Two Bears are Better Than One (Alpha Werebear Romance) (Broken Pine Bears Book 1) (23 page)

When they all started breathing again, when muscles relaxed and hearts slowed, King flipped over onto his back.

Jill settled in between them, kissed Rogue on the cheek and then King on the chin. She stared into one set of eyes, then turned her head to the other.

An arm slid under her neck, the most comfortable pillow she’d ever felt. Another went around her midsection taking all the pressure off her ribs.

“So this is what I have to look forward to?” she asked, as she closed her eyes. Nuzzling her head in the crook of Rogue’s neck, she shifted back a little so that King’s body was spooned around her. “Us three, just like this?”

“Just,” King said.

“Like this,” Rogue finished for him, kissing Jill on the forehead.

The silence of night, the quicksilver moon, and her two bears.

That was all Jill needed, she thought, as she drifted to sleep.

*

T
he camera flicked on, whirring softly.

“You didn’t see them do anything you wouldn’t want anyone watching you do, did you son?” Draven asked the young soldier who stood in front of him, sharply dressed in black fatigues.

“No sir,” he said. “Just like you ordered, I only check in every so often to make sure they’re safe. I think one of them was—”

Draven raised a hand and smiled. “Don’t tell me anything you wouldn’t want me to hear about you.”

“No sir, nothing like that,” the young man said. “They bought, like, eight cases of beer.”

A huge laugh echoed through the makeshift meeting room, which really was just a trailer set up in the high desert. Draven was used to moving around, after all these years. Houses were too permanent. “Bears have big thirsts, you know,” he said.

The young man nodded, slowly. “But it was a
lot
. And then Rogue drank most of it. He didn’t seem too affected. King took a bunch of shots from those little bottles, and he started wobbling around like the town drunk.”

Draven cocked an eyebrow.

“Er, sir.”

Softly, he started laughing again, in the way a grandfather does when his granddaughter throws a rock through a window and makes up an incredibly wild story about how it happened. He shook his head. “They’ll learn. In time, they’ll figure out life here. And as strange as it might sound, being out in public like this probably
is
safer. Not safe, mind you, but safer.”

“I just don’t understand though. Madix and GlasCorp and—”

Draven raised his hand, shushing the young soldier. “You don’t have to, son. Hell, I don’t have to understand. All I know is that Madix was the result of a lot of brutality, a lot of horrific experiments. And I also understand that the rest of my clan is... somewhere. I won’t stop until I find them.”

A blip whizzed by on the shortwave transceiver on Draven’s desk. He shot a hard glance down, but when the sound passed, he relaxed. “You don’t have to stay with me, son,” he said. “I know this is a hard life for someone like you. You want a wife, you want kids, you want a stable job, you—”

“Sir, if interrupting you isn’t too rude, I’m going to interrupt you.”

Draven waited for him to continue.

“Good. I just wanted to say that I’ve had all those things, except the wife and kid bit. And after what I saw out there, I don’t think I could handle that. Not until I have some answers. I was loyal to you when we worked at Los Alamos. I stayed with you through Area-51 and all that, didn’t I?”

It was Draven’s turn to nod.

“And I’m not leaving now. I’ll see this through.”

With a long, searching stare, Draven studied the man’s face. He was young, sure, but there were lines around his eyes. He was clean shaven, but there were scars on one side of his face from something Draven had never asked about. “Dismissed,” Draven said. “Report back at seven tomorrow morning. They need their rest, and so do you.”

“Sir.” The soldier said, straightening up and turning on his heel.

Draven pulled a Camel out of the pack and struck his Zippo. The smell of toasted tobacco stung his nose. He took a long pull and exhaled as the young man’s truck door slammed.

“I’m tired,” he told his empty trailer. “I’m old and I’m tired. But I got a long road ahead of me. And I don’t envy those three.”

He hit the button to turn on his monitor, and watched Rogue, King and Jill, all heaped up in a pile, all sleeping soundly. With another drag and a heavy sigh, he switched the camera off and pushed back from his desk. The flimsy folding chair where he sat wobbled a little as he lifted himself off and walked to the door.

“This ain’t a night for sleeping in a bed,” he said as he stepped out into a cold, desert night.

Some kind of lizard flicked across his peripheral vision and disappeared. If he closed his eyes, the old man could hear the opening clarinets and the swell of drums and piano at the beginning of Ennio Morricone’s
Ecstasy of Gold
. He could almost see a tumbleweed roll past in front of his closed eyes.

But then he opened them again, and it was just the chilly, open desert. No cowboys dueling at sunset, no tumbleweeds, no swirling orchestra.

Just him, and the desert.

Draven took off his shirt, threw it to the ground in front of his trailer, and did the same with his pants. He crouched, and felt his muscles thicken, his bones stretch and his tendons relax. He curled his paw, dragging up a fistful of cracked dirt with his claws, and then, with a deep breath, and a shake of his head, he ran.

He ran knowing that tomorrow would bring new worries, that there wasn’t going to be peace for a long, long time, not for Rogue and King and Jill, not for their cubs, and not for him. But as ground disappeared underneath him, and his lungs filled in a way they never did when he was in human form, Draven got the feeling that somehow, someway, everything would be fine.

Someday
, he thought, as wind rushed through his fur.
Someday, I’ll find you.

