Bear's Heart: BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance (Bear Heat Book 5) (3 page)

Just three weeks ago, Dylan
had written up Luke's report and sent it to his alpha and beta. The
Black Bears alpha, beta and a team of senior lieutenants had agreed
with his assessment. Luke was ready to be on his own without a
mentor breathing down his neck and monitoring his every move. Luke
could now control his bear, his temper and emotions. He was coping
and adjusting well, and was steady and reliable during critical
missions. In fact, he had the makings of a good team leader.

The mentorship was officially
over. But Dylan still looked out for Luke.

The hungry, burger-mad Black
Bears were hurrying purposefully and unstoppably towards their cars
as their stomachs and bears growled and rumbled.

No one noticed that they had
left Luke behind.

Luke had stopped walking and
was frozen to the spot, with his phone to his ear.

Dylan turned and watched the
color drain from Luke's face.

“No, no,” Luke
muttered into the phone, shaking his head repeatedly as his knuckles
gleamed white under the midday sun.

Luke lowered his shaking hand
and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He spun on his heel and
was about to take off at a mad run when Dylan clamped a hand on his
shoulder.

“What is it, Luke?”
Dylan said quietly.

Luke jerked and turned his
panicked, pained eyes to Dylan.

“Jade...” was all
he managed to choke out.

At the same time, an alert
sounded on Dylan's watch.

Dylan glanced down at the
alert and read the horrific news.

He met Luke's anguished eyes.

“No,” he said as
a terrible, tormented roar ripped from Luke.

CHAPTER
SIX

Luke lurched away but Dylan
caught him and muscled him towards his car. “I'll drive you
there.”

He pushed Luke into the
passenger seat and slammed the door. As he sprinted over to the
driver's side, he saw Thor and Baxter running towards them. Every
lieutenant in the Black Bears clan would have gotten the alert by
now.

Luke wasn't a Black Bears
lieutenant but he had just received a call from the police.

A bomb had gone off at Dino
Diner. His sister was working there, and the police were contacting
the next of kin of all the staff.

Dylan tapped his watch and
relayed the news to Aidan as he started the engine.

“We'll be there,”
Aidan said immediately.

Dylan was about to stomp on
the gas pedal when the back doors opened and Baxter and Thor jumped
into his car.

“We heard what
happened,” Thor said by way of explanation as he wisely buckled
himself in. He knew Dylan was going to break every traffic rule in
existence and Thor wanted to get home in one piece to his mate,
Aubrey. Thor had been the first one to charge headlong into that
hidden chamber and rescued Luke from the clutches of Dr. Faizel. And
Baxter had carried the unconscious Luke out of that chamber of
horrors. Thor and Baxter weren't assigned to train and mentor Luke,
but they would constantly ask Dylan how Luke was doing. Luke was a
new Black Bear, but he was a member of the clan. He was one of them,
and when one Black Bear needed help and support, the whole clan
rallied and threw everything they got into the fight. That's what
they were doing right now.

“Go, go, go!”
Baxter yelled to Dylan. “Oh my God! Who would bomb Dino
Diner? Shit!”

“Sit tight,”
Dylan growled and floored the accelerator. His SUV peeled out of the
parking lot and sped towards Dino Diner, burning rubber all the way.

Baxter jabbered on as Dylan
battled the infuriating traffic. The car tilted on two wheels as he
squeezed between a gap in the road divider and made a sharp U-turn.
When the car righted itself and hurtled forward, Baxter was still
talking.

“Gosh, I love that
diner! That's where I met Lindy. And I know all the staff there!”
Baxter gabbled.

A strangled sound escaped
from Luke. Luke looked deathly pale, and he was digging his claws
into the leather seat.

“Zip it, Bax,”
Dylan warned.

“Jade...she just
started today,” Luke mumbled, staring straight ahead. “It's
her first day. She was so excited...”

Baxter leaned forward.
“We'll find her.”

When Luke jerked, Baxter
added quickly, “Alive.”

Dylan shot Baxter a look and
turned up the volume on the radio. There were reports of more bodies
being dragged out from the rubble. There had only been one survivor
so far, a male.

Luke closed his eyes and
muttered something under his breath. Whether it was a prayer or a
curse, Dylan couldn't tell. All he knew was that Luke was in agony,
and his bear was very close to exploding out of his skin.

“Be in control,”
Dylan said, throwing Luke a glance. “Letting your bear rage
out of control isn't going to help anyone at this time.”

Luke didn't reply. His face
twisted as he fought to contain his emotions and his beast.

Dylan tore past a red light
and turned into a side lane. Again, his sturdy SUV sped forward on
two wheels before thudding back firmly on its four large wheels.

Baxter whistled. “Your
car's almost as good as me,” he said, with a note of grudging
admiration. Baxter was the only Black Bear who could tilt his chair
back and balance it on only two legs. Dylan had given up trying to
figure out if Baxter did it to show off or just out of habit.

Once Dylan neared the street
where Dino Diner was situated, Luke bolted from the car. He didn't
even wait for the car to screech to a complete stop. He simply tore
out of the moving car and ran like a madman towards the smoking
wreckage.

There were police cars, fire
trucks, ambulances and other civil defense vehicles blocking the
street.

Dylan pulled his car to the
side of the curb and the three Black Bears raced after Luke.

Luke was running hard towards
the pile of rubble. “Cut him off!” Dylan hollered to
Thor and Baxter.

The two of them split up.
Thor ducked into a side alley and re-appeared out of another alley
just ahead of Luke. Luke just kept running, not seeing Thor, not
seeing anyone.

Thor spread out his arms and
crouched, preparing to tackle Luke to the ground as Luke came at him.

