MARS (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 1)

by Becca Fanning

As one last precaution, thanks to nature, the rock wall and bunker, were covered in a mass of creeping vines. Unless you were standing right in front of the door, it was invisible, and no one was stupid enough to climb down the slope. After all, what was the point of climbing all the way down, and then back up, for nothing?

  His little part of paradise.

  Or, rather, it had been.

  About 20 feet to the left of the shelter, there was a huge patch of crushed undergrowth. Even one of the smaller trees had been knocked down.

  “What the hell?” Dean muttered to himself. He decided that he had to go check it out, even if he hadn’t wanted to. He turned and ran swiftly down the stairs. His shoulders brushed each side of the hallway, but he didn’t notice the claustrophobia, for once. He had to figure out what was going on. His survival could depend on it.

  He went into the storeroom and flipped on the light. The energy-saving lightbulb took a few seconds to come on. By the time it had, he’d already grabbed what he needed and was back out the door. In one hand, he held one of his grandfather’s old Geiger counters. In the other, his grandfather’s .357 Magnum. Whatever was out there, he intended to make short work of it and be back inside before he was in any real danger.

  He stopped at the door, aiming the Geiger counter forward. He flipped it on, relieved to find that the area was clean. He breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t even known he’d been holding in. No bomb, then. The area was clear of radiation.

  But there was something out there. Something he had to deal with. He steeled himself for whatever was coming next. Dean set the counter down on the stair under his feet and wrenched the massive wheel open on the door, spinning it until the hinges unlocked. Then he pulled with all of his might, swinging the door inwards. He peeked the magnum out first, then swung his head out.

  The sun was high in the sky, but between the cliff face, the mountain looming over him, and the foliage, it was still gloomy. That didn’t bother him, though.

  He went slowly, taking care to avoid any fallen leaves and twigs, moving silently. To his right was the broken path of vegetation. To his left, against the cliff, was a small red car - totaled. He looked at it for a few seconds, but no one moved inside. Could someone have even survived that? He didn’t know, but he was going to take no chances. He took another glance up the mountain. He would have to figure out a way to head up to the road and disguise where the car had swerved off. He couldn’t risk drawing any attention to himself.

  But first, he had to deal with whoever was in the car. He crouched low, gun outstretched in his hand. He imagined how ludicrous he must look – his massive body hunched over, gripping a tiny gun. Still, there was no one to see him, except whoever was in the car, and they weren’t moving.

  He got to the car, gun at the ready. Inside the car was a woman, hair dark with blood, leaning against the steering wheel. “Hey,” he growled, but she didn’t answer. Was she dead? He tapped the gun against the door frame. Bits of glass fell to the forest floor.

  The door was dented in. He peered at it closer. Was that a bullet hole? He grabbed the handle and started to pull, but it was jammed tight. With a massive yank, it popped free and swung out. His earlier suspicion was right: her leg was a bloody mess and he could see where a bullet had entered her thigh.

  Carefully, he leaned her head backwards, and there was a flash of movement from the passenger footwell. Dean felt a flash of pain in his left hand, saw blood – his blood – spraying across the car, and he jumped backwards, gun outstretched. A small dog, some kind of terrier, was on the woman’s lap, growling and snapping at him. Dean lowered his gun.

  “Whoa, hold on, buddy,” he said to it, but the dog didn’t back down. If anything, he growled even louder. Was the woman even alive? Should he put her out of her misery? The scent of blood was filling his nostrils, driving him into a bloodlust. It was overwhelming. But he couldn’t kill her. That wouldn’t be fair.

  Should he leave her? Every bone in his body told him to. Other people were dangerous. She could be dangerous. She didn’t look like it, but she could be. He took a glance in the back of the car: jam-packed full of bags. Probably useless stuff.

  He couldn’t leave her, no matter what he was telling himself. It wasn’t right. His emotions were warring: what he’d been taught, what was right; did any of it matter?

  “Back up,” he told the dog. “I’m here to help!”

  The dog’s throat still rumbled with a low growl, but it didn’t move. Dean glared at it, expecting some kind of trap, but when he bent down and undid the seatbelt the dog didn’t attack. His head in the car, Dean surveyed the situation better. Blood was everywhere, but on the floor where the dog had attacked from was a first aid kit. And it wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill, cheap store-bought one: this was a hospital issued, real one.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked her, though he knew there would be no answer. He pulled back, and the dog started to growl, as if telling him, Come back. “Hold on, buddy.”

