When a stunned-looking Chubby came charging at her, she rolled to the side and sliced both his Achilles tendons as he stumbled past. Like a sack of spuds, he fell to the ground, crying out. Rolling once again, she seized the rifle and twisted to see that Chubby was trying to crawl away. He froze when she cocked it and gave her a pitiful look. She shrugged. “I told you I’d kill you.” The bullet hit him dead-center in his forehead.

It was then that Merrick swung the door open. But she had already cocked the gun again, ready to shoot, and was aiming it as his head. “You should have run, Monkey Boy.” But the awkward bastard dove to the side, making the bullet skim his ear. “Fuck.” Then a wall of flames suddenly formed around the hut, and Merrick slammed the door closed. “Double f**k.” Before she could even think of acting, a hand shackled her ankle.

“You can’t leave me here,” growled Amber.

Shaya found she didn’t have an ounce of mercy for this person who had deliberately kept Nick ill, who had made her almost lose her mate. “Of course I can.”

“You bitch!”

“Personally, I think I’m more evil than that, but whatever. Give me one good reason why I should help you.”

Instead of answering, she yanked hard on Shaya’s ankle, making her lose her balance and crash to the floor. She lost her grip on the rifle, which went skidding away from her. “If I’m gonna die, so are you,” snarled Amber.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t her own life that Shaya was so frantic about saving. It was Nick’s. Knowing he was unconscious and hurt was making both her and her wolf panic like crazy. Shaya knew that if the bond had been fully developed, she could have used her own strength to bolster his, to help him wake up. Trey had done the same thing for Taryn during the battle with his uncle: He had surrendered to the bond while she was unconscious, and when the bond clicked into place, Taryn had quickly come around.

Since waking up in the hut, Shaya had been trying to do the same as Trey had, trying to surrender to the bond, but she had no idea how. Over and over she’d tried with no success. She knew what stood in the way—her trust issues, her need to feel indispensable to him, her worry that he would come to resent her submissive status. But, she suddenly wondered, were those things really that important to her? Or had she just been finding excuses all along to keep a distance between them?

Over the past few months, he had given her all the assurances she could have needed, hadn’t he? You’re stronger than anyone I know, he’d told her right before he claimed her, echoing every act that communicated he considered her as his equal. Repeatedly he had assured her, I don’t want anyone but you. and, thus, soothing her worry that her submissive status made her less desirable to him. She’d never forget when he said, My life’s worth shit without you in it. And then there was the, You’re indispensable to me—essential to me on every level.

He’d kept every promise, he’d gone at her pace, and he’d been as patient with her as she had needed him to be. Yes, he’d earned her trust with everything he said, with everything he did, with every promise he kept. She did trust him. And yet…the bond wouldn’t snap into place.

Well of course it wouldn’t, she thought with a snicker. It had never really been her difficulty to trust at all, had it? Sure that had played a factor, but that hadn’t been the barrier between them. What had held her back all along had been fear—the fear of him leaving her, the fear of being alone, the fear of just what it would do to her to have to live her life without him being a part of it. And, most importantly, the fear of the power it gave him to admit to herself that she loved him. But clinging to that fear in order to protect herself wasn’t fair to either of them, nor was keeping those words from him.

Ironically, it had been fear that had held Nick back from claiming her at the very beginning, but he had let go of his fear, determined to not let her suffer for that fear. Now, she needed to let go of hers. And she found that she could.

It was not the scent of fire, smoke, and wood burning that made the gray wolf skid to a halt. It was the sudden bang in his chest and impact to his head. He did not fear either. There was no pain. Only the feel of his mate inside him: the feel of her heartbeat, the rate of her pulse. Neither was as strong as it should be. He took no time to enjoy the satisfaction of knowing their bond was now unbreakable. He needed to get to his mate.

With a number of wolves following, the gray wolf allowed the bond to lead him to her. Seeing the small building alight, his mind immediately flashed back to a distant, painful memory—one that brought with it fear, panic, desperation, and the feeling of being trapped. Those same feelings taunted the wolf now, making him hesitate, making him howl. But then he heard his mate’s voice, felt her sadness. She sensed his fear and wanted him to stay back. The wolf could not do that. She was his. She belonged to him. She needed to be safe. The sight of her in danger caused a different kind of fear—not the kind that made him hesitate, the kind that acted as fuel and made him act.

Feeling the bond click into place, Shaya’s wolf and soul screamed with joy. But Shaya didn’t have the time to rejoice about it, because she needed to be free of the evil bitch clinging to her ankle. And she needed to do it before the fire now attacking the wooden walls collapsed the building and killed them both. It was hot, it was dark, it was frightening. She couldn’t hear a thing over the hissing, sizzling, crackling, and popping around her.

Coughing and panicking as her ability to breathe became more and more difficult, Shaya kicked at Amber’s face and hand, wishing she was wearing her stilettos. Amber only tightened her hold and bit into Shaya’s leg. “You weird bitch!” she croaked. Shaya reached down, fisted her hand in her hair, and pulled hard until Amber’s teeth released her. She would have shifted forms, but her wolf was too spooked by the fire.

Using her hold on her ankle, Amber dragged Shaya toward her and went to claw at Shaya’s face. But the move was clumsy and awkward—most likely as Amber was already weak from her injury. Shaya’s hand shot out and snapped around Amber’s wrist. Digging deep for every ounce of strength inside her, Shaya propelled Amber onto her back, pinning her arm to the ground. As a submissive wolf, her strength shouldn’t have exceeded Amber’s, but knowing what this bitch had done to her mate, Shaya and her wolf were close to feral—it gave her the added strength she needed.

With the hand still fisted in Amber’s hair, she slammed the bitch’s head down over and over until Amber gave a dizzy, hoarse moan. Had she been able to see anything, Shaya might have been able to find her knife or rifle and kill the bitch, but the black smoke made it impossible for even shifter vision to see much. She wasn’t sure where the door was, or she might have tried to crawl toward it, but there was the possibility that she might simply crawl farther into the hut.