by Thorne, Elle
“You all do. But I asked each of you to keep it a secret.”
“And we all did.” Cross looked at Lance.
Lance nodded.
“That you did,” Griz agreed.
Griz heaved a long harsh breath. “Been quite a burden. Glad to let it out.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mac understood they’d just learned a lot. That they’d had a bombshell dropped on them. She didn’t want to be disrespectful, but she had her own problem.
Everyone’s arrival had interrupted her talk with Larsen—Griz—whatever the hell his name was.
“Hold on.”
They all turned to look at her.
“You—my—there’s another unresolved matter.”
Lance’s face was stoic, but in the depths of his eyes, his bear flashed golden flames.
She couldn’t bring herself to say what she had to say. She couldn’t voice her failed attempt to break their couplebond. Not in front of all these people.
Lance cleared his throat. “Could I have a minute with MacKenzie, please?”
He opened the door, and one by one they all filed out. Mae, Griz, Ariadne.
He turned toward Mac.
A roar erupted in the room.
On hind legs, Cross, in his bear form swiped at Lance.
Lance never stood a chance. He couldn’t back up, he was against the filing table that held brochures and business cards.
Cross’s claws slashed through Lance’s shirt.
Mac screamed.
Blood bloomed scarlet on Lance’s shirt.
Cross’s bear roared and reached for Mac.
Another roar filled the room.
A huge grizzly with a jagged scar on its muzzle stood between Mac and Cross’s bear.
Griz!
Griz reared back, standing taller, he towered over Cross’s bear. He bellowed, mouth wide, saliva dripping from canines that were lethally long.
Her waiting room was going to be a blood bath. Mac didn’t know what she could do. Just outside the door, Mae and Ariadne watched, eyes wide.
Mae’s dark eyes were a brilliant indigo blue, sparkling, though her face was pale. Mae raised her arms. Behind Mae, lightning flashed across the sky and the rumble of thunder crashed through the bears’ roars.
Griz’s bear swiped at Cross’s bear, connecting with Cross’s flesh and fur. Blood spurted,
Lance was leaning against the counter, his face ghostly white beneath his olive complexion.
Mac’s tattoo had gone ice cold, chilled fingers of dread pierced her skin. Her veins coursed with glacier water. She could feel Lance’s heartbeat begin a slow fade.
He needed to go into a healing hibernation. Oh yeah, Mac knew all about healing to hibernate. Lance had told her all about hibernation healing, the day after they’d faced the wolves.
“God, no,” she whispered, not audible above the thunder and the bears’ growls.
Mac ran to Lance.
“Go. This is—” He gasped for a breath and more blood flowed onto his already saturated shirt. “—go, MacKenzie. I don’t want you hurt.”
He didn’t want her hurt? He was dying. She could feel his essence and strength flowing out of him. She could feel it from the couplebond between them that was stronger than ever.
“Griz is going to kill Cross.” She didn’t know this for sure, but the look in Griz’s bear eyes petrified her.
“No. I can’t let him kill my brother.”
Lance stumbled forward between the two bears. He faced Griz, his back to Cross.
Time stood still.
It was as if they were in a tunnel that was getting smaller and the spotlight was on the two bears and the mortally wounded man who stood between them.
The bears were frozen. Griz’s claw was raised high, ready to strike Cross’s bear. Cross was lunging forward.
Then there was Lance.
In the middle.
In his human body.
Bleeding.
Dying.
“No.” Lance stumbled forward. “You will not hurt my brother.” He almost pitched face forward into Griz’s fur covered body.
Mac couldn’t just sit back and watch the catastrophic train wreck that was happening between the bears and her mate.
“Stop this!” she yelled. She ran between them, wrapped her arms around Lance’s waist to keep him from collapsing.
She heard the creaking sounds, the bones crunching. She knew that sound all too well.
Cross and Griz had shifted into their human forms.
They reached for Lance, helping Mac hold him up.
“He needs to shift.” Cross’s tone caught Mac off-guard.
She glanced at his face. Remorse was the only emotion there.
“Is this over?” Griz’s tone was gruff. “Can I count on this being done? For good?”
Cross nodded.
“And your bear? Where does he stand on this?” There was enough of a growl in Griz’s voice to let Mac know his bear was close to the surface.
Cross looked at Lance. Then he glanced at Ariadne. Something changed in his face.
“Family.” Cross kept his eyes on Ariadne. “Family is the most important thing. My bear is coming to a realization. What Lance and I do, who we are, has nothing to do with the mistakes our fathers made. We are brothers.”
Mac felt Lance’s heartbeat falter. That meant he was losing the battle. His blood loss was too much for his body. “He needs to heal. Now. Let’s get him to the back.”
The idea of losing Lance ripped her to shreds, far more than his vanishing from her life had. She couldn’t bear the notion of Lance being dead.
No. That she couldn’t do. Ever. If he wanted to live life without her—well that wasn’t in her control. But having him dead was simply not an option.
Griz and Cross carried Lance to the large examination room in the back, the one reserved for large animals, with no table, but with hay in the corner. Where horses and cattle, and even a deer had been brought. They gingerly placed him on the hay.
