Hurry.
“I’m fucking hurrying!”
Woods and rich greenery blurred by as he wound the mountain roads beside the snaking river. Almost there.
Kill them.
The dragons? God, how could he kill dragons?
But to protect our Winter?
Logan gripped the steering wheel so hard it bent under his grip. He had to keep his skin until he escaped the truck. He had to hold it together until he got to the dragons.
Through the thick tree canopy, a ball of fire shot up into the sky and exploded as it reached the clouds. A line of smoke was all that remained. Why would one of the dragon’s blast a fireball up into the heavens? Unless…
Unless it was a call for help.
“Fuck!” Logan sailed down the steep entrance to Kane’s land and over the bridge. He felt like he was going in slow motion. He gunned it up the last gravel hill and then slammed on the brakes when he hit the clearing.
What he saw made no sense. Two Bengal tigers were circling a battle, one white tiger lay on the ground, matted with red, staring vacantly. And in the center was a pair of grizzly bears, brawling, roaring, clawing at—oh, God.
A sleek black panther with ferocious gold eyes was fighting for her life. No, not just her life. She was poised over two limp bodies. She was crouched above Rowan and Kane, trying to keep the grizzlies from them. She slapped viciously, ripping into one of the bruin’s necks. She was a weapon in motion, enraged, desperate. His loyal Winter was going to die for the dragons.
Logan slammed on the brakes and shoved the door open before he even put it in park.
Rage pumped through his veins as his bear ripped out of his skin.
Kill them. Kill them all.
He charged, every step fueled by hate and bloodlust. Winter was bleeding. He could smell it on the air. He could practically taste it, and for every drop of her blood they’d spilled, he would make them pay in agony.
One of the tigers hissed and leapt at him, but he swatted it away like it was nothing. A tree in the woods cracked loudly with the force of the asshole’s body, but Logan was already focused on the next. He gave his back to the second tiger in desperation to rip the grizzlies off Winter. Pain raked down his back, but he didn’t give a fuck about anything but the pitch black bear he’d zeroed in on. The one with his teeth deep in Winter’s shoulder.
Logan barreled into the attackers, pulling them with him and away from Winter and the dragons. Everything smelled like blood. Winter had done good, hurt them, punished them, and now he would end them. Not cleanly, but like they deserved instead. Dishonorable deaths for dishonorable monsters. He raked his claws down the belly of one, spilling his guts and rendering him helpless. The next got a jugular shot, deep into the muscle, nearly severing his damn head so his shifter healing wouldn’t work fast enough to fix him.
Logan’s head was filled with the sounds of pain and the scent of blood and fur. He moved onto the next before one was expired because he knew the kill shots. He knew they were dying in piles behind him, one by one until there was a single wolf in the woods that remained. He had the bright green eyes of one of the A-Team. He turned to bolt, but fuck no to that. Logan chased him down, pounding his feet faster and faster behind him until her leapt on the back of the gray wolf. Logan snapped his neck in two, then shook his powerful head and tossed him into a pile of nothing on the ground. After the wolf’s eyes dimmed with death, Logan stood on his hind legs and roared as long and as loud as he could to expel the rage still built up in his bloodstream.
****
When Logan’s roar shattered the woods, Winter flinched from her pacing and lowered to her belly in fear. Oh, his bear was the monster she remembered, but even more terrifying. Now she truly believed his claim that he wouldn’t have killed her. If he’d really wanted to, Logan could’ve ripped his truck apart panel by panel until she was in a bloody mound like the rest of the A-Team. The massacre had taken only seconds. Logan had been swift, skilled at killing. The last living grizzly, the black one who had ripped into her shoulder in an attempt to get to the dragons under her heaved one final breath and went still.
Logan had been so fast he’d blurred from one death blow to the next.
Rowan and Kane were bleeding from the claw marks Winter hadn’t been able to protect them from. She needed to Change back so she could care for them, but the panther didn’t want to give up her body yet.
Logan had saved her. He’d saved the dragons. She wanted to meet his animal face-to-face in this braver body she had right now. The one with claws and teeth and weapons.
Logan lumbered from the woods, more massive than any grizzly she’d ever seen, wild or shifter. His chocolate-colored fur shook with each powerful step, and his long black claws dug into the earth as he strode toward her.
He. Felt. Terrifying.
Be brave. He’s ours. He won’t hurt us.
Crouching, she approached him slowly, but not directly. She slunk this way and that, keeping her neck exposed, but he didn’t slow at all. In fact, he sped up. Would he charge? Would he kill her, too? Was he still wrapped up in the bloodlust she’d seen in his eyes when he’d single-handedly put down the A-Team? All but the white tiger. That kill was hers, and it would haunt her.
When Logan picked his pace up to a trot, she lowered to her belly and waited for him to eat her. He didn’t, though. He stopped in front of her and ran his head down her side with such force, she toppled over.
If she could cry with joy and relief in this body, she would’ve. But all she had in her repertoire was a soft mewling sound as she pushed up on her hind legs and wrapped her paws around his neck. She extended her claws into his thick neck to steady herself and ran her tongue up his face, cleaning the blood, showing him the affection he deserved. She was still breathing because of him.