Saved By Her Bear by Felicity Heaton

Chapter 9

Sheer terror ripped through Skye as a deep growl echoed through the night followed by an agonised yell. She shot to her feet, suddenly very awake, her heart pounding at a sickening pace in her throat and her legs trembling beneath her as she stared in the direction Patrick had gone.

“What the fuck is that?” Wade whipped towards her, his eyes wide. “A wolf?”

She shook her head and tried to find her voice, but the words wouldn’t come as a shiver bolted down her spine and another bellow of pain tore through the forest. Oh God. Her breaths came faster as she dropped and fumbled with her pack, her hands shaking so badly that she struggled to get the top open.

“What is it!?” Wade took a hard step towards her and her head snapped up.

“Bear.” That word burst from her lips. “A bear. It’s a really fucking angry bear.”

Just as those trembling words rushed from her, another vicious growl sliced through the darkness, making the hairs on her nape stand on end and her heart miss a beat.

“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.” Cooper wasn’t helping her nerves.

“Shut up!” she snapped at him, fear getting the better of her, and cursed when she fumbled with the canister of bear spray she had found and it tumbled from her grip to roll across the dirt to the snow. “Damn it.”

“Wait here. Keep an eye on her. Do not let her leave,” Karl barked and Cooper tensed, his entire body locking up tight. Karl looked at Wade. “Grab your gun.”

“You kidding me?” Wade bit out. “Patrick is dead. You wanna end up like him too?”

Karl levelled a black look on the man, one that had Wade falling silent and easing back a step as he looked away from his boss. “I said grab your gun.”

Skye wanted to tell them not to be so crazy, but she held her tongue, denying the urge to press them to forget about trying to help their friend. If the bear killed them too, she would only have to deal with Cooper, and she was ninety percent certain he would let her go.

Her rough breaths filled the silence as Wade grabbed his assault rifle and followed Karl into the trees. The darkness swallowed them and she listened hard, fearing the bear would sneak up on her and kill her next. Beside her, Cooper was looking twitchy again, his green eyes darting over everything.

“We should move,” she whispered, too scared to speak any louder in case the bear heard her. “This fire is dampening our vision. We won’t see the bear coming—”

“Karl said to stay here.” Cooper’s voice gained an uncharacteristically hard edge and she glanced at him. He glared at her. “We’re not going anywhere. The fire will deter the bear. You said that.”

“No, I didn’t! I said that the fire would deter wolves. I really fucking doubt that the angry bear out there in the woods is going to care that there’s a fire blazing a few feet from us!” She strained to hear what was happening, the hope that she could convince Cooper to move and possibly mount an escape lessening as the seconds ticked past. Her gaze flicked to the cannister she had dropped, a weapon that would probably work better against the bear than the guns the men were toting, and she took a step towards it.

“Stay there,” Cooper growled.

She turned on him. “I want that bear spray. You all have guns. I deserve to be armed too.”

It turned out Cooper was more loyal than she had given him credit for, because when the bear roared and she heard a pained grunt coming from the direction Wade and Karl had gone, she tried to make a break for it.

Only Cooper lunged for her and grabbed the back of her jacket, his fingers closing tightly around the collar of it to stop her from swiping the cannister from the ground and escaping. Damn it.

She twisted and wrestled with him, trying to break free as her pulse jacked up, as adrenaline flooded her veins and every instinct she possessed screamed at her to get away from him and run for it.

Cooper refused to release her though, dragged her closer to him as he leaned to his left and grabbed his rifle. Skye stilled as the bushes swayed and rustled, her heart close to stopping as her gaze whipped in that direction and she watched with dread as heavy footfalls reached her ears.

No. She wasn’t going to die here. She wasn’t.

With renewed vigour, she twisted towards Cooper and kicked at him, battered him with her fists as a desperate need to escape flooded her, because that wasn’t Wade and Karl thundering towards them.

That was a bear.

Cooper lifted his rifle.

The bear roared and charged at them as it burst from the bushes.

She grunted as Cooper threw her to the ground at his feet and aimed his rifle, covered her head and curled into a ball as fear got the better of her, locking every muscle in her body and shutting down her mind. Cooper fired several rounds towards the woods and she caught a glimpse of an enormous grizzly coming right at her before it shifted course on an angry groan and ploughed into the scrub, heading to her right.

