A Pair of Bears: Bear Shifter Menage Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant Read Free Book Online Page A

that might as well have been made of glass.
    Eli opened the door and hurried toward the dummies. He knelt beside the first one and started to undo the buckle. Something sharp pricked his fingertip, drawing a bead of blood.
    Talk about made of glass , he thought. Then he saw the tiny, spring-loaded needle that his touch had released.
    “Fuck!”
    Eli tried to leap to his feet, but his legs didn’t support him. He fell to the floor with a crash. The room was spinning around him. He’d gotten so excited, he hadn’t looked for traps. Now he’d been hit by a tranquilizer dart, just like the ones he’d used on the guards.
    He snatched desperately for the earbud in his pocket. He had to warn Paisley and Jackson, though he knew he’d never have time to get it in before he passed out. Eli’s fingers were clumsy and numb. The earbud slipped from his fingers and rolled across the floor.
    If he’d been hit by a tranquilizer dart, he’d be unconscious by now. He was awake, but he felt cold and sick. His body wouldn’t move right. He couldn’t breathe.
    Not a tranquilizer, he realized. Poison.

Chapter Five
     
    Paisley
     
     
    “Paisley! Jackson!”
    It took Paisley a second to recognize the voice over her earbud as Eli’s. He was gasping, his words slurred and hard to understand.
    “You’re hurt!” Paisley exclaimed.
    “Poisoned,” Eli managed.
    “ Poisoned? ” Jackson echoed, horrified. “Where are you?”
    “R&D.”
    Jackson jumped up. “I’m on my way.”
    Paisley could hear the effort it was taking Eli to speak as he demanded, “Wait! Have you got all the data?”
    “Not all of it, but—” Jackson began.
    “Get it all.”
    “Shut up, Eli. Can you walk?”
    “No.”
    “Then I’m coming to get you.”
    “No! Jackson—” Eli’s voice cut off as if he’d been choked. His ragged breathing echoed in Paisley’s ear as if he was lying beside her. He sounded like he was dying . But he cared more about protecting his fellow soldiers than being saved himself.
    A hot feeling rose up in Paisley, made of desperation and determination and maybe even love. Eli was in danger. She had to help him, but she wasn’t sure what she could do. She didn’t know much about computers, so she couldn’t take over the hacking while Jackson rescued Eli. And there was no way she was strong enough to carry a big guy like him to safety.
    She had nothing to give him but empty, useless words. But since they were all she had, she said, “It’s okay, Eli. We’ll get the data, and we’ll save you. You don’t have to choose. ”
    “Oh. All right. Thanks.” Eli sounded like he’d taken some comfort from her words. Maybe they weren’t so useless, after all.
    Jackson began typing frantically, tension radiating from every line of his body. “Hang in there, Eli. I’ll look up what hit you— Look up the antidote and get it to you—”
    “It’s booby-trapped!” Eli gasped. “Look up the traps . Don’t get caught!”
    Jackson’s dark eyes flickered back and forth as he read through scrolling pages of information faster than Paisley would have thought possible. “You’re right. There’s other traps too. Someone’s been expecting us— or someone like us.”
    Paisley glanced around uneasily. “Do they know we’re here?”
    “I doubt it. We’d have been busted way before we got to download any of their precious data.” Jackson continued typing as he spoke. Then his shoulders sagged in relief. “Eli, the poison they used on you has an antidote, and I’ve found where it is. If we can get it to you within thirty minutes, you’ll be fine.”
    “I’ll go,” Paisley offered. “Jackson can stay and keep downloading.”
    “Lasers,” Eli warned her.
    “Yeah, they came back on,” Jackson said. “I just started running the program to turn them off again. But Paisley can crawl through the ventilation shafts. She’d have to anyway. The antidote’s in a room that’s booby-trapped to hell and back. The only safe