by V. Vaughn
Desired by the Bear Book 1
V. Vaughn
Sugarloaf Press
Contents
Copyright
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
About the Author
Copyright © 2016 by V. Vaughn
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by Ravven
Editing by Jodi Henley and Red Adept Publishing
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Foreword
Desired by the Bear – Book 1
by V. Vaughn
Join the epic family saga of the Ouellette werebear clan in Safe Harbor, Canada. Four women take you on an adventure of true mate love, danger, and intrigue in the trilogy Desired by the Bear.
Nadia’s life as a model is practically picture perfect until the day werebear hunters send her running. She lands in Safe Harbor with the Ouellette clan, but Nadia knows better than to call yet another place home, and she settles in to do the one thing she knows best, fight.
Izzy’s rescue from drowning set her on a course for a fresh start as woman capable of love and compassion. Her savior and clan alpha, Jean Luc Ouellette sealed their true mate bond to break the bi-polar curse, but when Izzy finds out she’s pregnant and experiences mood swings that are reminiscent of her past, she fears for her children.
Kelsey moves to Safe Harbor for an internship at the most prestigious boat-building company on the East Coast, Ouellette Yachts. She finds more than the start of a brilliant career when she falls for Val and discovers a family secret that opens up a whole new world. But as the truth comes out a disastrous mistake threatens to take it all away.
Tally spends her days tending to the needs of the Ouellette clan as their medicine woman, and she enjoys the perks of hunky werebear coming to visit her daily. Especially one named Marcel. But an evil force has plans for Tally that make her chance at love a near impossibility.
1
Nadia
My heartbeat is pounding in my ears as I crouch behind a Dumpster. I focus on the tangy aroma of teriyaki sauce I detect amidst the foul odors of garbage so I don’t vomit. The pale-blue silk couture gown I’m wearing is torn, and I wish it were because I shifted. But I can’t. I’m pretty sure a polar bear would draw more attention than a blonde who looks like a heroin addict on the streets of New York City.
Hunters are on to what I am, and their number-one priority is making sure I never see the flash of a camera again. Feet thud softly toward me, and I hold my breath. The adrenaline odor of the men chasing me stings my nostrils, and I glance around the alley for an escape. When a door squeaks open I watch an Asian man step out. He’s wearing the black-and-white-checked pants of a restaurant cook and is only a few steps away from me.
One of the hunters begins to speak as if he’s mid-conversation, and I guess he’s pretending he stepped into the alley to talk on his phone. The cook who stepped out of the restaurant jingles change in his pocket as he digs for something, and he retrieves a lighter. The end of a cigarette flares and then burns red as he gets his nicotine fix.
I’m aware of two things. One: I look like a strung-out whore with my makeup smeared and my model-thin nearly seven-foot-tall body. Two: I’m also plastered all over the billboards in this city as the Arctic Ice Queen for my alpha’s vodka company. I take a deep breath as I hope the cook recognizes the second one. I rise slowly, and silk is soft in my hands as I scrunch the bottom of my dress up to hide the torn skirt. Please let this guy be a quick thinker.
My movement catches the cook’s attention, and his eyes widen as I hold my finger up to my lips and then point my thumb toward the men. I mouth an exaggerated “Help!”
I’m in luck, because the man flicks his cigarette away and tugs on the door. While holding it open he points toward the street and yells in a foreign language. I guess it’s so the hunters will be distracted, and I take the opportunity to run into the restaurant. The man follows me, and the metal of a dead bolt thuds hard into the wall as he locks it.
“Thank you,” I say. “Do you have another way out besides the front door?”
“I call police.” The man is older, and his eyes crinkle with concern.
I shake my head. “No! Please just show me another way out. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You Ice Queen.” He grins at me, and I roll my eyes.
“Yes. And I promise to send you a case of vodka if you get me out of here.”
The guy is still smiling as if I’m playing a joke, so I grab his arm. “Now!” I struggle to get the word out. “Please.”
“Okay, okay. Hold your horses.” He motions with his hand as he says, “I have secret way. Come.”
I lift my head high as we pass through the bustle of a kitchen. My feet are bare, and the rubber mat is slick under my toes as I walk. I ignore the stares of the man’s coworkers, and my stomach growls as the aroma of meat teases me. I’ve been hungry for so long I grab a piece of breaded chicken as we pass plates set on a counter. I think I’m going to need all the energy I can get to make it back to safety alive. I shove the food into my mouth as I’m led to a dark stairway.
He tugs on a string, and it clicks to reveal a bare lightbulb that illuminates the area. The man takes me down into a cold cellar-like space. He opens a door, and I have to crouch to get through it without hitting my head. I gulp down my mouthful of food before the stench of human waste that greets us makes me gag. He says, “Follow to end and turn right. Long, long way before you climb out at bus station.”
