by Leslie Chase
Marcus was close enough that if her hands had been free, she could have reached out and touched him. Even in the darkness, she could see the intense passion in his eyes, his focus on keeping her safe, his love for her. There was pain, too, from the wounds he’d suffered in the fight, but she could see the determination in him. The absolute unwillingness to let anything stop him so long as she was in danger.
But even as fast as he was, could he outrun a bike when it got up to speed? She didn’t know, but she didn’t think so. And if Cal could get some distance, he’d be able to get backup, and Marcus had already been in too many fights. Icy fear washed through her, and a strange calm came with it.
The bike slowed, just a little, as Cal fought to get it under control. Marcus could have smashed it then, maybe, but with her aboard, he seemed unwilling to take the chance. My darling bear, you can’t risk hurting me, can you? No matter how badly you get hurt, defending me.
Lisa gathered her strength and threw her weight sideways. Her movement caught Cal by surprise, and before he could correct for it, his balance was gone too and they were falling.
The ground struck hard, and she lost track of what was happening for a moment as pain shot through her. She thanked her lucky stars that they hadn’t been moving faster, but even so the fall seemed to go on forever. The ropes binding her to the bike pulled at her arms, keeping her from raising them to protect her head, and the impact left her seeing stars.
Eventually, the world stopped rolling around her, and she lay still, trying to take stock. Both of her arms felt like they were on fire, and her left leg was a mass of blinding pain. But nothing seemed to be broken, and she could feel everything. The pain was bad enough that she almost wished she couldn’t, but it still seemed like a good sign.
Rough hands grabbed her, fingers digging painfully into her arms and making her scream. Cal laughed, a rough, nasty sound, ignoring her pain and pulling her to her knees. Lisa felt something cold, metal, pressed to the side of her face, and froze.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” he called into the darkness, his voice unsteady. “But I’ve still got a gun and I’ll kill her before I let you have her!”
The blinding pain receded slightly, and through the tears in her eyes, she could see Marcus, the bear only a few yards away. He growled, his eyes focused on the revolver in Cal’s hand. Slowly, he took a step backward.
“That’s right, you monster,” Cal said, sounding more confident as the bear backed off. “You get away from us, you hear?”
Marcus took another pace backward, near the tree line now, and then another. The great bear was almost invisible in the shadows, his eyes fixed on Cal, and Lisa whimpered as she felt the gun move from her cheek. She saw it as Cal raised his arm to aim at the bear - a huge, heavy revolver, the kind that could do some real damage if it hit.
The bear turned and bounded into the trees before he could take his shot. Lisa felt her heart sink as she lost sight of him, but the noise of his passage through the woods stopped almost at once. Marcus was still close by, watching them.
Cal tightened his grip on her and tried to drag her back, out onto the road. She cried out as he pulled - her aching arms were still tied to his bike, which was too heavy for her to drag. She heard Cal curse again, and couldn’t help smiling, despite the pain. He was stuck. Without her as a hostage, there was nothing stopping Marcus from rushing him, and he was close enough to the trees that he wouldn’t have much chance to take a shot.
“Where are you hiding, monster?” Cal shouted at the woods, his pistol sweeping across the darkness. “Come out and let’s finish this!”
Silence was the only response, the oppressive silence of the forest which seemed to loom closer with every passing moment. He waited a second, then another, and his gun started to tremble. Lisa listened carefully for any hint of what Marcus was up to, but there was no sound to be heard.
“All right, we’ll play it your way,” Cal said, and let go of her. For a moment, she wondered if he was about to let her go, but then his hand was on her again, grabbing her bruised arm, twisting and squeezing. She screamed as the burning pain shot through her.
“Come out where I can see you and I’ll let her go,” Cal shouted. “Otherwise, you can listen to your precious Lisa suffer till you change your mind!”
His hand was strong, crushing her bones as he wrenched her arm upwards. Lisa’s legs gave out from the pain and she tried to bite down on her scream, willing Marcus not to fall into this trap.
