If the Bunsun-Williams clan hadn’t been accepted by the Puma Alpha, it might have been a different story. Pumas were just as territorial as brown Bears, and the shifters had the advantage of working in a group, unlike their wild counterparts.
For Salazar’s scent to start off so strong and then slowly fade away, he had to have been marking things for a day or two, only marking the final spot just before Barney scented him. He also had to have been heading toward the shop, not away. “He’s going after the girls.”
Ryan didn’t wait for Barney’s response. He took off back toward Cynful at a dead run, praying he wouldn’t be too late. Rounding the corner he caught sight of Alex sniffing the wall and snarling.
Terror filled him, the metallic taste of adrenaline jolting him. “Who’s watching the girls?”
“Tabby. She insisted I come after you, that they were all safe.” Bunny’s voices barely human, his Bear close to the surface.
Nothing more need be said. Both of them started racing back toward the shop, well aware the pregnant Wolf would be no match for a Hunter, even an ex one. And while Glory had gone through her change, she wasn’t a fighter on her best day. He didn’t call Glory Super Grover for nothing. As for Hope, Ryan prayed Hope would run rather than be captured again. It would destroy Glory if anything more happened to her sister.
With a bit of luck, Ryan, Bunny and Barney would arrive in time to stop Salazar before he hurt anyone.
Ryan didn’t want to think about the worst they might find. When this was over, he was going to have a little chat with Bunny. His cousin should have stayed behind despite Tabby’s orders and protected their mates, not chased after Ryan. This wasn’t the first time Bunny had been worried about family, though. It was the memory of what had happened to Heather that had sent Bunny after Ryan. Bunny should know better. Ryan was more than capable of taking care of himself. But there was no way the girls plus one unaware human were going to hold off Salazar.
They slammed through the door of Cynful together, snarling and claws unleashed. What he saw made him want to howl like a Wolf.
Tabby lay on her side unconscious, her arms curled protectively across her middle. Jim Woods was right next to her, bleeding from a gaping wound in his neck.
Glory and Hope were missing.
The bell jingled and Ryan turned with a snarl, claws and fangs extended.
“His scent… Shit.” Gabe held up his hands. “Tell me he didn’t take the girls.”
Bunny was kneeling at Tabby’s side, running his hand through her hair over and over and cursing himself. Ryan could sense his cousin calling on his healing powers, and knew Tabby would be all right.
He wasn’t so certain about Jim. The man was bleeding profusely, and his skin had taken on a grayish pallor. Without Julian, Ryan wasn’t certain they could save the vet, but he had to try.
“We need to see if we can heal him enough to wake him up. We need to know if he saw anything that can help us track the girls.” Barney knelt by Jim and took a deep breath. “C’mon, Ryan. Show me what you’ve got.”
Ryan put his hand near the wound and closed his eyes. He wasn’t as good at healing as Julian, or even Bunny, but he’d do what he could to save his sister’s mate.
Ryan followed the spiral of the healing path, dancing down into Jim’s body, marking the worst of the damage. He began the slow process of knitting together flesh and blood vessels, muscle and bone. The bite had gone far enough, deep enough, to break the man’s clavicle.
“Oh shit.”
Ryan saw it just as Barney cursed. “Son of a bitch.” It looked like Dr. Jim was going to learn about shifters a lot sooner than they’d anticipated, and in a way Ryan wouldn’t have wished on anyone. The bite the Wolf had given him was a changing bite, the same kind he’d given Glory and Hope. Because it wasn’t linked to a mating bite, it would have been horribly painful and traumatic for the veterinarian.
Worse, because Chloe wasn’t here to bite him quickly a second time and claim him, there was no way to stop the process. If any of the Bears bit him, nothing would happen. He’d wind up with two bite marks, but the Wolf would be predominant because it came first.
“Why? It doesn’t make sense to change him.” Barney continued healing the vicious wound, but the puzzled anger in his voice echoed what was going through Ryan’s mind.
