by T. S. Joyce
Chapter Two
Ethan was definitely going to eat someone today.
Jesse cursed and debated not telling his alpha at all. Unfamiliar lion shifters in his territory tended to bring out the murderer in Ethan’s feral side, Bear. Normally, Jesse wouldn’t care if his alpha tore into Shay, not after the war with the lions, but he was pretty sure he heard a baby cooing in the background of that phone conversation.
And then there was Rae Lynn. Her voice had kicked up something in him he’d thought hadn’t existed anymore. The woman could be a porn-line operator with a sexy voice like that. By the end of the conversation, she’d gone from spitfire to scared, and she was right for it. Shay, that crazy cat, was in a speeding car on the verge of a change with her baby and an unwitting human.
It was his alpha’s day off, and Ethan was going to be extra pissy if he had to cut time short with his mate, Reese. Jesse held the radio to his lips and narrowed his eyes over the forest canopy. The ranger tower was forty feet up in the air, and he could see for miles from here.
“Fuck,” he ground out, slamming the radio into its sling. If he had any chance in the world at keeping a very human-sounding Rae Lynn from figuring out Hells Canyon’s biggest secret, he was going to have to keep Ethan and his inner animal far away from the chaos that was barreling toward them.
He flew down the stairs and climbed into his truck, then slammed the door beside him. His old Ford rocked with the force, and he peeled out as soon as the engine turned. It had been a stupid move to put a shifting lion in the direct path of the Seven Devils clan, but it was that or let them go to the campsites, which were filled with a whole heap of unsuspecting humans.
He hit speed dial on his phone and Dillon answered on the second ring. Jesse pitched this way and that as he steered his old jacked-up truck through the piney woods.
“Dude, I already told you I’d bring the booze tomorrow night. This is the third time you’ve called about—”
“Dillon, shut up. I have a lion headed to camp right now. She’s demanding to see you and Breshia. Please tell me your mate is with you.”
“Oh, damn. No, man, she’s at the coffee shop, and I’m at a job site.”
“Can you get her?”
“Yeah, hang on. Bron!” Dillon yelled to his alpha and boss. “Jesse needs me up at the Seven Devils. I’ll be back in an hour!” Static rustled across the phone. “We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
Jesse tossed the phone onto the bench seat beside him and slammed on his brakes in the clearing that housed the row of cabins where his people lived. An oversized tent sat in the middle, protecting a table with maps of He Devil and the sister and brother mountains.
Reese came out of the tent, throwing her hands up like why the hell had he just skidded across the yard? Jesse gritted his teeth. If Reese was here, it meant Ethan wasn’t too far off. That bruin didn’t leave his mate for long.
Reese’s gaze jerked to the road that led to camp. She heard it, too—the acceleration of a car coming in way too fast.
“Move out of the way,” he yelled to a couple of shifters who were walking too close to the road. Bolting from his truck, he threw his hands up just as a gold-colored Honda Accord banked over the ridge. Frantically, he waved his hands, and the tires locked up as the woman hit the brakes.
She was beautiful.
Not even the tint of the windows could hide her allure. Alabaster skin and dark hair cascading down her shoulders in waves. Glossed lips and scared, hazel eyes that arced to the shifter in her passenger seat. And holy shit, in an instant, she was doing things to his animal instincts that were beyond him.
He had to protect her.
He bunched his muscles and sprinted toward her door. Shay was shifting, that stupid cat. She was shifting right there in the car before it had even rocked to a stop. Rae Lynn’s scream tore something ugly into him as he reached for the handle. Furious at the shifter for exposing herself, for putting this human woman in danger, he pulled Rae Lynn from the seat just as Shay reached out a long claw to rake it across her face. She missed by inches.
“Oh my God, there’s a lion! She’s a lion!” Rae Lynn’s eyes were round and frightened. “Samuel. There’s a baby in there!”
