Grizzly Love (20 page)

The gun went off, and someone screamed. Jess couldn’t tell who, not when Frederick shoved her to the ground, the impact bruising her knees, but of more concern was the gun pointed at her head.

What are the chances he misses at this close range?

“Move one more step, bear, and she dies.” Freddie’s threat had her focusing ahead of her instead of on the gun.

Much better view if one didn’t mind confronting a gigantic grizzly bear with his muzzle pulled back in a snarl, big teeth gleaming.

She’d never seen anything more awesome.
He’s trying to rescue me.

What she couldn’t figure out was how. As a bear, Travis could never hope to rush in and knock the gun free before Freddie fired.

Apparently, he came to the same conclusion because he halted, and changed bodies.

Witnessing a shift always held a certain level of fascination. The way fur melted back into flesh, how limbs shrank and contorted to retake human shape, and yet through the metamorphosis, one thing always remained the same. The eyes.

Travis’ steady brown gaze held hers the entire time, and it was to her he kept looking—
don’t worry. I’m here. You’re safe—
even as he replied to Frederick’s threat.

“Kill the doc and you die for sure. I’ll just make sure it’s more painful. And long. Really long. With lots of screaming.” How a naked man with empty hands could sound so threatening she couldn’t have said, but she had no doubt in her mind that Travis meant every single word.

The adorable idiot.

The threat saw the gun swivel from her temple to aim at Travis, naked and unafraid Travis, who stood boldly in front of Frederick, about fifteen feet at most, which meant no way could Freddie miss. It didn’t stop her bear from smirking in challenge.

“Only a coward resorts to using a gun.”

“Or the man who intends to walk away the victor by any means necessary.”

“Chicken.” And oh yes, Travis did cluck.

Jess could practically feel the rage simmering within Freddie. “Name calling. How juvenile. But I’m going to ignore it and give you one last chance. Leave now, bear, or you will die.”

“Funny. I was about to say the same thing to you. Except mine was more along the lines of I’ll give you a twenty-second head start, then I’m going grizzly on your ass.”

The hammer on the gun cocked back. Jess held her breath as she silently prayed for Travis to shut up and stop antagonizing her wretched husband. Although, with Freddie’s attention elsewhere maybe she could—

“Don’t you dare point that gun at Travis.”

That voice. Jess knew that voice.

Oh my god. No way.
The cavalry had arrived in the nick of time. She snickered. Things had just risen to a new level of interesting.

Travis groaned. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not ever.

But he only had to take one sniff to know his worst nightmare had come true and stood at his back.

Ma had come to the rescue. And of course had to meddle.

“Touch my baby and I will string you up by your ankles, bird. I will pluck your feathers one by one then douse you in some flour and seasoning before I deep fry you a crispy golden brown.”

Peeking over his shoulder, Travis got a peek at his meddling parent—who made him crave a bucket of breaded chicken with homemade fries.

Gone was the wooden spoon she usually wielded. In its stead, his mother—dressed for a nice summer day in pink capris with numerous pockets, a flowered blouse, a satchel hung cross-wise over her chest, along with a wide brimmed hat—held a mini Uzi aimed at Frederick’s head.

Her timing was great, but still… “Ma, I had this under control.”

“If by under control you mean you were facing a fifty-fifty chance of survival depending on if this mangy bird’s aim was any good, then, yes, I guess you did.”

His pouted scowl didn’t move her at all. He growled. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Kodiak Point.” Baking and staying out of trouble like other boys’ mothers.

“When I heard my baby boy was in trouble, I had to come with Reid and the rest.”

“Reid’s here?” Jess interjected. Kneeling on the floor, her hair still caught in Frederick’s tight fist, her predicament distracted Travis from his mother’s presence.

There was still time for him to salvage this situation and show himself a hero in Jess’ eyes. A man worthy of her. “It doesn’t matter why you’re here. I’m a little busy so if you don’t mind…” He pointedly turned his back on his mother, who harrumphed.

He ignored it, focusing his attention on Frederick. “It’s over, dude. Let Jess go. Surrender nicely and maybe we won’t kill you.”

We, as in Travis and his ma. He highly doubted Boris and the others would prove so forgiving.

