He grinned, but before he had a chance to respond, a distant sound echoed off the cliffs. His head snapped round, his expression suddenly fatally serious.
"What? What is it?" demanded Lorne, desperately scanning the horizon and trying to figure out what bothered him so much.
"The caves. They're in the caves." He froze stock-still, as if he could hide from them as long as he didn't move too much.
"There're more than one?" Lorne demanded, taking another few paces forward till she could see into the caves.
"Yep. And they're close. Don't get-"
But before he could get the rest of his warning out, Lorne realized that he was right. She could see deep into the cave from this angle, and, stalking around the damp rock, she could make out three, maybe four, wolves.
"Oh, fuck," she breathed, her words immediately whipped away by the wind.
"What is it?" Sam hurried to her side, squinting to make out what she could.
Maybe it was his scent carrying on the wind, or maybe it was just intuition, but all at once, the wolves turned to look up at their spot on the cliff. Lorne's heart jumped into her mouth, her brain was instantly crunching numbers, figuring out how far away they were from the wolves, how fast they could run, how far they could get. One of the wolves took off down the beach, and the other three turned out of the cave and came barreling towards them.
"Fuck, shit, fuck," muttered Sam, and Lorne internally echoed his sentiments. Suddenly, she remembered the gun stashed in her coat, the cold metal pressing against her chest through her shirt. She reached into her jacket, and pulled it out, her heart leaping into her chest as she realized she might actually have to use it.
"Christ, Lorne where the fuck did you get that?" Sam exclaimed with horror.
"Doesn't matter. Will it stop them?" She snapped, lifting the sight to her eye. They had two minutes, maybe three, before the wolves got there.
"Yeah, but-"
"Then get behind me and get ready to run." She snapped, placing her finger on the trigger.
"Let me shift, I can take them-" he pleaded with her, not moving.
"You said yourself that you can't take them all by yourself. I'm not letting you get hurt for nothing, especially not when I've got a gun."
She squinted through the sight on the gun again, and she realized she had one of the wolves perfectly lined up. Taking a breath, she fired, the boom echoed off the cliffs and inside the caves, and Lorne saw a splatter of blood arc out from the wolf's hip, but it kept coming.
"Why isn't it working?" She snapped angrily, more frustrated than scared. They had maybe a minute before the wolves got to them.
"I don't know!" Sam yelled above the wind, stepping in front of Lorne. By then, they could both hear the sound of the wolves' feet thundering on the ground, growing closer, growing faster.
"We need to get out of here," he turned to her urgently.
"They'll catch us, we can't-"
"Not if I take us back."
Before she had a chance to protest any further, Sam collapsed on to his knees. It took Lorne a moment to realize what was happening, but when she did, she felt a cold shiver run up and down her spine that had nothing to do with the wind. He was shifting.
She had seen it before, well, in movies, and a couple of times when she'd been able to get deep into the dark net and find videos of it online. But nothing came close to seeing it in person. The speed, the swiftness, the elegance of it, the way Sam went from strictly human to almost entirely animal in a matter of seconds. His clothes fell to the ground, and she averted her eyes, quickly gathering them and stuffing them in her jacket.
Lorne was still staring at him when the wolves caught up with them; they were only a few feet away when Sam nudged against Lorne until she fell on to his wide back, his rough fur scratching against her skin. Suddenly, she realized what he meant, he would carry her. She quickly scrambled to get a hold in his fur, tucking the shotgun under one arm, and as soon as he felt her hands tighten against him, he took off.
Lorne felt as if the breath had been ripped from her body, she felt primal, hurtling across the cliffs, the rain pelting against her skin and the wind yanking her hair back. She leaned low on to Sam's back, and twisted her head to see behind them, the wolves were still close, and the one in front was quickly gaining on them. Sam's strides were longer, but slower, and the wolf was picking up his pace. Lorne finally got a good look at it for the first time, and saw that it's eyes flashed gold, like Sam's, she felt a bolt of horror through her chest as she realized that they were the same, no matter how much she would have liked to convince herself otherwise.
Turning back round, she saw the hotel in the distance, another minute or two away at the pace they were going at. There was no way they'd be able to hold the wolf off that long. Lorne pressed herself low into his back, feeling the powerful muscles of his body moving underneath her own, and leant close to his ear.
"Come on, Sam," she murmured, "Come on."
Lorne could hear that his breath was coming in long, deep gasps, and she wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up. Suddenly, she heard a snarl. Swiveling around, she saw that the wolf had latched itself on to Sam's hind-quarters.