Ryan suddenly sensed the presence of his cousin on the healing path. Tabby must be awake, or Bunny would never have left her side. His tone was weary as he asked, “You think Salazar had anything to do with the attack on Chloe?”
“Anything is possible, but somehow I doubt it.” Barney’s tone was absent as they continued to close the vicious wound.
“Ugh.” Tabby’s moan nearly distracted him from the blood vessel he was attempting to patch. “Oh no!”
“What?” Alex was already pulling away from Jim, his attention caught by the distress in his mate’s voice.
“He got between us, tried to protect us from Salazar.”
“Shit. That’s why he got bit.” Barney took over from Alex, fixing the last of the damage to Jim’s clavicle.
“But why make it a changing bite?” He finished closing the blood vessel and began working on the damaged skin.
“Because he’s a sick motherfucker and probably thought it would be funny?” Barney sat back with a sigh, most of the healing done. “Shit. We really need to contact Rick Lowell, let him know there are two new Wolves in town who are going to need a hell of a lot of therapy.”
Ryan swayed, exhausted, as he too finished his healing. Jim would have a horrible scar, but he would live. “Bunny. Sit. Stay. Good Bear.”
Bunny nodded as he crooned to his mate.
Good. That took care of Tabby and Jim. The way he was acting, Alex was probably never going to leave his mate’s side again.
Ryan got to his feet, staggering as a wave of exhaustion rolled over him. If the rogue hurt one powder-blue curl on his mate’s head, Ryan would rip him limb from limb. He scowled at Barney and Gabe, the Grizzly rage that rode all of his kind barely held in check. “Now. Let’s go get my mate back.”
Chapter Nineteen
Glory was freaking the fuck out. She’d come to, ready to fight the man who’d hurt Jim and Tabby, only to find herself stuffed behind the driver’s seat with her arms bound behind her back. She thought of changing, shifting into her Bear, but her Bear whined at the thought. With her arms bound, she couldn’t shift without dislocating or breaking both her shoulders, which would render her useless in a fight. Just because she was a shifter that didn’t mean she could automatically heal anything just by changing into her Bear.
Fuck. A. Duck. Ryan could have filled her in on that little tidbit. Stupid werewolf romances. Why’d they have to get it wrong? The hero or heroine always healed by shifting, didn’t they?
But no. Glory wasn’t that lucky, and now she was in a car with the psycho of the month, heading toward Hell and unable to do anything about it.
A small moan had her looking sharply to her right. Hope lay next to her, right behind the passenger seat, equally turkey-tied and still unconscious from the blows Salazar had landed. Hope’s cheek was swollen, her eye bruised, and blood trickled from her lip.
They’d fought. God knew, they’d fought fucking hard, Tabby in mid-shift when the first blow took her out. Hope had been terrified, huddled in a corner away from her tormentor when Glory placed herself between Salazar and her twin. But Salazar had easily taken Glory down, landing two solid blows that dropped her to her knees before he’d knocked her out. Whatever happened to Hope had been done after Glory lost consciousness, but, from the looks of her twin, Salazar had beaten her down as well.
Maybe Ryan was right. Super Grover really did suit her. She’d been about as useful as limp spaghetti when it came time to protect her family.
Ryan.
God, why hadn’t she told him she loved him? She was such an ass. She’d die here, at the hands of Salazar, and Ryan would never have heard the words she
should have told him long ago. If she lived through this, the first thing she was going to do was finally say it. Her mate deserved the words, deserved to see her as naked and bare as he’d laid himself out for her. He was so much braver than she was.
He deserved a mate who’d fight for him just as hard as he fought for her, and Glory was finally going to be that mate.
The scent of Hope’s blood filled her senses. Without thought Glory reached for her Bear, wanting to heal her twin before the psycho driving the car to fuck knew where realized Glory was awake. Her Bear answered, its anger over her twin’s state and her own injuries nearly causing Glory to shift in response. She didn’t have the control the others had, not even Cyn, who’d only been a Kodiak a few short months.
Hell, if Cyn had been there, Salazar would be scattered into tiny little pieces while Cyn bitched about getting gore in her curtains.
