Page 62 of Salvation

She blinked, finding herself on the ground, fallen in a heap.

“You,” Emmett cried in a disbelieving voice.

Anna managed to roll sideways, away from the chaos just inches from her side. She twisted to a belly-down position and gasped wildly.

Alive. She was alive.

Dust flew through the air, choking her. She pushed to her knees, then her feet, leaning heavily against the boulder. That side of her universe was safe. The other was a tornado. A typhoon. A battlefield.

“Get him! Get him!” Emmett yelled.

A deep, furious bellow replied, followed by a heavy thump.

She blinked frantically. What was happening?

Sun glinted off steel, and she spotted the golf club at her feet. She nearly lost her balance reaching for it, but her fingers closed around the handle and whipped it back just before a massive paw stepped into that space.

A massive, furry paw connected to a thickly muscled leg.

She fell back against the boulder, gaping upward.

A bear. A grizzly bear?

It was on its back legs, and fur bristled all over its back. Thick and shiny, the bear’s coat shook with each of his furious roars.

She shrank back against the rock, trembling.

The bear made a barrier in front of her, crowding her space. Beyond it, a dozen smaller paws shuffled left and right, and a chorus of growls met each of the bear’s roars.

Clutching the golf club, she pushed herself back to her feet and stared. The bear was fighting the wolves off. He was helping her.

“Every Voss will die!” Emmett screamed.

Voss? Todd was a Voss. Soren was a Voss, and Simon was, too.

The threads her mind had been trying to weave together earlier started connecting again.

You’ve whored yourself to that bear…

The dipper is his nose,Todd had said, showing her the stars.It’s a grizzly, not a polar bear.

Shifters,Emmett had sneered.And you have dared cross species lines.

Species, as in humans and bears.

The bear bellowed again, and she stared.

Todd was a bear?

A bear—he’d started saying about Teddy before he corrected it to baby.A baby needs other things, too.

The baby is going to be the first to die, Emmett had said.

The baby was a bear? A shifter?

Her startled mind flew back to their conversation under the stars.

How does the bear know it’s his mate?she’d asked, thinking it was all make-believe.

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