However, it seemed living a few more hours wasn’t in Frederick’s plans for the future. Just not for the reason any of them expected.

“Enough of this. Freddie, I want out of this marriage,” Jess snapped. As she spoke, her hand darted out, the fingers replaced by pointed yellow claws. She dragged them across Frederick’s thigh, and immediately, a bead of blood appeared.

With a snarl of rage, Frederick flung her from him and pointed his gun at her head. “You fucking bitch. I should have killed you as you disembarked from the fucking plane. Say good—” Frederick paused, and he wobbled as blood jetted from his leg.

Hmm. Was it just him, or did Frederick seem to be bleeding an awful lot? As in puddle amounts.

“What did you do to me?” Frederick slurred as his eyes crossed and he slumped to his knees.

Wearing a smile of triumph—edged with a bit of sexy wicked—Jess rose to her feet and confronted the prick. “Just because I swore an oath to save lives doesn’t mean I don’t know how to take them. That teeny tiny cut? Yeah, it was to your femoral artery. I say you’ve got another thirty seconds before you bleed out.”

“Only if I don’t stop it,” Frederick gasped as he plastered a hand to the gushing red tide.

Jess smirked as she lashed out with her foot and kicked his hand away. “Can’t defend and hold a gun on me at the same time.”

Ma, who’d sidled to Travis’ side, whispered, “Remind me not to get on her bad side. That gal’s got serious surgeon skills.”

“I know.” Travis couldn’t help the edge of pride. Sure, he wasn’t the one who got to tear a limb off Frederick and beat him with it. Or dangle him from a precipice, hearing him beg before dropping him on his head, but in a sense, wasn’t this better? Jess deserved retribution and closure for what this prick had done to her.

Not to mention, if one ignored the messy puddle of blood, there was a certain elegance in her methods. A certain quietness too.

Frederick died without any screaming, but the incredulity on his face would linger forever.

“Until death do us part,” Jess said as she rose to her feet and stood over a dead Frederick.

Or not so dead.

A hand shot out and grabbed at her ankle, throwing her off balance.

In a flash, Travis was there, stomping the offending limb, and for good measure, he wrung the bird’s neck. This was one dead husband who wouldn’t come back to life—or feed them for dinner.

“What a shame he didn’t shift before he died,” his mother lamented. “I had so many recipes I could have tried.”

And on that disturbing note, they went looking for their friends.

Last Travis saw, they were confronting the horribly scarred snake lady. Boris, being a smart guy, aimed for the chest, but the Naga moved, and it hit her shoulder, causing her to utter a very shrill shriek—worse than nails on chalkboard. The second shot took her through the throat, which, given the snake woman’s powers, was probably a good thing as Travis hadn’t stuffed his ears with plugs before charging after Jess.

At any rate, while they’d parlayed with Frederick, the Naga had slithered off with his friends in close pursuit. They’d not gotten far, though. The crazy snake lady held them at bay, armed with a semi-automatic in a large cavern filled with parked vehicles.

Travis halted just inside the tunnel before the dangerous and psychotic woman saw them. “Jess, you and my mom stay here while I go give the boys a hand.”

A dual, “not happening,” made him groan. Stuck with two headstrong women in his life. Good thing he loved them—in different ways of course!

“Fine, come if you must, but stick close to me.” That way, if the Naga had any kind of aim, he could use himself as a shield.

Luckily, the squealing snake woman didn’t spot him. Nor did she seem capable of speech at the moment, the wound in her throat not yet healed.

It took only a short jog to dash from the tunnel to the side of a Jeep where Brody and Gene hunkered as men. Sitting cross-legged on the ground with them, Layla wore a look of concentration, which meant she worked on getting reinforcements. As for Boris, he cursed and banged his gun off a rock.

“Stupid, cheap, jammed piece of shit,” he grumbled. Well, that at least explained why the Naga still lived.

“What’s the plan?” Travis whispered as he dropped to his knees to join them.

“We need to set the bitch on fire,” Brody stated. “But none of us have any lighters.”

Trust his mother to pull a packet of matches from her slacks.

Gene grinned. “Nice. I don’t suppose you got any lighter fluid in there too?”

