Bear Naked (Halle Shifters) (29 page)

And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ryan would come for her. The man had bared his soul for her, stripped himself naked until she saw him inside and out. The thought that he would abandon her to her fate almost made her laugh out loud.

Oh, he would come. It was the only thing that staved off the panic attack she could feel nibbling at the edges of her mind. Ryan
would
come.

And Salazar would die.

Glory finished healing her twin, concerned when Hope remained unconscious. After Ryan showed up and kicked Salazar’s ass, she’d have to make sure Julian got a look at her. The fact that she wasn’t waking up scared the piss out of Glory.

“I knew she would run to you.” Glory brought her attention back to Salazar. “The twin who stayed behind. She’d speak of you, of how she wished you were the one I’d taken.”

Glory doubted that. For all that Hope had been unwilling to trust them at first, she’d never once mentioned blaming Glory for what had happened to her. But Glory answered anyway, hoping the fucker would actually start to monologue. If he was distracted enough, maybe he wouldn’t notice that she was trying to work her hands free. “So you’re telling me she wished I was the one getting raped by a skeezeweasel?”

He growled, low and feral. “She’s my mate.”

“She’s no more your mate than Tom Cruise is.” She wrinkled her nose. “God, please tell me he’s not a shifter.”

“Who?”

“Tom Cruise.” She called forth her claws, all five inches of them. Curling her fingers, she began picking at the rope around her wrists, praying the Wolf wouldn’t hear the
skritch-skritch
sound over the road and his own voice.

He shrugged. The feel of the car going up scared the shit out of her. Were they getting on the highway? If he hit I-76, they could be heading toward Ohio. She began picking at the rope a little bit faster. If she could just get her hands free, she’d be able to take Salazar down and get Hope out of here. “He’s not, as far as I know.”

“So you’re saying he could be.”
Keep the pyscho distracted, Glory. Don’t let him hear you breaking free.

“Don’t you want to know where I’m taking you?”

“Not particularly. You’re not going to survive long enough to arrive.” Glory continued to saw at her bindings. “Ryan is coming for me.”

He laughed. “Your mate is probably healing his sister’s mate as we speak.” He grinned, looking oddly handsome despite the fact he was nuttier than a squirrel in a vat of peanut butter. “I kind of did them a solid.”

“Excuse me?” Poor Jim. He’d tried to put himself between Salazar and Tabby and gotten his ass mauled. If he lived, Glory was so sending him a fruit basket.

“Oh, don’t worry. He’ll survive what I did to him.”

Shit. “You changed him.”

“Yup.”

Damn. That had to have hurt. He must have done it after he knocked out Glory and Hope. She remembered the pain of Salazar’s bite, the way Ryan’s had hurt right before the pleasure kicked in. For Jim there would have been no pleasure, only pain and blood and fear. “Tabby?”

“The pregnant Wolf?” He rolled his eyes. “She’ll live, despite what the Se…” He sighed. “You know what? Never mind. You’ll learn soon enough.”

“About what?”

Salazar ignored her, gazing in the rearview mirror and cursing up a storm. “Who the fuck is that?”

Glory dug her claws into the leather seat to drag herself upright and peered out the rear window. Behind them, a motorcycle weaved in and out of traffic, and for a moment her heart skipped a beat as relief washed through her.

Ryan.

But, no. The lean body wasn’t her mate, the black helmet with the mirrored visor obscuring the features of the man chasing them down. Ryan was bulkier than the sleek individual who raced down the highway, drawing alongside of them. The mirrored helmet turned to the car, and Glory shivered.

There was a menace she had never sensed before, not even from Salazar. Salazar was crazy, but he didn’t seem it, not at a glance, anyway.

Something about the man in the faceless helmet scared the ever-loving shit out of her. Glory moved, hiding the sight of her twin from the man on the motorcycle.

The rider gunned the cycle, swerving in front of their car. Salazar swerved, an instinctual response as he tried to avoid a collision.

