Bride For the Bear (Paranormal Shifter Romance) (Haven Book 1)

by Stella Night

  We circled around each other, neither one of us making a move. I was biding my time, hoping against hope that he would come to his senses and back off. There was still time for him to rescind his challenge. I would banish him from the clan, but at least his life would be spared. It was up to him now. If he attacked, I wouldn’t hesitate to end him.

  A sweet scent tickled my nostrils. It smelled like honey and cinnamon. My heart sank in my chest.

  Rachel.

  I turned in the direction of her scent. There she was, watching me from just up the hill. Her eyes were filled with shock and horror. I couldn’t bear to see that look in her eyes when she looked at me. She saw me for the monster I was, and there was no doubt she was horrified by it.

  I shifted back to human form so I could call out to her.

  “Rachel!” I cried, reaching out to her as if I could touch her from this far away.

  She blinked at the sound of her name, and it was like she’d become unfrozen. She shook her head at me, like she couldn’t quite come to terms with what she was seeing. I couldn’t blame her. I just wished she hadn’t seen me like this, not without me being able to explain it to her first. I cursed myself for not telling her when I had the chance.

  I moved towards her, needing her to know that it was still me. It was still the Noah she’d kissed, the same Noah she’d loved. But as soon as I moved, she recoiled in fear, disappearing beneath the rise in the hill.

  I had to go after her.

  A thousand pounds of pissed off bear slammed into me, knocking me off my feet. I heard something like the sound of dry twigs snapping. Pain flared in my chest, my arm, and my legs. Maddox had fractured bones in multiple places. My body felt like I’d been plunged into fire.

  He spun me over like a rag doll so I was on my back. Then he pressed the weight of his entire body on mine. I couldn’t move, couldn’t shift, couldn’t breathe. The pain I felt was intense, but it was nothing compared to the memory of Rachel’s face when she looked at me before she ran.

  It was Anna all over again. Any time a human woman saw the real me, she ran away in fear. Anna had disappeared into thin air without a trace. My time with Rachel would end the same way. Maybe if I could catch up to her. Maybe if I could explain.

  A hot line of pain exploded along my neck. Maddox was scraping his claws over my skin, deep enough to cut me but not deep enough to kill. It was a bear’s way of saying surrender or die. The son of a bitch had won. It didn’t matter that he’d blind sided me. It didn’t matter that I’d been in human form. He had bested me. There was only one thing left for me to do.

  “I submit,” I said, the words tasting like bile in my mouth.

  Maddox shifted back to human form and shuffled off me. His eyes were bright with triumph.

  “I told you that girl was trouble,” he said with barely restrained glee.

  I struggled to my knees. My limbs screamed in agony. My broken bones would heal soon, but for now, I couldn’t even stand. I couldn’t go after Rachel. Not yet.

  “What the hell was she doing here?” I asked, more to myself than to Maddox.

  To my surprise, he answered.

  “What do you think she was doing here? It was all according to my plan.”

  Chapter 13

  Rachel

  I ran through the woods, not looking where I was going and not caring.

  Where do you even go when your whole world comes crashing down around you? Nowhere felt safe. My whole concept of reality had been called into question. Either I had gone insane or I’d really just seen the man I loved turn into a bear. This couldn’t be real. None of this could be real.

  Things like this didn’t happen in real life. This was the stuff of fairy tales, of TV shows, of old legends told around campfires. The thought reminded me of being in the cave with Noah and seeing those cave drawings. The pictures made more sense now. It wasn’t just drawings of men and bears next to each other. Those had been symbols showing men turning into bears.

  Noah hadn’t been exaggerating when he said his ancestors had lived in this place and made those drawings. He must be a direct descendant of those same people. They were an ancient mystery that had somehow survived without notice by the rest of the world.

  Sure, there were stories about people who could shift into animal form, but they were just that. Stories. No one really believed in this kind of thing. No one could believe in this kind of thing unless they’d seen it with their own eyes.

  Hell, I had seen it and I could barely believe it.

  So that was Noah’s secret. He had been a monster all along. And not just the metaphorical kind like my last boyfriend. Noah was the real deal, straight out of a Stephen King novel.

  How could I have been so blind? How could I have been so stupid? Was I really so easily swayed by good looks and ripped abs?

  Tears flowed down my cheeks, making it difficult to pick my way through the thick brush. My pace slowed down and then stopped. I dropped to my knees on the soft soil and wept into my hands.

  Obviously, I was cursed. Nothing else could explain my bad luck with men. Nice guys had to exist out there somewhere. So why couldn’t I find one for myself? What was wrong with me?

  The sad thing was Noah had been great. He was strong and manly, but he was also sweet and tender. He knew how to make me laugh and how to make me feel safe. If you’d asked me fifteen minutes ago, I’d have said we were kindred spirits. We both had scars. Both of us had been hurt by past relationships.

  That reminded me of what he’d told me about Anna.

  He said she’d disappeared when he revealed his true self to her. Had Noah been talking about being a bear? Is that what he’d shown her?

  It made a lot more sense if that was the case. Because in terms of personality, the real Noah was one of the greatest men I’d ever met. He had to be talking about the bear hiding inside him.