"Fuck!" she yelled into the wind, as the wolf's eyes flashed up at her. Sam was slowing down, letting out small snorts of pain, as the wolf tightened its jaws. Lorne was temporarily at a loss for what to do, until she remembered the gun under her arm. Maybe bullets didn't work on these animals, but it couldn't argue with the butt of a shotgun.
Grabbing the gun from under her arm, Lorne jabbed the fat handle towards the wolf, landing it right between its eyes. It looked momentarily dazed, but held on, swiping a paw in her direction. She went again, harder this time, and momentarily knocked it lose. The wolf let out a bark that chilled her to her very core, and leapt towards her, it was only a few inches from her face when she managed to lift the gun and jam it with all her might into its teeth. With a loud crack, it slipped off Sam and down to the ground, lying there for a just long enough for Sam to push himself the last few feet towards the hotel. Lorne glanced over her shoulder, and saw the wolf scuttling off back towards the cave.
"Sam!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, directly into his ear. "Sam, it's gone!"
He drew to a halt, and Lorne slipped gratefully from his back, there was a reason, she'd discovered, why people had never attempted to domesticate bears for travel. Within a few seconds, he'd shifted back, and was standing in front of her, stark naked.
"I don't suppose you have my clothes, do you?" he asked politely. She exploded into a fit of giggles-it was probably the adrenalin, but the sight of him standing there, the wind and rain whipping his naked body, was hilarious to her.
"Yeah, I do," she nodded, and reached into her coat. She half-reluctantly handed his clothes back to him, some part of her wanting him to just stay naked. He dressed quickly, and gestured towards the hotel.
"We should probably get inside, we don't know if he might come back with his friends," Sam pulled a face, and Lorne hurried up to the doors.
"Wait, aren't you hurt?" She asked. The wolf had had a pretty firm grip on his haunches, after all.
"I'll be fine," Sam waved her concern away. "Anyway, we need to get in and warn everyone."
"You're right," Lorne nodded. "Dina needs to know that he's back. And he brought his damn pack with him."
Dina was standing in the middle of the hotel reception, looking dazed and distant. Lorne hurried up to her.
"Dina, Sam and I, we-"
"I know," she nodded. "I'm certain it's him. He told me he, he told me he'd get me back. When he found out about the engagement, he said he'd find a way to stop it, but…"
She trailed off, and stared out of the window vacantly. Lorne noticed Maya, one of the other bridesmaids, tending to a groomsman.
"What happened to them?" she nodded in their direction.
"She got chased all the way down here by one of the wolves. I think it was Freddy. When he
looked in here-"
Her voice cracked, and she shivered, as if the full horror of the situation had really just become apparent to her.
"It's okay, Dina. We'll get rid of him, and then you can get married tomorrow just like you planned." She squeezed her arm, and drew her into a comforting hug. She prayed Dina wouldn't feel the shotgun that she'd quickly stowed under her jacket.
"We sent everyone home," Dina replied, her voice hollow. "We found someone to sail them off the island. I would have got you off too, but-"
"What makes you think I'm going before we've dealt with this guy, Dina?" Lorne replied firmly. She shivered to herself as she considered what confronting those creatures again might entail, but she knew she had to do it.
"It's just the twelve of us, the wedding party-left. I've got no idea what I'm going to do!" Dina wailed, burying her head into Lorne's shoulder.
"Trust me, that's enough," Lorne replied grimly, thinking back to the feeling of Sam's bear form underneath her. There was a strength to him that made her glad he was on her side, along with the rest of the groomsmen.
"Lorne, can I borrow you?" Sam's voice came from behind her, and Dina extracted herself from her arms.
"Five minutes," Lorne nodded, eyeing Dina nervously. She wasn't used to seeing her friend so frightened, and it was freaking her out.
Sam quickly led her to the other end of the room, where two pairs of bridesmaids and groomsmen were huddled.
"Does she know?" hissed one, Lorne recognized her as Dina's cousin, Poppy. Her face was drawn, her big eyes standing out more than usual against her pale skin.
"'course she knows," Sam nodded. He turned his attention back to Lorne, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Even despite everything that was going on, the feeling of his touch sent an explosive feeling through her chest. It was the memory of his bear form, his power, his strength, how different he was from anything she'd known before. He was exciting, and she couldn't quell those feelings, no matter how hard she tried.
"We need to get rid of these fuckers by tomorrow morning," he explained, his voice low and serious. "But we can't let Dina or Tom know what's going on. We want to keep the whole…shifter thing quiet if we can."
"So what's the plan?" Lorne lowered her voice and leant in closer, glancing round the circle. When she had been helping Dina fill out wedding invitations, she never thought she would have to consider tactical attack planning amongst the tick-boxes.
