by Mina Carter
Her growl wasn’t pretend though and he chuckled, finally giving in and kissing her properly. The first brush of his lips was fairly innocent. Kissing in the street where everyone could see, that sort of innocent.
On the second brush, though, she couldn’t help the slight gasp or her lips parting in invitation. He growled and backed her against the side of his truck. Pinned her between the cold hard metal and the hot steel of his body.
He plundered her mouth. Parted her lips with a hard sweep of his tongue and drove within to sample the sweetness beyond. The growl that rumbled up from the center of his chest was so deep, it did things to her on a primal level. From the sound alone, she could have sworn he was a bear. One her bear wanted to come out and play with.
The kiss went from hot to supernova in a heartbeat, and she gasped, unable to resist kissing him back. He teased and she followed, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and tangling it with his in hot open-mouthed kisses that made her blood simmer with heat and her heart pound.
She should stop. She knew she should. But she couldn’t. She needed to kiss him. It was a soul deep… no, a cell deep… need. A compulsion. An obsession.
“Oi!” A female voice broke through their sensual haze. “You two get a room before I have to chuck a bucket of water over the pair of you!”
Lilly started, breaking the kiss as sense returned. She was plastered all over Morgan… ohmygod… And worse, she was practically dry-humping the hard thigh he’d thrust between hers. And was that…
She pulled back to find the big warlock watching her, amusement in warm, blue eyes. Her eyes widened as she realized what the hardness pressing against her was.
“Oh my god,” she whispered and went to push him away, but the tiny shake of his head warned her. Shit, Bennett must still be there…
She threw a look at Trinity, who was grinning at them like a loon from the doorway of the diner. “Hey… can you blame me?”
The other woman grinned. “Nope. I was wonderin’ when you were gonna make your move, or if I was gonna have to lock you both in the storeroom over the weekend or something.”
“I wouldn’t mind being locked up anywhere with you for an entire weekend,” Morgan whispered, nuzzling just under her ear. She pinched his side, where no one could see, in warning. This was an act—Nothing more. Nothing less—and the sooner he got with the program, the better.
This morning… had been an aberration. He’d caught her off guard, and half asleep. She couldn’t be held responsible for what happened in what she’d thought was a very nice, albeit very graphic, dream.
She smiled for Trinity’s benefit. “You know, I think I might have to drag him off and try that somewhere… a little more private.”
“You go, girl! Have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Trinity threw back and pushed off from the door, disappearing back into the diner with a wave.
“Is he gone yet?” She demanded in an undertone, giggling as Morgan nuzzled her neck again. Her demand disappeared on a gasp when he nipped her neck. The graze of his blunt, human teeth sent a bolt of heat through her so complete she nearly threw him on the hood of his own truck and ripped every stitch of clothing right off his body there and then.
“Never bite a bear.” Her claws punched through and grazed his skin through the leather over his shoulder.
He pulled back to look down at her, the warm blue of his eyes nearly swallowed up by the dark heat swirling through them. “And why not?”
“Because that’ll get you bitten back. And there’s no coming back from that,” she almost growled the warning. Biting was reserved for mated couples, or couples well on their way to mating for life. It wasn’t a casual sex sort of thing.
“You’d end up mated to me for life. And the last thing you want to be is mated to a bitchy she-bear who hates you for taking that choice away.”
Chapter 5
After the excitement of lunchtime, Morgan’s afternoon turned out to be slower than a race between a sloth and a snail. He sighed as he walked through the barn at the back of the Partner property.
“Ain’t naught but cobwebs and mean-ass rattlers back there, boy,” Old man Partner had proclaimed, but he shrugged and gave permission when Morgan said he needed to check anyway.
Isiah Partner wasn’t a bear, so he’d had to give some cock and bull story about the army drafting him in to check for a suspected terrorist operating in the area. Since Isiah was a well-known conspiracy theorist and probably had a tin-foil hat or seventeen in his closet, the story had worked. Isiah had hurried off to check his bunker was prepared for doomsday, and Morgan had headed on out to check the back boundary lines of the Partner land.
