I ran to the tree line. If I made it before he got up, I had a chance. The sound of a gun hammer being cocked was loud in my ears.
“Stay where you are.” Vince’s voice was hard.
I turned slowly, hands raised. He was holding a handgun and pointing it directly at me. My brain scrambled for any way to keep him from pulling the trigger. But when my eyes met his, I knew I was out of options. Still, I refused to give up.
“Vince, please. Let me go. For Aaron.”
His eyes flickered, but his face was like granite. “You were supposed to be mine.” He tilted his head as a calm expression came over him. “If I can’t have you, neither can he.”
The forest stilled, and everything moved in slow motion. I watched in horror as his finger twitched and squeezed the trigger. This was it. The end. Mason’s face flashed through my mind. I was going to die with Mason thinking I hated him. And somehow, that broke me more than anything else.
NINE
Mason
Brooke’s cry carried through the woods. I picked up my pace, moving to a run and not letting the ache in my thigh slow me down. A roar followed quickly, coming from the same direction, and I knew I needed to be faster. I shifted, my bear tearing out of me at a speed I didn’t know was possible.
My bear burst into the clearing just in time to see Vince’s finger twitch on the trigger of his gun, and everything slowed down. Brooke was wide-eyed with her hands raised ten feet away from him.
Vince would never miss from that distance. Even if Brooke dove from the path of his first bullet, which was highly unlikely, the second would catch her. My bear’s paws thudded against the muddy ground, his claws digging in for grip.
Regret for not claiming Brooke washed over me. If I’d been honest from the start, she wouldn’t have gone to Vince for answers, and he wouldn’t have a gun pointed at her.
Instead, I’d let my fear and guilt control me. Since Aaron died, I’d gone through the motions of living, but I’d never fully engaged with life. I had pretended to put it behind me, but Iwore it like armor, letting no one get close enough to see the pain inside.
My bear strained to find more speed. He pushed his body to the limit, and the ache in his leg, the mirror to the one in my thigh, threatened to overcome him. But Brooke was his mate, and we would never allow that to stop us.
I hadn’t saved Aaron, though I’d given it everything I had. I refused to fail Brooke. Not today.
With a final, lumbering lunge, my bear threw his body in front of Brooke just in time for the bullet to bury itself in the muscles of his front shoulder. Pain exploded through me, and the bullet drove me sideways toward Brooke, who narrowly jumped back and avoided being crushed.
My bear struggled to stand, but his shoulder couldn’t bear his weight. He bellowed, the sound tearing at my heart. The pain was excruciating, and blood flowed freely from the hole. Brooke kneeled at my side, tears soaking her cheeks as she tried to put pressure on the wound.
I wanted to tell her to run and save herself. She should use this opportunity to escape. My bear nudged her with his head to push her away, but she pushed back. A hero, just like her brother.
Panic edged her voice. “Don’t move, Mason. Let me stop the bleeding.”
Vince laughed, a sound so filled with darkness I almost didn’t recognize him. “This is perfect. Mason will be forced to watch his mate die in front of him, knowing he can’t save her, just like he didn’t save Aaron.”
His head tilted, a thin-lipped smile spreading across his face. “Then, I’ll put a bullet in his bear’s head and leave him here to rot.”
I gathered my strength, willing my bear to ready himself for one last attempt to save Brooke. We would get only one chance.Vince seemed to be enjoying himself. He was drawing it out and torturing me now, but once we made a move, he would get serious quickly.
Vince’s gaze lifted to Brooke, and he waved his gun at her. “Don’t even think of moving, Brooke. There’s nowhere left to run.”
She tensed, her breaths ragged as she continued to press down on the wound. My bear rocked slightly, trying to dislodge her hands. Brooke stilled and held her breath. Then, she carefully slid her hands over my shoulder and away from me, as if she sensed our plan.
When Vince raised his arm to aim at Brooke again, I screamed in my bear’s head.
Move!
With a pained roar, he heaved himself onto his paws and staggered at Vince. My bear’s teeth closed around Vince’s gun hand, bones crunching beneath his powerful jaw, and a blood-curdling scream echoed through the clearing.
The gun fell to the ground just as the wounded leg collapsed under my bear. I felt the metal of the gun beneath us. Away from Vince’s reach.
He stumbled toward my bear’s prone form and dug his good hand into the wound, and an explosion of pain made my vision go white. I vaguely heard my bear’s roar, as if from a distance, blending with Brooke’s scream. The white morphed into black at the edges, the darkness spreading as I felt my mind slipping away.
Brooke’s voice was fuzzy. She was saying something, but I couldn’t make it out. I wished I could hear her voice one last time. I wished I knew she would be safe.
