Bear His Bond: Wylde Den Two (Alaskan Den Men Book 9) (7 page)

Repeatedly glancing down at her and their surroundings, he asked, “How damn long was I out?”

Pepper leaned in close and placed her hand over his heart. “Too long.”

He cringed and doused his face with more water from the bottle she offered him instead of meeting her worried gaze.

“It took me five minutes to get you to respond. I had to resort to slapping you. Any longer and I would have started pounding on you with my fists or anything else I could find because you didn’t respond to CPR. You take that smirk off your face, Everett Wylde.”

“Sorry, but you slap like a sausage-handed Italian mob boss.” He rubbed at his face. “It still stings.”

“Good. I think.” Her nose wrinkled up and caused her glasses to slip. Again. What a weakness to have. God have mercy. Everett wanted to resist the urge to pull her up for a kiss, but he gave in to the battle and decided losing the war wasn’t all that bad after all.

They didn’t have time for what he wanted to do to her, but he needed what only she could offer him.

Energy, pure and raw, fed into him the second her lips skimmed over his. He took the kiss deeper, and as he suspected the threads of multicolored light increased until an invisible shield of energy sprang to life around them.

His suspicions were confirmed the second the magick of his shifter siphoned off her energy and worked with the liquid she’d given him. The pain in his leg lessened and the blurry rollercoaster he had been on since last night finally ebbed.

He stood.

“Thank you,” he whispered against her lips.

“I thought things like that could only happen after mating?”

“Normally yes, but there’s more going on here. I have a lot to explain, but later.”

Pepper pulled back.

“Everett. What’s happening? I don’t understand.” She stared up at him, and the confusion he saw in her eyes weighed heavy on his conscience.

“I promise I’ll explain later.”

The small dose of energy she fed him waned a fraction, and the world turned on its axis the more they walked. Damn werebear metabolism.

The farther away from the water they walked the easier he breathed. “I think I’ll be fine now. Did you get your samples?”

“Got more than that. I know what Brax used to poison you and I know how to counteract it. That’s what I gave you.”

That had his eyebrows climbing and them both coming to an abrupt halt. “You what?”

“It’s all pretty simple, really. He concocted a poison directed at the shifters’ mutant gene. I sampled the water and as you can see, nothing happened.

“You what?”

“I’m fine. As far as I can tell the ingredients he used won’t kill normal animals or humans.” When she got started on the business end of her degree he knew better than to interrupt. She fixed her glasses and started off with a flourish of old Latin names and concoctions he’d never understand unless they were written in his field guide of how to care for a broken leg or high altitude sickness. He did catch the name of the one plant that any werebear knew to steer clear of.

“Doc, hold up, you lost me at Epilobium ang-something or other. Back up to the Silverleaf nightshade. You can confirm that?”

“Yes. I don’t know how he made the compound so concentrated but yes, there’s enough in the water to kill shifters.”

“What the hell?” Flooded with fear for his family and loved ones, he balled his fists at his side, leaned back and let loose a deep roar of frustration. “Why? Damn him. Why!”

“It’s what I used to clear the land of the filth.”

Darkness rose inside him and every muscle in his body flexed with hatred. Raw and brutal hatred. The familiar grating voice whipped them both around. Lips peeled back from his teeth, he felt the burn of his beast. His skin tightened over his bones.

“Fuck You, asshole,” He rumbled long and low until every cell in his body hungered for a fight.

For blood.

Everett’s gaze darted from side to side as his senses scanned the area for more potential threats. Through the mist a single pair of pale blue eyes stood out first. Everett’s attention shot to the right then left when he picked up on additional heartbeats.

“Run. Or stay back, but don’t you dare get in the middle of this,” he snarled at Pepper.

He could feel her eyes on him and her presence grow even stronger on his radar.

She wanted blood too. Good.

He’d start their mating out with an old-fashioned gift of vengeance for his soon-to-be bride.

“Brax. You should have stayed away.” His fists clenched by his side as he scooped an arm around him to keep Pepper out of harm’s way. If she didn’t want to run, she sure as hell wouldn’t be putting herself out there to protect him again. Not while he breathed. “You son of a bitch. Why don’t you come closer so I can sink my claws into your throat?” he rasped out with all the hatred eating at his gut.