Jesse didn’t know if the woman was dense or brave, but she opened the back door and reached for the crying child. Shay was in the back seat in an instant, so huge she filled it. Jesse yanked Rae Lynn behind him, his heart ripping at her sobs as he placed himself between her and the lion. Rae Lynn clenched his shirt, and gripped his arm as she walked backward with him.
Shay slunk out of the car, eyes darting around him to hold focus on Rae Lynn.
“If you hurt her,” he said, a steely growl in his voice, “I’ll fucking kill you.”
Reese had reached the other side of the car and pulled out the squalling baby, then held him tight to her chest and nodded to Jesse. He was fine, thank God.
When Rae Lynn’s breath hitched, he gripped her tighter to his back, then held up a hand to stop Shay’s advance. She didn’t have her mind. Lions weren’t like bears who kept their human logic when they changed. They were volatile and wild. Hell, the lion shifters in Bron’s clan, Breshia and Logan, had to be given space any time they changed.
Shay didn’t want Rae Lynn. Not really. She wanted the plaything Jesse was trying to keep from her.
Shay crouched down just an instant before she leapt, and a snarl ripped from Jesse’s throat as the black bear inside of him erupted from his skin. Rae Lynn screamed and was thrown backward by the force of his change.
He caught Shay in midair. She slashed a claw across his shoulder and sank her teeth into his arm just as he bit into her neck. A grunt of pain huffed from his chest, but he held on until he tasted blood. With an echoing boom, he pushed her against the side of the Honda so hard, the car rocked onto two wheels. He didn’t think anymore, just fought with a fury he’d never felt before.
“Jesse!” Reese screamed, and when he looked up, twelve feet of pissed off dominant grizzly was charging at him with the ferocity of an avalanche.
Ethan’s Bear was here. With a short warning roar, he pushed off the clawing lioness and ran for Rae Lynn. Apparently seeing her doom in Ethan’s eyes, Shay scuttled back into the open car door and was human in moments. The engine roared to life just as Ethan reached her, and when he smashed into it, the car skidded and kicked up an explosion of dust. Tires spinning, Shay pulled away and sped down the road.
Ethan only followed a few steps, then turned burning, empty eyes on Rae Lynn.
She was still lying in the dirt with a horrified look on her face. Her pupils were so dilated with terror that her eyes shone like the color of ocean waves. Scrambling backward wasn’t going to save her from the hell that was stalking her now.
This was going to hurt.
Jesse stood over her and glared at his alpha. Ethan was a good man, a good leader, but Bear couldn’t be trusted to make the best decision for their clan. Not when he was like this.
Rae Lynn froze between his back legs, hands clamped over her mouth as sobs wracked her body.
“Bear!” Reese yelled, her voice echoing against the evergreen woods around them. “If you do this, it’ll hurt Jesse. Can’t you see she’s his? It’ll hurt your best friend.”
Reese took a step closer, but that’s all she gave. The baby in her arms was too much of a risk to put in front of Ethan when he was like this.
Ethan advanced, and Jesse stood to his full height. Ten foot of sometimes submissive black bear did not a raging grizzly make. He couldn’t just let the woman get hurt, though.
Ethan stood up and roared a challenge so loud, it rattled the trees, but Jesse wasn’t backing down. Not this time.
“Ethan!” Reese screamed. “Come back before you hurt us all!”
Uncertainty slashed across Bear’s face. He curled his lip over long, sharp canines, then lowered it again and looked at Reese. At last, he lowered to all four paws, and Jesse followed. Exposing his neck, Je
sse begged forgiveness, and when Bear pressed his oversized nose against his fur, he let out a long, shaking breath of relief.
“Your new mate is getting away,” Reese said blandly.
Jesse twitched his head toward the road just in time to see Rae Lynn disappear over the ridge.
****
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be! People who turned into bears and lions, and now everything Rae Lynn had known was null and void. Mom had told her half a million times when she was a kid that the monsters in her closet weren’t real. Was that all bullshit, too?
She pumped her legs faster and chucked her last wedge heel behind her without looking. If they were chasing her, she hoped the shoe hit them in their scary snouts, or bear nostrils, or whatever the hell the term for face was in bear anatomy.
