High House Ursa: The Complete Bear Shifter Box Set

by Riley Storm

  “And then what happened?”

  Klaue grew sober. “Then a mage opened a rent between us and the gates and tried to take her out.”

  The Queen’s eyes narrowed, jade orbs focused on him directly. “The mage went after her?”

  He nodded once sharply. “Yes. No doubt about it. It was rushed, and she avoided more than just a glancing blow that sent her falling to the ground, but he said something to her as well. I didn’t pick it up, but he wanted her, no doubt about it.”

  Kaelyn frowned. “Why? And Canis and a mage? I don’t like the sounds of that.”

  “Me neither. I thought we had wards around the Manor that prevented this sort of thing?” Klaue was troubled. Deeply troubled.

  “They start at the edge of the property. He must have been just outside them. Still, opening a rent is no minor feat.”

  He nodded in agreement with his Queen. She was more of an expert on magic than he was, as it had never really intrigued Klaue. He was a much more direct sort of person. Claws to the throat were his sort of thing.

  “What do we do with her?”

  Kaelyn rolled her eyes. “For now, we bring her in, shelter her, and keep her safe.”

  “Are you sure?” Klaue wasn’t questioning his Queen’s decision, but instead, he was curious of her rationale behind it.

  “Of course. After all, what fun is life without pissing off Canis on the regular,” she said with a chuckle, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m putting her in your care, Klaue. Protect her. Find out why they’re after her. Understood?”

  He clasped his fists to his chest. “Of course, my Queen.”

  She nodded once in dismissal and he spun on his heel, walking over to the woman. “How are you doing?”

  Waves of hair too dark to be called blonde but too light to be brown fell in an awkward mess on either side of her head. She looked ridiculous in the oversized brown sweatshirt and sweatpants that she wore, but it was all they’d been able to get her on short notice. The black t-shirt she’d been wearing was ripped and torn in half a dozen places and her jeans weren’t in much better condition. At least now she was warm.

  “Scared,” she admitted.

  He noted the way her eyes darted around continuously, never resting in one spot, as if she expected danger to jump out at her from every shadow.

  “You’re safe here,” he explained.

  She nodded, but her body language didn’t change in the slightest. She was still terrified. Klaue thought furiously, trying to come up with another way to help her relax. Hostage rescue wasn’t something he was trained in, but after tonight, he was going to put it on the docket for the education all soldiers of House Ursa received. He was doing a terrible job managing the situation, and he hated failure.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, changing the topic.

  After a brief hesitation, she nodded. “Yes. Starving, really.”

  Klaue turned and started walking toward the kitchen, his own stomach emphatically agreeing that it too was hungry. Like always. Maybe he would get a nice steak sandwich. That would go down nicely just then. And a beer. He always enjoyed a beer after a fight. Then after that, he—

  The woman wasn’t following him. Klaue stopped and looked back. She was still sitting on the bench in the entryway to Ursidae Manor.

  “Hey, are you coming?” he asked, gesturing through the double doors and into the house itself.

  The woman swallowed heavily, her nerves making the motion easily visible. She stood up, arms wrapped nervously around her sides, but she didn’t follow after him.

  Sighing, he went back to her. “I’m Klaue,” he said, sticking out a hand.

  “Klaue? That’s your name?”

  “Yes?”

  She was looking at him dubiously. “Is that paw, over there? And haunch, maybe? Flank, is that her name?” She pointed at the Queen, who overheard them both, turning away from her talk with other members of the House

  “I am Kaelyn, Queen of High House Ursa,” she corrected.

  The woman gasped. “Oh, shit.”

  Klaue snickered. “Still want to make fun of my name?” he muttered under his breath as the stranger fumbled all over herself to apologize.

  “Shut up. Who names their kid after a claw on an animal?”

  “Ever heard of Santa Claus?” he fired back. “Nobody ever gives him grief about his last name being a plural of mine. Besides, it’s spelled differently.” He spelled it out, but she didn’t seem convinced.

