Running Bear (Wounded Warriors Book 1)

by Tunstall,Kit

  It felt natural to take her hand in his, and though he told himself it was so he wouldn’t lose track of her as they circled back around and tried to make their way to the cabin, he couldn’t deny how good it felt just to hold her hand.

  He allowed a bit of the bear to slip through the myriad filters he’d placed in his mind, needing the extra boost to his senses. He was able to discern the helicopter had paused near the driveway, close to the house, and he counted five soldiers jumping out. He breathed a small sigh of relief when the helicopter lifted into the air and flew away a moment later. They would either be returning shortly for the troops they had dropped off, or perhaps the soldiers would have to make their own way back, but at least they didn’t have to deal with the helicopter for the moment. “Do you have your keys?” He asked the question in little more than a whisper.

  She reached into her purse and pulled them out. When she would have dropped them in again, he intercepted, taking them from her hand. “You might lose your purse, so the keys need to be on one of us.” Not giving her a chance to argue, he dropped her keys into his pocket before he slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and took her hand again, pulling her against him. “Try to move as quietly as you can. I don’t know who we’re dealing with, but there are five of them. Our objective is to circle back around and secure your car. If you get the chance to shoot one, take it. Don’t hesitate.”

  With his increased sense of sight, he could see how her lips trembled and how wide her eyes were even though there was barely more than a fingernail moon in the sky. She was also shivering, and he wasn’t certain if that was fear or because the autumn night was cold. He didn’t have any way to warm her up at the moment, so she’d just have to endure for the next few minutes.

  They moved slowly and carefully, though he could have increased their pace a bit. He was more cautious than usual, since he was also looking out for a civilian. It had been almost two years since he’d seen active duty, but instinct quickly returned, and it was like being back in the field again. It could have been just yesterday he’d been hunting the enemy.

  That the enemy wore the same uniform he had donned, and came from the country he had served, no matter how indirectly, was a crushing blow. Betrayal burned hot in him, fueling his rage, and he had to take a moment, standing still as he breathed deeply to regain control. He couldn’t afford to lose his focus in the throes of anger.

  Before they started moving again, he froze at the rustling sound off to their left. He let go of her hand, but just so he could put a hand to his lips, brushing his finger against them in a universal sign to be quiet.

  When the attack came, it was from the right rather than the left. He grunted as a soldier ran toward him. Wyatt launched into gear, throwing himself forward to tackle the soldier and take him to the ground. The form under his was solid and bulky, and the scent was human, but not quite. He wasn’t shifter either. He was something completely new, a hybrid of the two, plus something else.

  There was no time to analyze all the information his sense of smell provided as he focused on surviving the attack. The soldier was strong, almost as strong as he was, and he’d benefited from training and recent exercise that Wyatt hadn’t. He ran every morning, but it wasn’t the same as hauling around a forty-pound rucksack and running in army boots for twenty miles at a time.

  He’d also gotten slightly rusty on his hand-to-hand combat, and it was for that reason the soldier was able to stick him in the ribs with a knife. It hurt like crazy, but it wasn’t quite high enough to do any permanent damage. As much as he didn’t want to, he had to let out the bear, at least enough to deal with the soldier beneath him. He brought back his arm, allowing his claws to extend in much the same way he had when he had slashed his shoulders to force Gillian to look for the chip.

  He used all of his strength to bring the paw down against the soldier’s face, blinking when the man’s features seemed to change just before the claws raked down his face. He used his other arm, allowing claws to form, and mauled the soldier until the man stopped moving underneath him, other than an occasional twitch. For good measure, he brought his claws across the jugular of the soldier, killing him with only a little twinge of remorse. It was a survival situation, and he couldn’t risk leaving an injured soldier who might come after him and Gillian again.

  It was as though thinking of her had caused her to make a sound, and she cried out. He looked over, a growl low in his throat as he jumped to his feet, trying to ignore the pain in his side. Another soldier had his arms around Gillian, holding her in a crushing parody of a hug. She was clearly having difficulty breathing, and her arms were trapped.

