Page 25 of Mated to Four Bears

Then a strike of lightning followed by the rumbling of thunder. But this wasn’t a storm brewing, this was magic. We were surrounded by wands, but we couldn’t see the people attached to them. This was an ambush. Antonio was one step ahead of us always.

Fuck. I ducked as a spell flew towards me. If I hadn’t spotted it, it definitely would have hit me. Being in our bear bodies wasn’t going to help us. Especially now that the lightning bolts were flashing so brightly that I couldn’t see. It was chaos, but Samantha needed me. Us. All of us.

I pressed my body low to the ground and tried my best to move without being noticed. Not the easiest thing to do, but Ihadto find my brothers so we could figure out how to fight this ambush together. Apart, we were a mess, together, we could tackle this, I was sure of it.

I didn’t get far. Someone jumped on my back and started to attack. I didn’t know if it was a fist, a blade, or a spell. Either way, I needed to get this person off. I rolled over, slamming the person into the ground before I scurried backwards to get away.

The person I’d just shaken off grabbed their wand and flung another spell out at me before I knew what was happening. I managed to move just in time, but it did graze me. Dizziness overcame me almost instantly.

I couldn’t allow this to slow me down. If I was out of it, I couldn’t help anyone. I jumped on the person, cracking their wand and knocking them sideways. With a bit of luck they’d be unconscious, but if not, at least they were unable to perform magic anymore. I would take any wins I could get at the moment.

The flashes of magic were giving me one hell of a headache, which I thought might be a way to disarm me. Fucking Antonio, I wasn’t going to let him destroy me like this. I wouldn’t let him win, I couldn’t, because if he took me out, or my brothers, then Samantha would be in real trouble. No one else was looking for her because her circle was small. Which was probably exactly what Antonio was relying on.

I kept low again, sniffing around, trying to find my brothers. But I couldn’t sense them anywhere. It was almost like I was all alone in this nightmare.

I was so used to being in control of everything, it was one of the things that helped me move through the world, but now I had no idea what I was going to do. I swept a paw out to the side, knocking a few people out of my way, but it wasn’t enough.

Maybe Antonio was cleverer than I thought. He knew how to knock me down without even knowing a single thing about me.

17

SAMANTHA

It was really starting to look like Antonio had every intention of performing some disgusting as fuck spell on me to steal my magic. I couldn’t believe he would go this far.

We were in the middle of the woods, surrounded by magical with evil glints in their eyes

“And here she is, boys and girls,” Antonio cried out in delight. The way his voice ricocheted through the trees suggested heknewhe wouldn’t be caught. “The woman I have been telling you about. The woman who fucked my life up and so deserves this.”

Wait,Ifuckedhislife up? Was that a joke? He had destroyed me, absolutely ruined me. My life had been torn to shreds, buthewas playing the victim? Wow. Although I suppose it figured. How the hell else would he get everyone on his side, even though he didn’t deserve to be believed?

But I couldn’t argue any of that. I couldn’t defend myself because my mouth was still bound. That asshole wanted to shut me up so he could spin his own tale.

“She left me high and dry, with no money, and with men like Benjamin on my back.”

The others booed at the mention of the loan shark, as if he was the villain in this story.

“And now, because of this, Samantha is going to become our first subject in this new experiment. She’ll give her magic to me, so I can overcome the issuessheleft me with. Because the one thing Samantha does have is good magic.”

The murmur of chatter left me sick to my stomach. How could these people be okay with this? It was one thing to do minor spells and break the Code of Magic in small ways, but this seemed like a step too far, even for these people who were already doing weird experiments. Antonio was a very manipulative person, but I couldn’t believe how far he had gone this time.

“So, everyone, I think it’s time we begin, don’t you? Let’s set everything up.”

Antonio made a sweeping gesture with his hands and all the other magical people got to work, as if he had them all on puppet strings or something. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see any of their faces because they had magically blurred them. I probably wasn’t going to get out of here to tell anyone about this, so I wondered why they’d gone to so much trouble to conceal their identities.

Fuck, that was a hard thought. I really didn’t want to die, I ached to live, I craved life. But right now it felt like I was going to lose it all and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

As a couple of people scattered magical powder all around my feet, I slid my eyes closed and thought about everything good I was going to lose. Mostly the people.

William might have come into my life as Captain William Osborne, about to arrest me for my one weak moment in life, but he had turned into be my protector, my safe place. I honestly felt more at home with him than I ever had before. Maybe I felt that way when I had my parents, but that was so long ago I couldn’trecall remember.Hewas my family, my home, and I was going to miss him dearly.

Then there was Thomas. I couldn’t help but smile as I pictured his face, ignoring the chaos surrounding me. Thomas with his sweet smile and kind heart. It was hardly a surprise that he was the healer of the brothers since he cared so much about others. He was the personification of love. I didn’t know how he would cope without me, because I hated being away from him.

And I couldn’t forget Richard, my strong protector who not only always made me laugh, but also went out of his way to look after me. This would kill him, knowing that he had tried so hard but hadn’t managed to keep me safe. I so desperately wished I could get a message to him, to let him know thatnoneof this was his fault.

Tears startedto fall as I thought about the very sweet, incredibly astute Henry. Sometimes I felt like he knew me even better than I knew myself. He understood me in a way I didn’t think I would ever be understood. Before I met him, I didn’t know who I was. Not really. I was skating through life, just trying to get by. But with Henry there by my side, I was starting to see the realme.

Or I was, before Antonio crashed back into my life like a God damn hurricane to ruin it all.

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