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“What?” She jerked back, “No. You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Zander.”
“You’re crying because of me. You’re crying and it’s breaking my heart.”
“I’m crying because I almost lost you.” she sniffled, “I never cry. Never. But I’ve barely stopped since the moment I saw you laying on the ground in those woods with blood pooling around you. I thought…”
“Shh.” He brushed more tears from her cheeks, “Shh, I’m here. It’s okay. You didn’t lose me.”
“But I nearly did and it’s all my fault.”
Zander was still trying to piece it all together. His brain felt foggy. He figured he had taken quite a blow to the head if he’d been out nearly two days. Even with nothing but his murky memories, he knew that she was wrong.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is.” she argued staunchly. “It’s all my fault.”
“Maya…” He tried to console her but she cut him off.
“Those bear shifters attacked you because of me, because I mocked them and spurned their advances.” she sniffed. “They came after you to get to me.”
The attack in the woods came back to him then in startling detail.
He’d gone out for a jog and been attacked. He had nearly been killed. He had always known jogging was the worst. It was always the joggers who found the bodies in the woods after all. But he hadn’t been one of them. He’d been the body.
“Bear shifters.” He raised his eyebrows, eyes going wide. “Why did nobody tell me there was such a thing as bear shifters?”
Maya began to sob harder at his question and he immediately wished he could take back the words. He pulled her back into his arms and held her as she cried. It took a few minutes but eventually she got herself back under control and leaned back enough to meet his eyes with her watery brown ones.
“I’m so sorry. There’s so much about our world that I forget you don’t know and I didn’t think about it because bear shifters don’t live in Louisiana. They prefer colder climates up north. These two were running around rogue or you’d likely have gone your entire life without seeing one.”
“I wish I had.” Zander admitted, “They were huge and strong and…”
“Awful. They were awful and it’s my fault they tried to kill you.”
“You can’t blame yourself for two deranged bear shifters going rogue.” He brushed her cheek. “You didn’t know they would come after me.”
“I didn’t know they were even still in town.” she admitted. “After they ruined my bike, I never saw or heard anything else from them. I thought they’d left but…”
“They’re the ones that tore your motorcycle to shreds?”
“Yeah.” Maya bit her lip. “The one we captured confessed to it along with the fact that they killed the Umbra Pack’s ambassador because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time that night and they were drunk. Stupid bear shifters on some sort of Rumspringa or some shit and they’re out here murdering wolf shifters. It’s disgusting.”
“Captured?” Zander’s heart doubled in speed. “You mean there’s one still alive? Here? In Noir?”
“He’s locked up in the jail underneath the Sheriff’s office. He gave himself up once he realized he was outnumbered and neither Michael nor Leo knew what to do with him so we locked him up for now.”
“Locked him up? You really think a jail cell can hold something like that?”
“It’s specially reinforced with silver to hold shifters. He’s not getting out of there. I promise.”
Zander leaned back against the pillow and tried to get his heartrate back to normal. He assumed one of the bears was dead from the way Maya spoke. He hoped it was the short one that had talked so nastily about Maya.
He swallowed hard, “You said one of them gave up when he realized he was outnumbered but… how? I only remember seeing you and two other wolves come into the clearing before I passed out, I’m guessing from blood loss. How did you take down the bears? How did you even find me or know I was in trouble?”
“The bond. As it gets stronger so does our connection. I felt your pain and your fear and I could sense where you were in the woods. I shifted and ran as fast as I could to get to you. Leo and Darius came with me.”
Ah, that accounted for the two other wolves he had seen. He should have known. Maya had been with her brother and his husband when he’d gone jogging. Of course they would all come to help when it was her mate who was in trouble.
“So you three took down the bears?”
