Run Little Bear (The Forest Pack Series Book 2)

by G. Bailey

  “Stay in the car,” I remind my rogue, who nods before closing his eyes and resting back again. I run my eyes over his bindings, which still appear in good shape, so he hasn’t tried to escape yet. I have a feeling he will at some point. I get out of the car, shutting the door behind me and resting it as I wait. Only a few seconds later the door opens and one of the alphas walks out, crossing his arms with a grin on his face.

  “Cain?” I ask, because I actually don’t know their names, but I remember the guard talking to an alpha called Cain on his radio.

  “Correct. Don’t worry, I know your name and all your nicknames too. See I actually give a shit about my mate,” he says, but he tempers his harsh words with a playful smile.

  “I’m not your mate,” I reply coldly, and he laughs, looking through the window and seeing my tied-up rogue.

  “G-G, honestly, I never thought I’d see the day you would turn up at my Pack, without being dragged here that is,” Cain says with a low chuckle as he walks down the final steps of his house. I keep still as he walks straight up to me, placing his hands on the car door that I’m resting on, boxing me in as he leans down. I growl low, which only seems to make him smile that much wider. He has such a sexy smile, too, and his scent reminds me of lemons. It’s refreshing, kind of like his personality I imagine.

  “Have you finally decided to claim your mates?” he asks, moving a tiny inch closer as my breath hitches in my throat.

  “No, I just need your help,” I reply as he chuckles once more, and it sends shivers through me.

  “Gold?” I hear a shocked, slightly familiar voice shout in the distance, but I can’t look away from Cain’s green eyes as he leans even closer to me. His eyes have little wavy lines of light and dark green through them, swirled together with dark green flecks dotted around.

  “I’ll help you with whatever trouble you’re in, but I want something in return,” he moves closer, so we are only a breath away from each other as he speaks the words I knew he would, “I want you to join my pack.”

  “Ok,” I reply simply, and it shocks him so much he stumbles back, looking confused right as his brother reaches us. This alpha clearly doesn’t have personal space issues as he pulls me into a hug, his forest and pine scent surrounding me and somewhat comforting me at the same time.

  “I didn’t ask for a bear hug,” I muffle into his shoulder. He laughs as he pulls away, and I am able to get a better look at him. Green, playful eyes and messy brown hair that falls into his face greet me. His skin is more tanned than his brother’s, so he must spend more time outside or something. It suits him, and he looks way hotter than I remember him being. They both are.

  “I know, but you got one anyway. I’m Callum by the way,” he says, running a hand through his hair nervously.

  “Right Callum, Cain, and what’s your other brother called?” I ask, knowing it’s going to start with a C.

  “Chase,” Callum says, “but he is out of the pack today on business.”

  “Why are you here, Gold? And who is that?” Cain asks, getting straight to the point.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “We can go inside as you explain, if you want?” Callum kindly suggests, waving a hand towards the house, and I nod my head. I look back once at my rogue as I lock the car doors with my keys. He just smirks, and I turn away before I decide to drag him out the car and leave him here alone as I go home. Cain surprises me by placing a warm hand on my lower back as he guides me up the steps and reaches to open the door for me.

  “Such a gentleman. I didn’t know there were any guys like you left these days,” I tease.

  “There is a lot you don’t know, G-G,” Cain laughs as I step into their house. The scent of forest and something sweet floats over to me. I look around the massive, open plan room I’m in. The room has stairs in the middle, separates the kitchen and lounge, which look modern and recently built. I walk over to the black sofas that have white blankets and cushions on them. There is a white fireplace, with a huge flat screen television above it and speakers on the walls either side of it. There are also flowers in the window and picture frames with paintings in them. The room feels like a female has designed it. I hate how jealous it makes me feel that another woman could already be in their lives.

  “Please sit,” Callum asks, waving a hand towards the sofas. I sit on the only chair in the room, and both the bears just shake their heads at my seat choice, sitting down opposite from me. Always sit alone in an unfamiliar room, with unfamiliar people, it’s safer. Or at least that’s what I think.

  “Well I think it’s best I get straight to the point. I need your help and before you ask, Nikoli can’t help me. You are more than welcome to say no, tell me I’m crazy, and I won’t hate you for it, or hold it against you," I say, and Cain’s eyes widen a little, most likely at hearing Nikoli and my pack can’t help me.

  “Who is wolf in the car? The one that smells like a pub?” Cain asks, resting his elbows on his knees as he sits forward and focuses on me.

