Page 8 of Bad Blood Bear

Chapter 4

She doesn’t need me. She doesn’t need me.

Tank repeated it over and over to himself as he drove his truck back to the compound, panting and struggling to contain his bear. His human half wanted to run away, and his bear wanted to take over and drive him right back to Lissa. The crazy woman who’d threatened to kill him. Fuck.

I’ll hurt her. Or she’ll hurt me. Just leave her be.

She doesn’t need me.

The words tore at his insides.

That was the worst part about his life now. There wasn’t anybody left who needed him, who leaned on him, who he could provide for and take care of. Most male grizzlies were hard workers and hard partiers—they mated late or not at all. Tank was different. His bear was a natural Protector, even though he’d never filled that role in his home clan. He and Angie had been a clan of two. They’d bonded young, and he’d not only adored her, he’d loved being mated.

He’d loved having someone to come home to, someone to look after and make happy. He’d lived for Angie’s smiles, her bubbling laughter, her delight in the smallest gift or thoughtful gesture. Losing her had ripped out his heart and left his soul slowly bleeding to death.

All the torment he suffered after that was only what he deserved, for not keeping her safe.

He’d tried to squash that part of himself, the part that fucking cared so much. It had betrayed him too many times. Angie was dead and he was broken, and why the fuck couldn’t he learn his lesson? He’d let one more helpless-looking female draw him in and then attack. Of course she didn’t need him. Trying to help strangers only led to pain.

When would he ever learn?

Tank turned his truck off the main road and bumped down the dirt track that led to the compound he shared with the other shifters who’d escaped Alexander Grant’s chamber of horrors.

He still wasn’t used to being part of a crew—if that’s even what you could call this accidental collection of fucked-up misfits. They hadn’t come together through choice, or through a shared profession like the crews who did security, or worked as lumberjacks or on oil rigs. The only thing they had in common was that they’d all been captured by Alexander Fucking Grant’s shifter hunters and kept in his underground bunker to be tortured and experimented on by the Professor, his demented pet scientist.

When they broke out, most of them had scattered. Some had people they could go back to; some just wanted to get as far away from Grant’s hellhole as possible. Some were too far gone into the land of crazy to survive; they’d killed each other, or been caught and put down by the Shifter Council’s Enforcers.

Or by Tank and his friend Flynn.

It was a mercy, Tank knew—and a necessary part of life as a shifter. Any shifter that posed a danger to the community or to humans was a danger to them all. If they weren’t sane enough to hide their nature, then they risked shifters being outed to the general public.

Something that could not be allowed to happen.

It was bad enough when a few of the wrong people knew they existed. It led to exactly what had happened to all of them—being hunted by humans, as trophies or science experiments.

If they were ever outed for real…

Tank’s bear started to growl, started to fight his way out of Tank’s skin. Thinking too much about what he’d been through and what he’d lost always set his bear off. It was like his animal had taken on all the pain of what happened to them, so that all the hideous, monstrous memories turned his bear into a monster too.

It hadn’t been this bad in a long time. His bear was angry—angry at being attacked by Lissa, angry Tank had made him leave her. He was snapping and snarling and busting to get out and bleed someone.

Their compound was a cleared area in the forest, centered around Alexander Grant’s former hunting cabin, only ten miles away from the bunker where he’d held them all prisoner.

Some days Tank thought about how fucked up it was, staying here so close to the place that held so many nightmares for all of them.

And yet, why the hell not? Living in one of Grant’s former homes and enjoying his possessions while he rotted in jail on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping and human trafficking was a particularly satisfying form of justice—almost as satisfying as killing the fucker would have been.

The fact that they actually owned it now was even better.

But a cabin and a territory sure as hell didn’t make a crew. He didn’t know if this group could ever pull together the way a crew should.

Tank pulled the truck into the compound and parked it, fighting the urge to Change. He wished like hell he could just be normal again—go to work, come home, eat dinner, down a few beers. Make love to his mate.

Change into bear form once or twice a week, amble through the woods with his mate by his side, exploring and just enjoying his animal nature with someone he loved.

Not this simmering anger that sprouted teeth and claws, and wanted to bleed something.

Only the taste of blood seemed to satisfy him. It was like having a demon inside, one that could burst out without warning and turn him into something he hated.