Bear Run: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Pine Ridge Bear Shifters Book 1) (5 page)

“Come on,” she said. “Have it.”

Taggart shook his head. “No. You.”

She pouted, and he loved the look
of her in the morning. Her cheeks were rosy and her hair in disarray, her
clothes rumpled and dirty from hiking around the forest all day yesterday, but
there was a glow about her that set off something inside him.

She was still holding the snack bar
out to him. She’d already eaten one, but he knew that wasn’t much and she would
need more nourishment. She was his mate, he knew that now, could feel it from
the way his bear growled inside him, and he had to take care of her.

“But you must be
starving
,” she said. “I know bear
shifters can eat a horse. Maybe literally. Like everyday.”

He smiled. “Maybe half a horse.”

“Ha ha. Come on, eat. Just a
nibble.” When he refused, she ran her eyes up and down him. He was still naked,
of course, not having found any clothes at the cabin, and at her appraisal he
could feel his cock stirring again ...

“Whoa there, cowboy!” she said, but
she said it with a laugh that let him know she wouldn’t have minded an
early-morning romp. Not at all.

My
horny little mate
, he thought, and grinned. “You sure?” he said.

He could smell her grow wet at the
thought. “No,” she said, sounding adamant, if reluctantly so. “Those Black
Valley bears could be back on the hunt, and so could Pa and Bradley.”

He sighed and nodded. The rain had
stopped and the sun was rising. Time for the unpleasantness to begin again.

“And if you’re going to protect
me,” she said, “you’re going to need your strength. So please, for me, eat up.”

He had to smile again, if for
different reasons. His mate, so strong, so smart. Using his own protectiveness
to get him to eat the last of their food. Just the same, she was right. He was
starving, and it would make him weak. Not that that little oat bar would do
much. Half a horse sounded much closer to what he needed. But maybe he could
catch something later. Until then, every little calorie he consumed would help
keep them safe. Both of them.

“Fine,” he grumbled, and she smiled
wider when he snatched the bar and began munching on it. “We shouldn’t waste
any time,” he said. He picked up the letter from Mike he’d left on the table in
the living room and stared at it again. It annoyed him that his schooling had
been so long ago that the letters were like alien characters to him. The Black
Valley bears didn’t have much use for reading, although there were a couple of
more educated shifters there. “Can you take this?” he asked Alice.

She nodded, accepted the letter,
gently folded it and made it disappear into a pocket. “We’ve
really
got to get you some clothes,” she
said, but she didn’t sound quite so adamant on this point. That amused him and
he thought of suggesting another session of lovemaking again, but she was
right, his smart sexy little mate; it was time to go.

They left the cabin behind and he
turned when they reached the tree line to give it one last look.

Alice saw his expression and took
his hand. “Does it bring back memories?”

He nodded. No sense trying to
pretend. You didn’t lie to your fated mate. “I don’t think I want to talk about
it,” he said. “If that’s okay.”

She nodded, and he knew that hurt
her a little, but he also knew she understood. He led the way off through the
forest, his mind churning, and his heart, too. Those days, his time with his
family in the cabin, had been long ago, but they seemed just like yesterday
somehow. And when he thought on them, they seemed better somehow, not like they
had in real life. In real life they’d either been dull routine, chopping wood
and hunting and cleaning and so on, or nerve-racking, with hunters and Black
Valley shifters posing a constant danger, and sometimes crushingly sad, like
when his sister Jenna was killed by a hunter who thought she was a regular bear
and had been hysterical when she’d turned back into a human. But when Taggart
thought on those days, there was a sort of golden glow around them, like when
the sun hit a lake just right and made it glow with an inner light.

It was like that even though he
knew it had really been different. And it had—been different, that is. It had
just been dull everyday life. But at the same time, he knew, that golden glow
was real, too. Those had been happy times, at least most of them, and they were
special.

He wanted to talk to Alice about
it, to try to explain, but he didn’t have the words for it. Black Valley bears
didn’t talk about stuff like that. He imagined her Pa and her brother didn’t
much talk like that, either. Maybe she and Taggart could
learn
to talk like that. They would teach each other.

Something caught his eyes, and his
nose, too. He stopped, motioning for Alice to come to a halt, too.

“What is it?” she said, whispering.
She could obviously feel his alarm.

