by Kyrii Rayne
“I've had it. They've already brainwashed you. You're a lost cause. But her?” He pointed at Julia, apparently ignoring that the woman he was trying to protect was also one of the ones he held at gunpoint. “She's a kid. That thing will tear her apart. She's better off dead than having a thing like that think it loves her.”
“What the Hell are you talking about?” Julia glared at him. “I came up here on my own. I decided to help these people out. The last thing I need is some asshole with a gun showing up telling me I should trust him over them because of some bullshit I don't even understand. But whoever this guy Gray is, he's not a thing. He's a person. He's got family here that loves him. He's got his grandma limping up the hill in the cold for him, he's got Anna knocking on my door in the middle of the damn night trying to get help finding the guy. You've got nobody backing you, and that usually says something. Anyway, I don't give a damn what your beef with these people is. You lost me when you started waving that piece around!”
“Young man, you're only doing more damage to yourself by continuing this. Please, put the weapon aside.” Helga's tone was every inch a disapproving schoolmarm's.
Mark seemed to swell with fury at the demand. “I've heard enough out of you,” he snapped — and his finger tightened on the trigger. A huge gray blur moved between Mark and the two women even as the pistol went off. Jake was moving. He slammed into Mark's side like a linebacker — even as Graypaw staggered and went to his knees with a grunt, a red stain spreading on his massive chest.
Behind him, Helga gasped in horror, and Julia lunged forward. Anna couldn't do anything but watch for a moment as the near stranger slid to her knees at Graypaw's side, grabbing him by the shoulder as if expecting him to faint. Which any human would have done. Dwarfed by his massive size, she seemed in utter shock that he had taken a bullet for her — and whipped off her knit gloves to press against a wound she didn't know would be gone in seconds.
Gray started slightly and raised his head.
Behind him, Jake knocked away Mark's gun and the two of them started pounding the hell out of each other. The rifle was still slung across Mark's back, but he couldn't bring it to bear in close quarters, and Jake was inches from getting it away from him. Anna knew Jake would win now that the rifle was gone and Darrin was hurrying up with his own piece. But it was what was going on with his brother that kept her captivated in that moment.
Gray looked at Julia, and blinked slowly. The pain creasing his face eased out, and then vanished, replaced by an adoring wonder. He reached up with his one unbloodied hand, and with trembling fingers brushed her hair back behind her ear. The look of longing on his face made her heart ache. And Julia... blushed a little, and ducked her head.
“And here I thought we would be looking for a kid,” she muttered softly. “But you're not a kid at all, are you?”
He smiled shyly, and shook his head.
But then she gasped in surprise, and stepped back, staring down at the bullet that had just been disgorged from his flesh into her hand. She stared at him as his chest knit back together.
He lowered his head to look at what she was staring at, and anguish flickered in his eyes.
A shout drew her attention. Jake had won, and Mark was running away down the hill, his rifle on the ground and one of his ears bloodied. Darrin pointed his own pistol — and Helga shook her head and put her hand on it, coaxing him into lowering his aim. “We are not assassins,” she told him gently.
Julia had stood her ground. She hadn't run. She touched his chest, where the flow of blood had stopped and the broken skin was sliding smoothly together. “What... are you?”
“I'm afraid, my dear, that we have a lot of explaining to do,” Helga said quietly. “And I shall handle any questions you should come up with. But suffice it to say that my grandson has already proven the lengths to which he will go to ensure your safety.”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly, and touched Gray's shoulder. He was panting quietly, a terror in the backs of his eyes, but he calmed visibly when she made contact. “Are you... going to be all right?”
He swallowed, and then rumbled softly, “If... you don't run away... then I will be fine.”
Julia thought about this for a moment. She was pale and a little shaky, and clearly felt out of her depth. But in the end, she lifted her chin.
“Then I will stay.”
Anna closed her eyes on tears.
Late that afternoon, after a few good meals and many naps, Jake and Anna lay entwined in their bed, gazing drowsily out at the falls through the window across from them.
She curled on his chest, barely able to catch her breath, knowing from the stirrings of his body that he'd be on her again soon enough. He had gone insatiable on her since they had gotten back to their private room, and she clung to him, desperate for a distraction from the deep sadness that gnawed inside of her.
Somewhere in the Lodge, Helga was helping Julia and Gray get acquainted with each other, while fielding Julia's questions about bear shifters. Somewhere in his own rooms, Darrin was off hiring more help to keep tabs on Mark. And somewhere back in Jackson, Mark brooded in bitterness and rage, doubtless feeling that she had betrayed him. It was that last part that had her lying awake as Jake snored lightly, her body deliciously relaxed from release but her mind racing. Anna would have to live with the guilt, as well as the worry of what form his revenge against them might take.
But as she started caressing Jake again, rousing him bit by bit from sleep as her fingers coaxed him erect, she knew one thing: Mark's hatred had met its match in love today. One day perhaps he would come to realize his error. But in the meantime, she and her strange new family were safe.
And Graypaw, against all possible odds, had hope for a love and joy that his father had forgotten existed in the world.
