“What happened?” he asked. “Not that I ain’t thrilled to have you at my den for as long as you want. Can you be shirtless too? Hate those frilly dresses, although I plan to make you gasp and make all kinds of other noises.”
Such a bear.
“The Dutch guy at Hit-The-Mark knows my e-mail, what I look like, and my name from my credit card. He seems like a pretty good guy, but things are about to get hot, and if he tells the manufacturer about me…well, I’m not all that hard to find. A Google search and they’d be on my doorstep.”
I heard Karl growl.
“Down, wild man.”
“Don’t like this, Brina. Don’t like it at all.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Meet me at my house if you’re that worried. You can hover over me and glower at the doorways while I finish my work.”
“You coming straight home?”
I’ll admit it was kinda nice having someone fuss like this over me. “As soon as I score one of these fish sandwiches here. Want one?”
A familiar sound roared through my ears, and a millisecond later I felt the pain, felt heat scorch through my back. The phone fell from my hands to clatter along the porch decking. I crumpled, staring in amazement at the red pooling beneath me. I’d been shot. Right in front of a restaurant full of humans, I’d been shot.
And the bullet burning in the muscles of my back wasn’t a normal bullet.
Chapter Thirteen
Pain ripped through me. My vision blurred to white. I felt myself writhe on the porch of the restaurant, bones twisting, muscles contorting. Shifting. I was shifting within seconds, and the agony of it was scrambling my thoughts. I felt another bullet rip into my flesh. Someone screamed and the sound was like a knife through my ears.
Thirsty. Hot. Cold. Pain. So much pain. Who was hurting me? I needed to bite them. I needed to kill them so they’d stop hurting me. All I saw was white and the heat signatures of living beings as they ran through the parking lot from the restaurant. All I heard was a buzzing sound and gibberish. All I could smell was a sickening sweet, foul odor—hot melted plastic and rotten bananas.
I stood on four feet and stumbled as I tried to run down the stairs. All I wanted was to bite, to rend flesh, to tear limbs and disembowel any living thing I encountered. Only then would the pain stop. Only then would this agony tearing through my body cease.
I could see people running in the parking lot. They’d done this. If I killed them the pain would go away. This time I managed to stay on my feet and run, gaining on one of the humans, snarling as I coiled myself to launch at her.
A scream filtered through the static of my mind, then something large plowed into me, pinning me to the ground. I spun around, teeth snapping, claws digging deep into flesh. Something heavy was on top of me, holding me still, something that bled on me, that grunted as my teeth sank into his arm.
Pain. Pain. The monster on top of me flipped me over, slamming my face into the gravel of the parking lot and pinning me down. I felt him dig claws into my skin, but as much as I snarled and thrashed, I couldn’t escape the iron grasp of whoever was holding me. Something slimy slipped out of my body. And another. My stomach twisted and I tasted bile on my tongue. Pain. Pain.
Then I threw up, gagging and choking as my vision started to clear. God, it hurt. It hurt so bad, worse than anything I’d ever felt before. I was shaking in agony, but the urge to kill anything and everything was gone. All I wanted now was to curl up in a ball and die.
I couldn’t. Strong arms held me to the ground. I couldn’t move. I could do nothing but dry heave and strain against the strong force pinning me in place. Then the brutally strong arms that held me gently rolled me over onto my back.
Holy shit. Turning over nearly made me pass out. My thoughts swirled, then surfaced and in the white of my vision a face appeared—a gorgeous guy with scruffy whiskers and wavy, dark blond hair. Hazel eyes stared into mine, gold flecks like lights sparking through his irises.
I bit him. I couldn’t help it.
He grunted, then a strange grin creased his face, as if my assault only made him love me more. Then he bent his head to my side and I felt him licking one of the wounds where I’d been shot. What was with the licking? Every time I got injured he seemed to lick me. I growled, and heard him laugh, but that darkness still lurked behind the gold in his eyes.
“Come back to me Brina,” I heard him say.
