Page 89 of Bearing Secrets
Natalia!
Worry for his mate spurred him into motion as he rolled away and kicked out with his good leg surprisingly fast. The wolf yipped in pain and darted away, having earned a quintet of slices down its throat for its troubles.
Kirell was starting to fade fast, however, and wasn’t sure how much longer he could handle it.
Behind him, he saw Kaelyn being spun around by a vicious right hook from Klebra.
Was this it? Was this how they were going to die? Just when he’d started to get his life figured out, he was going to have it stolen from him? And what about Natalia, his mate and the woman he loved? She didn’t deserve this. This wasn’t her fight, but now she was going to pay the price for it.
The wolf came closer, this time aiming for a killing blow, he was sure. Its mouth opened wide, showing Kirell’s blood still dripping from its jaws, bits of bear fur stuck to the teeth, evidence of its prior efforts.
“Hey! Here boy! Here boy! Sit! Stay! Play dead, you piece of shit!” Natalia shouted, and a piece of stone the size of a human fist smacked into the wolf’s side.
No!Kirell looked on—horrified—as his mate came out from around the SUV. On its hood was a pile of stone taken from broken tombs. One by one, Natalia picked them up and hurled them at the wolf, taking its attention away from Kirell.
He wanted to tell her to stop. To turn around and run. That she should get as far away from the cemetery as possible before it was too late. But there was something in her eyes. Something he recognized.
It was anger. And fear. For him. As he’d been scared for her safety, she was terrified for his, and she wasn’t about to see him killed in front of her without doing anything. Kirell had never loved her more than in that moment, but he couldn’t let her do this. She couldn’t sacrifice herself for him.
Roaring with pain, he forced himself to his feet, his entire body protesting, even as parts of it shut down from the wounds inflicted upon him.
The wolf heard him, of course, and turned, suddenly unsure of what to do, of which foe to go after.
That hesitation sealed its fate.
Out of the dark, men came slashing into the circle, rifles firing the depleted uranium shells that wreaked havoc with shifter DNA. The wolf shrieked in unholy pain as it took a dozen bullets to its body in the span of two seconds and went down, dead.
The rest closed around Kirell and Natalia while approaching Kaelyn and Klebra as well.
Shunting aside the pain, Kirell forced himself back into his human form, the pain agonizing to the point of nearly blacking him out as the transformation seemed to go on forever. It still took the normal handful of seconds, but it felt like forever. But then he was back in normal form.
“WAIT!” he hollered, just before the men opened fire on Klebra. “Wait.”
Klaue and the others turned to stare at him with a mixture of horror and surprise. He must have been a hell of a sight, drenched in blood both his own and the wolf’s, naked, and staggering forward.
Reaching down, he snagged a piece of the stone, the first one that Natalia had thrown at the wolf.
“Kirell.” His man Klaue tried to block his path, but Kirell shoved him aside.
In front of him stood the Queen and Klebra, both exhausted, bleeding from a dozen cuts and both now barely on their feet. He eyed the traitor, noting the sheer number of wounds, the broken jaw, the swollen shut eye, and made a mental note never to piss off his Queen again.
“Do you mind?” he asked Kaelyn as he approached.
“Not at all.”
“Mind what?” Klebra asked through his mangled mouth. “What do you mind?”
“This,” he snarled, and slammed the chunk of stone into Klebra’s face.
Kirell fell with the blow, landing on top of the traitor. “This is for kidnapping Natalia. For threatening my MATE!” He finished with a full-throated roar, lifting his exhausted arms above his head and bringing them, and the stone they held, right into Klebra’s face a second time.
His arms rose and fell again. And again. Blood splashed. Something gave way.
Eventually, Kaelyn was there, pulling him back. “It’s over,” she said, forced to shout to get through to him. “Kirell. It’s over! Enough!”
Then she backhanded him and he fell away, blinking in surprise.
“He’s dead, Kirell. He’s dead.”
