Her Wild Hero

“Basically. I am a bear shifter, remember?” He gave her a small smile. “I’ll be completely out of it for a while, though, so I’ll need you to keep watch over me.”


“You know I will.” She chewed on her lower lip some more. What if he was making up the hibernation thing so she’d feel better? “Your file doesn’t mention anything about being able to heal yourself through hibernation. How do you know it will work? Have you done it before?”

He grabbed her hand where it still held the bandage over his chest and gave it a squeeze. “Yes, I’ve done this before—a couple of times on missions. I never wanted anyone to know about it, so the guys kept it out of the official reports.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. For the first time since they’d been ambushed, she actually had hope. “What can I do to help?”

“First, I need to eat and drink as much as I can. Then I need to sleep until my body decides I’ve healed enough.”

Which, according to him, could be several hours.

Kendra dug through his pack and pulled out all the food she could find—three and a half energy bars and a roll of cherry-flavored candy.

“Is that all we have left?” he asked.

“Yes. And don’t even try to talk me into eating any of it.” She gently lifted his head and held the first of the bars to his mouth. “If you don’t get better fast, I’m not going to need any food.”

Declan frowned but didn’t argue. He inhaled the power bars and the hard candy practically without chewing, then followed it up with half a canteen of water. When he was done, she rolled up one of his uniform tops and put it under his head as a pillow. Then she sat beside him and gently smoothed her hand over his forehead.

“My breathing and heart rate will slow down, so don’t be afraid when that happens,” he said softly.

She didn’t like the sound of that. “How long do you think you’ll sleep?”

“It’s hard to tell. Twelve hours, maybe more.”

That wasn’t so bad. “Okay.” She leaned over and gently kissed him. “Sleep tight. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He smiled at her, his eyes already drifting closed. “I know.”

Less than a minute later, the sound of his deep, steady breathing told her he’d already drifted off. His breathing slowed little by little until she could barely see his chest move. She had to fight the urge to check to make sure his heart was still beating.

Kendra looked at her watch. Ten a.m. That meant it’d be dark before he woke up. It was going to be a long twelve hours.

She took off her bloody T-shirt and put on the only other clean one she had. It was wet, but it was better than being covered in blood. She sat back against one of the boulders and tried to relax. But that was easier said than done. Seeing Declan broken and bloody like this was tearing her up with a pain unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She dragged her gaze away from the bandages covering his chest with a muffled sob and focused on his ruggedly handsome face. She couldn’t imagine a more beautiful man in the whole world, inside or out.

It was no surprise that she was in love with him.

She should have been shocked by that, but she wasn’t. Her feelings for Declan had grown in leaps and bounds every day they’d been out here. It was about time she finally admitted it. She only wished she’d gotten the chance to tell him before.

She blinked back tears. She couldn’t think like that. Declan was going to be fine, and when his body was done healing, he was going to wake up, and they were going to get out of this jungle and go home. Together. And they would make it home. Fate would never be so cruel as to finally allow her to find the love of her life only to lose him.





Chapter 11


“There was an ass load of hybrids on their trail,” Clayne said. “Half a dozen, at least.”

Angelo swore. Now that Clayne and Ivy were following the orchid scent Declan and Kendra had been using to hide from the hybrids, they were finally making up ground. If they kept this pace, they could catch up to the pair by tonight or tomorrow. But the ass load of hybrids Clayne had mentioned threw a kink in that plan. They’d been lucky since the ambush yesterday, but if there were half a dozen hybrids out there somewhere just ahead of them, it was going to slow them down.

“Any chance it was only a random pack going in the same direction as Declan and Kendra?” Angelo asked.

Clayne shook his head. “No. The hybrids’ trail is laid down right over Declan’s and Kendra’s. They were tracking them.”

“How long ago?” Tate asked.

No one in the group had slept much since they’d started this risky mission, but Tate looked the worst. The anxiety was tearing him up as bad as the guilt, not to mention the lack of sleep.

Clayne shrugged. “Twenty-four hours ago. Maybe less.”

Shit. It was hard to imagine Declan and Kendra getting away from that many hybrids.