Bearly Hanging On: Soulmate Shifters in Mystery, Alaska Book 3

by Krystal Shannan

  His bear roared in anger. His claws lengthened at each fingertip and his fangs extended. The alpha bastard had bitten her, just to spite Owen. And now…everything inside him screamed to cover the bite with one of his own.

  Mark her again.

  She was his.

  His shuarra.

  His mate.

  “Make it stop, Owen. It hurts.” Her body was trembling. Her eyes almost solid gold now. She stared up at him begging, tears running down her cheeks.

  “He bit you,” Owen snarled out. Not angry at her, but unable to calm the rage of the beast inside. “I can’t stop it. I don’t know—” How was she changing? His bite hadn’t affected her like this. Why was the wolf bite making her sick? Making her change.

  “Touch me,” she growled out.

  “It hurt you before.”

  “No. It hurt less when you touched me. I need…” She paused, running her tongue around the tips of the fangs that now grazed her lips. “I need you.” Tara met his gaze and then jumped into his lap, knocking them both flat to the floor. He wrapped his arms around her. Pain flared in his shoulder.

  She was biting him! Marking him!

  He didn’t think his cock had ever gotten so hard so fast. “Tara,” he groaned, then sunk his fangs into her shoulder, covering the new bite the canine had placed there. It wouldn’t get rid of it, but it would mask it nicely. His bite was larger. His fangs deeper. Nothing would show of the wolf’s mark once Owen was finished. He bit down harder and she did the same. They held like that for seconds that felt like hours.

  She was continuing to change. The wolf’s bite had done triggered something in her, but she was still his mate—still his shuarra. She still wanted him. Every wild and angry inch of him.

  The moment her fangs released his shoulder, he did the same and rolled, putting her beneath him. He reared back, lifted her hips and drove deep, sending her over the edge. She screamed and her claws raked with an ear-piercing screech across the slate floors as she convulsed and came hard around him.

  He pounded into her, pushing her further, drawing out another climax right after the first.

  “Owen.” Her voice was a half-sob-half-howl.

  “Mine,” he roared, making the room around them shake. “My Tara.”

  Tara opened her eyes. Déjà vu. She was in bed again, except this time Owen was still with her. He had an arm draped possessively over her hip, keeping her ass tightly pressed against his still very hard cock.

  The light from the bathroom illuminated the semi-dark bedroom.

  They must’ve crashed for hours. The whole day. The sky outside was dark, lit only by the ghostly glowing waves of the northern lights.

  She felt better. So much better. The burning on her skin was gone. The deep ache in her muscles that’d overwhelmed her system earlier. She rolled back, twisting so that she faced Owen’s massive chest. She nipped and nibbled at his skin.

  She wasn’t sure what had happened back in the bathroom, but Owen had made it go away and that was all that mattered. She was safe. Happy. Content in his embrace.

  His arms flexed around her and she heard a soft chuckled rumbled deep in his chest.

  “I’d hate to let that fine erection go to waste,” she said, moving her leg so that it stroked the side of his cock.

  He kissed the top of her head, then caught her chin and tipped her head so he could take her mouth. His beard brushed against her cheeks, soft and scratchy at the same time. She loved it.

  Tara opened for him and he rolled her back, following her until his hips rested in the cradle of hers. He kissed her again, biting gently on her bottom lip before trailing his mouth lower. And lower. Until he had one of her breasts nearly completely in his mouth. He groaned against her skin. She whined and squirmed, her core aching for him to fill her again. But he was taking his time. Determined to drive her crazy.

  “Owen. Ohmygod.”

  “Your breasts are perfect,” he said softly, before releasing the one he had and moving to the other.

  He bit just hard enough to send a zing straight to her clit, like her nipple was a direct connection. She gasped for breath.

  “Everything about you is perfect, my Tara,” he said, his voice a growling rumble in her mind. All she could focus on was his mouth. Where it was. What it was doing to her.

  He rose above her moved lower. Another sexy growl of pleasure vibrated from him. He caught hold of one of her legs and kissed his way down her calf to her thigh all the way to the edge of her sex. She trembled with anticipation. Need. More than she could describe.

  Then he was there. Finally. Kissing and licking and groaning in his happiness and hers. She arched her back and breathed through the rising curling twisting need coiling in her belly. She’d come so many times already, she couldn’t believe her body had anything left.

  He plunged his tongue inside her then returned his attentions to her clit. Over and over he repeated the pattern, making her buck against his hold. His arms tightened around her thighs, holding her in place as he crouched between her legs.

