nothing to do with. And also, maybe because I still felt guilty that I had at least indirectly brought this on them, no matter what Dax said otherwise. “I’d have a tough time if someone got hurt over me.”
Dax turned his head quickly to the right, staring into the grayscale darkness. I couldn’t see or hear what he obviously could, but soon enough I heard a branch—a big one from the sound of it—crack and tumble to the ground, demolishing the leaves underneath.
“What was that?”
Dax waved me off and hushed me. “Stay down,” was all he said. “And get that gun ready.”
My fingers trembled as I pressed five shells into the top of the sawn-off. I’d done some shooting before, but never anything quite as much of a cannon as this thing. The cool steel of the barrel and the slightly warmer wood of the handle welcomed my hand as I wrapped it tight with my fingers, clutching the weapon like my life depended on it.
“Am I going to shoot anyone?” I asked, as the reality that I may well have to do so set in and got me shivering. “I’m not sure I could kill someone that didn’t really deserve it.”
“Wouldn’t kill ‘em. Even old man Wyatt could take a few loads of buckshot without much trouble. But it will slow him down, assuming this even goes far enough to need that sort of thing.”
A crash that sounded like a mixture of thunder and a bomb going off sounded in the distance, though not too far away from where were hiding.
“Okay,” I said with my heart thudding heavily into my chest. “That I heard. What was it?”
Dax shook his head. The moonlight glittered seductively off his tanned skin, making him look even more serious than he did anyway. His high cheekbones and stubbly cheeks caught my eyes and before I knew it, I was just staring dumbly at him.
“No time for lovelorn staring,” he said with a quick quirk of a smile. “Even though I’d rather spend every second of my time watching those hips of yours and those eyes... even though all I want to do right now is throw you over one of these branches and give you what we both need. All that being said, I’m pretty sure there are at least two very angry werebears hunting for us, and it won’t be long before they wander over here.”
I started to speak, but Dax interrupted me with a kiss. “When they do, I want you to know that there’s no way in hell they’re going to hurt you. They’ll have to skin me alive before that happens. And, Raine?”
“Yeah?” I asked, my heart fluttering just a little at Dax’s alpha act.
“Ain’t nobody gonna skin Daxon Mark. You understand me?”
Another breaking limb caught my attention, but only for a second. When I returned my gaze to Dax, his eyes were full yellow and his teeth grew longer and sharper. Before long, thick golden-brown hair covered his forearms, and only seconds after that, his shirt split right down the middle and his jeans ripped up the leg seams.
“You maybe should’ve taken all that off first,” I said. “They’re never going to let you in McDonald’s like that.”
He grunted a bear laugh that boomed and rolled like thunder across the plains.
“Dax! Hey Dax!” The voice that came was thick with both whiskey and an accent. The ends of each word whistled a bit. It was Jack Creighton, and he didn’t sound particularly happy. “Look out, Dax!”
“Shut your damn mouth, hillbilly,” a sharp, heavy voice trailed. “Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll stuff a pair of bullets down there to help you.”
“You stay here,” Dax said. “They have Jack, and as odd as it is, he’s my friend. Captain Skullet isn’t going to hurt either one of you.”
“Captain...?”
“He’s bald on the top and has a long ponytail,” Dax said with another bear laugh. “It is, how you say, joke? Looking for moose and squirrel?”
“I’m being one-linered by a magical bear,” I said with a tone of comical disbelief. “Fuck the whole world, but at least I’m fairly sure I’m not crazy.”
Dax shrugged a golden shoulder. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “Hunch down in the reeds, I’m going around behind them. You keep right where you are until you see the whites... or whatever, of Wyatt’s eyes and then you pump his guts full of lead.”
He noticed, I guess, that my hands were shaking and I was struggling