Catching the Bear: BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (The Callaghan Clan Book 3)

by Meredith Clarke

  I stepped forward onto the dirt road and looked along its dusty edges. The growl started off low in my throat and rose in protest of what I was seeing. Or wasn’t seeing, actually. They were here, but they were staying hidden.

  “Bo!” Kenzie yelled in a hushed whisper. “You’re scaring them!”

  I’m scaring them? I’m not the one hiding and waiting for an ambush. I walked forward, stepping further away from the Jeep and from Kenzie. She needed protection. But Kenzie, being the boisterous and fearless mate she was, joined me by my side, her hands digging into my fur.

  Something skirted between two buildings off to our left and another shuffling sound directed our attention to the right. We were surrounded.

  “Bo?” Kenzie whispered. “Where are they?”

  And just as she asked, we were bombarded with screaming humans and raging coyotes.

  They came from every direction. Some leapt down from rooftops, others climbed up out of the ground. I had no idea how many of them there were until it was too late.

  Bo roared when two of the coyotes started biting at his rump. He swiped his massive paw in their faces, but they were just playing with him. Teasing a grizzly like they hadn’t a fear in the world.

  As Bo spun, I tried to stay by his side. But on one of his twists, he knocked me backward and I fell into the dirt with a thump. The tiny stones dug into my hands and my tailbone throbbed from the impact. I looked up, hearing Bo let out a growl so deep, so feral, it had my flight instincts rushing to the surface. But the view of my mate was blocked by five coyote faces. Five faces that would have ignited my cuteness meter had they not been snarling and drooling like they were about to tear my throat out.

  Bo roared and knocked two of them down. The third one fell onto me, pinning me to the ground with its front feet. It was a female. I didn’t know how I knew that at this moment, but I just did. And she was mad. I mean mad like a rabid dog that just lost her pups mad. I had no idea why I was on the receiving end of this anger.

  I heard Bo on my left, fighting off more coyotes. And now I could also hear the scuffle of human feet and the clinking of chains. I tried to lift my head but the female coyote on top of me snarled and bared her teeth.

  “What did I ever do to you?” I groaned, trying to push her off. She was too strong. Much stronger than I would have expected.

  Bo screamed. A roar and a growl and a screech all in one. And that sound had my heart breaking in fear. I yelled out to him, but only got the muffled sounds of fighting in return. “Let him go!” I shouted. “Do you know who we are?”

  The coyote holding me down let one side of her lip curl up. A smile? A sign that she understood? I didn’t know how to interpret that. But my attention was pulled back to Bo when a low, deep, and terrifying human voice spoke to him.

  “Bo Callaghan,” it said. “We’ve been so looking forward to your arrival.”

  Oh shit. That wasn’t a friendly tone and when Bo yelled out in pain, I knew we’d walked into a trap.

  “Put him in the cage,” the man said.

  But Bo understood and I heard him fighting against the chains. They clanked and clattered and rattled under his pressure. I managed to glance to the side only to see that they’d wrapped an entire net of metal mesh over him, with two separate pieces of chain wrapped around his front paws. Four humans pulled those chains out to the side, his face pressed against the ground while they had him pinned.

  I tried to stand. To tell these savage people who we were and what we were here for. But the bitch on top of me placed her jaws over my throat. She didn’t bite down but there was no mistaking the warning in her move.

  Fine then.

  Conjuring up the magic in my core, I summoned it to the surface. If I could free Bo, he would protect us both. I wiggled my hand free enough to move my fingers and pointed them to the men on his right holding the chain that kept him still. With the incantation on the tip of my tongue, I closed my eyes and focused on the links wrapped around their hands. “Calidus.”

  An instant later, the two men screamed out in pain and dropped the burning metal from their grip. I pointed toward the other two on Bo’s left and sent the spell their way. They, too, dropped the chain and Bo jumped back up onto all fours. A wave of fear skirted across the eyes of the female coyote holding me down but she still didn’t budge from her grip on my throat.