  He strode forward, intent on tearing the soldier off her, but before he could, another jumped at him. He became aware at the last moment and turned to meet the soldier before she could get off the shot. His claws were still out, and he hit her as hard as he could, ensuring his claws raked her face.

  He grimaced when he realized her face wasn’t quite human. She had the basic shape of a human, but her features had elongated and taken on a feline look. She’d sprouted whiskers, and her own hands were more like paws with claws, just like his. She dropped the gun she’d aimed at him, but there was still a handgun at her waist. As she went for it, he lunged forward and took her down, surprised by the strength required. It was similar to what he had faced with the other soldier, and it certainly wasn’t human. It would have been expected for a shifter, but like her comrade, she didn’t have quite the pheromone signature to suggest she was a shifter or human.

  She was definitely a hybrid of the two, with something else thrown in. He didn’t have time to dwell on that thought for the moment as he fought with her, finally gaining the upper hand and pressing his claws into her neck. Her blood spurted out, making the fur bristling on his fingers sticky, but he had little time to worry about the disgusting sensation. He dealt with her as quickly as he could, hoping Gillian was still alive.

  As he started to turn, he jerked at the sound of a gun firing. With a small growl, he spun around, praying it wouldn’t be the soldier shooting Gillian.

  Instead, it was Gillian with her gun. Somehow, she had freed herself enough to reach the pistol he’d handed her, and now she was firing repeatedly into the soldier. After six shots, the man was still trying to get up. Like the female soldier, he was partially shifted between a human and a wolf, with an elongated snout and viciously sharp teeth. He seemed to take the shots, and they did little to faze him. He wasn’t getting up, but he wasn’t staying down either. He kept trying to gain his feet, and he managed a little more between each shot.

  Finally, with a small sob, she changed her aim from his trunk to his head. As Wyatt reached her, she fired the pistol three times in quick succession, and the soldier’s face disappeared. When his body fell this time, it didn’t move.

  He put an arm around her, as a sign of comfort and to assess any physical damage. He inhaled her pheromones, detecting mostly fear and only a little pain. He doubted she was seriously injured.

  When he started to take the pistol from her, she clung tighter to it and shoved it back into her pants, his gaze telling him she flicked on the safety as she did so. He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be unarmed after that.

  “What are they?” she asked quietly, her voice still thick with fear.

  He stared down at the remains of the soldier she had shot nine times. “I don’t know, but they aren’t shifters and they aren’t human. I don’t know exactly what they are. I do know there are still two out here, so we need to get going before they find us.”

  She walked along beside him, holding her hand in his. He clung tightly to her, though he knew it was sending the wrong message. Since he’d been the one to take her hand the first time, it would have been wrong to shove her way, though his instincts urged him he was getting too close again.

  He couldn’t afford to allow himself to soften, or to let the emotions threatening to flood through him overwhelm him. The more he fel
t, the closer the bear was to the surface. He had to keep the beast locked away at all costs, having seen what that side could do after the program.

  They made it back to the cabin without running into the other two soldiers, and he was relieved, but slightly surprised. They must be searching a different sector of the forest, perhaps assuming he would have shifted into his bear form and run as far away from the car accident as possible. Or maybe they were doing something else.

  He quickly discerned what when they approached the cabin from behind, and his keen sense of hearing heard them shuffling around inside. They were either destroying the place or looking for something. He wasn’t sure what, unless it was just to discover what he’d been up to. He was glad he had folded up the radio and placed it in the duffel bag with the guns, because the enemy acquiring it would have made his teammates more vulnerable. He had a feeling they were already plenty vulnerable, and at least three, and probably more, were dead.

