Mate Bond

  He still couldn’t see what the thing was. Hard to when he was running, limping, and trying to look over his shoulder at the same time, all while his Collar sizzled the fur around his neck. He only knew that whatever came behind him was big, deadly, and mad as hell.

  Makes two of us, shithead.

  Bowman hurled himself at the back door of the roadhouse. Pain and flight reaction took away his presence of mind to shift to human, so he howled and scratched at the door like a pathetic pup.

  The door was wrenched open, and two large hands grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him inside. The scent that came to Bowman’s pain-crazed brain was bear, and he had just enough functioning thought to keep himself from attacking.

  The big hands belonged to a giant of a man who slammed the door and dragged Bowman into the tiny back hall. Bowman collapsed to smooth, cold, polished cement, panting hard, pain blotting out all thought.

  “Son of a bitch,” Cade said. “What the hell was that? Bowman? Bowman—damn it, stay with me . . .”

  * * *

  Kenzie pushed her way through the frightened crowd, knowing before she reached the back hall that Bowman was hurt. She scented it, she sensed it—she’d suspected it before he’d even made it inside.

  Cade was sitting cross-legged beside a big timber wolf, who lay bleeding on the floor. He’d grabbed a towel from somewhere, not a very clean one, and was pressing it to Bowman’s back right leg.

  The leg was broken. Bone protruded through red flesh, and Bowman’s dark gray fur was matted with blood. His Collar emitted one shock, his reaction to Cade touching his injury, then went silent.

  Kenzie said nothing. She knew Bowman didn’t like wailing females, didn’t want her to fling herself on top of him and bawl. He’d expect her to quit whimpering and do something useful.

  She made herself kneel calmly beside Cade, who shot her a worried look. Cade’s short hair was mottled black and brown—grizzly colors—his eyes a darker brown. He was a huge man, with hands twice the size of Kenzie’s and a hard body she knew women liked to climb. A tatt of interlocking Celtic knot designs flowed down his right arm.

  “Hold that on him,” Cade said, handing her the towel. “I’ll try to find something clean.”

  “How about an ambulance and someone to set his bones?” Kenzie said, even as she pressed the towel to Bowman’s wound.

  “Not with whatever that is prowling out there. I saw something as I hauled his ass inside.” Cade’s brown eyes were white around the edges, his face stark. Nothing scared Cade, who was bigger than anyone in Shiftertown—bigger than anyone, period. Humans took one look at him and ran the other way.

  “What was it?” Kenzie asked him.

  Cade hauled himself to his feet. “Hard to say. Huge. Fast. Stinky. Probably could knock over any ambulance that came out here. If we can get one to come out here.”

  “Feral Shifter?”

  “No clue. Bigger than a Shifter.”

  That’s what Kenzie had thought too. She felt cold.

  Under her touch, Bowman moved, but weakly. He needed a healer. Needed one now. If he could shift back to human, a hospital might be able to work on him, though Shifters were tough for most doctors to treat.

  “Touch of a mate,” Cade said. He was looking at Kenzie with a mixture of sympathy, worry, and understanding.

  “Doesn’t always work,” Kenzie said irritably. The subject was a sensitive one for her. “You know that.”

  “We got a choice right now?”

  Bowman rumbled something, and Kenzie leaned down to look him in his eyes. His flat wolf face held such beauty, though she’d never say so to him.

  Now his gray eyes were filled with vast pain and, behind that, frustration. He needed to tell her something, but he couldn’t shift to speak words.

  Kenzie stroked his head. “We’re going to try to fix you up,” she said. “Me and Cade. Don’t worry too much.”

  Bowman’s muzzle wrinkled in annoyance. Stupid thing to say, and Kenzie knew it. She might as well have bleated, There’s an unknown monster stalking around outside, you’ve broken your leg, we can’t get medical help, and all I can do is pet you. But don’t worry, everything will be fine.

  Bowman rumbled again, holding her gaze. He was willing her to understand, but she followed his body language much better when they were both the same species.

  “Hang on.” Kenzie rose to her feet, unsteady in the new turquoise cowboy boots she’d bought to dance in tonight. She’d been so proud of the damn things, and the sexy top that was now so much scrap in the woods, when she’d brought them home from her shopping trip today. “Cade, turn your back.”

