My hands are shaking when I look in the window and see the two of them inside the small cottage.

Colton.

Rigs.

My whole body tightens as I watch them, smiling, laughing. I want to rip the smiles from their faces. I want to crush their laughter with my fists.

I would have died for these two men at one point in my life. I trusted them more than I trusted my own parents.

They betrayed me.

And Kennedy almost died.

My breathing gets louder and more fierce with every second that I watch them until it’s loud enough for them to hear.

Colton sees me first. The look on his pretty-boy face is priceless.

The smile vanishes from Rigs’ face when he turns and sees me standing outside the window like the Grim Reaper.

I charge to the front door of the cabin and yank it open before they can start running. I don’t think their legs would work even if they tried because they look terrified as I step in.

“Ma-Maximus,” Colton stutters before swallowing hard. His eyes are buggy, his breaths raspy. I slowly walk up to the table that he’s sitting at, glaring at him with hard eyes.

Rigs is standing behind the table in the small hunting cabin. I see him slowly look down at the hunting knife that’s sitting on the table between us.

I can see his hand twitching for it. He wants it.

He’s going to need a hell of a lot more than a knife to stop me.

“It’s good to see you, Max,” Colton says in a shaky voice. “It’s been a long t—”

“Where is he?” I growl.

Colton is squirming in the chair and looking like he’d rather be anywhere on the planet but sitting in front of me.

“Who are you talking ab—”

I snatch the knife off the table and with a grunt I slam it down into his collarbone until the handle stops it from going any further.

“What the fuck?!?” Rigs hisses as he jumps back with a horrified look on his face.

Colton is starting to hyperventilate as he stares at the wooden handle sticking out of his shoulder with bulging eyes.

“You going to make me ask you again?” I say in a calm controlled voice.

Colton doesn’t answer. He’s just staring at the handle like he can’t believe it’s a part of him now.

I grab the handle and give it a hard twist.

“Ahhh! Fuck!” he screams as I grit my teeth and let go.

“Jesus, Maximus,” Rigs says as he backs into the wall behind him. “We don’t know where Bledsoe is.”

Colton sucks in a panicked breath as I grab the handle of the knife and yank it back out.

“Not the answer I was looking for.” I slam the bloody blade into the wooden table and take a deep breath as it shudders from side to side like a pendulum.

He should be here.

These three were sloppy in Colwood, Montana. They didn’t cover their tracks, bragging to the shifters of the town how they were going to get even with the alpha of the Grisly Grizzlies, which is me.

Bledsoe was always a little too cocky for his own good. Always thought that he was smarter than everybody. He was like that when he was my number two, always questioning my orders, giving his unwanted input, being a pain in the ass.

I could forgive that, but what he did to my girl was unforgivable, and now it’s time for me to get even with them.

“What are you doing in this town?” My chest is burning as I wait for an answer. Is this where she lives? Is Kennedy nearby?

I spent the past few days tracking the three of them down to this small town about five hours outside of Denver. The thought of this town being Kennedy’s home has stirred up all sorts of old memories and feelings.

I think about her every day. I haven’t stopped thinking about her since the first moment I saw her, but the thought of having her so close by is killing me.

Even if I find out where she is, I won’t see her. I won’t go find her or show up at her door.

I failed to protect Kennedy when she needed me the most and because of that, I don’t deserve her love.

I’ll just take care of the dead men who are trying to hurt her and then be on my way.

“Why this town?” I repeat when neither of them answer.

I glance at the knife that’s sticking out of the table and Colton clears his throat.

“Bledsoe brought us here,” he says as his skin turns white.

“Why?”

Colton looks at Rigs and I see the faintest of head shakes.

These two were never the brightest.

I lunge forward and grab Colton by the neck. In one swift second, I lift him off the chair and slam him through the table, shattering it to splinters as I hammer him to the floor.

Rigs runs to the front door—probably to get away and warn Bledsoe that I’m in town.

The knife is still thrust into one of the broken pieces of the table near Colton’s slumped head. I yank it out of the broken wood and launch it at him, but it sails past him as he ducks out of the way.

He flies out the door and I race after him. It’s dark out, but we can both see almost perfectly with our shifter vision.

Rigs tries to escape through the forest but after a minute, I catch up to him. I tackle him hard. The breath gets knocked out of my lungs as we go down, taking a thick oak tree down with us. We both stumble up to our feet as it falls with a thunderous crash.

“I just want to make sure that Kennedy is okay,” I say as Rigs takes a fighting stance. I always liked Rigs. I thought we were close, but when Bledsoe drew a line in the middle of our crew and forced everyone to pick a side, Rigs went with him. I thought he would have stayed loyal, but I was wrong on a lot of things back then.

“I don’t even care about Bledsoe,” I lie. “Just tell me where Kennedy is. Does she live in this town? Is that why you’re here?”

