Wanted By The Soldier Bear (Heroes of Shifter Creek 1) Read Online Free Page B

his arm. It was almost frightening to watch, especially how cool he remained doing it, hardly flinching as the blade pierced his skin.
    Cecelia wanted to run to him, but she refused. He had done this to himself, for reasons she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. The war had messed him up, big time. “Are you done proving how bad ass you are?” she asked.
    It was not the response he expected. “I’m bleeding,” he said expectantly. “And I’m not going anywhere until it heals.”
    She was starting to suspect he stabbed himself with the spear. “Is this some kind of psychotic episode or something?” She was genuinely concerned. “If it is, tell me how I can help.”
    Instead of answering, he took the knife and sliced his hand again. The blood was like a waterfall gushing from a mountainside. “Marcus!” she cried, and she finally went to him, grabbing a kitchen cloth to cover the wound. She applied pressure to his hand, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. “What did you do?”
    “Make it stop,” he muttered, his strength literally pouring out of him.
    “I’m trying,” she said, her emotions starting to rise, confused as to what was happening and angry that he would hurt himself. Soon, those emotions were dominated by a sense of peace, the same she had felt earlier that day. With the peace, a light formed around his wound, and it healed, closing up completely.
    “I knew it,” he said, letting the cloth drop, but there was no victory in his tone. It devastated him. “You’re a healer.”
    Astonished, Cecelia looked down at her own hands, which were covered in his blood. That was impossible. She had never healed a person before. She fell back against the counter, trying to take it in. “But I’m not a shifter.”
    “You didn’t get the shifter gene, but you definitely inherited a special gift,” he attested. “You can heal.”
    “Why does that make you so sad?” she asked, observing him.
    “Because it means the Bear Hunters weren’t after the Johannssons. They were after you.”
    ***
     

 
    Chapter Five
     
                  “We have to learn more,” Cecelia declared while on her hands and knees searching through the wall-to-wall bookshelf in the study. “This cabin is old. It’s been passed from bear to bear for generations. There has to be something of relevance here.”
                  “Here,” Marcus said, grabbing a dusty encyclopedia at the bottom of the shelf. “It’s a history of shifters. You are looking for answers to your gift?”
                  “No,” she replied, flipping through the pages, scanning through drawings of snakes and rhinos and lions. And, of course, bears. “I want to figure out why the Bear Hunters would need a healer.”
                  “Isn’t obvious? To heal.”
                  She ignored the comment, looking for something more. Finally, she landed on the section about the Bear Hunters. It didn’t take her long to read through it. The text shocked her, even more than learning that she could heal. In her mind, she had always imagined the Bear Hunters to be religious nutcases who didn’t believe shifters should exist because it defied the natural order or some other nonsense.
                  But the Bear Hunters weren’t human, not completely. They were shifters themselves.
                  “I don’t understand,” she said, closing the encyclopedia. “Why would other shifters want to make bears extinct?”
                  “So we can’t dominate,” Marcus speculated. “We’re bigger than a wolf, faster than a rhino, and better hunters than lions. We could easily take over the shifter world. We did take over the shifter world,” he corrected. “Eons ago, there was a war between humans – all humans, even shifters. The bears fought on the side that won, protecting the liberty of the people. Until order was restored, they temporarily took charge.