Bear with Me (#2, Completed)

45. Karma

CALLUM

Did she really mean what I thought she meant?

Because I took you, you fool. Catriona's words kept playing in my head, shaking me down to my core.

In one single moment, everything I knew about my life turned out to be a lie.

"After my future, my soul- my little girl- was taken away from me, I had to find someone else who could achieve what she was meant to," she continued. "So it happened that I heard rumours from an old friend from my father's sleuth in Wales that the neighbouring bears had a boy, born with a flaming sun mark on that very same day, the day of Feyrir, and I knew that this was my chance. I travelled down without anyone knowing- people anyway thought I had shut myself off at home, mourning- and I stalked your mother, waiting for the perfect opportunity to snatch you. And it came, right when she went to the river with you one early morning. All I needed was a moment for her to step away, and I staged your drowning. Don't worry," she smirked. "I made sure that it was believable enough for them to lose all hope that you could possibly be alive." 

At that moment, I no longer saw Catty but the psychopath she truly was.

"You monster," Flame cried out, her eyes full of tears as she fought against Catriona's firm grip. "You took him away from his parents, and you had him believe that he was abandoned, left like a useless object. How could you?"

"Oh, stop whining, girl- you sound like Fergus every time that I told him how useless he was throughout the years. Even that didn't help to make a proper bear shifter out of him."

"I hope you get what you deserve, and you rot in hell for what you have done to Callum and Fergus," my mate roared and pulled Catriona's shifted claw down- stunning me with her strength- just enough to then bite her arm. Her tactic was successful because the she-bear screamed in pain and loosened her grip around Scarlett's throat.

It all lasted for seconds, but it was enough time for Flame to slip from underneath Catriona's arm and to try to twist it behind her attacker's back. But my former adviser was an experienced fighter and a shifter, so she wasted no time shifting to her bear form, making it impossible for Flame to restrain her.

I shifted as quickly as I could as well, Mahon ready to immediately attack Catriona, but we were not fast enough.

My heart froze mid beat, fear burning a trail to it, as Catriona's sharp claws swiped at my mate, slashing her clothes until a bleeding gash appeared on her stomach. Flame tried to cover the wound, pressing it with her hands to stop the gushing blood, but it was too deep, quickly covering her fingers in crimson liquid.

Yet, that was nothing- nothing- in comparison to the terror that stormed throughout my blood and bones when Catriona's bear opened her snout widely and sunk her teeth in Flame's shoulder, right next to her neck. 

Excruciating pain sliced through me, my body crippled by my mate's pain. Those fractions of seconds felt like hours while Mahon and I watched helplessly as the she-bear shook Flame's fragile body around like a rag doll, doing her best to snap the neck of her prey like the predatory animal that she was, and then she hurled her through the air until my mate crashed into the trunk of a redwood tree with a heavy thud.

"Noooooo," Mahon and I both bellowed in unison when Flame hit the ground, unconscious.

The ache in my chest almost seemed to explode then, pain and rage engulfing me in equal measures. The icy grasp around my throat made it impossible to breathe. My world crumbled once again before my very eyes, except this time, it was more real than ever.

A bawl of despair echoed through the forest. Mahon's bawl.

No!

Every cell of my being refused to accept that there was even a vague possibility that this was it.