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  His cock swelled bigger, harder. His breathing picked up.

  “That’s enough.” He barely got the words out, and she loved that she’d been able to pleasure her man. She hoped this wouldn’t be the last time.

  He pulled her head up by the hair. “Why?”

  “Your lips are red and plump. Gorgeous.”

  “Let me go.” She wanted to make him come, to feel his release down her throat. To see the satisfaction written on his face.

  “I want you to come before I drop you off,” he said. “Come here, little one. I can smell your need. Your cunt is hungry for cock.” He reached to the side of his seat and moved it all the way back so they had more space. He narrowed his eyes, beckoning her closer with a finger. She could never resist him and those enticing gray eyes. The scruff on his face, the way he licked his lips with his tongue … everything turned her on.

  She slipped out of her pants and underwear and mounted him over the driver’s seat. Even though they were surrounded by trees, she felt exposed. The truck didn’t have tinted windows. He gripped both cheeks of her ass, squeezing hard. Caleb rubbed his face against her tits even though she was still wearing her blouse.

  He helped her rise and then brought her down hard over his cock. The sudden invasion overwhelmed her with raw pleasure, jolts of erotic energy scattering through her core. She needed this. Needed him.

  “Please, Caleb.” The words slipped from her lips, her desperation taking over.

  Caleb held her hips, doing all the work of fucking her over his lap. He was strong, powerful, and unrelenting. She held his shoulders, barely able to catch her breath as he brought her hurdling to a rapid orgasm. She screamed and gasped as the enormity of her release took her by surprise.

  He only slowed once he’d come deep inside her, his rhythm and breathing calming down.

  “I needed that. I don’t think I’ll ever have my fill of you,” he said, cupping her face to kiss her lips. “Next time I see you, I’ll be fucking you in that beautiful hotel room. Only the best for my baby.”

  She smiled. “You picked the room?”

  “There’s a Jacuzzi bathtub, king bed, and view of the mountains. And room service. I may just stay a couple extra nights.”

  “That sounds perfect.” She kissed him again. “Make it soon.”

  Before long, they’d arrived in town. A sense of dread filled her gut. She didn’t want to leave Caleb. The taxi building was close to the diner. She’d walked past it numerous times. Old Jack was the owner, and he usually sat out front on a lawn chair, watching the cars go by.

  “This is it. The cab will take you to the hotel. As soon as this is over, I’ll be coming for you.”

  “You better.” She forced a smile.

  He stood by his truck and watched her until she was inside the building. She stayed at the window until he’d boarded his truck, turned, and returned to the forest. Tears rolled down her cheeks but she quickly wiped them away with her sleeve. Falling apart now wouldn’t help anyone. She had to think positive.

  When she turned around, there was no one at the desk. She didn’t want to push the bell on the counter and appear rude. Bethany didn’t mind waiting.

  She read some of the ads pinned on the community bulletin board when the voice startled her.

  “Ready to go?”

  Bethany whirled around. Old Jack ran the back of his hand over his mouth. “Just finished my lunch.”

  “You’re driving me?”

  “No, my driver’s waiting for you outside. It’s a long drive, young lady. I’d use the restroom before you head out.”

  She nodded her agreement and freshened up before leaving. Bethany grabbed her bag and left the building. The cab was running and waiting, and she hoped the driver wasn’t too pissed off after waiting so long.

  “Sorry for the wait,” she said as she got in the back, settling in and putting on her seatbelt.

  “No problem.” He didn’t turn around or complain, just hit the gas.

  She felt tense leaving town but finally relaxed and got comfortable, watching the endless wall of forest through the windows. Occasionally, she’d close her eyes, drifting toward sleep but always waking before nodding off.

  They’d been driving for about half an hour when the cab swerved too far off the road, nearly losing control. She braced herself, her heart racing.

  “Is everything okay?”

  There was an odd smell in the cab, and she cringed, leaning over to open the window. They were locked. She breathed through her mouth because the stench only got worse.