“Fucking Hunters. They aren’t going to catch me.” He glanced toward the passenger seat and smiled. “I’ll deal with him.”

Salazar took the first exit he came to, one that lead to a sleepy little town with plenty of farmland and few inhabitants that Glory recognized as being about twenty miles eastbound outside Halle.

The rider reversed on the shoulder, doing a high-speed turn that had Glory gasping in disbelief. Either the rider really didn’t give a damn if he lived or died, or he was channeling the spirit of Ghost Rider, complete with flame-covered head. Dirt and small stones flew in an arc as he twisted the back wheel before gunning it down the ramp, catching up to them easily. He followed Salazar through the town, staying on the rogue’s ass until the Wolf was growling and snarling in frustration. Glory sawed faster at the ropes, feeling them loosen a bit just as Salazar pulled over near a thickly wooded area. She was almost free.

She was shocked when the man pulled a gun and pointed it right at her head. “Get out.”

“What?”

“Get the fuck out of the car.” He glanced over her shoulder and winced. “He wants you, he can have you. But I’m leaving with Hope.”

“No.”

The sound of the gunshot was loud, the burning fire in her shoulder shocking her. Glory screamed. Shit. She
hated
getting shot.

“Get out of my car.”

Glory whimpered, but refused to move. She couldn’t abandon her twin. “No.”

Before Salazar could pull the trigger a second time, the driver’s side door was wrenched open. A pair of black-gloved hands reached in and grabbed hold of Salazar’s hand, driving the gun up. It went off, leaving a smoking hole in the car’s roof.

Salazar struggled with the stranger over the gun, kicking the rider in the thigh. The pained grunt was the only sound the rider made.

It was freaky as hell.

Glory worked harder to get her hands free. She needed to get Hope and get out of the car before the two men turned on her. She had no idea who the stranger was, but a familiar scent was beginning to override the scent of leather and gunpowder and Wolf.

The rider was…a Puma?

Maybe?

Hell, she’d been a shifter for so short a time she was lucky she knew what Bears smelled like, but the man currently struggling with her captor had a distinctly feline scent to him that she recognized in Gabe, Max and Emma. The smelled like they belonged together.

They smelled like family.

Even so, the strange sense of menace rolling off the rider had her double-timing her work on the rope. She was rewarded when it finally gave way, freeing her hands to grab hold of Hope’s shoulders and shake her twin. “Wake up!”

Nothing. Hope’s head lolled on her shoulders, rolling with Glory’s movements.

“Shit.” She grabbed hold of Hope under her armpits, ignoring the screaming, red-hot agony in her shoulder, and dragged her twin to the car door. “We’re getting out of here, I promise.”

“No.” Salazar finally managed to get the rider off of him, pointing the gun once more at Glory’s head. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Then his eyes went wide as the rider drove his fingers into the side of his head, claws first. Glory could hear the bone snap as Salazar screamed.

A Puma’s claws weren’t nearly as long as a Bear’s, so Salazar wasn’t killed instantly. He was wounded now, a bleeding Wolf who thought he was defending his mate. So he did what any wounded shifter would do.

He shifted, desperately trying to wriggle free of his clothing. Because he shifted into an animal that was smaller than his human form, he didn’t risk hurting himself by trying to burst through his clothing.

Must be nice
. It would have been a hell of a lot easier to fight Salazar back in the shop if she could have changed. Glory redoubled her attempts to cut through the ropes binding her wrists, grunting in satisfaction when she felt them begin to give way.

The familiar-smelling Puma didn’t change. He backed up, making come-hither gestures with his hands, shooting the Wolf the finger when Salazar crouched down in the driver’s seat.

As soon as the fucker was out, Glory would be in. He’d left the keys in the ignition. Glory had no trouble stealing the psycho’s wheels and making her getaway, whether Hope regained consciousness or not. She had to get Hope to Julian, had to—

“Mother pus bucket!” Glory swore, using Cyn’s favorite curse, her vision blurring as she twisted wrong. It pulled at the wound in her shoulder, and pretty stars danced around her head, nearly sending her tumbling into unconsciousness along with her sister.