Her feet blasted against the dirt road, and her lungs burned for more air. A minute into her escape, she was wheezing like she’d just run a marathon. She double cursed her Friday morning butt-and-thighs boot camp for not training her to flee properly from bear people.
Her right leg cramped up so she ran with her legs flailing, but she didn’t care. She was beyond caring about the judgments of werebears, werelions, werebeavers, weresquirrels and whatever other were-critters lived in these haunted woods.
No wonder Shay hadn’t felt good the entire trip here. She had a freaking lion inside of her. A lion who tried to claw her face first chance she got. What in the gads was she even doing out here? Last night, she’d been all safe and snug in her bed. Sure, Mark sucked and ruined her morning, but she’d been trying to help someone this afternoon. She was doing a good deed for a stranger, and now she was running for her life.
Shadows stretched across the road, and frogs croaked somewhere to her left. Before long, they drowned out the sound of her panting. The shadowy woods gave her the creeps, but she sure wasn’t going back to ask that mountain cult of bears for directions.
And Shay! That otter-faced dung weevil. She stole Rae Lynn’s car—her most prized possession since Mom had gifted it to her on her eighteenth birthday. Sure, it was old and probably now sported several gnarly bumps and dents from the bears and lions, but that was her ride.
“Stupid thief. Ahhh!” she screamed as she rounded a corner and almost ran into the towering man who’d turned into a bear and saved her.
Leaning against a tree branch that arced over the road, Jesse stood with his arms above his head, her wedge heels dangling from one hand, breathing steady like he’d been waiting all day for her to get here.
“You can’t leave yet, princess.” His voice was as rich and deep as when she’d heard it on the phone earlier. He was Jesse, the man who’d told her to come to the camp. Lured her to the camp was a more appropriate word for what he’d done.
Her eyes dipped to his erection, standing at half-mast, long and thick. Heat rushed into her cheeks, and she glanced away.
He looked down at his dick and shrugged unashamedly. “Fighting gets me riled up. Where do you think you’re headed?”
“Anywhere but here.”
Jesse had the most alluring shade of red hair, and the shoulder-length strands had come out of their binding. Now, his hair lifted in the breeze. His nose was narrow and straight, and his eyes so green, they rivaled the needles on the giant Ponderosa pine tree he was leaning on. His mouth was bracketed with smile lines, but they faded as he stared at her with grim eyes and shook his head. “Sorry, but that isn’t in the cards for you now. You’re a risk to my people. I have to take you back to camp until we can figure out what to do with you.”
“Please don’t kill me,” she pleaded. “I just want to go home. I won’t tell anyone about your little bear cult. I swear.”
“Oh, I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. You won’t tell anyone because you’re going to be here with me.” A smile stretched his face but didn’t reach his eyes.
She shifted her weight from side to side like a football player and tried to bolt around him. Only problem was, her right leg was still cramped up, and she stiffened, then went down like a sack of stones.
“That was terrible,” Jesse said, looking down at her with one ruddy eyebrow hitched high.
Groaning, she rolled back and forth, holding her hamstring.
“Here, stop that. Let me see.”
“Don’t touch me!”
“Don’t yell at me.” He gripped her leg with impossibly strong hands and ran his long fingers down the length of her calf until he cradled her foot in his strong grip. He pressed his weight there, and the pain diminished.
It was then that she noticed the crimson rivers that streamed down his shoulder and arm. Her stomach clenched in on itself. She hated the sight of blood. Always had. “Don’t get your blood on me!” she cried out. “I don’t want to be a werebear.”
Jesse snorted and bit his lip like he was trying not to laugh. She wanted to punch him.
“I’m not a werebear. We call ourselves bear shifters, and you can’t become one from contact with my blood. Besides, I’d never try to turn you. You’d make a shitty werebear.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she jerked her foot out of his grasp. “I would not.”