Red-rimmed eyes bored into him from where Brax stood several feet away. He’d seen eyes like that once on a rogue bear right before he was put down. A smirk smeared across his face. One he’d gladly wipe off. Shoulders slumped, he barely recognized the man he’d known for the better part of a decade.

Dried, crusted blood smeared across his throat in four long gashes. Through narrowed eyes he could catch the faint hint of soft pink flesh beneath the blood. Sometime in the last few hours he’d been in a severe fight, but not with Everett. He could smell the coppery tinge that hung in the air and it belonged to other ice bears, not grizzly.

“Easy brother. I’m not here to kill you. Yet,” the sleaze-ball added with a little hum to his words while slithering a dirty look over Pepper, who stood by Everett with a fierce expression of her own. She worked her way to the side, and he took another step in front of her but faltered when his stomach tumbled into his throat. Dry heaves fisted around his insides and he hunched over, gasping for air.

Steel nerves and sheer fucking hate brought him back to his full height. His bear, dormant for far too long, stirred.

“Oh damn. Are you sick? Breathe through it. Nostrils then mouth. It will pass,” Pepper leaned in and whispered.

He did as she suggested. He called on the force of his beast but the sudden wave of pain thickened the veil that separated their connection.

Dammit.

“Having troubles shifting, bro?”

“Looks like your plan worked, Brax.”

A voice came up behind him and he angled sideways in time to see beefy hands wrap around Pepper’s arms. A man who looked way too similar to Brax for it to be a coincidence licked a slimy tongue up her cheek while provoking him with a challenging glare.

The world turned red. The thirst for blood flooded Everett’s senses.

Energy crackled through the atmosphere surrounding them as he fell to his haunches. Knuckles deep in the soft ground, he leaned over and every muscle from his shoulders, along his back and down his legs flexed. Fingers molded into claws and biceps contorted. Bones elongated, fur replaced human skin. All in a matter of seconds.

Claws slashed and he craved more of the coppery warm liquid. He struggled to hold his bear steady. Whatever Pepper had given him wore off the second his bear ripped through.

Raw, heavy pants tore from him. Revenge ate the last of any coherent thought and drove him up to his hind legs. With a bellowing roar, he released the full power of his grizzly. Like machetes through butter, claws tore through the flesh of the man who dared touch his mate. Drops quenched the thirst of the earth at their feet.

“Everett. No. You can’t kill him.”

Petite hands sank into his fur and pulled. He shook them off.
Yes.

Pale blue eyes narrowed on him and seconds later the white bear charged.

Yes. He could. And he would.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Everett let out a gruff warning growl and reared to his hind legs. The brute that held her from behind let out a loud whoop that deafened her right ear. She flinched and angled her body just so to avoid the slimy kiss the bastard wanted to plant on her cheek and who knew where else. He smelled of dirt and at least three days’ worth of grime. From the dingy white shirt all five shifters seemed to favor to the mucked up jeans, she’d say they all took their animals to heart and preferred living like one too.

The abrasive wind laced with the poison Brax dumped grated on their senses. She could tell because the guy with python-like strength growled through the pain as he damn near shattered her ribcage in the process until the wind subsided.

Irony at its best.

Every word the beefy-handed guy uttered drove a nail in his fate. Too bad he didn’t understand sooner.

Tremors rumbled across the ground. Claws dug into the earth. Chunks of dirt flew through the air and pelted nearby trees. Fierce power drove Everett’s bear forward. Fear locked her knees. At the last second she dodged to the left while he swiped from the right.

Before she could blink, the man who dared touch her lay at her feet bloody and gasping for air.

Everett reared back.

“Stop! Everett. Listen to me.”

A grizzly almost three times her size pounded the ground, throwing his head back with his lips peeled back from his teeth.

Amazing. Her senses inked in a trickle of fear from the lethal predator a mere foot from her.

Her five-six frame brought her to eye level with Everett’s grizzly and his large brown eyes glinted with raging anger.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” She held her hands up. The closer he drew to her, the higher her adrenaline kicked up. Because every second he had his back turned the ice bears used to close in on them and narrowed any chance to make a break for it. In unison they turned back to back. While Everett probably fought all the time, this was only her second time kicking real ass. Deep, deeper than she could ever remember digging, she searched for the power and nerves of steel she would need to face their enemy.

The bear with the permanent lopsided grin on his face threw his hands out with another brother in the wings.

“Boo.”

