "Tell me everything. Every. Single. Thing."

Marissa Hensley was a slender woman in her late fifties, or so she said. Brianna wouldn't have guessed much over forty from her appearance. She had long dishwater blond hair, braided behind her. She moved with a grace and flexibility that Brianna envied almost immediately.

Brianna had spent the last hour trying to focus on her homework while be being peppered with questions from Jay about Charley, as though she knew the guy. As though that weren't bad enough, when she wasn't rehashing the encounter with Jay, she was reliving it in her mind. It was a relief when it was time to go find the classroom for the yoga class and sign up.

"Now place your hands together behind your back," Marissa was saying at the head of the class. "And lean back into the stretch."

Brianna struggled to comply. She was nowhere near flexible enough to bring her palms together behind her back like that. To her right, Jay was almost managing it.

Marissa nodded at one of her higher level students, who took her place at the head of the class. As the student went through the same series of poses again, Marissa circulated the class, giving pointers.

"Here," she said to Brianna, "put your fingers down like this."

"But," Brianna started as she complied. With her fingers pointing down her palms came together easily.

"In time. Practice this way for now, pull the hands up as high as possible. In this way you get the benefits of the stretch." She turned to the class, "it's more important that you are stretching to the edge of your comfort zone, and no more. Later you will be able to hold the poses exactly as I do, but don't worry too much about that right now. Remember the first rule of yoga is begin where you are."

With that she moved on, correcting Jay's posture. Despite the fact that they were running through a basic series of poses, a fine sheen of sweat already covered Brianna's body. Still she was glad that she let Jay talk her into taking this class.

"Let's do this as a flow now, holding each pose for two breaths and then moving on," Marissa commanded the class.

The flow forced Brianna to concentrate, forgetting for the next several minutes all the thoughts in her head, the man she had met earlier that day, how the others were faring at the high school and even her fears for Darren.