She shook her head and offered him an apologetic look when his face crumpled. His green eyes slid towards the woods, a flicker of fear in them that ran through her too.
“I know how you feel, Cooper.” She kept her tone calm, gentle, trying to show him that she was on his side but convince him that he needed to listen to her at the same time. “The fire does look safe, but that bear killed Patrick and it’s probably going to come back to—”
“Don’t say it!” Cooper covered his ears and shook his head.
She wouldn’t. Partly because she didn’t want to upset him further and partly because she didn’t want to think about the bear eating someone. It was rare for a bear to kill humans, but once a bear crossed that line and began predating on people, there was no going back for it. If the bear that had killed Patrick had developed a taste for humans, it would be coming back for more.
“It’s not safe here.” She gently stroked his back and leaned forwards so she could see his face when he looked down at his knees and curled over. “I’ll keep my bear spray on hand and we’ll make plenty of noise so the bear will stay away from us.”
“We were making plenty of noise!” Cooper snapped and shoved upright, knocking her hand away. “We were talking and the bear still… it—”
“Oh, man the fuck up,” Wade growled and grabbed the red pack and shoved it at Cooper. “Boss says we’re moving, so we’re moving. Got it? I am not hanging around here. You want to stay, go ahead.”
He came to her and grabbed her arm before she could do anything, hauled her onto her feet and pushed her towards Karl.
“You can stay here alone,” Wade spat at Cooper.
Cooper was quick to stand and slip his arms into the straps of his backpack. “Wait up.”
“My pack and the bear spray.” Skye pointed to it and regretted it when Wade was the one who retrieved it for her.
He came to her, that predator’s smile in place as he twisted the backpack in his hands and held it up at shoulder height to her. She tried to take it but he drew it away from her, chastised her with a shake of his head. Nerves trickled through her veins and she had to pull down a breath as she mustered her courage. She scowled at him, making it clear she wasn’t happy about what he was doing.
She doubted he cared.
She turned and slipped her arms into the straps of her pack, just about held her nerve when he lifted and smoothed the straps over her shoulders. When he brushed his fingers across the nape of her neck, she turned on him. Glared up into his eyes.
Skye backed away from him, keeping an eye on him. “My bear spray.”
She held her hand out to him.
Karl stepped past her and took it from Wade. “I’ll keep that.”
She scowled at him, because hitting the men with a dose of the pepper spray and running had started sounding like a good plan. Instead of kicking up a fuss, she huffed and pivoted away from him, wrapped her arms around herself and walked a few feet towards the trees.
Her gaze caught on Patrick’s rifle where it leaned against the log.
Wade was quick to come and snatch it up, to move it away from her reach by slinging it over his shoulder. He gave her a black look as he passed her, his dark eyebrows knitted hard and his lips compressed into a thin line. She didn’t avert her gaze. She stared at him, letting him see that she had been thinking about grabbing the rifle and using it to blast a hole in him.
“Let’s move.” Karl jerked his head towards the trees.
Skye reached around and grabbed her flashlight from the side of her pack and clicked the button. She stepped up to Karl and motioned towards the forest with the beam.
“We should head around where the bear… Just in case.” She started towards the left side of the clearing, away from the direction the bear had run and where Patrick had gone.
Karl followed her, his own flashlight cutting through the darkness.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Miss Callaghan.”
She slowly tensed as his deep voice rolled over her, a dark edge to it.
She glanced back at him and met his gaze.
His eyes were darker than ever.
“You even think about going for one of the guns… or leading us towards that bear… and our business relationship is going to reach an abrupt end.”
The glacial look in his eyes told her what he meant by that.
One wrong move and he was going to kill her.
Chapter 10
Knox growled as he scrubbed snow over his hands and face, using it to clean the blood away. He paced between the trees, trying to work off some of his energy, some of his rage. On a vicious snarl, he turned and slammed his right fist into the thick trunk of a pine, stood there breathing hard and as still as a statue as fury blazed through him, refusing to abate.
Godsdammit.
He had been so close.
He drew his fist back and struck the tree again, close to roaring now, not feeling the pain that ricocheted up his arm or the cold as he stood naked in the forest.
Cooper had looked ready to piss himself and Knox had been sure he could take the male down, freeing Skye.
And then the Texan had pulled himself together and fired the rifle, giving Knox no choice but to retreat to avoid being shot. He was no use to Skye injured.
Gods. He scrubbed his aching hand down his face. He wasn’t sure he was any use to her uninjured either. He should have been able to get her away from the males, should have kept his head and picked them off one by one as they panicked. Instead, he had made a beeline for her, leaving two men at his back who could have shot him, and coming dangerously close to being shot by the third because he had charged at him across open ground.
Knox gritted his teeth and growled through them. He flung his head back as frustration and rage got the better of him, every muscle in his body tensing as he unleashed another growl, this one loud enough that several roosting birds in the trees around him flew off into the night in panic.
