Her Wild Hero

Kendra was never going to understand Declan’s mood swings. After spending a good part of last night and this morning connecting with each other, he’d suddenly shut down on her, as if someone had hit a switch and changed his channel on her. And she had absolutely no idea why. She’d retraced their conversation and her actions over the last few hours but couldn’t identify anything she’d said or done that might have provoked him to pull away from her and drop that damn wall of his back into place.

And they had been getting closer; she’d felt the wall coming down. Nothing else explained the willingness Declan had shown in opening up about that bitch who’d dumped him. She’d almost cried more than once during his story. It was either that or shoot something. She’d never met Marissa, and she hated her. What sort of idiot walked away from someone as special as Declan just because he’d flashed some fangs and claws while in the process of saving her life? The woman must be the dumbest twit on the planet.

Then again, she could say the same thing about herself. She might not have dumped Declan, but she’d ignored him for years, which was just as bad. Maybe worse.

But while she might not get his mood swings, Kendra now completely understood one very important thing about Declan. His ex-fiancée was the reason he kept a wall up around himself. He wasn’t going to let anyone get close enough to hurt him like that again. She only wished there was some way to make him see she was different from Marissa.

She glanced at him as they weaved through the trees covering the mountainous slope. “You know, I’ve been thinking about something—”

Declan held up his hand, cocking his head to the side in a posture she was growing to really dislike. “Hold on.”

Not again.

“Hybrids heading this way,” he said. “And they’re coming in fast.”

Kendra raced up the hillside as quickly as she could while at the same time picking her path carefully, so she wouldn’t kick loose any rocks. This was a big ridge to get over with nowhere to hide. If the hybrids caught them out here, it was over.

By the time they crested the ridge, she was gasping for air. Thank God she wasn’t still wearing her pack or she would’ve been in even more trouble. The cumulative effect of little food, hardly any sleep, and days spent running for her life were finally catching up to her. But there was no rest just because they’d gotten to the top. Declan hurried her right down the other side, urging her to go even faster as they approached the thick jungle growth covering the ravine at the bottom.

Kendra groaned when she saw there was another ridge waiting for them. This one was even steeper and more thickly overgrown than the one they’d just traversed. There was no way she could make it up that at anything approaching a full run.

“We have to keep moving,” Declan said, grabbing her hand and pulling her after him. “They’re just on the other side of the ridge we crossed. I think they have our scent.”

Crap. She was in no condition to get into a footrace with a pack of hybrids.

“How many of them are there?” she asked, working fast to catch her breath. “Can we fight them?”

He shook his head. “Too many. We can’t fight them. Not out in the open like this.”

Dammit. She picked up speed, psyching herself up for the climb, when Declan suddenly changed direction, running parallel to the slope instead of up it.

“What are we doing?” she demanded as he hustled her through the jungle.

“Change of plans.” He pushed her ahead of him. “Keep running straight ahead.”

She didn’t have a clue what he was up to, but she liked any plan that didn’t involve running up the side of a mountain. She started rethinking that idea a few minutes later, when their route led straight to a swiftly moving stream and Declan dragged her into it with him.

God, it’s cold!

Biting her lip, she lifted her weapon high and let Declan lead the way upstream through the freezing, knee-deep water. The stream was moving fast, and the bottom was filled with big rocks that rolled out from under her feet as she moved. Hitting them at a stumbling run made it hard to keep upright. If Declan hadn’t been holding her hand, she would have fallen a dozen times.

Kendra was so numb from the cold, she barely realized the tree-lined banks had transitioned into steep, rocky cliffs. Her eyes went wide. If the hybrids followed them in here, there’d be nowhere to go but up those cliffs, and she’d never be able to climb them. She and Declan would be trapped. Her panic kicked up a notch when he abruptly changed direction and headed for the nearly vertical cliff on their right. What the hell was he thinking?

But when they got to the stone wall, Declan didn’t order her to climb as if her life depended on it. Instead, he shoved some hanging vines out of the way to reveal a wide diagonal gash in the rock that was almost four feet wide and ten feet high.

A cave?

“How did you know this was here?” she asked.

His mouth quirked. “I’m a bear, remember? Finding caves is in my nature.”