At the speed Luke was going,
it was obvious that Luke was intending to run straight at Thor and
right through him.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

As Luke hurtled forward with
a roar, Baxter came flying out of a corner and landed on Luke. Luke
let out a howl of rage and anguish as Thor and Baxter held him down.

Dylan ran up to them and put
his hand on Luke's shoulder. “I'll find her,” he told
Luke.

“Get your fucking hands
off me!” Luke screamed. “Let me go! I need to get to
Jade! Let go! I have to find her, I should have protected her!”

Dylan pulled Luke up by the
collar and shook him hard. “Get a hold of yourself and your
bear! There's work to be done here. We need to find the survivors.
If you can't help, then stay out of the way.”

Luke snarled at him and Dylan
caught the glint of claws at the tips of Luke's curled fingers. His
bear was coming out, and it looked like Luke wouldn't be able to
control the maddened beast in his present state. He would be a
danger to everyone present and himself.

“I will find your
sister. I promise you, Luke.” Dylan grabbed Luke and shook
him again, forcing him to stare into his eyes. “I. Will. Find.
Jade.”

Luke's blue eyes had turned
feral and he thrashed madly in Dylan's iron grip.

Dylan signaled to Thor, who
nodded once and muscled Luke away.

Dylan heard familiar voices
and he saw his team members running towards him. Caleb, their beta,
was at the head of the group and he jerked his head at Dylan.

“Where's Luke?”
Caleb asked.

“He's with Thor. It's
better if he stays away,” Dylan said tersely.

Caleb gave a grim nod. “Yes.
Let's hope she's alive.” When Dylan met his eyes, he
understood his beta's unspoken worry right away.

If they didn't find Jade
alive, they might lose Luke. He might blame himself for his sister's
death, and his pain and hatred might cause him to lose his mind and
lose control of his bear. If he turned rogue, they would have to
hunt him down and destroy him.

“Damn it, she's alive,”
Dylan snapped, refusing to think otherwise.

The Black Bears approached
the cordoned off area and were stopped by police officers. Caleb
stepped forward and showed them his Black Bears identification badge.

“We can help,” he
told the officers. “My bears can sniff out any survivors, and
they can help locate the bodies as well.”

One of the policemen hurried
off and returned with a senior detective.

Dylan recognized the
detective. He had worked with the detective on a number of cases and
knew Detective Kai Wong to be a smart, decisive officer of the law.

Detective Wong nodded at the
Black Bears. “Thank you for your offer to help. There are
many hands on site already. We are hoping to find the remains of the
bomb and see if we can find out who is behind the bombing. But—the
scene is a mess. We want clues and we want answers, but our priority
is to find as many survivors as possible. So far...there aren't
many.”

The detective glanced behind
him and blew out a breath. “We can allow only six of your
members in. The rest of you will have to stay behind the police
line.”

Caleb nodded. “Dylan,
Baxter, Aidan, Mason, Vera, with me! The rest of you, fan out and
see if you can find any clues to aid the police in their
investigation,” he ordered.

“Yes, Beta!”

The Black Bears spread out
and began to do their jobs.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Dylan ducked under the police
tape and approached the collapsed diner. The smell of death and
destruction was thick in the air. He could scent the spilled food
and coffee from the diner, and he could smell the bodies trapped
under the rubble.

This was a devastating,
dastardly attack. The bomb had killed so many innocent people.

Dylan crouched at a corner of
the pile of rubble and put his hand gently on a fallen beam. They
had to be careful not to move the rubble unnecessarily. Any movement
might cause the precarious pile to shift and cave in further,
crushing the bodies and survivors trapped within.

He took a deep breath and
said her name. “Jade.”

He had never seen her face to
face, but Luke had shown him her photographs and he had spoken very
briefly to her on the phone when he was her brother's mentor.

She was blond and blue-eyed
like Luke, and when he spoke to her over the phone, he could hear her
smile in her soft, soothing voice. She was always smiling happily in
her photographs, and he saw the sparkle in her brilliant blue eyes.

But it was her voice that had
touched something in him.

He would never forget that
beautiful, gentle voice. It seemed to speak to his soul, and stir a
strange, deep yearning in him.

Why was that?

Was it because she was Luke's
sister? He was responsible for Luke and he cared for Luke. Did that
sense of responsibility extend to Luke's sister as well?

Dylan didn't know the answer.
He had learned from Luke that Jade had recently moved to the city,
but he just never had the chance to arrange a meeting with her.

Dylan's heart and fists
clenched. “I will find you, Jade,” he swore.

CHAPTER
NINE

Jade coughed and tried to
blink the dirt and dust out of her eyes. She couldn't see in the
pitch darkness. She didn't know how deep she was buried under all
this rubble.

How long would she remain
buried down here?

Did anyone even know that she
was here? Was anyone looking for her? Had the news reached Luke?

Jade stifled a sob, forcing
herself not to succumb to panic and despair.

She would be rescued. She
had to believe that.

She was lucky to be alive.
She was trapped in a tiny space between criss-crossing fallen beams
and pieces of concrete. There was no wiggle room at all. She
couldn't move and she could hardly breathe. If she wasn't found in
time, she would just die here alone in the dark, buried under the
remains of Dino Diner.

Jade thought of her
colleagues and her customers. Were they all dead?

“Nancy...” she
called out weakly. “Basheera?”

There was no sound, not even
the echo of her own voice.

Jade tried to crawl forward,
then gave a cry of fear and dismay. The lower half of her body was
pinned under a big, heavy slab. She had passed out momentarily from
the excruciating pain, but now, she couldn't feel her legs at all.