BEARing it All (Wylde Brothers 3)

“I hate everything about you. I love Bram, and I want you to die knowing that to me, you were nothing but a nightmare.”

He crouched on his haunches, and she knew it wouldn’t take much more to have him attack. She went in for the verbal kill.

“And when he takes me, it is like nothing I have ever felt. I will only ever be his, and his scent and mark will never vanish, not even in death.” She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable. Flashes of images played through her mind, ones of her mother and father tucking her in as a child, kissing her goodnight, and telling her everything would be okay.

Bram was next to consume her thoughts, and she didn’t stop the smile or elation that filled her. They may have only had that short time together, but he showed her a lot in that time, and that with the right person, everything would be okay. And to her, that person was Bram Wylde.

She was going to be with her parents now, but she would never forget Bram touching her, kissing her, and running his tongue over her body. It had been intimate and sexual, but there had also been love.

“I love you, Bram.” She sensed it then, but hadn’t known what to make of it. As the end was near, she wished she would have told him that they hadn’t been moving too fast, that she did love him and didn’t want to fight what was happening between them.

The sound of a fierce and body-vibrating roar echoed off the trees. Kenzie opened her eyes.

There, just in the distance, she could see Bram running at them full-force. His bear was huge and thickly muscled, but it was the bared teeth and rage that came off him that made every living thing rush in the other direction.

Marek and Tank shifted into their cougars and started forward, but that was when she saw two more bears swiftly following Bram. The three of them let out ear-splintering growls that actually had Marek and Tank faltering. They may be sadistic bastards, but she could tell they were rethinking if this was such a good idea.

It didn’t take a genius to know a bear could defeat a cougar, but the two of them were arrogant in thinking they were invincible. When there were three fully grown ten-foot bears coming at them at full speed, she sensed their realization that they were fucked. She expected Rook to go after the bears, but her attention and focus were on Bram, so she didn’t sense Rook coming toward her until searing pain raced up her arm.

She screamed as Rook dug his fangs deeper into her arm. He pulled away, her blood dripping down his sharp, white teeth, and lunged right for her throat. But the pain and death never came, because right as Rook’s teeth grazed her flesh and she felt her skin being sliced open, he was ripped away by Bram. The other two bears were busy fighting with the cougars and holding their own.

All Kenzie could do was watch the violence unfold in front of her. To her right was the sound of felines hissing and snapping and bears taking them down. Right in front of her, Bram and Rook bit into each other’s bodies and tore chunks of flesh away.

The mixture of all of their blood being spilled filled the air, washing away the fresh scent of the wilderness that surrounded them. When Rook lunged for Bram, wrapped his big front legs around the bear’s middle, and took him down, she wanted to rush to him and pry the demented bastard off. But Kenzie wasn’t a fool. Getting in the middle of them fighting would only be a dangerous distraction to Bram.

Rook couldn’t keep Bram down for long though, because in a swift move normally reserved for animals not as big and muscular as her bear, Bram had Rook pinned below him. The panther snapped and hissed, but it was no use. Bram was bigger, stronger, and the anger that radiated off him dimmed Rook’s until it was insubstantial.

For several seconds, Bram just stared at Rook. He turned his massive head toward her, and they held stares for several moments. There were no more sounds of fighting from the two cougars and bears, but the smell of Marek and Tank’s deaths filled her nostrils. Bram seemed to speak to her without words, but she understood him all the same.

He’d come for her, like she knew he would, but Kenzie had seen herself lifeless at Rook’s feet when Bram arrived. She should have never had any doubt in her bear, in her mate.

She just wanted this over with so she could move on, not worry about what her life held, and be with the male she loved more than anything else.