Page 30 of Mated to Four Bears

“No, stop this.” All of a sudden, Antonio’s voice rose over everything else, and he sounded panicked. “Stop, this isn’t the way this is supposed to go. My people aren’t supposed to be dying here. I need them to make the magic work. You don’t understand, I need them, all of them. This is my last resort.”

He was looking for sympathy. I recalled Samantha saying that he was very good at manipulation, which was probably how he’d managed to get all these people here. But us bears were not going to fall for his shit. We weren’t as susceptible to begin with,but we also had Samantha to look out for. We couldn’t fall for his shit, no matter what he tried to do.

“Stop!” he screamed. “Let’s talk about this. It isn’t right, it isn’t fair. I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

William growled, A man like Antonio didn’t deserve to be heard.

“Wait, wait, I will work with you, please,” Antonio said, sounding defeated.

The last magical person trying to attack William fell to the ground, and I turned just in time to see William pinning Antonio to the ground, his teeth in his face, and Antonio knew that he didn’t have an out.

“You want Samantha free, right?” Antonio panted. “I can do that, I can make that happen. She hasn’t been harmed. She won’t be harmed.”

I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think this asshole knew how to tell the truth. I wasn’t sure he had ever been honest in his life. But as

William pulled back a little, allowing Antonio to get a hold of his wand. I didn’t trust him one bit, but I believed in my brother and that William knew what he was doing.

“I will let Samantha free,” Antonio gasped. “I will let her go if that’s what you want. I was only goofing around with her anyway. I wasn’t really going to do anything—”

“Fuck you.” Henry’s sharp tone shocked me. I didn’t know he’d shifted back in to his human form. “Don’t lie, Antonio. At least have the decency not to lie to us. Weknowyou’re up to something awful here. You basically got an army to support you. An army you can no longer rely on, so whatever your plan was, it’s out the window. You might as well be honest.”

Antonio let out a little whimper of dismay. He probably thought this was a solid plan and nothing could possibly go wrong, but the whole thing had backfired on him. If I didn’t haveso much hate for him, I might have even felt a little sorry for him. What a pathetic man.

“Come on, tell us,” Henry yelled, definitely not feeling any sympathy for Antonio. “Is this money related? Are you worried about your loan shark killing you? Couldn’t you just get money elsewhere? Did it really have to be like this? How did you manage to get all these people involved in whatyouwanted?”

Antonio still said nothing.

Henry walked up to the pathetic heap of a man grabbed something out of Antonio’s pocket. It took me a couple of seconds to realize it was Samantha’s wand.

Not only did he trick and overpower Samantha, but he also took away the only method she had of defending herself. It angered me in ways I didn’t even know I could get angry.

“Unbind her,” Henry demanded. “You’ve lost.”

Antonio whimpered again as he shot a spell Samantha’s way. I remained on the edge, ready to attack if I needed to. But Antonio did what was needed of him, obviously seeing that he didn’t have any other option, and he set Samantha free.

“Oof,” she cried out as she tumbled to the ground. “Fuck.”

“Now, doyouwant to be the one to tell us more, or should Samantha?”

Samantha staggered to her feet. She was so pale it looked like she didn’t have the energy to remain upright. I could sense that she had something she needed to say.

“This asshole brought me here because he thinks that crumbling pile of bricks is the well from theVetus Benestory,” she explained. “He thinks it’s going to make his dark magic spell more powerful, so do all these other idiots who have followed him. Unless they aren’t idiots and this horrible piece of work has manipulated him. I don’t know.” She shrugged, dragged in sharp, painful-sounding breaths. “But I suppose that doesn’tmatter anymore. What matters is what he was trying to do, and that’s steal my magic.”

Henry gasped. “What the hell are you talking about? Is that even possible? I’ve never heard about anything like that before.”

“That’s because no one else would be smart enough to think of it.”

We all turned to glare at Antonio, who, thankfully, had the presence of mind to shut the hell up. He wasn’t doing himself any favors.

“I don’t know if it’s possible or not, but I do know that he was willing to do anything to get power. That man is definitely…definitely unhinged.” Samantha put a hand to her chest, winced, and then started to fall.

I immediately shifted back to my human form. She needed me now, making the rest of the world irrelevant. I raced over to her and caught her just as she was about to hit the ground.

“Samantha,” I whispered as my heart broke. “Samantha, wake up.”

Crack.

I heard a loud crack, then was blinded a sudden bright light. Within a heartbeat, pain was radiating from my ribs, and it was all made perfect sense.

---