Something was hurting me. Someone was hurting me. I needed to kill them. I needed to kill everyone to take the pain away. But even as I thought that, I realized the pain was receding.
“Brina, my red-headed wolf-girl. I’ll never let anything happen to you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. I want to lock you in my den and make love to you and feed you for the rest of our lives, but I know you’ve got a different idea of what you want for your life. And I’ll work with that. I’ll do anything for you. Anything.”
There was a burning sensation working its way through my muscles and nerve endings. I blinked and stared into my grizzly shifter’s gorgeous eyes.
“Can you shift back?”
I closed my eyes and tried, knowing that it would help me heal, and that the humans who’d been running and screaming in the parking lot would be a whole lot more sympathetic to a naked woman with gunshot wounds than a wolf with huge teeth and gunshot wounds.
It hurt, but with every twist of bone and muscle, I felt the horrible burning pain recede just a little. In what seemed like hours I was human once more, gasping and wincing as I looked up into my bear’s eyes.
“There.” He smiled at me. “That’s better, darlin’. Now I get to wait on you hand and foot while you lay in my bed and recover.”
Like hell I would. It had taken Brent a few weeks to be back to himself, and he still had the scars, but he’d been up and fighting pretty much as soon as Kennedy had dug the bullet out of him. If my Alpha could grin and bear it, then so could I. Gritting my teeth, I struggled to sit up, then thought better of it. Guess I wasn’t quite the level of an Alpha yet. Maybe if I gave myself another half an hour.
But in the meantime, at least I could ask questions. “Karl. How…how did you get here? How did you find me?”
He bent down and pressed his forehead against mine. “Remember I said I could teleport between my dens?”
Man, this hurt. Hurt, hurt, hurt. “Yes. Waypoints. Is your den near here?”
He shook his head, and the smile on his face warmed me.
“Brina, it’s not just your house. You are my den too. You’re home to me. In fact, you’re more home to me than any of my homes, my dens. Anywhere you are, I can be there. And I feel when you need me. I know when some asshole has shot you and you’re in pain.”
“Well, it didn’t take psychic powers, dude. I was on the phone with you when I got shot.” This time I managed to sit up, although I was holding onto Karl. Oooo, and I’d ripped him up good. And bit him. “Sorry about hurting you.”
He grunted. “I’m fine. I’ll be better once I’ve got you at my den, though.”
Sirens sounded off in the distance. Humans were nearby, talking in hushed voices. I breathed deeply, trying to focus. “I need to get him. Shot me. The one who shot me. I need to get him.”
Karl growled, and a bolt of fear shot through me at the sound. “I will get him.”
I snarled back. “I’m not weak. Joking about the frilly dress stuff. Just give me an hour or two and I can trail his scent and track him down.
The bear shifter’s eyes glowed gold. “You are not going anywhere in an hour or two. I’ll track him down, but I’m not going to do shit until I’m sure you’re okay.”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to argue. The siren noise stopped. The police must be here. “Can you get me some clothes? There’s some in my trunk.” I didn’t exactly want to make a police statement or walk around naked.
He hesitated. “You’re not going to run off, are you?”
Umm, like I could run anywhere right now. Besides I was n
aked, and another shift would put me down for a twelve-hour nap with my injuries. “No. Promise.”
He pulled away, helping me rise to my feet before walking across the street and popping the trunk of my car. There was blood everywhere—all over the gravel, the porch, the steps, covering Karl, soaking my clothing, coating the bullets that lay on the sidewalk. These weren’t rifle bullets like the one we’d taken from the grizzly shifter, or the ones used to shoot Leon and Brent. These were from a pistol, a 9mm by the look of them.
A pistol. Shooting a shifter in the woods with a hunting rifle and claiming self-defense was a plausible excuse. Shooting me in outside a restaurant with a pistol, and with a human witness, didn’t allow for anything except attempted murder. This attack wasn’t to stir up fear of shifters, or to put my head on a wall. This attack was meant to kill me, to ensure I didn’t continue investigating. Was this guy so stupid that he didn’t realize he’d need to kill a whole lot more than just me to keep the wolves from his door?