Skye stared at where it had been, her ears ringing, numbness sweeping through her as she kept replaying the few seconds where the bear had been charging towards her.

She tensed again as something else crashed through the bushes, her gaze zipping there and her breath hitching in her throat. It leaked from her as firelight chased over Wade as he emerged from the forest, his assault rifle gripped tightly in his hands as his gaze swung in all directions.

“It was a bear! A fucking bear!” Cooper’s voice shook as the end of the barrel of his rifle dropped, falling to rest on the dirt near Skye’s feet.

She was quick to sit up and shake off her fear now that Wade was back and looking as if he wanted to come to her.

“A big bastard too.” Wade turned in all directions again and the light from the fire caught on the blood that tracked down the side of his head. “Smashed me into a tree. Came running towards here like it was on a fucking mission.”

His gaze slid to her and lingered, the hard edge to his eyes softening.

“You okay?” Wade’s brow furrowed and he grimaced, removed his left hand from his rifle and lifted it. He gingerly pressed his fingers to the wound on his forehead. “Shit, that hurts.”

“I thought bears slept through winter?” Karl strode towards her, looking like a man on a mission, and she shuffled backwards, fearing he would lash out at her because the bear had frightened him.

She had seen plenty of men act like that in the past. Some men reacted to being scared by something with violence, as if fear was a weakness and they didn’t want anyone to think them weak, so they lashed out at everyone who was near them.

Normally picked on the weakest person in the area to make themselves look strong.

Skye swallowed her fear and gripped the log as her back hit it. She pulled herself up onto it and refused to let him intimidate her, stared him down as she pulled her shit together.

“It must have been disturbed. Bears sleep through winter, but we’re not exactly being subtle.” She dusted her black jacket off and glared up at the blond man next to her. “Cooper shot up that tree pretty good a few hours ago. It might have been enough to disturb the bear.”

Cooper’s wide green eyes swung down to her. “You mean that thing has been tailing us all this time?”

He looked ready to lift his rifle again and as much as she wanted to defuse the situation and calm him down, she was too damned tired and shaken.

Wade scowled at Cooper. “If it has, it’s your fault.”

Cooper glared right back at him. “You’ve always had a problem with me. You blamed me for losing track of that cheating bastard’s parents and now you want to blame me for a bear being on our tail.”

Cheating bastard?

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one who let them slip away.” Wade strode over to him and butted chests with Cooper, glowering down at him. “We had the woman where we wanted her. She would have talked if we had gotten our hands on her, but now she’s in this godforsaken shithole wilderness and we’re getting nowhere. You fucked us. We’ve got no leverage.”

Skye stared up at them, her mind spinning. Had they wanted to use the woman’s parents as leverage to make her talk? What was it the woman had done? Was the cheating bastard Knox or some other man?

“Wade,” Karl barked and when Wade looked over his shoulder at him, Karl slid a pointed look at Skye. “I don’t think this is something we need to discuss right now.”

Because he didn’t want her to know what was happening. What did it matter? If she didn’t manage to get away from them, she was toast. She supposed that if she did get away from them and managed to reach the authorities, she would have a lot of dirt she could give them on Karl and his buddies.

“What happened to Patrick?” She looked from Karl to Wade and the grim looks on both of their faces told her that whatever had happened, it hadn’t been pretty. She swallowed hard. “Is he…?”

Karl nodded.

Cooper sank to his backside on the log beside her, the butt of his rifle dropping to the dirt by his feet, and hung his hands between his knees as he stared into nothing. “Shit. Shit.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face and growled in frustration as he shoved it into his hair and then smashed his fist into his leg.

“I’m going to kill that fucking bear,” he snarled, tears shining in his eyes, and then his rage dropped away and he buried his face in his hand again, and whispered, “Shit.”

Skye’s brow furrowed as she looked at him, as polar emotions pulled her in two. She was relieved there was one less of them to stop her from escaping now, and one less of them for Knox to potentially deal with, but at the same time she felt bad that Patrick was dead and that Cooper was clearly hurting, grieving for his friend.

She placed a hand on his back and moved it in gentle circles, trying to comfort him, and felt like a bitch because part of her was hoping that bear would come back and take out another one of them for her or at least give her a chance to escape.

Cooper angled his head towards her and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You think it’ll come back… like it’s going to keep following us? It’s going to kill us all, isn’t it?”