  And if that was the case, wasn’t I just doing the same thing she’d done to him?

  I shook my head at the crazy thought. So what if I was acting like the other woman who’d broken his heart? Running away was the correct response when you find out the man you love is a shape shifting bear, right? I mean, he was, by definition, a monster.

  Then why wasn’t I afraid of him?

  Admittedly, seeing him change like that had shocked me to my core. My reaction was to run, although running was what I always did whenever faced with something I didn’t want to deal with. But I wasn’t actually afraid that Noah would hurt me.

  From the first moment I’d met him, he’d been protective of me, almost overly protective if I was being honest. It was one of the things I’d liked about him at first. He made me feel safe. The fact that he was some kind of shape shifter didn’t change that. If anything, having a giant bear that loved me made me feel extra safe.

  Of course, there was the fact that he’d lied to me.

  Okay, fine. It’s not like he could just tell me he was half-man/half-bear when we first met, but still. It was a pretty big secret to keep from someone, especially since he claimed to love me. If two people are meant to be together, they can’t keep secrets from each other. Especially secrets of this magnitude.

  Then again, I vaguely remembered Noah trying to tell me something when he showed me those drawing back in the cave. Had he been trying to tell me this secret back then? I had been the one to interrupt him. So maybe that was partly my fault.

  I groaned in frustration. This was all so confusing. I liked Noah. Fuck that, I loved him. But could I get past the fact that he was a shape shifter? That was the billion dollar question. With any other man but Noah, it would have definitely been a deal breaker.

  But Noah was special. The least I could do is talk to him about all this. I could give him the chance to explain. And if he couldn’t change my mind, I could disappear. But I didn’t want to act like the girl who’d broken his heart all those years ago. I was better than that.

  I decided to go back to the house and wait for him. I got to my fe
et and turned to head back the way I came.

  Gillian appeared from around a tree, sweaty and out of breath. She flashed a toothy grin at me.

  “Oh good,” she said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  ***

  Noah

  “What do you mean this was all according to your plan?” I asked, confusion whirling in my brain.

  Maddox strutted around the circle of stones triumphantly, proud as a peacock. “Ahh, Noah, you were always the strongest of the clan, but not the brightest. I tricked you, dear boy, and you fell right into my trap.”

  “Quit grandstanding. You’ve beat me. You won. Just tell me what you did.”

  He looked at me with anger burning in his eyes. “Even in defeat, you still think you’re in charge. Tsk, tsk. Always the Alpha. Well not anymore.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “I need to go find Rachel. I need to explain.”

  I managed to struggle to my feet before a surge of pain stopped me. The damage must have been bad if it was taking this long to heal.

  “All right, fine,” Maddox said. “I’ll tell you. I called this meeting of the council with the explicit intention of having Rachel see you shift into bear form.”

  “How could you know she’d be here?”

  He grinned. “Why, Gillian of course. She’s the one who brought Rachel here. She texted me when they arrived, so I knew just how to time it.”

  I shook my head. What the hell had Rachel been thinking, coming out here with Gillian? I’d asked her to stay at the house. I’d asked her to trust me. Maybe that was too much to ask. Or maybe if I’d just told her about being a shifter in the first place, none of this would have happened. I couldn’t blame her for being suspicious.

  “So you didn’t bring me here to see if I would marry Gillian?”

  Maddox shrugged. “I covered all my bases. If you agreed to marry Gillian, then problem solved. I could have called the whole thing off. But I knew you wouldn’t agree to that. So I had to challenge you to a fight to get you to change into bear form in front of your human whore.”

  “Don’t you call her that,” I snarled.

  He rolled his eyes at me. “Fine, your human goddess. Whatever makes you feel better.”

  “So that’s why you challenged me? What if I’d beaten you? Which I would have done if you hadn’t taken a cheap shot.”

  “Easy, I was about to retract my challenge once Rachel saw you change, but then I saw my chance, so I took it.”

  I shook my head. “So what now, Maddox? You take over as Alpha and I’m out of the clan?”

  “My dear boy, I never wanted to be Alpha. I’m too old to stay in power for long. I want what I’ve always wanted. For Gillian to marry the Alpha and lead as Clan Mother.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, forget about the human. Agree to marry Gillian, keep your position as leader, and make this clan strong again. Or don’t. Go after the human and lose everything.”

  My clan meant the world to me. Keeping my people strong and safe had been my goal in life even before I was Alpha. I would die for my clan. Was marrying someone I despised worse than death?

  It sure felt like it. Still, if Maddox took over, the tribe was in trouble. He was the worst kind of bear, ruthless and backstabbing. I wouldn’t trust him to take care of my herb garden, much less the entire clan.

  Gillian wasn’t much better. If she was my wife, she’d have influence over the clan. Of course, I’d be around to keep her in check. I could make sure she never did anything too devious.

  But what about Rachel? I couldn’t forget about her. There was no question in my mind that she and I were meant to be together. She was the perfect mate for me, human or not.

  But she’d run away when she saw my bear, just as I’d feared. There might still be time to go after her. I could try to explain. But there was no guarantee she would listen. There was no guarantee she’d come back to me. Could I risk everything I’d ever cared about just for that chance?