He crouched down, studying a paw
print in the wet ground. Last night’s rain had left the soil in the perfect
condition for tracks. That was bad for everybody, he thought. Everybody could
track everyone else’s movements.

Alice breathed out in a shudder,
and he could smell a waft of fear come off of her. Sensible girl.

“Is that ... a bear paw?” she said.

He nodded, staring at the impression
in the soft ground. And there was another, and another. “It was going that
way,” he said, indicating a direction to the east.

“Was it left by a shifter?”

“Yes.”

“You can tell by the smell?”

Again he nodded. “Black Valley, I’m
certain of it. And there could be others. Often they—we, or was—will travel in
groups, each bear spaced apart a bit.” Standing, he moved to the right thirty
paces, then to the left. It was just as he’d thought. “There’s at least three
of them,” he said.

“God!” Her face had gone pale.

He went to her and wrapped an arm
about her, drawing her in to his chest. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll
protect you.”

“From all three?”

He felt a tremor course through him.
The growl didn’t seem to scare Alice, though. Strangely it appeared to soothe
her. She relaxed a little, and her breathing became more even.

“From a hundred,” he said.

She smiled and looked up at him,
her eyes misty. “Okay then, my big bear hero, I believe you. Just the same, do
you mind if we go
that
way?” She
pointed in a more westerly direction, well away from the trajectory the Black
Valley bear shifters had been following.

He laughed. “That way’s fine.”

He pushed off, moving in the more
westerly direction, and she followed close at his heels. She really was a brave
one, he thought, and smart, too. His sexy, curvy, smart little hunter girl.

Before they had gone a hundred
yards, a shot rang out. Shards of bark exploded from a tree just in front of
Taggart.

“Shit!” he said.

Alice grabbed his arm and pulled
him back behind a huge tree, and the two hunkered low as another gunshot
cracked through the forest.

“Damn it all,” she hissed. “It’s Pa
and Bradley, I’m sure of it.”

He sniffed, carefully unraveling
the different smells, then nodded. “Yeah, it’s them all right. I think they’ve
masked their scent somehow. Maybe by rolling in mud.”

“There’s a lot of it around,” she
agreed, then swore under her breath. “Won’t they ever leave us alone?”

He growled in frustration. They
were pinned down quite effectively. If they moved out from the tree in either
direction Alice’s stupid brother and father could shoot them. He would love to
tear their throats out. Just the thought of it sent a glorious thrill
throughout his being, and his bear raged eagerly inside him.

“Don’t lose control,” Alice said, looking
worried, as if she could sense it.

He didn’t say so, but he thought it
might be better if he did lose control, if he just stormed up there raging,
frightening them so bad they couldn’t aim, and tore their damn fool heads off.
Where were they, anyway? He could smell them, but the wind was shifting and he
couldn’t pinpoint where the scents came from. He hadn’t even seen the flashes
of their muzzles.

Risking a bullet between the eyes,
he popped his head out, squinted, and ducked back behind the tree just as
another shot rang out.

“Taggart!” Alice said, her eyes
adorably wide. “What are you doing?”

“I saw ‘em,” he said. “Up the
slope, behind a tree.”

She slapped a palm to her forehead.
“Idiots! What do they think they’re doing? And to be here this early ...”
Comprehension dawned across her face. “They must have stayed out here
all night
.” She shook her head in
bemusement. “They’re madder than I thought.”

“Naw. They just want their girl
back.” A thought hit him like a blow. “Or ...”

“Or what?”

He felt sick at the mere notion.
“Or they want to keep you from becoming ... corrupted. I’m sure that’s how
they’d think of it, anyway.”

She blinked, then flashed an impish
smile. “Too late.”

He made himself return the smile,
but he didn’t feel it. “That too,” he said, “but maybe something else.”

“What?”

“They want to keep you from being
Turned.”

Her mouth made an O. “I hadn’t even
thought of that. And that can really happen?”

He wasn’t sure if that was
excitement in her face, or fear. He thought it might be a bit of both.

“I can claim you,” he said. “Mark
you as mine. The claiming bite Turns you. Puts a bear in you.”

“Puts a
bear
in me ...” She placed a hand to her chest as if feeling a bear
awakening there, or imagining what it might feel like. She glanced up at him, looking
embarrassed.