And… nothing. Apart from grass, grass and more grass. And some birds. What kind of birds, he had no clue, he wasn’t an ornithologist, and since none of them had the familiar buzz of shifterkind, he’d ignored them.
Circling back, he approached a rundown old barn. It had obviously been used for livestock at some point during its life but now stood alone and forlorn, some of its cladding ripped away to reveal the wooden bones of its structure.
But his thoughts weren’t on building maintenance as he circled the back of the barn. Instead, they were squarely focused on the curvy she-bear he’d woken up with in his arms this morning.
What the fuck did he do about Lilly?
He’d hoped that chatting over lunch would help. That she’d perhaps admit shyly that she’d been thinking about him all morning, unable to get him out of her head, and suggest they try the whole naked in bed thing again.
He snorted to himself. And the twenty-fifth of December saw him donning a red suit and squeezing himself down chimneys to deliver presents to ungrateful brats more concerned with the latest smartphone than the magic of giving.
All he wanted to do was get her in his arms again. He had it worse for her than he’d ever had it for any other woman… hell, his cock had barely gone down since this morning, springing back to life and full attention at the merest thought of the curvy ursine bombshell. All he could think about was fucking her, claiming her as his own, but there was no way she was the friends with benefits kind.
So he was between a rock and a hard place. He could pull the moves, seduce her into bed and fuck her finally. But once she realized he wasn’t the relationship type, there would be fuck all chance of him getting between her legs again. And given she was both a bear, and an enforcer, with a volcanic temper, she might even remove his equipment.
“Shitshitshitshit,” his hissed, shoving a hand through his loose hair.
And that was when he heard it. The slight murmur of raised voices.
He froze. Every warning sense he had tingled, bringing the hackles up on the back of his neck. And they weren’t his magical senses, either, but the good old-fashioned combat senses he’d learned serving Uncle Sam.
He crept nearer.
“We had a fucking deal. You can’t back out now!” The voices grew louder as Morgan moved toward the rear of the old structure. Pressing himself against the wooden walls, he peeked through a gap in the boards. He could see part of the inside, but it was all dust motes and fuck all else.
“We can do whatever the fuck we want!” That was a deeper voice than the first, with the growled edge that said bear.
Morgan altered his position, and a small group came into view. Brad Harrison and a couple of Anderson’s little pack were in the back of the barn with some men Morgan had never seen before. His eyes narrowed. They were all bears, that was easy to see. Shifters moved a particular way, and once you knew what you were looking for, you could easily pick out which type as well. Even in human form.
It looked like battle-lines had been drawn, with Anderson’s assholes on one side and the new bears on the other. They had to be the remainder of the rogues responsible for the attack on the Watson’s place a couple of weeks ago. What he still couldn’t work out though was why. It had been bothering him since the attack. It hadn’t made sense.
W
hy kidnap Jeb’s older daughters as a distraction only to loop back and attack the same house with Jeb’s wife, baby daughter, and Dean’s mate, Kacie, there?
At first his mind had gone down dark routes. There were some branches of blood magic that used body parts. And a female baby bear shifter? Gold dust for that kind of shit.
But even so, it seemed unlikely other bears, no matter how assholish they were, would hand over a baby of their own kind for something like that.
“It was supposed to be an in and out job,” the biggest of the rogues snarled, looming over Harrison threateningly. The smaller man flinched, and Morgan grinned. Harrison should be wary of larger bears. Especially after he’d been soundly beaten in the pit by Creed. If Morgan was him, he’d really want to avoid the beating that the bigger bear seemed eager to dish out.
“Instead, we lost Jack, Carlos, Rafe, and Sam. Four good bears. All trying to kill your prime’s human mate.”
They’d all thought the rogues were after the Watson girls. No one had thought it might be a plot to get to Kacie.
