I never thought I’d be able to sneak past a sleeping bear shifter, but I did it. Maximus is still passed out on the bed as I creep to the door in the morning.

I take one last look at the man I love and then turn away with my heart breaking.

Last night was amazing, but I know what it was. It was pity sex. He must have felt bad about my scars and made love to me to try and make me feel desirable again. The sad part was that it worked.

I felt beautiful once again with the way he was looking at me. I felt more than beautiful. I felt loved.

But it was all fake. It had to be. There’s no way he can love someone as broken and scarred as me.

I take a look in the mirror by the door to remind myself. The ugly long scars are still slashed across my face, making me look like a deformed monster.

As I stare at the grotesque reflection looking back at me, I know that I’ll always be alone. It’s a fate I’ll have to get used to and try to learn to accept.

With a deep breath and a tender heart, I leave the cabin and the only man who I’ve ever loved.

“Wow,” the man at the cash register whispers as he stares at my face with wide eyes. I can tell he desperately wants to ask me what happened. He wants to hear the story but he thinks it would be rude to ask.

He’s right.

“How much do I owe you?” I ask when he just continues to stare.

“Right,” he says as he’s jerked out of his daze. He glances down at the items on the counter and starts scanning them. A few bags of chips, a couple of water bottles, some chocolate bars and a CD of the best of Motown that I grabbed from the rack by the door. All of the essentials for a long car ride to the middle of who-the-hell-knows-where.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I have to leave this town for good.

Nobody saw me when I snuck off the ranch and drove off. I stopped in town for gas and a few other things, and now I’m ready to leave. As soon as this shameless starer finishes ringing up my items.

“That’s twenty-seven dollars and sixteen cents,” he says.

I hand over the cash and he gives me the change.

“Excuse me,” he says, looking uncomfortable as he watches me. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“No.” I grab my bag and storm out of the convenience store.

My heart is pumping with frustration as I walk back to my car. It’s then that I see two familiar faces that have me leaping behind a telephone pole to hide.

Kneecap and his mate Nora are strolling out of the diner, smiling and holding hands. I peak around the pole and watch them with a smile on my face as they walk down the cobblestone sidewalk looking completely in love.

I remember Kneecap from my youth. He had the reputation of being one of the toughest shifters in Red Dead Creek and that’s saying a lot. The town was full of terrifying shifters back then.

They stop in front of a therapist’s office and Nora stands on her toes but can only reach the big man’s chin. She gives his chin a kiss and then unlocks the door.

So, that’s her office. I remember Nora telling me that she was a therapist in town. She must get some really interesting clients in this place.

I smile as Nora looks down the street, left then right, and then pulls Kneecap into the office with her. She closes the blinds as the door swings closed.

Looks like they didn’t get dessert at the diner, and are about to have it now.

An image of me and Maximus walking out of the diner hand in hand flashes into my mind, and I quickly push it out.

“That’s not going to happen,” I whisper to myself. That reality disappeared with the swipe of a paw.

I lower my head, staring at the sidewalk as I hurry back to my car.

My body tingles, feeling like there are eyes burning into me from behind. I turn around, expecting to see the cashier on the sidewalk, watching me to try and get one last look at my monstrous face, but I see someone else instead.

Someone unexpected. Someone who makes my body start to tremble.

Bledsoe is standing down the street, glaring at me.

I drop the bag and start running. I don’t look back to see if he’s following me, but I know he is. He’s a fast bear shifter, but luckily I don’t have too far to go.

I head straight for Nora’s office and yank the door open as I get there. As I rush inside, I catch the reflection in the window and see Bledsoe in the middle of the road. He’s running straight for me.

“What the hell?!?” Nora screams as she whips her head around. She’s shirtless and straddling Kneecap’s body as he sits on the couch.

“Kennedy?” Kneecap says, looking at me with confusion as his mate grabs her shirt.

“It’s—I just—”

Bledsoe bursts into the office, cutting me off. He’s breathing hard and looking pissed with a horrible look in his eyes.

He’s always been so terrifying to look at. His long black hair falls down in waves onto his broad shoulders and he’s got a short cropped beard to match. His arms are covered in hideous tattoos of people screaming as demons claw out their insides and his thick neck is tattooed with a horrifying picture of the Grim Reaper.

That’s how he looks to me right now as he stares at me with his intense dark eyes—like the Grim Reaper coming to take my soul.

He takes a step toward me and I hear the sofa creaking behind me as Kneecap stands up.

