by Dianna Love
He welcomed the cool air on his fevered body, but if they didn’t get off the mountain by dark, which wasn’t looking possible, this cold would double down after the sun set.
He didn’t want to spend the night in bear form in case he had to move them again, but he’d figure that out later.
After showing Eli how to tuck the weapon behind her in her jeans waistband to free her hands, he led the way and squeezed through an opening between two walls of rock. He held her hand, pulling her through gently to avoid scraping her skin.
When they exited on the other side, she reminded him of his promise to change into his bear.
He kissed her forehead and stroked his hand down her damp hair. It felt icy already. “I’ll change if you say so, but look about twenty yards that way,” he said indicating an area where a narrow waterfall spilled down the rock face. “If I can clean out the wound, I have a better chance to heal faster.”
“I see. Go,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.” He took her hand, searching all around them for any threat. This area was more exposed, but someone would have to make a shot from straight below for any chance of hitting them.
Not realistic.
Besides, if the enemy were wolf shifters, they were tracking Justin and Eli, which was even more of a worry since they could move fast in this terrain.
When he reached the water, he started splashing it on his face, trying not to throw up at the ragged pain only getting worse. He pulled off his T-shirt and soaked it in the water then ripped the padding off his forehead.
If Eli hadn’t been there, he’d have cursed a blue streak. That fucking hurt.
She made a noise.
When he glanced over, her face was pale. “Is bad, Justin.”
He loved hearing his name on her lips, but not the worry thickening her voice.
“I’m gonna be fine, babe. This water will really help.” He twisted water out of his shirt, wrapped it around his hand and soaked it again, then gritted his teeth, accepting what he had to do.
Sucking in a deep breath, he clamped his jaws shut before scrubbing that rag hard across his forehead.
That took the starch out of his dick.
He would not make a sound and expose their location, but inside he bellowed.
Herc moaned.
Justin’s eyes burned and his stomach wanted to revolt.
Then he felt Eli’s arms come around his chest, holding him from the back. Her warm skin touched his and blended as one body at that point. He could swear he felt her energy seep through his back and radiate through his body.
Slowly, the pain receded to a dull throb.
The lack of sharp edge to each pulsing ache in his head meant he’d washed out the titanium he could access.
He patted her arm. “Okay, babe. I’m good.”
“In pain.”
“You made it better.”
“Really?”
Giving her hand a squeeze, he said, “Always. Just being near you makes me happy and whole.” The blood had stopped trickling into his eyes. “Let me rinse out my eyes and we’ll shift.”
She released him, then stood with her back to him with the gun in her hand pointed out as she guarded them both.
He was feeling better already.
He could live with a high level of pain and function as long as the residual titanium didn’t stay in his body too long.
“I’ll take the gun back,” he told her.
She turned around with the business end pointed at him.
“Oh, shit, babe.” Justin jumped to the side. “We have got to spend time getting you familiar with a gun. Rule number one is not to point it at anything you don’t want to kill.”
She looked at the gun as if it had crawled up her body and climbed into her hand. She dropped it on the ground.
Do not yell at her for dropping a loaded weapon, Justin told himself. Most modern handguns could take a far worse beating without accidental discharge, but still, never a good idea. He picked up the weapon and returned it to his ankle holster.
Then he pulled her to him and kissed the daylights out of her. This right here was all he’d ever need or want.
When he let her take a breath, she said, “Not time for play.” But then she kissed him back even harder.
Her hands went around his neck and he savored a moment of holding her. It might not be the time, but he’d needed this from the minute he’d been shot and thought he might not live to keep her safe.
Finishing the kiss with a peck on her nose, he said, “See? We did have time. Now, I’m ready to shift and get over the next ridge to a place I have in mind.”
Nodding, she started unbuttoning her shirt and looked up over her shoulder. She noted, “Is snow up there.”
“Our bears can handle it. Think you’ll be cold?”
She gave him a wicked smiled. “Me? No. Part polar bear. Maybe grizzly cold.”
“You wound me, woman. I can take anything you can.”
“We see, yes?”
He gave her an affirmative nod.
Justin had a couple of energy bars he’d shoved in the back pocket of his pants for easy access on their hike back down to the truck, but that was all he had for food. They could eat it now, but he’d rather wait until they made the climb and needed to rejuvenate at a rest stop.
It would be nice to have a container to fill with water from this stream, but who would have thought they’d be making a survival run?
When she stood naked except for her bra and panties, he told her, “Once you shift, take a good drink of water before we leave.”
He took a minute to explain signals Herc would give her bear once they were shifted.
Listening intently, she said, “I understand. Same thing when I was child.”
She’d used hand signals when she was a child? He had so many questions he intended to get answered.
Justin said, “I’ll wrap up the clothes and carry everything. You just keep an eye on your surroundings.”
“Yes, okay,” she said with conviction.
If wolf shifters were tracking them, they would likely shift at some point too. If so, those wolves could catch bears in a foot race.
Justin glanced up at the snow-capped peaks.