A wound decorated my side, and I was sure there was an equally horrific one on my back. They’d scar. They’d take weeks, if not months, to fully heal. If Karl hadn’t dug the bullets from me, I would have died, the magic in them hindering my ability to heal. Even with them out, my healing was slower than it should have been.
I winced, turning to face Karl as he trotted back across the road, clothes in hand.
“Someone shot her,” a woman told the police. “She was just standing by the door, looking at the menu and talking on the phone when someone shot her. My husband and I were walking across the parking lot and saw the man. We dove behind one of the cars, thinking he was one of those crazy mass-murder guys, then he shot her a second time.”
I tried to wave off two paramedics who were intent on getting me on a stretcher. “I’m a shifter,” I told them. “My boyfriend dug the bullets out of me. I’ll be fine.”
“Doesn’t look fine,” one of them grumbled. “At least let us bandage you up before you bleed all over your clean clothes.”
I complied, since Karl was refusing to give me my clothing until they looked me over. It gave me time to hear the rest of the woman’s story. I was completely the victim, an innocent woman shot by some crazy man in the parking lot. The fact that I’d turned into a wolf didn’t seem to bother her at all. According to her story, I’d shifted, and was trying to attack the shooter and save the humans. The shooter fled, and I collapsed from my wounds, saved by my gorgeous boyfriend who’d arrived like the hero from a romance novel. Only romance novel heroes didn’t sprout claws and dig bullets from their girlfriend’s furry body. Or maybe they did.
Thank goodness for selective memory. I hadn’t injured anyone. I’d been shot in front of witnesses, apparently a human minding my own business. Then as a werewolf, I’d acted to protect the terrified humans.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about being sort of a victim, but this was a story we could spin to our advantage, and we could use it to counteract those horrible videos, maybe get people to start believing that we weren’t monsters to be killed. And the best part of her story was that I heard her description of my assailant.
Six foot tall. Roughly one-eighty. Tan. Bald. Clean shaven. Broad nose and square face with a barbed-wire tattoo down his neck. Yes, she could describe him to a sketch artist. And you’d better believe we’d have a copy of that sketch before the sun was down.
By the time the paramedics were done with me I felt like I’d been swaddled in gauze and surgical tape. I gave my statement to the police, reiterating that we were being targeted by people who were trying to eradicate shifters. A hate crime. Attempted murder. And if I hadn’t scared the guy off, he might have turned his gun on the witnesses just to cover it up.
Slowly everyone began to leave. The restaurant gave me a bag of fish sandwiches. I refused a ride from the ambulance and made my slow and painful way over to my car.
Karl took my keys.
“Um, what do you think you’re doing?” At least I could talk in complete sentences now, and wasn’t gasping for air with every step.
“Driving you to Brent’s. I called him from your phone when you were talking to the police. He wants you at the Alpha house.”
I totally understood why. We were a pack. He was my Alpha. There would be three dozen wolves there to sniff me over and fuss over me, reassuring themselves that I was okay. I’d go. And I’d probably accept Brent’s offer to spend the night there, just to recover more of my strength. But that didn’t mean I was going to let Karl drive.
“Do you even know how to drive? You don’t have a vehicle. I got the impression you’d never had a vehicle.”
“I drive,” he huffed out. “How else was I supposed to steal all those cars and trucks when I was a kid?”
Huh? Karl helped me into the passenger seat of my car, and I let him because I got the feeling he was trying to tell me something big—something he didn’t tell just anybody.
“Yeah, I stole cars. That’s the least horrible thing I did when I was a kid. From when I was old enough to reach the pedals, probably six, until about ten. ’Cause when you’re that age and the cops manage to catch you, they just take you home to your parents. Especially if you look at them with big eyes and tell them you’re running away from home because Mom wouldn’t let you have any ice cream.”