  “If you say so K-l-a-u-e,” she said, putting a bit of sarcasm into each letter as she mimicked him.

  “Do you have a name, or should I just start calling you Prisoner 88?”

  Teeth snapped together as she went silent for a second, his threat becoming obvious. Show a little gratitude for saving your ass. That’s what he hoped she was getting out of it, at least.

  “I’m Jessica,” she said, fighting through some obvious reluctance.

  “Well, Jessica, the food’s inside. I’m sure we can find something you’d like.” He looked right at her, trying his best to come across as trusting. “You’re safe with me. I promise.”

  To his surprise, she gave him a long look, and either decided he was telling the truth, or she was just too hungry to care. Either way, she fell in step next to him and they walked in silence to the kitchen.

  “Are you hurt at all?” he asked as they placed their orders and sat down.

  The kitchen within Ursidae Manor was staffed at all hours of the day. With several hundred bear shifters living on the premises or visiting, it wasn’t just a good idea, it was a necessity.

  “No, I’m fine. Well, my ankle’s a little twisted, but it’s nothing serious. Already mostly better,” she said with a mild grimace. “Thank you again for saving me, by the way.”

  “Yeah, no problem.” He studied her carefully, trying to sort out the puzzle. She was human. He detected no trace of magic or shifter about her at all. Completely human according to his eyes and nose. “Can I ask you something?”

  Almost immediately she tensed, and Klaue thought she was going to bolt. He consciously told his muscles to relax, wanting to appear as calm and unintimidating as absolutely possible.

  “What?” she asked after a minute, eyes still darting around, counting the exits or something like that, he was sure.

  “Well, you’re human.”

  “Yes.” She relaxed slightly as their drinks were brought over, then suddenly went stiff again.

  Klaue sighed. “Listen, if we wanted to drug you for some reason, we would just inject you, okay?” He reached over, grabbed her drink and took a sip. Then he drank his own. “Happy?”

  She clamped her lips into a thin line. “You want to know why I’m not freaking out right now.”

  He leaned back in the chair, able to fully relax, knowing they were meant for people with his size and bulk. At six foot seven and somewhere north of 270 pounds of mostly bone and muscle, Klaue had long ago learned to enjoy the comforts of a chair that wouldn’t explode when he relaxed into it, like he was doing now.

  “Yes,” he said simply, taking his time to respond. Jessica was sharper than he’d expected.

  “I know about the shifter world. Werewolves. You’re—” She waved at the room and, by extension, the building around them. “This is Ursa. You’re bears. I know all about you.”

  Klaue wondered where the distaste in the word “you” came from. What had they done to her? He didn’t recognize her, and she didn’t seem to know anybody. How were they already in her naughty books, then?

  “How do you know about us?” he prodded, trying to get the full picture.

  Jessica just watched him, brown eyes staring over the lip of her glass. She made no move to respond, to elaborate.

  Fine, be like that. “Why were they after you?”

  More silence.

  “Well this is going places quickly,” he snapped, his temper fraying at her unwillingness to speak at all. Why were they wasting their time and energy prot
ecting her?

  And according to Kincaid, this was his mate! How was he supposed to trust her if she wouldn’t tell him anything at all about what was going on? Klaue wondered if perhaps the Hunter had made a mistake. After all, he’d openly admitted that it was the first time this sort of thing had happened to him. Maybe he’d read it wrong. There was no way Jessica could be his mate.

  She was a human being hunted by House Canis, and also by a mage. Or together, they were both hunting her. He wasn’t sure, though his gut leaned toward the second choice. That beggared the question why? What could she have done that would have a mage willfully working alongside the wolves? And not a weak mage either. One who could open gates in reality, the rents, and transport himself through them. That was no small feat, according to Kaelyn.

  Klaue respected his Queen, but just then he found himself cursing her internally for assigning him to protect Jessica. He could handle the physical aspect. Guard duty was nothing new to him. He’d spent several years as one of the bodyguards to the late King when he was younger.

