Free Bear's Baby (Bear Heat Book 4) by Natalie Kristen Page B

slipping away from her.
    She didn't want to die. She
couldn't die. She had a date this evening. She finally had a date.
And she liked him a lot, more than a lot in fact.
    She would like to see him
again.
    She thought she had time.
Time to take it slow, time to grow older, wiser.
    She thought of Baxter and
wished she could have told him what she'd truly felt the moment he
touched her.
    So much to do, so much to
say, so little time.
    His name escaped on a painful
breath as she slumped down in the passenger seat. “Baxter...”

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

    Baxter felt the sharp,
searing stab of pain as Lindy's voice whispered in his head. She was
calling his name.
    “Lindy!” he
roared as he neared the building that housed the offices of the
Behavioral Analysis Department. But even as he ran, he already knew
that she wasn't in the building.
    She was gone.
    His Lindy.
    Baxter stumbled to a stop at
the bottom of the steps leading up to the imposing office building.
He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to block out all the
noise and that terrible roar in his head. He had to grab on to her
voice. Her voice was fading, but it was there. The echo of it. He
could still hear her, feel her, feel the pull of her.
    “Thank fuck,” he
muttered to his bear. His bear had been right to claim and mark her
last night. He had stupidly tried to wrestle his bear down when he
took Lindy last night but the bear would not be held back from his
mate. His big, stubborn bear had done the right thing.
    His bear had saved his life
on numerous occasions, and now, his bear would save his mate. He had
claimed Lindy as his, and there was a mate bond between them. His
bear would be able to track his mate to the ends of the earth and
beyond. He could still feel her, even though her voice had faded in
his mind. He could feel her heartbeat, her pain, her fear. She was
hurt, but she was alive.
    A Harley motorcycle roared up
to the side of the curb. Two Black Bears leaped off the bike and
removed their helmets.
    “Bax!” Aidan and
his brother waved and hollered to him. “We were on patrol two
streets away when we got your alert. What do you need?”
    Baxter glanced down at his
watch. He had punched in a Code Red and activated the tracking
function on his watch. His Black Bears had found him in under two
minutes.
    “I need your bike,”
he yelled, running to them.
    “You got it!”
The two brothers stood aside as Baxter jumped on the Harley. Baxter
caught the helmet Aidan tossed at him and revved the engine.
    “We'll call for backup!
Keep your tracker on!” Aidan shouted after him.
    Baxter only nodded over his
shoulder as he roared away.
    His blood was roaring louder
than the motorcycle engine as he zipped between cars and trucks and
raced up the steep highway. The mate bond tugged him unerringly
towards Lindy, and he could feel himself moving nearer and closer to
her.
    He could feel her and now, he
could scent her.
    Her scent made something
fierce rise in his chest. The predator and protector rose to the
fore, as Baxter gunned his bike towards a tall, secluded condo
building.
    The condo was an expensive,
upscale development and was nestled in a very quiet part of the city.
Baxter circled to the back of the development and killed the bike
engine.
    With a running leap, he
scaled the wall surrounding the condo building and landed among the
manicured trees and bushes soundlessly. He had the strength of a
bear, but he could move like a cat.
    Crouching, he ran along the
wall, staying hidden behind the trees and flowering shrubs until he
reached the condo building. He pushed through a narrow door into the
stairwell and bolted up the stairs, three at a time.
    He knew exactly where Lindy
was. His bear guided him, and the mate bond pulled him towards his
mate. That, and the overpowering scent of her blood drove him
faster, harder up the stairs, towards the corner unit on the tenth
floor.
    The stench hit him the moment
he stepped out of the stairwell. His hand