by Rosanna Leo
Wes rushed over to her. “Don’t worry. The Snow bitch is still out. I gave her an extra dose of something special in her tranquilizer so she wouldn’t get in our way. I left her in your room. If she’s lucky, she’ll wake up. If not, oh well.” He shrugged his shoulders.
Gioia made a move toward her son, but he grabbed her and pinned her to the ground. “Let Gunnar go, please. Why are you doing this?”
Wes smoothed a shaky hand over her hair. “It’s okay, sunshine. I’m just taking care of our future. Yours and mine. I’ve always loved you. But you never saw it, you never cared. You only had eyes for Paul. So I took care of him. And now, I’ll take care of anyone else who stands in our way.”
“But we’re family,” she pleaded. “You’re just confused because of the pheromone.”
“Fuck the pheromone!” He slapped her again. From his tree, Gunnar wailed. “I was never under the influence of the pheromone. I love you. Why can’t you see it? Why do you think I’ve stuck around? It wasn’t because of Paul. I could care less about him. I wanted you. I poisoned him for you.”
“Poison?”
He snarled. “He didn’t have a brain disease. I made him sick with my supplements. I gave him all sorts of vitamins, telling him they’d help to keep him strong, but they made him crazed. I wanted you to see him for the animal he was and come to me. Fuck, I even found a hiker with a similar bear tattoo and mauled him to pass his body off as Paul’s. See the trouble I went to for you?”
The horror of her situation sank in with the piercing force of a vicious nurse stabbing her with a needle. “You did this to us? You, who I trusted with my son and my confidence?”
He brushed his lips against hers, stroking her with his tongue. “I did it for us, sunshine. You’re my world.”
She wiggled her mouth away from his and stared into his deranged eyes. Enraged, she spat into his face. “Go to hell. I hate you for what you’ve done.”
He growled and wiped his face, getting off her and standing up. He darted an angry look her way and then slowly approached a writhing Gunnar. “You know?” he murmured. “I had hoped the three of us could be a family. After all, I like Gunnar. But now I’m starting to think he might take up a bit too much of your energy. And I’m a jealous man. I won’t share you with anyone. Especially not Paul’s brat.”
Gioia watched, her pulse pounding with the worst fear she’d ever known, as Wes shifted and continued plodding over to her son. When he reached Gunnar, whose eyes were bulging in terror, Wes reached out. His claws were sharp and extended toward her child. He roared, and in the dreadful noise, she heard his intention to murder him.
As adrenalin shot through her core, as her need to fight kicked in, Gioia jolted with a lightning-quick stab of pain. No one would touch her son. And as the vow careened out of her, she heard it manifest in an ursine howl. She fell over on her hands and knees, supporting a quivering body, and watched in awe as her clothing flew off her body. As her arms and legs exploded into soft fur.
White fur. Polar bear fur.
Bear Gioia looked up, her lips wet with the need to kill, and lunged toward Wes. He turned, shocked at her change, his bear eyes big and wide. She hurled her big body at his, conscious of the fact that his was still far larger, but determined to bring the asshole down. Gioia clawed and raged and fought with every breath in her.
Fuck you! I won’t let you hurt my boy.
Wes was under her now, fending off her attack. Still, Gioia maintained her offense, swinging her bear paws at him, doing her best to pound the crazy shit out of him. She thought she was succeeding when she raked her claws down his chest and he howled in fury.
Stunned by her own strength, she paused for a split second.
It was her undoing.
Wes rallied, roared, and used his force to push her back onto the ground. His mouth dripped with hot saliva. His black lips were pulled back, exposing the deadly sharpness of his teeth. As he reared up on his hind legs, screaming to the sky, Gioia scrambled over to Gunnar and clawed through his bonds in one swipe. He fell from the tree.
“Run,” she urged with a huff. “Run!”
Thank God he listened. Her head cocked, she let a tear fall from her bear eye as her boy shot into the woods. In her heart, she said good-bye and stifled a whimper.
Behind her, there was a sound of claws scraping through the gravel. With a heavy heart, Gioia turned to face Wes.