When he hands me a flashlight I give him my best model smile as I say, “Thank you. You just saved my life.” I lean in, and his cheek is cool on my lips as I kiss him. I say, “Call Arctic Ice and ask for Annie. Tell her Nadia owes you a case of whatever you want.”
He nods his head at me and then says, “You need escort out?”
“No, but I’d be honored to have you as one any other time.”
He touches the spot on his face where I kissed him and says, “Ice Queen.” I turn to leave. I suppose he thinks he’s being pranked, and I let him, because one of Arctic Ice’s advertisements shows me running along an icy landscape in the dress I’m wearing as I’m being chased by a polar bear. When I throw the bottle of vodka I’m carrying at the bear, he stops to inspect it. He opens it, and once he takes a drink he sighs with satisfaction.
As soon as the door thuds behind me, I set the flashlight down to leave it for the man, and slither out of my dress. I twist it into a long rope I tie loosely around my
neck. I close my eyes and call upon my animal within. Bones crack as my skin prickles with the fur that pushes its way out, and I shift into a polar bear.
Ah. I miss being in this form, and I take a moment to stretch as I revel in my bear senses. I shake out my fur before I begin to run. It’s been rare I’ve had the opportunity to shift in the last six months since I left Maine. With my crazy travel schedule as the spokesmodel for Arctic Ice, I’ve been far away from a forest where I could run free. When I was offered the job it never occurred to me fame could be so crippling.
The rhythmic beat of my feet galloping down the dirt tunnel is soothing as I make my way toward my escape, and I recall how it was less than a year ago I was in fear for my life for a different reason. I’m part of the De Rozier clan who used to rule the Arctic. But when our ice began to melt, our kingdom got smaller, and we faced extinction. Fortunately our alpha, Tristan, made an agreement with a black bear clan in Maine to take us in.
My stomach aches with hunger as I think about how my clan arrived. We were emaciated from lack of food. And while I had plenty of opportunities to fatten up again, my love life made it impossible. My husband, Sven, had come ahead of me and found his true mate, which left me by the wayside. I was heartbroken, without family who survived, close friends, or Sven, the only man who had ever loved me. Living in the same place as my ex-mate and his true love made me too miserable to eat. But that ended up being to my advantage, although I didn’t know it at the time. When Tristan’s marketing department saw me, they insisted my beyond-pale coloring and tall, stick-thin stature made me the perfect woman to become the Arctic Ice Queen. Being a model was not something I’d ever wanted, but when your alpha tells you to go, you do.
So I left Maine and the constant reminder I was unwanted behind. And I fell in love with my new life as my fame grew. Traveling to exotic places for appearances, attending parties and events with celebrities, and being the center of attention wherever I went healed my bruised ego quickly. While my lifestyle is glamorous, it’s also hard work. I’m constantly hungry. So hungry. But I have to stay that way if I want to be thin for the stupid ideal humans have for beauty.
I also can’t go anywhere without being recognized, and shifting to run has been nearly impossible. My bear feels trapped, and lately I struggle to keep her from coming out. Recently at a shoot I lost my temper, and the brief moment I growled must have caught someone’s attention, because when I went to the bathroom at a fundraiser brunch this morning, I was jumped. I managed to escape the two men and get out the window, but more were waiting, and it only took one gunshot to make me run.
Faint light leaks through a crack up ahead, and I approach a door. I take a moment to shift back to human and get dressed. Something slimy is on the steps, and I convince myself it’s moss as I climb the stairs to the bus station. I push the door open slowly, and it barely makes a noise. The lighting is dim, and I notice an industrial vinyl floor and white paint-covered concrete walls. I sniff and listen for humans nearby. I don’t detect anyone close, so I step out into the hallway. I breathe a sigh of relief as I pad slowly toward the right, where the light is coming from.
It’s a stairwell, and my only choice is up. The rumble of people moving and talking increases in volume as I head toward what I assume is the bus station. The odor of exhaust, fried food, and coffee thickens as I get to the top. Once again, my life is about to change drastically. While I’m sure I can sweet talk a policeman into helping me get to safety, my days as a model are likely over. I’ll be at my alpha’s mercy, with my future in his hands. I should have known my luxurious world was too good to be true.
I push my way out into the bustle of people, and as I begin to scan the crowd for a man in uniform strong fingers dig into my arm as something hard I assume is a gun is jammed into my side. “You’re going to wish you’d died in the bathroom, Queenie.”
2
Izzy
Angry white foam races up the beach toward me only to be sucked away as if someone yanked it back before it could pull me in. A strand of my wet hair whips into my mouth, and salty flavor tingles on my tongue as I turn my face toward the Atlantic Ocean. The strong wind is making the wet snow fall sideways as it splats against me. The world appears painted in shades of gray as the winter storm churns up chaotic waves.