He shoved away from the tree and paced again, breathing hard as he fought to calm himself. His bear side roared impatiently within him, a snarling and seething beast that urged him to find Skye. His female needed him. He couldn’t. Not yet. He needed a few more minutes to rein his instincts back under control, to shut down the wild, reckless side of him that wanted to listen to his primal need to protect her. If he didn’t get it under control, he was liable to do something stupid.
Like charging across open ground at an armed male.
He grimaced and paced harder, anger at how that male had treated Skye, stopping her from escaping and hurling her to the ground, replaced with anger directed at himself. He ran both of his hands through his hair and held his head as he walked back and forth, taking agitated strides between two fir trees. He should have held it together and stuck to the plan. Take out the solo male and then take advantage of the panic his death caused to divide and conquer his enemy.
Knox twisted and sank against a tree, the bark rough against his bare back. He exhaled hard. Cursed again.
He wasn’t going to get another chance like that.
They were going to be more careful now.
He would have to find another way to get Skye away from them.
He pulled down a deep breath and then another, calming his racing heart, purging the fury that burned like fire in his blood. With each breath he managed, his mind slowly cleared and his bear side gradually settled as his thoughts turned from how he had failed Skye to how he was going to save her. He would save her.
There had to be a way.
One that wouldn’t get them both killed.
He pushed away from the tree, strode to his clothes and tugged them on as he channelled his inner-Lowe. His twin would have been proud of him as he considered all the angles, ran through every scenario and tried to come up with a plan.
Tried being the operative word.
Knox finished tying his boots as his thoughts turned to his brother. He hoped Lowe and Cameo were both all right. He pu
shed to his feet and hurried towards the camp, his senses stretching out around him to locate Skye. Lowe had been injured when Knox had left him, part of the reason he had decided to be the one to deal with Karl and his men in order to protect Cameo. The thought of his brother out here, already wounded and trying to take down Karl turned his stomach and filled him with a burning need to deal with the male as soon as possible.
He knew Lowe.
As soon as he was able, Lowe would be coming to find him. His twin always had been a worrier.
Knox had this though.
He did.
He slowed his pace when he detected movement at the edges of his senses and eased forwards through the trees, using them as cover as he closed the distance between him and what he had felt. Skye’s scent swirled around him, faint on the chilly night air but growing stronger as he approached the signatures he had picked up. It had to be her.
He slipped through the shadows, peering ahead of him into the darkness, relief swift to roll through him as he saw flashlights cutting through the gloom and Skye’s scent grew stronger still. Shadowy figures appeared in the forest as he closed in on her and he eased back a few feet, until he could just about make them out. At this distance, they wouldn’t be able to see him. His heightened vision revealed them to him without the need for a light. He tugged the hood of his black jacket up just in case anyway, covering his head, and tracked them.
They were moving slowly. Cautiously. Knox figured it wasn’t only because of the darkness. All of them had looked tired before he had made the decision to attack Patrick and he had panicked them too. Regular fatigue and that caused by the drop in adrenaline was probably combining to make them all more tired than they had been before, slowing them down as their bodies and minds struggled to keep going.
Knox tailed them, still trying to come up with a plan. There had to be a way to get close enough to help Skye without blazing into the middle of the males and placing her in danger.
Or more danger than she was already in, anyway.
He scoped out the area they were passing through and relief was swift to sweep through him when he realised they had passed Black Ridge in the dark. His brother and his pride were safe then. Gods, that was a load off his shoulders. He just had to hope that Skye kept heading north towards the glacier, keeping his kin safe and giving him time to find a way to save her.
They suddenly stopped and Knox eased closer, curious as to why they had come to an abrupt halt. Cooper and Wade headed down the slope a little and then stopped, and turned slightly away from each other. Wade relieved himself against a tree while Cooper moved a few steps further from him and picked a bush.
Knox slid his gaze back towards Karl and Skye. She sank against a tree, facing towards him. Her sigh said what he could already feel in her. She was tired and worn down, on edge still.
The urge to go to her and hold her rushed through him again. He planted his right hand against the nearest tree and dug his emerging claws into the thick bark, anchoring himself to deny that need.
How different would things have been if he’d had the balls to see her again?
Seeing Lowe with Cameo had opened up the wound in his chest that had been festering for the last two years, poisoning his mind. Plenty of bear shifters found their mates in humans just like his brother had—just like Knox had—but it was different for him.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe all bear males who were given a mortal fated female worried as much as he had over the last couple of years.
He knew how strong he was, had never been more aware of it than he was whenever he was near Skye, and he knew how rough he could be. He wasn’t gentle like his brother. Lowe was level-headed and calm, rolled with things and didn’t let them bother him. Knox wasn’t like that. He hated to admit it, but he was quick to anger, had a temper that sparked at the slightest thing, and he was far more aggressive than his brother.
Lowe had been given all the good parts of their parents.
Knox had been given all the bad ones.
