Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Siren pulled off the highway onto a secondary road that wound up through the mountains. It was narrow and empty, the trees pressing in on both sides. She’d chosen a scenic route to the safehouse to throw off any potential tails.
On this road, it would take another hour to get to the safehouse. It was one of the remote cabins that Dom had purchased and supplied when they’d first moved to Fate Mountain. This one was the most fortified. They should be safe there while Steel Protection assessed the threat.
She glanced at Reed in the passenger seat.
He was quiet and distant. She knew she’d hurt him.
He had tried to reach her, but she’d shut it down.
She had promised Dom that she could handle the feelings.
That she would not be affected by her mate until they solved the case. But the fact was, she was failing.
Her inner wolf was howling and scratching behind her eyes, and she kept having images of grabbing his shaggy hair and kissing him hard and deep on the mouth. His full lips and high cheekbones did something to her body that she didn’t want to admit.
He looked absolutely edible, like she could jump on top of him and take everything she wanted. But at the same time, the strength and power of his grizzly was right below the surface. It was a heady combination that had her reeling.
She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to stop thinking about it. She checked her mirrors and realized there was a dark SUV behind her that disappeared behind the bend in the road. It was hanging back, keeping its distance. It didn’t want to be noticed.
She was being followed.
Siren watched it for a thirty count and adjusted her speed, slightly slowing by five miles per hour. She watched the rearview mirror and noticed that the SUV had also slowed.
She sped up on the winding mountain road, watching to get a glimpse of it around the corner. She noticed the SUV matched her speed. This was definitely a professional tail.
How had they found her so fast? She’d been careful. Taken the back roads. Watched for surveillance when they’d left Reed’s house. Her hands tightened on the wheel.
Maybe they’d found out about the recording from this Danny character. Or maybe someone had overheard Reed talking to Danny that night.
Or they’d been watching Steel Protection for long enough to know where their safe houses were located. Whatever the case, she was now sure that whoever had killed Carl Unger was now behind her.
The road was curving around the ridge ahead, and Siren’s heart slammed in her chest.
“What’s wrong?” Reed asked, noticing her heightened agitation.
The curve approached, and she took it at speed, not answering. She didn’t want to scare him. But there may be no other option.
Around the corner, two black SUVs blocked the road. The men were already out of their vehicles, weapons raised and ready. Behind her, the SUV closed the distance, blocking them in. Three vehicles. Six men minimum. Maybe more.
Siren’s mind went cold and clear. No fear. No hesitation. She slammed the brakes, threw the Suburban into a controlled skid, angling the vehicle to use it as cover. Her tires screeched against the asphalt.
“Stay in the vehicle.” Her voice was flat. “It’s armored. You’re safe inside.”
She was out before he could respond, weapons drawn.
The first shots came immediately. Bullets slammed into the SUV’s panel and sparked off the reinforced steel.
With her guns in hand, she moved quickly, using the SUV’s bulk as cover while she assessed the field.
They’d expected her to cower behind the wheel while they closed in.
They hadn’t expected her to come out fighting.
Their mistake.
Her first shot took one in the shoulder, spinning him sideways. Her second dropped another before he could get his weapon up. Center mass. A clean kill.
Return fire erupted, and more bullets plunged into the SUV, pinging off the armored panels. She was already moving, circling around the vehicle, keeping the engine block between her and the heaviest fire. If they focused on her, they weren’t focused on Reed. That’s all that mattered.
One of them came around the vehicle too fast, eager and stupid. He was on her before she could bring the gun up. Too close for clean shots. She transitioned without thinking. Her body knew what to do. Thousands of hours of training took over, muscle memory deeper than thought.
She caught his gun arm. Twisted. Heard the joint pop. He screamed, and she was already behind him, her arm around his throat, her other hand on his head.
One sharp motion. The crack of vertebrae. He dropped.
She didn’t pause. No time to feel anything. More were coming. She grabbed her weapon and kept moving.
Then she heard the passenger door open.
“Reed, stay in the—”
But he was already stumbling out onto the asphalt, his face twisted with something that looked like pain.
“I can’t—” His voice was strained. “It’s coming. I can’t stop it.”