  Her hands went to his head, tangling in his long thick brown hair. She pulled him closer and felt him chuckle again before vigorously lashing her clit with his tongue.

  She tensed one last time and then fell over the cliff, biting back a scream.

  Owen moved quickly up her body, covering her mouth with his to muffle the cry and slipping his hand into the wet folds of her core, milking her through the orgasm, wrenching every last bit she didn’t think she had left until her entire body sagged into the mattress beneath him. Her breath came in short hard pants and her heart beat hard enough she could feel it pounding like hooves against her ribcage.

  Owen nipped playfully at her lips before pulling back just a few inches. Her body continued to shudder and shiver and she couldn’t help the moan that slipped between her lips.

  She looked up at his face in the dark, surprised by how well she could see. His eyes sparkled with pride and satisfaction of a job well done. But also something else. A sparkle in his eyes said he was far from finished with her.

  He nipped at the underside of one of her breasts, and smiled when she squeaked in protest.

  “Wait! I can’t.”

  “Oh, yes you can,” Owen said, moving up her body again, but this time sliding his long hard length straight into her slick sex.

  She would never get enough of this man. Ever.

  22

  A week later…

  “You have to embrace the animal, Tara.”

  “First of all, I wasn’t an animal last week and second, you standing there naked where anyone could happen along is very distracting.”

  “It’s either you naked or me. I only have one charm,” he said and pointed at the band he’d tied around her arm. The bit of leather strap had several little carved bones braided into the band. That little thing was what let Owen shift with clothing on.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. This was ridiculous. A human couldn’t just become an animal...except Naomi said that’s what’d happened when Col marked her as his mate. But then it hadn’t worked with Penny. She wasn’t a lion.

  Mostly Tara was afraid. She wasn’t a bear. Everyone kept telling her there was no way to be sure whose bite had triggered the change. But Tara knew.

  Owen hadn’t turned her into a Reylean.

  Raish had.

  She was a wolf. She had the urge to howl at the moon and roll on her back and neck rubs had become something that she just couldn’t get enough of…still. She hadn’t shifted yet. She fought the urge with everything she had.

  Her mate loved her. She knew that. She loved him more than anything, but wolves represented the enemy. Wolves were her enemy. They had hurt her.

  And now she was one. She knew it. Could feel it closing in on her like a dark cloud.

  She didn’t want to remind them of what happened. Even the animal inside her hesitated. Tara could feel the animal pressing forward and then shrinking back, like the
ebb and flow of a tide. It didn’t know what to do either.

  What if the Tribe rejected her?

  What if they thought she would be a bear and she disappointed them?

  What if Owen didn’t want her when he saw her animal and it reminded him of Raish?

  “You’re going stir-crazy, Tara. You can’t wait this long, especially not for a first shift. You’re going to lose control and shift when you don’t want it to happen. Like around your family. Or in town.” Owen rolled his neck. Tara could hear the cracking joints from where she stood.

  Agh. He was right. She knew he was right, but still the fear choked her like someone was holding her under water. Her lungs burned and her skin prickled.

  Owen went down on all fours and a moment later an enormous brown grizzly-slash-Kodiak-slash-mutant-sized bear was staring her down. Waiting.

  Well he could wait until the cows came home. She wasn’t shifting. She wasn’t going to ruin what she had with him. With the others.

  Nope. Not happening.

  A roar sounded behind her and the beast within responded frantically, pressing forward in a hurry. A wave of warmth washed across Tara’s body. She blinked and realized she was closer to the ground. Her vision was a little different too. She took a step forward, experimenting with the paws she now found herself standing on.

  Tara turned to look for what had frightened her, quite sure Col had snuck up behind them and was about to eat them whole—fire-breathing-dragon-and-all or so she’d been told. Instead she saw him in human form standing at the tree line with a satisfied smirk on his face. A moment later he was gone and she was alone with Owen again.

  She whirled around and froze. Owen wasn’t a bear anymore. He was a man again. A naked beautiful man. She took a step closer and then froze when she realized he wasn’t moving toward her, just standing there with a look of shock on his face, breaking her heart.

  Her wolf was out now.

  He would hate her for what Raish made her.

  No. A voice deep inside herself whispered.

  “You are so beautiful, Tara. Your wolf is pure and white like the snow that covered this land for so many months. I would love you, no matter what animal you were.”

