Stolen By Her Bear by Felicity Heaton

Chapter 14

Holly left at daybreak, refreshed from a night of fitful sleep and slightly worse for wear from a few too many whiskeys. The coffee she had downed had done nothing to wake her up, had only made her more jittery, so on edge that she hadn’t been able to eat anything.

It had been a fight to convince herself to wait for dawn before heading to Black Ridge, a trial that had taken its toll on her, had allowed horrific images of Saint bleeding out to sear themselves on her mind and fear to make a home for itself in her heart. There was no purging it now, not without seeing him.

She glanced off to her right as she hurried from the cabin, a war erupting inside her. She didn’t have time to talk to the brothers, and knew in her heart that if she did try to speak with them things wouldn’t go the way she wanted. They wouldn’t understand. They were hellbent on hating Saint and his kin, would only try to persuade her to remain at the Creek.

Worse, there was a chance they would stop her.

Holly tugged her purple woollen hat down and burrowed into her scarf as she hurried from the deck, her heart pounding at the thought of what she was about to do. Ember would be worried about her, and the brothers would probably be mad at her if they discovered she was gone, but she had to go.

She needed to know Saint was all right.

Needed to know if he was her fated mate.

She would be quick, would get to Black Ridge and back again before anyone realised she was gone.

The recent snowfall tried to make that impossible, was up to her thighs in front of Cobalt’s cabin. Holly waded through it, forced to head down the clearing slightly to reach shallower snow and then bank left, towards the woods. The snow crunched beneath her boots as she sank into it with each step and chilled her legs through her black salopettes. She focused on reaching Saint, trying to ignore how cold she was already, keeping her eyes locked on her destination.

A breeze chased around her and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep the chill off. Her dark green jumper offered some protection from the weather, but she began to miss her coat more and more with every stride she took across the open ground.

The towering pines and spruces offered shelter from the snow as she reached them, made it easier for her to walk as she wove through the sea of their broad trunks and even kept some of the chill from her skin as they provided protection against the wind.

The nerves she had been fighting since waking this morning began to break free of their tethers, rose again with each step that brought her closer to Black Ridge. The trek through the forest seemed to take forever, but she remained on the animal track, following it down into deep pits filled with twigs and bracken, and up the high rises on the other side. Her senses placed the river to her right and she tracked it around the sweeping bend that separated Cougar Creek from Black Ridge.

Just as she was beginning to feel that she had taken the wrong turn somewhere, voices cut through the still air.

She instantly recognised them.

“What’s wrong with him?” Knox’s voice rang clearly across the snow and she hurried to the edge of the woods and sheltered behind a tree so he wouldn’t spot her. His black woollen hat had been pulled low over his blue eyes, but she easily recognised him as he stood at the bottom of the steps that led up to Saint’s cabin.

While he and his brother looked the same, there was a cruel twist to Knox’s lips, a darkness about him that Lowe didn’t possess.

“I don’t know.” Lowe shoved fingers through his ash-blond hair as he stepped out onto the deck of Saint’s cabin. He sighed. “It’s like he’s just given up or something. He shifted back last night and I want to take that as a good sign, but…”

That didn’t sound good.

Her heart started at a pace again, the urge to break cover and hurry to Saint making her jerk forwards, past the shelter of the tree that had been her hiding spot.

Knox immediately whipped to face her.

Busted.

Rather than turning tail and running back to the Creek, she stepped out from the trees and marched through the snow, mustering her courage as she closed the distance between her and the twin bears. When she reached the spot where Saint had fought the cougars, she kept her gaze fixed on Lowe, didn’t want to look at the crimson patch of snow where Saint had gone down.

Lowe dropped off the deck to join his brother, remained close on Knox’s heels as he stormed towards her.

“What the hell do you want?” Knox growled, the aggression that rolled off him rousing her own, making her want to bare her fangs at him and show him that she wasn’t going to be cowed by him.

She wasn’t afraid of him.

“I think I left my coat.” She shot for breezy with a dash of sarcasm. When she glanced at the cabin beyond them though, her bravado faltered. She reached out with her senses, seeking Saint, and fear swept through her. Fear for him. It sobered her, had her voice dropping and losing its bite as she focused on him. “I came to see Saint.”

