Page 23 of Hunting Isla

He peeled out of the parking lot, Vance’s Jeep directly behind us. We blew out of the small town at the base of the mountains. Axel took the turns too fast, but they weren’t fast enough. I needed to know Bohdie was okay. That Archer wasn’t dead.

I needed to know if my world had fallen to pieces around me.

Vance called, and it came through the Bluetooth stereo speakers. “Talbot and Frankie are on their way. They’re going cross country. Frankie will go for the boy, and Talbot will go for Archer. They’ll do what needs to be done until we get there. I’ve pulled the other bears off their jobs. We have your back.”

“Thanks.” Axel’s voice was rough, like he was trying to wrangle his own lion.

I counted seconds, heartbeats, until we were close enough that we could abandon the car and run to my cub. By the time we got to the head of the driveway, my lioness could take no more. She was out of the car window before it had even slowed, letting out an ear-piercing roar.

“Fuck!” Axel shouted out the window as he slammed on the brakes, throwing open the door before the car had even come to a complete stop. “Circle around the back. Be on guard. They might be still here.”

Or they might be gone. They might have taken Bohdie. They might have killed Archer. I felt sick. I ran harder, faster, my lioness baying for blood and pain.

Axel shifted and took the lead as we ran through the forest, and I followed close behind him. These were his woods. He would get me to Bohdie. I trusted him.

Halfway to the house, he stopped, his lip raised in a snarl. He let out a low growl that would have incited terror in anything he considered prey. Then my nose picked up the scent.

Blood. So much blood. Blood with Archer’s scent.

I pushed harder as I ran, my paws thundering on the ground in time with my rapid heartbeat. I needed them to be okay.

I pulled up into a clearing, shaking my head. Archer lay still, appearing dead beneath Bohdie’s tiny lion cub, who was snarling ferociously. Franklin and Talbot were kneeling next to them, letting tiny claws shred at them as they tried to stem the bleeding from Archer’s chest.

Axel let out a long whining noise, and Bohdie turned from where he was swiping at Franklin, who was trying to distract him as Talbot swore, his shirt pressed against Archer’s wound. Bohdie let out a plaintive cry of anguish, leaping from where he’d been protecting Archer’s still body to run toward us. He licked at my face, curling around my legs as if he never wanted to emerge. I picked him up in my mouth, my human mind now pressed back as the lioness consumed me entirely. Planting him next to a tree, I situated my body in front of him. No one was getting to him ever again.

Axel ran to his fallen Pridemate, shifting back. “How bad?”

Franklin stood. “He needs a doctor, but if he can shift, he should heal enough that we can get him to the den’s infirmary and get the Doc up here from down the mountain.”

Axel leaned down. “Shift!” he growled. “Shift, you fuck!”

Archer’s body gave a shaky jerk, and slowly, painfully, shifted back to human on a scream.

Wyatt and Billy ran into the clearing. “House is empty. Two dead bodies.” Wyatt looked to the left of Archer. “Make that three.”

Franklin’s face was grim. “When we got here, the little guy was attacking a merc with a gun to Archer’s head. He probably saved the big guy’s life, but if we hadn’t been here…”

They didn’t need to say what would’ve happened. We knew. Both Bohdie and Archer would’ve been dead.

CHAPTER 13

WYATT

She wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t let Bohdie out of her sight. She wouldn’t leave Archer’s bedside. I was beginning to worry that soon she’d just fade from existence.

At least, until Archer woke up. When he peeled open an eye, I was relieved. Not just because one of my best friends was back from the brink of death, but because now Isla would stop pining.

“Hey, man. Are you okay?”

He let out a raspy noise, and Isla held an ice chip to his lips. “Bohdie?” His voice was weak, thready, so completely unlike Archer that I was briefly horrified.

“He’s fine. He’s asleep over there, see?” I moved to the side so he could see Bohdie curled up on a recliner in Axel’s arms. The bears had dragged it in for Isla, not that she’d slept.

Speaking of Isla, she was holding Archer’s face, pushing his hair back from his head and peppering his face with kisses. Her relief was palpable around the room. “I thought you were going to die.” Until she spoke, I hadn’t realized she was crying.

Archer tried to lift himself from the bed, but I pressed him back down. “Easy, man. You’ve got a chest wound. They take some time to heal.”

He pulled Isla down so her head was pressed against his chest, on the other side to his bandages. “Hey, I’m okay. You should see the other guys.”