  Dean opened the back door and rifled through a duffel bag. What he saw surprised him. Most were packed full of hospital supplies: pills, IVs... anything he could think of. That along with her scrubs. Was she a nurse? Or had she just raided the nearest hospital? The closest one would be Grady Memorial, about 10 miles back. If she’d raided that, then the country was in a bad spot. Grady wasn’t a shining example of what a hospital should be, but if it was shut down, things were bad out there.

  He went back to the woman, placing a finger against her neck. There was a pulse, but it was extremely weak. She didn’t have much time. The amount of blood she had lost was staggering. He didn’t have enough supplies in his bunker to save her, but maybe she did.

  “Let’s get her inside,” he said to the dog. He looped an arm underneath her legs, feeling her slick blood soaking him, and another around her back. He lifted her easily, mindful of her head on the door frame, and then he was running inside. The dog was hot at his heels; silent, but always there.

  He took her down the stairs two at a time. He ran down the hallway and deposited her onto the table in his room, where he had the most light. He hesitated for a split second, but then ripped the scrubs off of her: he had to check for more wounds. After a quick look, he was sure that she’d only taken one bullet, deep in her upper thigh. It had missed the artery or she’d be dead already, but it was still causing some serious damage.

  “Wait here,” he told the dog. Dean was back outside in seconds, grabbing four duffel bags in each arm. He didn’t know what was in each, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to make a second trip back out. He dropped them on the floor of his bedroom. Blood was all over the table already.

  He started tearing through the bags, looking for what he needed. He found some IV bags, then found the tubes he would need to connect them to her. There was a rusty IV pole in the storeroom. He ran and got it, along with his medical bag of tools: scissors, scalpels, needles, and thread for the stitches.

  He left the room, running across the hallway, and looked to his right: the doorway was still wide open. Every bone in his body told him that he needed to close it, close it right now, but this woman was on the verge of death. Every second mattered. Against every survivalist bone in his body, especially now with what was going on, he ran back into his room and got to work.

  *

  It had taken him a while, but Dean had done all he could, and he hoped that it would be enough. She seemed as though she would live. He’d started by hooking her up to the IV, replenishing the fluids she’d lost. Then he had to dig the bullet out of her thigh. She’d stirred once while he was doing it, so he’d given her a shot of one of the various drugs she’d brought. It had knocked her right out.

  He’d had to clean her wound and stitch her up. There wouldn’t be any serious damage, assuming that she survived. These things were tricky, especially working on a table buried deep in a war shelter. He’d given her antibiotics to fight off any infection, covered her with a blanket, and had gone b
ack outside. The dog would protect her.

  He had climbed up to the top of the slope, carefully walking out onto the road. The road ran halfway up the mountain, twisting and turning as it went. He saw where she had driven into the ditch on the far side of the road, then the car had jerked to the left and gone right off the road and down the mountain. He kicked through the dirt, erasing any trace of her tire tracks in it.

  That was the least of his problems, though. She’d driven straight through the metal barrier. It was twisted and broken. There wasn’t much he could do about it except to bend it back into shape, so that it resembled what it had been before. With any luck, people speeding along this road wouldn’t notice.

  What were the chances that someone would notice that a car went off the road here? Probably slim. But if they did, and they were desperate for supplies, then following the trail would lead them right to his front door. That was something he couldn’t have. But he had done all he could do.

  Standing on the edge of the road, looking down, he could barely tell that a car had sliced through the undergrowth, even with his superior vision, and the knowledge that the offending car was down there even now. Looking down the steep slope, it was a wonder she hadn’t flipped the vehicle. If she had, even with all of her supplies, he wouldn’t have been able to save her.

  He took one last look at the road. Nothing else I can do, he thought, so I’d better get back. And so back he went, deciding on the way that he would move all of her supplies into his bunker. For the time being, at least.

  It wasn’t like she was going anywhere any time soon.

  *

  There was pain, at first. Everywhere. Not just her thigh, though that felt like it was on fire and broken in a thousand places. Her head hurt, too, though she couldn’t remember why that would be. It couldn’t have been a gunshot, or she would be dead. She tried to move, but a lightning bolt of pain wracked through her body and she gasped.

  Gina felt Petey licking her face, heard something – someone – speaking nearby, and then Petey’s tongue was gone. She opened her eyes, but everything was blurry. She could make out a light above her, but she couldn’t focus on anything. Then, a shadow loomed over her, blotting out the light. It was definitely another person, but if she knew them she couldn’t tell.

  Slowly, hey came into focus. It was a man. He had a ragged beard, long, unkempt hair, and golden eyes. Golden eyes? That couldn’t be. She must be seeing things. But as her sight started to return, she saw she wasn’t mistaken.