"We're going to split off into pairs, and stake out round the island. Chances are, they've left the cave and found somewhere else to hide out. When one of us finds them, we're going to shift, alert the others and…deal with it."
"Just to clarify, we're not going to actually kill them," one of the groomsmen, Jon?, cut in, clearly seeing the color drain from Lorne's face at the prospect. "We just give Freddy the closure that he's apparently been struggling with."
"Okay," Lorne nodded. "So, when do we start?"
"Well, we can't seem to find Adam and Maya, but when they appear, we'll get Dina and Tom to bed and then start the stakeout," Sam explained. He drew her away from the group slightly, and closed the gap between them. "You know, you don’t have to come with us if you don't want to. The last thing I want is for you to get-"
"Sam, you wouldn't have stood a chance against those wolves without me," she flashed him a cocky grin, trying to ignore the nervousness spreading through her chest. "Bring it on."
"Okay. Well, let's try and get Dina and Tom out of the way, then we can set up." He nodded, and the rest of the group broke off, all with their tasks to complete.
Lorne rested her head up against the window for a moment, enjoying the peace while she could. She couldn't believe the mess that they were in, after all that time she'd spent putting the wedding together, this was how it went down. She'd expected maybe some problems with the catering or the band at worst, not fighting off a rabid pack of shifter wolves bent on revenge. And, on top of that, there was Sam-even though they'd only met the night before, she knew there was something there that was different. She couldn't have explained to anyone why or how, but there it was. Lorne was so used to being able to label everything, and file it away neatly in little boxes, but the feelings for Sam thoroughly defied categorization. She knew somewhere in her head that going after a shifter was a bad idea, he was never going to fit with the rest of her life. Christ, she didn't even know if they lived anywhere near each other, and she sure as hell wasn't going to uproot her life for this guy. But she'd be damned if she could find a way to ignore the goosebumps on her arms every time she caught his eye. She had been so ready to watch her best friend get married, and to go back to her normal little humdrum life, but there was a part of her, that earnest, romantic, teenage part of her that she was certain she had left behind years ago, that was pushing her to go for Sam, to make something of their connection.
"Lorne?" Sam's voice cut across her reverie, and she turned to him, quickly plastering a smile on her face.
"You ready?" She rubbed her hands together.
"Yeah. Looks like we'll be going down to the caves, just in case they try to double-bluff us and go back there."
"Sounds good," she nodded. "I'll put together some supplies and we can get going."
Lorne's skill for hyper-organization had them leaving the hotel in less than fifteen minutes, weighed down with food, blankets, and waterproofs.
"I don't know where you even found most of this stuff," Sam nodded admiringly. "I was just going to take some beer and chips and be done with it."
"We don't know how long we're going to be down there," she pointed out. "I don't want to be too cold to run away or too hungry to fight if they do turn up."
"Can I just say, I was so fucking impressed with the way you took down that wolf earlier," Sam nodded, shrinking down into his jacket in an attempt to ward off the wind and the rain.
"Yeah, you're welcome," Lorne lifted her chin proudly. "I can't figure out why the bullets didn't work on them, though."
"I've never seen that before," Sam wrinkled up his face as they began their descent to the caves. "I told everyone else, so at least they know not to go firing guns at them."
"I'm pretty sure I'm the only one of us who came armed," Lorne pointed out, ducking down to avoid some overhanging rock. Sam glanced up at her, his bronze eyes gleaming, and grinned.
"Yeah, I can't say I'm that surprised," he commented, and she cocked her head at him.
"What does that mean?"
"Just that it seems like you'd do anything for the people you care about," he explained, as the two of them climbed down the slick rock and into the relative dry of the cave.
"Is that a bad thing?" She defended herself, and he held his hands up.
"No, no, not at all. In fact, I can relate to that."
"Yeah?"
"What do you think I'm doing here?" He gestured around them. "I don’t make a habit of chilling out in caves most weekends."
"So, you're doing this for Tom?" She asked, avoiding his gaze for a moment. She didn't know why, but she couldn't stop herself hoping for a different name to pass his lips.
"Well, Tom, and everyone else back there," he replied nonchalantly, laying out one of the blankets and sitting himself down. "And down here, of course."
Lorne snorted, trying to hide the fact that that was what she really wanted to hear.
"You've only known me for a day," she pointed out.
"And I care about you," he shrugged, as if it was obvious.
"How?" Lorne was used to her feelings following logic, and that meant that you wouldn't risk your life to protect someone until you'd known them at least twenty-four hours.
Clay (BBW Secret Baby Bear Shifter Romance) (Secret Baby Bears Book 4) Page 59