Another shot rang out. This time
the bullet struck the ground near the tree, showering mud and grass.

“Demon!” a voice called down from
the upslope. “You won’t take my girl from me! Alice, get your fat ass up here
and I’ll take it easy on ya.”

“This is your last chance, cow,”
hollered another voice, and Taggart recognized Bradley’s snide tones.

“Shut it!” snarled the other one,
the one Alice called Pa. In a somewhat gentler voice, he called down, “He’s
right, though, girl! This is it! Come up and rejoin your family or else!”

“Or else
what
?” Alice yelled up to them.

Of course she would know what else,
but Taggart knew what she was doing. She was trying to get them to say it, as
if just saying it would unnerve them, shame them, scare them out of actually doing
it. Hell, maybe it would.

A silence passed, but then Bradley
called out, “Then we’ll drill you both, you stupid bitch!”

A grimace passed across Alice’s
face, and she looked apologetically up to Taggart. “Maybe we can go back the
way we came,” she said. “Keep the tree between us and them, at least far enough
to be out of range, and then make a break for it.”

“I don’t think that’s such a great
idea,” he said. “Do that and we’ll just get holed up in the cabin. We’ll be
under siege, and with no supplies. Both our bellies are rumbling already.”

She nodded, her face tight. “What
then?”

He frowned, thinking.

“I’ll go to them,” she said in a
small voice.

“What?”

She tried on a smile, but it looked
false. “Just as a distraction. Meanwhile you break for it. I’ll steal their
rifle and join you.”

Such bravery! His love for her
swelled even more. “They seem too willing to shoot you.” He shook his head. “I
won’t let you do it.”

“You think you can stop me?”

He kept his voice as level as he
could. “Let’s not find out.”

She made a fist and smacked it
against the tree. He could tell it wasn’t anger at him, though, but at her pa
and brother.

“What, then?” she said.

“ENOUGH WASTIN’ TIME!” Pa shouted
down. “Come out, girl, or we’ll come down to
you
. An’ we do that we’re liable to shoot you down with the bear.”
He didn’t pronounce it ‘bear’, though, but ‘bur’.
We’re liable to shoot you down with the bur.

“Eat dick!” Alice shouted back, and
Taggart snorted a laugh, shocked but amused. She turned to him and smiled.
“Like that,
bur
man?”

He grinned. “I like it just fine.”
He pointed toward the east. “We’ll go that way. I’ll Shift, giving you
shelter.”

“But they’ll shoot you!”

“There’s a lot of trees in the way,
and we’ll be moving fast. I don’t think they could get a kill shot, and I can
heal fast from anything else.”

“Your plan is
to shield me with your body
?”

“That’s right.”

“No!”

“It’s the only way.”

One of her hands stole up to his
face and touched his cheek. Her eyes were swimming, and she had never looked so
beautiful.

“This is a stupid plan,” she said.

“I know.” He crushed her to him and
planted his lips against hers. She responded passionately, flattening her
generous body against his, and instantly he could feel himself begin to grow
hard. No time for that, though. He broke away. “Are you ready?”

“Rock ‘n’ roll.”

Alice couldn’t believe they were doing this. This was
insane. Taggart’s proposed act of bravery and sacrifice stunned her—horrified
her. She wanted to beg him not to do it, but she knew it would be futile. He
was bound and determined to save her at any cost. It was all so
nuts
. And yet here they were, in the
forest being attacked by her asshole family and about to seek shelter in the
direction the asshole Black Valley bears had been traveling in. It was an awful
gamble, but she knew it was their best shot. No pun intended.

“I’m Turning,” Taggart said, giving
her warning, and she stepped back, careful to keep the huge tree between her
and Pa and Bradley as Taggart let his bear explode out from him. One moment he
was a hot naked man—shit, the love of her life; she knew it keenly, could feel
it in the pit of her stomach—and the next he was a roiling mass of fur and
fangs and slabs of muscle, a terrible grizzly bear standing ten feet tall and fully
800 pounds.

A nervous ripple coursed up her
spine, and she gasped. He was so big, so primal.

He lowered himself to all fours and
thrust his head toward her. She hesitated, bit her lip and stroked his fur. His
whole being vibrated, and despite herself, despite her fear, she smiled.
Taggart might be a superhuman badass, but he was no threat to her. He was hers.

