The remaining operatives were reassessing. They’d lost most of their team in under two minutes. The bear had made her job easier. And he was still rampaging.
One of them shouted to retreat. A second climbed into the SUV behind her, reversed hard, and disappeared. The men at the roadblock dragged their wounded into one car and sped away, leaving the dead behind.
Silence fell.
Reed’s bear stood in the middle of the road, sides heaving, head swinging back and forth. Siren approached slowly.
“Reed. It’s over. They’re gone,” she said in a low, soothing voice.
The bear’s head swung toward her. Those black eyes were still wild.
“Reed, come back. You need to shift back. We need to get out of here.”
A low moan. He was in there somewhere, trapped behind the animal’s terror.
“I need you to breathe. Focus on my voice. You’re safe. Shift back now. It’s okay.”
The bear shuddered. Took a step toward her and then another. For a terrible moment she thought he was going to charge and attack her. She thought she was going to have to put down her own mate.
Then his form began to shift. It was ugly and slow. His body fighting itself, caught between forms. She watched fur recede and bones reshape and heard him making sounds that weren’t quite human and weren’t quite animal.
When it was done, Reed was on his hands and knees on the asphalt. Naked and shaking and covered in sweat. He looked up at her with horror in his eyes.
“I didn’t… I couldn’t…”
“I know,” she said, crouching down to touch his back.
She quickly moved to the SUV, grabbed the folded blanket from the back seat, and draped it over Reed’s shoulders.
“I tried to stop it.” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t...”
“What matters is that you’re safe,” she said, helping him to his feet.
He looked around at the bodies on the ground, at the blood, and then at her arm.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, helping him into the passenger seat.
“You’re bleeding.”
She glanced down at her sleeve. It was soaked through now, blood dripping off her fingertips. She’d been ignoring it. It was easy to ignore pain when there was work to do.
“It’s just a graze,” she said. “I’ll deal with it.”
She pulled the first aid kit from her cargo area, pulled off her leather jacket, and then rolled up the sleeve of her T-shirt. The furrow in her shoulder was ugly but shallow. She cleaned it with antiseptic wipes and wrapped it in gauze.
She closed the hatch of the SUV and got behind the wheel, quickly righting the vehicle on the road. Reed watched her, still wrapped in the blanket, pale like he had lost several pints of blood. He was shaking from shock. She pulled around the bodies on the road and accelerated into the mountains.
Blood was seeping through the bandage on her arm, but she ignored it. She needed to drive somewhere safe. She couldn’t go to the safe house—it had obviously been compromised.
Reed was quiet in the passenger seat. He’d seen what she was, what she was capable of. And there was no going back now.
Chapter
Eight
Siren had been drivingfor forty minutes since the ambush. Winding through mountain roads that doubled back and forth through the thick forest. She watched her mirrors for a tail, but there was no sign of pursuit. She came to the conclusion that they were clear for now.
