Stunned silence.
Then a slow grin spread across Callum’s face. “Nowthat’sthe attitude I want to see—oh hell, here comes the bus.”
Brenda tooted the horn as she rolled past in her big empty shuttle, headed down the two-lane road to pick up more locals hoping for a free morning ride to Barrington.
“That means she’s already been dropped off.” Callum let out a growl that was fifty percent frustration and fifty percent worry. “She’s in the wind.”
Because of me.
For the millionth time since we failed to catch up with our mate before the shuttle pulled away, I cursed myself for blurting out that question about stalking and making her run.
“Not in the wind,” I insisted to Callum, nonetheless. “She doesn’t have her suitcase or the backpack with her phone. And the human bus from Vancouver doesn’t get here for another couple hours. So she’s stuck at Barrington’s until we come to get her.”
My reasoning made sense. Still, I pressed Twinkerbell’s gas pedal to the floor, ignoring the posted limit and anti-speeding signs to careen down the road. The fear in my chest eased just a little when I saw the sign for Barrington’s in the distance.
Only to seize again when I saw the scene playing out in front of the pumps when we pulled into the lot. A huge red bear tackling an Iron Claw to the ground.
“Holy shit! Is that Gid?” Callum said beside me. “What’s he doing?”
The answer did not loosen the knot in my stomach as we sped through the parking lot toward the scene.
But not fast enough. Gideon killed the Iron Claw before we could get there, with two cold, intentional swipes of his heavy paw, then roared after the biker who fled before turning his sights on our vulnerable human mate.
In a blood-slick flash, the unredacted report I’d ordered on him three and a half years ago from an old buddy still working at the CSE flickered through my mind.
Gideon had been a highly valued asset with a specialty in explosives—close-quarters sabotage, bridge collapses, and tunnel traps. Basically Bob the anti-Builder black ops.
Until he discovered his commander had deliberately sacrificed a Canadian humanitarian unit to cover up a botched weapons exchange with American defense contractors in a Middle Eastern country where we weren’t even supposed to be. That commander was dead now. Along with two of the cleanup team sent in to neutralize Gideon and contain the story.
I’d seen the pictures. Knew what his bear was capable of. And decided he could be useful for political “influencing” missions that required plausible deniability—and a complete lack of conscience, as long as no innocents were involved.
He kept himself sealed tight inside the identity of one of the Red Outsider Twins. In fact, he masked so well that if not for the flat, numbed-out silence radiating from his side of our shared bond bite—as opposed to Callum’s free-flowing emotional channel—I wouldn’t be able to tell the two of them apart.
How many times had I thought to myself that he and sweetiebird would get along?
It hadn’t occurred to me that he could hurt her in his bear form—until he swung his red head around from the biker back to her.
The doors to Barrington’s were right there. Maybe she could make it.
“Run!” I yelled, bringing the Chevy Spark to a screeching halt in front of them and ripping open the door.
But she only stood there, staring at the beast and his maw full of sharp teeth.
Right before she hugged him.
“Thanks for saving me.” Her voice floated to us as Callum and I jumped out of the tiny car. “I really appreciate it. Please don’t murder me, too.”
My heart nearly gave out. What was she doing? He was going?—
I stopped short when the bear she’d bent down to hug around the neck became a man, his forearms and face splattered with blood as he wrapped her tight in his own embrace.
Only to suddenly draw back to cup her face in both of his hands. “Baby, did I scare you?” His eyes scanned her face, as if upsetting her worried him more than the now faceless dead biker at his feet. Or the crowd of open-mouth Bear Mountains locals, who were staring at the naked, bloodied male with his arms wrapped around a tourist.
“My heart rate is definitely up,” she admitted with a breathy laugh.
He did not laugh back.
“I never—I never wanted you to see me this way. I try…” His voice broke on the last line. “I try to keep him contained. But sometimes I can’t control my bear.”
