Bear Love Read Online Free Page A

pushing it.
    The fourth one, whom he’d almost
knocked off the road, climbed to its clawed feet, shaking the blood from its
side. That blood, at least, came from
it and not Mike.
    Shit ,
he thought. Four of these devils is too
many.
    It pissed him off to admit that he
was outmatched, but he knew he was as the fourth lion joined the other three
and together they began circling him. Any moment and they would leap on him
again, all at once, and he’d be finished.
    You
can’t die , he thought. You’ve just
met your mate! And if he died, she would too, he had no doubt, or meet a
fate worse than death.
    The lions leapt.
    With an enraged bellow, Mike
charged forward. He swatted one of the felines away, felt another lose its hold
on his side, and growled in pain as the other two landed on his flanks and dug
in.
    He threw himself to the ground
again and felt a bump. Good. He’d hurt at least one of the asshats. The other
one fell away as Mike climbed to his feet and blundered forward. He smashed through
the pine trees bordering the road and bounded downhill, away from the lions.
    From the sounds of their growls,
they gave chase.
    He could smell Jess and Suzy ahead.
Damn it all. He couldn’t lead the lions to the girls. Changing course, he
angled away, going at a forty-five degree angle from the ladies.
    He could only hope the lions
followed him, not Jess and Suzy. He might be able to survive a running fight through a snow-covered forest at night
against a pride of lion shifters.
    Well, at least for awhile.

Chapter 5

 
 
    Heart pounding, Jess ran. Tree limbs slashed at her face,
showering snow and slicing at her cheeks. More snow crunched underfoot, sucking
at her stylish faux-fur boots, making running difficult. Her breaths exploded
from her mouth in little puffs of steam. Some yards off to the side, she could
hear Suzy’s footfalls and rapid breaths.
    “I think I hear them behind us!” Suzy
gasped.
    Jess could hear very little over
the sound of her own heart smashing in her ears, but she believed Suzy.
    “Run faster!” she said, and
followed her own advice.
    The night was black beneath the
trees, but here and there the moonlight cut down between clouds, illuminating
the floor of the forest and preventing Jess from dashing herself against a tree
or jutting boulder. Luckily little undergrowth grew here and the spaces between
the trees yawned wide. Ahead, Jess thought she saw a bright patch that might be
a break in the forest.
    “There!” she said, pointing.
Hopefully Suzy saw her gesture. “Go that way!”
    They ran toward the bright patch
and burst out into a clearing. Before them, a light drift of snow settled on
the roofs of a dozen or so log cabins arranged loosely along the slope. Jess
and Suzy slowed, then stopped for a moment, panting. The scene was idyllic, all
those sleepy snow-covered cabins overlooking a grand vista, what little could
be seen of it at this hour: white-capped peaks mounting toward the dark horizon.
Jess could sense them if she couldn’t see them very clearly.
    We’re
safe, she thought. The lions won’t attack
us if there are people around.
    “I don’t get it,” Suzy said,
inspecting the cabins. “There’s no smoke from the chimneys.”
    Jess looked. Suzy was right: the
chimneys were idle. Despair overwhelmed her.
    “They must be abandoned,” Jess said.
    “Damn.”
    “Maybe we can still use them. Hole
up in one. Barricade the doors.”
    Suzy snapped her fingers. “If these
cabins have ever been used, there might be things left behind. Guns, maybe.
Knives.”
    They set off, threading their way
through the silent buildings.
    “We can’t just pick the first one,”
Suzy said. “Gotta make it a little more difficult for Bryce and his cronies.”
    “Maybe the snow will mask our
smell,” Jess said.
    “I hope so, but we can’t count on
it." A few minutes later, she said, "How about that one?”
    They arrived before a large cabin
on the edge of the subdivision. Snow heaped on its