As it to prove this, he stepped out
from the cover of the tree. She gathered her resolve and stepped with him,
keeping him between her and Pa and Bradley, using him as a living shield, just
as he’d wanted. A shot rang out, and Taggart grunted, sort of staggered.

“Tag!” she cried, and it was as if
she could feel the bullet herself.

Instead of pausing, though, he
loped faster. She moved with him, putting distance between where they were and
where they had been—and placing trees between them and the snipers. Well, one
sniper, really, since Pa and Bradley had to trade off using their single rifle.
Despite everything, she grinned, imaging them fighting over it, but the grin
quickly vanished when another shot sounded. This one struck a tree not far over
Alice’s head, and a chip of bark sliced her cheek. She cried out in surprise
and stumbled.

Taggart paused, turning to her.

“Keep going!” she said, and moved
off at a trot. He’d been going too slow, not wanting her to get left behind,
but it had put him at risk. Put both of them at risk.

“Don’t baby me!” she said. “Run
full out!”

With obvious reluctance, he went
faster, going uphill now, into a rockier area. The trees soared higher here and
cast more shade, plunging them into darkness. Another shot fired, and another.
Pa and Bradley’s aim was getting worse, thank goodness. They really were almost
out of range.

When no shots sounded for several
seconds, Alice glanced back to see two figures leave the protection of their
tree and run pell-mell after her and Taggart. Pa and Bradley tripped and
stumbled over what looked like every fallen branch, and she almost laughed to
hear them curse. Her lungs burned and sweat stung her eyes.

“We did it,” she said, gasping. “We
just have to keep going till—”

A great bear loomed before them,
appearing from behind an outcropping. Almost black of fur, the enormous thing
must stand eleven or twelve feet tall, and white and gray scars cut through its
shadowy mantle. It loosed a terrifying growl and slammed its forepaws into the earth,
seeming to shake the ground.

Taggart, laboring for breath, drew
to a stop, and Alice stopped beside him.

“Leave us alone!” she told the new
bear.

The huge black bear—well, black
grizzly bear, anyway—stalked forward, and murder gleamed in its golden eyes.
There wasn’t much light in this part of the woods, but there was more than
enough light for Alice to see the malevolence in those eyes: the need for vengeance.
Kane
, she thought.
This is Kane, the alpha of the Black Valley
bear shifters.

Taggart didn’t back down, even
though blood wept from his shoulder; Alice saw it when she moved around him,
trying to see a way past Kane, if it was him (and it just
had
to be). Taggart stepped forward, a growl ripping up from his
huge bear chest and steam issuing from between his jaws.

As if in response, two more bears
appeared, each from a different side of the outcropping. Flanking Kane, they
moved beside him, supporting their alpha. Taggart growled in mixed rage and
disgust.

Kane stepped forward again, and
Alice could sense him readying himself for the final charge. Up against not
only this huge black grizzly but two others as well, there was no way Taggart
could win, especially wounded as he was. Alice saw that all too clearly.

“Hey!” she said, waving her arms.
“Back off!”

In answer, Kane took another step
forward. He was very close now. Alice could smell him, a musky, bitter odor
that was somehow even more primal and bloodthirsty than Taggart’s more nutty
scent.

“HEY!” she said again, commanding
attention.

Kane huffed at her and swung his
head in her direction. He showed his teeth, and a terrible growl coursed up his
chest. When it met her she could also smell the stench of decaying meat from
something he’d eaten.

Obviously furious at Kane
endangering his mate, Taggart stepped forward again. Shit, they were less than
ten feet apart now.

Kane swung his attention back to
Taggart. Hate glimmered in his golden eyes.

“I don’t think so,” Alice said.

She unslung her rifle and pointed
it at Kane. One shot left. He lifted his lip again, obviously disdainful of the
damage she could do with what he might consider to be a pitiful peashooter.

“Oh, yeah?” she said.

She flicked the safety off, then
fired a round over Kane’s head. The shot boomed loudly in the stillness of the
shadowy forest, and birds fluttered overhead, startled by the sound. Kane
paused and drew back, paying attention to Alice now.

Shit
shit shit
, she thought. She’d used her only bullet in a bid to scare Kane
off, but he wasn’t running away. Neither were the other two, though they didn’t
come any closer.

“I’ve got more where that came
from!” Alice said, praying they couldn’t hear the lie in her voice.

