Page 4 of Protecting Mr. Fine

I lost the ability to remain calm and professional with my principal.

We were in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for an appearance at a fundraiser to benefit the victims of recent tornadoes in the area. Zane was joining a group of five local bands as the concert headliner. Not only were the ticket and concession sales going to the cause, but the streaming rights would also produce significant income to help those families and communities devastated by the storms.

It was a last-minute idea pitched to him as we’d finished up a performance in Oklahoma City. He’d immediately insisted on helping any way he could, even though it meant scrambling to fit the event into his already crushing tour schedule.

Halfway from the airport to the concert venue, the SUV we were in was sideswiped on the interstate and sent careening into two other cars in the next lane. The accident happened so fast it was over before my brain caught up with what was happening.

I’d been through simulated vehicle attack training many times during my years with the royal guard, so I immediately went into response mode with my principal, checking his breathing and pulse.

“B-bear?” he asked weakly. “What happened?”

My heart gave a crazy leap at hearing that name on his lips. I loved all the things it represented—the teasing, the familiarity, the trust we’d built, the knowledge that I’d do anything to keep him safe—and I hated it, too. Because I wanted it to mean even more.

I forced myself to focus on my training.

Breathing good. Pulse strong. But there was a trickle of blood streaming down the side of his face. “Car accident.” I stabilized his neck and ignored my own pain. “Stay still and tell me what hurts.”

Suddenly, he let out a heart-wrenching keening noise, and my heart rate went into full panic mode, wondering what possible life-threatening injury I’d overlooked. I scrambled to pat him down gently, trying desperately to figure out what I wasmissing. “Zane! What hurts? Tell me what it is.” I couldn’t see any blood other than what was on his face.

“All the people hit by the storms,” he said, tears starting to fall and mix with the blood on one side. “The fundraiser, Bear. We won’t get there in time to help them.”

I stared at him. We were lucky to be alive—in fact, I wasn’t sure yet if everyone involvedwasalive—and this man was worried about raising money for people in need.

“Who gives a fuck about that right now?” I barked at him. “We need to get out of this vehicle. Can you move? Are you hurt?”

“What? No. I’m fine.”

Fine.

The man had blood down his face and into the collar of his shirt. I didn’t know it at the time, but he also had serious thoracic contusions from the seat belt that made him breathe shallowly for several days and a severely bruised elbow from where it had been smashed between his body and the door, and he ended up getting six stitches in a cut by his hairline.

“You’re not fucking fine!” I shouted as I hustled him out of the crushed vehicle and onto the side of the highway. “Why do you always say you’re fine when you’re not? You drive me absolutely fucking batshit with your ‘I’m fines’! Why can’t you allow yourself to be hurt for once when you’re… oh, I don’t know… actually hurt?”

He was pale and shaky, eyes white in shock and fear. I wanted—needed—nothing more than to take him into my arms and comfort him… but I couldn’t.

Zane was my principal. This was myjob. And the man deserved to know there were people in his life who would put his wants and needs before their own.

Cars sped past us despite the angled presence of the three scattered vehicles that had been involved in the accident. Thankfully, emergency vehicles were almost to us, and their lights and sirens began slowing down traffic approaching the site of the accident.

After insisting he be transported in an ambulance to the nearestemergency room where he was treated for his injuries, I watched him ensure everyone else involved was okay, too.

When we finally got to a hotel in the early hours of the morning and they asked for a name for the reservation, I was so filled with frustrated need, so angry and outraged on Zane’s behalf, I couldn’t remember the fake name we always used for Zane’s hotel reservations.

“Last name?” the receptionist asked, blinking at Zane in disbelief. Even with a bandage on his forehead, blood on his shirt, and a tangled nest of hair, he was the most beautiful man within several city blocks.

“He’s fine,” I snapped, wishing I could burn the world to make it so. “He’s Mr. fucking Fine.”

And the horrifying truth hit me in that moment—a truth I could never tell Zane without losing my right to stay by his side and protect him.

Somehow—through my own hubris, or chance, or the fucking Ventdestinian winds of fortune—Zane Hendley had crawled under my impenetrable professional walls… and burrowed himself claws-deep in my heart.

ONE

ZANE - SIX MONTHS LATER

Bears are bottomless pits when it comes to food, gobbling up honey every chance they get. And when their favorite snack is in danger, they’ll be the fiercest bodyguard in the wild. Nothing will stand between them and their most cherished bite!

—Bear Facts for Insomniacs, Episode 17

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