Big Bad Bear (6 page)

Z
eus ran
down to the first floor, checking his phone for additional information.

It had alerted him of the initial breach a couple minutes ago. Zeus swore to himself. He should have been paying more attention. The alarm in the house only went off if he ignored the initial warnings, so whatever was outside had already been there for a few minutes.

He hoped Ares really was just a numbskull who always forgot to deactivate the alarm. But as Zeus came to up to the door, he opened a small closet to his right, slipped on his boots, and pulled out a leather vest that he kept hung there that held a few helpful things.

Just in case.

Zeus slowly pushed open the front door but didn’t come outside. He listened for sounds coming from the forest, scented the varying smells that wafted toward him on the afternoon breeze. Pine needles. Bark. Aspen logs.

And something else.

Zeus quietly stepped out onto the porch, every muscle tensed, ready for action.

From his right, he heard movement and turned quickly to face three large men charging directly at him, brandishing knives.

In an instant, Zeus’s mind and body sprang into action. Putting years of sparring and military hand-to-hand combat to use, coupled with his supernatural bear strength, he engaged the three of them at once.

He grabbed the outstretched hand of the lead man and flung him backward. Then, with one swift kick of his steel-toed boot, he struck the hand of the man on his right, sending his large knife clattering to the side. The man backed off, nursing his now-broken wrist. Zeus rushed toward the last man, passing his swinging knife and catching the man’s arm in a vise between his chest and elbow. For a moment, the man looked at Zeus wide-eyed in shock, right before Zeus pulled the man’s face forward into a ferocious head-butt, knocking the man backward and toppling over the railing of the deck onto the dirt.

As he fought, Zeus heard engines roar to life nearby. He came back to the man with the broken hand and knocked him out with a swift hook to the jaw, just in time to see motorcycles coming over the road leading into the clearing, whooping and firing their guns into the air and at him.

The sounds of the gunshots rang through the forest, and Zeus rolled behind a wood pillar at the corner of the porch out of the line of fire. He brandished a compact pistol stowed in the left pocket of his vest and pulled the slide to chamber a round.

“We’re here for the girl. We know you got her inside!” one man yelled as the bikes drove up to the front of the house and waited.

Zeus wondered how it was they’d found him out here. And even if they did find out, he’d never thought the Red Devils would try to come this far from their home turf, even for Carly.

If they wanted to bring the war to his doorstep, then he was more than willing to oblige. Anytime.

“Give up now and we promise not to kill ya!” shouted another. As he did, several men came off their bikes and took cover in the underbrush at the edge of the clearing.
They were armed. They were ready.

They were about to get their asses kicked.

Zeus looked over his shoulder and saw about ten bikers waiting at the front of the house, engines idling. He guessed there was probably three or four more in the thick ferns and brush that surrounded the house as well.

“Do you accept the terms of your surrender?” the lead man asked Zeus. He wore a red and black bandana and had a large, polished chopper of a motorcycle.

Zeus wasn’t up for negotiations. He turned over his left shoulder, aimed down the sights of his .45, and fired one shot at the leader, dropping him to the ground.

“Consider that my surrender,” Zeus called to the stunned group of men.

In an instant, the forest exploded with sound. The men swore unspeakable things and revved their engines, circling around the house. Zeus knew he was too exposed here on the deck, and he needed to draw fire away from the cabin to protect Carly. So he leapt over the side railing and rolled to the ground, coming onto his feet and bolting for the nearest patch of trees. All around him, he could hear bullets whizzing past and engines screaming as they approached.

As Zeus ran, he aimed and shot the front tire of one of the bikes as it zoomed toward him, and it veered out of control and careened into the forest with its rider. Just as another swiped past him, he slid beneath a large fern and ducked behind a tree.

Using his newfound cover, he fired on two men sprinting up the stairs and heading into the house. Both men slumped over before they could reach the door.

So long as Zeus fought, nobody would ever come near his mate. He’d make sure of that.