Rigs is about to say something, but then thinks twice and shuts his mouth.

“Don’t,” I whisper as I get a whiff of fur.

He steps back as his amber eyes brighten and his body starts to shake. A second and a half later, a full grown grizzly bear rips out of his body.

I stand my ground, staring calmly at the huge beast in front of me. He’s pacing from side to side on his huge paws as he stares me down.

“No,” I say in a firm steady voice.

The bear leans away from me, staring at me with knowing eyes. I was once his alpha and there’s something lingering in his eyes that tells me there may be a shred of that left.

The grizzly starts pacing around, the air thick with turmoil. Rigs is probably screaming at him to attack, but the bear doesn’t want to. Perhaps there’s still some good in them left.

I grit my teeth and puff out my chest as I stare into his amber eyes. “Phase back now,” I command, and to my surprise, he does.

Rigs looks freaked out when he remerges naked and shaking as he stares at me. “H-how did you do that?”

I step forward, ignoring him. “It’s time to tell me everything, Rigs.”

He takes a deep breath and then nods. “Bledsoe brought us here,” he says as he stares at the forest ground between us.

“For Kennedy?”

He nods and my whole body quivers. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“Did he find her?”

I can’t even breathe while I wait for his answer.

He shakes his head and it’s like a tremendous weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

“Bledsoe found out that she lived in this town,” he continues. “She was supposed to be working at an independent bookstore, but when we got there she was gone.”

“Gone?”

He shrugs. “Gone. The employee working there didn’t know where she went. He told us that Kennedy had worked her shift the day before. Bledsoe roughed him up pretty good.”

“Where did she go?”

I start to panic. She could be anywhere. On the run, afraid, hurt, broke, desperate. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm my raging nerves so I can focus on helping her.

“We don’t know,” Rigs says. I take a step forward and his palms fly up. “Maximus, I swear. I’d tell you if I knew. I always liked Kennedy, and I felt horrible for what happened to her.”

Heat starts coursing through my body as I listen to his bullshit. I’m done talking about this.

“If I could go back in t—”

I crack him with a hard right hook that shuts him up really fast. He falls down to a knee and looks up at me with a dazed look on his face. His eyes are watering as he holds his jaw.

“I guess I deserve that,” he says with a wince of pain.

“You deserve a lot more than that,” I say, staring down at him.

His shoulders slump as he takes a heavy breath. “You’re right, I do. I should have stayed with you, Maximus. I thought I made the right choice, but I didn’t. Bledsoe is unhinged. There’s something dark within him.”

Of course there is. Anyone who would harm someone as innocent and pure as Kennedy has something wrong with him.

“Where is he now?” I ask with a firm voice. “Is he in this town? Is he coming back here?”

Rigs looks exasperated. “I don’t know. He comes, he goes. He never tells us where he’s going or where he’s been. He brought us to this cabin and then he bailed on us. We haven’t seen him in about two days.”

I’ll be searching for him soon enough, but first I have to find Kennedy. She’s on the run and will need my help. I don’t deserve her love, but I can still protect her and keep her safe. It’s something I should have done a long time ago, but couldn’t. This time, I won’t fail.

Rigs looks up at me with an ashamed look on his face. “I’m sorry, Max.”

The words are so unexpected. They’re like a punch to the gut and it takes me a few seconds to recover.

“You’re sorry?”

He nods as he looks back down at the ground.

“If you’re really sorry, you’ll let me know when he shows up.”

“Okay.” His words are barely above a whisper. “I will.”

I shouldn’t trust this guy after he betrayed me, but for some reason I do.

It’s probably a bad idea, but I give him my phone number and he stuffs it into the pocket of his shredded jeans that are lying on the ground.

“It could be hours, or days, or weeks,” he says. “I don’t know when he’s coming back.”

I don’t have time to wait around. Kennedy needs my help.

We lock eyes and it feels like I’m staring at the old Rigs. The Rigs who was my friend and brother back when he was in my crew. The Rigs who joked around at my campfire and had my back in the toughest of fights.

I don’t think he’s going to betray me, but I also thought that the last time.

Some people never fucking learn, and apparently, I’m one of them.

“You call me as soon as he comes. Alright?”

He nods. “Where are you going to be?”

I take a deep breath and exhale. “You just call me when he shows up.”

The next morning, I’m walking inside the bookstore where Kennedy works. It’s only me and the worker with the two black eyes who’s reading behind the counter. He keeps jerking his eyes up and flinching whenever I move.

This must be the guy that Bledsoe beat up. He’s covered in bruises and looks all jumpy as if he’s going to be attacked at any moment. I shoot him a forced smile, but it makes him look even more wary of me.

I stroll into the romance section and Kennedy’s scent hits me unexpectedly. Every nerve ending in my body stirs and tingles as I breathe in her familiar scent. It’s wrapped around this section like a warm blanket and I can’t get enough of it.