The End
I Hope that you enjoyed ‘Hunting Party’. You’ll find a preview of the next book in the series ‘Bear Hunters’ after the About the Author section of this book.
About the Author
Kyrii Rayne has always been fascinated by the paranormal – by the possibilities hidden in the world around us. She enjoys writing stories that explore those possibilities – and the challenges they bring to the lives of her characters, especially when it comes to finding love.
She lives in Australia, and travels a lot – and always listens to the old folk tales everywhere she goes – there are story ideas everywhere!
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Here is your preview of
Bear Hunt
Bear Lodge Shifters– Book 3
Kyrii Rayne
Chapter 1 -
Breakfast with Bears
Anna Moretti got up with the sun, her usual early-morning grumbly stomach replaced with a slight queasiness that made it hard to rest comfortably. As she crossed the wood-paneled bedroom with its window-wall overlooking a deep gorge, she heard the springs of the mattress bounce behind her as a heavy weight rolled over into her warm spot. She glanced back with a smile; the mound of comforters wiggled slightly and then let out a rumbling snore. Jake Matson, her new fiancé, was kind of huge even in human form. It made him a great bed-warmer on chilly winter mornings like this one, and she had been reluctant to leave the limp circle of his muscular arms.
She showered and dressed in jeans and a sweater the same green as her eyes, and watched him sleep as she combed out her wavy honey-colored hair. Despite his size, Jake had a baby face, the innocence of his open, gentle features emphasized in slumber. Their months together had been an intense adventure — and despite the perils that sometimes struck in the process,
she had never been happier.
Before all of this had happened, just a few months ago, she had been an ordinary graduate student starting to date a guy whom she had thought was also an ordinary graduate student. But Jake and his family were anything but ordinary, and their lives, though fascinating, also held more danger than those of normal humans.
She was now engaged to a man who could turn into a gigantic grizzly bear at will, and access certain of the animal's abilities even when in human form. His strength was superhuman, making his gentle-giant nature even more important to their relationship. His appetite was also superhuman; in fact, all his appetites were. Anna had absolutely no problem with that; quite the contrary. Even if it left her thoroughly exhausted and a bit sore at times.
The problem came not in Jake's nature, what he could do or what he needed, but rather bear shifters' place in the world, and the ways some of them related to humanity. The Lodge where they lived now, in the mountains near Jackson, Wyoming, had been built to give shelter to an enclave of wealthy bear shifters. Created a generation ago by Jake's father and the Lodge leader, Helga Thorsdottr, the Lodge gave the Bears a place to be themselves in a world that could not learn about them. But keeping a secret that big wasn't always easy.
Jake made an interrogative noise as he heard her moving around, and she touched his mussy coffee-colored hair lightly as she went by, soothing him. Her belly issues didn't require him to get up at some ridiculous hour. Best that one of them got decent sleep. She went to the window, watching the dawn light slowly seep down along the steep walls of the gorge. Right now, the waterfall that dominated the view was half-frozen, great icicles hanging from the cliffs between thin sprays of water. Dead vegetation clung to the steep hillsides, rimed with frost, and bald trees stuck their spindly arms skyward between rough-furred pines. A path switchbacked its way up the hill, toward a little bower about halfway up. It had been cut by enormous bear claws, and the rustic bench that sat there had been twisted carefully from live branches by powerful hands. She knew whose hands, and smiled a little as she spied the culprit heading up the path.
Of all of those who lived at the Lodge, Jake's brother Gray probably had the strangest history. The figure who plodded up the hill, moving slowly so that his much smaller companion could keep up, looked less like an ordinary man than some kind of lost caveman who had wandered into the modern age. He was even larger and more heavily muscled than his brother, close to seven feet, with grizzled, shaggy hair that flopped into his eyes and grew down to his shoulders in back. He did shave these days, but his hair grew so fast he was never without stubble. He had finally consented to shoes — hiking boots — and a blue plaid work shirt to go with his jeans. But even now, with his huge size, shagginess and lumbering walk, he looked very much like what he was: a being who had lived as a bear for most of his life, and only now was learning what it was to live as a man.
There was a lot more to his story than that, of course. But most of it was horrible, and not worth thinking about on a fine morning with nothing bad happening. Especially when her stomach was already unsettled.
She watched Gray gently move beside the smallish, white-blonde woman who picked her way up the trail, sometimes holding his enormous hand, sometimes simply hiking along gamely as they headed for their little spot a quarter mile up the path. Julia, a ranger trainee, was in the same position as Anna in many ways: one of the bear shifters had imprinted on her as his mate. The difference was that poor Gray was still figuring out the human half of his life, which made negotiating their relationship much trickier.
In the month since Julia had started visiting them regularly, he had made great strides, doing everything he could to learn things like reading and using those ridiculous tiny utensils at dinner. Watching his massive form bent over, tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as his enormous fingers struggled with his boot laces, had been so adorable Anna could almost forget the hellish way in which she had first met him.
Behind her, Jake snorted and rolled over again, one arm flopping out over the pillow next to him. He blinked his eyes open, then peered at her.
“You okay?”
