Unleashed By her Bear by Felicity Heaton

Chapter 18

Callie resisted when Rune tried to push her into the cabin. He shot her a glare, but she stood her ground, tensed every muscle in her body as she gripped the doorframe, refusing to let him lock her away. She wasn’t a weak female. She was a fighter.

The hard edge to his eyes softened towards fear.

Fear she could feel in him as he stared at her.

Fear she knew the source of and wanted to tell him that everything would be fine.

He wouldn’t hurt her by accident while lost to the side of him that had been born during his brutal captivity.

The part of her that didn’t want to hurt him, that hated seeing that fear in his eyes, wanted to do as he desired and lock herself in the cabin, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t hide from Carrigan. This was her fight too and she needed to be in the thick of it, shaping her future with her own hands, winning her freedom.

And she needed to keep an eye on Rune too.

The thought of him fighting twisted her stomach in knots, and the fear it caused in her would only drive her mad if she let him have his way and she couldn’t see that he was all right. Thoughts of him being injured—or worse—would torment her the entire time she was hiding.

Not only that, but she would be constantly expecting Carrigan to burst into the cabin and capture her.

Callie clung to that as an idea struck her—a way of making Rune relent and accept her presence in this fight.

“Carrigan knows my scent. What if he finds me holed up in this cabin during the fight? Or his men find me? I’ll have no way of escaping them. Surely it’s better to keep me close to you where you know I’m safe?” She pressed her hands to his chest and felt his heart thundering against her palms as his handsome face darkened once more. He didn’t like that she was manipulating him like this, convincing him to do the opposite of what he really wanted, but she wasn’t about to apologise for it. She wanted to be out there, keeping an eye on him, fighting her own battle. “We can protect each other if we’re together, Rune.”

He heaved a sigh, a look crossing his features that was hard to make out, and part of her expected him to lay down the law as he had before when they had talked about her fighting.

Only he didn’t.

He grabbed her hand and tugged her with him, running back in the direction they had come, towards the clearing and Rourke’s cabin.

Her heart raced, blood rushing as she caught Carrigan’s scent in the night breeze and heard a commotion ahead of them. Raised voices echoed around the woods, drawing wolves from their cabins, most of them male. A few of them joined her and Rune, running for the clearing.

Rune kept her pinned to his side when they reached it, his grip on her hand tightening as they pushed through the wolves who had gathered there and were blocking their path.

“She belongs with my pack,” Carrigan growled and her heart jacked up into her throat, lodging and trembling there as she waited to hear Rourke’s response.

It was Rune who snarled, “Go to Hell, Carrigan. Callie isn’t going anywhere with you.”

Her gaze leaped to him, her heart warming as he glanced at her, a wealth of affection and fear in his eyes as they pushed through the last of the people who formed a semicircle around their alpha’s cabin, hemming in Carrigan and his men. She shifted closer to Rune, feeling his strength flowing into her as her nerves rose to swamp her, as fear attempted to rattle her and make her want to turn tail and start running.

No.

She wouldn’t.

This thing with Carrigan ended here.

She was done running.

Rourke folded his arms across his chest and his red-and-black plaid shirt stretched tight over his muscles as he stared down at Carrigan. The male stood with his eight men at his back, forming a wall between their alpha and the wolves of Rourke’s pack.

Carrigan flashed fangs as he spoke. “You know you can’t keep her. She doesn’t belong to you.”

Rourke’s right eyebrow arched at that.

Fire surged through Callie and she had taken a hard step forwards before she had even noticed what she was doing.

“I don’t belong to anyone!” she barked. “I’m not your property, Carrigan. I’m a person. I’m free to make my own choices.”

Carrigan turned dark eyes on her, ones that shone amber in their depths. “Your alpha gave you to me. That makes you my property, bitch.”

“Call her that again and see how fast I put you in the ground, asshole,” Rune snarled and stepped up beside her, surprising her by not stepping in front of her to shield her.

Warming her.

He was right about bears. They did things differently. Now that he had accepted that she wanted to fight, he was going to stand by her side. He wasn’t going to treat her as if she was weak, shielding her with his body to protect her from physical harm or to keep her gentle sensibilities from being hurt by witnessing a conflict. A wolf male would have done those things, holding her back, but not Rune.

Rune trusted she could fight her own battles, was going to provide backup for her and maybe a little muscle and fighting skill she was badly going to need. He might think she was a strong, capable female, and she was, but she also wasn’t stupid. Rune was a bear, a powerful warrior, and she wasn’t going to start burning her bra and turning down his help, thinking she could handle this alone. She needed him in this fight. She would be relying on his strength and prowess from the start.

She was going to be the backup.

Carrigan’s gaze drilled into her, darkening by degrees, and his men grew restless as they began to eye the wolves who surrounded them. The blond male removed his green jacket and shoved it at one of his men, who fumbled with it as Carrigan released it and turned back on Rourke.

“Last chance, White Wolf,” Carrigan growled, the amber in his eyes brightening as he narrowed them on Rourke.

“She’s not mine to hand over…” Rourke shrugged “and she’s not yours either.”

The look that had been emerging on Carrigan’s face, a sly smile that had revealed he thought he had won and Rourke wouldn’t stop him from taking her back, disappeared into a scowl.

Rune flexed his fingers against the back of her hand and she could sense the tension in him increasing. Hell, the tension in every male present jacked up, and she drew down a breath, knowing this was it.

It was about to come down to a fight.

