Stolen by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 1) Page 11

  Dead.

  “Oh my God. Don’t go near that bear!” A female voice he didn’t recognise rang out behind him, her scent unmistakably human.

  A hunter?

  Saint didn’t care.

  She could kill him if she wanted.

  Although, death was coming for him anyway. His bones were like ice. His mind sluggish. Every rasping breath he managed smelled like blood. His blood. It pooled around him, a huge patch of crimson that grew larger every hour, one that should have concerned him.

  Only he couldn’t muster the strength to care.

  He just kept staring in the direction Holly had gone.

  Aching for her to return.

  “Shit, he looks bad.” Lowe.

  Black boots appeared to his left, red slush on their toes.

  “I need to move him.”

  “It’s a bear. You need to back away. I don’t know what attacked him but—” The female voice cut off in a muffled, pained grunt.

  Lowe huffed. “Let’s get you to my cabin. All nice and toasty like. I’ll deal with him, and then I’ll deal with those fucking cougars.”

  “You can’t shoot cougars! Regulations state…” Her words drifted into the distance.

  Saint just kept staring at the trees, willing Holly to come back to him. She wouldn’t. He knew that. She was gone, and he would never see her again. She had made that clear.

  She had made her decision.

  He moaned, the sound mournful, couldn’t hold it back as that ache in his chest worsened, as the longing to see her again grew stronger. Killing him.

  His vision tunnelled and everything went black for a second.

  “Come on, now. No time to sleep.” Lowe again.

  The male sucked in a sharp breath as he eased to a crouch on Saint’s right. Saint growled when the male reached for the wound on his shoulder, weakly baring his fangs at him.

  Lowe edged his hand back, his voice unusually stern. “Fine. I’ll give you a pass for now. But you need to move. Got it?”

  Saint grunted and kept staring at the trees.

  Lowe huffed and stood. “Don’t make this easy on me or anything. When I hurt you, remember it’s your own damned fault.”

  The male moved around him, and then walked away, and Saint lost track of him. Another black wave rolled over him and then receded as someone jostled him. He growled as his backside was suddenly lifted off the ground and lowered again, and he felt the bite of a rope around his hips. He started sliding backwards, that rope digging in uncomfortably, tugging another growl from him.

  “At least the snow makes some things easier,” Lowe grunted, his voice strained as he hauled Saint somewhere.

  He didn’t care where.

  When his rear half lifted higher and his chin smacked off something hard—a wooden step—he snarled and grunted, decided he did care. He tried to wriggle free of Lowe’s grip, but didn’t have the strength.

  Could only watch as he was pulled further from the forest. Further from Holly.

  Towards somewhere warm.

  Lowe stopped hauling him and muttered behind him, shifting things around, and then came back to him.

  “Getting your fat ass into this cabin is going to hurt. Just remember… it’s your own damned fault.” Lowe grabbed the rope and began tugging.

  Saint growled and groaned as the bastard attempted to squeeze his backside into the doorframe, as he felt as if he was being crushed. He pushed onto his back feet, tried to shuffle forwards, only he didn’t have the strength to escape Lowe and return to gazing at the forest, and ended up flat on his stomach.

  “Thought that would get you moving.” Lowe sounded as if he had just scored a victory, when all he had done was invite a very painful death.

  Saint would deliver it once he had a little of his strength back. He just needed to sleep for a while. Maybe forever. He sagged, slumping against the floor, darkness beckoning again.

  Lowe gripped his hind legs, pulling them out behind him, and shook them.

  “Don’t sleep now, buddy. Rise and shine.”

  Saint moaned at him, the low rumbling groan sounding sorrowful to his ears. Defeated.

  “What’s gotten you so down, anyway? So the cougars took the female back. You should have known it would happen.” Lowe hauled him backwards into the cabin.

  Saint dug his front claws into the wood, splintering it as he tried to anchor himself and stop Lowe from pulling him away from that female.

  A female he had known would leave him eventually.