As her heart sank, as he raised his mighty paw, she roared out another promise. Remembering the passionate ways Soren had touched her and how his kisses had bound her to him forever, she cried out in despair for her soon-to-be-lost love.
“Soren! I love you.”
* * * *
His polar bear screeched again, almost sending Soren to the floor from the impact. His body might have been an incinerator, he felt so on fire. Each square inch piece of skin seemed abraded, as if someone were raking a chipped razor over his body.
Gioia! Please let her be in her room, safe.
He pounded down the door to the suite. As soon as they saw Lia passed out on the floor, Soren began his frantic search through the rooms, all the while aware of his brother trying to revive his wife.
Ryland removed the dart from Lia’s neck and moaned. “No, baby, no.”
Fuck. Ryland had already seen her almost die before. Soren knew his brother wouldn’t be able to withstand seeing her near death again. And he understood because the need to find Gioia was practically killing him.
“Gioia,” he called out, as Paul did the same.
As Ryland fussed over Lia, her lips finally moved. A few garbled words spilled out. “Too. Much. Wine.” And then she passed out again.
Ry looked at him, his face contorted with pain. “I have to stay with her.”
“I know.” Soren looked at Paul. “Are you with me?”
“Yeah, let’s go find them.”
Just as his bear urged him outside, he heard a sound in the hallway, one akin to the ruckus of a charging bull. Gunnar, red-faced and sweaty, burst into the room.
“Uncle Wes wants to kill Mom. Come!”
They chased the boy out of the room, out of the lodge, and into the black forest. As soon as they hit the wall of darkness that was the first layer of trees, Soren heard a grunt of frustration from Paul. Soren turned to him. “I won’t let him hurt her.”
“This is all my fault. I ruined everything.”
“We’ll get her back,” Soren promised. “And when we find them, you can help me rip his heart out.” He dodged a sizable oak as Gunnar veered into another part of the forest. “Do you still love her?”
Paul grunted. “I always will.”
As Soren darted through the brush, he couldn’t help worrying about the outcome to this tragic farce. As much as he’d do anything to keep Gioia with him, he couldn’t pretend she wasn’t married to this man. A man who, for all intents and purposes, was not such a bad dude after all. In fact, Soren saw a lot of the same brash protectiveness in Paul that he possessed, and admired him for it.
A tiny part of him, the most bothersome part, told him to step aside and give the Clementine family the chance at happiness they deserved. A chance of which they’d been robbed. If Wes hadn’t shown up, Gioia would have lived a happy life with Paul. He would have given her love and stability. Gunnar needed his dad and Gioia. Well, didn’t she deserve something better than a man who flew from gig to gig every week?
Even still, another part of him already acknowledged his old lifestyle was redundant. Even without her, he knew he couldn’t live the same way. As he’d already realized with aching clarity, he wanted to be her rock, and he would gladly forsake career and notoriety to do so.
He’d have to give his mate the choice. Now that Paul wasn’t sick, things had changed. Perhaps everything had changed for Gioia, as much as she claimed she loved Soren.
His bear let loose a lamentable volley of cries. Shut up, bear.
Yes. He would do the right thing and let her decide. It would
kill him if she chose Paul. He would likely find himself a nice, gloomy cave somewhere and never come out again, drowning in his sorrow and his filth. However, he had to do the unselfish thing for once.
But first he had to find his beloved and tear that shithead Wes a few new assholes.
* * * *
Gioia had always presumed a few hundred pounds of bear flesh would feel heavy. She’d underestimated just how ponderous the weight could be when that bear was incensed, snapping and right on top of her.
She struggled to snatch a breath as Wes wrestled with her, his larger frame pinning her easily to the forest floor. His great jaws clamped onto her body time and again, ripping at her fur and the skin below. His determination to punish her was clear in his frothing mouth and in the darkness of his crazed eyes. It was all she could do to fend him off.
“Soren. I don’t want you to find me torn to pieces.”
Perhaps it was better just to give in. Every bone felt cracked in two. Every limb felt crippled. Her skin and muscles ached where Wes had scratched deeply, biting in places. His teeth seemed constantly poised over her heart, and his roars echoed in her ears. If she survived this ordeal, she knew she’d hear his infernal noise in nightmares for years to come.
