Page 10 of Claimed By the Guardian

And waited.

Then Mother lost her patience.

“Now!” she snapped. Loud enough that everyone except Hank jumped: Mother from the force of her demand, Cecilia because she was startled, and the grizzly because the child had probably been conditioned to respond to that tone from childhood.

It worked. The huge creature shimmered as she jerked to respond to Mother. There was a golden glow to the transformation, but it was gone in the blink of an eye. The grizzly’s golden brown fur seemed to disappear into it and reform into a young black woman. Her pale brown body had a sturdy frame, a sweet face, and neat braids of black hair tucked against her head. And her liquid brown eyes sparkled with triumph as she grinned up at Mother.

“I did it! Mother, I did it!”

“That you did, little girl,” Mother said, her tone filled with pride.

Then she looked at the big black bear and threw her arms around him. “Hank, I did it!”

Hank chuffed in a note of clear pride, and his long tongue licked her neck. She was completely naked, but no one seemed to notice. Cecilia only did because her medical mind was cataloging the girl’s body and seeing no deformities, no scars, and nothing different from a human girl of approximately sixteen years. If anything, she?—

Crash!

The explosion of sound and glass caught Cecilia completely off guard. As did the stinging cuts from the shattered window. She would have screamed. The sound was startling enough. But by the time she drew breath, every part of her had seized up in terror. Because there, leaping into the center of the living room was the largest dog she’d ever seen.

And then she realized the truth.

It wasn’t a dog. It was a werewolf, and it had Mother in its jaws.

CHAPTER 5

Hank heard the werewolf coming a split second before the attack. If he hadn’t been so focused on congratulating Sammy for completing her first shift, he might have realized the problem earlier. But the girl had come through the most difficult moment of her young life with flying colors and that deserved a hug. Or at nuzzle, as it were. Which would have been fine if they’d been tucked away in Gladwin and protected by the safety of the largest Michigan pack.

They weren’t. They were right in the middle of werewolf territory and these wolves didn’t like it when the bears came to play. They’d usually tolerate it because urban living meant close quarters, but this wasn’t normal times. The moment the window burst inward, Hank smelled the hybrid stench.

He spun around, his gaze taking in all the details he could in a split second.

A single werewolf had burst in through the large window. Everyone had cringed in the spray of shattered glass. Cecilia was tied to the bannister, dark red lines of blood appearing all over her face and arms. Painful, but not lethal. Sammy was tucked behind him, naked in her human form and completely vulnerable. Fresh from her first shift, she’d be exhausted once the adrenaline wore off. He needed to get some food into her, then she’d probably sleep for days.

Which left the main problem. The werewolf dead center of the living room with his jaws around Mother’s shoulder. Worse, the thing was amped up, probably from drinking the tainted water. It certainly reeked of the hybrid stench though it appeared full wolf. Either way, Hank saw no intelligence in the thing’s eyes. Just vicious aggression.

Mother was screaming in pain and fury. She was trying to struggle, but he had her held fast. If the thing did what was normal for a wolf, it would clamp down and start to shake its head, trying to snap Mother’s neck or at least tear her apart.

Hank leapt before that could happen.

He caught the wolf around the neck, chomping down as hard as he could. He never would have had the chance if the wolf hadn’t had Mother in his mouth. Wolves were a damned sight faster than a bear and ten times as flexible. But Hank had size and strength on his side. Which meant when he clamped on a wolf’s neck—even an amped-up werewolf—he broke or crushed a lot of vital parts.

Blood burst in his mouth like vile hot copper. He tasted the taint and wanted to throw the thing back out of the window as fast as he could. But he didn’t know if Mother was free, so he throttled his natural response. The conflicting urges and the river of blood made him gag, which is a bad thing on a bear. He tossed his head and the wolf landed big and ugly on Mother’s favorite couch.

Worse, she went with it. Stumbling sideways as she fell from the dead wolf’s mouth.

But this time, Hank didn’t allow himself to be distracted. A quick scan of Mother showed she was alive and not spurting blood. That was all that was important right now as he spun to the shattered front window.

The night air was pouring through and Hank smelled what was coming. Damn it. What was already here.

Two hybrids climbed in the window, their eyes yellow with hatred and a stench that made Hank’s gagging reflex work overtime. In the background, he heard Sammy scream, “Mother!” as she surged forward. But more gratifying still was Cecilia’s bellow.

“Hank! Look out!”

She was warning him of the hybrids. He didn’t need her words, but they were satisfying nonetheless. And in a distant portion of his brain, he cataloged the ramifications of her words. She’d called him Hank, so she knew him even in his bear form. She called out a warning, so she’d kept her wits. And best of all, she was afraid for him. That warmed him, but he didn’t have time to think of it beyond noting the detail and even that was tucked way in the back of his mind.

The hybrids didn’t spare a glance for their fallen wolf. Even if he hadn’t seen the madness in their eyes that alone told him they were too far gone to recover. Even the darkest of men noted a fallen comrade and wolves were pack creatures. They could no more ignore a fallen pack mate than they could stop their heart from beating.

So he attacked.