Bailey Bradford - Southwestern Shifters 07 - Revolution Read Free Page A

sure he was provided for.
“I’m not helpless. I can provide too.”
Jamie’s calm statement was true enough, but Luuk tried to explain his reasoning. “Yes, but I want to take care of you. I need to. One day, we can be as we are meant to be.”
“I still feel like we’re being watched,” Jamie shared.
Luuk lowered his head and listened so hard the silence made his ears burn. He sniffed, raising his nose into the air. Nothing unusual caught his attention. Still, had he been human, his skin would have prickled with goose bumps. As it was, his fur was nearly standing on end.
His instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong. Luuk nudged Jamie hard on the shoulder right before a bullet whizzed through the silence. He didn’t have to tell Jamie to run.
Luuk stayed behind Jamie, hoping to shield him as they ran full-out towards whatever city or town lay ahead. More bullets were fired, one singeing Luuk’s fur and making his skin burn along his left hip. Luuk stumbled. Jamie slowed and Luuk nipped his heel, too scared for his mate to be gentle. He forced himself to run, knowing if he fell, Jamie would stop, and they’d both be dead.
Chapter Four
    I am not helpless! I don’t need to be rescued like some pathetic princess in a fairy tale! Jameson was scared, though, because Luuk was hurt and yeah, this might be it for them. All his dreams of having a normal—whatever that meant, considering they were shifters—life with his mate, or at least a life where they weren’t constantly trying not to be killed, began to evaporate with each whiff of his mate’s blood.
Then anger came, blowing through Jameson with the force of a volcanic eruption. He was so fucking tied of running!
“Jamie…”
Even Luuk’s mental voice sounded weak, drained, too close to hopeless, and Jameson had just outright had it. He spun on his back paws, pivoting around Luuk in a blur of movement. Jameson clipped Luuk’s hip with his head, knocking him behind a jagged boulder partially covered with snow.
“Stay safe. I love you.” Jameson put every bit of the love he had for Luuk in the thought. He clamped his mind shut to his mate, and doing so brought out what he’d tried to keep back.
The darkness inside him, the insidious black mood he knew was depression, suffocating all the light, was now pouring through him. It didn’t blanket his anger, instead twining with it in a way to strip Jameson of concern for himself. All he wanted was for Luuk to survive and for this to end. He was so tired. So very tired.
Jameson remembered his grandma telling him God watched over fools and babies, which had seemed contradictory to the Bible—at least the fools part did. He wondered if anything out there in the universe would watch out for him.
Bullets hit the ground beside his front paws, sending up chunks of snow and rock. Pieces of the latter pelted his coat but Jameson didn’t give a shit. Every leaping stride he took fuelled his anger, his determination to protect his mate. Jameson had never killed before, but he knew he was going to this time.
Something inside him was breaking. Luuk had been hurt before, they both had, and Jameson just couldn’t. Deal with it. Accept it. Let it go unpunished. Fail my mate.
Whether it was his will or luck or skill, he didn’t know or care, but Jameson avoided getting shot as he ran, swerving and jumping, pushing his wolf as far as he could. An outcropping of rocks up on a slippery ledge was where the shots were coming from. Jameson was almost there. He put his nose to the ground and tried to keep his body compact now.
The temptation to check on Luuk was strong, but Jameson was afraid of becoming distracted. That couldn’t happen when he was trying to save Luuk.
Rocks and snow skittered down the slope and it took Jameson a few seconds to realise no more bullets were being fired. He lifted his head and dared to look. Fury spiked his chest when he saw his prey jumping up and taking off. The dark-haired man