by Reina Torres
“I’ll take care of her.” And he meant it. All he wanted to do was get to her and hold her in his arms for the rest of their lives after this.
Dialing his phone, Devlin gave him a look. “I’ll call emergency services and have them come out to cut her out of the wreck and EMTs to check her over.”
“Yeah,” Conor tested one of the pieces of bent metal and heard Hollis groan, “yeah, we’ll wait for them to come and help.” He wanted to just open the car up and get her out, but he knew it was better to keep everything stable. He may be strong enough to get her out, but he had to protect her and that meant being patient.
For at least a few moments.
A hiss from the front of the vehicle turned Graham’s head. “What’s that?”
Conor’s nose wrinkled. “I smelled something burning while we were looking for Hollis.”
“Okay, give me a second.” The lion shifter moved forward to the front end of the vehicle. He muttered a few choice words as he studied what used to be an engine. “That’s it, Hollis. You’re not going to drive anything I own.”
“Ha ha,” Hollis’ sardonic tone eased more of his frustration, “you know I wasn’t driving.”
Graham shrugged. “Sure, right, whatever you say.” He looked Conor and the other shifters in turn. “As far as I can tell the smell is coming from fluids that spilled during the crash. The heat might have burned it off. I’m not seeing any smoke or evidence of fire at the moment. I guess we can leave it for now. Go get that asshole and bring him back so Conor can rip out his test-”
“Eww… thanks!” The note of desperation on Hollis’ tone went a long way to reassure the men that she was fine inside of the wreck.
“All right then, stay here.” Cage gave him a knowing look. He wouldn’t be happy to wait if Maggie was stuck either. “We’ll track him down.”
Conor nodded, but he really didn’t hear much after that. Getting down on his knees beside the wrecked vehicle, he looked through an opening that may have been a panel of the door at some point. From that vantage point he could see her.
The anger seething from his bear eased.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as you look right now.”
She winced, but her smile didn’t falter. “I thought bears had better eyesight than that.”
“Are you really okay?”
“I’m a little sore,” she admitted to him, “but I can move everything that’s supposed to move.”
He reached his hand through the wreckage and when she folded her fingers through his, he sighed. “When I heard you were gone,” his bear’s growl rolled through his chest, “I knew I wasn’t going to lose you. I would move mountains to get you back.”
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “Funny how those mountains turned into a mangled car in the middle of the woods.”
He shook his head. “Just you wait, once we get you out of here, you and I have a lot of talking to do.”
Then it was her turn to shake her head. “Talking? Really?” She shifted inside the car, but the moan that he heard wasn’t pain. No, there was a distinctly different tone in her voice. “Because what I was wanting to do with you has nothing to do with talking.”
Every inch of his body came alive. Arousal washed away the fear that had ruled him and he felt a heavy shudder roll through him from head to toe. “Oh, we’ll do that too,” he assured her, “but first I need to take care of you, get you out of this mess.”
Hollis rubbed the tip of her finger over the pulse in his wrist. “As long as you’re here with me, Conor, I could wait forever.”
He fought down the push he felt from his bear. He almost agreed. He wanted to crawl into that mangled mess and worship every inch of her body. He knew they’d talk but he could see so much in her eyes and the way her heat crawled over his skin had him so hot he was going to catch on fire.
“Baby, forever with me is what you’re going to get and I’m going to make you so incredibly happy and-”
#
One second, she was holding onto Conor and finally taking a breath and then he was gone, the space that had been filled with him was suddenly empty again.
“Conor!”
A snarl filled her ears and something cracked outside of her line of sight. A tree?
“Conor! What happened?”
A roar, ursine and bloodcurdling, reached her from the outside world that she couldn’t see. Couldn’t touch.
“What’s going on?”
She tried to get up but felt the terrible pinch of something in her side. Hollis shoved a hand down and tried to push it away, but instead she felt it tear the skin of her palm.
There was nothing to see from her vantage point but she could hear a struggle going on. And they were bears. That, she knew. There was no mistaking the guttural noises. The growling roll of sounds punctuated by powerful blows. The other men with Conor were cats and none of them with paws big enough to produce that kind of horrifying sound.
“Oh God! Conor!”
#
Hollis.
He could hear her, but he couldn’t see her and that was probably a good thing. He wouldn’t want her to see him either.
Conor felt anger warring with pain rocketing through his body. His attacker had caught him unawares, the blow he’d taken to his back had likely broken his spine.
The blows he was taking.
Body.
Head.
Over and over kept him stunned enough to keep him from shifting. He could hear his bear.
Felt the rough slap of the animal’s frustration, but they couldn’t reach each other.
Conor tried again to move. Just an inch. Just a moment of time. That’s all he needed, he tried to tell himself.
All he’d need.
But the bear on top of him wasn’t going to give him the chance and he had no idea how far the others were.
If he could even manage to yell, to get their attention, he could ensure that at least Hollis would be kept safe, but he had a sinking suspicion that he wasn’t going to get that chance.
The bear had come from nowhere. At least that was his initial impression, driving him into the ground and dragging him away from the wreck.