“She’s not just his mate, she’s his fated,” Brad argued mulishly, finally showing some backbone. “If she dies, then he’ll fold, and Anderson can take over the clan.”
Morgan’s breath hissed in over his teeth. The fucking backstabbing little shits. It was a power grab for the clan, set up in the most reprehensible way.
“Well, deal’s off.” The big bear folded his arms. “Pay us what was agreed, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
“We ain’t paying you until the job’s done.” Harrison seemed to find some backbone from somewhere, squaring up to the other bear.
Morgan moved forward, leaning in to see if Harrison got the kicking he deserved.
Something under his foot cracked.
He froze. It was an unforgivable lapse, especially for him and given his background. He was just glad neither Dean nor any of his old unit were here to see it. He’d never live it down.
“What was that?”
“Someone’s outside!”
He needed to be gone. Yesterday. Moving his hand, he murmured a spell and stepped sideways, the shadows wreathing him like a second skin. It was a complex bit of magic, one he’d learned from an unusual source, and it had saved his and his squad’s asses more times than he could count.
He’d grown up with people slinging spells at him. Often complicated as hell spells that required him to know the caster’s ethnic origin, religious affiliation, and inside leg measurement before he could formulate a defense. On the whole, bullets were easier. They didn’t care or alter position based on the position of the moon, what he was wearing, or if some sacred mouse farted two fields over.
The bears poured out of the barn, yelling and stomping. They milled about the front doors, running into each other before the two different groups split off and started to search.
“Where did he go?”
“Did you find him?”
“Nothing around here.”
The shouts went up as the bears searched around the barn. Morgan grinned when two walked within feet of him, shrouded by the spell.
The grin broadened as Harrison cuffed one of the others up the side of his head.
“You fucking idiot. There’s nothing here. You’re jumping at shadows again. Come on, let’s go.”
An hour later, Morgan had made it back through the fields to his well-hidden truck without any of the bears spotting him and driven back to the lodge. Sitting in a comfortable lounge chair in Dean’s office, he finished his story and looked at the two bears in the room with him; Dean and Lilly. Both looked concerned and annoyed. But then, members of your clan colluding with the enemy to kill someone’s fated mate to facilitate a clan takeover was about as serious as shit got.
“And you’re sure none of them saw you?” Dean demanded, his voice low and terse.
Seriously? After everything they’d been through?
“Can’t be sure.” He dead-panned. “I think the clown outfit might have been a little conspicuous. Of course they didn’t see me, you idiot, when have I ever let the enemy see me?”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Well there was that one time back in ‘08...”
“Oh, fuck off! I was the goddamn bait!” He shot back, ignoring the snort from Lilly’s direction as she hid a smile behind her hand. Badly.
He shot Dean a baleful look, trying to warn him he was breaking the bro code. The part that said no guy should show up a brother in front of a hot chick.
Dean grinned, obviously enjoying his discomfort. “Still let them see you before we were ready.”
“Not my fault you assholes were slow.”
Morgan flipped him the bird and focused on Lilly, instead. “No. None of them saw me,” he told her. “I didn’t recognize any of the rogues, but Harrison was there and a couple of others from Anderson’s lot. Lee Elder, Ed Petty, and Shawn Williams.”
From the look on her face, the names weren’t a surprise to Lilly. All four were single-minded sheep who believed all the crap Anderson spouted because it fed into their own hate-fueled beliefs. Forget logic and fact—if he told them that black was white, they’d believe him.
“Right.” Her voice held a firm edge. “I’ll have the team pick them up.”
“No.”
They both looked at Dean in confusion. He looked thoughtful.
“I’m sorry, boss?” Lilly ventured. “You don’t want me to have them brought in? What if they try something else?”
Dean shrugged. “Let them try it. We have the advantage now. We know who is working with the rogues and why. We’ll just make sure Kacie is never without a guard, like ever, even for the bathroom.” He looked at Lilly. “Find me another female enforcer, in case you and I aren’t with her. I don’t care if you have to ship one in.”
