Save Cameo.
Protect his fated mate.
She shrieked again.
Lowe thundered forwards, the hunger filling his mind growing darker as her scent and that of the man grew stronger. He was close. He growled as he caught sight of something through the trees ahead of him, shook his head and flashed his fangs as he realised it was Cameo, desperately trying to make it up an incline.
She fought bravely.
His beautiful mate.
When the man flipped her onto her back and shoved a gun into her face, Lowe lost it.
He ran harder.
Roared as he leaped onto a huge boulder in the middle of the bowl-shaped clearing.
He kicked off it as the man dressed all in black swung towards him, bringing his rifle up, moving it away from Cameo. She stared wide-eyed at Lowe, her blue eyes filled with fear, terror he knew in part was because of him.
It didn’t stop her from reacting though.
She kicked the man in his stomach with both feet, launching him backwards. He lost his grip on the rifle as he hit the dirt on his back. Lowe snarled as he charged him, taking advantage of the fact he was unarmed.
The human reached into his jacket and pulled out a handgun, had squeezed the trigger before Lowe had time to react. The first bullet ripped past him and the man adjusted his aim. Lowe growled and turned, banking left, dodging the next bullet. He kept weaving, his larger form making it hard to avoid being shot as the man unloaded the gun.
He came back around the boulder, growling when he saw he hadn’t managed to draw the man away from Cameo at all.
Her wide blue eyes gained a flicker of something as she stared at Lowe.
They darted to the man’s back as he reloaded.
And then she was on her feet and leaping onto his back.
The man grunted and tried to shake her, hitting her with his elbow as he twisted and turned. Cameo clung to him, battering the side of his head with her fist whenever she could manage it.
Lowe thundered towards the male, using the opening she had given him.
He reared up onto his hind legs and splayed his front paws, aiming them at the man’s head, hoping Cameo had enough sense to make a fast exit. Her eyes locked with his and he could see in them that she knew what to do.
She struck the man one last time and then heaved backwards, trying to tip him off balance, exposing his chest to Lowe.
The human threw her and she cried out as she landed hard on her back.
Lowe joined her, bellowing as the male shot him at point-blank range in his side, just above his left hip. He swung with his right paw as pain blurred his vision and growled as he missed his target, landed hard intending to take another swing at the human, but his right front leg gave out beneath him and he sank against the dirt.
The male was quick to grab Cameo, twisting his left hand into her hair and dragging her up by it as he shoved the handgun into her face.
Lowe lay as still as he could manage on the ground, pretending to be out for the count so the man wouldn’t put a bullet in his head, buying himself time to come up with a plan. He needed to save Cameo. The man wouldn’t kill her—he knew that in his gut. He needed Cameo alive to face his boss, Karl.
She would be safe until then.
It was hard to get it through to both his bear side and the man in him though. Both sides wanted to rip the thug to shreds. Attacking him while he was holding Cameo would be too dangerous though. The man might end up shooting her.
He needed a better plan.
And the only one he could come up with was one that might cost him everything.
But if it meant saving her, it would be worth it.
Chapter 16
Cameo locked up tight as the man jammed the gun into her face, his hazel eyes as cold as ice.
“Tell me where the money is,” he growled.
She swallowed hard and struggled to breathe, shut down the desire to tell the man to go to hell or admit she didn’t have the money they wanted from her. She tried to think of a way out of this mess and couldn’t stop her eyes from straying to the huge bear that lay on the ground just to her right.
Something deep inside her, something that made her feel as if she had lost her mind or had taken one too many pain pills, said that bear wasn’t just a bear.
She stared at the wound on the animal’s right shoulder.
The exact place where the man had shot Lowe with the rifle.
The only place the man had shot the bear was in its stomach. Maybe the man had caught the bear with a stray bullet when he had been firing upon her. That made the most sense to her, but that feeling screamed that he hadn’t. It screamed that the bear was Lowe.
“I said, tell me where the fucking money is.” The man shoved the barrel of the handgun into her jaw and she flinched, her eyes leaping away from the pool of blood forming beneath the bear to lock with his.
She stared at him, her thoughts racing and blurring, colliding until she couldn’t think straight.
“Won’t answer to me, then you’ll answer to Karl. Got a message that he’s in town and heading this way. Says he can’t wait to see you again. Reckon he can get you to talk.” The man seized her by her nape and gripped it so hard her spine hurt. He pressed the gun into her temple and pushed her forwards. “Walk.”
She shuffled her left foot forwards, desperately trying to come up with a plan as fear began to get the better of her again, swamping her mind with images of her bound and beaten, killed by her ex-boyfriend.
Cameo glanced at the rifle on the ground to her left, sickness sweeping through her as she considered lunging for it and using it on the man. He would probably shoot her before she could reach it, but she had to do something.
Before she could decide whether to make an attempt to get the rifle or not, the bear loosed a long, moaning noise and moved. That moan became a feral snarl as it lumbered onto its feet and turned towards her.
Cameo could only stare as it rose onto its hind legs.
And transformed into a man.
Into Lowe.
The man’s gun dropped from the side of her head, his grip on her loosening, and she realised that the revelation that Lowe could turn into a bear hadn’t shocked only her.
“What the fuck?” the man behind her breathed.
Cameo shook herself out of her stupor, unwilling to waste this chance she had been given. She would consider how insane this all was later.
She knocked the man’s gun away from her and lunged to her left, hurling herself at the rifle. Shock rolled through her again as she managed to get her hands on it and twisted with it, onto her back, and aimed it at the man.
Who had his gun aimed right at Lowe.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but if you shoot me, I’ll nail this freak between the eyes this time.” The man turned a black look on her and slightly depressed the trigger of the gun he gripped.
Cameo swallowed hard and looked between him and Lowe. Her hands shook as she kept the gun aimed at the man, torn between surrendering and shooting him. She didn’t want to give up, knew deep in her heart that if she released the gun that the man would go ahead and shoot Lowe anyway.
But if she didn’t.
She looked at Lowe where he stood in the clearing, naked and bleeding badly from his right shoulder and a spot above his left hip.
“Shoot the bastard,” he snarled. “I’ll live.”
She swallowed and raised the gun, aimed down the sights and hesitated. Her hands shook so violently that the end of the barrel jittered all over the place and her palms dampened, making it hard to keep hold of the gun. She didn’t want Lowe to be shot again. He was clearly not like her, not human, and seemed confident that he could survive another bullet, but what if the man kept his word and shot him in the head?