  Cade scowled. “I’m Shifter, woman. I’ve seen naked Shifters before.”

  Kenzie planted her hands on her hips. “I want to see your back, grizzly. Now.”

  “Touchy, touchy.” Cade swung around and stared at pipes and dirty walls. His well-muscled back in its tight T-shirt quivered, but Kenzie couldn’t tell if he were laughing or letting his concern about Bowman get to him.

  Kenzie peeled off the shirt Bowman had lent her, not liking to take his scent from her skin. Next, the pretty new boots came off, then her jeans and underwear.

  She envied Bowman’s ability to shift so easily—it came harder for her. The wolf in her began to growl and protest as her limbs transformed, her skin itching as it stretched and changed. After a few long and painful moments, Kenzie landed on four big paws, shaking out the light gray fur of her wolf.

  Bowman’s scent slammed into her. She smelled his pain, his fear, his concern that he wouldn’t be able to figure out how to fight this unknown menace. The Collar around Kenzie’s neck, which had expanded to fit her wolf, wanted to spark to match his agitation.

  She tried to calm herself, to block out the waves of complicated worry that came with his scent and his nearness as she lowered herself next to him. Kenzie moved her face in front of Bowman’s and touched his nose with hers. No other wolf in the pack could do that—Bowman might touch them, but not the other way around. Not without his permission.

  Kenzie was wolf enough now to give him a lick. His fur tasted of blood and dirt, and the tang that was Bowman. She whined a little, but when wolves whined, it didn’t necessarily mean submission or fear. Right now, she asked a question.

  Bowman answered her in a series of rumbles and flicks of his eyes. What came to Kenzie were impressions and images rather than exact words, but they would roughly translate as, Big. Deadly. Don’t know what it is. Can’t fight it. Pain. Damn. Fucking pain. Can’t think.

  I’ll try to help you, Kenzie conveyed back. I have to touch you. It might hurt.

  You think? Bowman growled.

  Kenzie licked his face again. She let her tongue move behind his ears, her mate’s pain coming to her through the tiny link they shared. They had nothing like the magical, all-consuming mate bond other pairs developed, but at least they had something, even if it was only the understanding between two alphas.

  Fifteen years ago, when Kenzie and Bowman had mated to keep the Shifters in the North Carolina Shiftertown under control and the humans from closing the place down, Kenzie had hoped the two of them would form the mate bond. It didn’t always happen right away—a couple could be together for a year and more before the true bond came. Sometimes it happened only after the first cub. Kenzie had been hopeful once Ryan had been born. She knew Bowman had been hopeful too, but still the mate bond hadn’t formed.

  Hadn’t formed yet, Kenzie hastily amended in her head.

  The way Shifter rules worked, though, if Bowman met a female—Shifter, human, or otherwise—with whom he did form the mate bond, Kenzie would be expected to step aside and let him go. Her clan leader, her uncle Cristian in this case, would officially dissolve Kenzie and Bowman’s mating, and that would be that. Shiftertown would rejoice that a Shifter had found his true mate, and Kenzie would be expected to congratulate him.

  Likewise Bowman would have to step aside for Kenzie if she found the b
ond with someone else, though historically it had been rare that a male let his mate go to pursue a mate bond. The whole situation was rare, Kenzie knew, but that didn’t comfort her much.

  Knowing she could lose Bowman anytime to anyone out there made Kenzie jealous and protective, which couldn’t make Bowman very happy. She drove him crazy, and he didn’t hesitate to tell her so.

  Not that Kenzie stuck her tail between her legs and cowered under his admonishments. Kenzie’s and Bowman’s furious fights could make their neighbors run into the woods—literally—until the two of them calmed down again.

  Now Kenzie smoothed Bowman’s fur with her tongue, gradually sliding her wolf’s body on top of his. Cade crouched behind Bowman, with a cleaner towel this time, sopping up blood.

  Kenzie was dimly aware of others coming into the back, both human and Shifter. The man who owned the place, who liked Shifters and didn’t mind them filling up his bar, arrived first. A few Shifters who were high enough in the hierarchy to see their leader injured followed, along with a human groupie or two who’d slipped by the bouncer.

  One groupie pushed her way past the Shifters. Like the pseudo-groupie Bowman had banished, this woman had decided to douse herself with perfume. Kenzie’s nose wrinkled at the obnoxious smell.