  Between himself and Gillian, they’d managed to take out three of the enemy too. He felt a surge of dark satisfaction at that, which he quickly suppressed. It was a dangerous emotion, the kind that tempted the bear to the forefront. His bear might be able to deal with the two in the cabin easily, but he couldn’t surrender control to it. He’d fought too hard to maintain any sense of stability, and if he lost control, he might hurt anyone or anything around him, including Gillian.

  Since he’d lost her and deprived himself of her for the last eighteen months to keep her safe, he wasn’t about to jeopardize her now—not any more than she already was, since they were both at the mercy of whoever was tracking them.

  Still holding her hand, he tugged her away from the cabin, urging her to be quieter than ever as he made the shushing motion with his finger against his lips. It was easy for him to move with stealth, all his training coming back, but she wasn’t as skilled. He winced as several times she stepped on broken branches or rustled leaves, expecting the soldiers inside to come tearing out at any moment. When they didn’t, he took a deep breath, steeling himself as he paused at the perimeter, pointing to her car.

  He made a running motion with his fingers, and she nodded to indicate she understood. A moment later, when he nodded his head, she started running. He was right behind her, though he had released her hand. Every step seemed to be miles away from where they were trying to reach, though they were both running full tilt. Well, he was reining his in a bit to avoid plowing into her and running her over, since her legs were shorter than his, and she didn’t have the benefit of shifter speed.

  It felt like hours, though it was only a few seconds, before they reached her car. Instinctively, she had gone to the passenger side, and he was pleased to discover the car unlocked easily when he lifted the handle. She hadn’t bothered with locking it before coming in to his home, and it saved them a few extra seconds.

  They were seconds that were critical, because they were both in the car when the soldiers came running out of his cabin, firing in their direction. They both wielded serious firepower, but it couldn’t compare to the guns that had been mounted to the helicopter. The back window blew, and she was smart enough to duck down without him having to tell her. He slouched as low in the seat as he could as he turned the ignition, and then pushed the little Honda to its limits.

  They shot down the driveway in a similar maneuver to what the Jeep had done earlier, quickly putting distance between themselves and the soldiers, though they ran after him for almost a mile, nearly keeping pace. He couldn’t afford to look closely at them, needing his full attention on the road ahead, but what he could glimpse told him they were in various states of hybrid shifting as well. He didn’t know what that meant, or if they could even shift in and out. Maybe they were stuck that way. Whatever they were, they were fast, lethal, and hard to kill.

  They had finally reached the end of his driveway just as a loud explosion sounded behind them. He looked in the rearview mirror as Gillian turned in her seat, a gasp escaping her. Now he knew what they had been doing in his cabin. They had been rigging it to explode. He wasn’t sure why, except as the cover story for his death. He just hadn’t obliged them by going quietly. He was under no illusion they would give up. Whoever wanted him would keep looking, and he wouldn’t feel even close to safe again until he met up with his remaining teammates at the sanctuary in Mexico.

  There was no alternative but to bring Gillian with him. If they hadn’t realized she was involved, they would by now. The soldiers would likely have recorded her license plate number and would definitely report an unknown woman was with him. She wouldn’t remain unknown for long, and they would likely eliminate her regardless of how little or how much she knew, both to tie up a loose end and as a way to come at him.

  He gritted his teeth, wanting to reject the truth of how much losing her would devastate him. He’d had the last eighteen months to adapt to living without her. While he’d told himself he was successful in the endeavor, and that he had buried his desperate need for her somewhere alongside the bear he kept trapped under layers of careful monitoring and diligent mental guard, he knew he’d been fooling himself. His need for Gillian was as strong as ever, and that might be even more dangerous than the unknown soldiers and group targeting him for elimination.

  Chapter Three

  Wyatt had been silent during the drive from his cabin into Portland. Gillian had tried to engage him in conversation a few times, even just by asking how his side was where he’d been stabbed, but he’d answered in grunts when he bothered to answer at all. Finally, she’d given up on communicating for the moment and had closed her eyes. Her body ached where that soldier had squeezed her so tightly, but she was convinced she was too keyed up to sleep.

