Stolen By Her Bear by Felicity Heaton

Chapter 8

Saint barely stopped himself from shifting and killing Knox as he grabbed the male by the back of his neck and hauled him off the female. She remained frozen to the floor in the position she had been, her arms stretched above her head, her wide eyes fixed on the ceiling.

He pulled Knox to face him and roared in his face, relished the way the male closed his eyes and shrank back, how he lowered his head. His heart hammered, each breath he managed to pull down feeling as if it wasn’t enough air as rage burned up his blood, as his claws elongated and pressed into Knox’s neck. He wrestled with himself, with the urge to put the male in his place in a more physical way, seconds feeling like minutes as he waged an internal war.

Eventually, he wrangled the hunger to shift and fight Knox under control, but only because he didn’t want to scare the female more than she was already.

He turned and shoved Knox out of the door, roared at his back for good measure. Knox’s shoulders tensed and then he made a fast exit, practically leaping from the deck to land on the snow-covered path.

Saint breathed hard, wrestling his rage back under control, aware he was probably frightening Ember with his display of aggression.

He looked down at her, couldn’t stop himself from easing to his haunches beside her and checking on her. “You all right?”

Her wide eyes darted to his, the emerald bright against the stony backdrop of her irises, but she didn’t answer him, didn’t even nod or shake her head. She just stared at him, fear reigning in her eyes, stoking his rage.

The black need to hurt Knox.

“Stay in the cabin,” he grunted and stood, stormed out of the door and slammed it behind him.

He kept his senses fixed on her as he strode across the clearing, his gaze locked on Knox’s back as he hurried towards his cabin. The male flicked a glance back at Saint. Saint growled and bared his fangs, picked up the pace until he was running. He caught up with Knox before he hit the steps of his cabin, collared him again and ran up to the deck, and slammed his spine against the log wall near the door.

“The fuck were you doing?” he snarled in Knox’s face, his claws punching holes in the male’s jacket. The leash on his temper snapped when Knox didn’t answer immediately, and he hauled the male towards him only to smash him back against the wall, rattling the entire cabin. “Answer me!”

“Not what it looked like. I would never—” Knox slowly raised his hands beside his head, his tone even as he said, “She tried to escape. Fought me. I stopped her. She punched and then kicked me in the balls. You try keeping your cool when someone is brutalising your junk.”

Knox knew damned well that he wouldn’t have kept a level head in that situation, that he had reacted badly when Flint had clawed him there.

“I tried to stop her again when she went for the door.” Knox scowled. “She kicked off from the wall or some shit and next thing I know, I’m flat on my back and she’s beating the shit out of me.”

“Ember’s a cougar. They have powerful legs. You didn’t think of that?” Saint squared up to him, barely holding back his need to hit Knox, to pummel his face worse than the female had already managed.

Knox’s blue eyes widened. “She’s not Ember.”

Saint stilled, calm suddenly washing through him as he frowned at Knox. “What?”

“She’s not Ember,” Knox repeated. “She told me herself. Got damned crazy when I called her that name. Ember’s her best friend, and boy is that cougar pissed you wanted to take her from her mate. Damn near pulverised my kidney with her foot.”

Knox dropped his hand to his left side and grimaced as he held it.

Saint just stood there, struggling to make that sink in. The female wasn’t Ember, which meant she wasn’t mated to Cobalt. But she smelled like that male. Both times he had seen her, it had been near that male’s cabin.

“You’re sure of this?” Saint frowned at his friend.

“Ask my kidney. What’s left of it. I’ll be pissing blood for a week.” Knox shrugged when Saint scowled at him, silently telling him to be serious. “She said so herself.”

“Could be lying.” He mulled that over, not liking the possibility now that he had started thinking of her as unmated, now that the possessive side she had roused in him had begun viewing her in a new light. One that provided a lot of answers for the questions that had been crowding his mind since he had set eyes on her.

“To protect her mate?” Knox said, and Saint wanted to growl at him for making such a sensible suggestion, one that was entirely too plausible.

“One way of finding out.” He released Knox and stepped back from him, cast a glance to his right at Lowe, where he stood on his deck, watching events unfold. “You two head up to the valley. Get the lodge ready. I want to move her there.”