“Please. You run like a duck, you pant like a horse, your only apparent defense is screaming, and you got a leg cramp after running half a mile. You can keep your humanity, princess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
Jesse bent and pulled her over his shoulder as if he was a caveman carrying off his cave-wife.
Rae Lynn gasped in shock and flailed her arms and legs. “Put me down! I’m not going back there with you. You can’t do this to me!” Desperate, she finagled her multi-tool from her back pocket, opened the first mechanism she could, and jammed it into Jesse’s back.
“Ow!” he yelled, loud enough to scare the roosting birds out of the nearest trees.
He set her down so hard she fell backward onto her ass and yelped at the unexpected pain.
“Did you just stab me?” He looked pissed, and his fare skin was turning redder by the second.
“Take it back!”
“Take what back?”
“I’d make a fucking awesome werebear! I’m so sick of being insulted. I’m not an idiot, I’m not a stupid bitch, and I’m not defenseless!”
His eyebrows shot up, and he reached over his shoulder and pulled the pocket knife from his back. “I didn’t call you anything but defenseless…and you stabbed me with a pair of miniature scissors?” He held the tiny weapon up, his hard expression morphing from disbelief to accusation.
“And I’d do it again if you threw me over your shoulder like that a second time, you barbarian. I’m a person, Jesse. Grow some manners.”
Jesse’s hands clenched at his side, and the red color that had crept up his neck landed in his ears. “Will you please accompany me back to my clan so we can assess if you’re going to run screaming to the police about what you’ve seen here today?” He gritted out each word like it pained him.
She lifted her chin and tried to look as dignified as she could from her seat in the dirt. “No.”
“Raah!” he yelled and threw her multi-tool into the woods.
“Hey, my mom gave me that.” She stared at where it had disappeared. “It was special to me.”
Jesse huffed an irritated sound and pulled her upward, then shoved her shoulder and angled her back toward the camp she’d escaped.
“At least tell me you’re not going to kill me,” she demanded.
“I risked my neck to save you from that lioness and from my alpha. If I wanted you dead, I could’ve saved myself the pain and let them have you.”
Angry tears filled her eyes as she thought about going back to that awful camp. “Swear to me, you won’t let them hurt me.”
Jesse’s sigh tapered into a growl. “I swear.”
Chapter Three
The walk back was the longest, hardest thing she’d ever done. It took all her strength not to fall apart,
but Jesse had really pissed her off when he implied she was weak, and she was not going to cry in front of him. She wasn’t weak. She just hadn’t expected people to turn into giant, raging, wild animals.
She still wanted to find a way to convince herself she’d imagined it, but every time she did, she just had to look back at Jesse with the obvious claw mark across his shoulder, and she couldn’t deny what she’d seen.
“Does that hurt?”
“My shoulder? Yeah, it hurts like hell.”
“Are you immortal?”
“Like a vampire?” Jesse chuckled from behind her where he apparently preferred to walk like she was some sort of prisoner. “Definitely not immortal. We die just like everyone else, but we heal easier and don’t get sick. Not like humans. This mark will be nothing but a scar in a few days.”
“Are all of those people in the camp like you?”
“Yeah. There aren’t many of us left. We’re just trying to survive out here. We aren’t hurting anyone, just trying to live, like everyone else.”
Having Jesse at her back bothered her. It was as if some inane human instinct long-buried by city life was kicking up her urge to run or, at least, walk beside him so she could keep a wary eye on whether he was going to turn into a bear again and eat her. What he’d said rang true, though. If he had wanted her dead, he could’ve just stepped out of the way and let the lion or that huge bear have her. He hadn’t. Instead, he’d saved her.
She’d have to thank him when he wasn’t kidnapping her.
Her legs locked up when she crested a ridge and saw the camp again. “I can’t do this.”
“You can and will,” a man said as he emerged from the forest shadows. He was tall with intense, blue eyes and a grim set to his mouth. “You brought a lion shifter onto my land and now pose a threat to the people who live here.”
Jesse twitched his head to the man and said, “This is Ethan, alpha of the Seven Devils Clan.”