  He kept driving, swerving on the road. Maybe he was having a stroke or something.

  Adrenaline filled her veins. She leaned closer and tapped his shoulder.

  “Hello?”

  Then he began to laugh and laugh, an eerie, high-pitched laugh that sounded inhuman. “It’s just you and me now. Just you and me.”

  “What’s going on? Who are you?”

  “Who I am doesn’t matter. But you belong to me now. The winner takes the spoils.”

  “Let me out!”

  “The wolf took from me, now I take from him. An eye for an eye. Luckily for me, his pack is scouring the forest, but we’ll be so far away before he realizes I’m long gone.”

  The rogue bear.

  Caleb had no clue.

  There was no escape for her, no one coming to the rescue.

  So many thoughts flooded her mind, so many fears and scenarios. She’d heard this bear had killed so many of his own, even sent the head of one to Joe at the diner. What would he do to her? Would Caleb even find her mutilated body?

  “He’ll come for me. You’ll be sorry.”

  The bear laughed again. “As far as he knows, you’re at your hotel far, far away.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  The car swerved again. “They’re all weak. I’m strong.” He kept chanting it like a mad man.

  Caleb had unwittingly handed her over to his enemy. This was surreal, and she wished she could wake up to discover it was all a nightmare. Her tears wouldn’t stop, and there was no point in hiding them. The rogue bear was out of his mind, and he wouldn’t have taken her unless he was going to add her to the body count.

  Chapter Nine

  “What’s wrong?” Joe asked.

  “The hotel hasn’t called.” Caleb ran a hand down his face, glancing at the time. They were deep in the forest and the scents of the rogue bear had been diminishing all day. He didn’t like this.

  A few hours ago, fear had flooded his entire body. It had been so strong that his wolf had been close to the surface, ready to fucking kill. He’d gained control, but now, as he stared out across the night, only sensing sweet little creatures like rabbits or dear, he had a bad feeling.

  “Your rogue bear, at any time he chooses, can he mimic people?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I assumed he was crazy and couldn’t control being both the bear and the human.” Caleb looked around the forest. “He’s not here.”

  “No, he hasn’t been here for a while.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?” He was struggling not to kill this son of a bitch.

  “What did you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the guy we were about to hunt wasn’t even in the fucking woods.” He growled, running back toward the house where David, Brian, and Reese were waiting.

  He didn’t like the look on his packmates’ faces once he walked through the door. “What is it?” Caleb asked.

  “I called the hotel,” Reese said. “She didn’t arrive. There’s been no sign of her. They’ve even gone and checked the room. She’s not there.”

  “There’s other bad news. I was just coming to you now,” David said. “Old Jack called. The driver assigned to her … he was found with his throat slit. Ravaged as the man said. If it hadn’t been for his wallet, he wouldn’t have been identified.”

  Caleb’s roar came quick and fierce. “He’s g
ot her. That son of a bitch has my woman. She’s right there now, terrified. I can sense her. Piece of fucking shit.” He didn’t try to control his wolf. He let the beast out. His clothes tore from his body as pain struck him hard. He couldn’t control it.

  We will get our mate back.

  We’ll find her.

  His pack was close but they were giving him a wide berth. Right now, his mate was in the arms of the enemy. The woman he loved, the woman he’d sent to a different town in an attempt to protect her, and instead, he might have fucking killed her.

  Kill.

  Hunt.

  Annihilate.

  Claim her back.

  His wolf wanted blood. Rogue bear blood. He sniffed the air and sensed Joe but it didn’t want him. Taking out Joe wouldn’t bring back his woman. No, he needed to take out the man responsible for Bethany’s disappearance.

  Slowly, he turned back to his human form. His clothes were gone, and he panted, wanting to kill, but he stared at his men, all of whom admired him. They saw his control as strength. He had to get himself together.

