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ALEENA

Aleena had never seen such a terrifying display—not even when the shabby man had attacked her in the alley. Bear’s face had become a twisted mask of rage and he’d killed one man and mortally wounded another in the space of less than three minutes.

Yet when she called his name, it seemed that her voice penetrated the Rage and his eyes went slowly back from bloody red to golden.

“My Bear,” she called again and he blinked and looked up from the carnage he had created to focus on her.

“A-leena?” He said it like her name was a word in a foreign tongue. But every second he was looking more like himself. “Aleena—sweetheart!” He came striding forward.

“My Bear—you came for me!” Aleena might have been shamed to be half-naked in front of him after what the males had tried to do to her, but she was too grateful to see him to care about her partial nudity.

“Did they hurt you?” He cupped her face gently in his big hands, turning it from side to side to see the extent of her injuries. “Gods, I can see that they hit you. But did they…”

“They didn’t change the color of my eyes.” She looked up at him, letting him see that her pale purple eyes remained unchanged. “Though Grindelia told them to.”

“That bitch!” Bear said thickly. He was already working on the ropes that bound her ankles and wrists to the wooden beams. He sucked in a breath when he saw the bruises and raw, red marks on her skin where the rough fibers had scratched her and bitten into her flesh.

“I’ll punish them all!” he growled, more to himself than her. “Nobody hurts my wife and gets away with it!”

“I’m cold ,” Aleena whispered. The skin of her bare breasts and chest had broken into gooseflesh. She tried to cover herself with her newly freed arms but she couldn’t hide her shame completely.

“Here, baby.” Rapidly Bear unbuttoned his dress uniform shirt. Pulling it off, he bared his broad chest and draped it around her. The satiny fabric was warm from his body heat and smelled of his spicy, comforting scent. Aleena drew it close around her as he finished unfastening her ankles. Then he lifted her into his arms, cradling her to his broad chest protectively.

Though she was warming up, Aleena was beginning to feel faint for some reason. It was as if now that the worst was over and she was safe in Bear’s arms, she could finally relax and her body had decided to check out for a little while. She could feel consciousness leaving her. But there was something she needed to tell her husband before she was completely lost.

“They wanted me to renounce you,” she whispered to Bear as he held her close and looked anxiously down into her face. “But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t…do it. I swear it, my Bear—I never renounced you.”

And then darkness ate the world around her and she knew no more.