“Callie is right. She’s her own person. She’s not property. She’s free to choose where she wants to be and who she wants to be with.” Rourke tipped his chin up, coolly holding Carrigan’s gaze.

“Your mistake.” Carrigan sneered at him.

Callie wasn’t prepared for how everything suddenly sprang into motion, was knocked backwards as a big blond male launched at Carrigan and both of them smashed into Rune. Rune growled and released her, grabbed Carrigan and landed a fierce blow on his jaw. Callie locked gazes with Carrigan, her eyes widening as his narrowed on her, the hunger in them turning her stomach.

For a heartbeat, everything went still, and then she was shoved further from Rune as a brawl broke out, pushed ever outwards towards the edge of the group as every male in the vicinity tried to get in on the action.

Including Rourke.

The white-haired male leaped into the fray, his lips peeling back off his fangs as he snarled and hurled himself off the raised deck of his cabin, landing on the back of one of Carrigan’s men.

Someone grabbed Callie and she growled and went to slam an elbow into their face, stopped at the last second as she met the wide brown-to-green eyes of a pretty white-haired female who looked close to Callie’s age.

“Rourke told me that if shit went down, I had to get you out of here.” The female tugged her backwards, away from the fight. “Not because he’s all about squashing your lady liberties like, my brother isn’t like that, but because he figured a brawl between a bear and a bunch of wolves might get nasty, and… I think there was something about him not wanting said bear biting his head off if you got hurt.”

Callie hated the distance that yawned between her and Rune. It ate at her soul, had fear drumming in her veins to steal her strength and fill her head with doubts that she would ever see her bear again. A war erupted inside her, tearing her between going with the female as Rourke had ordered and immediately disobeying her new alpha.

“I’m Jessie by the way.”

Callie didn’t care who she was. Resolve flowed through her, quick to defeat the side of her that wanted to be a meek little wolf, a good wolf, and obey her new leader so she didn’t end up kicked out of the White Wolf pack. She knew Rourke meant well, as his sister had said, and that he was only trying to protect her, and himself, but she needed to fight.

It was hard to shake off over a century of following the rules, of obeying orders she didn’t agree with, but the thought of Rune out there fighting Carrigan gave her the strength she needed.

She wasn’t going to leave Rune to fight Carrigan alone. This was her fight too. She silently apologised to the female and then went through with her original plan, slamming her elbow into Jessie’s face and catching her off guard. Jessie grunted and lost her grip on Callie, and Callie kicked off, racing back towards the clearing.

With Jessie hot on her heels.

Callie put in a burst of speed and banked left when she found the route blocked by agitated wolves all trying to see what was happening. She would have to go around and find another route into the clearing. Hell, she would go over the damned cabins if she had to, or through one at least. There had been a door at the back of Rourke’s cabin as well as the front. She could use that to reach Rune.

She took a right, heading for it.

Her gaze snagged on a tall black-haired male who leaned against a thick post on the deck of a cabin to her right, a disinterested look in his golden eyes as he watched her approaching.

“Stop her,” Jessie hollered.

Callie’s heart shot into her throat as she realised the female was talking to him and fear that he might do as Jessie had asked rushed through her. She couldn’t let him stop her from reaching Rune, and if he got his hands on her it would be game over. She was strong enough to fend off a female, but this male looked to be a different matter entirely. There was a darkness about him, an aura that had her instincts labelling him as dangerous, despite his slender build.

She needn’t have worried though, because he merely watched her run right past him, not moving a muscle.

“Osiris!” Jessie snapped and Callie sensed her slowing as the male answered.

“You really want me to fight? You know what happens when I fight.”

Ominous words if ever Callie had heard them.

She glanced back to find Jessie had stopped before Osiris and was looking up at him, her expression torn. Something was off about the black-haired wolf, seriously off. He smelled wrong. Like wolf, but with an undernote of something else. Something that had her hackles rising and an urge to get far away from him coursing through her. She left him to Jessie, hoping Osiris would prove a big enough distraction for the female that she could lose her.

Callie faced forwards again, sprinting harder, her senses locked on the battle to her right, beyond the cabins. She glanced down every path between them, cursing when she found all of them blocked either by spectators or people involved in the fight.

Ahead of her, Rourke’s cabin came into view.

She ran for it, her eyes on the back porch.

Grunted as someone barrelled into her, knocking her down. Panic lanced her, adrenaline shooting into her veins as she recognised their scent from the pass. It was one of Carrigan’s men.

He grabbed her by her hair, fisting it hard, and dragged her onto her feet. Callie willed the shift, aware she was going to need to be in her wolf form to take him down. He clucked his tongue and seized her right arm, twisted it hard enough behind her back that she cried out and fire blazed through her, the pain halting her shift before it had even begun.

Damn him.

She threw a wild look around her, trying to figure out how to escape him.

A shiver bolted down her spine, freezing her solid as she caught another scent.

“Good work,” Carrigan drawled and movement off to her right drew her gaze there. He smiled coldly as he moved into view, wiping the knuckles of his left hand across his split lip to clear the blood away. His amber eyes were bright, flooded with hunger as he stared at her. “The others are keeping the dogs busy. Hand her to me. I will take her from here.”

Callie looked from him to a third male who joined them.

She might have stood a chance if it had only been Carrigan, but she couldn’t take on three males alone.

She was going to need help.

Callie screamed.

“Rune!”

Carrigan growled and struck her hard.

The world went black.