He leaned back in his chair. “We’ll give them enough rope to hang themselves with. You might want to brief the enforcer team,” he ordered Lilly, expression severe. “But just the ones you trust.”
“Yes, boss. On it.”
Dean and Morgan watched her go, a tiny, curvy force of nature.
Morgan turned around to find Dean watching him.
“So how are things going with you two? Any issues with Bennett?” the prime wanted to know.
Morgan shook his head. “He’s lurking, but so far it’s been public places. I haven’t spotted him around the house at all.”
“Okay. Good.” Dean growled and ran a hand through his hair. “Never rains but it fucking pours, doesn’t it? I could do without this crap with Bennett on top of Anderson and his assholes kicking off.”
Morgan chuckled. “Anderson’s assholes. Sounds like band name.”
Dean barked a short, sharp laugh. “Yeah. Doesn’t it?”
“Don’t worry about Bennett. I got that one covered,” Morgan assured him. “You concentrate on Anderson’s lot. Unless, I mean… I can fucking toast him if you like?”
He wiggled his fingers for effect, calling a little magical fire to crawl over his skin. It was a light show, nothing more. But then, sometimes magic was bluff and show. It was illusion and convincing your audience that you were more powerful than you were. Real magic, the dangerous kind, was rare—you didn’t see it coming and there weren’t many capable of handling it.
Morgan was one of the few.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t above a few parlor tricks every now and then.
Unfortunately, Dean knew it.
“Oh, put it away, showoff.” The bear prime snorted with amusement. “No, I need to deal with this and be seen doing it. There can be no doubt about who controls this clan.”
“Seriously? You and Morgan Jones?”
“Oh, for god’s sake, don’t look at me like that. There’s nothing wrong with the guy!” Lilly spat in exasperation as both her friends looked at her. “He’s hot. He’s built like a Greek god, and those muscles?” She bit her lip. “They feel just as nice as they look.”
“Yeah… but Morgan Jones?” Kait
whispered.
“I knew it!” Kacie caroled, fist-pumping the air. “I knew you had a thing for him.”
Both women perched on the edge of the big sofa opposite her, watching her avidly. Human women, not bear-women, but where gossip was concerned, they were bigger predators than any of the bears born and bred.
“What?”
They watched her like a pair of velociraptors. Bright eyes. Bright, unblinking eyes.
“You know what we want,” Kacie said bluntly. “Details. We need details.”
“Old mated women like us need to get our kicks and live vicariously through you,” Kait agreed.
“Old mated women?” Lilly spluttered. “You haven’t been mated more than a couple of weeks, either of you! You’re not out of the honeymoon period yet, so don’t give me that!” Then her smile broadened a little evilly. “Unless... Don’t tell me. Neither Dean nor Creed are any good in the sack…”
“Useless.”
“Hasn’t a clue.”
They both deadpanned.
“Lying bitches. I’ll tell them that.” Lilly laughed. “Okay. He can kiss, I’ll give him that. Like really kiss.”
Kait made a circling motion with her hand. “Gonna need a bit more than that. Creed says you two have been holed up at your place for days. I think moving a guy in is a little more than a kiss, don’t you?”
Lilly winced. “Well, ordinarily… yeah. But there’s a bit more to it than that.”
“I’d say,” Kacie added. “Spill the beans. Now. Before we go track down Morgan and ask him.”
“You’re total bitches, you know that.” Lilly was beat. “Okay. I’m not sure how much Dean and Creed have told you about our culture and bear-clans but there’s something called a fated mate. That’s what you two are. It’s like a soul bond, if that makes sense?”
They both nodded.
“Apparently Dean knew I was his for years,” Kacie grumbled. “But the stupid man didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, well, that will be because of the rule about humans knowing about us,” Lilly explained. “Not all humans can cope with the knowledge that things like werebears live among you. Sends them cuckoo. If that had happened and you hadn’t been able to cope with finding out about Dean… he’d have had to kill you.”