It brings back a slew of bittersweet memories for me, flooding my brain with the happiest days of my life. I remember the first time we swam in the lake together and smile. She looked so goddamn sexy in her bikini that I got hard on the spot. ‘Do you always take a banana with you to go swimming?’ she asked with a gorgeous grin on her face.

The fun memory is quickly replaced with the crushing guilt and shame of what happened. When the dragons came into Red Dead Creek, they gave each of the outlaw crews who wanted to stay a choice: stop your thieving ways or face the consequences.

I was in love with Kennedy and the dragons coming was the perfect opportunity to change everything for her. I jumped on the chance to change. I wanted The Grisly Grizzlies to do some good in the world.

But my second in command didn’t agree. Bledsoe resented the dragons for telling us what to do, and then he resented me for telling him what to do.

Our crew split apart and became bitter rivals. Lachlan, Kneecap, and Skin came with me, and Carter, Rigs, and Colton went with Bledsoe.

The fighting was vicious. I knew it had risen to the next level when Bledsoe killed Skin. Those two had always been at each other’s throats and when Bledsoe became our enemy, Skin jumped at the chance to finally slam his fist into the shifter’s face.

But Bledsoe wasn’t playing around. He used deadly force and Skin was the first casualty.

And he wasn’t the last.

Bledsoe had always blamed Kennedy for my mellowing out. It’s true that I lost my violent ways when Kennedy had come into my life, but I hadn’t realized how upset it had made my second in command. I made a lot of mistakes in my youth, but not seeing that was a big one.

Bledsoe ordered Carter to kidnap Kennedy who was only a teenager at the time. Lachlan and I heard about it and raced over. Carter turned into his psychotic bear and poor Kennedy got caught in the middle of a bear fight.

It still makes me weak in the legs when I think back to that moment. The sound of Carter’s bear snarling. The flying paw with the long black claws. That horrible feeling, knowing she was too close, but being too far to do anything about it.

The claws sliced across her beautiful face, marking it forever. There was so much blood. She was so brave. She didn’t even scream.

I caught her as she fell and ran out of her parent’s house, not stopping to watch as Lachlan killed his best friend Carter for what he just did. I raced her to the hospital in my truck, holding her close to my chest as I sped over sidewalks and swerved around mailboxes.

She survived, but her face would be scarred for life. Four long scars from the side of her forehead to her chin. She lost her right eye and had thick gauze taped to it when I saw her last.

It was late at night and she was sleeping. Her parents took me into the hall of the hospital and told me that I did this to her. I didn’t argue. I knew it was my fault. She had been in that situation because of me. It was my fault and I no longer deserved her love.

“We’re leaving this town as soon as she can get out of this hospital,” her father told me. “Kennedy is coming with us, and I don’t want to ever see your face again.”

“You two are done,” her mother said, the hate thick in her voice. “Look what happened to my baby because of you.”

They blamed me for it. I blamed myself for it.

Two days later, their house was empty with a crooked For Sale sign stuck in their front lawn. They disappeared completely and I just let her go. As painful as it was, I had to. She was better off without me so I never looked for her.

I always knew that she was the one for me, my future mate, but what good is a mate who can’t even keep his girl safe?

“Can I help you?” The worker with the black eyes is standing at the end of the hall with a phone in his hand. He’s looking at me skeptically, and I would bet that he has already dialed 9 and 1 and has his thumb hovering over the 1 button.

“Is Kennedy working today?” I ask, trying to get some information out of him.

He backs away with a horrified look on his face. “I knew it was one of you!” He hits the last button and raises the phone to his ear. “Yes, Sheriff? I need assistance at the Quill and Feather Bookstore immediately! They’re back!”

“Wait,” I say, raising my hand. “I’m not… screw it!”

I run out of there like I’ve just robbed the joint, sprinting through the park and not stopping until I’m on the other side of the town. I’m definitely not interested in explaining to the Sheriff what I’m doing around here.

A phone booth catches my eye at the gas station and I hurry across the street to ring home. It’s been weeks since I left and for some reason, I get a strong premonition to call.

I slide a quarter in the payphone and dial Lachlan’s number.

He answers after a few rings. “Lachlan, it’s me.”

“Maximus?” He sounds shocked. “Is everything all right?”

I take a deep breath and shake my head even though he can’t see me.

“Still looking,” I say. “How is everything on the ranch?”

“We’re fine, but Maximus when are you coming back? She keeps asking about you.”

“Who?”

“Kennedy. Isn’t that why you’re calling?”

His words aren’t making sense. “What?”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

I hear him gulp. “She’s here. In the camp.”

Now it’s my turn to gulp. “Who is?” I ask even though I already know the answer. But still, I have to hear it.

“Kennedy. She arrived yesterday.”

I slam the phone down and race across town to my pickup truck as fast as I can.