More shots ricocheted around him, and Zeus ducked behind another tree. As much as he wanted to go into the clearing, guns blazing, he knew he had neither the ammo nor the manpower to do so. And the last thing his mate needed was a dead protector.

To his right, one of the men that earlier had disappeared into the tree line came toward him, not knowing Zeus was hidden there. Hoping to conserve his ammunition, Zeus pulled a throwing knife and hurled it toward the man, hitting him square in the chest. The goon yelped and dropped to the ground.

Zeus hurried to where he fell and grabbed the scuffed, worn-looking pistol on the ground near his body. Though it didn’t look like the most reliable weapon, two was better than one.

Welding both firearms, Zeus fired on the circle of moving bikes, aiming for tires, engines, gas tanks, and the riders themselves. Though his accuracy certainly would have been better with only one gun, Zeus knew he needed to cull their numbers quickly in case they had reinforcements on the way.

No matter how unlikely it was, Zeus always planned for the worst.

Immediately, bikes began overturning and riders fell to the ground. Those that weren’t flung from their bikes or shot down quickly got the picture and dismounted, scattering for the road. Zeus fired off the last rounds in both pistols and went back into cover, discarding the thug’s pistol and putting a fresh magazine in his own gun. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another man making for the house and shot him down.

A split second after that happened, Zeus heard a loud pop across the clearing and felt searing pain rip into his side. Instinctively, he went prone and rolled behind a tree, out of the line of fire, before whoever was shooting got another chance.

Now on his back, Zeus looked over his body and saw blood welling up on his side.

Shit, he was hit.

He quickly lifted his shirt and checked the wound. It had grazed his ribs, leaving a deep gash. It wasn’t the worst wound he’d had, not even close. And thanks to his bear strength and the incredible healing power all shifters had, he knew his body could take it. But the dangerous thing was that it hadn’t been from something like a handgun. Based on the size of the wound and just how damn bad it hurt, the shot had been from a much higher velocity weapon, like a hunting or assault rifle.

At first glance, Zeus hadn’t seen anyone with anything bigger than a handgun. And just based on their ragtag tactics, he didn’t expect any of them to be terribly accurate. But someone had been able to hit him from somewhere across the clearing and with surprising accuracy.

Zeus was just getting started. To anyone else, that shot would have likely been lethal. But there was one thing none of the men out there knew and he did.

There was another fighter inside him, one stronger than they could handle. He felt his body change and let out a roar as he charged into the clearing.

They’d threatened his mate and woken the animal inside him.

Now they’d have to deal with the big, bad bear.

C
arly watched
in terror at the melee below. From the bedroom window, she could see Zeus as he ran for the trees and fought the intruders from there.

Yesterday, when Zeus had protected her in the bar, she’d seen just how capable and strong he really was. And how protective. And since then, she’d learned snippets here and there from Ares or from himself about his past in the military, apparently doing something he didn’t or couldn’t talk about.

But seeing him out there, singlehandedly fighting what looked like twenty or so men, fearlessly and all by himself, Carly knew for certain that Zeus had seen combat in his previous life. Lots of it.

Even though he took cover right at the edge of the clearing of trees, Carly could make out Zeus’s huge figure as it dodged, rolled, returned fire, and moved effortlessly through the shrubs, fighting what seemed like an endless onslaught of men.

Her heart sank at the thought of anything happening to him at all, and she thought momentarily about surrendering if that meant they would let him live. But considering just how ferociously he was fighting them, she didn’t think it was something Zeus would ever agree with.

Part of her cursed her luck for having had the run-in with the Red Devils back at the bar. But she also knew if it hadn’t have happened, she probably wouldn’t have been brought up here to this beautiful forest and been able to have the most mind-blowing sex with the hottest man she’d ever known.

The fighting was starting to dwindle, when she heard a loud shot ring through the forest. Zeus staggered and disappeared from her view suddenly.

Was he okay? Had he been shot?