The man who’d tried to take Hollis might just succeed in taking him from Hollis. All he could do was hope that the others returned in time to help.
“Please!” He heard Hollis begging from the wreckage. “Don’t kill him!”
The pressure on his back eased the littlest bit and the wave of energy that rushed over him explained it better than his eyes could have. “If he’s dead there’s no reason for you to stay.”
The bear had partially shifted back into a human. The fact that he could speak said that now they were closer to being on an even keel. Gathering his strength, Conor knew he’d only have one chance to act.
One chance to save himself and Hollis. If this man killed him, there was no guarantee he’d keep her alive. Not when he’d already killed in cold blood, and Hollis had already proved that she wasn’t willing to bend to his will.
As much as he loved that about her, it might not sit so well with her kidnapper.
“So, you stay right there, girl. I’ll get to you in a minute. First, I’m going to get rid of him before his friends come back.”
#
Lying there, stuck in the wreckage of the car, hearing the heavy slaps and thuds as that horrible man hurt Conor, was more than she could take.
Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest.
Her breaths came quickly, over and over, passing her lips with a heavy touch.
“No.” She didn’t really hear the word in her own voice as much as she tasted it.
Acrid. Hot.
“No.” She grabbed a hold of a twisted piece of metal and ignored the way it smeared the blood from her open wound over more of her skin. “Stop it.”
Another heartbreaking thud was punctuated by a wet slap of sound that ended in moan. A gurgling sound that came very close to b
reaking her heart.
He was killing Conor.
She had to do something… anything…
Hollis squeezed her eyes shut as pain rushed through her head. The frantic rhythm of her heart, the roar of blood in her ears.
The whole world seemed smaller, tighter, pressing in on her from all sides. She was used to feeling small. Insignificant. Less than… everything.
“No.” She shook her head and almost enjoyed the pain ripping through her. “Not anymore.”
She was both doubled over and broken in two.
She was remade, reformed, and while her body was wracked with pain, she felt power building within her body and finally with one last rush of blinding anger she was free!
#
When Conor heard metal tearing apart all he felt was relief. No matter what happened to him now. Hollis was going to be free. That was what mattered.
The others had come back and she was going to be okay.
His one regret was that he hadn’t done enough to take care of her, that she would live the rest of her life without him.
Fight.
Live.
Conor’s weak smile was his only answer to his bear. Pain was swallowing him whole, sucking him down into the depths where he wouldn’t hurt anymore.
It was only a matter of time and then-
A full indrawn breath filled his lungs and the pain made him see stars, but the weight was gone.
Forcing his eyes open he saw two bears fighting, claws and teeth. Torn flesh and blood.
Blinking into the sunlight that managed to filter its way down through the trees, Conor struggled to understand what he was seeing.
The larger bear was coated with drying blood, his. That must be the bear that attacked him, but the other… His eyesight was wavering, but even with lack of clarity he didn’t recognize the bear as one he knew.
Gage was suddenly at his side, blocking part of his view. “Damnit, Conor. I leave you alone for a couple of minutes and you end up laid out flat in the dirt.”
“Hol- Hollis.”
“Uh, Conor?” Graham called out to him. “She’s not in the car.”
Using most of his remaining strength, Conor lifted his head up from the ground and stared at the fight as it continued. “No.”
Cage stopped fussing over him long enough to look in the same direction. “You’re not thinking that-”
“I don’t kno- know.”
As they watched, the smaller of the bears slipped away as the larger grizzly made a sluggish swing. Scrambling up onto the larger bear’s back, the smaller grizzly widened its jaws and closed them with a snap that sounded like the crack of a massive oak tree.
The roar that came from the larger bear was more shocked than painful, a bellowing howl of loss.
And maybe regret.
But as Conor watched, the smaller bear didn’t just stop at death, she ripped through the neck of her former captor. It wasn’t easy to see earlier when adrenaline was riding through his blood like a bullet through a barrel.
The smaller bear wasn’t just a grizzly, it also had the rounder curves and smaller stature of a female.
It was Hollis.
Somehow.
His little mate who was so convinced that she was somehow broken had not only come to his rescue but had found herself a full-blooded shifter after all.
He sighed and it became a cough that wet his lips. “Hollis.”
Gage grabbed his shoulder. “Conor. Shit. Shift.”
Laughter, inappropriate at best, but that’s what it was. “Can’t…” And it was the truth.
A dark thought crossed his mind, that maybe he’d given her his bear to save herself.
And that, he decided, was fair.
It was exactly what he would have wanted. A living gift to her.
“Tell her-”
“Hollis!” Graham rushed past and into the clearing, waving his arms. “Hollis, over here!”
The grizzly turned around and Conor could only stare. She was magnificent! She stared at Graham, her dark eyes taking the measure of the human in front of her.
“Be care-” his words ended in a cough and he felt his lower lip bathed in something slick and wet. Blood.
Cage took over for him. “Be careful, Graham. She’s never shifted before. We don’t know how much of her is there.”
Giving them a nod, Graham didn’t look away from the full-sized bear. “She’s strong.”