She momentarily flinched back then narrowed her eyes. “Okay, Ev,” she uttered over her shoulder, her eyes never leaving the douche and his ugly ass, smirking sidekick. “We’ve got ’em right where we want them.” She swayed on the heels of her waders in a sumo pose. Her brothers once underestimated her. Then she proceeded to put one in a choke hold and break the other’s arm. They were eighteen at the time while she was a twelve-year-old sister with a point to prove. Like now.

Sure, Pep. Sure.

These fools only saw a girl when they looked at her. Human and weak. Their bad.

Five—no, make that four now—against two didn’t balance the odds in their favor but if Everett could take two more, she could hold off the other two while he caught his breath to finish the job.

Her throat grew dry, but she stood her ground. “You think you’re all tough, huh?” She bet they did. And they were. Taunting them probably wasn’t the best idea.

“Damn, look at him. He’s big, but not big enough. When our brother kills your grizzly, what do you say about taking a new mate, sweetheart?” The other ice bear who stood off to the side and apparently happy to let his brother take on the poor human spoke up for the first time.

As if! “Really, you already have one brother on the ground bleeding out. I think Everett’s plenty big enough.” She’d rather die alongside Everett than be touched by these cretins. “And you’ll be there with him soon.” Her brothers would be slapping their foreheads and telling her to keep her mouth shut.

She didn’t operate that way.

Behind her she heard the audible crack when Brax nailed Everett in the jaw, taking them both down to the ground. She lost sight of the third brother, but Everett would have to handle him on his own.

Over three tons of bear rolled behind her from side to side. Bones cracked. Trees shook and for a second it sounded like the whole forest would come down on their heads.

Lopsided-grin dude got the bright idea of lunging for her. Fat fingers got a death grip on her upper arms, and she used his chunky weight against him. Using the solid toe of her boot, she hauled back and poured all her might into a front kick that would make any Kung Fu master proud.

Crack.

She cringed and shoved down the churning butterflies gnawing at her insides. “Oh, that hurt even me.” For all of three seconds he released his hold. It was all she needed.

Tucking her chest in, she rolled forward, pulled her pistol and aimed between the two.

“Whoa there, girl.”

Girl, my ass.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Both twitched under her gaze.

“A man’s arrogance is his downfall.” Sunlight glinted off glass. Damn. She blinked a couple of times and made a mental note to never ever forget her contacts again.

Everything had a fuzzy tinge to it. She squeezed back on the trigger, gaze steady.

Crimson blossomed from the guy closest to her, his shoulder drooped and the bright liquid of his blood soaked through. The cloth plastered to his shoulder to trail down his arm and drip into the parched forest floor.

What do you know? Shooting asshat, murdering would-bes wasn’t all that hard after all.

“Stop right there.”

She took aim. The fidgety brother who rocked between his wounded sibling and the other one getting his ass kicked seemed to struggle with whether or not to heed the crazy lady’s words. The other one Everett had taken out with a single swipe, all but forgotten, groaned a croaky gurgle.

She moved to where she had them both in her line of sight. “You can hightail it or get a matching slug. I’m not such a good aim without my glasses. Your brother was lucky. So the next one might end up between your eyes or take off your tiny pecker.” She squinted an eye and cocked the hammer.

Both men’s lips peeled back to reveal sharp, elongated incisors. For being shot, the one on the ground sure had some balls. Their eyes morphed from pale blue to ghostly white.
That’s new.
Brax’s was nothing like these three.

Muscles bunched and contoured and strained the confines of their clothes. “Do it and you’ll be dead before you can sprout a fluffy tail.” Anger buried deep roots in her gut. She pushed to her knees, her aim dead center on the idiot that wanted to push her limits.

With a pull on the feather-light trigger, another round fired off close enough to bashful brother’s head to make his eyes nearly pop out of his head. “That’s right; don’t test the crazy-ass lady with the gun.”

“I’m going to kill you. Fuck that bastard bear, Brax. You’re gonna die, human bitch.”

“Try it and you won’t make it two feet before your throat is fertilizing the ground, ice bear.”

Low and full of malicious intent, a deep, slow voice broke through the tension and every muscle in her body wanted to freaking weep with relief.

To her left where the ground crested over a ridge, two silhouettes weaved through the trees before she could make out solid details. Morning light had yet to touch that end of the woods. But she didn’t need supernatural senses or to see them to know all hell was about to break loose and the Wyldes would be the ones dishing the mandatory ass whooping.