  It was the espionage part, the interrogation, that he found difficult. Klaue was no intelligence agent. He wasn’t a spy. Yet it seemed if he was going to get any information at all from her, he was going to have to learn how to extract it from her. By any means necessary.

  “Why did you come here?” he asked, changing his tactics. “What was your goal?”

  She bit her lip, chewing on it gently while he watched, trying to decipher just what her features were telling him. A part of Klaue wanted to reach out, to help straighten some of her hair, to push it back out of her face. He wanted a clear look at her features. The soft curves of her face, the hard set of her jaw. The way her little upturned nose twitched every so often, quite likely without Jessica even realizing it.

  Klaue wanted to examine it all. Up close. Okay, maybe Kincaid is onto something. She is stunning in ways I can’t even identify. That wasn’t enough to convince him, of course, and her attitude threatened to ruin it all. What a mess his night was turning into.

  “Protection,” Jessica said at last. “I…I was hoping maybe you would protect me.”

  “Why would we do that?” he asked, deciding that being nice wasn’t working, so perhaps he should make it clear that their protection wasn’t just tossed around. If House Canis wanted her that badly, he and his people were in danger.

  “I don’t know,” she confessed before falling silent again as their order arrived, one of the kitchen workers dropping the two plates in front of them.

  “What?” he said, only barely reining in the temper in his voice at the last minute, at the way she looked at his plate in disdain.

  “I’m a vegetarian.”

  This time, Klaue couldn’t hold back. But he wasn’t angry, he just laughed. “I’m not going to try and convince you to change. You enjoy the salad, but you’re in a house of meat lovers, Jessica. Better get used to it.”

  “I’ll manage,” she snapped, plunging her fork into the pile of greens.

  They ate in silence, neither one interested in speaking. Klaue devoured the pile of steak sandwich sliders and almost ordered a second plate, but he chanced a glance across the table and saw Jessica sagging. She was struggling to stay awake, he realized.

  “Come on,” he said, getting up and motioning for her to follow.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere for you to sleep,” he muttered, unhappy with what he was about to do.

  Still, they weren’t getting any further that night. Jessica had said all she seemed ready to say, and he wasn’t ready to start threatening her to speak up. Not yet.

  With the Queen’s orders ringing in his ears, Klaue guided her to his quarters. Jessica tried to protest, but in the end, her exhaustion won out and she passed out on his bed instead of the couch. With a sigh, Klaue collapsed onto the extra-long sofa himself and was out within minutes.

  Normally, he would stay up and guard her, ensure she didn’t try to run away or do anything else sneaky, but he couldn’t afford it. Not tonight. Her real motivations be damned, Klaue needed to get as much rest as possible.

  Tomorrow, he started the Trials.

  6

  She awoke quickly, in a cold sweat as panic filled her body.

  Jessica remembered where she was. High House Ursa. Ursidae Manor. She was among the enemy. Looking around wildly, she flung the covers back, only to realize that firstly, she was naked underneath, and secondly, she wasn’t alone in the room.

  “Hey!” she yelped, snatching the covers back up to cover her chest from his roving gaze.

  Klaue though, wasn’t looking at her as she’d assumed. Not really, at least, though he did occasionally glance her direction as he moved through a slow series of poses and actions.

  He was shirtless, clad only in a pair of trunks that, while probably loose fitting on any other man, were still just a little too tight on him, giving her an eyeful of his thick legs, and also his junk.

  “Can you put a shirt and some better fitting shorts on?” she muttered as he continued his routine.

  “No,” he said with a soft exhale. “I like the freedom.”

  “Right.” She stared at him, filling in the gaps from her memory from the night before.

  He was just as big as she remembered him, which was to say, gargantuan. Klaue was bigger in every way than the men of House Canis. Taller, broader in the shoulder, bigger arms, the list went on. As she watched him move, every muscle seemed to pop into stark relief against the rest of his body, a testament to the peak physical form he was in.