Wes’ great paw met with her muzzle once again. There was a cracking somewhere deep inside her skull, and pain streaked through her like wildfire on a dry terrain. She must resemble a watermelon that had fallen off a market stall, smashed and scarlet.
“Soren, I’m sorry…”
“Don’t you dare give up, little owl. I’m almost there.”
His voice in her head made her tired eyes snap open, forcing her to dig out an inner strength from deep within her. A strength she’d had no clue she possessed. With a gut-shaking snarl as her cheer, Gioia shoved as hard as she could and watched in amazement as Wes flew backward into a maple tree, shaking every branch and every leaf. She didn’t give him time to recuperate. She launched herself at him as quickly as her exhausted limbs could move. Opening her jaws, she aimed for his neck and prepared herself to deliver the bite that would kill him.
Wes was too quick, too strong. He raised his paw and slashed her across the neck, screaming his fury. A paw to her dripping neck, Gioia fell, closed her eyes, and anticipated the blow that would end her days.
Somewhere in her stupor, she heard a rumbling howl of rage. As much as it hurt, she cracked open her eyes. From her periphery, she was vaguely aware of three new presences. Three bears. Soren, Paul, and Gunnar.
Soren’s bear face was a mask of furious agony as he glimpsed Wes making his way to her. He charged, and Paul and Gunnar were right behind him.
“Soren…”
Her body gave into the pain, and blackness began to swarm her vision. Her bear retreated, sad and mangled, and Gioia shifted back into her fragile human form. Without even telling her body to move, it automatically curled up in a ball. The last thing she saw was Soren and Paul dragging Wes away, and horrible streaks of red slashed before her eyes. Wes’ blood sprayed the forest as Soren tore the bear apart.
She heard snarling and the fading of Wes’ heartbeat as he died.
And then, as her eyes closed one last time, nothing.
* * * *
Yanking Wes away from Gioia and sending him to hell had probably taken no more than five seconds. However, those five seconds away from his mate as she lay bloodied and battered were torture to Soren.
As he rushed over to her, shifting at the same time, he stifled a howl at the sight of her broken body in its small ball. He knelt next to her and gently eased her into his arms so he could hold her. She was covered in blood and unresponsive. His lady bear had fought hard.
He’d been too late.
“Baby, please don’t die,” he whispered, as each glance at her wounds brought him a little closer to his own death.
He was cognizant of footsteps near him and looked up to see Gunnar and Paul hovering over them.
“Mom,” Gunnar cried. “No!”
Paul wrapped the boy in his arms, and Gunnar turned his wet face into his dad’s chest. Paul looked at Soren, but Soren could barely see through his tears.
I’m in hell. This is hell. The anguished screams of his bear, the unearthly sounds of one being tortured, seemed to corroborate his suspicions. “Gioia, please, don’t go.”
As Soren stood, intending to whisk her back to the resort, a group of Ryland’s security guards found them. Ry must have called them while tending to Lia. The men surrounded them. One of them, Bart, put a sympathetic hand on Soren’s arm. “We have our Jeep parked in the clearing over there. Let us take her. We’ll get her to the clinic.” He held out his arms.
“I’ll hold her, and I’m coming,” Soren stated.
As he raced with her to the Jeep, Paul rushed up behind him, holding a tattered piece of one of their shirts. It was ragged, but large enough to give her some modesty among the group of men. He lay it atop Gioia’s unconscious figure as Soren settled her on his lap in the vehicle.
“Thanks,” Soren whispered, too choked up to say anything else.
Paul nodded. “Go. Be with your mate. I’ll take care of Gunnar.” He patted the side of the Jeep and Bart started the engine.
Soren didn’t have time to consider Paul’s words. The Jeep was already off down one of the wooded trails. He passed a gentle hand over Gioia’s pale brow and kissed her lips. “Hang on, little owl. I love you. Stay with me.”
He repeated those hushed words a few dozen times as the vehicle made its bumpy way back to the lodge.