Hollis’ bear sniffed the air between them and then howled before she nodded her head. She took a tentative step closer to Graham and scented the air again, narrowing her eyes at him.
Devlin crouched down beside Conor and gave him a concerned look. “What are we going to do about you?”
“Turn me over.” Devlin shook his head but helped put him on his back. When he was done, Conor was feeling weaker by the moment. “Let me try to get through to her.”
“You’ve got to shift.” Devlin hissed his displeasure, his tiger bleeding through in teeth and coloring on his skin. White and black in a whisper of stripes. “You’re not going to… you’re going to die if you don’t, Conor. There’s too much damage.”
“Let. Me. See. Her.”
Devlin cursed and his tiger let out a howl of anger.
The grizzly roared in anger!
“Smart girl,” Conor groaned, “doesn’t like… cats.”
Cage’s rough laugh made him smile.
“Graham,” Conor felt his life draining away, but he still had one gift left to give, “move out of the way.”
He wasn’t sure, but it felt like Cage understood his meaning. With one last squeeze to Conor’s shoulder, he got up and signaled for Devlin to do the same.
Graham moved aside and turned, leaving the distance between them open.
Hollis’ bear swung her head in his direction. Conor saw the fresh confusion in her eyes. He opened his mouth to call to her, but even that was beyond him.
All he wanted to do was step back in time, just the littlest bit, so he could hold her one more time. Press a kiss to her lips. Cuddle against her in bed.
A soft questioning howl came from her bear, tilting her head from one side to the other before she took a couple of steps closer.
Devlin’s voice made it to his year. “You sure about this, Conor? If she’s lost in there, she could-”
“Kill me?” His smile was full of resignation.
At least she’d be close enough to touch.
Cage’s voice was there too, but further. “Back up. Back away.”
As they moved, so did she. Closer and closer. Until she was almost upon him.
And there it was. The soft chuff of sound from the back of his mind. The first… or maybe the last… connection to his bear.
Mate.
Bear.
He felt his bear’s surprise and held tight to that link.
Hot air blew against his cheek. Her breath.
Her bear’s breath.
It was heaven. The breath of life.
Fanning over his cheek, ear, and neck, her breath drew in and out, taking his scent into her lungs.
And he saw her eyes, the only piece of her that was still Hollis.
Come to me.
He wanted to reach her… somehow.
Come to me, Hollis.
A whimper was the reply. A shake of her head.
That’s right, baby. Come back to me.
The heart in his chest stuttered and slowed.
Please, Hollis. You need to come back.
He wouldn’t leave her trapped and confused inside of her bear. Someone would help her later, but right at that moment, he was the only one that had a hope of calling her forward.
She paced to his side, lowering herself down beside him until her cheek was against his chest.
He heard the frustrated whispers of his friends, her weight would make it hard for him to breathe, but he was barely managing to do that anyway. If she found comfort touching him, he could do no less than give it to her.
My mate.
He closed his eyes and managed to lift a hand and push it through the heavy fur to touch her head and cuddle it loser.
Hollis, I love you.
She sighed and it was music to his ears. Rubbing her cheek against his chest, she rolled until her chin was at his shoulder and her eyes looked into his.
I love you, mate.
And he closed his eyes and disappeared.
Chapter Twelve
When Conor’s eyes opened at the first touch of the late afternoon’s rays coming in through the window, he saw the narrowed feline gaze of Cage Gamble sprawled in a chair beside his bed.
Sitting up in a series of joint popping stretches, Cage leaned forward and braced his arms on his knees. “You going to sleep the rest of the day away or are you going to get your lazy ass up?”
Maggie’s laughter settled the rising growl in Conor’s chest.
“Can’t you boys play nice today?”
She reached out to touch Conor’s arm, but Cage pulled her back and wrapped his arm possessively around her waist. “If you touch him, I’ll just have to kill him all over again.”
“Cage! Stop that!” Maggie’s laughter waned and Conor heard a little sniffle in her voice. “Don’t joke. Please don’t joke. We almost lost him.”
Cage pulled Maggie close enough to slant a kiss over her lips. “Conor wouldn’t know what to do if I was nice to him. Right?”
“You know me so well.” Conor inched up on his pillows, struggling to ignore the pinches and twinges in his body. Shifting had healed the more superficial wounds almost immediately, but it was the deeper wounds that had taken the better part of a day to knit back together.
“When Cage told me the story, I couldn’t believe it.” Maggie shook her head, sending her wavy hair brushing against her shoulders. “Imagine! Hollis shifting after all these years. And to save you!”
Cage gave his mate a narrowed stare. “You sound a little too happy, babe.”
Rolling her eyes, Maggie clapped her hands on his cheeks and pulled him in for another kiss. When she was done, she leaned back to look down into his face. “You and Conor… the other shifters… everyone I know besides Francis are all men! You walk around, strutting those hotter than hell bodies in front of us poor human women. You act like Neanderthals,” she batted at Cage’s shoulder when he tried to tickle her sides, “I’m not complaining. I’m just saying how amazing it is that Conor’s mate shows up and when someone tries to take her away, she not only fights back… she saved Conor’s life. Not once, but twice!”