The gun went off with a deafening crack, the bullet disappearing into the wilderness. But it didn’t matter. The bear was on him, tearing into him with savage fury. Blood sprayed across the snow as it clawed and mauled, ripping through Bradford’s screams until they stopped altogether.
I stood frozen, unable to move, unable to breathe, as the bear raised its massive head. Its maw dripped with blood, the crimson stark against its snowy fur. Those icy-blue eyes—Mak’s eyes—locked onto mine, filled with something feral and primal.
It rose onto its hind legs, towering over me like a creature ripped from legend. Ten feet of muscle, fur, and raw power, its shadow swallowed me whole, blotting out the weak sunlight and the rest of the world. The air felt charged, thick with an energy I couldn’t name. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my legs refused to obey.
The bear let out a terrifying roar, the sound rumbling and reverberating like an avalanche crashing down the surrounding mountains. My heart pounded as I watched the white beast's massive chest heave, blood flecking its fur with each ragged breath.
Then it shuddered. Once. Twice. The powerful frame rippled like water, shifting, shrinking, reforming. Bones cracked, fur receded, and Mak stood before me.
Not the polar bear, but the man. A massive, blood-streaked man. His chest heaved in the aftermath of the shift, and his ice-blue eyes continued to burn with feral intensity. As he looked straight at me. I wasn’t sure if I should feel safer—or more terrified.
I soon got my answer.
“Run,” Mak said, his voice rough and commanding.
His chest rose, and his eyes blazed with something wild, barely restrained.
“You’ve got to run. Now.”
“But—” My voice wavered, caught between confusion and fear.
“Noelle!” he growled, the sound sharp enough to slice through the frozen air. “I just killed for you. My bear…” His voice broke, low and guttural. “I won’t be able to stop it. If you stay, I’ll claim you. I’ll bite you. I can’t?—”
He cut himself off, shaking his head violently. “Just go! Please…”
He was trembling, every muscle in his body taut with the effort of holding himself back. “Please,” he repeated, his tone falling into a desperate whisper. “Run.”
noelle
. . .
"Run!"
Mak held his massive frame taut, holding back an invisible dam inside of his body. That was about to burst. Tears of exertion trailed down his rough-hewn face. “I don’t think I can keep my bear from claiming you—bond biting you against your wishes. I’m trying, Noelle, but you’ve got to run!”
He was right.
Without another moment’s hesitation, I ran.
Toward him.
I launched myself at Mak, climbing him like a tree trunk, my arms wrapping tightly around his neck. His eyes widened in shock, and before I could second-guess what I was doing, sharpened teeth I didn’t even know I had sank into the soft, vulnerable flesh where his neck met his collarbone.
The world stopped.
A surge of primal energy coursed through me, electrifying every nerve. The sensation was raw, untamed, and strangely beautiful. My bear roared in total approval, guiding me as the universe seemed to collapse into this one moment—this one bite.
Mak froze beneath me, his breath catching—just before his massive frame shook with one earthquake of a shudder.
Then, two voices roared through my mind like a thunderclap, a stereo echo that shook me to my core.“She chose us.”
The words reverberated through my body, carrying with them Mak’s shock, his awe—and the undeniable power of two bears reacting as one.
One moment, I knew Mak the least of the three males who’d rescued me, and the next, I knew him best.
Through the bond, his jagged past unfolded before me. I felt his shame, carved deep by his father’s actions—a lone bear who had forced his way into his mother’s maul with a bond bite she hadn’t chosen. That unworthiness had been etched even deeper when his mother and the two fathers she’d handpicked had no choice but to cast Mak’s dad out.
I felt Mak’s clashing desires and insecurities about forming a maul when Ash asked him to triple up with him and Cody—followed by his quiet determination to be a worthy First Maul to them while leading his tribe, a job he still believed should have gone to his full Ayaska brother.