  Tara whined and crouched to the ground, not believing the words coming from her mate’s lips. Except that she wanted to. And she was pretty sure the wolf wanted to believe as well. In fact, she was quite sure the wolf did believe.

  “Change back, my sweet sweet Tara. Think about being you and the wolf will release.”

  Tara did as he said and a moment later she was standing again. On two feet. And Owen was jogging toward her. He picked up the leather kilt he called a tosa from the ground where he’d placed it earlier and wrapped it around his waist.

  “You’re not mad?” she said, the words barely more than a whisper.

  “No. Never. You are my mate, Tara. The other half of my soul. No matter if you are human or bear or wolf. I love you the same.”

  Tears poured down her cheeks and she threw her arms around Owen’s waist. “I love you so much. I was so afraid you’d hate me when you knew I was a wolf. That you wouldn’t want me.”

  He hugged her tighter. Then took her by the shoulders and stepped back. “You are my everything. I want to show you something. Do you trust me?”

  Tara nodded.

  He tugged her shirt down to uncover one over her shoulders. Then He bared his fangs, cut the tip of his finger on one and then drew a symbol she didn’t recognize across her collarbone. And drew the same symbol on himself with his blood.

  “I don’t know if this will work. I’m not a magick bender, but I’ve seen others do it before.”

  Whatever he wanted to do. It was important. That much she could tell. “Try.”

  He spoke a phrase over and over. A chant in his language. Nothing she recognized.

  Each time he finished the pattern Tara felt her body grow warmer. The fire she’d felt a week ago back in the bathroom when she been changing returned with a vengeance.

  She clutched her chest and gasped for air. Then light poured from her chest and his. But not light from a lamp. This light had shape and life and movement. Their light wrapped around each other, dancing in the air between them, glowing so beautifully.

  Then the feelings hit like a tidal wave. The absolute love he felt for her. Adoration. Devotion. He didn’t care that she was a wolf. But there was more there than just his feelings for her.

  She could feel his loss when he lost his tribe. Then again when Reylea died. When he came to Earth he’d felt hope for a time. Then his sorrow when he’d first found her. All of it rushed through her like a river set free from a dam.

  Every day of joy. Every disappointment.

  But she was part of the joy. She was part of his light. There were no shadows when it came to his love for her. And none in her heart either.

  He could feel through her soul just as she felt his. They were one in a way she’d never thought possible. “I love you,” she whispered as the light between them began to fade and return into each of them.

  “Not as much as I love you, my Tara.” He covered her mouth with his, claiming her heart and soul all over again.

  He was her mate. She was his.

  He loved her as a woman. As a wolf. It made no difference.

  Her fears were washed away and replaced with joy and hope for the future.

  Afterword

  You have reached the end of Owen and Tara’s story…for now. Thank you for coming along on this fantastic ride with me. There’s so much more to come and I’m excited to share this world with you.

  I hope you loved Bearly Hanging On and the rest of the cast as much as I loved writing and getting to know them. They are like friends of mine and I can’t wait for you to read the next book. Our next hero is a surprise. I know, I’m a terrible tease, but you know you love your Mystery Tribe no matter who’s story is next.

  This series is the ultimate combination for me. Not only do I get to write about more soul mates (which is a theme of mine, if you hadn’t figured that out already) I get to write about all different kinds of shifters from a different world. The town of Mystery gets to be my home for the next year or so and I’m just flipping excited. There are so many stories to tell. So much more going on beneath the surface that you’ll find out as the books progress and our cast of characters and Mystery family grows.

  To learn more please connect with me on Facebook or in my Facebook Clubhouse! And on Instagram (if you want to see pictures of my dogs, lol) , and please consider writing a review of Bearly Hanging On. They help. Really they do. Sometimes a review makes the difference between a new-to-me reader giving my books a chance or not.

  If you really want to get all the inside goodies and news, be sure to join my NEWSLETTER!

  About the Author

  Krystal Shannan lives in a sprawling ranch style home with her husband, daughter, and a pack of rescue Basset Hounds. She is an advocate for Autism Awareness and shares the experiences and adventures she’s been through with her daughter whenever she can.

  Needless to say, life is never boring when you have an elementary-aged special needs child you are homeschooling and half a dozen 4-legged friends roaming the house. They keep her and her husband busy, smiling, and laughing.

  If you’re looking for a story filled with adventure, passion, and just enough humor to make you laugh out loud. Welcome home!

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  Copyright © 2019 by KS Publishing

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