Petey barked at their feet. It was time for them to go.
“Well, here it goes,” Gina said. He hesitated. “Dean? What’s wrong?”
“I’m a little bit…unsure.”
Gina didn’t blame him. He’d lived his life here for two years. She would be unsure if she were in his position, too. Hell, she was scared anyway. Neither one of them had any idea of what was truly going on outside of the door.
Gina reached out and turned the handle, flooding the doorway with bright sunlight. Both of them shielded their eyes against the sunlight. And then they stepped out.
Gina hadn’t seen the sunlight for days, but it wasn’t what she was focused on. Both Petey and Dean were growling, their hackles up, looking at where she had crashed her car. Still shielding her eyes, she turned to look – and saw another person.
It was a man in his late 40s, gray hair at his temples. He was rummaging through the remains of Gina’s car. She knew he wouldn’t find anything; Dean had cleared it out completely after her wreck. Still, the man was climbing into the car. In a way, Gina felt violated. That was her car, no matter that it had been destroyed and abandoned.
Gina opened her mouth to say something to the man, but Dean came up behind her, pressing a hand over her mouth. She closed it. Even Petey was silent, though he was ready to attack at any second. Dean started to back into the bunker, pulling Gina along silently. Petey ran back inside too.
They were just reaching the door when Gina felt a tree branch under her foot as she brought it down – crunch!
Her breath caught in her throat and Dean froze. The man in the car immediately spun around, gun held out in front of him. His eyes went wide when he saw them, but to her surprise he quickly holstered it, and smiled.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think I would be seeing anyone else out here!”
“Hello,” Gina stammered. Up against Dean’s body, she could feel a growl reverberating in his throat, but he didn’t unleash it – yet.
“Where are my manners?” the man asked, coming close and extending his hand.
Reflexively, Gina took another step back, bumping into Dean, who had held his ground. The man’s face was one of confusion for a brief second, then the smile came back. He dropped his hand and stepped away.
“I understand how it is. Things aren’t good, I don’t blame you. The name’s Jayce.”
“Nice to meet you, Jayce. I’m Gina,” she told him. She was uneasy, caught off guard, and Dean was even more so.
“What’s your name, big fella?” Jayce asked. Gina couldn’t help but eye the gun at the man’s waist. He had put it away, but it was still there, within his reach. It made her uneasy, but she tried to give him her best smile regardless.
Dean just grunted.
“This is Dean,” she told Jayce. “He’s not much of a talker.”
“Huh, I can tell,” the man said. “What are you guys doing down here?”
As he asked that, his gaze moved past the two for the first time, seeing the open doorway. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” Dean growled. A louder rumble was forming in his throat.
“Nothing, huh? Sure doesn’t look like nothing,” the man stated. He was moving closer to them, in a half circle to get a better look at the door. As he moved around, Dean pulled Gina behind him and spun to stay between Jayce and the door.
Please leave, she thought to herself. Please don’t make things bad here. Just go.
“Looks like some sort of bunker,” Jayce said. “Some survival bunker. My kids are real hungry. Got any food in there?”
“No,” Dean said at the same time Gina said, “Yes.”
Dean stiffened at her answer, but he didn’t turn towards her. If this man had kids… they had to help him. They just had to.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Look, mister. My wife and my kids are just up on the road. We saw that a car went off the road down here and I was just looking for some food. We haven’t eaten in days. Could we come in, rest, and get some food? It would be much appreciated.”
“No,” Dean repeated.
The man turned towards Gina. She turned towards Dean.
“Dean, please,” she whispered. “We can help him out, right? We’ll be able to get more food out here. You know how to hunt. They’re worse off than us. And they have kids.”
“No, they don’t,” Dean said. His eyes were blazing again, and Gina knew that his anger was growing. “This man is a liar.”
“How do you know?” Gina asked. “Just give him some food and we can all go our separate ways.”
“I can smell it on him. He’s lying. He’s dangerous.”
“So what’s the verdict?” Jayce asked.
Gina turned around with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Jayce. We don’t have much left over. All of our food was burned in a fire.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It is. You’re more than welcome to go into the bunker, though.”
“No, he’s not,” Dean cut in.
“Dean, it’s useless to us.”
“It was my grandfather’s.”