“Come to finish him off?” Knox moved into the path of her gaze and she did growl at him now.

“No,” she bit out, anger blazing through her, quickening her blood as she faced him, as the need to fight that she had felt yesterday when Saint had been battling the cougars rose again, making her want to lash out at Knox and Lowe. “I just need to know if he’s all right.”

Lowe scowled at her and stepped aside, coming to stand beside his twin as he folded his arms across his chest, forming a wall with Knox. She growled again as she took a step forwards, aiming to go around him, and both males countered her, making it clear they weren’t going to let her past.

She ignored Knox and looked at Lowe, sure he would be more reasonable than his twin. It took all of her will, but she wrestled the urge to fight into submission, calmed her instincts and gentled her tone, keeping the bite from it.

“Please. I just want to know he’s okay.”

Lowe’s blue eyes softened slightly, a flicker of worry shining in them as his brow furrowed and he opened his mouth to speak.

Knox beat him to it. “The state of our alpha is none of your concern, cougar.”

She looked between Lowe and Knox, and her heart grew heavier as she realised that convincing them to tell her how Saint was doing wasn’t just going to be difficult—it was going to be impossible.

Knox had convinced Lowe not to help her the night Saint had taken her, and he was going to do all in his power to stop his brother from helping her now. She couldn’t blame him. He was only doing his job as a member of the pride, protecting his alpha and keeping him safe.

“I know you’re just trying to protect him,” she whispered as fear and the need to see Saint got the better of her, merged within her to make her ache as it birthed despair that drowned out her anger, pushed her rage to the back of her mind and had hope leaching from her. “I just need to see him. If you won’t let me see him, then at least tell me he’s all right. I heard you. You said there’s something wrong with him.”

And her mind was running wild, conjuring images of him dying.

She couldn’t take it.

Lowe’s handsome face softened further. Knox’s remained hard and unyielding.

Holly sighed.

Convincing them was going to take more than she really wanted to admit, but if it meant she got to see Saint and see that he was going to be all right, then she would put it out there.

“I swear, I don’t want to hurt him.” She looked them both in the eye, let her guard drop and let them see that she was telling the truth, and how miserable she was—how afraid she was for Saint. She thought about him, thought about her time with him and what he had said to her, and tried those words on for size, and they felt right. “I don’t think I could hurt him.”

She really didn’t.

The thought of hurting Saint turned her stomach. The thought of him being hurt utterly destroyed her. She frowned as she realised something. She already had hurt him. When she had talked of his strength, when she had called him weak, she had only said those things to make the brothers leave him alone. She had done it to save Saint.

But it had hurt him.

She had seen it in his eyes.

“Bullshit,” Knox snarled.

Lowe grabbed his arm when he went to step towards her, fire blazing in his blue eyes.

“Give her a chance.” Lowe looked at his brother. “We’re not getting through to Saint, but she might.”

Worry twisted her stomach into knots again. “What’s wrong with him?”

Knox gruffly shoved his hands into the pockets of his heavy black winter coat. “His wounds are healing but he refuses to wake.”

“Maybe it’s just the winter—”

Knox cut her off. “This isn’t that. This is something else. Lowe thinks he’s given up.”

“Given up?” She looked at Lowe, those knots pulling tighter, making her queasy.

Because she had the feeling she was responsible for his condition.

Lowe nodded, his shoulders relaxing as he looked behind him at the cabin and then back at her. “I found him in the snow. I think he was there for hours. It was getting late by the time I came across him. I got him inside and patched him up. He shifted back and I thought maybe he would wake, but he won’t.”

Fear grew stronger inside her with each word he spoke, something crystallising as she replayed the fight between him and the cougars.

He hadn’t given up when he had been fighting, had gone all out and not backed down, but the look that had filled his eyes when she had belittled him to stop the brothers from attacking him had been one of despair.

Of hopelessness.

Of pain.

Lowe was right and he had given up.

He had given up when she had left him.

Holly shoved past Knox and Lowe, ignored them as they growled and broke into a dead run, desperate to reach the cabin before they could stop her, her heart in her mouth and her mind on one thing.

Bringing Saint back to her.