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I
t’s hard to say that Elena St. Claire – an arctic fox-shifting, private investigator – is “down on her luck.” She’s got stable work, a couple of close friends... but when it comes to finding a mate? All she knows is that if she DOESN’T find one, and quick, she’s gonna go crazy from staring at every bear or wolf who tears through Jamesburg on a motorcycle.

Thomas James Westing – but please, just call him West – is a muscled-up bear who long ago turned to organic farming as his way of keeping his cool. He lives outside Jamesburg, alone, and he likes it that way. Sort of. At least, if he’s alone, his secret – a past filled with rage – can stay that way: a secret.

When West wakes up one morning to find his garden ravaged, he calls the best private investigator in town. He expects to get the case solved, but when a white and copper-haired fox shows up at his doorstep with a cute little snaggle-toothed-on-the-bottom grin, West realizes he just got a lot more than he bargained for: his heart isn’t gonna let this one go. This is a fox he needs to possess, to claim as his mate. If he doesn’t? He might just go straight off the deep end.

The second Elena lays eyes on the dark haired, dimple-cheeked cowboy bear with legs so big they stretch his Wranglers, she knows she’s in big, big trouble... and not just because he’s a big, big guy, but because straight off the bat, she falls real, real hard.

But when petty garden vandalism turns out to be a plot to destroy every single crop in the greater Jamesburg area, can Elena manage to keep West off her mind for long enough to catch a crook? Or will the biggest case she’s ever had bury her – and her chance at the mate she’s always wanted – before they can even kiss?

The Jamesburg Shifters are a series of standalone novels that can be enjoyed in any order you like. No cliffhangers here!

C
urvy, sharp-witted and slightly self-conscious, Lilah Jorgenson is a raccoon-shifting painter with a white streak in her hair and a longing to find the family – but mostly the MATE – she never thought she’d have.

All she wants is someone to hold her, to kiss her, to... claim her as HIS. But who has the time to hunt down a perfect man? Does such a creature even exist?

Clocking in for what she assumes is going to be a normal night at her job at the Jamesburg jail Lilah’s got no clue that she’s about to meet the bear of her dreams.

Thickly-muscled, widowed, inked-up former soldier Rex Lee spent five years away, but clan trouble called him home. Love is distant memory for Rex – the only thing on the huge alpha’s mind is keeping his cub and his bear clan safe, even if it means the occasional scrape that ends with him in the slammer.

Trekking down the cell block, Lilah stops, dead in her tracks. A bear with wicked tattoos, a massive chest and a pair of arms perfect for holding her tight? Who was tossed in jail for fighting to keep his daughter safe? Maybe that perfect man DOES exist!

When Rex catches a glimpse of Lilah’s two-toned eyes, her luscious curves, and her wicked little grin? The bad boy alpha decides right then he’s found something he never would – a mate to claim, to possess, to make his forever – no matter what it takes.

THE JAMESBURG SHIFTERS is a USA TODAY best-selling series of standalone novels featuring a unique hero, heroine and satisfying HEA ending. No cliffhangers here!

S
teamy, seductive, bad boy werewolf romance from USA and NYT best-selling author Lynn Red!

New faces were hard to come by in Fort Branch, Arizona. From the moment she saw Damon, Lily Kyle’s heart was stolen. He and Lily were inseparable, until he finally pushed her too far away.

Despite the distance Damon put between them, Lily never stopped loving him.

Motorcycle riding, rough-around-the-edges Damon King has a complicated life. He’s trying to juggle existence after high school, while attempting to get back the only girl he ever really loved. On top of all that?  Damon has to figure out his new role as Alpha of a scattered pack of werewolves.

When Damon learns that Lily is more than just his high school sweetheart – she’s his fated soul mate – he also realizes he’s not the only Alpha in town. Will he be able to protect her, and drive his dangerous rival out of town before it’s too late? Or will his savage, feral werewolf rival tear Fort Branch apart and claim Lily first?

Did you love
Two Bears are Better Than One (Alpha Werebear Paranormal Romance)
? Then you should read
Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)
by Lynn Red!

Bear-shifting, rogue biker Orion Samuelsson is on the run and nursing more than a little bottled up rage. For years, he’s been haunted by the cruel, brutal leader of his old club, the Dirty Devils. Love? Happiness? All distant fantasies. That is, until he lays eyes on a gold and black lynx-shifter dashing through a river.

Clea Kellen is the owner of Jamesburg's most popular daycare. And on top of that, she’s a lithe, witty, pointy-eared lynx shifter whose biological clock is tick-tick-ticking away. Even though she’s part-time mama to a whole bunch of bouncing cubs, one of her own is a forgotten dream. That is, until she catches a glimpse of a golden bear with pale brown eyes, watching her in the distance.

On a daycare camping trip, Clea’s whole world – in the form of a giant fir tree – comes crashing down. She dives to cover one of her cubs, sure she’s done for. When she finally opens her eyes, she can’t believe the massive, golden bear standing in only feet away with fire in his eyes and a tree on his back.

As he stares into Clea’s soul, straining under the fallen fir, Orion’s buried desire for a mate, and a family to call his own, burns deep in his heart. Right then, he knows he’s found her. He knows he won’t rest until she’s his, until he possesses her, takes her for his mate... forever.

But, with Orion on the run from his former gang, and Clea’s brain telling her to put on the brakes while her heart is screaming for her to hit the gas, will these two fated mates give in to love... and to each other?

The Jamesburg Shifters is a series of standalone novels - no cliffhangers here!

Read more at
Lynn Red’s site
.