Her Bear liked that thought. It was odd, gentling the creature that lived within her. She assured her Bear that they’d get their revenge on Salazar, but first they had to take care of Hope. Their twin was far more important than the asshole who was going to die no matter what he tried to do to prevent it. There’d be no shifter jail for his ass, no Bubba Bear using him as their personal bitch.
Nope. Rye was going to shred him into itty-bitty pieces when he found them.
If he found them.
“Stop it.”
Glory jumped, startled, at the deep tone of Salazar’s voice. She scowled at the back of his head, wishing she had the nerve to rabbit kick him until his eyes bugged out. But she could feel how fast the car was going and was terrified she’d take all of them out if Salazar lost control of the vehicle and crashed. “Fuck. You.”
“Sweetheart, I plan on it.”
Glory gagged.
“Shut it. You’re just leverage to get the other Hunters off my ass.” She caught a glimpse of Salazar’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror before he turned his attention back to the road. “Trust me, you’re not nearly as good as your sister.”
Glory froze. He couldn’t mean…?
Her Bear snarled. If Salazar had touched her…had done things to her while she was unconscious, Glory was going to go all SG on his ass. And she didn’t mean Super Grover. A Grizzly versus a lone Wolf, no matter how powerful the Wolf, would always win.
Always.
And somehow, she doubted the rogue had a Pack to call on for assistance.
Within seconds, her Bear settled down, and the knowledge that she remained untouched filled her. Her Bear could sense no tearing, no invasion of her person, easing one worry. Salazar was just fucking with her, messing with her head, possibly in an attempt to keep her off balance. If she was too busy being angry, she wouldn’t be able to heal her twin.
Glory tuned him out, ignoring the sound of his voice and the vile things he was spewing as she focused on Hope. She reached out with her foot, barely touching Hope, but it was enough for her Bear to fully assess Hope’s injuries. Thank God the damage to Hope was minimal. The unconsciousness was because of a blow to the head, and the concussion was the only thing that worried her. Glory healed the damage carefully, aware she wasn’t sure what she was doing but unwilling to wait for Ryan, or even Julian.
And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ryan would come for her. The man had bared his soul for her, stripped himself naked until she saw him inside and out. The thought that he would abandon her to her fate almost made her laugh out loud.
Oh, he would come. It was the only thing that staved off the panic attack she could feel nibbling at the edges of her mind. Ryan would come.
And Salazar would die.
Glory finished healing her twin, concerned when Hope remained unconscious. After Ryan showed up and kicked Salazar’s ass, she’d have to make sure Julian got a look at her. The fact that she wasn’t waking up scared the piss out of Glory.
“I knew she would run to you.” Glory brought her attention back to Salazar. “The twin who stayed behind. She’d speak of you, of how she wished you were the one I’d taken.”
Glory doubted that. For all that Hope had been unwilling to trust them at first, she’d never once mentioned blaming Glory for what had happened to her. But Glory answered anyway, hoping the fucker would actually start to monologue. If he was distracted enough, maybe he wouldn’t notice that she was trying to work her hands free. “So you’re telling me she wished I was the one getting raped by a skeezeweasel?”
He growled, low and feral. “She’s my mate.”
“She’s no more your mate than Tom Cruise is.” She wrinkled her nose. “God, please tell me he’s not a shifter.”
“Who?”
“Tom Cruise.” She called forth her claws, all five inches of them. Curling her fingers, she began picking at the rope around her wrists, praying the Wolf wouldn’t hear the skritch-skritch sound over the road and his own voice.
He shrugged. The feel of the car going up scared the shit out of her. Were they getting on the highway? If he hit I-76, they could be heading toward Ohio. She began picking at the rope a little bit faster. If she could just get her hands free, she’d be able to take Salazar down and get Hope out of here. “He’s not, as far as I know.”
“So you’re saying he could be.” Keep the pyscho distracted, Glory. Don’t let him hear you breaking free.
“Don’t you want to know where I’m taking you?”
“Not particularly. You’re not going to survive long enough to arrive.” Glory continued to saw at her bindings. “Ryan is coming for me.”
