Predator's Serenade (21 page)

But it wasn’t Soren.

“You,” she whispered.

She didn’t have time to say anything else. The visitor quickly shot off a tranquilizer gun. Gioia watched, stunned and terrified, as the darts quickly lodged themselves in Gunnar’s and Lia’s necks. They promptly fell.

The third dart whizzed as it hit her at close range, sinking into the soft flesh of her own neck. She reached for the shooter, trying desperately to claw the person’s grinning face, but her vision clouded over.

The last thing she remembered was the cold, hard embrace of the floor as it rose up to slam against her body.

* * * *

Soren watched as the pub waiter set down a second round of beers in front of them. Like him, Ry just stared at Paul, uninterested in the beer. “Excuse me for being blunt, Paul, but I didn’t come here to clink glasses with you. What do you want to say to me? You’ve been skirting the issue for almost an hour now, and I could care less about talking sports and weather.”

Paul sucked back half the glass in one, thirsty gulp. “Shit, I missed beer. It’s been a while since I’ve had one.”

“I’ll buy you a six-pack. What do you want?”

Paul put his glass down and stared at Soren. The foggy look from earlier was gone from his eyes, and he could tell his mind was clear. For the moment. Soren watched and waited, not quite ready to relinquish his suspicions.

“I learned a lot when I was staying with the Mercier brothers,” Paul began. One of the brothers was a farmer, like I said, but the other one was a medical practitioner. Raoul Mercier studied ancient medicine, everything from First Nations to Chinese to Mayan. He knew every herb and plant out there, and what they could do.”

“This is fascinating,” Soren deadpanned, losing patience. “What does this have to do with anything?”

Paul’s jaw clenched, but he carried on. “Raoul performed a lot of tests on me while I was with them. He noticed an interesting cocktail of drugs in my system, ones that took a long time to wear off and that had a detrimental effect on my brain. None of the drugs were illegal and were all derived from various herbs, stuff you might find in a garden. But combined a certain way, they were hallucinogenic. At least, that’s how they worked on me.”

“Someone drugged you?” Soren asked on a breath.

Paul looked him right in the eye. “What I’m saying is, I don’t believe I was sick at all. Raoul didn’t either. Today, thanks to Raoul’s work, I feel just fine. I do believe I was drugged and that the symptoms made me appear like I was losing my mind.”

Soren narrowed his gaze on him. “But even today you looked hazy, as if you weren’t all there.”

Paul let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, I’m all here. It’s just when I think about the unfairness of the situation, I get a little distracted. Especially when I think about the person who did this to me.”

“Who do you think drugged you?” Ryland asked.

“Let me share an interesting coincidence,” Paul said, his voice still hiccupping with sour laughter. “One of the things I appreciated about my cousin Wes was his ability to help me clear my head. We did a lot of things together. Drinking, working out at the gym. He was my bench press spotter, and a good one too. Always had his eye on me.”

Soren didn’t like where this was going. “Go on.”

“Did you ever hear what Wes does for a living?” He waited for their response, but they had none and shook their heads. “He runs a supplement store. That man knows vitamins like the Pope knows Catholics.”

Soren’s bear lurched, and he didn’t even try to control the stabbing pain.
Gioia
…

“I believe Wes drugged me over a long period of time. I believe he wanted my bear to erupt from me in anger. I believe he wanted to instigate the sort of tragedy that happened when Gunnar attacked me. It fit right in with his plans.”

Soren dropped his head into his hands as a white-hot agony sliced through his tendons and muscles. He stifled the roar that was threatening to explode from him.

“But why?” Ryland demanded, his own brow creased with worry.

“Wes always used to tease me about Gioia, you know, telling me she was too good for me. How lucky I was to have her. Sometimes I’d catch him staring at her with this odd look in his eye. A…covetous look. I thought it was my imagination. I mean, he’s my cousin, for Christ’s sake! He’s family. So I put it out of my head. But now, when I piece things together, it makes sense. My memories have come back to me more and more each day, and in every one he’s there…staring at her. Wanting her. I was just too drugged to notice it before. I don’t want her to go home and become involved with him in any way.”

Soren pushed away from the table, spilling all three beers in the process. “He was here! The sick bastard was here on the island! And he already attacked her once. We thought it was her pheromone driving him nuts.”