  He had wanted to talk to her before that happened though, had been sure that if he had told her that he was starting to feel something for her that she would admit she felt something for him too.

  Only she didn’t.

  She had made that painfully clear.

  He gave up fighting as warmth curled around him, thawing his numbed legs. Two instincts warred inside him, one the desire to survive at any cost that had been roused by the warm kiss of the fire on his fur, and the other a powerful need to give up because life without Holly would be an empty existence.

  Lowe pulled him in front of the fire and Saint just lay there, his front and hind legs stretched out on the floor.

  “You look like a fucking rug.” Lowe moved around him and went to a cupboard near the stairs, grabbed a large black bag and came to him.

  He set it down near Saint’s head and ignored him when Saint bared fangs at him, warning him away.

  “Yeah, I’m about to let you bleed out. I don’t think so.” Lowe pulled bottles and bandages from the bag and scowled at him. “You could make this a lot easier on both of us by shifting back.”

  Saint didn’t think he could. In this form, the hurt was easier to deal with. His bear side didn’t do complicated. Emotions were dulled while he was embracing that part of himself. If he was hurting this badly in his bear form, he didn’t want to think about how much pain he would be in if he shifted back.

  It would kill him.

  So he was resolved to stay a bear, had decided it would be that way until he died from blood loss and exposure, but now it would be until all the feelings for Holly that had been growing inside him withered and died.

  However long that took.

  Probably forever.

  Saint wasn’t sure he was ever getting over her.

  Because he was sure she was something to him, something special. Something once in a lifetime.

  His fated female.

  A fated female who didn’t want him.

  He wouldn’t be the first male whose true mate had rejected him, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. It went no way towards dampening the pain that was ripping his heart to shreds.

  Lowe tended to his wound, muttering things, holding a one-sided conversation that Saint tuned out as he stared through the open door, across the field of churned and bloodstained snow, to the woods that separated him from Holly.

  The urge to go to her was strong, had him restless with a need to stand. He shut it down. She didn’t want him. Going to her would only end in him being hurt worse. Yet he couldn’t convince that need to die, found himself biding his time, slowly pulling himself together, thanks to that ridiculous tiny seed of hope. He tried to stand and Lowe shoved him back down.

  “Now you get feisty?” Lowe huffed and went back to tending to his wounds. “Just lay there and accept your fate.”

  Saint wasn’t sure he could. The larger part of him wanted to do just that, was resolved that his life was over now that Holly had left him, but that tiny seed of hope was already growing, spreading tendrils through him, whispering words about fighting and winning her back.

  Winning her heart.

  Would she give it to him if he did things right this time?

  His bear side grew restless too, his instincts growing stronger as his body warmed, as he stopped losing blood. They filled him with a dark need to go to the female, to make her come with him, and to fight anyone who tried to stop him.

  Because she was his.


  He growled when someone dressed in black obscured his view, jogging up the steps to his deck to draw to an abrupt halt in the doorway.

  “Christ! What happened to him?” Knox stepped into the room and sank to his knees beside Lowe on the wooden floorboards.

  Lowe flinched in time with Saint as he dabbed at the wound on Saint’s right shoulder, cleaning it. “I came back and found him out in the snow like this. Don’t know how long he was out there, but I do know it was the cougars. The female is gone. Place reeks of them.”

  “I’ll murder them.” Knox’s voice lost its sharp edge as he looked back over his shoulder, into the clearing. “Gods, look at all that blood. You think it’s all his?”

  Lowe nodded, his expression grim and blue eyes saying the opposite to his mouth. “He’ll be fine.”

  The bear didn’t believe that, and the look on Knox’s face said he didn’t either.

  “I was about to kick your ass for running off like that, but now… I’ll save it for later.” Knox ran a shaky hand over his dark blond hair, mussing it. “I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t come back here. Someone needs to put those cougars down.”

  Lowe slid a look at his brother. “No one is going off to start a war. Saint needs us here.”

  “Why didn’t he just shift back and come inside?” Knox eyed the wound and then his twin. “Wound like that is painful, sure, but no reason to lay out in the snow waiting for help.”