He laughed. “Your mate is probably healing his sister’s mate as we speak.” He grinned, looking oddly handsome despite the fact he was nuttier than a squirrel in a vat of peanut butter. “I kind of did them a solid.”
“Excuse me?” Poor Jim. He’d tried to put himself between Salazar and Tabby and gotten his ass mauled. If he lived, Glory was so sending him a fruit basket.
“Oh, don’t worry. He’ll survive what I did to him.”
Shit. “You changed him.”
“Yup.”
Damn. That had to have hurt. He must have done it after he knocked out Glory and Hope. She remembered the pain of Salazar’s bite, the way Ryan’s had hurt right before the pleasure kicked in. For Jim there would have been no pleasure, only pain and blood and fear. “Tabby?”
“The pregnant Wolf?” He rolled his eyes. “She’ll live, despite what the Se…” He sighed. “You know what? Never mind. You’ll learn soon enough.”
“About what?”
Salazar ignored her, gazing in the rearview mirror and cursing up a storm. “Who the fuck is that?”
Glory dug her claws into the leather seat to drag herself upright and peered out the rear window. Behind them, a motorcycle weaved in and out of traffic, and for a moment her heart skipped a beat as relief washed through her.
Ryan.
But, no. The lean body wasn’t her mate, the black helmet with the mirrored visor obscuring the features of the man chasing them down. Ryan was bulkier than the sleek individual who raced down the highway, drawing alongside of them. The mirrored helmet turned to the car, and Glory shivered.
There was a menace she had never sensed before, not even from Salazar. Salazar was crazy, but he didn’t seem it, not at a glance, anyway.
Something about the man in the faceless helmet scared the ever-loving shit out of her. Glory moved, hiding the sight of her twin from the man on the motorcycle.
The rider gunned the cycle, swerving in front of their car. Salazar swerved, an instinctual response as he tried to avoid a collision.
“Fucking Hunters. They aren’t going to catch me.” He glanced toward the passenger seat and smiled. “I’ll deal with him.”
Salazar took the first exit he came to, one that lead to a sleepy little town with plenty of farmland and few inhabitants that Glory recognized as being about twenty miles eastbound outside Halle.
The rider reversed on the shoulder, doing a high-speed turn that had Glory gasping in d
isbelief. Either the rider really didn’t give a damn if he lived or died, or he was channeling the spirit of Ghost Rider, complete with flame-covered head. Dirt and small stones flew in an arc as he twisted the back wheel before gunning it down the ramp, catching up to them easily. He followed Salazar through the town, staying on the rogue’s ass until the Wolf was growling and snarling in frustration. Glory sawed faster at the ropes, feeling them loosen a bit just as Salazar pulled over near a thickly wooded area. She was almost free.
She was shocked when the man pulled a gun and pointed it right at her head. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get the fuck out of the car.” He glanced over her shoulder and winced. “He wants you, he can have you. But I’m leaving with Hope.”
“No.”
The sound of the gunshot was loud, the burning fire in her shoulder shocking her. Glory screamed. Shit. She hated getting shot.
“Get out of my car.”
Glory whimpered, but refused to move. She couldn’t abandon her twin. “No.”
Before Salazar could pull the trigger a second time, the driver’s side door was wrenched open. A pair of black-gloved hands reached in and grabbed hold of Salazar’s hand, driving the gun up. It went off, leaving a smoking hole in the car’s roof.
Salazar struggled with the stranger over the gun, kicking the rider in the thigh. The pained grunt was the only sound the rider made.
It was freaky as hell.
Glory worked harder to get her hands free. She needed to get Hope and get out of the car before the two men turned on her. She had no idea who the stranger was, but a familiar scent was beginning to override the scent of leather and gunpowder and Wolf.
The rider was…a Puma?
Maybe?
Hell, she’d been a shifter for so short a time she was lucky she knew what Bears smelled like, but the man currently struggling with her captor had a distinctly feline scent to him that she recognized in Gabe, Max and Emma. The smelled like they belonged together.
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