  Bo roared again, shaking the metal netting free from his back. The coyotes and the humans stepped away, waiting to see what he’d do next now that they’d lost the upper hand. He growled at them, showing his teeth and swiping has claws in their direction. Standing up on his hind legs, he turned until he found me. Stomping to the ground that shook beneath his weight, he snarled at the female on top of me—a warning.

  She clamped down a little harder on my throat, a low rumble coming out of her chest. I felt her teeth pressing into my skin, pretty sure that if she clenched any harder, I would be dead. Bo took a step forward. Then another. Then he leaned back into his haunches and prepared to leap at her. But that never happened. The second Bo’s feet left the ground, I heard a deafening shot and my grizzly dropped out of the air.

  “No!” I screamed. “Bo!”

  He was on the ground, snout inches from the tip of my fingers yet I couldn’t reach him. Bo didn’t move although I could feel his breath. I tried to look at his chest, to confirm that he was still alive, but I couldn’t see over his head.

  “What did you do?” I cried out, tears filling my eyes and blurring my mate’s face. “What did you do to him?”

  Someone’s foot crunched on the gravel next to me. “He’s fine,” that deep voice grumbled again. Speaking to others, he then said, “Take him away.” They rushed forward, dragging Bo’s limp body down the street and away from me.

  “Away? Away to where?” I tried see the face of the man dictating what happens to my grizzly. “Do you know who we are?”

  A shadow fell over my face as the coyote lifted her head and the guy in charge leaned over me. “Back away, Mariah,” he said to her. And when she didn’t move, he narrowed his eyes at her. “Do it. Now.”

  The coyote shook her head and pressed her feet into my chest hard enough that it pushed the air out of my lungs. When I made a noise, the man pursed his lips and flicked his hand out toward the coyote. Saying something in another language, he directed his angry gaze at her. She yipped and then a few seconds later I heard the sound of bones cracking while suffocating in the magic that filled the air. A human female, with long, dark hair and eyes as black as midnight fell on top of me. A naked human female that panted with the force of her change.

  “Dad!” she screamed at the man. “I told you it hurts when you do that!” Her eyes moistened with tears until she saw my face below hers. Then they narrowed in an anger I knew I didn’t deserve.

  “Back off,” her father warned.

  Mariah glared at me, sniffing the air around me and snarling through her human lips. She didn’t make any move to get off of me until her father stepped closer. Then, with a quick glare aimed at him, she pulled her head back and spit in my face.

  Her body was jerked away from me when her father grabbed her under the arm and yanked her up to standing. “Mariah!” he shouted, then spoke to her in a native language. I didn’t understand the words but knew she was being scolded. And when I heard my name mentioned, I sat up, paying more attention.

  The men who’d dragged off Bo returned to their alpha’s side. “He’s in the cage, sir.”

  The guy in charge nodded once and released his daughter. Then, with a smile I would have thought impossible to grace his face, he reached forward and offered me a hand. He, too, had long dark hair and slightly tanned skin. He was dressed like a lumberjack with ragged jeans, a flannel shirt only partially buttoned, and worn in work boots. Not someone I would have imagined was a powerful witch in his tribe.

  I glared at his outstretched hand. “Would you care to tell me what this is all about?” I snapped.

  He wiggle
d his fingers, encouraging me to take his offer. Reluctantly, I did and he easily pulled me up to my feet. “Welcome, Ms. Parker. Let me apologize on behalf of my daughter.”

  I glanced over toward Mariah who was still completely naked and giving me an evil look that had my skin crawling. Pushing down my shirt and making sure my hair wasn’t in my face, I sucked in a breath and feigned control. “And would you care to explain?”

  “Certainly,” he said, sticking out his elbow like he wanted to escort me. I refused to grab on and he simply shrugged his shoulders. “You see, your…Bo has a bit of apologizing to do.”

  “What’s your name?” I demanded.