  This time, Lowe’s silent look conveyed the answer to that question—Saint hadn’t been waiting for help.

  He had been waiting for Holly to come back.

  Or death to take him.

  Saint didn’t make a fuss as Knox stood and moved to his rear and worked to warm him up, massaging his stiff legs and drying his fur with a towel. He didn’t make a fuss whenever Lowe hurt him.

  He just kept staring at the door, at those woods, thinking about Holly and how she had cuddled up to him, had scent marked him and growled when he had tried to stop her, and had looked at him as if she had wanted to kiss him.

  He thought about how she had looked at him out there in the cold and what she had said. The two seemed to contradict each other. Her words had been harsh, meant to wound, to hurt him. Her eyes had shown fear for him, worry and a fire that had told him she had wanted to fight.

  And it hadn’t been him she had wanted to attack.

  It grew darker outside as he replayed everything on repeat, as his bones finally stopped aching and his muscles no longer felt like liquid beneath his skin, and the pain of his wounds fell away. He tried to keep still for Lowe as he worked, taking care of his smaller injuries now, but he was restless as he watched night fall.

  As the need to see Holly grew stronger, close to overwhelming him, a driving force that compelled him to go to her and tell her everything, before he lost her forever.

  But the need to sleep was stronger still as warmth soaked into him, as everything caught up with him, as he felt safe with his kin nearby to protect him. To watch over him.

  He fought to remain conscious, fearing that if he slept now, he would be sleeping for some time, that a healing sleep would become a winter sleep and he wouldn’t wake until spring.

  Until it was too late.

  Holly would leave Cougar Creek soon and he knew in his heart she would never return.

  Darkness overpowered him, dragged him down into it, and he battled it with all his strength, even when he knew he couldn’t stop it from taking him. As he sank into it, one thought echoed in his mind.

  Would he wake in time?

  Or would he never see Holly again?

  Chapter 13

  Worried didn’t cover how Holly felt as she sat on the red couch in Ember’s lodge, not really paying attention to anyone as they crowded around her. All she could think about was how much blood there had been.

  How pained Saint had looked.

  How fiercely she ached inside.

  “I told you we should have put the bastard down when we had the chance,” Storm growled, long strides chewing up the distance between the wall to Holly’s left and the kitchen to her right as he paced in front of the fireplace.

  She curled her fingers into fists, saw Saint all over again, covered in blood, moaning in pain.

  “Did he hurt you, Holly?” Rath eased down to crouch before her, his grey eyes holding a wealth of concern. Blood tracked down his cheek from a cut there, and it wasn’t the only one he had.

  When Storm, Rath and Flint had shifted back and dressed in clothing they had stashed in the woods, she had seen all the wounds Saint had given them, and it had turned her stomach. She had expected to feel a sense of guilt, or perhaps remorse, because they had been hurt too and she had thought only of Saint, but that feeling hadn’t hit her.

  She felt sure she should feel terrible about what had happened to Rath and his brothers, and should feel grateful to them for rescuing her and bringing her home to the Creek.

  But she didn’t.

  She only felt bad about what had happened to Saint.

  She only wanted to see him again.

  “Look at her. She’s in shock. Gods only know what that brute did to her.” Flint snarled those words, ignoring his beautiful black-haired mate as she tended to a particularly nasty gash on his upper left arm, just below the sleeve of his navy T-shirt. His grey eyes flashed fire as he shoved his dirty fingers through his short onyx hair, and bared short fangs as he growled. “Storm’s right. We should finish him off once and for all. Look at what he did to Gabi.”

  Gabi who had remained with Ivy in Rath’s cabin, the two females waiting there for their mates to return.

  “Don’t get me started.” Storm paced harder behind her, the aggression that rolled off him stoking Holly’s own.

  Making her want to lash out at everyone.

  Fight everyone.

  “Storm,” Rath said, his voice calm and even but firm enough to convey a silent order to his younger brother, a demand that he dial it back. His warm grey eyes dropped to Holly again and he placed his left hand on her knee. “You can talk to us, Holly. What happened?”

