Betray The Bear (5 page)

It was almost ten o’clock when Blaine pulled the cruiser through the last grove of lodge pole pines. A field of moon-kissed wild flowers and grass swayed in the breeze. Even in the dark, the Big Horn Mountains were visible behind the row of homes that lined the clearing. They were capped in snow and stood as sentries over the clan. Lights dotted the windows, and Blaine pulled in front of a big home that looked like a dollhouse.

A fire pit cradled lapping flames that illuminated the happy faces of a small crowd
in front, relaxed into bag chairs. Two women held sticks with marshmallows over the fire, but when Blaine pulled to a stop, the sound of laughter died down and one of the men unfolded from his chair. He was huge.

The others followed his lead and Blain opened his door and stepped out. “I found a stray on the side of the road,” he explained as she
pulled the door handle.

This was the moment she ha
d been dreading since Nathan decided to throw her away yesterday. Nervous flutters filled her stomach, making her nauseous and shaky.

The big man approached and she sank to her knees in front of him, tilting her face to expose her neck. “I’ve come seeking sanctuary.”

The man looked behind him with a furrowed brow. He was striking in the moonlight. Thicker than Nathan, with designer scruff on his chiseled jaw. His short hair was dark, reddish maybe? She couldn’t tell the color in the shadow of the baseball cap he wore over his forehead. Seconds felt like minutes as he studied her and boldly, she held his gaze. As shocking as her brazenness was to her, it didn’t seem to anger him at all.

“Get off your knees,
woman. If you need a safe place to stay, you need to talk to my alpha.”

“Oh. You’re not Benson Riker?”

He snorted and shook his head. “No, ma’am. Riker’s inside getting his mate a drink.”

“On account of him bitch-slapping my beer out of my hand and spilling it everywhere,” a woman near the fire
said.

Okay. The great alpha she’d heard so much about was serving a woman a drink. “I’m sorry for my mistake
. I just assumed you were Riker because…”

His lips quirked up in a slow smile. “Finish that sentence.” He was authoritative and a little
pushy, but with an edge of humor. She didn’t understand him. He reeked of dominance and his words practically dripped with self-confidence, but now he was offering his hand to help her up.

Touching him seemed like a bad idea, mainly because Nathan would bleed him. But Nathan wasn’t here
, and it felt rude to ignore his kindness. She slipped her palm into the strong warmth of his, and he pulled her up surprisingly gently for such a big man.

“I thought you were Riker because you’re so huge.” As soon as the words left her lips, she wished she could suck them back down into her throat and swallow them.

A man near the fire whistled and the big man threw him a warning glance. “I’m Chase.”

“Anya?” o
ne of the women at the fire asked.

As she stalked closer, Anya’s
recognized her long dark hair and open green eyes, and she launched herself at Joanna. She hadn’t known she would feel so relieved to see her, but it felt damned good to know someone among all the strangers.

Joanna hugged her back, squeezing until her back cracked and she buried her face against her neck and wanted to cry. She didn’t even know why she was so emotional.

“What are you doing here?” Joanna breathed, easing back to arm’s length and studying her face in the flickering firelight.

“He threw me away,” she
whispered in a broken voice. It was partly true. Mostly true. She wished she could tell her the real traitorous reason she was here, but Nathan would banish her or worse, smudge her right off her family tree if she messed this up.

“Oh, t
hat asshole,” Joanna whispered.

The big man crossed his arms beside them and his face darkened. The openness was gone,
and now it was replaced by suspicion that caused a tiny pain in her chest she was helpless to sort out.

“What’s going on?” a
man with a bottled water in his hands asked as he strode toward them. This must be the alpha.

“Riker, this is Anya,” Joanna introduced her.
“She was thrown out of the Long Claws and has come seeking sanctuary.”

“The Long Claws?” Chase asked. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Chase,” Riker warned. “Why were you thrown out?”

Everyone quiet
ed, as if they were hanging onto her words and she stuttered. “I-I…”

“You-you what? Came here to spy, that’s what.” Chase’s voice sounded venomous and he took a step toward her.

“Stop it,” Joanna said, shoving him in the shoulder.

Anya’s eyes flew wide. “Joanna,” she admonished. The woman was going to get herself flogged.

Chase didn’t even growl at her and Anya couldn’t stop reeling. The rules she’d known didn’t apply here in this upside down place.

As close to
honest as she could manage was best, so she lifted her chin and inhaled. “I haven’t given Nathan a cub, and he said he has no use for me anymore.” Shame flamed her cheeks at the truth of it and she added, “I haven’t had a heat in a year and a half. The alpha of the Long Claws can do better than a sterile mate.” Nathan had said this over and over as she’d pleaded with him yesterday, but his repeated words made her want to curl into a ball and cry. But instead, she held Chase’s gaze and his eyes seemed to soften. Not much, but enough that she saw it.

“You’re Nathan’s mate?” Chase asked.

Kind of? She was feeling confused on what she really was to him but she nodded. Nathan called her his mate, so it must have been so.

“Fan-fuckin-tastic. Get out. Go back to your mate and tell him you couldn’t dig up any dirt here.”

“He’ll kill me if I go back.” Her voice shook because the words sounded so right. Nathan really would kill her if she failed.

“Sounds like your problem,” Chase said. “Not ours.”

“Chase, that’s enough.” The clearing filled with the crackle of power so electric, the downy hairs on her arms rose. “Sit down.”

Chase turned his head but his eyes never left her. His arms flexed over his chest, puffing out the intimidating mass of muscle there.

“Now,” Riker said.

Gaze lingering on her, the giant man sat much more gracefully into the chair than she would’ve expected from
the behemoth.