I caught my breath, not sure how to respond. So instead of saying anything, I watched him close the car door, walk around, and get into the driver’s side. He didn’t speak again until he’d started the car and backed it out of the parking lot.
“When I was really little, I was the bait,” he said softly. “Cute little kid in his mother’s arms. People would stop to help her, then Dad would come out of nowhere and knock them out. Not that Mom needed Dad to help her. Lots of times she just dropped me on the ground and took the mark out herself. We’d steal all their stuff. Sometimes Dad got carried away and the human didn’t live. We had to stop that ruse when I was about eight because people don’t feel safe stopping for a woman with an older child.”
I reached out a hand and placed it on top of his. He turned his palm-upward, and entwined his fingers around mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
My heart ached, imagining Karl as a little cub with such horrible parents.
“Wasn’t like I was unwilling, Brina,” he said gruffly. “I had no problem jacking those cars. I stole. And when I was old enough, I didn’t think twice about hurting someone to take their things. Humans were there for us to use. I have a hard time being around them even now, because I just don’t see them as anything but prey.”
“You were just a child,” I countered. “You didn’t know any better.”
He shot me a wry glance. “Maybe at five. But when you get to be ten, that ‘I didn’t know no better’ isn’t an excuse. I did it ’cause I wanted to, ’cause it’s what I’d done my whole life and I didn’t see anything wrong in it.”
“You’re not like that now,” I said softly.
“I am. That’s the problem, Brina. I am like that now. And you’ve got your neighbors and human friends, and all those damned werewolves in your pack. I respect Brent. I respect Ahia and that angel she’s shacked up with. I respect you. Hell, think I might actually love you. But the rest of them…”
“Karl, give it a chance. You spent the whole day with my pack at the barbeque last year. You had fun. And you didn’t kill anyone.”
A slow grin curled up his mouth. “I wanted to just get a burger and go, but I saw you and wanted to see if I could get you to bed. No, I was determined to get you to bed, even if I had to hang out with those damned wolves for a week.”
Little did he know he could have gotten me to bed within the first five minutes of arriving at the party.
“See? Just think of all the great sex we’re going to have and you’ll be able to tolerate neighbors and random humans at the Walmart, and my pack family. And it’s not like you’ll need to do that all the time. I’ve promised to go out into the wild with you
and stay at one of your dens, isolated from shifter and human. If I can manage to only check my cell phone once a day while I’m with you, then you can refrain from killing anyone and actually use silverware while making small talk with others for an hour or so each day. See? Compromise?”
He laughed, squeezing my hand. We rode in silence for a bit, and I noticed that he actually was a good driver, not at all what I’d expected. But then again, Karl had never been what I’d expected.
“Member how I told you my mom is a grizzly shifter?” he asked out of the blue.
“Yeah?” I waited, holding my breath.
He sighed. “Well, I don’t really like others to know about it, but my dad is a demon.”
That needed a moment to process. A demon? His father was a demon? It wasn’t unheard of for demons to impregnate human women, either via rape or an uninhibited one-night stand, but a shifter woman? She would know exactly what she was sleeping with, and although rape was still a possibility, she could have been willing. No, she had to have been willing, unless that “Dad” Karl had referenced was someone else.
Karl turned to watch my face intently. “Mom was in love with him. Still is. They’re like the Bonnie and Clyde of the supernatural world. When I was a cub we were all over North America stealing cars, robbing banks, pulling off scams. We stayed in places that rented by the week, or lived in stolen cars, or broke into houses of people that were on vacation and stayed there. Sometimes we broke into houses and tied people up in the basement and stayed there, but we always had to leave in a day or two before anyone found out. No school. Hell, I don’t even think I have a birth certificate. The only reason they had me was because they thought a baby, a kid, would be useful in scamming people. I ran away at eighteen and haven’t seen them since.”
I caught my breath imagining what kind of childhood that must have been. “Did they track you down? Are you hiding out in the Alaska wilderness from them?”
My Paranormal Valentine: A Paranormal Romance Box Set Page 55