There wouldn’t be a day in her life she didn’t recognize that unique chiseled jaw and golden, piercing eyes of the Wylde den crew. A third man slowly walked up to stand by the shorter of the two brothers. His eyes simmered with a similar hue of amber but not as intense. Shifter, maybe not a werebear?

Who cared? Her heart jumped for joy, but she didn’t dare let her finger off the trigger. She had four more rounds ready to pop a cap in anyone’s ass that came too close. Humans normally didn’t survive a fight with a shifter, which was similar to ‘don’t put blood in the water when swimming in the ocean.’
Another day Pepper Cambridge defied the laws of nature.

“Pepper, you okay? The tallest of the three called out to her, his head low and his eyes leveled on the intruders of the Wylde territory.

She nodded.

“What are you kneeling for? Were you praying?”

“Maybe.” She answered Rone with a shrug, still aimed at the enemy. “Actually, yeah. I was kissing my ass goodbye. But thank God the cavalry showed up.” That had Everett’s two brothers smiling. If you could call the Wylde brothers’ single-sided grins smiling.

“Yes, ma’am.”

One second all three men stood shoulder to shoulder, and in the next three grizzlies went head to head with the three ice bears holding their own no matter how bad it pained her to admit it. The one she shot shifted, as if she never injured him and the one with the claw marks across his throat hauled himself to his haunches and shifted while watching her with the creepiest damn stare. As though he had her on his kill list.

So not a good feeling.

Murder shone in their eyes and each one wanted blood. How the hell did she end up in this position? Adventure. Right. Now she remembered. Her brothers said it would be fun.

Where did that leave the fourth ice bear? Mounds of fur pitted this way and that. White on top, then brown dominating.

“Oh shit.” She held her ground, but the closer the fight advanced the more nervous she became. She rounded a tree and narrowly missed a white paw angled at her head before a Wylde brother could stop the hit.

“Low blow. Low blow, dude,” she chastised as she tucked behind yet another tree. They wouldn’t stop coming. Splinters broke off and shattered, catching her in the face and chest. Guttural roars rocked the silence and her heart hit the ground so many times she didn’t think it would ever recover from the beating it took.

Keep it together, chick! Keep. It. Together.

She hit the floor and rolled as Everett’s bear flew over her.

He stood now with all four paws bracing his massive weight above her. Should she move? What if she took his attention off Brax and he got hurt?

Everett pounded the ground with his paw. What the hell? Had he just challenged him? She craned her neck to the side. Brax stumbled forward but didn’t make it far. Massive claw marks marred his filthy pelt and morphed with his shift back to human. Heat waves rolled off Everett and from what she’d learned from her stay here that meant his shifter had healed.

His brothers quickly followed suit. One by one each ice bear surrendered. Having a grizzly’s mouth or paw wrapped around her throat would have her waving a white flag too.

She had no idea being a shifter brought on so much violence. She thought living in L.A. was wild.

Bones cracked and the bear receded to leave behind the man.

Mercifully, someone smiled down on them. Despite the lethal wounds that would kill a mere human, everyone still drew breath. Even the douche that licked her face. Two of the ice bears held hands to their chests and the one who liked to smile no longer had that smirk on his face. They all looked like they could use a few pints of blood.

“Why.” She blinked between Everett and Brax. Once. Twice.

Everett knelt over her, his naked body bloodied and bruised, yet he refused to leave her side.

“Why, damn you!” He bellowed again. “Answer me!”

He stood, fists clenched as he stalked over to where Brax struggled to regain his breathing. Right before her eyes the gashes tearing through Brax’s side slowly mended. Tethers of magick wove together loose hanging skin until the blood slowed on several of the larger wounds.

“It’s my only way back in. You of all people should know what that means.”

“No. You don’t get an easy pass. You’re nothing like me. There’s not a loyal bone in your treacherous body. We are
nothing
alike!” he roared, lashing out with a solid punch across the face.

“You killed once. Kill me and get it over with.”

What? Her gaze darted between Everett and Brax before moving to the Wylde brothers. But they didn’t offer any answers. They stood sentry over her while keeping the other shifters in check where they laid nursing their own wounds.

“That’s different. You know that. It had nothing to do with you. My father took you in to heal the wounds between our dens and now you turned on us.”