  “Can I help?” the groupie asked. “I’m a doctor. A vet, I mean.”

  Cade rumbled something in answer. Kenzie didn’t take her attention from soothing and licking Bowman, and her impression of the woman came only through scent. Under the perfume—they should know better than to wear it around Shifters—Kenzie smelled a hint of antiseptic, antibacterial scrub, and competence. How she could smell competence, she didn’t question—her wolf sensed things she never would in human form.

  When the woman touched Bowman, he growled, and Kenzie did too. Cade put his hand on Bowman’s side. “Easy.”

  Kenzie added an encouraging rumble to Cade’s. She did not like the woman putting her hands on her mate—not only in a jealous way, but in a primal fear that animals had for danger—but she convinced herself the vet could help.

  “The bone needs to be set, and quickly,” the woman said. “If we can get him to my clinic . . .”

  “Are you kidding?” Cade asked. “You didn’t see what was out there?”

  “Yes, what is that?” the vet asked him. “Escaped animal from a zoo? Bear from the mountains?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Escaped from a horror movie, maybe.”

  Kenzie scented the vet’s fear, but the woman tried to bury it to do her job. “I can splint it, at least, but it will need serious medical attention. Can you find me a . . . ?”

  She started reeling off things she wanted, giving orders to the humans and Shifters standing around. A woman used to being in charge. So why had she decided to be a groupie tonight? Did she like animals so much she wanted to be around people who turned into them?

  Bowman was ignoring the vet, or trying to. He’d closed his eyes, grunting a little as Kenzie managed to lie down fully on top of him. She carefully didn’t touch his hindquarters, but she nuzzled his cheek, continuing to lick his face. A she-wolf protecting her mate.

  The Shifters and the bar’s owner returned with what the vet needed, and the woman ordered Cade to hold Bowman down. “Can you get the other wolf off him?” the vet asked.

  Cade laughed, even as Kenzie gave a snarl of fury. “She stays. It’s a Shifter thing. Her being here helps him.”

  “All right.” The vet sounded doubtful. “Do you have any kind of tranquilizer? Something to knock him out with?”

  The bar’s owner cut in. “Nothing but some pretty hefty tequila.”

  “Anesthetics don’t always work on Shifters,” Cade said. “We need powerful tranqs to keep us down, and we don’t carry them around with us.”

  Well, not to a bar anyway. Bowman had tranq guns at home, in case he needed them for an unruly Shifter, but he wouldn’t take them to where humans could get their hands on them.

  “Hold him down, then, please,” the vet said crisply.

  Kenzie had no idea what the woman was doing, but Bowman jerked, his growls turning to ones of rage. Kenzie let herself grow heavy on him, helping Cade hold him in place.

  Let her, she tried to convey.

  Bowman struggled. He was one of the strongest Lupines around, even injured, and Kenzie felt her hold slip. Cade was swearing at him, telling him to keep his wolf ass down.

  No use. Bowman’s instincts had taken over, and he was about to throw off Kenzie and turn on the vet.

  Kenzie could think of only one thing to do. She shifted back to human.

  Cade bellowed at her, “Kenz, are you crazy?”

  Kenzie, a human woman once more, leaned to Bowman’s snarling mouth and started petting him, putting her vulnerable face close to his and nuzzling him.

  The red-hot rage began to fade from Bowman’s eyes. He was still angry, and Kenzie would hear about this later, but, as she’d hoped, Bowman started curtailing his reaction so he wouldn’t hurt Kenzie in this form. When Kenzie was wolf, she was stronger and could take a lot from him. Her human form was more vulnerable, and Bowman understood that he could hurt her, or even kill her. He rumbled at her, annoyed at her ploy.

  “Almost done,” the vet said from behind them. “Tell me you have some Ace bandages and that they’re clean.”

  The bar’s owner handed her whatever he had from his first aid kit, and she started working again. At the same time, one of the younger Shifters, a cub really, though he was old enough to come to a human bar, came charging into the back.

  “Kenzie,” he yelled. He stopped short, his scent betraying fear as he saw Bowman with a mangled leg, Cade holding him down, and Kenzie naked on top of him. Kenzie slid off Bowman, though she kept her hand firmly on his fur.