“Just give me your food,” the man commanded. Gina looked up at him, only to see that at some point he had drawn his gun. Her blood ran cold.
“Jayce, what’s going on?”
“Maybe you should have listened to your man here.”
Gina opened her mouth to tell him that Dean definitely wasn’t her man, but she closed it.
“Get out of here,” Dean ordered.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to make threats, buddy. I’m only going to ask one more time. Then I’m going to shoot you, right in the face, and my buddies are going to come down this hill, and we’re going to do whatever we want. We’ll take your food, take your home, and take your girl. Even that little dog down there.”
“If you want to live, you’ll walk away right now,” Dean said.
The man sighed, dropped his gun to his side, and then brought it back up. There was a deafening noise as the gun went off, only feet from Gina, and she screamed. She wasn’t sure where Dean was hit, but blood sprayed her and the rock wall behind them. Petey was barking, and Dean was roaring – in anger or pain, or both, Gina couldn’t be sure.
Gina dropped to the ground and crawled towards the door with Petey guarding her. Dean stumbled a step forward, then dropped to his knees. She saw a bloody exit wound in his left shoulder; she wasn’t sure where the entry wound had been.
Then Dean climbed back to his feet, if a little unsteadily.
“Holy shit, you just won’t go down, will you?” Jayce asked, and fired again. This bullet caught Dean in the stomach. He started moving forward, then dropped to all fours. “Looks like that’s all you can take, friend.”
Dean roared, louder and more bestial than she’d ever heard, and she watched as he started to shift. Jayce froze up, unsure of what to do. Either he had never dealt with a Shifter before and had no idea what was going on, or he did know what was going on and realized how much trouble he was in. Whichever it was, he seemed to be unable to act or move from his spot..
Gina couldn’t take her eyes off of Dean. She watched as his limbs lengthened, growing thick fur that sprouted through his clothes, ripping them to shreds as his body expanded. The process took only seconds. Gina was in awe: she had never even seen a bear this up close before, let alone a Shifter shifting.
And then he attacked.
Jayce finally sprang into action as the bear sprang forward. He fired, but his first shot went wide, hitting the stone wall next to Gina’s face. Dean raked a claw out, swiping at the man, who dodged out of the way with blind luck and sprinted towards the car. Dean was right behind him, roaring.
Jayce managed to get halfway into the car before Dean caught up to him. Dean’s jaws clamped around Jayce’s ankle, yanking him hard out of the car. His hand caught the steering wheel and he gripped it for dear life, but his strength was no match for a bear’s.
D
ean yanked Jayce out of the car, flinging him to the dirt. He looked over at Gina and she thought she saw sadness in his golden eyes, if that was even possible. Then he grabbed the man, took him behind the car out of Gina’s view. There was a loud scream from Jayce, one last gunshot, and a crunching noise that marked the end of the screaming.
Then Dean was stumbling around the car, stark naked, covered in blood. Gina didn’t know whether the blood belonged to him or to Jayce, but she could tell enough to know that he was injured. She knew he had been shot at least twice – maybe three times – and he was losing a lot of blood.
She noticed his naked body for only the briefest of seconds before her doctor instincts kicked in. She began rooting through one of the bags, looking for the half of a medical kit they had left, ready to patch Dean up.
“Don’t,” he said, coming close to her. “We have to move.”
“Let’s get you back inside and stop the bleeding first,” Gina told him. “You’re hurt. You’re hurt bad.”
“We don’t have time.”
“If we don’t, you’re going to die!”
“I won’t. I’m a Shifter. I can handle this.”
Gina didn’t believe him. “Dean!”
“We have to go. Now. Before the rest of those men get down here.”
Suddenly, Gina remembered what the man had said. My buddies are going to come down the hill. Maybe he was lying. Maybe there were only two more guys. Maybe there were 10. Fifteen. There was no way of knowing. Dean was injured; he wouldn’t be able to fight them off. And Gina didn’t know if she could shoot them. She didn’t think she could.
Dean was right.
“Where?” she asked.
“Follow,” Dean said. Without waiting, he bent down and picked up the heavy duffel bags, wincing from the pain. Still, he started moving, running along the gully, the rock wall on his left, the men probably above on his right. He moved surprisingly fast, even with his injuries.