Far away from the Creek and her cougar kin.

It wasn’t just his desire to move her to a safer place that had him sending the twins away.

He wanted some time alone with her too, time in which he intended to figure out who she really was and why she drove him so wild.

Why he needed her so fiercely.

He backed off, keeping an eye on Knox until the last second, aware that he wouldn’t dare attack him if he turned his back but unable to stop himself from making sure it didn’t happen. Knox looked as if he wanted to voice an objection, or maybe complain about his kidney some more, but then he looked at his twin and sagged against the wall of his cabin, still clutching his side.

Saint turned when he reached the steps, was quick to break into a jog, one that brought him back to his cabin in only a few seconds. He mounted the steps to the deck, relief pouring through him as he sensed the female was still inside.

Was she Ember?

Or had he really snatched that female’s best friend?

He pushed the door open, issued her an apologetic look when she stiffened and whipped to face him where she sat on the couch, her pulse shooting off the scale.

He eased the door closed behind him and she went back to staring at the fire. Her hands shook as she rubbed them together and darkness curled through him, stoking an urge to go back to Knox and beat him up after all.

He tamped it down.

“Knox apologised for scaring you. He has a bad tendency to let his bear take the reins, is quick to anger if he feels someone is threatening his kin, but that’s no excuse for how he handled you.” He frowned when she didn’t react to that and refused to look at him, kept her eyes locked on the fire. He sighed, deeply aware that Knox had really scared her, battling an urge to go and bash the male’s head against the wall some more. Maybe even let her do it. It might make her feel better. “Knox… says you’re not Ember.”

He removed his coat and slung it over the hook near the door.

“Knox is an asshole and can go to Hell.” She glanced at him, fire in her grey-green eyes. “And I’m not.”

“Mind if I ask for proof of that?” He edged closer to her, tried to keep his body relaxed so she didn’t pick up on his tension and get worked up again and fight him.

He liked his kidneys functioning and not pulverised, and really didn’t want her to kick him in the balls either. Although he probably deserved the latter as much as Knox had.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I left my ID in my purse when you kidnapped me!” she snapped, her eyes growing greener as she glared at him.

Fine. So, trying not to get her worked up wasn’t going to happen because she was already worked up, ready to fight him.

But she hadn’t run when she’d had the chance. Why hadn’t she run? Because of the weather, or because of something else?

She turned her profile to him and stared at the fire again, a mulish twist to her lips that almost made him smile, might have if the situation hadn’t been so dire. She had courage, had stood up to two full-grown adult male bears, and he liked that spark of fire in her.

“Other ways of giving me proof.” He sidled another step closer, reaching the end of the couch, narrowing the distance between them down to only a couple of feet.

She stiffened. Her eyes widened. A hint of fear coloured them.

“Not that sort of proof.” He barely kept the growl from his voice as he realised the path her thoughts were traversing, blamed Knox and his heavy handling of her. The idiot should have known that pinning her to the floor would terrify her, would make her think things were about to go seriously south for her. He jerked his chin towards her. “Lift your hair.”

She frowned at him, but did as he asked, twisting her mass of black waves into her fists and raising it. Saint prowled around the back of the couch, heart beating a staccato rhythm against his chest as he prepared himself, steeled himself for the fact she might be mated.

Only when he came to a halt behind her and gazed at her nape, there were no scars.

Not a trace of a claiming bite mark.

“You’re not mated,” he whispered, throat thick as he stared at her nape and tried to make himself believe what he was seeing.

She dropped her hair and he wanted to growl as she stole that beautiful patch of unmarked skin from his gaze.

“No shit,” she bit out. “I’m not Ember.”

“If you’re not Ember, who are you?” He moved around the couch again, sure to head back towards the end nearest the door, just in case thoughts about escaping him finally popped into her head as her shock and fear subsided.

“Her best friend.” She tipped her chin up and folded her arms over her chest, pulling her purple jacket tight across her shoulders.

So that was how she wanted to play it now. She had information he wanted and she was going to refuse to give it to him, was going to make him suffer for it because of what he had done, and what Knox had done.