Chapter 16
A couple of hours later, Soren continued his vigil in the resort clinic. The clinic was rather bare-bones as far as supplies and accommodations. Shifters didn’t tend to need medical attention, after all, so Ryland had never set up a full-service doctor’s office. However, he’d arranged to have a few basic first aid implements and medicines for any shifters who might happen to bring human relatives with them to the resort. He had Pepto and headache pills and some gauze, but Soren doubted whether he had what they needed to save Gioia. They’d even needed to roll in one of the beds from a guest room so she could lie down in the clinic. Now, resting on her makeshift hospital bed, she looked small and frail and resembled a little bird more than ever. At least she wasn’t covered in blood anymore. Soren, himself, had taken on the task of washing her bruised body, and his tears had joined her blood as it was washed down the drain.
Now, he sat in silence with Paul and Gunnar and prayed Gioia’s new shifter genes were strong enough to get her through this. There wasn’t much they could give her, and they’d bandaged up all her wounds, including the nasty one on her neck. He was tempted to peek under the gauze to see if it was repairing itself but resisted for fear of making it worse.
Ryland wandered into the room, running a shaky hand through his hair, and he looked at his brother. “How is she?”
“I don’t know. I wish I could do something. I hate seeing her like this.” He rubbed his hand over his dry mouth. “How’s Lia?”
“Better. A little groggy, but she’ll be fine. She’s sleeping off what she thinks is a wicked hangover. Of course, even for a shifter woman, she can’t hold her liquor very well,” Ryland said with a small grin.
Soren returned his anxious gaze to Gioia. “Ry, I can’t live without her. I won’t be able to think. I won’t be able to function.”
“I know, little brother, I know.” He took a seat next to him at the bed. “Look, she’s stronger than you think, especially now. You have to trust that her shifter cells are doing what they should and that she’ll open her eyes soon.”
“It’s been hours,” Gunnar interjected from the other side of the bed. “Why won’t she wake up?”
Paul put his arm around his son. “She will. And she’ll be so happy to see you.”
Soren put on a brave face and smiled at Gunnar. “Talk to her, little dude. I’m sure she’d like to hear you.”
“What do I say?”
“
Whatever you want. Just let her know you’re here.”
The boy leaned in and began a soft conversation with his mother, detailing the latest on his drum lessons with Soren. Touched, Soren stood and walked to end of the bed, his gaze always on her, but giving Gunnar a little privacy.
As Ryland moved to the medicine cabinet to check on the supplies, Paul joined Soren where he stood. “I’m sorry…for all of this.”
“It’s not your fault,” Soren was quick to reply.
“She is your mate, you know,” Paul murmured, eyeing the gauze on Gioia’s neck. “She was never mine. If she had been, I would have marked her, even under the influence of Wes’ shit.”
“But you love her. She’s your wife.”
“I do love her, but so much has happened. I may be a fool, but I’m not a big enough fool to think Gioia hasn’t moved on. She deserves to move on. I think we got married too young, we didn’t understand our true feelings. I was so grateful to find a woman who accepted what I was and mistook her for my mate. But deep down, my bear knew the truth and wouldn’t let me mark her.”
“Maybe you could still mark her?”
Paul grinned. “Please. I can smell you all over her.” He leaned in and whispered, “And don’t think I didn’t see your teeth marks on her ass. Nice move, by the way.”
Soren couldn’t help but grin back. “Thanks. I thought so.”
“She’s yours, Soren. I could see it the first time I saw you together. It just took me a while to admit it. Admitting my mistakes has never been my strong point.”
“Mine, either,” Soren concurred. “But Paul, you guys are a family. I don’t wanna tear you apart.”
“You won’t. I’ll still be around.” He chortled. “Hey, be grateful. At least you know the divorce will be amicable.”
His heart leaped in gratitude, but Soren still felt the need to make sure he was giving Gioia and Gunnar the best life possible. “Are you sure? But what if she wants you?”
A new, soft voice joined the conversation from the bed. “Don’t I get a choice in the matter?”
Their heads whipped around. Soren stared, his hand over his mouth, as his bear jumped for joy. She was awake.