Page 11 of Mated to Four Bears

I ran from room to room. Every time I was met with emptiness, my heart sunk more. This wasn’t good at all.

It sunk even further the moment I saw it. The smashed window near the front door was a sign that something awful had happened her. “Fucking hell.”

I raked my fingers through my hair before I took off once more. Now it was time to get everyone else out of bed. I couldn’t do this on my own when I didn’t really know what I was doing. I called out their names over and over again, racing to each brother’s door.

“William, get up,” I yelled. “Samantha is missing. Richard, get your ass out of bed, I think Samantha’s ex-boyfriend has taken her. Thomas, we need you.”

It took them way too long, in my opinion, to get out of their beds and meet me in the hallway.

“Samantha is gone,” I explained as I paced up and down. “There is a broken window downstairs. I think her ex-boyfriend came to get her. You were worried about that, weren’t you, William?”

William’s eyes nearly popped out of his head in shock. “I thought he sounded like a bad guy. Are there any signs of him being in the house? We need to track him.”

“I didn’t check, I just saw the smashed window and came to get you.”

We all ran back downstairs so my brothers could take a look at what I’d seen. I stepped back and allowed them to examine the scene.

“No one came in,” Richard declared morosely. “I think Samantha broke her way out. The window has been smashed from the inside.”

Shit, I didn’t pick up on that at all. I just blamed some ex-boyfriend of hers without even thinking about the other possibility. We might have done our best to make her feel welcome, but she didn’t trust us. She didn’t want to be close to us. She chose to run away.

“Oh.” I held my hand to my chest as that realization hit me. “What do we do about that? Do we just let her go because she wants to? Even if she’s in danger?”

We all looked at one another. None of us knew what was best. Even William looked like he might not know what to do, which was unusual. Healwaysknew what to do, which was why we looked to him as a leader.

“We need to at least make sure she gets home okay,” Richard said. “I mean, I know she was doing much better, but we should still be careful, right? I still feel like she’s our responsibility. Especially if there is some nutcase ex-boyfriend out there.”

Was that an excuse because he wasn’t ready to let Samantha go either? I wasn’t sure. This was all a little strange since we all felt an intense magnetic pull towards Samantha. We were all attracted to her, but I didn’t feel jealous. Weirdly, it seemed like the most natural thing on the planet.

“I will go with you,” I jumped in eagerly. “My nose is the best out of all of us. If there’s any harm coming to her, two of us will be better than one.” I turned to Thomas and William. “You guys wait here, just in case she comes back. You never know what might happen.”

They agreed. I wasn’t sure if anyone was happy with what was happening, but we all agreed for the sake of Samantha. Finding her and looking after her was our biggest priority. She might have only been in our care for a few hours, but it was enough. Enough for us to know that we needed to do whatever it took to make sure she was okay.

Almost the second we set foot outside, Richard’s body began to shift and change. He stood up a little taller as he burst free from his human skin, dark brown fur overtaking him. His bear was eager to break free, and that was something I completely understood. I felt the same way.

Thomas had the bear healing powers, which made him the go-to guy for any ailments, especially when it came to magical ones. William was the sharpest tool in the box, with a gut instinct that always led him in the right direction. Richard’s hearing and sight were absolutely incredible, especially when he was in his bear form. And I had the nose. Sometimes I felt a bit cheated and thought that wasn’t the greatest skill to have, but then there were times like this when I freaking loved it. I could track anything, including Samantha.

Just because I hadn’t known her for a long time, didn’t mean I wasn’t already extremely familiar with her scent. She had a captivating smell, one that immediately made my heartrace faster, so that was what I followed the moment I shifted. My bear fur was a lighter brown, and my form slightly smaller than Richard’s, but I knew we had to be careful because it was probably a very intimidating sight to see the both of us. Anyone would be intimidated, especially Samantha. We didn’t exactly get the chance to tell her the truth about us.

We were going to have to make sure she didn’t see us and panic.

Her scent took Richard and me to the other side of the city, where the homes were much less appealing than our own. I didn’t like to spend a lot of time here because it was known for being rough. Instantly, my hackles rose for Samantha’s sake. Why did she live here? She deserved something so much better than this place.

But my nose never led me wrong. This was for sure where Samantha had run off to. This was where she lived. I was just about to shift back to my human form so I could have a conversation with Richard about this, when something else captured my attention. Another smell, a new one, and it seemed to be attached to a male who was right on Samantha’s trail.

I wanted to believe that I was just being paranoid, but the more I sniffed around Samantha’s scent, the more I kept picking up on it. I wasn’t quite sure when this smell had joined hers, but it was definitely here now, around her home, watching her.

Fuck, I didn’t like that at all. Anxiety got the better of me and I shifted back to make sure Richard understood how serious this shit was. I also wanted to know what his eyes and ears had picked up on.

“There’s someone else,” I gasped breathlessly as soon as I could. “Someone else has been following her. I think she’s being followed by that ex-boyfriend of hers. The one she’s scared of. She ran away from us because she freaked out, but ran straight into danger.”

Richard was already shaking his head by the time I got to the end of the sentence. “She’s fine. I can hear her. Samantha is alone in her apartment. I don’t know if someone has been following her, but I can assure you she’s very much alone now. She’s just walking around up there, trying to collect her thoughts about everything.”

He pointed up to the apartment which I could only assume was hers. But even hearing what he had to tell me didn’t make me feel any better. I knew I couldn’t relax. Just because Samantha was alone now, didn’t mean that creeper was gone.

“I think we need to be here at all times,” I told Richard seriously. “At least one of us, so we can know what’s going on. Especially if we’re worried about that ex of hers.”

“Agreed.” Richard grabbed his cell phone. “I’ll call William now. Let him and Thomas know what we’re planning so they don’t expect us home, and we can take first watch.”

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