He made it three steps from the vehicle before the shift took him. The transformation was violent. Explosive. One moment he was a man, the next he was an eight-hundred-pound grizzly bear, roaring at the sky, spinning in confused circles on the asphalt.
He hadn’t meant to shift. She could see it in the wild roll of his eyes and the frantic quality of his movements. His bear had taken over. It was a panic response. Completely uncontrolled. And it was drawing fire.
The operatives saw the bear and opened up. Bullets sparked off the road around him. The bear roared louder, enraged, and charged toward the nearest shooter.
“Reed!” She shouted his name, but there was no recognition in those black bear eyes. Just fear. Just instinct. Just rage.
The grizzly slammed into the operative and sent him rolling. The man hit the asphalt hard, tried to rise but couldn’t. The bear kept moving, swiping at another man, catching him across the chest. It wasn’t a killing blow, but enough to open him up and send him screaming to the ground.
Reed wasn’t fighting. He was just destroying everything in reach.
Siren moved while the bear had their attention. She shot the first one in the forehead and did the same to the second.
One of the operatives tried to flank her while she was putting down the wounded. She caught the movement in her peripheral vision, pivoted, and fired twice. He went down.
But the distraction cost her. Pain blazed along her left arm. Her shoulder had been grazed by a bullet. She registered it and kept moving. Blood soaked her sleeve.
Another operative came around the front of the SUV, between her and the chaos, between her and Reed.
She closed the distance before he could react. Grabbing the knife at her belt, with a swift automatic motion she stabbed him under the ribs and twisted.
The man’s eyes went wide and then empty. She pulled the blade free and let him fall.
The remaining operatives were reassessing. They’d lost most of their team in under two minutes. The bear had made her job easier. And he was still rampaging.
One of them shouted to retreat. A second climbed into the SUV behind her, reversed hard, and disappeared. The men at the roadblock dragged their wounded into one car and sped away, leaving the dead behind.
Silence fell.
Reed’s bear stood in the middle of the road, sides heaving, head swinging back and forth. Siren approached slowly.
“Reed. It’s over. They’re gone,” she said in a low, soothing voice.
The bear’s head swung toward her. Those black eyes were still wild.
“Reed, come back. You need to shift back. We need to get out of here.”
A low moan. He was in there somewhere, trapped behind the animal’s terror.
“I need you to breathe. Focus on my voice. You’re safe. Shift back now. It’s okay.”
The bear shuddered. Took a step toward her and then another. For a terrible moment she thought he was going to charge and attack her. She thought she was going to have to put down her own mate.
Then his form began to shift. It was ugly and slow. His body fighting itself, caught between forms. She watched fur recede and bones reshape and heard him making sounds that weren’t quite human and weren’t quite animal.
When it was done, Reed was on his hands and knees on the asphalt. Naked and shaking and covered in sweat. He looked up at her with horror in his eyes.
“I didn’t… I couldn’t…”
“I know,” she said, crouching down to touch his back.
She quickly moved to the SUV, grabbed the folded blanket from the back seat, and draped it over Reed’s shoulders.
“I tried to stop it.” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t...”
“What matters is that you’re safe,” she said, helping him to his feet.
He looked around at the bodies on the ground, at the blood, and then at her arm.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, helping him into the passenger seat.
“You’re bleeding.”
She glanced down at her sleeve. It was soaked through now, blood dripping off her fingertips. She’d been ignoring it. It was easy to ignore pain when there was work to do.
“It’s just a graze,” she said. “I’ll deal with it.”
She pulled the first aid kit from her cargo area, pulled off her leather jacket, and then rolled up the sleeve of her T-shirt. The furrow in her shoulder was ugly but shallow. She cleaned it with antiseptic wipes and wrapped it in gauze.
She closed the hatch of the SUV and got behind the wheel, quickly righting the vehicle on the road. Reed watched her, still wrapped in the blanket, pale like he had lost several pints of blood. He was shaking from shock. She pulled around the bodies on the road and accelerated into the mountains.
Blood was seeping through the bandage on her arm, but she ignored it. She needed to drive somewhere safe. She couldn’t go to the safe house—it had obviously been compromised.
Reed was quiet in the passenger seat. He’d seen what she was, what she was capable of. And there was no going back now.