“Bledsoe,” he hisses under his breath. “I was hoping to get you all to myself.”

Bledsoe takes his eyes off me for the first time since he entered the office and turns to Kneecap who is stepping protectively by my side. “It’s been a long time, Kneecap. My beef isn’t with you.”

“It’s with Maximus?” the huge grizzly bear shifter asks.

Bledsoe nods.

“Then it’s with me too.”

“You were always so loyal, Kneecap,” Bledsoe says as I creep backward. Nora reaches out and grabs me, pulling me against the wall. We’re as far away as we can get from the two shifters who are about to throw down, but we’re not far enough.

Last time I was in this situation, I lost my face, but this time I can lose a whole lot more than that if Kneecap and Bledsoe bring their grizzly bears out.

“I never understood why you were so loyal to him,” Bledsoe says with a look of disgust on his face. “We could have taken over this town if you had joined my crew.”

“I’d rather run my bear off a cliff than have him submit to you,” Kneecap says as his whole body tightens. His huge arms are flexed as his hands squeeze into fists. “You killed our brother, Skin, and now I’m going to return the favor.”

A dark smile creeps across Bledsoe’s face as he raises his fists. “I always wanted to see how I’d fair against Red Dead Creek’s toughest shifter. That title should have been mine.”

“You want it?” Kneecap says with a vicious grin. “Come and get it.”

Nora’s hold on me tightens as the two bear shifters start circling each other. Kneecap is at least a foot higher than Bledsoe, but Bledsoe looks confident and excited for the fight.

I know that he’s fast and a really good fighter. He wasn’t the number two of the crew for nothing.

Nora screams in my ear as Bledsoe rushes forward. Kneecap lunges at him and the two of them collide with a thud.

It sounds like booming cracks of thunder have erupted in the office as the two bear shifters start pounding their fists into one another. Kneecap grabs Bledsoe’s arm and throws him into the wall, shaking the whole building.

I look around for an exit as Kneecap rushes over and starts landing devastating blows to Bledsoe’s head and body. There’s nowhere to run. The only exit is blocked by the two huge men fighting. We’re trapped.

Nora digs her nails into my arm as Bledsoe hooks his arm around Kneecap’s leg and sweeps him off his feet. The huge shifter lands with a loud thud that vibrates through the floor.

“No!” she screams as Bledsoe jumps on top of him. He’s a blur as he unloads a vicious fury of punches on the bigger shifter.

I never thought I’d see the day where Kneecap gets beaten, but it’s looking an awful lot like that could be a real possibility.

My stomach drops when I see Kneecap’s hand go limp. Bledsoe doesn’t let up, landing punch after punch on Kneecap’s jaw.

“Stop it!” Nora screams. She grabs a chair and throws it at Bledsoe. He smirks as it bounces off his round shoulder.

Finally, the punching stops. Bledsoe’s knuckles are a bloody mess, but they’re nothing compared to Kneecap’s face.

“You’re getting soft, big man,” he says as he stands up, staring at Kneecap with a look of disdain. “I was expecting more of a fight than that. Toughest shifter in Red Dead Creek my ass.”

He spits on the ground and then turns his attention back to me.

I try to step back, but I hit the wall. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

So I raise my fists and watch him come.

He grins in amusement. “I can see why Maximus liked you. You always were a feisty one, Kennedy.”

“And you always were an asshole.”

“What do you want with her?” Nora shouts. “Haven’t you done enough? Leave the poor girl alone!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Nora looks disgusted. “Why not?”

“She was the reason the crew broke up,” he says. “She was the reason that Maximus went soft. She was the reason that Carter got killed.”

His heated eyes are burning into me. The hatred is pouring off of him in waves.

“So, get over it!” Nora screams. “You’re the reason why she’s scarred. You’re the reason why my mate is bleeding and unconscious on the floor. If your old crew broke up and your life sucks, then it was probably because you’re a total asshole.”

“Maybe so,” he says with a deep breath. “But she’s still going to pay. The Grisly Grizzlies could have stood up to the dragons and took over the whole town if it wasn’t for her. I would be running this place, but instead, I was banished from my home. Now I’m stuck riding from town to town with half a crew and nothing to show for it. And it’s all because of her.”

“What you’re experiencing is a classic defense mechanism called projection,” Nora says, getting into her therapist mode. “You’re projecting your own guilty behavior onto Kennedy.”

“Thanks for the therapy session, doc,” Bledsoe says as he starts walking toward me. “But she’s still going to die.”

Just as he’s about to grab me, Kneecap stands up on big wobbly legs. His face is a bloody mess.