“Surely you know war with the Long Claws is imminent, and we just received a visit from your mate yesterday. We can’t be too careful who we allow near us right now or it could get our people killed. You are more dangerous tha
n you know, even if your reason for being here is pure. Joanna left Nathan two months ago and he’s only become more desperate to make us pay. Now you’re here. Does he know you’ve come to Bear Valley?”

“Probably. He’s killed off most of the other clans who could offer me sa
nctuary.” The admission was genuine and made her heart pull away from Nathan a little more. Sometimes, he was a monster. What did it say about her that she’d ignored his cruelty all this time? What did it say about her that she was lying to these people he intended to destroy now? Nothing good.

“I’m sorry, Anya. You’ll have to find shelter elsewhere. I feel for your plight, but my people come first.”

A woman rushed from the fire and slid her arm around Anya’s shoulders. “Riker, you said the same thing about me when Jeremy brought me here. She’s in trouble. It’s written all over her face. Look how scared she is. Joanna, can you vouch for her?”

“
She was nice to me when I was with the Long Claws,” Joanna said. “Nathan is awful and putting her in his path would be cruel. Every shifter is important, right? That’s what you say at the meetings, but you’re throwing one away by putting her on the street. I can watch her during the day. We can put her on probation until she proves she can be trusted. If she slips up at all, she’s gone.”

The woman beside her smelled human.
“She can run cattle with me and Jenny when Joanna is in meetings too.” A human was trying to save her. Today was the strangest day she’d ever had.

“And what do we do with her at night?” Chase asked, bitterness heavy in his voice. “Just let her tramp around the clan collecting data to foist off onto her mate the first chance she gets? Hell no.”

Riker splayed his legs and crossed his arms, stared at her until she looked down at her feet. He seemed to be actually considering letting her stay. “You can watch her at nights,” he said so low she thought she’d misheard him.

“Who?” Chase asked.

“Everyone is newly mated here but you, Chase,” Riker said, twisting to look at the man.

Chase sat rigid in his chair and even in the dark, she imagined she could see red creeping into his cheeks. The smell of anger was thick and heavy on the breeze.
“I don’t give a fuck if everyone is mated here but me. That is my choice, and I shouldn’t be punished for it.”

The word
punished
stung her feelings, but she couldn’t figure out why.

“Your place is big enough for a guest. Since you’re so concerned, and rightly so, you’ll be in charge of her from dinner until breakfast
, until I deem she isn’t a threat to our way of life here. It’s not up for discussion.”

The woman next to her sighed a relieved sound and removed her hand from
Anya’s shoulder. “Joanna has meetings with Brody tomorrow, right?”

Her friend nodded and shot her an apologetic look.

“So bring her to the cattle barn after breakfast and she can work with me,” the human offered. “Then I’ll escort her back when we’re finished.”

“So, I really don’t have a c
hoice in this?” Chase asked. “I have to allow queen of the Long Claws into my house and babysit her?”

That sounded awful to
Anya, too. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a burden.”

Riker didn’t say anything and Chase stood so fast, his chair collapsed behind him. With a feral snarl rumbling from his chest, he spun and strode for the trees.

“Doesn’t look like he’s going to slow down, so you might want to go after him,” Joanna advised. With a quick hug, she said, “I’m glad to see you again, Anya. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Overwhelmed, she said, “Okay,” before bowing respectfully to Riker and throwing a thankful wave to the human. She darted to the police cruiser and snagged her suitcase, then ran for the woods where Chase had disappeared
, dragging her much abused luggage behind her.

By the time she reached the tree line, Chase was nowhere to be seen. She paused and listened, but failed to hear him crashing through the brush like a man his size should’ve been doing. Crap.

She looked from side to side, scanning limbs and grass for anything broken or disturbed to point her in the right direction, but she’d never been a great tracker unless she was in her bear form, and right now, her inner animal was curled in on herself trembling, just as she’d been doing most of her adult life. She wasn’t the bravest bear.

Aimlessly, she stalked forward, hoping he’d taken a
straight path to some trail he knew of. Out of her element and afraid, the woods seemed to quiet as she traveled deeper into the wilderness. The noise of the fireside conversation behind her faded away, and the realization that she was completely alone set a tremble to her hands she was helpless stop. All it took was one bear to find her and she’d be post dinner desert. And speaking of dinner, she was still starving and was beginning to feel weak and clammy. Joanna and the human had smelled like s’mores. She hadn’t had one in years, and her stomach was desperate for anything to satisfy it.

And now she was traipsing through the woods at night in a strange land, with an even stranger clan, and her escort had left her. That oaf!

“Tantrums in grown men are very unsavory!” she yelled in frustration. The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she withered under the haunted feeling of being watched. “Hello?” She stopped and clutched her suitcase handle tighter. “Chase?”

“Unsavory?” Chase whispered against her ear.

She screamed a terrified sound that echoed off the mountains. Defensive, she pushed him, and, awed by her boldness, pushed him again. He didn’t even flinch which pissed her off to no end, so she rattled a volley of flying fists against his hard, and irritatingly sexy chest. Nathan would’ve back-handed her by now but when Chase grabbed her wrists to stop her, the corner of his mouth was turned up like he was amused.

He yanked her closer. “Feisty little spy, aren’t you.”

Struggling out of his grip, she spat out, “I’m not a spy, and you left me alone in unfamiliar woods, you jerk.”

“Jerk?” His smirk deepened.

“Stop repeating everything I say.”

“Your punches are pathetic
.” His voice had lost its teasing edge.

Opening her mouth with a ready retort, she stopped herself and frowned instead. “Agreed. I’m not trained to fight.”