He realized that if Kenzie brought backup outside, they'd be shredded. He had to warn them. Bowman's cell phone, though, was in the jeans he'd stripped off and left at the edge of the woods, and the monster chasing him had just stepped on it. He had backup phones, but they were at home, and couldn't help him now.
He still couldn't see what the thing was. Hard to when he was running, limping, and trying to look over his shoulder at the same time, all while his Collar sizzled the fur around his neck. He only knew that whatever came behind him was big, deadly, and mad as hell.
Makes two of us, shithead.
Bowman hurled himself at the back door of the roadhouse. Pain and flight reaction took away his presence of mind to shift to human, so he howled and scratched at the door like a pathetic pup.
The door was wrenched open, and two large hands grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him inside. The scent that came to Bowman's pain-crazed brain was bear, and he had just enough functioning thought to keep himself from attacking.
The big hands belonged to a giant of a man who slammed the door and dragged Bowman into the tiny back hall. Bowman collapsed to smooth, cold, polished cement, panting hard, pain blotting out all thought.
"Son of a bitch," Cade said. "What the hell was that? Bowman? Bowman-damn it, stay with me . . ."
* * *
Kenzie pushed her way through the frightened crowd, knowing before she reached the back hall that Bowman was hurt. She scented it, she sensed it-she'd suspected it before he'd even made it inside.
Cade was sitting cross-legged beside a big timber wolf, who lay bleeding on the floor. He'd grabbed a towel from somewhere, not a very clean one, and was pressing it to Bowman's back right leg.
The leg was broken. Bone protruded through red flesh, and Bowman's dark gray fur was matted with blood. His Collar emitted one shock, his reaction to Cade touching his injury, then went silent.
Kenzie said nothing. She knew Bowman didn't like wailing females, didn't want her to fling herself on top of him and bawl. He'd expect her to quit whimpering and do something useful.
She made herself kneel calmly beside Cade, who shot her a worried look. Cade's short hair was mottled black and brown-grizzly colors-his eyes a darker brown. He was a huge man, with hands twice the size of Kenzie's and a hard body she knew women liked to climb. A tatt of interlocking Celtic knot designs flowed down his right arm.
"Hold that on him," Cade said, handing her the towel. "I'll try to find something clean."
"How about an ambulance and someone to set his bones?" Kenzie said, even as she pressed the towel to Bowman's wound.
"Not with whatever that is prowling out there. I saw something as I hauled his ass inside." Cade's brown eyes were white around the edges, his face stark. Nothing scared Cade, who was bigger than anyone in Shiftertown-bigger than anyone, period. Humans took one look at him and ran the other way.
"What was it?" Kenzie asked him.
Cade hauled himself to his feet. "Hard to say. Huge. Fast. Stinky. Probably could knock over any ambulance that came out here. If we can get one to come out here."
"Feral Shifter?"
"No clue. Bigger than a Shifter."
That's what Kenzie had thought too. She felt cold.
Under her touch, Bowman moved, but weakly. He needed a healer. Needed one now. If he could shift back to human, a hospital might be able to work on him, though Shifters were tough for most doctors to treat.
"Touch of a mate," Cade said. He was looking at Kenzie with a mixture of sympathy, worry, and understanding.
"Doesn't always work," Kenzie said irritably. The subject was a sensitive one for her. "You know that."
"We got a choice right now?"
Bowman rumbled something, and Kenzie leaned down to look him in his eyes. His flat wolf face held such beauty, though she'd never say so to him.
Now his gray eyes were filled with vast pain and, behind that, frustration. He needed to tell her something, but he couldn't shift to speak words.
Kenzie stroked his head. "We're going to try to fix you up," she said. "Me and Cade. Don't worry too much."
Bowman's muzzle wrinkled in annoyance. Stupid thing to say, and Kenzie knew it. She might as well have bleated, There's an unknown monster stalking around outside, you've broken your leg, we can't get medical help, and all I can do is pet you. But don't worry, everything will be fine.
Bowman rumbled again, holding her gaze. He was willing her to understand, but she followed his body language much better when they were both the same species.
"Hang on." Kenzie rose to her feet, unsteady in the new turquoise cowboy boots she'd bought to dance in tonight. She'd been so proud of the damn things, and the sexy top that was now so much scrap in the woods, when she'd brought them home from her shopping trip today. "Cade, turn your back."
Cade scowled. "I'm Shifter, woman. I've seen naked Shifters before."
Kenzie planted her hands on her hips. "I want to see your back, grizzly. Now."
"Touchy, touchy." Cade swung around and stared at pipes and dirty walls. His well-muscled back in its tight T-shirt quivered, but Kenzie couldn't tell if he were laughing or letting his concern about Bowman get to him.
Kenzie peeled off the shirt Bowman had lent her, not liking to take his scent from her skin. Next, the pretty new boots came off, then her jeans and underwear.
She envied Bowman's ability to shift so easily-it came harder for her. The wolf in her began to growl and protest as her limbs transformed, her skin itching as it stretched and changed. After a few long and painful moments, Kenzie landed on four big paws, shaking out the light gray fur of her wolf.
Bowman's scent slammed into her. She smelled his pain, his fear, his concern that he wouldn't be able to figure out how to fight this unknown menace. The Collar around Kenzie's neck, which had expanded to fit her wolf, wanted to spark to match his agitation.
She tried to calm herself, to block out the waves of complicated worry that came with his scent and his nearness as she lowered herself next to him. Kenzie moved her face in front of Bowman's and touched his nose with hers. No other wolf in the pack could do that-Bowman might touch them, but not the other way around. Not without his permission.
Kenzie was wolf enough now to give him a lick. His fur tasted of blood and dirt, and the tang that was Bowman. She whined a little, but when wolves whined, it didn't necessarily mean submission or fear. Right now, she asked a question.
Bowman answered her in a series of rumbles and flicks of his eyes. What came to Kenzie were impressions and images rather than exact words, but they would roughly translate as, Big. Deadly. Don't know what it is. Can't fight it. Pain. Damn. Fucking pain. Can't think.
I'll try to help you, Kenzie conveyed back. I have to touch you. It might hurt.
You think? Bowman growled.
Kenzie licked his face again. She let her tongue move behind his ears, her mate's pain coming to her through the tiny link they shared. They had nothing like the magical, all-consuming mate bond other pairs developed, but at least they had something, even if it was only the understanding between two alphas.
Fifteen years ago, when Kenzie and Bowman had mated to keep the Shifters in the North Carolina Shiftertown under control and the humans from closing the place down, Kenzie had hoped the two of them would form the mate bond. It didn't always happen right away-a couple could be together for a year and more before the true bond came. Sometimes it happened only after the first cub. Kenzie had been hopeful once Ryan had been born. She knew Bowman had been hopeful too, but still the mate bond hadn't formed.
Hadn't formed yet, Kenzie hastily amended in her head.
The way Shifter rules worked, though, if Bowman met a female-Shifter, human, or otherwise-with whom he did form the mate bond, Kenzie would be expected to step aside and let him go. Her clan leader, her uncle Cristian in this case, would officially dissolve Kenzie and Bowman's mating, and that would be that. Shiftertown would rejoice that a Shifter had found his true mate, and Kenzie would be expected to congratulate him.
Likewise Bowman would have to step aside for Kenzie if she found the bond with someone else, though historically it had been rare that a male let his mate go to pursue a mate bond. The whole situation was rare, Kenzie knew, but that didn't comfort her much.
Knowing she could lose Bowman anytime to anyone out there made Kenzie jealous and protective, which couldn't make Bowman very happy. She drove him crazy, and he didn't hesitate to tell her so.