“Shh.” She kept rubbing his back and smiled for him. “It’s long gone. You scared it away. It’s not coming back.”

That lie tasted bitter on her tongue as she kept on smiling, covering her fear, hiding how shaken she was as her mind kept replaying how that bear had charged towards them.

She couldn’t shift the feeling that had come over her when she had locked gazes with it in the moment before Cooper had shot at it. It was ridiculous of her, but in that heart-stopping moment, she swore it had been charging towards her.

She swore it had looked desperate to reach her.

“We’re moving. Now.” Karl’s barked words snapped her out of her thoughts.

She stared across the fire at him, her hand stilling against Cooper’s back.

“It’s safer by the fire though, right?” Cooper sounded uncertain as he glanced at her.

She shook her head and offered him an apologetic look when his face crumpled. His green eyes slid towards the woods, a flicker of fear in them that ran through her too.

“I know how you feel, Cooper.” She kept her tone calm, gentle, trying to show him that she was on his side but convince him that he needed to listen to her at the same time. “The fire does look safe, but that bear killed Patrick and it’s probably going to come back to—”

“Don’t say it!” Cooper covered his ears and shook his head.

She wouldn’t. Partly because she didn’t want to upset him further and partly because she didn’t want to think about the bear eating someone. It was rare for a bear to kill humans, but once a bear crossed that line and began predating on people, there was no going back for it. If the bear that had killed Patrick had developed a taste for humans, it would be coming back for more.

“It’s not safe here.” She gently stroked his back and leaned forwards so she could see his face when he looked down at his knees and curled over. “I’ll keep my bear spray on hand and we’ll make plenty of noise so the bear will stay away from us.”

“We were making plenty of noise!” Cooper snapped and shoved upright, knocking her hand away. “We were talking and the bear still… it—”

“Oh, man the fuck up,” Wade growled and grabbed the red pack and shoved it at Cooper. “Boss says we’re moving, so we’re moving. Got it? I am not hanging around here. You want to stay, go ahead.”

He came to her and grabbed her arm before she could do anything, hauled her onto her feet and pushed her towards Karl.

“You can stay here alone,” Wade spat at Cooper.

Cooper was quick to stand and slip his arms into the straps of his backpack. “Wait up.”

“My pack and the bear spray.” Skye pointed to it and regretted it when Wade was the one who retrieved it for her.

He came to her, that predator’s smile in place as he twisted the backpack in his hands and held it up at shoulder height to her. She tried to take it but he drew it away from her, chastised her with a shake of his head. Nerves trickled through her veins and she had to pull down a breath as she mustered her courage. She scowled at him, making it clear she wasn’t happy about what he was doing.

She doubted he cared.

She turned and slipped her arms into the straps of her pack, just about held her nerve when he lifted and smoothed the straps over her shoulders. When he brushed his fingers across the nape of her neck, she turned on him. Glared up into his eyes.

Skye backed away from him, keeping an eye on him. “My bear spray.”

She held her hand out to him.

Karl stepped past her and took it from Wade. “I’ll keep that.”

She scowled at him, because hitting the men with a dose of the pepper spray and running had started sounding like a good plan. Instead of kicking up a fuss, she huffed and pivoted away from him, wrapped her arms around herself and walked a few feet towards the trees.

Her gaze caught on Patrick’s rifle where it leaned against the log.

Wade was quick to come and snatch it up, to move it away from her reach by slinging it over his shoulder. He gave her a black look as he passed her, his dark eyebrows knitted hard and his lips compressed into a thin line. She didn’t avert her gaze. She stared at him, letting him see that she had been thinking about grabbing the rifle and using it to blast a hole in him.

“Let’s move.” Karl jerked his head towards the trees.

Skye reached around and grabbed her flashlight from the side of her pack and clicked the button. She stepped up to Karl and motioned towards the forest with the beam.

“We should head around where the bear… Just in case.” She started towards the left side of the clearing, away from the direction the bear had run and where Patrick had gone.

Karl followed her, his own flashlight cutting through the darkness.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Miss Callaghan.”

She slowly tensed as his deep voice rolled over her, a dark edge to it.

She glanced back at him and met his gaze.

His eyes were darker than ever.

“You even think about going for one of the guns… or leading us towards that bear… and our business relationship is going to reach an abrupt end.”

The glacial look in his eyes told her what he meant by that.

One wrong move and he was going to kill her.