Her hands shaking, she made a show
of chambering another round, but it was only pretend. Hopefully their
bear-senses were too hopped up on testosterone or whatever for them to notice.

Alice glanced behind her. At first
she didn’t see Pa or Bradley and thought maybe the shot had caused them to duck
for cover—they might think she was shooting at them—but no, there they were,
the idiots, still coming closer, darting from tree to tree. Obviously they
feared that she might fire at them.
I
probably should’ve
, she thought.

She turned back to Kane. He
regarded her fiercely.

Energies tensed around him, and the
air flickered. A second later he had drawn the bear inside him and was a man
once more. Alice blinked to see the tall, naked, handsome man before her. He
had long black hair and a hard face with dark eyes. His features made her think
he was probably half white and half Indian—Native American, that is. Sweat
gleamed on his muscular, hairless chest, which was criss-crossed in white
scars, and his abs rippled with exertion above his thick, swinging cock. His
long, powerful legs bent in a half-crouch, as if ready to spring on Taggart at
a moment’s notice.

His eyes were on Alice, however.
“You could have shot me,” he said. Even his voice held the hint of a Native
American accent, though Alice couldn’t have said what tribe or nation he came
from. “
I
would have.”

“Well, I’m not you,” she said.
Instantly she wished she could have thought of a better comeback, but it was
too late now.

Beside her Taggart drew in his
bear, as well. Looking pained, he clapped a hand over his new gunshot
wound—this one in the upper arm, opposite to the one he’d been shot in
yesterday—and glared daggers at Kane.

“She’s better than you, you filth,”
Taggart said.

Kane’s eyes narrowed further.
“Traitor. You will either come with us or we will rip you apart.”

Taggart’s gaze swept from Kane to
the other two bears. “At least my brother’s not with you.”

Kane spat. “I ordered Sam to await
you back at the camp. I could have allowed him the satisfaction of ending you,
but I wanted that for myself if it came to it.” His chest swelled. “Does it?”

“One on one?” Taggart said. “Or
will these two be joining in?”

Kane’s expression was pitying. “Do
you really think I’d need them? Especially in your condition?”

Taggart’s face ticced in rage.
“Let’s find out.”

“No!” said Alice, and threw herself
between the would-be brawlers. Why were men always so quick to fight? Was it
really easier than talking? “We’re leaving, and we’re doing this peacefully.
Kane, you and your people go one way and we’ll go the other.”

“It’s no use, Allie,” Taggart said.
“All Kane and his kind understand is violence.”

As if to confirm this, Kane said,
his gaze fixed on Taggart’s like a snake’s: “I will bleed you for this. Submit
and I’ll try not to do it all the way. But I
will
break your legs.”

“I choose freedom,” Taggart said.
“If the price is death, then so be it.”

“Very well—” Kane said, then
quickly cut off, as another gunshot cracked through the forest. Blood burst
from the side of his neck, but it was only a flesh wound. He spun toward the
sound, and so did Alice. It was Pa and Bradley, of course, having taken shelter
behind a boulder fifty yards away—as if anyone here had a gun that could fire
back! Maybe they thought one of the bears had a gun hidden under their fur. Or
maybe they were just concealing their numbers, wanting the shifters to think
there were more than just two of them.

At any rate, it must have been like
a godsend to Pa and Bradley: four bear shifters for the price of one! She could
practically hear their giddy laughter.

“At them!” Kane said.

So saying, he Turned again,
unleashing his bear self. A huge scarred black grizzly erupted from his skin
and charged toward Pa and Bradley, and the other two Black Valley bears
followed. They lumbered past Alice and Taggart and loped toward her family. For
a moment fear suffused her. Pa and Bradley might be killed! Still, she couldn’t
deny that they had brought this on themselves. Her heart ached for them,
though, even as stupid and pig-headed as they were.
Please be safe
, she thought, then turned to Taggart.

His eyes had also gone to Pa and
Bradley’s hiding place, and it was clear he wished he could do something to
help them, too. She loved him even more for that, that he was willing to risk
his life to help those who’d tried to end it. At last, though, he seemed to
realize there was nothing to be done and turned to Alice.

He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go,” he
said.

She swallowed. Nodded.

With bear growls and gunshots
sounding behind them, they turned on their heels and ran.