  “Marcus.”

  “Well, Marcus. Regardless of what Bo did or didn’t do, your daughter assaulted a representative of the ISC—”

  “I didn’t assault you, bitch,” Mariah interrupted.

  For the life of me I couldn’t figure out where this anger was coming from. Marcus snapped his fingers and she immediately dropped her head. But not before giving me the hairy eyeball one more time.

  “As I was saying,” I continued while watching Mariah closely, “your hospitality needs some work.”

  Marcus laughed which made the rest of his pack around him laugh. They were all in human form now, something I had missed, and all fully clothed aside from Mariah. Marcus gestured in front of him, encouraging me to follow his lead. “Again, I apologize for your treatment.”

  “And what about Bo?” I asked, refusing to take a single step until Marcus explained the situation.

  “Bo is fine.”

  “You shot him.”

  “With a tranquilizer. He’ll wake up soon.”

  “That was uncalled for.”

  “It wasn’t. You’ll see.”

  I’ll see? I’ll see? I already hated how much power Marcus exuded. He held a lot of magic in him and to control a pack of skin-walkers this size meant that he was much more influential than I could ever be.

  Marcus walked toward the only other wood building at the end of this street. As I followed, so did his pack. Mostly men and about a third of them women of all ages. They glared at me with empty stares as we moved through the town. Almost like a hoard of zombies, blindly following their leader without question. I hadn’t met a coyote pack before and at this point, I never wanted to deal with them again.

  We arrived at a dead end and I pondered the reasoning behind having only one way in and one way out of this place. It gave me the chills. But then I heard Bo. He shouted my name from a set of dog kennels lining the left side of the road. Naked and on his knees, it looked like he was trying to push through the effects of the tranquilizer.

  “See? Told you he’d be fine,” Marcus said.

  I turned with a snarl I didn’t know I could make. “Let him out,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “In a minute,” Marcus replied, totally unconcerned for Bo’s well-being.

  “Look,” I said, stomping my foot. “Let him out now and I won’t tell the ISC what I’ve witnessed today.”

  “You will have your mate back soon.”

  At the word mate, Mariah screamed into the air. “No!”

  Her father snapped his head around and gave her a look. “What did you expect?” he snarled. “Did you expect his bear to pick you?”

  Mariah’s eyes teared up while a thousand explanations raced through my head. Why did Mariah know Bo and why did her father have him locked in a cage right now? Why did she freak out by the declaration that I was Bo’s mate?

  “Oh, shit,” I grumbled, putting it together. I stomped over to Bo who still stumbled against the cage but whose eyes were perfectly clear. And guilty. “Would you like to explain this to me?” I asked.

  Bo hung his head, shaking it slowly.

  “Bo?”

  “I—”

  Holding up my hand, I stopped him from speaking. “And before you answer, remember that you are in a cage and I can leave you here.”

  Surprisingly, he smiled at me. “My little witch,” he whispered, face pressed against the chin links. “My little, protective witch.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Bo looked passed me at Mariah and then found my glare. “It was nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Mariah squeaked. Her dad snapped again and she bowed her head. But her fists were clenched by her sides and her knees locked like she was holding herself back.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Okay, okay,” Bo said. “I slept with her.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “Why?”

  He made a face like that was the dumbest question ever. “Because she wanted to.”

  “Did she?” I growled.

  “Of course!” he shouted. Using both hands to tuck his hair behind his head, he sighed. “We met at a bar. She invited me home. And of course I accepted.”

  Of course.

  Marcus walked over to his daughter and yanked on her arm. He marched her toward us like a rag doll, forcing her to face this uncomfortable situation. And as he did, I took in the competition. Tall, lean, a few years younger than me. Damn it if I didn’t feel a massive surge of jealously brewing at the surface right now.

  Marcus stopped in front of the cage. “You owe my daughter an apology.”

  “What?” Bo asked. “An apology for—”

  “Bo,” I snapped. “Apologize.”