Crossing snow was the worst place to try to hide, because it was easy to be tracked.
Resigned to no better option, Justin said, “Go ahead and shift, babe.”
She handed him her bra and panties, then dropped to all fours. Her transformation was fairly fast compared to a lot of shifters, and he was sure it had to be that weird energy she possessed. He’d felt the magic brush through the air.
In the next minute, Justin got his second look at a beauty of a bear.
What idiot had not thought that was incredible?
Eli’s bear—that had no name—made a low, chuffing sound.
Justin wanted her to name her bear, but he had a bad feeling that Eli was not one with her animal the way he and Herc were.
That could put Eli and her bear at a disadvantage in a fight, but he and Herc would be there to cover their mate until Justin could figure out what was wrong.
Her bear sniffed around and moved as if anxious to get going.
Herc growled, making it clear he wanted to be out with Eli’s bear.
“I hear you, Herc,” Justin muttered, then shed his clothes. First, he wrapped them all around the weapon and energy bars. If Justin needed his gun, he’d shred the clothes before he shifted to human form.
But the gun wouldn’t save them against a pack of wolf shifters with rifles and titanium bullets.
Especially not a wolf pack hell-bent on knocking him out of the way to reach Eli.
Who was after her? The only people who were supposed to know about her, other than Justin and his boss, were Eli’s father and the alpha of Clan Boudreaux.
Now he had even more reason not to hand her over to that Louisiana bear clan and he expected the Guardian to back him up.
CHAPTER 21
Wolves howled far behind them.
If Justin had to guess the distance, he’d put it at over two kilometers back, which was slow going in these mountains. He’d spent many hours roaming Glacier National Forest and specifically Heavens Peak.
He hoped those wolves weren’t as familiar with the other side, where a line of timber undulated all the way down.
Staying in bear form, Justin continued to lead Eli’s bear higher and higher, fighting the waning sunlight.
Once he got them out of here, he’d find some place to call the Guardian, but that would not happen tonight.
Justin would normally suck it up and figure his way out of this mess on his own if he were alone. He’d definitely double back to hunt his pursuers, but not when it put Eli at risk.
If he were doing this with his Gallize teammates, Justin wouldn’t hesitate to consider every potential route or counterattack. He and his teammates worked as one when dealing with the enemy. He suspected Eli’s bear could hold its own in a battle, but his insides kinked at the thought of her in any danger.
Was this what having a mate would be like?
Yes and no, he figured. He would never stop being on alert to keep her safe, but once they bonded he could share his power with her. That would add another level of protection.
A human might die while bonding with Gallize power, but Justin had never heard of a shifter that couldn’t handle the blast of energy. Eli might need time to adjust to the surge, but she packed her own power, and he couldn’t wait to find out more about it.
Still, he would discuss it with the Guardian first and be very sure.
Justin trusted the Guardian to assess Eli’s power and strength. If anything, his boss erred on the side of caution when it came to protecting his Gallize shifters.
That included the women they chose as mates.
Damn. Justin grinned.
He was getting used to the word mate.
Herc leaped over a fallen log and paid for it with a dizzy wobble sideways that took the bear to his knees.
Justin grumbled, Stupid jump.
Eli’s bear came around quickly and locked gazes with Herc, who immediately forgot about any pain.
His bear stood up on all four legs so fast Justin snarled at him. Fuck! Don’t jump up so fast!
Ignoring Justin, Herc sniffed Eli’s bear and licked her cheek.
Justin warned, We don’t have time for flirting.
His bear said, My time. All good.
No, it’s not, Herc. We need to get to safe ground.
Soon.
Dammit, Herc. Don’t give me a hard time about this. Let’s get moving. Didn’t you hear those wolves?
After licking Eli’s bear again and allowing her bear to snuffle along Herc’s jaw and neck, Herc made a heavy sighing sound, then moved out.
Padding along like the king of the woods he was, Herc didn’t slow again until Justin had him alter course. Justin hoped the path hadn’t changed much in all these years.
He had Herc angle east and head uphill again, climbing higher with every few steps.
Herc went in that direction, but asked, Lost?
Justin told him, No. We need to get those wolves off our trail before we get to a cabin.
He didn’t add if the cabin was still there.
Good. Herc added, Or kill pack.
You and I could, Justin assured him. I just don’t want to risk our mate, because I don’t know that she can handle herself in a fight. We can’t do our best if we’re distracted.
I like.
That was as close as Herc came to saying Justin’s ideas were solid, but Justin knew his bear well and appreciated the vote of support.
They wound their way up, then down, the backside of the mountain and kept moving until they reached timber again. Moving deeper into the forest, Justin was relieved to find a wide, but shallow and partially frozen, stream he’d played in as a cub. He’d been to this spot many times in the years since.
Due to the shallow water in stretches, this part of the stream had never been a good area to find fish or they could find something to eat while traipsing through the stream.
He had Herc turn to Eli’s bear and lift his jaw.
She moved her head up and down, letting Herc know she understood to follow exactly in his steps.
