Gray Back Alpha Bear(14)

“She’s human,” Easton growled. “She’s fragile, and you got her with a baby, anyway.”

“Shit,” Creed ground out just as Easton hunched into himself.

In the next second, an enormous silver grizzly exploded from Easton’s skin.

Gia screamed in terror as Creed shoved her backward. She stumbled, but caught herself just as a monstrous black grizzly ripped through Creed’s skin. He slammed down on all fours, shaking the ground beneath her feet.

Easton charged. Too close! She was too close, and they were going to barrel right into her.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jason muttered from right beside her. Where had he come from? He was just over there. “Come on, Bombshell, before they kill you trying to protect you.”

“Kill me?” she gasped out as he pulled her backward.

The two titan bears clashed. Roaring and snarling, they clawed and bit with such furious violence, she locked her legs in awe. “They’re going to kill each other.”

“Willa!” Matt called out as he pulled her shirt off.

Was everyone going to Change? She’d done her research, and nothing in all the hours she’d spent reading about bear shifter crews had prepared her for this. Changing was supposed to happen every once in a while, not over something silly—like Easton’s apparent hatred of pregnancy.

The battle raged closer, and she wasn’t retreating fast enough.

“Move your legs, Bombshell,” Jason yelled. His voice had lost its laid-back humor now.

Jason pulled off his sweater and stripped out of his jeans, then Changed into a brown bear almost as big as Easton. Matt Changed and now his scarred-up red bear was in the fight. Crimson was staining the white gravel road under the battle.

Jason was backing up beside her, nudging her away from the fight. Gia couldn’t take her eyes off the raw violence before her. A moment ago everything was fine, and now the Gray Backs looked like they were trying to rip each other’s throats out.

A blond bear was in it now, too, and this was just fantastic. Even Clinton had Changed. One little angry remark, and the entirety of the Gray Back Crew was at war, bleeding each other. Wait. Gia refused to be herded by Jason another step and looked around his hind end. Another bear was charging the battle. This one was smaller than the others, but it was breathtakingly fast. Its honey-colored fur waved in the wind with every powerful step it bolted forward. There was another Gray Back.

Chills rippled across Gia’s skin as the new bear blasted into Easton’s side, bowling him over completely. The others backed off, shaking their heads, clawing the dirt, just on the outer edge of the new battle between the silver bear and the smaller one. The new bear was important.

Easton hit the ground hard and stayed there, fighting with less and less ferocity as the smaller brawler slashed at him with its six-inch black-as-pitch claws. He bit her leg and got a few swipes in, but the fire was dying from his eyes by the second.

Creed shrank back into his human skin and, naked and bleeding, he barked out, “Easton, Change back. Now!”

The smaller bear pushed off Easton’s exposed chest and shrank back into a very familiar form.

“What the hell?” Gia huffed on a baffled breath. “Willa?”

Willa held her bleeding arm and stomped her foot. “Son of a mother-fluffer, you pickle-dick weasel-chode! Fuck, Beaston. You broke my arm!”

Easton was human again and scrabbling up from the ground. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll fix it,” he rushed out.

The scarred-up red bear was pacing a protective tight circle around Willa.

Willa shoved him back with her good arm. “Matt, if you aren’t going to Change back, someone has to set the bone.” She arched her glare to Easton. “You owe me another knife!”

Easton felt her arm gently, then said, “Don’t look. It hurts less if you don’t look.”

“No, asshole, it hurts less if you boys would stop fighting about every damned—ooow!” she screamed as Easton pulled down and jammed her arm back up.

Gia stumbled forward as Jason Changed back beside her. Willa was a bear. Willa was a badass, brawling, get-in-the-middle-of-them-boys-and-wreck-shop grizzly bear. “That’s why you don’t wear your glasses anymore?” Gia asked in a higher octave than she’d meant to. “Because you’re a bear shifter?”

Creed’s chest heaved with every breath, and he looked fit to kill someone, but he jerked his head to Willa. “Gia, meet the last member of the Gray Backs. You know her as Willamena Madden, but we all know her as Willa the Second.”

“Second. Like, second to the alpha in the crew?” Gia pursed her lips as her world turned upside down. Again. Tiny, sarcastic, nerdy Willa was second in a crew of renegade monster bears. She gripped her hair like it would keep her mind from exploding.