Bear Meets Girl

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Michael Patrick Callahan tried to shift again, but whatever they’d shot him up with wouldn’t let him shift back to human. It kept him lion. Kept him prey.

Panting, he stood behind a tree, watching and listening for the hunters. Their problem was that Mikey had overheard them. He knew that whatever they’d forced into his system would wear off and he’d be able to shift back to human again. But they didn’t want that. Having a dead human body on their land was probably a bigger pain in the ass to manage than having a dead lion. And once Mikey knew that, once he knew the effect of this drug wouldn’t last for several days or weeks, his goal became clear.

Avoidance.

The mistake a lot of people made was to believe true predators ran around challenging everyone, going claw-to-claw with anyone or anything that crossed their path. They didn’t. From the proudest lion male to the lowliest, pain-in-the-ass hyena, a long-living predator always knew when to run and when to stand his or her ground.

And men with high-powered weapons fitted with silencers? You ran. Especially when Mikey didn’t have access to his thumbs at the moment.

So for nearly four hours, he’d been running around this property. A property he didn’t know anything about. He had no idea where he was. The last thing Mikey remembered was sitting in the back of a limo with a hot piece of ass he’d met at a club and receiving a phenomenal blow job. The next ... it was late morning, he was a cat, and he was in a cage.

His mom and sisters had always warned him not to trust full-human women, but this time he’d let his hormones take over and now here he was. Hiding, running ... and praying.

But Mikey was grateful for one thing. The Callahans. His family. They were lions, but not like any other Pride out there. In fact, other lions didn’t even consider Callahans a Pride but a roving band of “gypsies,” and that was fine. Because most lion males knew they were completely on their own should something happen; the Pride females would rarely bother to track down a lost male unless it was a much loved son. That wasn’t the Callahans. Family was family to them and Mikey had no doubt his family would search for him—and God help those who’d taken him.

Yet that was something to think about later. Right now he needed to get out.

Mikey tensed. He could smell the full-humans nearing. Hear their footsteps as they tried to tiptoe through the trees.

He saw one. The clothes were expensive. That gun even more so.

Mikey tried to shift again. His body rippled. Soon. He’d be able to shift soon. But he’d run out of time.

The hunter swung toward him, weapon raised. Mikey charged past him, making sure to hit the man’s body with his paw as he did. Ribs snapped, caving in on impact, the man falling backward, and Mikey kept going. He finally neared the tall, brick wall that surrounded this place. The full-humans that were hunting him were beginning to panic now that they realized he’d be able to shift to human any second now. It would be easy for him to get past the doors once he had thumbs, but at the moment Mikey still had to knock those doors down. Unfortunately, the few doors he’d found were solid, impenetrable steel.

That wall, Mikey was sure, had been built to keep his kind in. He could smell the other breeds that had run and died here. Had others made it out? If they had, were they killed later? Mikey knew that once he got out of here, just running back to his family would only put them in danger. He’d have to do something else, but he could worry about that later.

Mikey heard men yelling orders, could hear running. It was the men who guarded this place. They didn’t hunt, not like the others. They simply prevented the shifters from getting out. Some had extremely powerful weapons and tranq guns. Knowing he’d have to work fast, Mikey moved behind the hedges and tried again. For several brief, wonderful seconds, his right claw turned into a hand. Mikey stopped, took a breath, tried again. Several guards in white, to blend with the snow-covered grounds, came into view. They hunted in threes now; this was no longer a casual, fun thing for rich friends. They had to stop him.

What about when I get past that gate?

He couldn’t worry about that now. One terrifying situation at a time.

Snow and ice cracked beneath boots, the men drawing near.

Mikey waited until they were close and he charged again. They heard him, all three turning and firing at the same time. Shots hit, tearing into his shoulders, but missing major arteries. Mikey kept coming, ramming into two at once, his four hundred and thirty pounds crushing them.

More screams rang out as Mikey turned and swung his claw, ripping across the third man’s face. Then Mikey took his chance and shifted to human.

It took two tries, but it worked. He snatched the keys from the man closest to him and ran to the thick steel door built into the wall. He put the key in, turned the lock. Alarms sounded. Loud and powerful, an electronic voice announcing which door had been opened. Mikey ignored all that and shifted back to lion before racing out of the gate and onto the sidewalk.

Men were coming at him from behind and from both sides once he was out, so he charged straight forward, deciding to shift back to human once he was in the middle of the street because he knew that a naked, bleeding man would be much less terrifying to the general population than a bleeding lion. But as he ran across the asphalt, his body readying to change to his human form, something big and heavy plowed into him, lifting his entire body into the air. He spun up and back, feeling like he was flying, before he came spinning down to earth.

