Page 44 of Having the Bear's Baby

Emma recalled in a fit of panic that there was a metal case holding something rather long and large under the sink. She stumbled toward it, falling to her knees and scraping them over the carpet before frantically searching through an assortment of cleaning products and tea towels. She found the case quickly, pulled it into her lap, and sighed with relief to find that it wasn’t locked.

Just as she thought, it contained a shotgun.

Boxes of shells fell out and spilled over the floor as Emma’s hands shook. She was able to fluidly load it while fear swam around her skull. Her grandfather had a shotgun and had shown her how to load it one day when her dad was away. Her father had returned, incredibly pissed that his own dad had shown a ten-year-old the mechanics of a tool for violence. But at that moment, sprawled in the kitchen with her swelling ankles and fingers, she couldn’t have been more thankful.

Emma pumped the shotgun, feeling more powerful than ever. She climbed to her feet, keeping her balance, and dashed to the open door.

Chaos surrounded the front of the cabin in the form of bears of all sizes and shapes. She could only narrow down who Liam was, but she didn’t know his enforcers too well yet. She couldn’t risk injuring or killing a vital member of her future clan.

So Emma tilted the heavy weapon upward, sticking the barrel into the air, then pressed two fingers against the trigger.

The sound was shrill and echoed through the black sky, orange sparks blooming like spitfire. Then everything went still.

EIGHTEEN

LIAM

Liam smelled Adam the second he crept into their bedroom. He scolded himself for not moving faster. All of the unneeded violence could have been avoided if he had simply woken up, shifted, and torn the heads off the enforcers before they had a second to lay a single finger on Emma. But they threw him off when they took Emma by the ankles first, redirecting his rage and love into saving her from Adam’s grasp, and the enforcers took advantage.

Adam, the alpha of the rival clan that had been harassing Emma, had always been a pithy, pathetic excuse for a shifter. Liam couldn’t help but continue scolding himself mentally. Adam had always been outwardly aggressive toward Liam and his natural leadership skills. It’s no wonder he would respond with disproportionate vehemence the second he took a mate.

But what Adam didn’t count on was the resourcefulness of his mate. Emma stood triumphantly on the porch, hair disheveled, in her T-shirt and underwear, the smoke from the shotgun swirling over her head like a halo.

Liam had been locked in battle with backup shifters that Adam must have had surrounding the cabin, jaws crunching and mashing together, when he heard the shotgun go off. Everything halted, a spooky stillness taking over the moon-soaked grounds.

Like all the bears fighting, he had stopped, looking at his beloved. His heart sang a song only they, as fated mates, knew the words to.

She was bound to him infinitely, and they both knew it.

“Get off my fucking property!” Emma shrieked, lowering the gun to aim at the bears.

It was just enough time for the rest of Liam’s enforcers to swoop in, having heard his telepathic call of urgency. They weren’t far, which he was thankful for. He watched within a few seconds of distraction how they galloped down the hill, expertly dodging the evergreens in their true animal forms, his faithful soldiers.

Liam knew Emma wasn’t going to shoot. It wasn’t easy to describe exactly how or why without being a shifter or having a mate. He had never seen her pick up a gun or talk about deadly weapons since the beginning of their dalliance. She wasn’t a stupid woman. She wasn’t going to risk injuring or killing one of her own.

And that’s what they were: her own.

The threat of the shot was all Liam and his enforcers needed. Their focus, removed from the battle at hand, allowed Liam’s team to charge into them, slamming with an incredible force that knocked many off their feet and sent them tumbling toward the creek beyond the cabin. Liam took the opportunity to slash the throat of the shifter he had been fighting, blood siphoning out from its throat silently, black and glossy in the moonlight.

It was utter chaos, violence in the normally dead silence of the woods. But it was to Liam’s benefit, so he was languishing in it.

“Liam!”

Emma screeched at him, and when he turned back to the porch, she was holding the gun at the barrel with one hand. The other was pointed into the distance, behind the cabin and back at the hill. He followed her finger to see Adam retreating into the darkness.

Fucking coward!

Liam galloped away from where his enforcers were taking on the rest of their enemies near the creek. He heard teeth gnawing and flesh being torn from the bone, like a rough and harsh butcher shop. He trusted his men to get the job done while he zoomed toward the cowardly alpha.

The luminescence of the moon suddenly went choppy as he entered the canopy of trees, his night vision sharpening as the image of the withdrawing alpha grew nearer. He heard Adam panting while struggling to run, one of his legs sporting a limp from a tear with tangled fur held together by wet blood.

Liam was angry, but there was also a tiny part of him that felt sorry for Adam. He was only doing what his alpha nature was telling him to do. But as soon as he started to soften, gaining on the wounded creature with fierce determination, he recalled the hunting knife he had brandished and threatened his mate with.

All sympathy was lost, funneled into a final puff of speed that shoved him forward, his mouth gaping and fangs glistening under the moon’s spill.

He took hold of Adam’s tail, thick and bushy between his gums. He slammed his jaw shut, penetrating the thin thatches, triggering an agonized howl from his victim.

The fellow alpha wailed in his mind, coming to an abrupt halt in the dim forest as Liam bit down even harder. They both skidded across the soil and nearly slammed into a thick trunk, colliding instead into a pile of shredded bark.

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