  “It’s all right,” she said in a steady voice. “Bowman’s hurt, but he’s being helped. He’s fine.”

  Bowman added his growl, trying to reassure, but the cub had stark fear in his eyes. “That thing out there,” he said. He couldn’t be more than twenty-one, a wolf Shifter who thought he’d be safe at this bar where his pack leader hung out. “It’s trying to get in.”

  A loud bang sounded from the front of the bar, something huge pounding on the big metal door that was the club’s entrance.

  Bowman rumbled at Kenzie, urgent, angry. She didn’t need to be wolf this time to know what he meant. Get out there and make sure everyone’s all right.

  “Go,” Cade said to her. “I’ll join you as soon as she’s done.”

  Kenzie hesitated, hating to leave Bowman, but she knew she had to. Cade was good in a fight, but the pack needed the leader’s mate right now to reassure them. She had to hold it together, in spite of her worry for Bowman, so the Shifters would fight alongside her and not scatter in panic.

  She got to her feet, earning a startled look from the vet. The vet looked bizarre herself, wearing fake cat’s ears, whiskers penciled in across her cheeks. She was competently wrapping a bandage around Bowman’s leg, the two aspects of her incongruous.

  Kenzie, stark naked, walked by her and into the bar proper. When the Shifters in there saw her coming, they started to relax.

  The humans gaped at her nudity, men looking their fill, women blinking in surprise or giving her how-dare-she? looks. The only Shifter who gave her the once-over was Jamie, who was probably the highest-ranking Shifter in the place right now, besides Kenzie and Cade. He was the highest-ranking Feline, anyway.

  Jamie was reputed to screw anything female, and he didn’t pretend not to look at Kenzie. He’d never touch her, though—he wasn’t that foolish—but he looked, and later he’d tease.

  Tonight, Jamie’s expression also included fear. It took a lot to scare Jamie, who was a lithe cheetah and a mean fighter, but his golden eyes clouded as the beast outside threw itself at the solid front door once again, with hideous force.

  Jamie reached Kenzie and spoke in a low voice. “What the fuck is that?”


  “I don’t know.” Kenzie tried to match his soft tone, but she was in a room full of Shifters who were listening hard. “I’ll just say we can’t let it get in here.”

  “Or we’re toast,” Jamie said, not bothering anymore to be quiet. “You, and you two—over there. You three on the right of the door.” Jamie arranged the strongest Shifters where they’d have the best fighting advantage. He was good at it, though Shifters rarely fought as a team. Shifter battle strategy was more like Don’t mess with me or my family, or I’ll kill you and walk away.

  But tonight they’d have to fight together. One Shifter alone, even two, wouldn’t be enough to make a dent in something that could so easily take down Bowman.

  Kenzie and Jamie got everyone organized, the Shifters moving into fighting positions. Jamie’s cousin Marcus, another cheetah, put himself in charge of herding the humans well back, and getting the women under and behind pool tables.

  Kenzie’s battle plan, when she outlined it, brought swearing and protests, but Kenzie remained firm until the Shifters reluctantly agreed. Jamie backed her up. “She’s right. Suck it up.”

  Another enormous boom sounded on the front door. The door was heavy steel, the kind that rolled back, and right now it was barred and locked. A Shifter with great strength could break through it, given time, and Kenzie already knew that whatever was out there had great strength.

  She became wolf as Jamie shucked his clothes and shifted into a leggy cheetah about twice the size of a non-Shifter one. He snarled a big cat snarl, ready.

  At a growled command from Kenzie, one of the bigger Shifters threw the bolt on the door and shoved it open.

  Shouts and swearing sounded from Shifters and humans alike as the stench rolled in. But Kenzie had decided it would be better to rush out and attack the thing head-on than to wait to be trapped inside the roadhouse and picked off one by one. If they pushed the creature into the middle of the empty parking lot, together the Shifters could surround it and take it down.

  Now that she saw it, though, Kenzie wasn’t so sure. She looked up into a horrible face—like a cross between several Shifters rolled into one. Red eyes fixed on her from above the muzzle of a gigantic wolf. The ears, if the things on top of its head were ears, were more like a cat’s, its body big like a bear’s. A ginormous bear, Ryan, her son, would say. Kenzie let herself take a moment’s relief that Ryan was far away, at home in Shiftertown with his great-grandmother.