Mikey knew even before he landed that now he was completely screwed.

Sophie DiMarco hit the brakes on the stolen $140,000 Maserati, but it didn’t help. She still collided and shoved forward that ... that thing that had been hit by the delivery truck in front of her, sending it up and over and down until it landed right in her path.

And what exactly was that thing anyway?

Knowing she couldn’t get out of the car and go look, Sophie shifted the Maserati into reverse, ready to make a run for it. But before she could floor it, the thing she’d hit stood. And it was ... human. Big, blond, and golden, he looked around, dazed eyes trying to focus. Although being hit by the car she was driving should have killed him, he was still walking. Even more surprising when she saw the bullet holes riddling his body. Then she saw them. Men dressed alike, in white boots, white winter coats, and white fur hats. She’d guess they were guards or military or something.

She only had a split second to do something and Sophie, being almost naturally kind of difficult, did the most insane thing she could. She leaned over and pushed open the passenger door.

“Get in!” she screamed. “Now!”

The man looked at her, eyes blinking. Then he was running, his hand pressed to the side she’d rammed into.

“Hurry!”

The men weren’t coming after them. They were raising their weapons and aiming. They were going to shoot them down on the street.

“Close the door,” she ordered. “And hold on.”

Sophie placed her right hand on the seat next to her and looked over her shoulder, hitting the gas. The perfectly engineered vehicle shot off, the sound of gunfire ringing from behind and ruining a perfectly good payday for her!

She tore down the street and turned at the first corner. She changed gears and spun the car around. More men were coming from behind big hedges that blocked the high brick wall behind it.

“In front of you,” the man said.

She looked and saw a car driving straight for her. She recognized the fur hats of at least two guards sitting in the front seat.

“Shit.” She hit the button to automatically lower the window and shifted gears once more, putting the Maserati back into reverse. “Hold on.”

The car headed backward again. Guards ran into the street, under some delusion that she’d stop. She couldn’t. At this point she was in too deep. And she’d prefer not to do time for stealing this car.

She pulled the .45 out of her holster and aimed out the window, shooting at the car still coming at her. She hit the other car’s windshield, blood spurted, and the car swerved. Sophie brought her arm back, dropped the gun, and changed hands on the wheel. She shifted and spun the car, moving forward, other cars falling in behind her.

Tearing down the busy streets, she cut across boulevards, and used other cars as shields.

“No cops,” she muttered, surprised she hadn’t heard even one siren yet.

“There won’t be cops until you clear ... whatever town we’re in,” he told her.

Sophie smiled a little. “Good.”

She kept moving, pushing, using every trick she’d ever learned or taught herself. Cars came at her from different directions, from alleys, behind other cars. She didn’t let any of them stop her because she knew none of them could really keep up with her.

But there was one who kept trying. She knew she had to shake that one off if she hoped to get out of this. She went down an alley and around a truck parked outside a deli. She tore outside the other end of the alley and spun the wheel hard. She went a few feet up and hit another alley. She went halfway down that one and stopped behind a shoe store.

Sophie still had the window rolled down, so she listened and watched in the side mirror. Cars sped by, heading down the street. She only had a few minutes before they’d come back and do a street-by-street search.

“I’m bleeding all over your nice seats.”

Yeah. He was, but how was that her problem?

With one more look at him, she opened the door and stepped out, abandoning the car. Such a shame, too. That car would have brought in some nice money.

Mikey wasn’t surprised she bailed. Even though she had a set of keys, he could tell that she wasn’t the owner of this car. Trying to get it out of wherever they were with a bleeding man sitting beside her was going to be impossible.

Honestly, Mikey was just glad he didn’t have to worry about risking her life, too.

He did, however, briefly toy with the idea of getting in the driver’s seat and driving out of here. She’d left the key in the ignition. But all he could do was stare at those keys, watching them sway.

He heard a car pull in and Mikey thought, Here we go.

His door opened and the girl leaned in. “Come on. I haven’t got all day.” She took his arm and pulled it over her shoulder, helping Mikey from the car.

She was strong, but definitely full-human. Together, they made it to a really nice late-model BMW with dark-tinted windows. She put him in the back, laying him out across the seat, and went to the driver’s side. Within seconds, she had them back on the road.

“You know this town,” Mikey said, lifting his hand to look at all the blood on it.

“I know every town.”

Right. In case she had to make a run for it.

“I need you to take me into the City.” Realizing he might not actually be in New York, he added, “Manhattan.”

“Give me the address.” She glanced back at him, smiled. “And don’t worry. I’ll get you home.”

Except he wasn’t going home. But that was okay. He just knew he wasn’t going to die there, wherever “there” might have been. And at the moment, that meant everything to him.