  “Where would he take her?” Caleb asked. “Don’t even try to protect him.”

  “I won’t. We can try and go back to our den. There’s no guarantee that he’s going to be there though.”

  “If anyone is alive, they’ll know, won’t they?”

  “Possibly, but you’ve got to understand, Caleb, there might be no one. He’s crazy and he’s on this path now.”

  Caleb slashed his hand in front of him. “No. You don’t understand. I’m not going to stop until I have his heart in my hand. I felt her. She was terrified and I didn’t even fucking realize it. I’ve never been mated before. This is all new. I had a chance to save her, and I’m not going to give up.”

  “She could be dead,” Joe said.

  Wrapping his fingers around Joe’s throat, he slammed him to the ground. “Don’t you even fucking dare to speak about her like that, you piece of shit. Do you hear me?” He snarled in his face, wanting to bite him, to cause him pain. His fangs elongated, pricking his gums. “The only reason you’re breathing is because I need you. If she dies, then that’s it for you. I’ll kill you.”

  He got to his feet. “Now lead the way.” He forced himself to let go of Joe’s neck, but even that was a challenge. He wanted to do nothing more than kill him, but he held back.

  Taking deep breaths, he tried to focus. Tried to gain some control over his own emotions, but it was next to impossible.

  In and out.

  One, two, three.

  “I hate to say this to you, but you need some pants on,” Reese said. “If we’re going anywhere near humans, you’re too close to the edge, and it’s going to cause more than a few people to go bat-shit crazy. You could be arrested and if you sense anyone trying to stop you from claiming your mate, we can’t stop you.”

  “He’s right,” David said. “Get some clothes on. Hurry up.”

  Caleb forced himself to walk back into the house and go right to his room. Even as his wolf wanted to turn back around and kill. Entering his bedroom, he inhaled deeply.

  His woman.

  The scent filled the entire bedroom.

  He missed her.

  Please don’t let anything happen to her. I promise I’ll love her, take care of her. She’s supposed to be planning our wedding.

  He ran a hand down his face to clear his thoughts.

  Clothes.

  Get clothes.

  Find her.

  Kill him.

  Fuck her, marry her, get her full with my babies.

  He had a plan. A very good plan.

  Dressed in sweatpants and a shirt, he rushed outside. “Let’s go.”

  They were all faster on foot, and as he took off, the speed of his wolf took over. If he was to change into his wolf, he’d be even faster, but Reese had a point. If they were near humans, he didn’t want any distractions. So long as he didn’t give in to his wolf, he wasn’t at risk of completely being at his beast’s mercy.

  Right now, with his mate in danger, he had to be in complete control to be able to win her back.

  His pack and Joe were close. Not once did he slow down his pace. He kept on running. The fire burned in his thighs, but he didn’t stop.

  All he could think about was his woman.

  The way she smiled at him.

  The trust.

  The love.

  He was going to get her back and there was no way he was going to allow himself to even think for a moment that he wasn’t going to see her again. The second he got her back, he was never letting her go.

  “Stop!” Joe’s call came out hard and sharp.

  Caleb stopped and turned to see Joe’s head lifted, and he took off to the left. He followed.

  “What is it?” Caleb asked.

  “I can smell something.”

  They came to a rundown house that was better suited in a horror movie than in real life. Paint on the wood panels was chipped off, some parts a dark gray, others black. The scent of decay was heavy in the air. Somewhere around there was stale water as well. Underlying, he smelled something else.

  Joe took off.

  Entering the house, the door crumbled as he burst through it. There was no way the house was stable. Entering the house behind Joe, he froze. Someone was dead in the house, but there were also people living.

  He heard them.

  At the back of the house, there was a fresh bolt on one of the doors in the kitchen. Joe grabbed the handle pulled. The door was no match for his strength, and it disintegrated.

  “Okay, the crazy bear had to have been the one to do this, but how?” Brian asked. “There’s no way he could have done this.”

