by Dakota West
Epilogue
Quinn
“Did I tell you I found a job?” Quinn asked. She leaned back in the leather recliner, putting her feet on the ottoman in front of her. Her ribs protested slightly, but nothing terrible.
After a month, she was finally almost better.
“Doing what?” asked George.
“Web stuff again,” Quinn said. “It’s actually kind of a funny story.”
He laughed. “Someone hired you even after your last job?”
“Someone bought that domain for a lot of money,” she said. “Remember when you left, you charged a couple nights at a hotel to mom and dad’s credit card?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they reported that for fraud, and they got sent a new credit card, so I ended up renewing the domain on my own card,” Quinn said. “And I never got around to switching it.”
“So you were the proud owner of shifter sex maniacs dot com?” George asked.
“Yup,” she said. “And now the proud owner is Triangulate, Inc., and I am twenty thousand dollars richer.”
George whistled.
“What do they want it for?”
“It’s a triad dating website,” she said. “They think it’s hilarious.”
He laughed.
“They hired me, too,” she said.
“So you’re staying in Cascadia?”
“For now,” she said, carefully. She could hear Julius and Hudson talking in their bedroom, Julius sounding slightly irritated.
“With your... boyfriends?”
Quinn laughed. George, despite being totally open-minded, had never dated a shifter and wasn’t totally familiar with their terminology.
“Yep,” she said. “With my boyfriends.”
Even though she could have lived on her own easily by now, Quinn had just never left the Victorian house. Before long, she blended into their routines, which now included careful sex. After all, her ribs weren’t entirely healed yet.
She heard a distinct voice coming from the bedroom.
“Why don’t you ever keep your cufflinks where you can find them?” Julius was asking, annoyed.
“We’re going to a wedding,” she told George. “If Hudson ever gets ready.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be the slow one?” George asked, teasing.
“I thought so too,” she said.
Finally, the bedroom door opened, and her boyfriends emerged.
“We’re already late,” Julius growled.
Behind him, where Quinn could see and Julius couldn’t, Hudson rolled his eyes.
“Who’s getting married?” George asked on the phone.
Quinn moved her feet to the floor and stood carefully, making sure not to jostle her ribs.
“Julius’s cousin Ash and his mates,” she said.
“Tell them I said congrats,” said George. “Love you. Talk to you later.”
“You too,” said Quinn, as she hung up her phone.
“Ready?” she asked the men.
They both nodded, and she walked over to them, her movements still a little stiff.
“You look very handsome,” she said, and kissed them both.
Then they walked out the front door of their house, arm-in-arm-in-arm.
The End
Shifter Country Bears
Read the whole series!
Book One: A Bear’s Protection
Book Two: A Bear’s Nemesis
Book Three: A Bear’s Mercy
Coming July 10
Book Four: A Bear’s Journey
Coming July 17
Book Five: A Bear’s Secret
Coming July 24
Shifter Country Wolves
Book One: Running With Wolves
Coming July 31
Book Two: Betting On Wolves
Coming August 7
Book Three: Fighting For Wolves
Coming August 14
Book Four: Uncaging Wolves
Coming August 21
Book Five: Longing For Wolves
Coming August 28
Copper Mesa Eagles
Book One: Predator
Coming September 4
Book Two: Prey
Coming September 11
Book Three: Pariah
Coming September 18
Contemporary Romance Novels
(As Roxie Noir)
The Savage Wild
An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance
The Dirtshine Trilogy: Rockstar Romance
Never Enough (Dirtshine Book 1)
Always You (Dirtshine Book 2)
Ever After (Dirtshine Book 3)
Slow Burn
A Bodyguard Romance
Torch
A Second Chance Romance
Convict
A Criminal Romance
Reign
A Royal Romance
Ride
A Cowboy Romance
Loaded
An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance
EXCERPT: A Bear’s Mercy, Chapter One
Charlie
Charlie held the field glasses up to her eyes, almost afraid to breathe. She crouched between the roots of a massive evergreen tree, and she could feel the wetness of the moss below her knees already seeping into her pants.
It was going to be another long night on the cold, damp ground, but she hoped it would be the last one. Her pack was getting heavier by the minute, she was out of fresh socks, and washing her hair was a distant memory at best.
None of that mattered, though. After days of tracking, she’d finally found the grizzly, and he was in her sights.
As she watched, he put his huge muzzle to the ground and sniffed. Then he looked up, still smelling the wind. He was a stunning animal, his fur dark at the roots and fading to red-gold at the tips.
Standing there in the afternoon light, his nose up sniffing the wind, he almost looked like a painting of a grizzly bear instead of the real thing.
Then he snorted and shook his head, and Charlie smiled. There was something almost charming about bears, she thought, especially to people who spent a lot of time around them.
He’s not charming, she reminded herself. He killed two people.
Worse, he knows what he did.
It was hard to reconcile with the carefree, almost goofy animal in front of her, but there it was.
Charlie swallowed and got back to work, putting the glasses back to her eyes.
The bear was at least four and a half feet high at the shoulder, maybe closer to five. That was big, even for a grizzly. Charlie did some quick calculations in her head: he was at least eight hundred pounds.
Even bigger than the estimates they’d gotten back at the office.
Shit, she thought.
As quietly as she could, she took her pack off and opened it up, one eye always on the bear. She had a .45 holstered on her side, but it was only for absolute emergencies — besides, she wasn’t even certain that it would stop this grizzly. Slow him down, maybe.
Carefully, she took the vial of tranquilizer from the pouch where she’d stashed it. There was enough in there for two shots, but realistically, Charlie knew she was only going to get one.
Either she hit him and he went down, or she missed, and he charged.
Charlie also pulled a giant canister of bear spray from her pack. Between that and the .45, she thought she could probably get away.
She propped the syringe up next to the rifle, then re-loaded her pack, stashing it securely under the roots of the tree. If he did charge, she wasn’t going to want to take it with her. She wouldn’t want anything weighing her down, that was for damn sure.
The bear took a step forward, and Charlie’s stomach lurched. She held her breath.
Please don’t leave, she thought. I’m so close to finished.
Then he stopped, standing perfectly still, his side facing her. It was almost as if he was presenting himself for her tranquilizer dart, providing the perfect target.
What if it
’s a trap? Charlie thought for a split second. It was so easy to forget, watching this bear, that inside the animal there was still a human mind, or at least, what was left of one. No one knew for sure how much rational thought a feral shifter still had.
As he looked around she thought she could almost see a human intelligence in its eyes, like he was considering something.
Do it now, she thought.
Charlie loaded the rifle, gritting her teeth as the tranquilizer dart clicked into place.
Immediately, the bear’s head swung around, his body lowering, his ears perking up.
Of course he knows the sound of a rifle being loaded, she thought, her teeth still clenched.
Charlie brought the rifle sight to her eye, the bear’s huge, furry shoulder squarely in the crosshairs.
“Sorry, Kade,” she muttered, moving her finger to the trigger.
Then she heard a growl right behind her, a split second before she felt the teeth on her neck and the claws on her back.
The last thing Charlie saw was a blur of sharp teeth and gray fur.
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About the Author
Dakota West is the paranormal romance writing alter-ego of contemporary romance author Roxie Noir.
Roxie lives in California with one husband, two cats, and several bookshelves crammed completely full of stories.
