Curran POV, Vol II Read Free Page B

it.
    Come on, Kate, push. Push.
    "Sorry about this," Barabas said.
    "Sorry about what?"
    He picked me up and dashed up the stairs. Two seconds and we burst out of a small iron door onto the tiny stone balcony. We were in one of the side towers, at a ninety-degree angle to the main keep. Two floors below us, an enormous bear and my lion squared of on the bloody snow.
    Oh Curran. You stupid, stupid man.
    Barabas lowered me to the floor.
    Mahon was breathing hard. His shaggy flanks rose up and down, expelling clouds of most vapor through his nose. Blood drenched his sides. Curran limped slightly, favoring his left hind leg.
    Curran lunged, a blur. I held my breath. He danced close, sliced at Mahon's face, and withdrew, avoiding a swipe of the colossal bear paw by a hair.
    Curran was trying to bleed Mahon out, but the Lyc-V was healing him faster than he could hurt him. Sooner or later Mahon would catch him. And an hour ago Curran had been unconscious on his bed.
    "Get me down to that balcony," I ground out.
    "I can't," Barabas said. "It's too far."
    I couldn't jump the distance, not with my leg. "Throw me."
    "There are fifty yards between us and them, not to mention the thirty-foot drop," Barabas said. "Your dead body would land between an enraged bear and a blood-mad lion. It's my duty to assist you in any way I can, but suicide isn't on the menu."
    My knee gave out. I sagged onto the stone rail and watched Curran fight. It was all I could do.

    *** *** ***
     
    He was going to catch me. My side hurt like hell and my vision was a little blurry. Mahon had swatted my head with his paw twice. It felt like being hit by a car. I couldn't take any more big shots to the head. I had to take him down and end this.
    Mahon swiped at me. I snapped at him and backed away.
    I had to goad him to go into a bear rage. If he rose on his hind legs, I had a chance.
    I smelled Kate. She was here. Somehow she was here. If I took my eyes off Mahon, he'd clobber me. Why couldn't she just do what she was told one damn time, just one damn time?
    Mahon charged.
    I dodged left, straight into the wall. He thought he had me and closed in: huge, fast, unstoppable. I bounced off the wall, flipped, and landed on top of him. Hello, old man. My claws pierced his hide and I sliced through his fur with all four sets of claws, peeling it off him from the head to his big shaggy ass.
    Mahon bellowed in pain.
    I leaped free and bit his nose. The bear paw caught my side. I took the hit- it hurt like hell- and swatted at his nose, cutting it. One, two, three. Again. Again.
    He charged me again, his head lowered. I veered right, closed my jaws on his injured ear and bit the rest of it off. The Bear roared, in pain and fury.
    I spat the ear out and knocked it toward him with my paw. No, you can keep it. Doesn't taste that great.
    The massive Kodiak bellowed like a foghorn and stood up.
    Yep, that did it, now he was good and pissed.
    With an earth-shattering roar he lumbered toward me, all bear, no human thought or strategy now, motivated by pure rage and pain. It would be his undoing or mine.

    *** *** ***
     
    Mahon rose on his hind legs. Curran limped away. His side was bleeding-a bad sign. The Lyc-V wasn't keeping up with the repairs.
    Mahon kept moving. Curran backed to the edge of the balcony. No place to go.
    If I lost him here, to this idiotic fight, after I fought and guarded him for two weeks, after I cried and thought he was dying, I would find him in the afterlife and I would murder him again.
    Mahon swung, too wide. Curran ducked under the huge claws, shockingly fast, and dug his own claws into the bear's left hind leg and bit down hard.
    I knew how much pressure those jaws could unleash. He bit through the fur and the muscle, and then Mahon's leg folded like a broken toothpick, as the huge feline fangs crushed his bones.
    Curran twisted and kicked out with his back legs, a move no lion could ever think of without a human brain driving it. His battered body