She had to be more careful, or she and Hope were going to be in bigger trouble than they were now. She healed a little of the damage the bullet had caused, closing the bleeding blood vessels and torn flesh, the moves instinctual. Her Bear guided her, showed her what to do and how to maximize what little energy she had left. And she had precious little. Healing Hope had taken most of it. By the time she was done taking care of her shoulder she was panting, gasping, her vision blurred at the edges. And not all of it was from pain and exhaustion. Her Bear was showing her how to stave off the panic attack that threatened to stop her breath.

The Puma whistled, that sound one used to call a dog to heel, and Glory would have laughed if she wasn’t terrified of the pain. This whole thing was so surreal.

From Salazar’s answering growl, the Wolf was less than amused. He stayed hunkered in the driver’s seat, glaring and baring his teeth at the Puma who was trying to taunt him out of the car. From the way he positioned himself, Glory would swear he was trying to keep Hope safe. He kept his eye on the Puma, his back to Hope, but every now and then he’d snarl at Glory. If Glory didn’t know better, she’d swear he was acting exactly as Ryan had when he’d been protecting her.

But Salazar was
not
Hope’s mate, no matter what his delusions told him. There was no mingling of their scents, no permanent mark on her body. Cyn smelled of Julian; Tabby, of Alex. Glory was aware how her own scent had mingled with Ryan’s.

Hope smelled like Hope, and nothing else. Ditto with Tito Salazar.

But that didn’t stop the psycho wolf from
acting
like a mated shifter. He was keeping the Puma from getting too close to Hope while remaining close enough to keep her safe.

The Puma shrugged, reached in his jacket, and pulled out something Glory could barely see. He sauntered back to the car, his stride certain, the object half hidden in the palm of his hand.

Salazar tensed, ready to spring at the Puma who dared come close to them once more. The man in the leather was going to get savaged unless he changed, and Glory wasn’t certain how much more she’d be able to heal. The exhaustion that rode a Bear who’d used his or her powers, the price they had to pay for their gift from the spirits that had made them, was riding her hard.

But if the Puma got hurt trying to save them, Glory would try and heal him. It was the least she could do.

The rider reached the driver’s side of the car.

Salazar pounced, snarling and snapping like the rabid Wolf he was. Glory tensed, certain the Puma was about to get his throat ripped out, high-necked leather jacket or no. Salazar was just that fast.

But the Puma was faster, his hand whipping out and jabbing the object he held into Salazar’s side.

Salazar cried out, a canine yip of pain, his momentum shattered as the Puma used it to pound him into the ground. She saw his thumb press down, and realized he was injecting the Wolf with something.

Salazar began to thrash almost immediately, his body contorting as whatever the Puma had given him killed him so quickly it was over before it really began.

Fuck. A. Duck. No fucking way.

But it had to be. There was no one else she could think of, no one else who would have fucking poison and an injector on him. And they’d scented him at Hope’s run-down motel, but none of them had known why.

“Jamie?”

The helmet swiveled in her direction as the Puma lifted his finger to his helmet in a shushing motion. He turned his attention once more to Salazar and nodded.

Salazar wasn’t breathing. He’d shifted back, a naked human with half-closed eyes and grayish skin.

He was dead.

Jamie—if it
was
Jamie—backed away from Salazar and the car. He didn’t do anything more. He simply stared into the back seat, at Hope, for a long moment before walking over to his motorcycle.

Glory shivered. If the insane doctor had fixated on Hope, they were in more trouble than anything Salazar had been capable of giving them.

But Jamie’s shoulders weren’t nearly so tense, the sense of menace dulled to a quiet river rather than a raging storm. He was still dangerous, still unstable, but whatever had driven him after Glory and Hope seemed satisfied now.

Glory leapt out of the car, ignoring the body of the man who now lay where the Wolf had been. Salazar deserved to be found naked and dead of whatever Jamie had done to him.