The curse wasn’t broken. As a direct female descendent of Ingrid De Rozier, my grandmother, I was born cursed by a vengeful medicine woman to become bipolar by the time I’m thirty. My rubber boots scrape against the rocks as I step over them. The tide will rise higher than usual because of the storm, and I glance back toward the house knowing I should turn back.
I’m not fit to be around anyone right now. The angry mood that used to be my usual state is back, and I need to find a way to get rid of it. I can’t subject my husband, Jean Luc, to the woman he’s never known.
Panic licks at me the way the water threatens to envelop my feet when a wave rises higher on the beach. In the human world, bipolar disorder can be treated with medication. In the polar werebear world, our bodies are designed to heal themselves, and drugs don’t work. Seaweed is slick under my feet, and when I slip, I catch myself on the barnacle-covered rock wall at my side. Burning pain makes me glance at my hand to see I’ve scraped it raw. Blood oozes out, and I flash back to the day I decided to break the curse.
My mother had gone off on one of her manic adventures, and after my brother, Tristan, and I retrieved her from a Canadian police station not far from here, we stopped at a convenience store, where all hell broke loose. Helga sliced a man’s throat open and killed him because the store didn’t have strawberry milk. He was just one more in a long list of innocent people killed at the hand of my mother, so I made a fateful choice that day to end her reign of terror and stop mine before it started.
The wool fabric of my pants is rough on my hand as I swipe the blood away, and I glance at my palm to see my healing powers make it appear as if nothing happened. When I decided to take my mother’s life I tried to drown myself too in order to break our family curse, but Jean Luc found us and saved my life. And once I discovered he was my true mate, hope blossomed in me, because my mother claimed a true mate bond could break the curse.
Since finding Jean Luc, all the telltale signs of my approaching bipolar condition subsided. For the past few months I have been living a life of happiness I’d never dreamed possible. I wake each morning glad to be alive instead of wondering when my insanity would win -- until recently.
I stumble again, and the red cloud of rage begins to fog my vision. When I regain my balance my anger explodes. A large rock is heavy as I tug it from the sand with both hands and hoist it up to throw it into the waves. I scream in frustration as I stomp toward where it landed. I don’t bother to hold back my shift, and fabric tears as I let my polar bear explode. Shredded clothing falls around me as I continue into the fury of the ocean that can’t even begin to compete with my temper.
Water churns around me as I dive under the surface. The briny soup is thick, and I can’t see far, but it doesn’t matter. My powerful muscles propel me forward with speed, and I let my adrenaline fuel me as I move with the swiftness of a killer on a rampage. Unfortunately there’s nothing for me to kill. Even the seagulls have battened down the hatches for the storm, so I swim until my rage begins to fade.
When I reach the point of exhaustion I turn back. Now I struggle to make it to shore, and the weaker I get the better I feel. With any luck, I’ll have worked out my need to fight and be able to fake happiness for one more day as I figure out what to do.
I shake my fur from head to tail as I emerge from the water, and I’m human again by the time I reach the beach. I have to pick my way along the rock wall to get to the stairs. Shells and pebbles dig into the soles of my feet until I climb the wooden stairway to the grassy lawn of our backyard. It was beginning to turn green before an April snowstorm came to steal the promise of summer away. Snow is beginning to accumulate, and it’s cold on my toes as I make
my way to the back door.
I gaze into the large window of my living room to see my best friend and clan medicine woman, Tallulah, with her hands on her curvy hips as she shakes her head. She’s human, and the idea of being naked in a snowstorm must seem idiotic to her. I was out longer than I’d planned, because my training session was scheduled for eleven.
I step inside and grab a pair of sweatpants from the top of the dryer. Our mudroom doubles as a laundry room too, which is handy right now. As the fleece sticks to my legs, I glance at the five-foot-nothing witch who is scowling at me, and my stomach churns. “Izzy! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Guilt tugs at me as I sigh. Not only is Tally my best friend, she’s also the only person I can think of who might be able to help me right now.
Cotton is soft on my arms as I lift a shirt over my head and walk into the living room. I gaze around the seaside cottage that has become my home. The main floor is open, while the upstairs is more like a traditional cape-style construction. Paintings and photographs depict my true mate’s passion for the sailboats he builds and the ocean that is in his bloodstream. I think about Jean Luc and how I love him with a fieriness that hurts, and I say, “Because I thought I’d broken the curse and wasn’t ready to admit the truth.” I wrap my arms around myself as if I can keep the love Jean Luc has for me a little longer. “I don’t want it to be over.”
“Curse?” Tally snorts as she follows me into the kitchen. She’s made herself at home, and milk simmers in a pan. I notice shaved chocolate on a cutting board as she brushes past me to tend to the hot drink. She says, “Look, I know having children is a lot of work, but please, your life is hardly over.”
“Children?” My friend glances at me as I say, “Wait. I’m--”