For the next thirty minutes, they walked up and down the wide stream, drinking their fill, and stepping out on both sides. In and out, walk more, in and out.
When Justin felt they’d done it enough, he instructed Herc to wade upstream two hundred yards to where water spilled across boulders and rocks. The walls on each side could be climbed, but only by a skilled climber with professional gear. Justin had spent afternoons letting Herc laze in the sun, then making a game of figuring out how to reach the narrow plateau above the waterfall by letting his ten-foot-tall bear climb the boulders.
Herc leaped out onto a massive boulder at the side of the water.
Then he climbed up to the next tall rock and turned so they could watch Eli’s bear make the same leap. Herc chuffed approval as her bear, slightly shorter but amazingly agile, made a sure-footed jump. He kept picking his way up the rocky incline, which rose over forty feet. At the top of the rock pile, Herc dropped down on the other side where snow had accumulated on the forest floor, though there wasn’t much timber at this point.
When Eli’s bear landed right after him, Herc pounded the ground twice with his paw.
Eli’s bear sat.
With Justin directing Herc, his bear spent the next fifteen minutes pushing huge rocks down the incline until it was not passable for either wolf or human.
The wolves would have to backtrack a long way to reach this elevation, and that was only if they knew this mountain well enough to locate the exact point to turn uphill again.
At each little sign Justin recognized as familiar territory, his worry lifted more and more.
The woods had changed in the three years since he’d been here, but not so much that he couldn’t find his way. Now to see if anyone else had been in the cabin he’d discovered many years ago. Public hunting wasn’t allowed on these protected lands, but a backpacker might have happened on the spot. Justin had never seen it marked on any map, and even satellite images seemed to miss it because of the heavy tree cover.
A lone wolf’s howl echoed.
Herc paused. He and Justin listened for the direction.
The howl came again, but this time in duo, which meant there was definitely a minimum of two as Justin had suspected. He judged the sound to come from far down the mountain, back before the spot where he’d cleaned his wound and they’d first shifted.
Satisfied, Herc kept moving.
That escapade would throw the wolves off their trail for now, but it was only a temporary delay.
If those wolves had enough reason to kill Justin, they wouldn’t quit at the first obstacle. If they were trained as he was in black ops, they would have high-tech tracking devices to use in addition to their noses.
Justin’s head was no longer on fire, but the dull ache that should be gone by now was not a positive sign. He had no way to purge that metal from his body. He only hoped he could fight off the titanium effects long enough to keep Elianna safe until he could get in touch with his people.
Herc paused. Den?
Justin saw what had stopped Herc.
The cabin where he’d been hoping to keep Eli safe tonight had been burned to the ground. Some charred trees had also fallen, but new sprouts were evident, so it had been a while.
Justin’s best guess? Unlike the Guardian’s cabin, this did appear to be caused by a lightning strike. Acres of woods hadn’t gone up in flames along with the structure, though, probably due to the wide space he’d cleared around the cabin.
He told Herc, That’s gone, but let’s find somewhere around here to bed down.
Safe?
Justin considered all they’d done to cover their tracks. We should be good here for the night.
Eli’s bear’s ears pricked up.
She ran past Herc and pounced on the pockets of snow, then began to play and prance around.
Herc took off to catch up to her with Justin cursing him every step.
When he got his breath back, Justin stopped yelling at Herc and eased back, letting his bear do as he pleased. Justin enjoyed the vision of Eli’s bear happily playing in the snow. The pretty bicolored bear snapped at snowflakes drifting down. The joy in the bear’s face made him wonder when her bear had last been free to run.
That peninsula in Russia where she came from had plenty of snow. Wouldn’t she have taken her bear to romp there?
He let the bears have a moment of downtime, but Herc was slowing down. He might be fascinated by Eli’s bear, but the titanium was affecting him as well.
Justin suffered a wave of dizziness.
Herc shook his head, feeling it too.
Nudging Herc to get walking again, Justin had him check on Eli’s bear. She was right behind him, so they plodded through occasional piles of snow. If the wolves found this place, tracking them would be no trouble.
Justin racked his mind for a second option.
The only caves he knew of were too far away going west, but they had wolves between them and safety if they headed east. Nope, neither direction offered a better option. The nearest camping was Avalanche Campground. With dark closing in, he wouldn’t risk either of them falling into a hole.
There were drop-offs that didn’t stop for hundreds of feet.
Enough to mangle even a shifter, or bash a head.
With a slim amount of moonlight building, he and Eli would have some night vision, but not as sharp as a wolf’s.
Herc’s sense of smell topped his vision by a long way.
Justin searched everywhere, but couldn’t find a place with enough shelter to allow him to return to human form so he could keep an eye on both of them tonight. In bear form and with the wound they had, Herc might go into a deep sleep and Justin would not be able to wake him fast enough.
But his human form was not resilient enough to go through a night here in the cold without any gear. He’d probably survive, but he didn’t like the probably part of that equation when it came to protecting Eli.