“They don’t call me the toughest shifter in this town for nothing.” Kneecap wipes the sticky blood from his mouth and then holds his fists up. He’s grinning. He’s actually enjoying this.

Bledsoe takes a breath and then looks back at me. “Excuse me for just a minute. I’ll be right back to take your life.”

I step back with a gasp as Kneecap’s huge body starts to tremble. I haven’t seen a shifter turn into an animal in a long time and the sight is making my heart pound a mile a minute.

His face twists up in agony as his body flexes and vibrates. I see a quick flash of fur appear on his neck a split-second before a full grown grizzly bear rips out of him.

This enormous bear is on my side and fighting for me, but it still makes my limbs shake when he opens his monstrous jaws and lets out a thundering roar.

Bledsoe runs at him and phases mid-stride. By the time they collide into one another, he’s turned into a grizzly bear too.

They crash into each other and the momentum sends both of them flying through the huge windows, shattering them to pieces as the bears spill out onto the sidewalk.

People scream and run away, dropping grocery bags on the ground with looks of panic in their eyes. A car swerves on the street and crashes right into Kneecap’s bear, destroying the front half of the hood as it sends him tumbling forward. The driver jumps out of his wrecked car and sprints away in the opposite direction.

“We have to get out of here,” I say as I grab Nora’s arm. “My car is down the street.”

I don’t have to wait for Nora to answer. She runs past me and out of her office without a word. I quickly follow her.

The sidewalks are mostly empty while the bears fight, except for a few large men watching with frowns on their faces. They must be shifters too.

“Not a good idea,” one of them yells at the two bears. “They’re going to be here any minute and y’all are going to pay.”

I’m wondering who they are when I see Maximus running up the street. He catches my eye for a second and my cheeks burn with guilt and shame. I left without saying a word to him this morning. I hope he’s not mad, or worse, hurt.

My feet stop working as I watch him charge into the grizzly bear fight. Nora is at the car, yelling at me to hurry up as Maximus rips off his shirt mid-stride.

My lips curl up in a smile when his grizzly bear explodes out of his body. Grizz… I haven’t seen my old friend in years.

He charges right into the brawl, smashing into Bledsoe’s bear and sending him somersaulting backward.

Now with Maximus and Kneecap against him, Bledsoe doesn’t stand a chance.

I stand and watch with my heart pumping. I want to know that the threat that’s always looming over my head is over. I want to see his dead body laying on the pavement.

“Oh, shit!” the shifter by the barber shop says as he shakes his head. “You guys fucked up now.”

A dark shadow swoops down the street and I jerk my head up with a gasp just in time to see a red dragon circling overhead.

The bears stop fighting as the dragon lands in the middle of the street. There’s a man riding on his back, wearing a designer suit and sunglasses. He steps down and straightens his tie as he looks around.

“Not this fucking guy again,” Nora says as she steps by my side.

“Who is that?” I ask, mesmerized by the way his orange eyes are glowing through his dark sunglasses.

“Vesuvius.” Her mouth twists up like someone just shoved a lemon into her mouth.

Everyone is staring at him as he struts over like he owns the goddamn town. The three bears phase back into their human forms.

“I should have known when I heard that grizzly bears were tearing up the town that I would find the famous Kneecap in the center of it all.” He turns to Nora and shakes his head. “You promised you were going to keep him on a short leash. What happened?”

“He happened,” Nora says, pointing to Bledsoe, only he’s no longer there. “Where did he go?”

Maximus jerks his head from side to side with a panicked look on his face as he looks around for his enemy.

He starts running in the most likely direction that Bledsoe took off in, but Vesuvius cuts him off, moving in a blur. He grabs Maximus by the neck and lifts him off his feet with only one hand.

“Let him go!” Kneecap roars as he rushes to defend his alpha.

The red dragon lunges on him, pinning him to the asphalt with a huge foot. Nora screams as he opens his mouth over Kneecap’s face, holding it there like a loaded gun.

Sweat starts pouring down Kneecap’s temples as a blaze of fire flares in the back of the dragon’s throat, ready to bathe him in flames if he dares to move.

“I think we’ve gathered enough attention,” Vesuvius says as he lowers Maximus to his feet. “Let’s go visit our tower and discuss the future of your crew in our town.”

Maximus takes a deep breath when the dragon shifter finally releases his neck.

I gulp when Vesuvius turns to me and Nora. The orange rings shining through his sunglasses are locked upon us. “You two are coming as well.”