  “A potential mate of mine, and also someone I was meant to be hunting for the royals. They want him dead, or brought to them for something I haven’t found out yet. I know this sounds mad, but I don’t think he is bad guy, and I’ve met plenty of them over the years. I can tell from one look,” I explain. Cain and Callum look at each other for only a second and in that second, they seem to have some kind of conversation without words.

  “The rogue stays in a locked room we use for females in heat when they aren’t mated and want to be left alone. The room is impossible to break out of,” Cain demands, and I nod once. “As for him being your mate, he will need to earn that right.”

  “I never said he would be my mate. I just can’t see him dead, like I couldn’t see any of you dead either,” I say, and both of them smile widely. I roll my eyes at their reaction. “That wasn’t a compliment.”

  “It’s the nicest thing you’ve said to us, so I’m taking it as one,” Callum says with a cheeky grin, and I can’t help but smile a little. I turn sharply as the door opens, and my rogue walks in, his arms untied and stretching.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” he says, as we all jump up, with Cain and Callum instinctively shielding me from my rogue as low growls slip from their throats. I push in-between them both and stand just in front of them, surprised they don’t try to stop me.

  “How the hell did you get out the bindings and the car? My car is fitted with no handles, so my prisoners can’t escape. Literally my key is the only way out,” I say, confused.

  “I’ve been out the bindings since I woke up, darling. I didn’t want to worry you, so I sat still. Oh, and I broke the window. No point getting your car all done up like that without bulletproof windows,” he says, crossing his arms and smiling at me. Bastard.

  “If you want to stay here, you can’t be free in our pack until we know everything about your past,” Cain warns.

  “I won’t tell you everything, but I will talk about the last hundred years. You might find it useful to learn who you should trust,” he replies, staring Cain down. Both of them feel like alphas to me, and it’s never good to have two alphas challenging each other. One always ends up dead.

  “In the morning you can tell us, but for now, you stay in the room we chose. Our mate needs to rest,” Cain demands, and I turn to see him carefully watching my rogue.

  “Sure, I could use a shower. Our mate does need rest,” he says, stretching out the word our. A menacing growl slips out of all of their throats, and I step back a little, resting my hands on Cain and Callum’s shoulders. They stop growling and stare at me as I look back at my rogue. For a moment, I just pause, hearing no more growling from the bears and knowing that my touch calmed them down. Our bond is growing, and I don’t know if I want that. I remove my hands quickly, not liking how easy and natural it felt to touch them.

  “Quit with the mate shit. I’m not any of your mates. Just potential, that’s it,” I snap at all of them now the posturing h
as stopped. I ignore all of their stares as I walk past my rogue and to the door. It’s not their fault, and I regret my words the moment they leave my lips, but I can’t change how scared they make me feel. I haven’t been scared of anything in a long time, and I can’t have all these men mated to me. It’s been hundreds of years of being alone, and no sexy mysterious wolf, no handsome, charming bears are going to change that.

  “Where are you going?” Cain shouts after me.

  “To get my bag and shit out the car,” I say and open the door, ignoring the way my heart is pounding against my chest as I walk away from them all.

  “This is your room," Callum directs me down the corridor to the last room on the right. Cain has taken my rogue to the basement of the house next door, which he explained it is a pack house, and anyone having issues, new to the pack, or just visitors stay there. It makes sense to have a house like that in a pack as big as this one. At the Forest Pack there are two houses being built next to the main house. One is for greeting guests, and the other is for the vampire coven that has moved in and been accepted in the pack because of Harper, our alpha female, mating with a vampire.

  "Why aren't I staying with the visitors next door?" I ask.

  "Because you aren't a visitor. You are the alpha female of this pack, even if you haven't accepted your mates or the title yet," Callum tells me firmly. His answer feels like there is no way to reply, but I still do.

  "I'd make a crap alpha female," I mutter as Callum opens the door. I try to quickly shoulder past him into the room, but he moves quicker than I do and boxes me in against the door frame. His messy hair falls into his face as he looks down at me, the dark swirls in his green eyes seem that much brighter this close.

  "You will make a brilliant alpha female, you just don't know it yet. Don't put yourself down, I won't have that," he grumbles, a low rumble making his words deeper and more seductive. I stare up at him for a second, searching his face for anything not to trust and finding nothing. I have a feeling Callum doesn’t hide much from people, and I don’t know why, but I really like that about him.