  “Unless it was what he wanted,” Joe said.

  Caleb handed him a torch from the counter. Going down the steps one at a time, Caleb sensed the despair.

  “Help.” The voice was vacant and hoarse.

  Caleb didn’t need the torch to help him see. He saw the entire fucked-up scene. There were at least five women in the basement, all of them bear shifters. Two of them were dead. Three more were chained to the walls. It looked like the two dead women had torn off their arms and tried to get to the bucket of water in the center of the room.

  “What the fuck?” Caleb murmured.

  “He said if we wanted to live, we had to be strong,” a voice said from the corner. She sniffled. “I begged them to stop, but they used their teeth and tore through their own flesh.”

  Caleb looked at Joe. The bear struggled, his eyes going feral. “We need to get them out of here.”

  He nodded at his men and helped the women out of the house and into the sunshine.

  The one who’d spoken to them cried out as she got in the sun. All the women were so pale. They hadn’t been in sunlight for a long time. They were also painfully thin, their bones showing through.

  “You can take them to my place,” Caleb said. “I can’t stop to understand this right now. I need to find her.”

  “Do you know where he went?” Joe asked.

  Two of the women had passed out.

  Caleb looked at the one who’d been carried out by Reese, the one who’d spoken to them. Out of all of the women, she appeared to be the strongest of all of them.

  The woman shook her head and groaned. “No. He … he wants a mate. We’re not good enough. He wanted a wolf mate as he believes it will make him strong. He kept talking about being reborn. How no one will know what he means.”

  “Tell me you know what that fucking means,” Caleb said.

  “I do,” Joe said.

  ****

  “You know, when we’re born, we’re surrounded by water,” the crazy bear said.

  Bethany didn’t say anything. He’d tied her hands behind her back once she’d tried to escape. She had no doubt her face was bruised from his backhand. It certainly stung, and it was getting harder to see out of one eye. Looking at his face though, it made her feel even happier because he had nice lit
tle scratch marks as well. If she was a wolf, his face would be gone. When had she gotten so bloodthirsty?

  He shoved her forward. She tripped over a fallen branch and cried out at the shot of pain rushing through her body. Her shoulder ached, having taken the brunt of the fall.

  She hadn’t expected the intensity of pain, and she gritted her teeth.

  “Fucking useless human.”

  She screamed as he lifted her to her feet like a ragdoll.

  “I don’t know what he sees in you.” He punched her back, and she went stumbling again. Pain exploded in her chest.

  He wasn’t trying to be gentle. “Do you know what I do to useless women?” he asked. He stepped on her back, not too hard, but the threat was there. He grabbed her hair and lifted her head up.

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  He laughed. “No, I don’t fuck them. Well, sometimes I do. There’s no better feeling in the world than a woman wriggling. Do you have any idea what it’s like for a woman to hate you being inside them? I know.” He licked her cheek. “It’s fucking heady. They can’t do anything about it, and they hate you for it.”

  “Get off me.”

  “Be careful. I need you alive. When I’m reborn, I’m going to take you, Bethany. You’re going to wriggle. I wonder if you’re going to hate it more because you’re a mated woman or mated to a wolf. They’re possessive, you know.”

  She gasped for breath. There was no way she was giving this monster the satisfaction of seeing her squirm or fear him.

  Caleb was going to rescue her. She had no doubt. There was no way in hell this bear was going to win this.

  He pulled her to her feet again. “I can’t wait for our games to begin. Anyway, you need to get to know me better. You see, I’m a man of fair choice. The bears, the bitches, they were so fucking weak. So I found this abandoned house and locked them in. They had no right to have anything real, anything pure. I starved them. I only gave them food for good behavior and the food I gave them was rotting.” He burst out laughing. “Can you imagine going day after day with only rotten food after doing something you hate? That was so much fun.”

  This man was horrid. If what he spoke was true, then women were starving and trapped somewhere.