  If only she hadn’t run. If only she could have waited, I wouldn’t have to make this choice. Then a thought occurred to me.

  “Maddox, there’s just one more thing I don’t understand. How did you know Rachel would run away when she saw me shift? How could you be sure she wouldn’t just be fine with what she saw?”

  Maddox laughed. “Simple my dear boy. Humans always run when they find out the truth about our kind. It happened with Rachel, just like it happened with Anna.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d heard him right. “Anna? How the fuck do you know about Anna? I never told anyone about her.”

  “Ahh, yes. I told you before that I’ve always been your friend. That I’ve always looked after you, even if you didn’t realize it. It was my job to keep tabs on you when you were younger. Everyone knew you would be Alpha someday, and I had to make sure you didn’t do anything that would jeopardize that.”

  “So you knew I was in love with her? You knew I wanted her to be my mate?”

  He nodded. “I knew. And when you foolishly revealed yourself to her, you put the whole clan’s safety at risk.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When she ran away from you, who knows who she would have told about us? If people found out about the our people, we could have been hunted down and killed. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Lightning coursed through my veins. I thought I might explode with anger. “What the hell did you do?”

  “Well, I suppose enough time has passed. I can tell you the truth finally. I made sure Anna never talked to anyone about our secret. I made sure she didn’t talk to anyone ever again.”

  “You murdered her?”

  “Don’t think of it as murder. Think of it as solving a problem. Just like we’re going to solve your Rachel problem.”

  I rushed at Maddox, filled with a fury that I never thought possible. My broken bones exploded with pain, but it was nothing compared to the pain I felt about what happened to Anna. And about what he wanted to do to Rachel.

  My hands wrapped around his neck and I slammed him against one of the stone pillars. His skull made a satisfying crack against the column.

  “Easy now, Noah,” he said, his voice a strangled yelp. “I just did what was best for the clan.”

  “Murdering humans isn’t what’s best for the clan. That makes you a monster.”

  “Well, to be fair, I never actually murdered Anna.”

  “Then who?”

  “It was Gillian. She was more than happy to do it. I told you she was the strongest she-bear this clan has seen for generations.”

  I turned to the other two Elders. Their implacable expressions had turned to fear now that I had their leader in a death grip.

  “You heard what he said. He admitted to orchestrating the murder of humans.”

  The Elders said nothing. Maddox made a noise that would have been laughter if I wasn’t crushing his windpipe.

  “You fool,” he rasped. “They knew about my plans. They were a part of it. Just like Gillian.”

  I growled, shaking him so hard his head banged against the stone. “Where is she?”

  “Alright, alright. She’s gone after your precious Rachel.”

  Panic like I’d never known flared up in me. The thought of losing Rachel as my mate was bad enough, but the thought of anything bad happening to her tore me up inside like I’d swallowed razor blades.

  “Where are they?”

  “I have no clue. But you’re missing the bigger picture. If you go after her, you lose everything.”

  “If she dies, I’ve already lost everything.”

  I let Maddox go. His body slumped to the ground. “If you leave, don’t bother coming back. This is my clan now.”

  The bear in me roared. I couldn’t control it, and I didn’t want to. I shifted and ended Maddox’s pathetic life with a swipe of my claw. Then I made quick work of the other two Elders. They never even had time to shift.

  Then I ran in the directi
on I’d seen Rachel go, hoping against hope that I could find her in time.

  Chapter 14

  Rachel

  “If you’re here to gloat, there’s no need,” I said, turning away from Gillian.

  “I’m not here to rub it in,” she said. “Okay, maybe just a little. But come on, I told you this was something you needed to see. You have to admit I was right about that.”

  “So you knew Noah was a bear?” I asked, turning around.

  She nodded. “I knew.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me? Why go through all these theatrics?”

  “Would you have believed me if I told you?” she asked.

  I considered it. “Probably not.”

  “Exactly. Besides, I wasn’t allowed to tell you about shifters.”

  My eyes narrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s against the rules to tell humans about us.”

  Her words sank in. “Us? You mean, you’re a…”

  She grinned that toothy grin at me. It looked more menacing than ever. “I’m a bear, too.”

  Dread filled my heart. The realization that Noah was a bear was troubling, but now that I’d had some time to think about it, I wasn’t afraid of him. Not really. Whatever he was, I didn’t believe he would hurt me.

  Gillian was a different story. She was a monster even in human form. I couldn’t imagine what she would do to me as a bear. I took a step back from her.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “If that’s what you’re worried about, I mean.”

  She nodded and took a step towards me. “I want to believe you, Rachel. I really do.”

  “So believe me. I don’t want any trouble. I just want to get out of here.”

  “The thing is, I don’t believe you. Your kind can’t be trusted. As soon as you’re back with your own kind, you’ll start telling anyone who will listen about the crazy bear shifters.”

  “I’d never—”

  “Don’t interrupt me! You’ll tell. You say you won’t, and maybe that would be true for a while. But eventually you’ll tell. And then they’ll come for us. They’ll exterminate us. They’ll kill me, my family, and everyone I’ve ever known. I can’t let that happen.”