So close. “I’m gonna…”
“Come for me,” he whispered against her neck. He pushed deeper into her, held her tighter, reared back and slammed into her again, faster. Their bodies made a slick sound together. She loved this.
“Logan!” she cried out as the first explosive pulse of orgasm rocked through her core.
He grunted in response as his dick throbbed inside of her, pouring warmth into her middle in jet after streaming jet. He ripped her shirt to the side, stretching the neck, and clamped his teeth over her claiming mark in a delicious tease. He groaned against her skin as he emptied himself.
Numb. Other than blinding pleasure, Winter felt nothing. She relaxed backward, allowed him to hold her as she let her hands go limp at her waist. With a drunken grin, she whispered, “That was amazing.”
But Logan didn’t respond, and his breath was coming faster, labored. The scent of fur was too thick, saturating every molecule of air. Winter opened her eyes, and what she saw dumped dread into her body.
Logan’s eyes were blazing white, and his face looked feral. His muscles were twisting into something other, and the first echoing snap of bone sounded like a shotgun blast in the small space.
“Shit,” she whispered.
“Run,” he said in an inhuman growl.
But there was no running from the monster that was about to tear out of Logan. She hadn’t even seen his animal, but she knew there was no surviving him. Frantically, she unbuckled Logan and shoved open his door.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me. You said. You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” she chanted over and over as she struggled to shove his heavy body out the door and onto the forest floor. He was trying to stay human, but he was losing to the animal. The building growl in his throat and snapping bones were proof of that.
“Go!” he roared, his face transforming into something ferocious.
With a scream, she pulled the door closed, and threw the truck into reverse. In the middle of the quiet woods, a roar wrecked the silence, and a monstrous bear ripped out of Logan’s skin. He was bigger than any furred shifter she’d ever laid eyes on. A true titan brown bear with teeth the size of a saber-tooth, a back that was taller than the truck.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered in horror as he stood to his full height in front of her and opened his mouth for another roar.
Winter jammed her foot on the gas and looked behind her to make sure she wouldn’t crash into a tree. If she wrecked now, he would devour her just as surely as any man-eater dragon.
When she glanced in front of her again, Logan was right there, charging her, his eyes empty, his long, six-inch black claws sinking into the dirt with each sprinting step he took.
Terrified, Winter slammed on the brakes and threw it into drive, spinning the truck sideways. Logan hit her hard on the passenger’s side, swinging her several yards and shattering the window. His long claw reached in and raked across her arm. She screamed at the pain as she stomped on the gas. The truck fishtailed, struggling under the bear’s massive weight, but pulled free. Logan was right there on the edge of her blind spot, keeping up no matter how fast she sped up. He knocked his shoulder against the bed of the truck and sent her skidding sideways. No time to straighten out, she kept on the accelerator and sped through the woods, then pulled a wide circle until she could angle back to the road, all the while hearing the panting breath of the bear close through the broken window.
Winter was crying, nearly hysterical by the time she blasted onto the main road. Logan skidded to a stop in the middle of the paved street and roared loud enough to rattle her ear drums.
And as she watched him in the rear view disappear, she had an awful, gut-wrenching thought.
Rowan had been wrong.
Logan the man was perhaps salvageable.
His bear, however, was not.
Chapter Seven
The pain made it hard to think. Winter stumbled to the motel office. It was a ratty, run-down joint with maybe two dozen rooms all connected on one long L-shaped floor, but it would have to do until she could get the bleeding to stop.
“I need a room,” she panted desperately to the man at the front desk.
“Good God, girl,” the balding gentleman said, his eyes trained on the oozing slash marks on her arm. “Have you called an ambulance?”
“No, no ambulance. I’m a shifter. I just need an hour or two of rest. Please sir, I need a room.” She was going to pass out soon if she didn’t find a dark place to sit down.
He gave a worried look to the destroyed truck she’d parked sideways in front of the office. The window had jagged pieces of glass sticking out, and the bed was crushed inward over the back wheel that had been making a scraping sound the entire drive here.
“Car accident,” she lied. “Off in the woods, no one else involved, but I need somewhere to rest. Do you take a credit card?” That way he wouldn’t think she was on the run and turn her away.
“Yes, of course. Forty-five even. You can take the room on the end, ten-ten.”
Winter frowned. That was the number she’d seen on Kane’s cabin, too. Funny. Or it would’ve been if her arm didn’t feel severed from her body right now. She struggled out her wallet and paid. And right before she walked out of the office, he tossed her a first-aid kit and wished her luck. “Thanks,” she said, and meant it. Sometimes people freaked out when they found out she was a shifter, but he’d been nice. Helpful even.
One-handed, Winter drove the truck to the front of 1010 and stumbled inside.