Mac put a folded blanket under his head.
“Shift. You need to heal. Shift.” She begged of him.
Nothing.
No movement.
No shifting.
“MacKenzie.”
She looked up at Griz. “What?”
“He has no reason to heal. He has no reason to live.”
It dawned on her. Lance had no idea her heart had changed.
Nah, my heart never changed.
Her heart had always been his.
Seeing him almost die. Knowing that she almost lost him
She leaned close to his cheek, her hand on his head, tucked in his hair.
“Come back to me, Lance. I want you. I need you.”
Then she said the words she’d never spoken. Not once. The words she couldn’t have spoken and couldn’t have been dragged out of her by wild horses.
“I love you.”
She felt his morphing. She felt his heartbeat skip then give a strong beat. In her mind, where she was the closest to Lance, she felt his sinew and tendons stretching. She sensed his bones lengthening.
Mac backed up, but kept her hand on his head. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his, let her breathing synchronize with his.
Her fingers were in plush fur.
Mac lay with him, not rising to eat or drink. She lay with him for hours and hours until sleep took her.
She heard voices, somewhere in her subconscious.
“Let her be.” This came from Griz.
“Is she okay?” Mae’s voice was colored with concern.
“She’s finally going to be.”
“And Lance?” Cross asked.
“He will heal,” Griz said. “It will only be hours, now that he’s shifted. “Let’s leave them. They have a lot of catching up to do.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mac stretched. Her fingers gripped thick fur. She opened her eyes slowly, still half-asleep basking in that stat
e of not quite awake.
She was staring into a large bear’s dark brown eyes. Mac blinked slowly. The bear’s eyes glowed with a golden depth.
Mac felt no fear. That was Lance’s bear.
“You’re better,” she whispered.
The bear made a low growly sound, then the creaking and the crunching sounds she knew.
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch it. She’d seen it before, and it weirded her out to see his features stretching and morphing. The fur slipped from beneath her fingertips.
“Hey.”
Lance.
Her eyes flew open.
“Glad you’re here,” Lance ran his fingertips from the corner of her eye, over her cheekbone, down her jawline.
“I couldn’t imagine anywhere else I’d be.”
And that was the god’s honest truth. She couldn’t imagine being anywhere else but by his side.
“I thought…” he began.
She put a fingertip on his lips. “I can’t even begin to know what it’s like to have a bear inside, to have another being that acts and thinks independently of you.”
He tilted his head, watching her.
Mac chewed on her lip. “But you stood by me during my mistrust and the darkest hours, when my own chamber of demons was threatening to bury me.”
Lance nodded. “Then…”
“I’m not going to Griz’s cousin.” She studied his face. “You’re covered in blood.”
He licked his thumb, then brushed it across her other cheek. The finger he pulled back had a crimson tinge. “You got some on you.”
“I still have your clothes in the cottage.”
“You didn’t get rid of them?”
“No.” I could never. “You can use the shower in the cottage.”
Chapter Twenty
Lance let the water run down his body, washing the scarlet remnants of the scuffle between him and Griz and Cross away. He still hadn’t fully absorbed the information Griz had laid on him. He wasn’t sure how much he would ever comprehend it.
The only thing he knew was when push came to shove, he couldn’t let Griz hurt his brother. And given the chance, Cross ultimately didn’t kill him.
He’d sort the rest out while he was at Bear Canyon Mountain Range for the next year.
He’d also have to talk to MacKenzie. He wasn’t going to make another move in his life, not even the smallest one, without her.
If she’d have him.
She seemed to have accepted him, at least as a friend…
But what about the rest?
She was the woman for him. She was the only one. If she wouldn’t have him…
God.
He didn’t even want to think of that.
The air cooled. He’d been so caught up in his thoughts, he hadn’t noticed.
The shower curtain was pulled aside. With only a pair of panties on, she stood before him, topless. Creamy, rose-tipped breasts, her hard nipples issued an invitation. Her hands rose, cupping, offering.
Fuck. Damn.
Lance’s cock jerked to attention. His breathing turned into panting as blood coursed through his body, followed by electric surges of desire.
Her hands lowered, tracing lips covered by the filmy white fabric of her panties.
He stepped forward, put his finger on hers, and let her trail both their fingers over her sex. The heat contained within made his desire peak. She traveled her hand, taking his with hers, up to the top of her panties and slipped her fingers inside, just barely passing the barrier of her waistband.
Lance’s fingers separated from hers and traveled down to her lips, to her core, then down to her entrance.
He tugged, pulling MacKenzie under the running water with him. Her panties, soaked, clung to her skin, tantalizing, and at the same time, hiding what he wanted so damned badly. What he’d been without for so many years.
Lance pushed gently on the fabric with a fingertip, watching it enter her body, watching his finger and the fabric making an indentation as it breached her entrance.
MacKenzie put her free hand on his cock, wrapping firm fingers around it.
His fucking body went weak and rigid with desire, at the same time.