His ma snorted. “Nope, but who needs lighter fluid or even matches when you’ve got a propane tank off to the Naga’s left and a sharpshooter in your midst.”

“But Boris’ gun is—”

His mother stood, took aim with her Uzi, and, with perfect control of her recoiling weapon, fired.

Travis gaped. They might have all gaped as she calmly hit her target and shit exploded. Literally.

Lucky for them, the Jeep they hid behind protected them from most of the explosion’s impact. The Naga didn’t fare so well.

Given the damage to her voice, they didn’t hear the monster scream, but they did see the serpentine woman undulate, the flames licking at her skin. But she wasn’t done with her reign of chaos yet.

The weapon the Naga held fired, an erratic stream of bullets that didn’t come anywhere close to them. However, the arcing and spitting bullets had to impact somewhere. In this case the roof of the cavern.

A trickle of dirt rained down. A few rocks followed.

As the heat and smoke thickened in the large room, a rumble shook it.

An ominous sound. Yet not as scary as the huge boulder that fell from the ceiling and crushed the hood of the Jeep they hid behind.

“Cave in.” Jess breathed the word, and he didn’t need to decipher her tone to read the terror in her eyes.

His hawk, a lover of wide-open spaces, didn’t like tight spots, and the idea of getting buried alive absolutely terrified her.

As if he’d let that happen to her.

“Run!” Brody yelled.

While the others immediately took stock of the situation and bolted for the tunnel, Jess stood in frozen horror, eyes wide as she watched the chunks of falling stone.

“Time to go. Last one out of the mountain’s a rotten egg,” he quipped. Grabbing Jess by the hand, he jogged toward the tunnel where Ma and his friends went, only to stop abruptly as a bigger tremor took away their nearest option.

Travis had just enough time to duck her face against his chest before the puff of dust and debris hit them. He shut his eyes against it, and when he opened them again…

Jess said it best. “Oh my god. We can’t escape. We’re screwed.”

Yeah, the pile of rubble blocking their way out kind of sucked.

But it didn’t mean they were done yet.

Fingers still laced with hers, Travis dragged her farther into the cavern, closer to the fire and smoke that radiated heat and ash, not exactly a pleasant accompaniment to the trickling sand and stone.

It took Jess a moment to notice their new route, and when she did, she beat at his hand, panicked, fluttery hits.

“What are you doing?” she yelled. “We need to get back to the tunnel.”

“The tunnel is blocked. We won’t be getting out that way.”

His assertion made her groan. “Maybe we could dig. Or shift a rock or two.”

“No time. We have to escape now. Have a little faith, Doc. I’ll get us out of here.” Because Travis had a theory. The tunnel they’d entered through was too small to get the vehicles in, which meant—

Aha. Where the smoke swirled the most, he spotted, through tearing eyes, the exit. Coughing, and sputtering, he led them to it, and when Jess’ step faltered, he tossed her over a shoulder and ran for the wide opening.

Even once in the wide tunnel, the fresher air flowing in a reprieve for his aching lungs, he didn’t stop running, not when the ominous rumble rolled and thundered around him. The very ground under his feet shook.

He pushed harder, faster, lungs straining, eyes streaming from the grit in the air. He lunged for the open space where daylight beckoned through the fog of smoke and dust.

He exited onto a flat plain and let out a roar of triumph.

Rawr.
We made it.

Setting Jess on her feet, he grinned and said, “Told you I’d get us—”

Boom
!

The mountain behind them shook and shivered. The ground under their feet moved. But it was the second explosion, spewing debris, that proved most hazardous.

Hello concussion number ninety-nine.

Cradling Travis’ head in her lap, Jess knew better than to fret at the amount of blood that initially poured from the scalp wound. Those bled the worst. The lump the flying rock left on his temple also caused only a momentary pang. She knew he’d gotten bigger knocks playing football.

Yet all her medical knowledge didn’t help with the anxiety knotting her stomach. Despite having escaped the mountain, they weren’t out of danger yet.

Jess was out in the middle of who knew where, with an unconscious man, no vehicle, no cellphone, no supplies, nothing but herself.

The old her would have seen the situation as extremely dire. The pessimist in her would have lamented their ill luck. But it would seem her time with Travis had helped change her. She found the positive.

We weren’t crushed to death.