Page 6

“ H e was hard for us, Royce,” Jared growled, kneeling in the tree line near the cabin.

They’d raced up the mountain and back down.

Twice. It hadn’t helped. He’d had pushed himself, trying to run off the heat and need in his body, but it was no use.

Jared knew Royce likely felt the same, but would he do anything about it?

Once again, they lingered outside the cabin, both of them seemingly drawn to the spot. Jared had struggled to shift back to his human form because his inner bear demanded satisfaction.

It demanded their mate.

His eyes still glowed. He could see the radiance on the ground when he looked down at his erect, leaking cock. Knowing his human lusted with such desperation left his beast unsettled. The animal within would not calm. It raged, demanding they take what was theirs.

He’d felt need coming off Carson in waves. The human had felt no fear of them. It had shocked Jared to his core, watching the man stare up, desire darkening his eyes. “He was hard . He wasn’t scared.”

“And then he ran away. Just like I told you, he’s not ready yet. We’re going to scare him away.”

“Damn it, Royce. He’s ready. He’s likely in there now, aching for us. And you want to hold back?”

Royce growled lowly. “We wait.”

“And then we lose this chance? No.”

Jared refused to listen. He rose to his feet and started walking across the road. He only made it a few steps before he felt a hand clamp on his arm.

“I’m your alpha.”

Jared felt his animal rising. “You’re not alpha, yet. And you’re wrong. I won’t lose what’s ours because of you.”

Royce shifted in the blink of an eye. He lifted one of his massive paws and brought it down, but Jared was too fast. Jared rolled to the left, shifting as he moved, and came up fighting. Claws slashing, teeth bared, they fought one another.

Jared fought back instinctively, defending himself. His mind didn’t even have time to contemplate what Royce was doing…

Yet he wouldn’t be denied, either. He’d have their mate, regardless of what Royce commanded. They hadn’t fought in years, and only as children when they had. It had been playful then.

This was anything but playful.

This was war.

With the full moon overhead, Jared fought, fueled both by the need he felt for Carson and the mounting anger he’d felt toward Royce’s imperiousness. The rage pumped within his veins. Slashing his brother bear in the midsection, Royce roared in pain before falling to the ground, limp.

He froze, looking at Royce’s still form.

He blinked a few times.

Oh fuck!

What have I done?

Jared hovered over his brother bear, realization filling him with dread.

Royce began to shift back into human form, his wounds apparently severe enough to force the transition.

Jared allowed his bear to fade as well. As soon as he was back in human form, he dropped to his knees and rolled Royce to his back.

The wound pooled blood in Royce’s abdomen.

“What have you done?”

The question hadn’t come from Royce. Jared looked up to see Carson staring down at them.

“I didn’t mean…” I didn’t mean to truly hurt him . The words felt as hollow as he sounded. He had meant to hurt Royce. He’d wanted to prove something and there, at his feet, was the result. He’d allowed his anger to overtake him, and his brother bear was paying the price.

Carson pushed Jared out of the way and pulled his t-shirt over his head. Their human used the shirt to apply pressure to the wound. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

“He’ll be fine,” Jared said. “We’ve just got to get him into the cabin so I can clean him up.”

“He’ll bleed out,” Carson cried. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

“Don’t…” Jared growled. “Thing work differently on the mountain.”

Carson frowned. “What? You don’t have 9-1-1?”

They had a clinic that was fully staffed by bear shifters, but that was beside the point. Bears healed quickly. Royce would be fine in a matter of minutes.

Plus the thought of having to admit to anyone what he’d done… the shame of it crept onto his face. They were not going to the clinic.

“He needs medical attention!”

“He’s not human!” Jared shouted back, allowing his eyes to glow. “He just needs to go into the cabin to be cleaned up.”

Carson was silent a moment.

Jared could hear the rapid beating of the man’s heart and knew Carson was struggling to understand what he was seeing.

“This isn’t a dream, is it?”

Jared shook his head.

Carson stared a couple of seconds longer, silent.

“I did see them glowing this afternoon, didn’t I?”

Jarend nodded again. He took a deep breath, waiting for the screaming to come. The running. The mad dash to get away from them.

He was stunned when none of that happened.

“You lift him while I keep pressure on the wound. We work together, okay?” Carson asked as he walked closer once more.

Jared got to his feet and moved to Royce’s other side.

