Page 15 of Bound to Two Bears

“I didn’t mean…”I didn’t mean to truly hurt him. The words felt as hollow as he sounded. Hehadmeant to hurt Royce. He’d wanted to prove something and there, at his feet, was the result. He’d allowed his anger to overtake him, and his brother bear was paying the price.

Carson pushed Jared out of the way and pulled his t-shirt over his head. Their human used the shirt to apply pressure to the wound. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

“He’ll be fine,” Jared said. “We’ve just got to get him into the cabin so I can clean him up.”

“He’ll bleed out,” Carson cried. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

“Don’t…” Jared growled. “Thing work differently on the mountain.”

Carson frowned. “What? You don’t have 9-1-1?”

They had a clinic that was fully staffed by bear shifters, but that was beside the point. Bears healed quickly. Royce would be fine in a matter of minutes.

Plus the thought of having to admit to anyone what he’d done… the shame of it crept onto his face. They werenotgoing to the clinic.

“He needs medical attention!”

“He’s not human!” Jared shouted back, allowing his eyes to glow. “He just needs to go into the cabin to be cleaned up.”

Carson was silent a moment.

Jared could hear the rapid beating of the man’s heart and knew Carson was struggling to understand what he was seeing.

“This isn’t a dream, is it?”

Jared shook his head.

Carson stared a couple of seconds longer, silent.

“I did see them glowing this afternoon, didn’t I?”

Jarend nodded again. He took a deep breath, waiting for the screaming to come. The running. The mad dash to get away from them.

He was stunned when none of that happened.

“You lift him while I keep pressure on the wound. We work together, okay?” Carson asked as he walked closer once more.

Jared got to his feet and moved to Royce’s other side.

“On three,” Carson said, rising to his feet, but remaining in a crouch and holding on to Royce’s side.

“One. Two. Three.”

Jared lifted Royce into his arms, and the male growled in pain.

“Hurry,” Carson snapped.

They walked as briskly as they could to the porch stairs and gently mounted them before carefully getting Royce through the front door. Carson had to let go for a few seconds to make it. Jared took advantage of their separation to rush Royce to their bed. He lowered his brother bear down into the middle of the bed and stepped back to look at the damage he’d wrought.

Carson rushed to Royce’s side and applied the shirt to the wound. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” he cried. “Do you guys have a first aid kit nearby?”

There was no need for first aid. But Carson needed something to occupy his mind while he came to terms with who—and what—they were.

“I think so,” Jared answered before rushing to look around. As quickly as they healed, they had little use for bandages and gauze. On his third guess, he found one. Of course Mr. Prepared had a first aid kit hidden in the house. It was covered in a fine layer of dust, but it was there, nonetheless. After rinsing off thedust in the bathroom sink, Jared ran back to Carson and opened the large red pack on the bed. “What do you need?”

“Sterile gauze? And a lot of it.”

Jared opened several packs, handing each new one to Carson as he freed them. The man seemed to know what he was doing. Carson worked briskly around Royce with an air of confidence. He knew he should’ve told the man that bears heal much faster than humans, but he couldn’t stop Carson.

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