Tracking the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 1)(28)

Chance roared again, and I turned my head in time to see his massive grizzly form rear onto two legs and issue another bellow of challenge. Spittle flew from its mouth, and it bared razor sharp teeth at the men behind me. There was nothing human left in his eyes, no hint of the man I knew. This was a bear. A pissed off, predatory bear. I did the only thing I could think of, with a bear advancing toward me, and wolves waiting at my back.

I ran.





Chapter Ten


Chance


Protect or attack? My bear was torn and I, usually the more level-headed of us, wasn’t sure what to do either. I didn’t believe for one second that Frigg had only sent two Ulfhednar after Lucy. The smallest pack of werewolves I’d ever seen had been composed of five. She could have placed dozens of them in the surrounding woods.

But I couldn’t guarantee her safety behind my back, either. They could creep up and flank me easily, and then Lucy would be lost. I needed to deal with the two in front of me quickly and locate Lucy. They were faster than I was, even in this form, and far faster than Lucy with her bad leg. They’d catch her easily, if she continued to crash through the woods noisily as she was.

Attack it was, then.

I charged the first wolf. He hadn’t fully transformed, and I exploited the vulnerable half-state. One swipe of my paw sent him flying back into the nearest pine tree. The force of the impact shook the pine and sent needles raining down on top of the dazed Ulfhednar. The second, which had been poised to run after Lucy into the woods scrabbled back, letting loose a howl. I slammed down on top of the wolf and rolled. It wasn’t a particularly graceful or smart move, but it was effective. Six hundred pounds of adult male grizzly bear was enough to crush the air temporarily from his lungs. If I was lucky, I might have snapped a few of his bones as well.

I pelted into the woods after Lucy. Her panicked flight had sent her in the wrong direction. She was headed toward the base of the mountain. The pine trees would be difficult if not impossible for her to climb. Her limp had become even more pronounced after the last mountain we’d been forced to scale, and she was making a great deal of noise. The wolves would catch her soon, if they hadn’t already.

Lucy shrieked in fear and I heard a wolf’s yelp of pain. Somewhere in the back of my mind that small fact surprised me. What was she doing? The rest of my body tensed in anticipation of the coming fight. There were wolves ahead, and blood in the air. Human blood.

Lucy!

I caught a flash of her hair, a splash of sunshine in the night. As I watched she pitched forward, a jutting tree root sending her sprawling into the bracken on the forest floor. The wind carried the musky scent of wolves and I whipped my head this way and that, trying to spot them.

Four Ulfhednar slid from the shadows, darting quickly and silently toward Lucy’s prone body. She let out a whimper of pain, scrambling to her feet. Her knees and palms had been scraped raw, and I wondered just how many times she’d fallen already. This was bad. The blood would be a shining beacon for any predator in the area.

The wolves circled her, snarling in warning any time she tried to run. Still more wolves entered from the periphery, and I let out a bellow of frustration, batting at the nearest. It skittered away with teeth bared. If the long gashes in its stomach troubled it, it didn’t show.

Wolves almost never attacked grizzly bears. It was instinctual. Bears had superior strength and superior reach. The strength of the wolf was in its speed and agility, and that was what the Ulfhednar employed against me. The wolves took turns, darting in, biting at my ankles, my flank, my snout. No matter how many I injured, there was another there to take its place, biting, tearing at flesh and sinew.

“Chance!” Lucy screamed, staggering forward, arms outstretched toward me. The dozen yards between us might as well have been miles. I drew bloody tracks across the nearest wolf’s snout and it fell back.

The largest of the wolves surrounding Lucy stood on its hind legs and began to shift. The change rippled up his body, animal features ceding to his human form. It took maybe five seconds until the Ulfhednar stood fully human. It was the smoothest transition I’d seen in any were-animal, and something I could never accomplish even if I’d had centuries to practice it.

He was tall, probably as tall as I was in human form. He was nude and very well-built with muscle everywhere from his calves to his bulging, barely there neck. He wasn’t attractive in any traditional sense. He had a heavy brow and a jutting, square jaw. He looked like he’d stepped out of an exhibit on the Cro-Magnon era.

Lucy had paused in her latest bid for freedom, seeming nearly as taken aback by the cave-wolf as I was. No one had mentioned that the Ulfhednar predated the wheel. Or maybe she was distracted by the massive erection he was sporting. I swiped viciously at the wolf nearest me. It flew several feet before landing in a quivering heap.

The Alpha wolf was scarred. Nearly every inch of tanned skin was covered in crisscrossed in faded white scar tissue. I almost expected him to grunt at Lucy, but when he opened his mouth, perfectly intelligible if slightly accented English poured out.

“Do not be afraid, human female. I offer you a gift.”

“A gift?” Lucy repeated uncertainly. She examined the ring of wolves that continued to circle her. Every so often her gaze would flicker up to me, and then she’d quickly avert her eyes with a wince. I must have looked worse than I thought.

“Yes. A gift from Odin. He extends an offer of strength, of power.” The Alpha raised his beefy forearm to his mouth and bit into it deeply with his dull semi-human teeth. He left a bloody crescent in his wake. He held the arm out toward her. Blood streamed from his wound onto the earth below.