Justin couldn’t wipe the ridiculous smile off his face as he packed up the backpack while Eli stepped away for a nature call.  A real one this time.

He’d found his mate. 

She was a pistol and a half. She’d shifted just to get his reaction. His happiness dimmed a bit when he realized she’d been shunned for being an ursid hybrid and had expected that from him.

Were those shifters in Russia crazy?

They rejected her for being mixed blood?

Smiling to himself again, Justin shook his head. Their loss and his gain.  He couldn’t be happier than he was at this second ... except for convincing her to be his mate and finalizing their bond. 

They would have beautiful cubs with winter-white coats, brown coats, but hell, he didn’t care what color. He’d love to have a little female cub that looked like her mama. 

Cubs? Was he ready for that?

He’d never felt such a sense of peace. Yes, he was ready for a mate and a family. He couldn’t wait. He had never been in a hurry to get tied down, but damn he wanted to make Eli his in the worst way and see her pretty stomach bulge with a cub. 

Reality stepped in to disrupt his happy parade.

There was still the small issue of Clan Boudreaux expecting Justin to deliver Eli to them. That might require some serious negotiating, but the Guardian would never expect Justin to give up a mate when he had no doubt she could accept his power when they bonded. 

Finding mates for the Gallize shifters was near impossible.

Wouldn’t the Guardian do all in his power to make this happen?

Justin was going to do this right. First he’d take her to the Guardian who he believed would immediately recognize they were destined to be mates. They had some intense energy flowing between them. Hadn’t Cole said that was another sign of meeting a mate?

The Guardian had rocked around for three hundred years. He’d seen a lot. Justin put his faith in his boss. The Guardian would know how to make everything work out.

Justin thought about that energy again.

Could Eli be a Gallize?

Wouldn’t that be the jackpot? He didn’t give two flips about her being Gallize as long as she could take his power. Supposedly, a non-Gallize bear shifter could survive the bonding and he knew from touching Eli she was far more powerful than the average shifter.

He heard her walking into the clearing they’d stomped down earlier. She’d taken a bottle of water and rag with her to clean up, but nothing short of a long bath would remove the lingering succulent smell of their lovemaking.  He pulled in a deep breath, soaking up that scent.

“Need help?” she asked.

He finished stuffing the bag and turned to find her smirking at him. His new goal in life was to keep her lips curved up and that twinkle in her eye, which was only there at the moment because she enjoyed taunting him.

“Sure.” Without warning, he tossed the bag in her direction, but not at her. He’d never risk harming her even if she was a shifter.

Her left hand shot out fast as a snake on attack and snagged the bag in midair.  She didn’t even look at it that whole time, confident in her ability to catch the bag. 

Alpha woman through and through. 

What more could a man like him want in a mate?

Not a damn thing, but he still had to ask, “When were you born?”

She cocked her head.  “Do not know. Why?”

She didn’t know? He asked, “Not even the year?”

“Oh.” She looked up as if calculating and said, “Think I am twenty-two. Born in winter.”

He calculated the months in his head, because every Gallize shifter he knew had memorized the true blue moon months, which was a month with a second full moon in a twelve month period. He didn’t think she fit the birthday criteria and she had blue eyes, not mismatched eyes. 

“One more question, Eli.  Do you have any older siblings?”

“Brother. Ten years more than me. Never meet.”

Interesting, but not something Justin would sweat right now.  He also noticed that over the last two days of conversing with her that Eli’s English was improving in spots. Beautiful and bright, but most of all sweet.

His Eli was no diva.

She unzipped the side of the backpack, pulled out an empty plastic bag which she put her rag into, then stowed that and appeared to be dropping the pack to the ground.

Justin was turning to check for anything left behind when he sensed a missile coming his way. In a swift move, he swung completely around with his hand already out to retrieve the flying backpack. 

She’d tossed it at him. Straight at him.  He grinned. “Gonna be like that, huh?”

Her eyes sparkled with mischief.  “Like you. I test reflex.”

Opening up the bag, he started toward her, but he didn’t fool her for a minute. She didn’t hesitate to spin and run.

Tossing the bag to the ground, he was after her.

Justin would never be as fast as Cole and Adrian, wolf shifters, or even Rory since he was a jaguar, but he could hold his own with any other non-Gallize bear shifter.

When Eli broke out of the trees, she had fairly level area to run across if she didn’t hit a hole or stumble over a rock.

A ledge that dropped off forever was fifteen feet away on her left. 

Worry intruded on his fun.

He didn’t want her hurt.

He closed the distance between and started to shout at her to slow down when her bubbling laughter reached him.  His heart skipped a beat.

It just paused right there to hear that musical sound.

At the other side of the clearing, she slowed from the hard sprint to stand with her back to the next tree line and showed him a face he wanted to see every day of his life.  He gave up jogging and walked, taking his time to enjoy this moment with his future mate.

As he passed a large outcropping of boulders, a bee flew up in his face.

He jerked back, twisting and waving his hands.

A bullet slashed across his forehead and struck the rocks.

The rifle report followed.

He screamed, “Get down, Eli!”

Good advice. He should have hit the ground himself, but he hunched over instead, holding his head and raced toward her.

She still stood, looking confused. 

He yelled again. “Get down!”

She squatted, looking around then zeroing in on him. Blood oozed between his fingers. 

“You are shot?” she called out.

Shit, she wasn’t low enough. He wanted her flat on the ground.

The second bullet struck the ground in front of him.  Blood leaked into his eyes.  He kept going, but something was very wrong. Much more than just getting shot. His vision distorted and his head was on fire, ready to explode.

The wound burned as if they’d stabbed his head with a hot poker, which meant ... titanium bullets.

He was fifteen feet from Eli when she stood up again and started toward him. 

“No!” he shouted, but the sound came out raspy. His vision of her warped and vertigo spun his world sideways. 

He couldn’t tell if he’d reached her.

His legs gave out.

He hit the ground hard enough to knock him out.