I can take it, she told herself, not sure if she was lying. She sank down, whimpering as Cal relaxed his grip slightly.
Her eyes closed against the pain, she thought she heard something. A quiet scraping sound, coming from above. Trying not to react, not to draw Cal’s attention to it, she focused on the ground beneath her, the rough asphalt, the pain in her leg and her arms.
Cal’s boot came down on her thigh, his weight leaning into her wound, and she screamed loud and raw. This time she didn’t even try to restrain herself, howling in agony and hoping that it would cover the sound of whatever Marcus was doing.
Throat raw, her screaming subsided when Cal lifted his foot, and Lisa found herself panting for breath, tears flowing freely.
Come on Marcus, please hurry, she thought. I can’t take much more of this!
The sound came again, something scraping on wood high up in one of the trees beside the road.
She felt rather than saw Cal raise his boot again, and whimpered as she tried to prepare for the agony. Above them, wood creaked under a heavy weight, a branch shifting, and both Lisa and Cal froze, their eyes snapping upwards.
From the branches of the nearest tree, a grizzly bear looked down at them, eyes blazing with anger, teeth bared and claws digging into the wood. For the briefest moment, none of them moved, and then Cal leaped backward, bringing up his revolver.
The bear jumped too, sailing out of the tree and coming down on him before he could pull the trigger. The huge brown shaggy shape of Marcus slammed down its full weight on her captor, and the only noise Cal made was a woof of air forced out of his lungs, and a sickening crunch.
Lisa looked away and covered her eyes, not wanting to see any more. There was a final gunshot and then silence.
After an unbearably long moment, she heard footsteps and looked up again. There was Marcus, naked and blood-covered, stumbling around the bike towards her. As she watched, he slumped down to the ground, landing heavily on the asphalt.
“Marcus!” She called out, but he didn’t answer. Tugging frantically at her bonds, she tried to go to him, pulling at the bike, but her limbs were weak and trembling from the terror she’d been through, and hurt too much to apply pressure. She sobbed in fear and frustration.
Slowly, he managed to turn his head and look at her, a smile spreading across his lips. Relief flooded her, and she sat back beside the bike, shaking. He pulled himself forwards, panting with effort, rising up and stumbling to her side. The knots holding her to Cal’s motorcycle parted quickly for him, and he sank down beside her, gasping for breath.
“Are you all right?” she asked frantically, looking him over. She thought that a lot of the blood wasn’t his, but too much was.
“I’m fine,” he said with a grin that covered the pain he must have been in.
“Fine? Fine?” Lisa’s voice rose in hysteria and outrage. “Marcus, you’ve been shot! You’re bleeding!”
“I’ve had worse,” he said, shrugging. She couldn’t imagine what ‘worse’ would look like, and didn’t want to. “And anyway, I’ll be fine as long as you’re all right. You’re safe now, so I’m fine. No arguments.”
She sighed, frustrated by his attitude but happy he was alive to make that ridiculous argument. Happy that she was free and able to hear it. “Okay, I guess I owe you that. No arguments.”
“Good girl,” he said, sitting up and wrapping her in his strong arms. “Now I need to make a few phone calls and finish this. The Serpents will be packi
ng up and leaving, as quick as they can now. With Vance and most of the rest of the leadership gone, there’s no one to keep them here. And the FBI will be really interested in the missing persons cases that can be traced to them - no amount of control over the local police will keep them safe at this point. They’re done.”
With a great heave, he lifted himself to his feet, and she came with him. Lisa winced as she tried to put weight on her left leg and felt a wave of pain from it, and Marcus was unsteady as he leaned into her. Despite his insistence that he was fine, she could tell that the evening’s work had taken its toll on him. Supporting each other, they started to walk slowly back down the road towards her car.
“Thank you for saving me,” Lisa said as they walked. “I thought I was done for there.”
“Never while I have breath in my body,” he replied, sounding tired but proud. “I’ll always keep you safe, Lisa.”