Saint still wanted to growl at how the male had been handling her, pinning her beneath him.

He kept that need in check, not wanting to scare the female.

She slid him a black look. “I’m not sure how you mistook me for Ember. Ember is curvy, and pretty, and has blue in her eyes.”

Saint gazed at her, couldn’t have taken his eyes off her if he had wanted to. “So that’s where I went wrong… I accidentally grabbed a beautiful female.”

A hint of colour climbed her cheeks and she was quick to avert her gaze, and he wanted to growl and puff his chest out because he had been the one to make her blush.

“You’re such an asshole,” she muttered.

An asshole who had put a flush in her cheeks and a flicker of heat in her eyes.

“How come you smell like Cobalt?” He studied her closely, seeking the tiniest hint of nerves, trying to see if she was lying to him because he really needed to know the truth about this. Both sides of him had been angry when he had smelled Cobalt on her. Both sides of him had lost their minds at the thought of her with that male.

With any other male.

Her lips flattened and he thought she wouldn’t answer him, but then she tilted her chin up and said, “I’m staying in his cabin while he and Ember share her one.”

The darkly possessive part of him she had awoken didn’t like that she had been sleeping in another male’s bed.

Didn’t like that Knox had been all over her and she smelled a little like him now.

She fidgeted again, her gaze downcast, the fire he had sparked in her fading as she toyed with her fingers. He felt the fear rising in her, heard it in her heartbeat, and knew her thoughts were traversing dark paths again, ones involving Knox.

“I’m sorry Knox got rough with you.” Those words came effortlessly to him as he gazed at her, as a tight feeling formed in the centre of his chest, one that felt as if it wouldn’t ease until he had calmed her and she was relaxed again.

Her tone was sharp, lashed at him as she bit out, “I don’t like this game… sending that man in to do your dirty work.”

Gods, how low she thought him.

Heat flared in his veins, had him taking a hard step towards her, one he regretted when she shrank back and her hands came up to her chest in a protective gesture that almost killed him.

He didn’t want her to fear him.

But he had done a terrible job of giving her reason not to feel that emotion around him.

He shoved his fingers through his hair, trying to wrestle his feelings back under control, sure she was picking up on his agitation and anger towards Knox and reading it as anger towards her.

“I didn’t send Knox here for that… Knox wouldn’t have… He isn’t like that. None of us are. I only asked him to keep an eye on you. I should have known it would scare you, and I should have known Knox would react badly if you tried to escape.” He flexed his fingers, drew down a breath and calmed himself. That feeling came easily as he looked at her, right into her eyes, picking out every fleck of precious emerald against the silver of her irises. He sighed. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I don’t think I could hurt you.”

Admitting that made him feel weak, strangely vulnerable as he stood before her, as part of him waited for her to say something while the rest hoped she hadn’t heard that soft confession.

She glanced at the log burner and then the couch, and then the broken table, looking anywhere but at him. He smiled tightly, could understand her reaction. She didn’t need to believe him. He was cool with that. He really was.

Part of him didn’t believe it himself.

Not because he thought he could hurt her, but because it shook him and peeled back another layer, making the source of the instincts she triggered in him clearer.

Although he still wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge where they came from.

Saint edged a little closer to her, mustered the courage he always seemed to need when he was around this petite, beautiful female, and eased down onto the arm of the couch, as close to her as he could get without scaring her.

“What’s your name, best friend of Ember?” he husked, aching to know it, sure she would be able to see how deep that need ran if she would just look at him.

“If I tell you, you have to let me go.” She glanced at him and lingered as their gazes collided. “You have no use for me. I’m not the one you wanted.”

Gods, she was the one he wanted. She didn’t know how fiercely he wanted her. It was taking all of his will not to tell her how beautiful she was as she gazed up at him, a softness in her eyes that he didn’t deserve. It was taking all of his will not to slide down the arm of the couch and settle beside her, maybe even slip his arm around her waist and tug her a little closer if she didn’t spook.

He wasn’t good at this sort of thing, was deeply aware that if he tried either of those things, he would only make things worse, and he liked the calm that had fallen between them.

Liked that she no longer looked afraid of him.