“On three,” Carson said, rising to his feet, but remaining in a crouch and holding on to Royce’s side.

“One. Two. Three.”

Jared lifted Royce into his arms, and the male growled in pain.

“Hurry,” Carson snapped.

They walked as briskly as they could to the porch stairs and gently mounted them before carefully getting Royce through the front door.

Carson had to let go for a few seconds to make it.

Jared took advantage of their separation to rush Royce to their bed.

He lowered his brother bear down into the middle of the bed and stepped back to look at the damage he’d wrought.

Carson rushed to Royce’s side and applied the shirt to the wound. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” he cried. “Do you guys have a first aid kit nearby?”

There was no need for first aid. But Carson needed something to occupy his mind while he came to terms with who—and what—they were.

“I think so,” Jared answered before rushing to look around.

As quickly as they healed, they had little use for bandages and gauze.

On his third guess, he found one. Of course Mr. Prepared had a first aid kit hidden in the house.

It was covered in a fine layer of dust, but it was there, nonetheless.

After rinsing off the dust in the bathroom sink, Jared ran back to Carson and opened the large red pack on the bed. “What do you need?”

“Sterile gauze? And a lot of it.”

Jared opened several packs, handing each new one to Carson as he freed them. The man seemed to know what he was doing. Carson worked briskly around Royce with an air of confidence. He knew he should’ve told the man that bears heal much faster than humans, but he couldn’t stop Carson.

The worry their human displayed said a lot.

Watching him tend to Royce, he saw what kind of mate they’d been paired with. Carson seemed willing to do anything to save Royce. Little did he know that Royce’s wounds would likely heal over rather quickly.

Once they did, Jared was going to be in the middle of a shitstorm unlike anything he’d ever seen.

“The bleeding’s slowing down,” Carson announced. He pealed back the gauze and his eyes grew wide. “Apparently the cuts weren’t as deep as I first thought.”

Jared looked over Carson’s shoulder and saw the once gaping wound was now sealing itself. They were only thin lines, much to Jared’s relief.

Carson relaxed slightly once the emergency appeared contained.

He silently dug through the first aid kit and took out a few items before moving away the blood soaked gauze.

Without a look or a word to Jared, Carson began to clean the wound and cover it with clean gauze.

Jared waited there, knowing there were questions coming.

He could sense them radiating within the human even then.

Five or so minutes passed in silence. Jared helped where he assumed he could, but for the most part, Carson did the work.

“What are the two of you?”

Jared slid off the bed and walked around it, to the other side of the bedroom. He leaned against the wall and stared at Carson.

Carson’s gaze drifted to his cock. He averted his gaze, busying himself by cleaning up the mess of bloody gauze and packaging. When he finally looked up and met Jared’s stare, he shivered. “Are you going to answer me?”

“Will you believe me?”

“Denying what I’ve seen tonight would be pointless.”

Interesting reaction. Could he be in shock? “We’re bear shifters.”

Carson stared, his eyes wide. “Were you two the bears I saw earlier tonight?”

Jared nodded, ever watchful of the emotions rolling over Carson’s face at the admission.

Carson breathed out a deep breath, almost in what appeared to be relief. “Why were you fighting?”

“We fought because I wanted to claim our mate tonight and he feared we’d scare him away if we pushed too soon,” Jared murmured.

Carson stared at him, silent. There was another question that lingered in the air, as if the human knew the reason they fought had been him.

“This fighting isn’t normal?”

“No,” Jared replied.

Jared captured Carson’s stare and held it.

He saw the lust growing in their human’s eyes and felt his own body grow tighter with need.

His bear roared within, demanding he take the spoils of war.

He’d won the fight. That was all his beast knew.

The human part of him knew better. He’d won nothing and had potentially lost all.

“I think you know why we fought.”

Carson’s breath caught and his eyes rounded even more, but he quickly hid the shock he’d clearly felt. He stared at Jared a few more seconds, as if scrutinizing an alien. Jared figured that was what he was to Carson, something entirely foreign.

He wanted the lust back in the human’s stare and feared it would never return. Not after he’d crossed the line and done the unthinkable.

“You look human now. I’d never know looking at you that you were something more.”

Something more. Jared tamped down on the smile trying to rise to his lips. He hadn’t called them freaks. Hadn’t called them beasts or monsters. They were something more .

Jared felt a spark of hope at the sound of that.