Page 136 of Choose the Bears

“Fuck, is he…?”

When Asher rose up, my heart was in my throat, and when I saw him swell in size, I was right there with him. He strode through the intersection with his arms outstretched, claws at the ready. His feet moved faster and faster, his gait changing as he moved, from the sprint of a man to the lope of a polar bear on the hunt.

“He shifted. He fucking shifted…”

We had an incident a while ago with some kids doing that in a school gym, necessitating a coordinated effort to expunge the video evidence from the internet. I’d been part of that task force, but I knew we’d never hide this. Too many witnesses, that’s what I thought as I stared at Kyle and he did the same to me. He was about to wrench the car sideways, the lot of us taking fur like our beasts demanded, right as black cars came streaming out of the side streets to form a blockade in front of Phil’s car.

We had him right where we wanted him.

Kyle slammed his foot down on the accelerator, rocketing us forward.

When our feet hit the asphalt, I knew this was a turning point. Not just for us, our sleuth, but for all of shifter kind. More choppers thrummed overhead, the logo of the news channel whose headquarters was only a few buildings down from us emblazoned on the side.

“We can’t…” Kyle stared at the sky, the lines of furious drivers, and trashed cars. “We won’t…” His eyes went wide as he stared into mine, but my focus was dragged away as I heard Asher bear’s roar.

“No, we can’t hide anymore,” I said, yanking my shirt off and tossing my glasses inside the car. “I don’t know what comes next, but I know this. I’m not walking away from this until Imogen is in my arms.”

“That’s it, brother,” Kyle said, his smile wild. “Let's go get our girl.”

Chapter 70

Asher

I knew madness well.

Blood red and turning my head to fire, it burned away all conscious thought and replaced it with this.

Imogen, just Imogen.

I would burn the motherfucking world down to ashes for her, so taking fur in broad daylight in one of the busiest intersections in the city was nothing. Less than nothing. My hands became claws, my feet paws, and with a great shout, he came forward, the other half of my soul, forced to stay down for so damn long. All doubts and concerns fell away, replaced only by this.

A murderous impulse.

Cars skidded to a halt around us and we slammed our paws into their bonnets, then smashed their windscreens and crumpled their roofs as we stampeded over them. Police sirens screamed and so did people, but it was the idling car in front of us that I cared about. A car tried to surge forward, but we stopped it with a roar, the human inside shrinking back as we sailed onwards.

And that’s when he got out of his car.

He was a tiny figure, weak and wobbly-kneed, but it was the blood leaking from his forehead that had my attention. I needed more of it. I knew how it tasted, coppery and sweet, the screams they made right before I crushed their throats that much better. He would make the same sound, I thought as we raced forward. The driver threw himself out of the car, staggering away, but I didn’t care for him. Instead, I reared up in front of this man who dared to attack my girl.

“Looking for me?” Phil’s sneer was wrong and so were his words, and I roared my disgust. “You gonna actually do it this time?”

I didn’t know what that meant, lunging forward, my paws landing on his chest as I shoved him to the ground.

He felt my breath on his face, hot and stinking of blood. There was a perfunctory attempt to struggle out from under my grip, but the scream that accompanied my claws burying themselves in his flesh made clear that this was a bad idea.

“You gonna do it?” He smelled wrong, felt wrong, but that didn’t stop my muzzle from dropping down until my nose was almost brushing his face. “Fucking do it, you gutless cunt. Just do it.”

His surrender, the way he tilted his head to one side, baring his throat, was a grotesque imitation of what Imogen had done when she accepted our bond, and perhaps that’s what summoned her.

“Asher…?”

The bear had his prey right where he wanted it, but her voice had us jerking our head up. She stumbled out of the car, slipping as she went, forced to grab at the door until we rushed forward.

And so did everyone else.

Kyle slapped his paw into Phil, sending him sailing across the concrete and Lucas was right there, snatching him out of the air as bikes and cars came streaming forward. Fox, bear, wolf,and fuck, even some of the cat shifters, appeared on the scene, surrounding us, trying to protect the sight of three animals utterly alien to this country at work. I didn’t care about them, about the world–just her.

Her fingers in my fur, her face buried in my chest, it was only now that I could take a full breath, over and over, smelling her sweet scent.

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