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

entrance I see is an air shaft about eight inches wide.”
    “I’m a very small cat,” Paisley said, hope rising within her. “Practically a kitten.”
    “Is it safe?” Eli demanded. “Don’t risk—”
    “Eli, stop talking,” Paisley said. As he continued protesting, she added loudly, “Sorry, can’t understand you. Your voice is really slurred. Jackson, show me the way. And hurry.”
    Jackson pulled up the route on the computer. Paisley memorized it, then hurriedly undressed and crammed her clothes into his backpack.
    Fur, claws, twitching whiskers…
    Paisley shifted and leaped up on to Jackson’s shoulder.
    Jackson took a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, then stood on a chair to remove the tiny screws from the screen over the opening of a small ventilation duct high in the wall. He took out the bottom two screws, then gave the screen an impatient shove. It swung out like a cat door, allowing Paisley to jump through, then swung shut behind her.
    Her claws clicked against metal as she squeezed through shafts so pitch black that even her cat eyes could see nothing. She relied on her whiskers and her memory of Jackson’s map to guide her, as she wriggled through ever-narrower tunnels.
    Paisley came up short at a wire screen. She had to unscrew the bolts with her teeth, wincing at the metal taste and the nails-on-a-chalkboard sensation. It was hard to do, and it made her jaw hurt. Finally, the last bolt came free and clinked to the floor.
    She leaped out of the duct and glanced around the sterile, empty lab. Paisley focused on human things— her fear for Eli, Jackson’s confidence in her, Eli’s sky-blue eyes, Jackson’s warm hands—and became a woman.
    She strode barefoot and nude to the refrigerator, found the labeled syringe with the antidote, and gingerly set it between her teeth. The plastic was cold against her lips. She shifted, holding the syringe tight as her jaw changed around it, and jumped back into the ventilation shaft.
    Paisley squirmed through another set of narrow ducts, her heart pounding, until she came to another screwed-in wire screen. In the dim light, she could see dummies scattered on the floor. Among them lay a living man, nearly as still. The sound of his labored breathing filled the room.
    She didn’t want him to spend one second longer lying there and wondering when she’d come. Paisley set down the syringe and meowed.
    It took her a moment to recognize the sound Eli made as a strangled chuckle.
    She again unscrewed the tiny bolts with her teeth, frantic with the thought that she was taking too long, that she’d be too late. Every twist she took, she expected the sound of Eli’s breathing to stop. By the time she could shove the screen out, grab the syringe in her teeth, and leap to the floor, she was near panic.
    Paisley shifted as fast as she had in the hotel room when she’d first met Eli and Jackson, as driven by fear for another as she’d been driven then by fear for herself. She took the syringe from her mouth as she knelt by Eli’s side.
    “Paisley,” he whispered, then stopped to draw in a difficult breath. “You got here safe.”
    “Shut up.” She pushed up his shirt sleeve and jammed the needle into the bulging muscle of his upper arm. “I told you not to talk.”
    Eli managed a faint smile. He was pale and sweating, his chest heaving with the effort it was taking him just to breathe, let alone talk. His right hand clutched a pistol, his knuckles whitened by his grip.
    “You can stop now,” he mumbled. “Paisley’s got me.”
    It took Paisley a second to realize that he was speaking to Jackson.
    “Was Jackson talking to you this whole time?” she asked.
    Eli nodded. His ragged breathing sounded louder than ever in the silence that fell as she crouched beside him in the chilly room. To Paisley’s surprise, he reached up to his ear, and clumsily dragged out his earbud. It fell to the floor with a tiny click.
    Eli followed her gaze. “Don’t want him