Chapter 21
Mark heard the sound first. A low growl that had his hair sticking up and his body tightening with adrenaline. A furious animal was nearby. A cat predator, by the sound of it, and ready to attack.
“Get in the truck,” he ordered, shoving Julie inside.
She went awkwardly, startled enough to gasp out a “What?”
He didn’t have time to answer. He spun around and saw the creature stalking around a tree trunk.
A cougar. A shifter by the feel of her, strong in magic, older in chronological age.
But in shifters, age often meant they were harder to kill, not easier.
Magic or DNA strengthened the body and strong emotions sometimes made them downright invulnerable.
And he was standing here as a human without a weapon.
He knew better than to dash around the truck.
Any movement and she’d be on him. The way her tail was twitching told him that much.
But the growl was what terrified him. She was in the grips of fury, dark and ugly.
The best he could hope for was to talk her down, but he doubted it would work.
Especially since her eyes fixed equally on him and Julie.
She wanted them both. She was just deciding which one she would take out first.
Which left him with a second option. A bad one, but it was that or watch her rip through the truck for Julie.
He unbuttoned his khakis and toed off his shoes. Sometime in the last adrenaline-fueled fight, his grizzly had finally come out of hibernation. He probably had the ability to shift now, but doing it in clothes would hurt. Behind him, Julie had finally figured out what was going on.
“Get in the truck!” she screamed.
Bad choice. The cougar hunched lower, jaw clicking as she took a slow step around a tree for a better angle. Mark made a quick gesture behind his back, hoping Julie saw it and understood it meant she was supposed to be quiet.
“You’re the cat woman,” he said calmly. “Elisabeth Oltheten.” The bitch who was working with Evil Einstein to kidnap Julie and experiment on her, not to mention Alan, Theo, and some werewolf cubs. And that just made his blood burn. Which in turn was the last trigger he needed.
His grizzly took charge, itching like needle pricks beneath his skin. He wanted to meet the bitch and fight tooth and claw. He wanted to rip her apart as only a grizzly could. But even as he stepped out of his shoes, he heard Julie behind him.
“Don’t you dare!” she cried. “Get in the truck!”
He couldn’t. No way was the cougar going to let him move that far.
“Stay calm,” he said to everyone there, himself included. “Let’s think this through. Elisabeth, if you attack, I’m going to rip you apart. You know I can—”
She leapt.
No pause, no hesitation, no reason behind it. She attacked. He shifted. There was no choice.
He met her on the upload. That’s what he called the shift into grizzly. His bear was larger and taller than he was, so when he changed, his body grew upward, outward, and in this case—straight into her claws at a speed even a cougar couldn’t beat.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Julie scream. It fired his blood, reminding the grizzly that he was fighting for his mate. He would protect her no matter what.
He was hampered by his clothes, but he tore through them.
And in that time, the cougar clamped her jaws on his shoulder.
Pain ripped through his mind while his legs finally got free.
She bit down like a vise, holding herself in place so her back claws could rake down his chest and belly.
He grabbed at her while a roar tore through his throat.
Then he let his brain step fully back so that instinct could fight unimpaired. His last logical thought was that he had to use his superior strength to rip her off his body and throw her as hard as possible against the nearest tree.
Then it was only teeth. Claws. Pain.
Bite until he tasted blood. Contract muscles. Squeeze.
Her back claws dug into his gut. His claws gripped her body and wrenched.
She wriggled in his hold. Her head lifted from his shoulder, aimed for his neck.
In that split second before she bit, he threw her away.
He heard her impact against a tree, the thud followed by a whimper of pain.
He fell forward, dropping to all fours while his belly cramped and bled.
He could smell his own life draining to the ground, but his eyes were on her.
She rolled to her feet with a snarl. He roared back, gathered himself, pushed upward into a stand. He would kill her now, but she leapt away. She was fast and smart.
He pursued. Into the woods. Rage burned through his being. Too slow. She was gone.
Gone.
He dropped onto all fours, anguish radiating through his shoulder. He flinched and fell to the dirt. His belly flooded his mind with fire.
He roared again. Anger. Destroy. Kill.
And over all of it: Pain.
He had to return to his mate. He had to protect her. But most of all, he had to hide himself and her until he healed.
He lumbered around, searching behind him only to realize she wasn’t there.
Her scent was there, but he saw no grizzly.
Only a human, pink and unimportant, though something about it made him pause.
Mate? He knew the citrus smell of her, acrid with fear, but this pink creature wasn’t his mate.
And yet his nose twitched with interest. Important. He inhaled hard, trying to focus.
Pain.
Injured.
His thoughts scattered. Priorities realigned. His mate was gone. He had to hide and heal.
He roared one last time, the statement filled with all the mournful fury that coursed through him. He would leave, he decided. He would find a den to hide in and heal, and then he would search for her again.
He was still twitchy with pain and fury. He wanted that bitch cat. He wanted his mate. He wanted to kill something and end the pain. And then, in the midst of this disconnected anger, one of the humans annoyed him.