  She was wrong, coming awake abruptly as they entered Portland, joining the flow of traffic across the bridge toward the heart of the city. She assumed he was simply following the freeway, so she was surprised when he turned away from the direction that would take them to I-5 South. Once more, she attempted conversation. “What are you doing?”

  Surprisingly, he bothered to answer this time. “We need to get rid of this car.”

  She tried to envision how that would work, since the idea of walking to Mexico was not only practically impossible, it was downright laughable. They would be picked up in no time, especially if Wyatt continued bleeding and refused to shift to heal his injury.

  He turned away from downtown, but stopped at the curb in front of an ATM. “Do you have your bank cards?”

  Gillian nodded. “What about you?”

  He shrugged. “They’re back at the cabin. I didn’t carry my wallet as a rule, since I rarely leave…left the cabin. I got out of the habit.”

  When he got out of the car, she did the same and walked beside him to the machine. He was watchful, and so was she. After the night they’d already had, the grand finale of being mugged at the ATM would be frightening, but not altogether surprising. Fortunately, she was able to withdraw the full limit from her credit cards and debit card without incident.

  After she’d put the money in her purse, he took her hand, and they started walking. She cast one last glance at her car, parked forlornly at the curb, but then turned away and looked forward. When she had come to warn Wyatt, she’d made her choice no matter how subconsciously.

  She was determined to be there beside him, where she belonged. It’s where she had always belonged, and Wyatt just needed to see that, to remember how it once was. Right now wasn’t the time to think about salvaging their relationship though. They just needed to survive long enough to reach Mexico. She hoped it genuinely was the sanctuary Malcolm had briefly described to her and referenced in his recording. If not, she had no idea what they would do.

  They walked for what felt like blocks, and probably was. She was conscious of the sky lightening slightly, indicating dawn was only a short time away. The idea of being exposed in daylight made her nervous, though she doubted those soldiers would come after them in a crowded street in the mid
dle of the day. Maybe.

  With a soft growl in his throat, one that sounded almost like a purr, Wyatt finally stopped as they reached a residential area. They had walked through it for at least two blocks, but apparently he had finally found what he was seeking. A moment later, she discovered that was an older model Geo Metro with a hatchback. She looked at it and then at him in confusion as he stopped beside it. “What are you doing?” she asked quietly as he let go of her hand, which she hadn’t even realized he’d been holding until then, and moved around the car.

  With a grunt that passed for an answer, he kept his attention focused on whatever he was doing at the driver’s side. A moment later, he opened the door, and her first impulse was to protest opening someone else’s vehicle. She quickly stifled that urge when he opened the passenger door for her. She slipped inside, grateful to be off the street, though her nerves were tenser than ever as they sat in a stranger’s car. “What are you doing?” she asked again.

  “Hotwiring,” he said briefly. Apparently, his months of living as a hermit in the cabin had eroded his communication skills. He’d never been a man to ramble on, but he’d always at least engaged in conversation with her. This side of him was frustrating, but no more so than the rest of him. That didn’t make her love him any less though.

  “Do you know how to do that?” As she finished asking the question, the engine came to life. “I guess so,” she said to herself as she leaned back in the seat. It was second nature to fasten the seatbelt, and she tried to get comfortable on the worn seat as Wyatt eased away from the curb and onto the road. When she glanced at him, she was amused to see how his large frame contrasted with the small vehicle. “If you were going to steal a car, why not something more comfortable?”

  “Newer model cars have better protection from car thieves. I’m not a pro at this, so I needed something I was certain I could hotwire.”

  Abruptly, she remembered the ugly green Datsun he used to drive, having restored the body with the help of his father and brother, but leaving on the primer paint, since he couldn’t afford a professional paint job. It had been his first car, and the first one they’d ridden in together when they’d gone on their first date. Their first real date anyway.