Carrie blinked and looked around. No Cage.
The man took another step down the dark road that was barely lit by far-apart streetlamps. His gun was trained on the darkness. On the bushes at the side of the road. On a car parked nearby. On a tree.
Carrie didn’t know how Cage had disappeared so fast.
Then she heard the slight scrape of claws on metal and glanced up over at the row of stores on the left side of the street. Something was on the roofs and had just clipped a drainpipe while walking.
Clever bear.
She looked back at her captor, making sure not to give away that she knew Cage’s position. When then man was about fifteen feet from Carrie, she heard footsteps scratch brick as Cage ran along the rooftops and soared into the night. She watched his long, dark form as it went over her and landed squarely between her and the man who’d been holding her.
Then he lifted on his back legs, his brown, shaggy form monstrous in the dark, and she turned away, not wanting to see what happened as he raised one paw and gunshots rang out in the night. She ducked and covered her head with her arms as she heard one last shout.
Then she looked up, and as smoke cleared, both from the burnt-out bike and the gunshots, she saw Cage stumble forward. Naked. He fell to the ground, and she screamed.
“Cage!” She tugged on her bonds, trying to drag the bike forward, but she was exhausted from the adrenaline rush she’d been experiencing ever since the bikers approached Willow’s house. “Cage!”
He turned to look at her, and a small smile crept over his lips, relief rushing through her as she fell on her butt next to the bike. Then his eyes went to her bonds and anger tightened his expression again.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Are you?”
He yanked a shirt off the unmoving man in front of him and pulled it over his head. Then he did the same with his pants. He looked down, and she saw blood spreading out from a wound on his side, but he shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”#p#分页标题#e#
She just stared at him with wide eyes. “Fine?” she asked, only slightly hysterically. “You’re bleeding, you’ve been shot, but you’re fine?”
He knelt beside her and untied her, and she fell forward into his arms, gasping as she tried to catch her breath.
His warm, strong arms came around her. “I’m fine as long as you’re fine,” he said. “And the Aces are done. We have all we need, and with Pete gone and the threat of the police and their main club hanging over them, the rest will clear out real quick.”
He leaned on her, and she could tell, despite his bravado, he was exhausted.
“You did good,” she said, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “Even as a bear.”
“Did you know bears can move as fast as a car?” he asked in a tired, playful voice.
“I do now,” she said.
“So are you okay with this?” he asked against her neck, giving her shivers. “You’ve seen both sides of who I am. The things I hid from you. I’m a fighter now, Carrie. And a bear. And I’m still just the boy who was in love with you from saving me from a bear trap.” His arms tightened around her. “I’m all of those things, and I’m just so damn in love with you. Just tell me you’ll give me another chance and come back to New York with me.”
She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
He froze, holding his breath.
“I mean, it’s not really fair to ask that after you’ve just beaten half a dozen men with your bare hands and then chased down a motorcycle in bear form and gotten shot trying to rescue me. What’s a girl supposed to say in those circumstances?” she teased.
“Say you’ll marry me,” he growled grumpily. “Say you’ll be mine. Say everything will be great from now on.”
“All right,” she said, holding his face and looking into his eyes. “Everything will be great, and I love you, you big bear.” Then she kissed him, dead on the lips, and found that she meant it.
What had started the moment she met him in the forest had finally come full circle. He’d been the one in a steel trap, but she’d been stuck in this town, which had been caught in the trap of the Aces.
Cage had come back and risked his life to free all of them from that. The least she could do was go off and be happy with him.
“Now let’s get you home so you stop bleeding on me,” she said, helping him stand.
He touched the blood on his shirt and grinned ruefully. “It’s just a scratch.”
Then they both laughed as he called his work friends and she called Willow to let everyone know things were going to be okay. Cage heard sirens in the distance and waited as the town police pulled up.