Series: Lee Savino
Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
“Where’s Thom? What happened?”
“Thom’s dead.” I look over my shoulder at Darius, who stands behind me like he’s still guarding my back.
“Your badass sister gave him a taste of his own medicine.” Darius smiles at me.
“You killed him?”
“I injected him with the same poison he had waiting for me, but I guess he hadn’t built up a tolerance to it, and you know, he had that heart condition.” I shrug.
The big bear on the tarmac wanders closer. “I guess you’ve met Everest.” I’m not sure how much Wren knows about the bears on Bad Bear Mountain, but there’ll be time to figure all that out.
“Oh yes. He’s been showing me around.” She arches a brow at me. “I heard your boyfriend is a bear, too?”
“This is Darius.” I disengage from her reluctantly, so she can shake Darius’ hand. “He and his brothers saved our lives.”
Wren ignores his outstretched hand and throws herself into his arms for a hug.
Darius gives a surprised chuckle before his arms lift and wrap around her. “It’s nice to meet you, Wren.”
“I’m not going back to school,” Wren says fiercely when she emerges from Darius’ arms.
“No, you’re not,” I agree. “From now on, we stick together. Unless, of course, it’s time for you to move on and go to college and do the normal stuff young people are supposed to do.”
“The normal stuff you weren’t allowed to do,” Wren says darkly. “I always knew something wasn’t right, but you made it seem like it was all fine.” She gives me a gentle shove. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”
“I just wanted to keep you safe and sheltered from his madness. If you knew, you would’ve insisted on sticking around, and then he would’ve found out that you have psychic abilities, too.”
“Speaking of psychic abilities.” Darius drops a hand on Wren’s shoulder. “We heard you were responsible for figuring out where we were being held.”
Wren smiles. “Nah, I just got clues. It was your hacker friend who figured out the rest. What did Teddy say her name was? Kylie?”
“Yes, Kylie.”
“But I did connect you and Teddy, so he could tell you to let your bear out.”
I turn to look at Darius, whose mouth drops open. “That really happened? I thought it was a hallucination.”
Wren looks pleased with herself, as she should.
“Oh, yeah. Did I tell you that my talented sister has psychic skills, too?” I toss an arm around Wren’s shoulders proudly. “She has a knack for showing up in my dreams. I didn’t know she could psychically connect two other people.”
“I never tried it before,” Wren says. “But I’m sure it helped that you two are twins.”
“I doubt that,” Darius mutters. “We’re not close.”
Wren tilts her head as she studies him. “You felt very close to me. Almost like you didn’t know where one of you stopped and the other began.”
I make a soft, “mm” sound because that makes sense to me energetically. Darius has been at odds with his brother because he’s been at odds with himself. With his own bear.
“Hop in, guys!” Lana waves from the passenger side of a shiny white Jaguar SUV that pulls up right beside us. Teddy is behind the wheel. Both of them climb out to embrace us as we climb into the back seat with Wren.
“Wren can stay at our place,” Lana says. “We have her all situated there already, and you two probably need to rest and recover for a bit.”
“And take care of some unfinished business,” Teddy grumbles from the front seat.
Darius bares his teeth and growls back at him.
I laugh and grab Darius’ giant biceps. “Is he talking about what I think he’s talking about?”
“What is it?” Wren asks.
“He needs to butt out of my bear business,” Darius declares.
I chuckle. Lana joins me. Even Teddy lets out a humored snort.
“Seems like Teddy might have been right about your bear business,” I remind him.
Darius’ face softens. “Yeah, brother. Thanks for the punch in the face. It was exactly what I needed.”
Darius
Teddy and Lana drop us off, and I carry Paloma into my cabin, her lush legs wrapped around my waist, her hot core pressed just above where I want it to be.
“Princess, I’m gonna tear your clothes off so fast you’re going to scream,” I warn her, kicking my boots off in the entryway.
I feel my bear roaring up with excitement, but I’m not worried about him now.
I built my bear up to be something grotesque. Something dangerous. A monster who hurt the people I love. When I was on my rampage at the warehouse, I realized that while he is capable of those things, he is still me. The only reason my bear side was so wild when I was a child was because I wasn’t old enough to understand how to be a bear. Puberty came too early, and our biological mom didn’t offer me any understanding or training of what it meant or how to manage it. I couldn’t control my animal side, and that scared me, which, of course, scared my bear and made him even more unpredictable and unsafe.