House Of Bears 7 - Samantha Snow Page 0,10

to us.”

“How could this happen?” Holly gasped. “Does it have something to do with the baby? Is it giving its power to me? Is that it?”

Edwina broke into a glorious smile. She squeezed Holly’s hand tighter. “She, sweetie. Is she giving her power to you? That’s what you mean.”

Holly blinked at her in slack-jawed wonder. “She? It’s…the baby’s a girl? How do you… how can you…?”

“Ursula,” Susanna chimed in. “Her name is Ursula, and she is definitely giving you her power. She must be an exceptionally powerful shifter. She’s making you powerful, too.”

“But you just said you couldn’t....”

“That’s the only explanation,” Hattie added. “You didn’t become a shifter just because. There are a lot of unusual events surrounding this pregnancy.”

“But…” Holly scanned them one after another, “what will happen to me? What will happen when the baby is born? Will I just go back to being a normal human woman? What if I’m stuck like this for life?”

“We might have a lot of power,” Johnny replied, “but we can’t see the future, sweetheart. No one can. Anything is possible, but like Edwina said, it isn’t dangerous to you or to the baby. If you take this power as your own, you’ll be a powerful shifter. That’s all.”

She shuddered. “It just feels so…so wrong.”

“Does it?” He inclined his head to study her. “It looked to me like you were enjoying yourself.”

She hung her head and looked down at her hands. “Maybe a little too much.”

“There is no such thing,” Edwina interjected. “Just don’t lose control. That’s when bad things can happen.”

Holly looked to one side, but the strangers were nowhere in sight. A wave of disgust overflowed her heart. “You should have let me kill them both. That’s better than they deserve for what they did to Silver Spruce.”

“Don’t you think I might have had something to say about that?” Johnny asked. “I think I’m a little better qualified than you to decide who should die and who shouldn’t.”

“How can you even say that?” she fired back. “How can you let those fuckers walk away free after everything they’ve done—not just to you but to all of us?”

“There’s been enough killing,” he breathed. “The war is over, and we won. That’s enough. You’ve found it in your heart to forgive people who have done a lot worse.”

“Because they asked me to forgive. They asked me to make peace, and they put their money where their mouths are. They didn’t come around here trying to fucking shoot me and kill my baby.”

Trevor turned away. “I can see we aren’t going to come to an agreement about this, so I’m going out to run around the perimeter a few times. I want to make sure those two really went back to Golden Oak. I don’t want to wake up one of these nights with them standing outside your bedroom door like we did last time.”

He moved toward the deck when Garret spun around. “Hold it. Not so fast.”

Trevor looked up. “What’s up?”

Garret’s countenance twisted in a grimace. “We need to talk about something. Where’s Loch?”

Wyatt peered through the doors into the yard. “I don’t see him. He must have taken off somewhere.”

“Why?” Elise asked. “What do you need from Loch? What’s going on?”

Garret squared his shoulders and faced them all. “We have a problem—a big problem.”

CHAPTER FOUR—LOCH

Loch staggered against a tree trunk and slumped. He rested his pounding skull against the rough bark, shut his eyes, and gasped to catch his breath. His throat hurt from running so hard, but he still found it nearly impossible to get enough air.

The scorching pain in his arm overpowered his resolve. He ripped up his sleeve, and his guts contracted when he saw the mark. The bruising around the brand pulsed brighter and cut deeper. The pain sickened him. Trailing red threads dug into his skin around the imprint.

He yanked down his sleeve before he could lose his nerve again. He pivoted off the tree and staggered deeper into the forest. He broke into a run, stumbled, and barreled onward.

A high-pitched, insidious voice whispered in his fevered brain. You’re going the wrong way.

“Shut up!” he hissed. Without thinking, he twirled on his heel and bellowed into the trees. “Shut the fuck up! Leave me alone!”

That voice laughed a merry, pealing chime in his head. The father! How quaint. The father thinks he can save his child from a fate worse than death. Is that it? Is that why you’re running away?

He clenched his jaws and dug