“Pheromone?”

“I’ll explain that later,” Ry mumbled. He looked at Soren, his face already etched with agony. “The girls are alone with Gunnar right now.”

“Shit!” As his bear pounded his rib cage, crazed from fear, Soren sprinted out of the pub. Ryland and Paul were hot on his heels.

As the three men raced to Gioia’s suite, Soren endured the horrible crashing in his gut. He struggled to make contact with his mate telepathically, crying out for her, but there was no response. Not a hum, not a crackle of energy.

She was in trouble.

If the fuckwad hurts her
…

He didn’t waste any more time pondering Wes’ fate. He knew what he would do. If he found him with Gioia, he’d kill him.

Gioia woke up in the darkness on a soft bed of moss. As her tired lashes fluttered over her eyes, she shivered. The night was cold, and she needed Soren’s touch for warmth. He was so warm…She rolled over and whispered his name.

A hand grabbed her arm, and she thought it was his. No. Soren wouldn’t grab her like that. Her eyes flew open, even as they fought not to close again.

“Soren’s not here, sunshine. Just me.”

“Wes,” she whispered.

He ran a finger along her cheek. “Aw, you look so pretty in your sleep, but I really want you awake for what I do next.” As a growl rumbled in his chest, he slapped her across the face. “Wake up, bitch!”

She did, scrambling away from him. As she crab-crawled away from him, she heard a muffled noise in the near distance. She turned her head and saw Gunnar gagged and bound to a tree. He made frantic noises from behind the gag, and his eyes were wet with terrified tears. She just knew he was shouting, “Mom!”

It all came flooding back to her. Drinking with Lia, packing her clothes. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Where’s Lia?”

Wes rushed over to her. “Don’t worry. The Snow bitch is still out. I gave her an extra dose of something special in her tranquilizer so she wouldn’t get in our way. I left her in your room. If she’s lucky, she’ll wake up. If not, oh well.” He shrugged his shoulders.

Gioia made a move toward her son, but he grabbed her and pinned her to the ground. “Let Gunnar go, please. Why are you doing this?”

Wes smoothed a shaky hand over her hair. “It’s okay, sunshine. I’m just taking care of our future. Yours and mine. I’ve always loved you. But you never saw it, you never cared. You only had eyes for Paul. So I took care of him. And now, I’ll take care of anyone else who stands in our way.”

“But we’re family,” she pleaded. “You’re just confused because of the pheromone.”

“Fuck the pheromone!” He slapped her again. From his tree, Gunnar wailed. “I was never under the influence of the pheromone. I love you. Why can’t you see it? Why do you think I’ve stuck around? It wasn’t because of Paul. I could care less about him. I wanted you. I poisoned him for you.”

“Poison?”

He snarled. “He didn’t have a brain disease. I made him sick with my supplements. I gave him all sorts of vitamins, telling him they’d help to keep him strong, but they made him crazed. I wanted you to see him for the animal he was and come to me. Fuck, I even found a hiker with a similar bear tattoo and mauled him to pass his body off as Paul’s. See the trouble I went to for you?”

The horror of her situation sank in with the piercing force of a vicious nurse stabbing her with a needle. “You did this to us? You, who I trusted with my son and my confidence?”

He brushed his lips against hers, stroking her with his tongue. “I did it for us, sunshine. You’re my world.”

She wiggled her mouth away from his and stared into his deranged eyes. Enraged, she spat into his face. “Go to hell. I hate you for what you’ve done.”

He growled and wiped his face, getting off her and standing up. He darted an angry look her way and then slowly approached a writhing Gunnar. “You know?” he murmured. “I had hoped the three of us could be a family. After all, I like Gunnar. But now I’m starting to think he might take up a bit too much of your energy. And I’m a jealous man. I won’t share you with anyone. Especially not Paul’s brat.”

Gioia watched, her pulse pounding with the worst fear she’d ever known, as Wes shifted and continued plodding over to her son. When he reached Gunnar, whose eyes were bulging in terror, Wes reached out. His claws were sharp and extended toward her child. He roared, and in the dreadful noise, she heard his intention to murder him.

As adrenalin shot through her core, as her need to fight kicked in, Gioia jolted with a lightning-quick stab of pain. No one would touch her son. And as the vow careened out of her, she heard it manifest in an ursine howl. She fell over on her hands and knees, supporting a quivering body, and watched in awe as her clothing flew off her body. As her arms and legs exploded into soft fur.

