~

 

Rayner had thought that there wouldn’t have been anything that could possibly make her take her eyes off the two giant bears that were going at it as if they really meant to kill each other, but she was wrong.

Dane’s naked body called to her eyes and her imagination in ways that she had never felt before.

The healed wounds down his back didn’t stop at his backside, they carried on down his legs and over his hips and thighs, and she had to wonder just what kind of a screwed up place she’d walked into.

Anger rippled inside of her, but she didn’t have a chance to question it because Dane’s bear burst from within him, and he rushed at his brothers the way a fireman rushes into a burning building when everyone else runs the other way.

The sight of the three bears going hell for leather chilled her inside at the same time as it fascinated her to watch. Those beasts didn’t hold back as they tore chunks out of each other.

Not for the first time; Rayner felt that strange protective gene come to life within her. When one of the bears that she assumed was Bowie’s, because that was the one fighting both of the others came near her, she reached for the coin cosh at her waist and fisted it.

She took a swing at the same time that the bear spun towards her as he sensed her there. A swing and a hit right across his snout, and he roared with the anger of a thousand suns that were imploding.

Rayner caught sight of the paw as it came at her, fast and hard, and she tried to duck but didn’t do a great job of it. The pain wracked her body like wildfire through her nerves as the razor-sharp claws embedded in the flesh of her upper arm and tore through it.

There was one almighty roar, and she turned her head and snapped her gaze around just in time to see Dane’s bear take Bowie’s down. There was a sickening crunch that sounded like a bone breaking to her ears, and Bowie’s bear roared in pain.

Dane’s beast wasn’t done. The attack was fast and furious, his front claws took turns at the beast’s flesh, and he was unrelenting.

“Stop!” Rayner screamed out, only realizing that she had forced the words out past her pain when she heard her voice.

Dane pulled back from the bloodied and torn bear. His head slowly turned towards her, and his black eyes took her in.

Even she could see that his bear had lost control, and she didn’t know much about bears, but that furious and sustained attack was definitely punishment, and very heartfelt.

Dane shifted back into his human form. All that he wanted to do was run off into the woods, and hide his shame from his mate at her obvious disgust in him.

He’d lost it in front of his human mate, and with that loss of temper for his brother’s actions, he’d probably lost any chance that he might have had of convincing her to be his. How else could he expect things to go?

She’d seen him in his beast, and she’d seen him at his worst – almost. If she hadn’t of intervened when she had then he might just have killed his brother, ripped his throat out, and put an end to the man’s misery on the planet.

 “You’re hurt,” Dane growled as he stalked toward her.

He could still feel the bear’s fur just beneath his skin, and he couldn’t have kept that sound from his voice if he’d wanted to.

It was probably better for the both of them if he didn’t try to make out that he was normal, that she’d seen him at his worst. Because now she knew what kind of life he led, what kind of a life she would have with him if she was his mate, and it wasn’t pretty.

“I’ve had worse,” she lied.

She’d had her fair share of knocks, cuts, and she’d even taken a knife to the side once, but she’d never felt a pain like it before. It felt like waves of white-hot fire that seemed to be spreading outwards.

“What the hell were you thinking coming outside?” Dane growled in his misery as he fisted her torn jacket and ripped it apart at the seams. He carefully pulled the leather down her arm to expose the wound.

He cursed and spat out a constant stream of words that would make a nun blush as he fingered around the slash wounds and tried to figure how deep they went.

Rayner watched him intently, even when the sound of Bowie shifting into his human form and dragging his bloodied and broken body up as best he could snatched her attention for a brief moment, she returned her gaze right back to Dane again.

“Get away from me,” Bowie growled, and he thumped away Roland’s hand as the man tried to be a crutch for his broken leg.

“Fine, dumbass, drag that damn leg behind you,” Roland growled out, tossing up a hand in anger at his sibling, and turning his attention towards the mates. “She needs a hospital.”

“I know,” Dane growled back over his shoulder.

“Not in this lifetime,” Rayner snorted her contempt for that theory. She hated hospitals. Not only that but she wasn’t in the right mood to list the cause of injury.

“I’ll take her in my truck,” Dane growled, reaching for his discarded shirt and flicking it out to get rid of any dirt that might have been on it before he wrapped it around the cuts.

“What are you – stupid?” Rayner demanded, and that brought the man’s eyes to hers rather rapidly.

“Real damn stupid for letting you stay on my land, around my psycho brother, around me,” Dane was almost talking to himself. He was listing his failings in the man department, the mate department, and the damn alpha department.

He’d screwed up big time, but he’d make it right.

He’d make sure that she got fixed up and then he’d walk away from her, leave her to her life, her normal existence, without the burden of him. It was all he could do.

She didn’t belong in his world, and he’d be kidding himself to think that she would, could, or should have been there.

“That’s great – you have your pity party, I can wait,” Rayner bit out as she rolled her eyes at his attitude.

“Hello!” Roland chuckled to himself as he lifted a hand and ran it through his mass of tangled hair.

Dane hadn’t taken his eyes off his mate.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dane growled.

“Think about it, Butthead. If I show up at the hospital with these wounds then somebody is going to ask questions — somebody is going to recognize claw marks — somebody is going to have to report it to the police.” Rayner knew how it went from there.

Shifters had rights, but those rights didn’t amount to a hill of beans, not when they’d attacked a human.

“She’s not wrong…” Roland offered, and Dane did look at him that time as he growled at his brother.

“I know she’s not damn wrong — but she’s hurt, and she needs care, and Bowie’s brought this on himself.”

Dane could see the big picture, of course, he could. But if he had to choose between his mate and his brother — there was no choice — she would always come first.

“And I was stupid enough to get in the way of three big ass idiots who were tearing the stuffing out of each other.” Rayner caught her breath when Dane turned his gaze back to her. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

There it was. Dane didn’t need to walk away from her; she would do it for him.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Dane growled.

“Or … and I hate to mention it — but there’s always Giles,” Roland said, and he knew his brother’s reaction before the words had even settled on the air between them.

“No damn way,” Dane growled.

“Who is Giles?” Rayner demanded.

If they knew a friendly neighborhood Doctor that wouldn’t report the incident to the police, then she was all in.

“No,” Dane growled.

“I’d say it’s less of a who and more of a what.” Roland offered her an apologetic look; it wasn’t one that he shared with his brother. “And if you want your mate to be truly healed…” He left it there, hanging in the air, and gave the mates something to think about.

Roland had to say that Rayner looked interested in the idea, while his brother just looked as if he could rip his head off and hand it back to him.