“Well, I know that now,” she said, grinning up at him, feeling as exhausted as he sounded. “But it was scary for a couple of minutes! And then there you were, coming to the rescue.”
The car was waiting for them beside the road, and Lisa was just as glad it had been knocked aside during the fight. She’d rather not see too much of what Marcus had done to the other Serpents - several of them had been in good enough shape to make it back to their bikes and get away, it seemed, but the rest were still lying where the bear had batted them. She shivered and looked away.
Beside her, she felt Marcus tense. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked. “I mean, with who and what I am? I’ve never shown an outsider what I can do, what I will do, before. But I’m a warrior, a soldier, as well as a bear. And I’m the boy who loved you years ago before he left to join the Army, the boy who loved you too much to risk being around you and put you in danger. You’ve seen all of me now, and I need to know - can you still love me, Lisa?”
She looked at him, nervously swallowing. “I… Marcus, I love you, I loved you before you left and I still love you. You’ve just rescued me from a crazy gunman, and got shot doing it! Why would you think I would love you less for that? I love you, and I love all of you, bear, man, and boy. If you don’t believe I love you now, what could possibly prove it to you?”
Marcus lifted his weight from her and sank down to the ground. For a moment, panic overcame her and she thought he was succumbing to his wounds. But then he smiled at her from one knee and took her hands in his.
“You can marry me,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Tell me you’ll be mine, and be with me forever. Be mine, Lisa, and I’ll be yours, and we’ll be happy together forever.”
She could barely hear his words over the pounding of her pulse, and her good leg trembled, threatening to give out. She couldn’t find the words, staring into those intense, dark eyes.
“Yes,” she finally managed. “Oh my God, yes!”
His arms circled her and held her tight, keeping her up as she embraced him, running her fingers through his hair. Marcus laughed and she joined in, injuries and fear forgotten. Finally, finally, they were going to be together and everything was going to be alright. It was as though a long dark night was ending at last, and the dawn was breaking on their real life, a life shared with one another.
The moment was finally broken by a pointed cough from the car.
“I approve of your choice, Lisa,” Hazel said, amused but stern, “and you don’t need to worry about getting my blessing, Marcus. But you really should have found some clothes before you asked her, you know. At least if you were going to do it in front of me.”
“Mother!” Lisa said, feeling her cheeks go red as she looked away hurriedly. Marcus blushed too, looking more embarrassed than she’d ever seen him.
“Sorry, Hazel,” he said, pulling himself upright. “It was a spur of the moment thing.”
“The best proposals are, I suppose,” Hazel said, and Lisa could hear her smile in her voice. “And anyway, this way I get to see all of why my daughter likes you so much.”
“Mother!” Lisa couldn’t help laughing despite her shock, and soon the three of them were all laughing, relief flooding through them. Marcus quickly grabbed a towel from the car and covered himself, before borrowing Lisa’s phone to make some calls.
“Let’s get home, sweetheart,” Hazel suggested. “If the Serpents aren’t a threat anymore, we should get your man’s wounds cleaned and dressed, and Marcus will need some rest after that. He’s earned it!”
18
They held each other as they got Hazel back into her home, leaving the luggage in the car for later. There wasn’t much of it, but Marcus could feel his muscles wanting to give out, and it could wait for morning.
He’d made his calls on the drive back to town, phoning his contact in the FBI first and tipping him off to the location of the kidnapped girls. He was sorry that he couldn’t give better news to their families, but at least they could be properly laid to rest. And the remaining Serpents were going to face the consequences of what they’d done. That would have to be enough.
He’d also called Lucas, and let his friends know he was done with the job - and, not incidentally, that he’d survived. By the time he was done explaining what had happened, they’d arrived back in Coldwood.
“So, you own your own company?” Hazel asked as he carefully guided her wheelchair inside.
“It’s a partnership,” Marcus said with a smile. “Guardian Bear Security. Me and two friends from my time in the service.”