  Shifter.

  She’d met some Shifters over her medical career, though not often. They were famously brutish, crass, and dangerous, but she’d never seen that kind of thing up close. Then again, she’d never been this close to a Shifter.

  “Be still,” he ordered. His voice was rough and his speech was clipped – like he hadn’t talked to anyone in a long time. Where was she?

  She tried to ask, but she couldn’t form any words.

  The man leaned down, and a cup of water pressed against her dry and cracked lips. She sipped gratefully. The water helped, but her mouth still felt dry and the words wouldn’t come out.

  “You crashed your vehicle. Came down the mountain. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  That explained the pounding pain in her head. She knew the man was right, though. Before she’d lost consciousness, she was bleeding out, badly. She knew it was bad. How was she alive? She turned her head, ignoring the pain, and saw that her right arm was hooked up to an IV. Carefully observing it showed it to be from Grady.

  So this man had raided her car. For a second, she felt a flash of anger. He’d looted her stuff? Then, as quickly as it had come on, it faded. After all, he had used her supplies to save her life. She couldn’t be mad at that.

  “Petey,” she breathed. Talking hurt. Instantly he was next to her, lying down underneath her left arm. She felt his warmth, his chin resting on her arm.

  “He’s fine. Got a mean bite, too,” the man said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him holding up a bandaged hand. It was stained with blood.

  “Good boy.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “He wouldn’t leave your side the entire time.”

  The entire time? Gina reached her hand down, feeling along her thigh. The first thing she noticed was that her scrub bottoms were gone. Then she realized her shirt was gone, too. She lay there, clad only in her bra and her underwear, under a sheer sheet. What had this man seen? Then she felt the stitching where the bullet had gone into her leg. The wound was warm, but the pain had faded into a dull throb.

  “What did you do?” she managed.

  “Got you hooked up to the IV. Checked you for wounds. Extracted the bullet. Sewed you shut.”

  “I need...” she said, pausing and catching her breath, “some antibiotics to fight off the infection. They’re in...”

  “This bag here?” the man asked, lifting one up. “I’ve already administered them to you. I even read the label.”

  “Thanks.”

  Gina took another deep breath. How did this man know to do all that? Was he a doctor? Where were they? None of this looked familiar.

  “Where?”

  The man hesitated. “It’s not important.”

  Gina could tell that there was something this man didn’t want to tell her. What could it be? Why did it matter?

  “Please.”

  “You’re safe, and that’s all that matters. Now, you need to get some rest.”

  With that, the man walked away from her and flipped the light off. She was bathed in darkness. Then she heard the sound of a door closing and she was alone with Petey, who snuggled up even closer. He was still here, and that was the important thing.

  “It’s going to be okay, Petey,” she told him, even though she knew that might not be true. It was as much to reassure herself as it was to reassure her dog. Of course, he didn’t answer her, but he listened, and that was enough. Slowly, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep, thankful to be alive but afraid of what was to come next.

  *

  Dean shut the door behind him and made it only two steps before he nearly collapsed. He held his hand out in front of him, watching it shake. What had he done?

  Undeniably, he’d done what was right. But one of the things he’d always had drilled into his head by his grandfather was not getting involved with other people in these situations. Especially in these situations. People, no matter who they are, were dangerous. That was something that, since birth, he had been told never to forget.

  And he’d broken that code on just the second day of the apocalypse. He retreated to the kitchen, intent on finishing his meal pack.

  *

  Gina awoke slowly. Petey was still curled up by her arm. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep. There were no windows, wherever she was. She did feel noticeably better, though. There was a dull throb in her leg, but the pain wasn’t anything but an annoyance at this point. Her head hurt, but a few aspirin should clear that up.

  She sat up, noticing that sometime while she was asleep, the Shifter had changed her IV out to a new one. She disconnected it and peeled the sheet off of her body. Petey jumped down to the floor and ran to his bowl, lapping up some water. Whoever this man was, he had enough sense to feed and water Petey. She found herself with a slight smile on her face, despite the situation.

  Gina found she was no longer on the table. Instead, she had been lying on a cot. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed she’d been on, but it was better than the table.

  Carefully, fighting off a flash of pain, she swung her legs over the edge of the cot. Her vision went fuzzy for a few moments, but she took a few deep breaths, and slowly, everything cleared up again. She looked down at her body: her leg was wrapped tightly in gauze. There was still some dried blood on her, but whoever the man was, he’d taken the time to clean her up as best he could. She was still in her bra and panties. She may have known why he had done it, but it still made her blush.