  His mouth hung open while he looked back and forth between me, Marcus, and Mariah. When I raised my brows in warning, he let out a breath and stood tall. “Mariah, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” her father asked.

  Bo looked like he was about to argue again so I cleared my throat. This was his only chance to make things right.

  “For…for leading you on,” he finally said. “I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea.” Looking at Mariah, he gave her a small smile.

  She bit her lips and clenched her jaw. And then she sighed. “Fine.”

  “There!” Marcus said when he clapped his hands. “Over.” Jerking his head to the side, Mariah took the signal and left the area, hopefully to put on some clothes. Then he honed his focus in on Bo. “I see that you have a mate now, and that’s good. But I don’t ever want to see you around my daughter again. Is that clear.”

  “Perfectly,” Bo said, no doubt feeling the power rolling off of this man.

  “Good.” Marcus waved two men over who unlocked the cage and let Bo out.

  He immediately wrapped his arms around me and whispered into my ear. “Did she hurt you?”

  I felt his chest shudder and knew that I needed to stay calm so that we didn’t have another episode. “No, I’m fine.”

  An older lady shoved a blanket in between our faces and we both pulled back at the same time. It smelled like a wet dog, but Bo said nothing as he wrapped it around his waist and then slung an arm back over my shoulder.

  “Marcus,” Bo said. “You know why we’re here, right?”

  Marcus sat down on a plastic lawn chair that someone had carried over. They’d grabbed two additional ones for us. “I know why she’s here. You were just an added bonus,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  I rested my hand on Bo’s thigh once we sat, a signal that I wanted him to be quiet from now on. “Marcus,” I said, “You know what the ISC has planned?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you know why they sent me?”

  “Because you’re a witch. Like me.”

  I swallowed down another lump of fear. Marcus might be a witch but I was nothing like him. “Are you going to support their decision to come out to the humans?”

  “No,” he said quickly. Raising his hand to stop my next words, he continued. “No, we will not expose ourselves. But we will not expose the others either.”

  “Meaning?” Bo asked. I nudged him again to be quiet.

  “Meaning you can bask in the glory of the aftermath while we keep our secrets intact.” Marcus waved his palms at all of the
coyotes surrounding us. “What do you think would happen if word gets out that not only are we shifters, but we are magical skin-walkers? Huh? We’ll be prosecuted until there is nothing left. Humans are afraid of what they do not understand. And witches? They will never accept that witches live among them.”

  Marcus’ words stung. Not because they were mean, but because they were the truth. Humans had been persecuting witches since the beginning of time. We had no idea how they were going to react to shifters, but we sure as hell knew how they would react to us. History tended to repeat itself.

  Watching me process his words, Marcus leaned back in his white plastic chair and crossed his arms. “And what about the vampires and demons? Are they a part of this grand reveal?”

  I felt Bo glance at me as I shook my head. “No. They want to stay hidden.”

  “And the other skin-walkers?”

  I shrugged. “They feel the same way you do.”

  Marcus glanced at Bo. “And what about the grizzlies? Aren’t you afraid they will hunt you all down until extinction?” He didn’t give him a chance to answer before continuing. “We have seen our numbers dwindle the last few decades because of what humans are dong to this land. Encroaching on our territory. Diluting our genes. Taking our jobs.” Marcus threw a hand up into the air. “Hell, we had to force ourselves into this town just to survive the winter.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Remembering that wild coyotes would often steal other animal’s homes, I had to stop the smile from forming on my lips. Although I had a feeling Marcus knew what I was thinking.

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have your answer. We have too many secrets to be exposed.” He leaned forward, eyes boring into mine. “Just like you.”

  I shivered with his statement. I knew I couldn’t tell the world that I was a witch. But I’d accepted that long ago. My role now was to support those who wanted to live free. The shifters of the world who were tired of hiding. And who knows? Maybe in another decade it would be possible for those of us that harbor the magic around us to finally come clean.