“And they are… like you?” Hazel didn’t seem to know how to put that question into words, but he knew what she meant. There was only one thing she could be asking about.
“They’re bear shifters, yes. I’m really not supposed to let you know about us existing, Hazel, so I hope I can trust you to keep it to yourself.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that, dear. You’re going to be family now! And besides that, you’ve saved me from the Serpents, and saved my daughter too - I owe you much more than keeping a secret.” Hazel smiled, and it looked as though a great weight had been lifted from her. “You dealt with the Serpents. That makes you a hero in my book, and the rest is details.”
He waved off her thanks. “I was just doing the right thing, that’s all.”
“That is not all. No one else was doing it, were they?”
He couldn’t think of an argument, and anyway didn’t really want to. Having Lisa’s mom thinking of him as a hero couldn’t be a bad thing. And it was true, he supposed. No one else had stopped the Serpents.
“So what are your plans now, Marcus? Are you going to take my daughter away to the big city?”
Lisa looked unhappy at the idea, and Marcus felt his face cloud. “I know Lisa wouldn’t abandon you. I’m not going to try and drag her away.”
“Good. Because even with the FBI and the police and whatnot crawling all over the woods, that witching stone is still going to be there when it quiets down again. Someone’s got to keep an eye on it, and stop anyone else being tempted by it like the Serpents were.”
Marcus smiled. “You really don’t want Lisa to leave, huh?”
“Is that so bad? I want my daughter with me, and my grandkids when they arrive. And you know, you and your bear friends are going to need some open space to let your animal sides loose once in a while. The big city won’t give you that.”
“And I imagine I’ll be able to get a good price on the Serpents’ compound, once the investigation’s done with it,” Marcus agreed, thinking about it. The more he looked at it, the better the idea sounded. Lisa looked from one to the other.
“You mean you don’t want me to leave town?” she asked, wide-eyed. He laughed and hugged her.
“I’ve been looking for a better solution since you told me you had to look after your mother,” he said. “Now she’s found one for us. I want you to have the life you want, you and Hazel both. Nothing matters more than making you happy.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Hazel said. “More husbands should think
that way! Now I’m going to get some sleep. Don’t you two do anything I wouldn’t!”
Lisa muttered a half-hearted “Mom!” under her breath, and Hazel chuckled. Marcus felt his heart warm as he watched them.
So this is what having a family is like, he realized. I could get used to it.
Lisa wheeled her mother into her bedroom, and Marcus collapsed into a chair. Even his reserves of strength had been taxed by the night he’d had. He sat there, recovering, until his mate returned.
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” Lisa said, helping him to his feet again and into the shower. He sighed, relaxing as the hot water washed the blood off him, and when he emerged, he felt like a new man. Lisa was waiting for him in the guest bedroom, nervously watching him. He saw her eyes flick to his wounds, and then to the first aid kit she’d unpacked onto the dresser. Without being asked, he sat down and let her examine him.
“I can’t believe how quickly you’re healing,” she said, her fingers gently running over the gunshot wound in his arm. The flesh was raised, tender, but the wound was already shut, and her touch didn’t hurt. She ran antiseptic wipes over his injuries, carefully making sure they were clean and closed. Looking up at him, she spoke. “This isn’t natural, Marcus.”
“It’s normal for shifters. We heal very fast,” he told her. “Unless someone hits us just right, we’ll recover from just about anything.”
“And here I thought it was because of my magical healing touch,” she said with a grin. Marcus laughed.
“That might have something to do with it too,” he admitted. “I definitely feel better when you’ve taken care of my wounds.”
“Does it hurt?” Lisa asked, her fingers tracing over the wounds again, the marks on his torso from earlier. Her voice was soft, nervous, and he smiled down at her.
“Now? Just a little.” He took her hand, squeezing it, meeting her eyes. “Getting shot or stabbed hurts me as much as anyone else, I just recover quicker than most.”