Marked (Primal Obsessions #2) - Cara Wylde Page 0,5

interaction. I worked for a lumber company, and as long as they had jobs in the area, I was good. In the past, I’d traveled with my crew, but I couldn’t do that anymore. Not when I had a family at home. Lincoln and Colt both worked in constructions, getting seasonal jobs, moving from one company to another, laying low as they put some money aside. We were far from pretentious. Bear shifters usually weren’t. We were happy in our community, and we didn’t dream of big houses and expensive cars. We just liked living close to nature.

The scent of my cub and my lover intensified. We were getting close. I picked up the pace, and Lincoln and Colt did the same. We were alone on the road. Not many cars drove through here, and no one knew about the trailer park behind the hill, at the edge of the woods. We were in the middle of nowhere. In bear form, we were faster than a car, so if we happened to hear one approaching, we could just duck in the woods and hide behind the tall, wild shrubbery. Finally, I could see something up ahead. It looked like a terrible accident had happened. One car was on the side of the road, while the other one, totally wrecked, was right in the middle of the road, smoke coming out of it. When I was just a couple of feet away from the disaster, I stopped in my tracks and turned to Lincoln and Colt. Lincoln growled low in his chest, and Colt bowed his head. Yes, that was Krista’s car. Completely totaled. The smell of smoke and gas was intense, but I could distinguish her unique scent. The scent of my lover, of the woman who was the mother of my cub. I took a deep breath, released it slowly, and gathered my courage. All three of us approached the car.

Krista was in the driver’s seat. From the way the front of the car was bent and torn, I could tell that she’d shifted after the accident. Maybe she’d been badly injured in her human form, and she’d tried to shift so she could heal faster, but it had been too late. In human form, we were more vulnerable and prone to getting hurt. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing. I nudged her with my snout, and her head lolled to one side. Colt walked to the other car, trying to figure out what had happened. As I grabbed Krista’s lifeless body with my teeth and pulled her out, I heard Lincoln growl in distress behind me. I ignored him, too busy pulling Krista into the woods. Someone could’ve driven by at any moment, and the last thing I needed was for some random stranger to call the police. I had to make sure that my lover was safe, away from prying eyes. Next, we were going to have to move the car and hide it, too. Lincoln growled louder, and I finally turned to him. Adrenaline rushed through my veins when I realized what he was showing me. The car door at the back had been torn open and was now lying on the ground. Inside, there was no one. An intoxicating mixture of feelings washed over me, as I tried to grasp what this meant. On the one hand, I was expecting to find Milo’s mangled body in the back, and while pulling Krista out, I’d been trying to avoid thinking about it. The smell of blood permeated the air, along with the crushing energy of fear and terror. On the other hand, if the car door had been torn out and Milo wasn’t in the back, neither dead, nor alive, then it meant someone had done this. Someone had taken him. That someone had crashed into Krista as she was coming out of the side road she usually took to avoid the crowded streets in town, had left her to die, and then had stolen Milo. He could be hurt. This person could be hurting him even worse right now. I had to act.

I pushed Lincoln aside, stuck my head inside the car, and inhaled deeply. Yes, there was a scent there that wasn’t Krista’s, nor Milo’s. Next, I walked to the other car, which Colt had already inspected thoroughly. I shot him a questioning glance, and he shook his head at me. Nothing. He’d found nothing. I sniffed the driver’s seat, and the distinctive smell