Family With Honour (Book 4)

Five

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"You look ten shades of horrendous." Bear blearily follows the voice and stops, his heart being wrenched from his chest. Dark eyes glint in the bright room, a slow smirk lying beneath them.

"You are dead. You cannot be here. How are you here?"

He rises and stretches his arms out above his head, muscles flexing beneath the thin white material of his shirt. "You tell me. You brought me here." He glances around, his nose wrinkling in disgust at their surroundings. He rubs his arms and glances at Bear. "Is it usually so cold in here?"

Bear frowns and it is then that he senses the iciness to his skin. "You are in my head."

"Yes but the question is why am I in your head?" Hunter asserts. "You do not make it a habit to remember what causes you pain. You usually push all memories of me away. But there are a few too many for you to completely do that. Memories of her are not so many. Do you ever think of her now willingly?"

"You are just telling me what I already know." Bear grumbles. Hunter smirks and shakes his head. His dark hair dangles down into his eyes and he casually brushes it back, only for it to fall back a moment later.

"I am in your head, brother. I am part of a delusion you are creating. Everything I say you already know. Why are you cold?"

"The room is warm, the sun is streaming in." Bear notices, speaking aloud.

Hunter rolls his eyes and snorts. "And I am here before you? A little picture perfect do you not think? Why are you cold?"

"I am not awake." Bear realises. Hunter nods and steps closer. He fuzzes around the edges and Bear groans, his memories unable to shape the man he once knew up close. "I am asleep. I am cold. Why am I cold?"

"The weather when you left the tavern, what was the weather? Was it raining? Did you get soaked to the skin? Were you conscious enough to get out of those clothes or are you still lain in them?"

"I do not know." Bear softly replies, ice shuddering deep in his bones.

"Bear! Wake up Bear!" The voice shouts into his ear but Hunter does not move.

"What are you waiting for?"

"You are here." Bear answers, the weight in his chest for once a little bit lighter. If only she was here too.

Hunter grimaces and rubs his neck. "You know that I am not really here. You need to wake up because they actually are here. It is still cold." A cloud of white leaves Hunter's mouth as he breathes. Bear knows his words are true, his own mind is reasoning logically with him.

"Bear!" The skin on his cheek stings, his left ear ringing. "Wake! Up!" It shouts louder. Bear resists the pull back to reality as he asks one of the questions that has haunted him.

"Why did I not push you to tell me the truth?"

Hunter shrugs his shoulders and in that moment he knows that there is no answer to that question that could possibly make the here and now any better.

"Why did you not save her?"

Bear opens his eyes.

The petite form of Lilly, his older brother Bronco's wife, appears in his bleary vision, hands on hips, lips pursed and brows furrowed. Her blue eyes spark with something akin to disgust but he sees more pity than anything else. His chest struggles to get out its next breaths. She turns to the person just out of his line of vision and says, "The bath is filled, you just need to get him into it." She looks back at Bear. "I never expected to see you like this. You will do as Jaguar tells you otherwise you will die. You will not do that to your family. We cannot cope with another funeral or another gap in our lives."