“Petey,” Gina said, and then they were off, following Dean quickly. Gina didn’t know how he did it. They came to what looked like an impenetrable thicket of thorns and Dean darted easily through some weak spot, allowing Gina to follow, passing through unharmed. Somehow, Dean’s instincts let him move through the wilds with ease. Gina would never have been able to move even half as fast as she was without Dean leading the way.
They ran for what must have been no more than 15 minutes, by Gina’s estimation. By that time, she was sucking air. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d run without stopping for this long. “Dean,” she panted. “Dean, I have to take a break.”
If he heard her, he didn’t give any indication, so they kept running. After some time they reached a small stream, and finally Dean stopped. Gina sat down heavily, trying to catch her breath. She splashed some ice cold water on her face.
Beside her, Dean put down the bags and lowered himself into the stream. He gasped, loudly, as he came into contact with the cold water. She watched as blood washed away into the water. She took a moment to scrub herself clean as best she could.
Gina couldn’t help but notice his naked form. He was toned, as she had seen from before, and perfection in every way. She glanced down between his legs, blushing at what she saw. It’s not the time, or place, she reminded herself. Especially not now.
When he was clean, Dean pulled himself out of the water. Gina dug through a bag and pulled out a towel, which he accepted eagerly. He toweled off, drying his body, wincing as he moved the towel over his bullet holes.
“You were shot three times,” Gina observed. At the end, that man – she refused to use his name, now – had managed to get a shot off on Dean that had grazed his forearm.
“Yeah,” Dean said.
“We have to get you patched up,” Gina said, pulling the med kit out. Dean pushed her hands away as she came close. “Dean, you need stitches.”
“I’m a Shifter. The wounds will close within a day.”
“What?” Gina asked. “That’s ridiculous. Wounds can’t heal that fast.”
“Have you ever dealt with a Shifter?”
Gina shook her head.
“Well, here’s your chance. We heal fast, as long as there isn’t any serious internal damage. I’ll be fine within a day. Just wait. We might need that med kit for something more important in the future.”
Gina nodded, though she didn’t like it. It was true: they might need what remained of their medical kit sometime later. She hoped they wouldn’t, but she’d rather be safe than sorry. Plus, it looked like Dean was telling the truth: the bleeding had stopped and he didn’t appear to have any serious complications from the gun shots. She was thankful; she had no idea what she would do without Dean.
What would have happened there if Dean hadn’t been around? If he had forced her out and wasn’t there to protect her? She didn’t want to think about it.
“I’m sorry, Dean.”
He grunted.
“I’m serious. Stop with all of the grunting. Talk like a normal person.”
He grunted again, but said afterward, “For what?”
“I should have listened to you. I was willing to give that man shelter and some of our food. I believed him. I put us in danger.”
He shrugged. “You couldn’t have known.”
“You were right. Next time we run into someone, I’ll listen to your instincts. If you think something is up, then just let me know and we’ll figure it out.”
Dean thought for a second, but nodded. “And next time, I’ll let you do the talking. Try not to come off so crass.”
Gina gave him a smile. “That sounds good. We’ll make it through this.”
Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he just turned towards Petey, who was playing in the water. Gina dug through the bag and pulled out a fresh change of clothes for Dean.
“Next time, take them off before you shift,” she told him. She tried to get him to smile, but he wouldn’t. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” Dean asked. He turned away from her as he pulled his clothes back on.
“About… back there. With that man.”
“No,” Dean said. “I don’t.”
“Dean…”
“I said I don’t. He was dangerous. Next time, I won’t men like him even get off one shot against us. I shouldn’t have let my guard down like that.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Gina, I don’t want to talk about it. Now, let’s get going.”
*
Dean had vowed never to kill again. He had vowed never to shift again when it would lead to violence. And he had broken that personal vow.
He hadn’t had a choice, had he? He didn’t think so. If he hadn’t shifted, he would probably be dead by now. Gina would probably be dead by now. Petey would probably be dead by now. He didn’t want any of those things to happen.
So, he hadn’t let them. He had done what he thought was necessary to keep them safe. That man, Jayce, had been dangerous. Maybe he hadn’t needed to kill him, maybe he could have let him go, but that was dangerous, too. He didn’t want to take any chances. Couldn’t take any chances. Not now. The man could have gone back to his friends and they could have tracked Dean’s passage through the forest. He couldn’t risk that.
MARS (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 1) Page 44