Was relaxed around him.

He frowned as she rubbed her nose and he noticed it was red, and not because she had cried, because this female didn’t seem to cry about anything, not even when a bear had scared her witless.

He looked at the log burner, his frown deepening as he saw how dim the light from it was now and noticed the chill in the air.

Saint stood, bent and picked up the broken pieces of his coffee table, keeping his motions smooth and slow, so he didn’t startle the female. He rounded the couch, walking past her and keeping his senses trained on her. She showed no inclination to move as he headed for the far end of the cabin, as he set the pieces of the table against the wall there. He would have to make a new one come spring.

He grabbed a few of the logs from a stack on the right side of the burner and rounded the couch again, resisting the urge to cross in front of the female. She hadn’t made a break for it. He wasn’t sure whether that was a sign that she was starting to trust him or was because she wasn’t foolish enough to run out into a storm.

Snow battered the window above the kitchen, covered the panes in the door too, and the wind howled around the cabin. Knox and Lowe were going to have one hell of a cold walk to the lodge, but they would make it. The route to it was through the forest, where they would have some cover from the weather.

He eased to his knees on the fur in front of the fire, soul-deep aware of the female close to him, how this position placed him only inches from her knees.

And yet she still didn’t move. Didn’t shrink away. Didn’t lash out at him.

Her gaze remained steady on him, heating him by degrees, filling him with an ache to look at her.

Saint forced himself to focus on something other than that incredible pull to gaze at her, opened the door of the burner and placed two logs onto the fire, stoked it a little and then shut the door, latching it again.

The flames were swift to catch on the logs, filling the thick silence with the sound of their roar and the harsh pops of wood splitting.

“Maybe you don’t have a name,” Saint muttered to the fire, shivered as heat rolled down his spine in the wake of her eyes as she ran them over him.

The urge to growl was strong, but he denied it, clung to control so this calm between them would continue. He liked it. It felt right. Every part of him felt relaxed, both the man and the bear. He couldn’t remember ever feeling like this, was sure he hadn’t in a long time. There was always something playing on his mind, or his bear side was always agitated by something, but here in this moment of beautiful silence, with the female’s eyes on him, with her close to him and her scent swirling around him, he felt only calm.

Only a sense that this was where he belonged.

That everything was right in the world.

“Holly.” Her whisper-soft voice teased his ears and he started, tore his gaze from the fire and looked over his shoulder at her, needing to know she had just spoken and he hadn’t imagined it. She cleared her throat a little. “My name’s Holly.”

“Holly.” He rolled that name around his tongue, tried to see if it suited her. He liked it for her. She was sweet as a berry but could be prickly too, had a sharp edge to her that no doubt kept a lot of people at bay.

Although holly berries were bitter and toxic, while her scent was sweet and heavenly.

He waited for her to ask him to let her go, but she didn’t. She just stared at him, banked heat in her grey-green eyes, warm firelight flickering over her face.

He refused to feel guilty about what he had done and why she was here, but that didn’t stop him from feeling that emotion as he looked at her. Part of him wanted to take her back, the rest of him snarled to keep her. The cougars would have realised she was missing by now. Returning her meant admitting he had done something wrong and inviting a fight. He was done fighting them. They played dirty.

Saint sagged a little as he realised the real reason he didn’t want to take her home.

He didn’t want to let her go.

He didn’t want this, whatever it was, to end even when he knew it would.

The cougars would come for her.

“What happened with the other bear?” she murmured and he sensed the trickle of fear in her.

“You don’t have to worry about him. He’s gone,” Saint growled, his need to protect her rising to the fore again. “We’re alone now.”

She stared at him in silence.

Did she feel as aware of him as he did of her?

He moved to face her and resisted the urge to place his hand on her knee, aware that she would slap it away if he dared to touch her. Resolve flowed through him, roused by his need to protect her, and he hoped she would see it in his eyes as he gazed into hers.

“I swear, Holly… even if Knox wasn’t gone, you don’t need to be afraid.”

He gripped his knees to stop himself from touching her as her face softened, as a tiny flare of warmth lit her eyes.

He growled low.

“I will never let anyone hurt you.”