Page 31 of Mated to Four Bears

A spell from Antonio.

What the hellwas wrong with him? He’d lost, yet he continued to fight.

That was the last thing I thought before black clouded my vision and lost consciousness.

21

RICHARD

Oh, hell no!

Antonio had gone too far now. I couldn’t hold back anymore, I wouldn’t. I was trying to see how this would unfold because it seemed like William had a plan, but it was all going to shit now.

How dare he do all of this? How could he be so freaking cruel? Not only to Samantha, but to Thomas as well. I thought this fucker was done, that he saw this as a loss, but he’d targeted yet another one of my brothers. Sweet Thomas didn’t deserve any of this.

Henry raced over to Thomas and Samantha to help them both as much as he possibly could, while William and I went for Antonio.

Blood splattered as William attacked him. But I didn’t just want to kill this asshole, I wanted him to suffer for the trouble he had caused, and what he’d created. He needed to pay for what he’d done.

I grabbed him between my teeth and swung him around. Antonio waved his wand, aiming for my leg, but only a fewpathetic little sparks of magic came out. It still pissed me off, though.

The man didn’t know when to give it up. But I would show him. I wiggled him around until he passed out, causing his wand to finally slip from, cracking in two as it hit the ground.

I looked inside the well, and there was something really eerie about it. I was starting to understand why Antonio might think it held magical powers. The darkness inside it seemed to go on forever. Since Antonio wanted to know more about the well so bad, I opened my mouth and set him free. I let him tumble into the well, listening to see if there was a thud when he hit the bottom…but there was no noise. It seemed like it really was endless.

I might have been stayed longerto investigate, had it not been for the crying coming from behind me. I turned to see William, now in his human form, hugging Samantha. She had come back around and was now sobbing. But not because I had gotten rid of her ex-boyfriend. I wasn’t even sure she’d noticed. She was weeping over Thomas, who didn’t seem to be moving at all, maybe not even breathing.

I shifted back, my head spinning with nerves. What kind of spell did Antonio cast on to Thomas?

“What do we do?” Henry cried out, terrified. “I don’t understand. What the hell do we do to help Thomas? He has always been the one there for us, healing us, and now none of us know what to do. How are we going to help him?”

My heart thundered so hard against my ribcage I feared it might break free. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t how this day was supposed to end. We fought for our love, to get Samantha back and to hopefully start the rest of our lives together.

“Wait,” I rasped out as I staggered closer to Thomas. “Wait, he said something to me about the fated connection, the bear bond.”

I didn’t always commit to memory everything Thomas told me because I always just assumed Thomas would be there. I didn’t think we would ever need to look out for him. That was stupid and short sighted of me.

“Fated blood…the blood of the person you are bear bonded to.” I could feel everyone looking at me, relying on me to fix this. This had to be how Thomas felt all the time. What a lot of pressure. “He needs to drink it and it will heal him.”

Thank goodness Samantha seemed to know what I was talking about, because I wasn’t sure any of my brothers were picking up on it. Thomas was the only one who knew what I was talking about.

“I’ll do it,” she cried out while pulling up one of her sleeves. “Whatever I need to do. If he needs some of my blood, then cut me, please. Make this happen.”

William and Henry exchanged a look, but since no one had a better idea, I guess they assumed it was worth a try. William pulled out his pocketknife and gave Samantha’s arm the smallest cut.

As she winched, he did too. It was obvious he didn’t want to cause her any pain. But we had to save our brother. The blood welled on Samantha’s arm, and she pressed it to Thomas’s mouth. We all held our breath as we waited to see if it would work.

I had to admit that I started to feel incredibly stupid when nothing happened right away. How stupid could I be? When Thomas told me this, he was probably telling me that it was a stupid idea and what sick people really needed was medicine. But I wasn’t listening, because I was an idiot. I desperatelywished someone else would come up with a decent idea because this was just dumb.

If Thomas losthis life out here in the middle of the woods, I would never be able to forgive myself. Just because Antonio was the one who caused it, didn’t mean he would be the only one to blame. I would blameme.

Even turning away from Thomas so I didn’t have to look at his lifeless body didn’t help, because all I could see were dead bodies everywhere. That well, magical or not, was about to see a lot of action.

“Thomas?” I turned back at the sound of Samantha’s voice. “Thomas, are you okay? Oh my goodness, you look okay. Please tell me that you are alright!”

She flung her arms around him as his eyes fluttered open. Then we all jumped on him to hug him because he was awake, and that meant we could make him well again, once we got out of here.

Samantha wasn’t the only one crying as we clung to one another. We had almost lost it all. One man had almost destroyed us all, but here we were. Fated lovers, bear bonded, and now potentially able to live out the rest of our lives together.Ifthat was what we all wanted. I couldn’t speak for everyone, but I really did feel like we were all in this together, and I was looking forward to a beautiful future.

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