White fur. Polar bear fur.

Bear Gioia looked up, her lips wet with the need to kill, and lunged toward Wes. He turned, shocked at her change, his bear eyes big and wide. She hurled her big body at his, conscious of the fact that his was still far larger, but determined to bring the asshole down. Gioia clawed and raged and fought with every breath in her.

Fuck you! I won’t let you hurt my boy
.

Wes was under her now, fending off her attack. Still, Gioia maintained her offense, swinging her bear paws at him, doing her best to pound the crazy shit out of him. She thought she was succeeding when she raked her claws down his chest and he howled in fury.

Stunned by her own strength, she paused for a split second.

It was her undoing.

Wes rallied, roared, and used his force to push her back onto the ground. His mouth dripped with hot saliva. His black lips were pulled back, exposing the deadly sharpness of his teeth. As he reared up on his hind legs, screaming to the sky, Gioia scrambled over to Gunnar and clawed through his bonds in one swipe. He fell from the tree.

“Run
,” she urged with a huff. “
Run!”

Thank God he listened. Her head cocked, she let a tear fall from her bear eye as her boy shot into the woods. In her heart, she said good-bye and stifled a whimper.

Behind her, there was a sound of claws scraping through the gravel. With a heavy heart, Gioia turned to face Wes.

As her heart sank, as he raised his mighty paw, she roared out another promise. Remembering the passionate ways Soren had touched her and how his kisses had bound her to him forever, she cried out in despair for her soon-to-be-lost love.

“Soren! I love you.”

* * * *

His polar bear screeched again, almost sending Soren to the floor from the impact. His body might have been an incinerator, he felt so on fire. Each square inch piece of skin seemed abraded, as if someone were raking a chipped razor over his body.

Gioia! Please let her be in her room, safe
.

He pounded down the door to the suite. As soon as they saw Lia passed out on the floor, Soren began his frantic search through the rooms, all the while aware of his brother trying to revive his wife.

Ryland removed the dart from Lia’s neck and moaned. “No, baby, no.”

Fuck
. Ryland had already seen her almost die before. Soren knew his brother wouldn’t be able to withstand seeing her near death again. And he understood because the need to find Gioia was practically killing him.

“Gioia,” he called out, as Paul did the same.

As Ryland fussed over Lia, her lips finally moved. A few garbled words spilled out. “Too. Much. Wine.” And then she passed out again.

Ry looked at him, his face contorted with pain. “I have to stay with her.”

“I know.” Soren looked at Paul. “Are you with me?”

“Yeah, let’s go find them.”

Just as his bear urged him outside, he heard a sound in the hallway, one akin to the ruckus of a charging bull. Gunnar, red-faced and sweaty, burst into the room.

“Uncle Wes wants to kill Mom. Come!”

They chased the boy out of the room, out of the lodge, and into the black forest. As soon as they hit the wall of darkness that was the first layer of trees, Soren heard a grunt of frustration from Paul. Soren turned to him. “I won’t let him hurt her.”

“This is all my fault. I ruined everything.”

“We’ll get her back,” Soren promised. “And when we find them, you can help me rip his heart out.” He dodged a sizable oak as Gunnar veered into another part of the forest. “Do you still love her?”

Paul grunted. “I always will.”

As Soren darted through the brush, he couldn’t help worrying about the outcome to this tragic farce. As much as he’d do anything to keep Gioia with him, he couldn’t pretend she wasn’t married to this man. A man who, for all intents and purposes, was not such a bad dude after all. In fact, Soren saw a lot of the same brash protectiveness in Paul that he possessed, and admired him for it.

A tiny part of him, the most bothersome part, told him to step aside and give the Clementine family the chance at happiness they deserved. A chance of which they’d been robbed. If Wes hadn’t shown up, Gioia would have lived a happy life with Paul. He would have given her love and stability. Gunnar needed his dad and Gioia. Well, didn’t she deserve something better than a man who flew from gig to gig every week?

Even still, another part of him already acknowledged his old lifestyle was redundant. Even without her, he knew he couldn’t live the same way. As he’d already realized with aching clarity, he wanted to be her rock, and he would gladly forsake career and notoriety to do so.