  “I think we can all guess what happened. He tried to take Gabi, Rath, and he was pretty damned clear about what he had wanted to do with her,” Storm bit out.

  Holly shot to her feet, almost knocking Rath on his ass, and startling everyone in the room. They all stared at her, expressions blank.

  “I need some air,” she muttered and turned towards the door, but Rath was on his feet before she could move a step, had his hand wrapped around her arm.

  “You stay. I think we’re the ones who need some air.” Rath gave her a tight smile and then looked at Storm and Flint, and Yasmin. “Let’s give her some space.”

  They all filed out of the lodge, but they didn’t go quietly. Storm and Flint held a terse conversation as they walked, painting a horrible picture of bear shifters, and a fire blazed to life inside her again, filling her with a need to go after them and correct them, to argue with them about everything they believed.

  Because they were wrong.

  Saint had been savage and quick to rage, but he had been gentle with her too, had shown her kindness at times, a glimpse beyond the veil to the man behind the bear. They were wrong about him where Gabi was concerned too, and she wanted to chase after them and tell them everything Saint had told her, wanted to explain what had happened and why Saint had threatened the female. They wouldn’t believe her though. They were hellbent on hating him.

  And in a way, she couldn’t blame them. He had given them every reason to think badly of him.

  Holly slumped back onto the seat of the red couch, all of her fight leaving her, because no matter what she said to her friends, they would never change their opinion of Saint or his kin.

  “Did he hurt you?” Ember sank to her knees before her, her pretty face soft with concern, her black hair tied in a knot at the back of her head, revealing the mark on her nape.

  A ma
rk Saint had checked her for.

  When he had seen no such mark on her nape, she had sensed the relief in him, and a wicked heat had curled through her as he had stared at it.

  Was he all right?

  She looked off to her right, at the window. It was getting dark now.

  “Answer the question,” Cobalt growled and Holly glared at him. He instantly backed down, the hard edge to his expression softening as he eased down to sit on the coffee table. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be a dick. We’re all just worried about you, Holly. We just want to help you. We all know how cruel bears can be. They’ve been nothing but trouble since we moved into the area.”

  Something inside Holly snapped.

  “They’ve been nothing but trouble?” She frowned at Cobalt, refusing to back down when his grey eyes narrowed on her, cougar gold emerging in his irises as his fair eyebrows pinched hard. “You know we could have avoided all this if we had just been good neighbours and offered to keep the noise down?”

  Cobalt blanched, his face going slack. “What do you mean?”

  “Saint took me because he was angry. Rath refused to keep the noise down and his pride couldn’t sleep. Apparently winter sleep is very important to bears. He asked Rath, only wanted to help his pride, and Rath said no or something.” She didn’t have the full details, wished she did now because Cobalt was starting to look more than shocked.

  He looked guilty.

  It hit her.

  “You told Rath to refuse him. Who else convinced Rath to be an asshole to Saint?” Holly stood again, couldn’t remain sitting as the fire inside her blazed hotter still, stoked to an inferno by the thought that Cobalt had been responsible for what had happened to her. “I knew Rath wouldn’t have been so inconsiderate.”

  Cobalt squared up to her. “He got what was coming to him, Holly. He tried to kidnap Gabi. He almost killed Flint.”

  “I’ll admit, one of those was unprovoked, but Saint was on edge because of the recent fight with the hunters and Gabi is human, so he thought she was a hunter… and I don’t think I need to remind anyone that Flint picked that fight.” Her blood was boiling now, and while part of her was bone-deep aware that standing up to Cobalt like this was a recipe for disaster, the rest of her couldn’t back down. “And you picked this fight with him when you told Rath to refuse Saint. Rath should have known better. He’s lived here long enough to know that Saint’s blood runs a little hot and his bear side is quick to come to the fore when he’s angry about something. We all have moments where our instincts seize control and we do something stupid. Bears are no different.”