Carly’s heart raced. She picked up her cellphone to call 9-1-1. However, when she unlocked it and started to dial, she heard several loud beeps, then nothing. She checked her phone and saw a small “no service” in the top left corner. Dammit, she didn’t have service this high in the mountains, and until now, she hadn’t bothered to check. And from what she’d seen in the house, she didn’t recall Zeus having any landline. All she could do was wait, eyes focused on the last spot she’d seen him.

What would happen if the Red Devils did get their hands on her?

She tried to put away the horrible possibilities that ensued from the thought and silently hoped for the best.

By now, those who were still left standing started to pull fallen comrades out of the clearing to the side, while others approached his last-seen position, guns trained on the thicket of ferns and brush.

Out of nowhere, a long, loud roar reverberated through the forest around them, shaking Carly to her core. It was unlike any sound she’d ever heard before. Looking down at the thugs, she saw them exchange harried looks before moving forward again.

A split second later, a huge brown grizzly charged out of the forest and gave another ferocious roar that made the walls of the house shake, then charged at the men. Some of them froze in their place, dropping their guns at their sides. Others turned and ran for dear life, bolting for the nearest motorcycle and running for the trees behind them.

Carly felt herself freeze as well at the sight of the larger-than-life creature. She’d seen a few bears at a zoo when she was little, but this one seemed bigger than anything she could have imagined.

And where was Zeus? Was he still okay?

To her surprise, the bear was not only huge, but it was fast as well. With one swipe, a biker was thrown twenty feet into the forest, out of Carly’s view. A moment later, the bear grabbed a motorcycle in its mouth and hurled it toward another man about to shoot at it, knocking him over. Some of men regrouped and fired their weapons at the bear, but it seemed to have the same effect a BB gun would on a raging bull.

None.

Carly remembered the bear Zeus had mentioned before when they were at the lake. Was this it? The thought that Zeus lived so close to such a merciless, gigantic killing machine was unsettling, even though he hadn’t sounded worried at all about the creature when he brought up the subject earlier. When she saw Zeus again, she would have to talk to him about it.

Roaring and clawing, the bear made its way through the clearing and into the forest, where she saw it chasing several men who had been hiding there. By the time it reached them, they’d gone out of her view from the small bedroom window, and Carly scanned the forest for where she’d seen Zeus.

Carly heard one last roar and saw the bear charge back into the forest from where it had first come from, overturning the brush and disappearing behind the trees in a matter of seconds. She marveled at how close the creature had come to where Zeus had been, but from what she’d seen, it had gone right past him. Maybe Zeus had seen the bear and hid in the thicket, out of sight?

The clearing was quiet, aside from the quickly waning sounds of a few motorcycles carrying men that had managed to escape in time. But those too soon faded, leaving just the sight of mangled motorcycles and unconscious or dead gangsters.

Carly’s heart stopped when Zeus didn’t appear. Should she go outside and look for him? She turned the thought over and over in her mind. There was still a risk in her going outside. But it was also possible he could be out there, bleeding and dying, right now, and without help, he could surely be doomed.

She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Zeus, only now when she’d just found him. She grabbed a pair of sandals from her bag and threw on her jacket, going to the window to look one last time before running outside.

To her surprise, she saw Zeus, shirtless and shoeless, walking across the clearing toward the house. His left arm hung limp, weakly holding a gun in his hand, with his right hand pressing what looked like a torn piece of fabric to his left chest. She could see blood running down his abdomen from what must have been a gunshot wound he was covering.

Carly didn’t care about the danger. Zeus was hurt. She ran for the stairs, going down them by twos and threes, and swung open the front door. When she did, Zeus looked up at her and smiled weakly, his dark haired mussed and his body riddled with cuts and scrapes. He walked more quickly, and when she reached him, she threw her arms around him, glad to know he was still alive.

“Are you okay? You’re injured,” Carly said, holding back tears.

“I’m fine for now. Let’s get inside, quick. There might be more out there,” Zeus whispered, his voice strained. Even like this, just the sound of his voice reassured her that everything was going to be okay, somehow.