When his mood took a dark turn and anger seized hold of him, he had a bad tendency to lash out at others, both physically and verbally. The thought of Skye in the firing line of that side of him turned his stomach and had him wanting to take a step back from her.
She was too good for him.
He only had to look at her to know it.
He had seen her hold her own in a brawl and had seen her lay down the law with men twice her size, but she was kind and gentle too, had a big, warm heart that hadn’t deserved to get a dent put in it by him.
Hell, maybe the fact she was too good for him wasn’t the real reason he had never gone to see her.
Maybe he was just scared.
Scared that she wouldn’t want him.
That she would never consent to step into his world and be his mate.
Maybe it had felt easier, and less painful, to keep his distance from her and carry on with his life.
Maybe he really needed to stop thinking maybe and admit to himself that it had been all those things and more that had kept him from going back to see her.
He wasn’t strong. He wasn’t brash and reckless. He wasn’t himself. Not where she was concerned. She had a terrible way of stripping all of that away from him, leaving him weak and vulnerable, afraid to make a move because he feared she would never want him.
“Gods,” he uttered and sank forwards, resting his head against his forearm as he pressed it to the trunk of the tree. “I’m pathetic.”
Or maybe he was just a bear in love.
In love and terrified that if he admitted it to her, if he found the courage to take the leap, that things wouldn’t turn out the way they had for Lowe.
Terrified that the happily forever after some secret part of him had been dreaming of from the moment he had set eyes on Skye would be denied him.
He would never know if he didn’t try. Then again, did he want to know? Not when the greater part of him kept saying she would reject him. No. If he kept things as they were, then there was hope, a tiny seed of it that kept him going. If he didn’t stride right up to her and tell her that he was crazy about her, that he loved her and wanted her as his mate, needed her to take an incredible leap and step into his world, then she couldn’t reject him. He could carry on as he was, as a whole male, not the broken shell of one he would be if she turned him down.
Gods, Lowe would laugh at him if he were here. His brother would tell him to take the leap, to risk it all for the sake of love, and trust in fate. Destiny had made Skye for him, sure, but that didn’t mean she would want a bond with him. That didn’t mean she loved him.
Knox was starting to wish that just one of the thousand times he had wanted to tell Lowe about her and what he had done, that he had found the courage to go through with it.
Lowe had always been able to talk him down when he was spiralling, working himself tighter and tighter. He was sure his twin would have talked him down about Skye too, would have made him see that she was worth the risk and that love conquered all.
Or some bullshit like it.
His brother would have given him the courage he badly needed.
“How much further is it?” Karl’s voice drifted through the waning darkness.
Skye eased away from the tree and peered up. Knox looked over his shoulder at the lightening sky too, trying to see what she was looking at, but the trees where he was were too closely packed together for him to make out anything.
As Knox looked back at Karl and caught him looking at the sky too, his features slowly hardening, he got a sinking feeling that she was running out of time. They would be on to her ruse soon and would know she was leading them nowhere.
“Maybe a mile more.” She sounded bright as she glanced at Karl, as if she was relieved, but she didn’t feel it to Knox. She felt scared. Suddenly more nervous than before. She gave Karl a half-smile.
“How do you know where this cabin is?” Karl frowned at her.
Cab
in?
Knox’s eyes widened as he remembered something and realised she wasn’t leading the men nowhere—she was leading them somewhere. He had forgotten all about the old hunter’s lodge up in the valley. He hadn’t been up that way in years, not since the human male who had frequented it had stopped coming each summer. The cabin was small, hidden among the trees on this side of the valley, closer to the base of one of the largest peaks.
“This valley seems dead to me. I doubt anyone could live here.” Wade rounded a tree to Skye’s left and Knox wanted to growl when she jumped and twisted towards him, her hand coming up to her chest.
A chest the bastard dropped his gaze towards as he smiled at her.
Knox barely stopped himself from bursting from the trees to beat the crap out of the male, shut down that urge when Wade checked his assault rifle over.
“It’s winter.” Skye’s tone was firm, had Knox smiling himself as he remembered her speaking to some of the men in the bar like that, subtly laying down the law and showing them who was boss. “In summer, it’s a different picture. Hunters come here all the time.”
They didn’t.
The odd group of teenagers came up the valley, mostly young males trying to impress females, and the occasional serious hunter looking to bag himself a moose, but for the most part, the locals avoided the valley.
And with good reason.
Knox and his pride didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for anyone who dared to set foot in their territory.
“The cabin belonged to an old friend of the family.” Skye adjusted the strap of her dark green pack and sighed as a wistful look crossed her beautiful face. “He died a few years back, but his kids and grandkids use it now.”
They didn’t.
What she said explained why he hadn’t seen the male for a while now, and had that feeling stirring inside him again, the one that made him deeply aware of how fragile humans were and how short their lives could be. Here he was pushing one hundred and thirty and with potentially a good few hundred years more ahead of him, and Skye had to be closing in on forty, was reaching the halfway point in her life.
Saved by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 3) Page 8
