Page 17 of Bad Blood Bear

“And anyway,” he added, “it was a good thing. Otherwise you’d still be in jail.”

“All right, well, thank Jiminy for me,” she said. “But I’m okay now.”

She was about to bolt—he could tell. He recognized the look on her face. Hell, every other shifter in his crew had it.

The one that said she was all alone, and she couldn’t afford to be dependent on people. She had to rely on herself to survive.

Only this time, if she didn’t let someone help her, she wouldn’t survive.

“Dammit!” he snapped. “You’re not okay. Why the fuck won’t you just let me help you? You sure as shit need it—more than you probably even realize.”

Lissa’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need anybody’s help,” she said. “And I don’t need some great big Incredible Hulk deciding I can’t survive on my own. I’ve handled that since I was sixteen, thank you very much. So you,” she pointed her finger at him, “don’t get to decide what I need. Even if you did bail me out of jail. Which I didn’t ask for, so I don’t owe you shit, Mr. I-helped-you-and-now-I-own-you. You don’t.”

Tank stepped in and took her by the upper arms. “You have no choice,” he said. “You can’t be on your own—”

“Hey!” she said, trying to pull away. Her eyes flashed red-gold, and then returned to their normal blue, but they were glazed over, as if she didn’t know where she was anymore. She swayed on her feet, and Tank caught her just before she fell.

Shit, this was all about to go sideways.

He opened the truck door and bundled her inside, buckling her into the passenger seat. She was emanating little growls, which would have been cute as hell if it didn’t mean there was an animal trapped inside her, trying to fight its way out.

Tank ran around and jumped in the driver’s seat, and roared out of the parking lot as fast as he dared.