  There couldn’t be an ounce of fat on his body, despite the sheer bulk of his size. As he turned lightly on his feet, her eyes counted four distinct pairs of abs and a very solid v-line that disappeared into his too-tight shorts—or were they boxers?

  Everything about the man screamed military, from his demeanor, to the clipped tones when he spoke, to the standard-issue crew cut. On a lot of men, she thought it was just too much. But it suited Klaue as if he was born for that sort of life. Hell, maybe he was. For all Jessica knew, House Ursa dictated where people would work.

  “Did you sleep okay?” he asked, balancing on one foot, leg slightly bent. His other leg was pulled to his chest, his arms out wide. Slowly, he rotated, then twisted at the hips, his leg extending out to the side while his arms stretched back to counterbalance his weight as he went into full extension. It was interesting—and more than a little enjoyable—to watch such a large man use such precise and measured movement.

  “Yes,” she said eventually. “I did, actually.”

  She’d slept like a rock. Jessica didn’t remember leaving the kitchen. She didn’t remember the bed. She… “Hey, did you undress me?” she said abruptly.

  Klaue exhaled slowly. She thought it was part of his routine, but also detected an undercurrent of exasperation.

  “No,” he said at last. “You did that yourself at some point. When I put you to bed, you were fully clothed.” His head turned slightly so she could see him glaring. “I’m not some sort of monster or pervert. I’ve seen boobs before.”

  Then he resumed his motions. Was this his normal morning warm-up?

  “What are you doing?” she asked, figuring it to be as good a way as any of keeping the conversation going.

  “Warming up. Getting ready.”

  It was a purposefully vague answer. Jessica grit her teeth but didn’t give in to the temptation to snap at him.

  “Do you have something coming up today?”

  “Yes.”

  Great. It’s going to be like that, is it? Dealing with Klaue was obviously going to try her patience.

  “And what do you have coming up that you’re getting warmed up for?” she asked, putting as much cheer into her voice as she could.

  “The fight.” Klaue crouched low, arms wide, then swept them back in as he stood, his voice even and steady when he responded, matching his body movement. It was infuriating, and there was nothing she could do about it
.

  “The fight?”

  Klaue didn’t respond, but she knew he’d heard her question. They were the only two people in the room—rooms, she corrected, seeing several doors leading to other places—and he was no more than twenty feet away. It would have been impossible not to hear.

  Fine. Be that way. She slid to one side of the bed, finding her clothing all piled there in a heap. It was a bit of an experiment getting dressed under the covers so Klaue couldn’t see her, but she managed.

  “By chance, is there anywhere here I can find clothing that, you know, isn’t huge, baggy, and brown?” she asked, forced to roll the sleeves back upon themselves nearly to the armpits just to get them above her wrist. The pants fit a little better thankfully, courtesy of what she’d been told were her “childbearing hips”. That, combined with two drawstrings on the sweatpants meant they stayed—mostly—in place. She wouldn’t be running in them anytime soon though.

  “Maybe,” Klaue said, for once sounding agreeable. “Not sure though.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Can you tell me more about last night?” he said, finishing up his warm-up as he turned to face her.

  Jessica pushed her lips together. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone. If she did that, she would put her sister in danger. As long as she kept her mouth shut and the secret stayed with her, then Canis would keep Zoe alive. Eventually, she would find a way to get her sister out of there, but in the meantime, her best option was to keep her mouth closed.

  That was all guesswork though, and it relied on Lorran having told the truth when he said he could keep her safe. Still, Jessica didn’t have any other option. She was trapped, with no way out of the situation. Not yet, but she wasn’t going to stop trying to figure one out.

  “Well, if there’s nothing more, then I suppose you’ll be on your way today?” Klaue suggested calmly, cracking his neck to either side.

  Jessica shivered at the sound. “What do you mean?”

  The huge bear shifter chuckled, deep laughter that cut right to her. “What do you think this is, a hotel?” He sniffed sarcastically. “Even if it was, you haven’t paid. We’re not just going to house you. It costs money.”