His other hand crept to his dick, joining hers. He poked his finger in deeper, wondering how much give her panties had, how far in he’d be able to push while the fabric was creating a barricade.
MacKenzie moaned. A low sound that pulled at Lance and his bear.
Her moan broke him.
Fuck the panties.
He shoved them aside, marveling at her dark pink skin, her sleekness. MacKenzie spread her legs and placed a hand on each side of her sex, pushing her flesh apart, giving him a better view of the area he wanted to sink into, to plunge into the depths of.
Aching to be deep within her, he took her hand and pulled her closer, slipped a thumb into each side of her panties and pulled them down. He turned MacKenzie around, and pressed her against the shower wall. Taking her hands, he placed them on the tile, held them in place with his.
She pushed her ass backward, her body like a siren’s beckon. Lance reached around, tweaked and rolled each nipple, fueled by her whimpers of pleasure, he positioned himself perfectly behind her, dropped his hand against her mound and ran it toward her clit. Mackenzie wriggled with pleasure at the pressure of his fingers on her core. She pushed backward, tempting his cock, almost taking him in, but he backed up.
“Not yet, luscious,” he whispered close to her ear.
“Lance. Now.” Her voice was desperate. “Please.”
Grabbing her hips, he drove into her with the fierceness of his emotions, his fears, his need. He drove into her channel, savoring the tautness of her body. The way it made a tight sheath that pulled him deeper, threatening to drain him prematurely.
Lance pushed and pumped, taking, giving, driving, lost in the grip of her channel, unable to function or think of pleasing or pleasure, driven by the need to burst.
With every one of Lance’s thrusts, MacKenzie grunted and pushed against him, her backward thrusts wild, matching his, her cries and moans loud.
“I want you to bond me.” The words were ripped from her lungs at the same moment an orgasm catapulted her body into a spasm.
He wanted to more than anything. And the last time felt like it was more his idea than hers. “You sure?”
“Yes. God. Yes. Now.”
He didn’t need to be told twice, nor did his bear.
Lance bit into her neck, in the exact same spot as their first couple bond, but on the opposite side. He tasted her blood, the way he did the first time, but this time the surge of energy that flowed through him was like a fireball, traveling from one part of his body to another with a speed that made his head spin.
Fuck.
This bond. Their togetherness was double-sealed.
He’d never let anyone or anything get between them. Especially not himself.
She squirmed, let out a cry as she climaxed again.
Out of control, Lance yanked her hips close and buried himself deep. He tried to stop the flow, but when she screamed and tightened in an orgasm, he fully lost the battle, matching her outcry, shuddering, filling her completely.
Judge
Judge del Cruz followed in his older brothers’ footsteps, serving in the Shifter Compliance Unit. He never thought much about returning to the mountain range where he spent so much of his teen years. Those were the happiest days of his life, but being an Enforcer allows him to stay too busy to dwell on any of his past.
But the call to return to Bear Canyon Mountain Range is too powerful. So he packs up, ready to see his own cabin at the top of the range.
What he didn’t plan on, seeing, the curvy bootilicious Alanna—Lani— who pushes his buttons, in all the wrong ways—and yet by damn, in all the right ones too!
Prologue
Mac stirred. Something awoke her. What was it?
She heard it again.
A phone vibratin
g.
Lance’s phone.
Lance lunged for the nightstand. “Sorry, I was hoping to keep from waking you.”
“It’s okay.”
Lance’s expression changed. She couldn’t pin it. He swiped a finger across the screen and put the phone to his ear. “Judge.”
He paused, then, “What the hell do you mean, AWOL?”
“Judge? Judge.” He set the phone down. “Connection lost. I should call Cross.”
He paused, then, “Line’s busy.”
Chapter One
Alanna Meyers, Lani to those who were close to her, willed the queasiness away. Will though she might, she had no luck. The persistent urge to upchuck the nonexistent contents of her stomach didn’t go away.
She cursed herself for her impulsive nature.
I shouldn’t be impulsive, should I?
Did being an Intuitive make her more prone to rash acts?
Some poster child for her kind, she was.
Four years ago, when she’d applied and made it to the Shifter Council Compliance Unit, she’d been hailed as a poster child for her type.
Lani was an Intuitive.
Intuitives and shifters didn’t work together. The relationships between the two paranormals had been strained for centuries.
A treaty had put the bad blood aside—at least on the surface, and allowed for both the shifter community and the Intuitive community to work together. One of the conditions the treaty declared was that Intuitives could work within the Shifter Council’s Special Operations units—including the Compliance Unit.
Word had it, applications would be considered.
Lani and her best friend Pepper applied for appointment. Only two.
Of the entire Intuitive community only one got in.
Lani.
Poster child for the Intuitives. She’d made it in, passed the rigorous testing with flying colors. Her parents had been thrilled to no end that Lani, their middle child with no aspirations to speak of, no goals or dreams, had made it to the SCCU.
No, she wasn’t an Enforcer—of course not. Only shifters could be Enforcers. But she’d made it in and they’d created a special position for her—Compliance Unit Consultant.