“It's my stomach again. I'll be okay.” She came over to kiss him, and he circled her wrist gently with one large hand.
“Sorry, baby. You think you'll beat this queasiness thing in time for breakfast?” He sat up slowly, the comforter falling down around his rippled, slightly hairy front as he stretched.
“I should. Not sure what's going on here. It's been over a week.” She watched Julia sit down on the woven bench, and Gray crouch at her feet, so that they were almost at eye level. Julia reached out and caressed his strangely-colored hair, and he leaned into her touch a little, his expression unreadable from this distance but his gestures soft and shy. She turned away, giving them their privacy, and gave Jake a distracted smile.
“Yeah. There's a decent gastro person in Jackson that Helga goes to if it comes down to it, but I really hope whatever is bugging you doesn't actually need a doctor.”
Maybe because he was overprotective, maybe because his own shifter regeneration protected him from things like minor illnesses, Jake always overreacted a bit when she was under the weather.
“Me too. We have enough going on in a given week without my having developed a food allergy or something.” She rubbed her face and felt his arms circle her as he stood up.
“It'll be okay.” He kissed the top of her head and nestled against her from behind, his hot, heavy body seeming to partially engulf hers thanks to their difference in size. “Maybe it'll warm up enough for a proper hike today.”
“Hope so.” It had been a stunningly mild winter except for a few deep freezes in late December. Anna, who loved hiking even after a recent ordeal that had forced her to use her forestry skills to survive, had gotten to go out a few times for fun, with Jake always at her side. After everything that had happened, he had a tendency to hover, which given the circumstances, she didn't mind at all. “You want to come with me to see if anyone's up yet, or hang out here?”
“Give me fifteen and I'll pull together,” he replied casually, headed for the bathroom. He was naked as usual — even if they wore nightclothes to bed, they usually didn't stay on through the night — and she watched the light gleam off his skin as he strolled across the room. Despite her queasiness, she had to push aside a surge of desire. Time enough for things like that when her guts weren't churning. Otherwise, it felt like sex might give her motion sickness.
Eventually they made their way outside into the Lodge proper: an enormous edifice of split and whole logs, walls of windows, fireplaces filled with crackling flames and high-ceilinged rooms that missed the mark on coziness strictly from their size. They saw perhaps half a dozen of Jake's fellow Bears as they wandered through on their way to Helga's feasting hall. Most were older men unescorted by their human mates, and gave Jake and her brief, tight smiles as greetings and nothing else. Jake had inherited the Lodge after his father's violent death a few months back, and given his relative youth and modest accomplishments, he was struggling to gain the respect of the elders of the Lodge.
The only one consistently supportive of him and of Anna was Helga herself. The aging Bear leader was weakening quickly due to health issues, however, and though she still held the respect of the majority, problems had started cropping up. Today, as they walked into the long feast hall with its massive table, high seat and circular fireplace, only about half of the Bears seemed to be attending the breakfast meeting. Anna looked worriedly around at the score or so of faces, realizing that the meetings had thinned out in attendance a great deal over the last month or so.
Nowadays, at least the crowd held more familiar faces. Helga sat at the head of the table, with Gray and Julia to one side of her and seats saved for Jake and Anna across from them. Nearby sat a shorter man with Jake's same coloring, dressed in a charcoal-colored wool suit and poking away at a smart phone screen. “Hey Darrin!” Jake thumped him gently on the shoulder as
he passed.
Darrin looked up and smiled distractedly. “Hey. How's it going, you guys?” He sounded so nervous that even sleepy Anna picked up on it right away.
“More of the same. You OK?” Anna peered at Darrin, whose dark eyes had a gleam of fear in the backs of them.
“I would be except for this morning's news.” Darrin swallowed, and shot them both a thin smile. “Brace yourselves, it's not good.”
Anna felt her stomach knot up further as she touched his shoulder and nodded, heading for her seat.
Helga looked up at her and smiled as she pulled her chair out. “Good morning, dear. I do wish I had good news to bring you, but unfortunately it is not that kind of morning.” She was the eldest of the Bears, looking perhaps sixty but in fact far older, with gray and gold mixing in her braided hair, a kind, lined face and soft blue-gray eyes. She wore her usual sort of robe-like dress, this one a dull pine green, though she had left behind the bearskin cloak that she often wore to meetings.
“I understand. Darrin told us to brace ourselves.” Jake scooted in next to her and Anna went quiet as they exchanged greetings.
Her stomach gurgled uncomfortably. Hopefully getting some actual food into it would settle it.
“Hi Anna!” rumbled Gray with a big, friendly smile which she weakly returned. His voice was as intimidating as the rest of him, sounding almost as if the stones of the mountain had been given the power of speech. His teeth looked a bit sharper than a normal human's but, as always, the gaze he turned on her was almost as soft as the one he turned on Julia. “Hi brother. They have sausage patties today.” This was apparently a most excellent development, judging by the stacks of the things on his plate.
“Yeah, I get it. You and grease and spices. Man, if you were human, I'd be worried about your getting heart disease.” He bumped fists with his younger brother all the way across the table.