  "I wasn't putting myself down, I was just stating a fact," I finally answer after clearing my throat.

  "That you were wrong about," he says, a grin stretching across his kissable lips.

  "I'm never wrong, you should learn that now for the future," I reply, trying not to smile.

  "You are," he says through a grin.

  "Not," I play along, and he laughs as he pulls away from me.

  "Fine, but when you admit you are wrong, I want to hear it," he says as I go into the room and look around as I try to wipe the smile from my lips. There's a wooden bed, with white sheets and yellow pillows that match the yellow curtains. There is a wardrobe, a dresser, and a fireplace in here but it’s clear no one lives in this room.

  "The bathroom is the door opposite you, and we all have to share as the ensuites in the three master rooms aren't fully fitted yet. We have been having some adjustments to the houses made," he explains.

  "Yeah, I was going to ask, are these new builds?"

  "Not exactly," he says, walking in and sitting on my bed as I place my bag on the dresser and lean against it. "The middle house was our old house, and we all lived in it despite it being small. When we met you, well, we knew we couldn't keep living in a small house and decided it was time to change. So we could be ready for when you came to us."

  "You built the houses for me? Why three? One each?" I ask, and he slides off the bed, walking slowly over to me and stopping directly in front of me.

  "We built them for our future, all of ours. We want you, a life with our mate and the happiness it could bring. We have waited far too damn long for you, and I have a feeling you have been waiting even longer than us. Don't we deserve a little happiness after all this time?" he asks, but I know he doesn't want an answer. He leans closer and brushes his lips against my cheek and steps away.

  "I don't want to disappoint you," I admit, and he smirks at me, turning around and walking to the door.

  "Nothing you could do would disappoint us, trust me," he says, opening the door and pausing. "The Wi-Fi code is gold12. I think Nikoli and your old pack might want a Skype call." With that he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. I just stare at the white door for a while, feeling nervous and jittery, knowing I need to shift and have a run before I can think straight about these bears. Though Callum does have a point, I do need to call the pack and explain everything. I haven't spoken to them in weeks, since we went hunting, and I bet Erik has told them something by now. If he even went back to the pack and didn't chicken out that is. I pull my laptop out of my bag, and walk over to the bed, pushing the pillows back and placing the laptop on a cushion in front of me as I open it. I smile to myself as I put the Wi-Fi code in and try to ignore how sweet it is that they use my name as the code. I open Skype and call Nikoli straight away, waiting as it rings and rings before he answers his phone and holds it up, so I can see his very serious looking face.

  "Gold, what is wrong?" Nikoli asks straight away.

  "Why does anything have to be wrong?" I question. “Can’t I just call?”

  "You don't call, let alone Skype, unless there is a problem," he says, raising an eyebrow and making me feel like a child that just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. Nikoli has always been able to do that, and if I'm honest with myself, he has become like a father figure to me over the years. It certainly feels like he is one at times. “Also, the last time you Skyped me was that time in Paris. I don’t even want to talk about what happened then.” I cringe at his words. Paris was a bad hunting mission, one that went very wrong, very quick, and Nikoli had to bring the private jet to rescue me and Erik.

  "Are you alone? Can you get Harper?" I ask, and he starts to answer as a door opens in the background, and I hear Harper shout.

  "Is that Gold? Why is she calling? Is anything wrong?" she blurts out, and the next second the phone is grabbed off Nikoli, and Harper is staring down the camera at me. I smile at my friend, seeing her worried face turn into a relieved one when she sees I am okay. Harper and I have become close enough over the little time we have known each other to recognise if something is seriously wrong.

  "Everything is fine, honestly. I just need to talk to you both," I assure them, clearing my throat to get brave enough to tell them everything. I haven’t felt this nervous to blurt anything out since I told my mother I had fallen in love with a man when I was seventeen. The memory of that mistake still haunts me. Harper nods, moving and sitting on Nikoli's lap so I can see both of them in the camera.

  "What is going on?" Harper asks gently. I take a deep breath, reminding myself that this is Harper and Nikoli. My family. They will understand.

  "When I went hunting that rogue...well…it turns out he is a potential mate of mine," I explain, and Nikoli's eyes widen as Harper just sits quietly with visible shock on her face.

  "Did it hurt to kill him? Did he even recognise you? I'm so sorry, Gold," she says, and I shake my head. Of course she thinks I killed him instead of saving him. She doesn’t understand that he wasn’t really a rogue, and his wolf had not taken him over. I don’t understand how his wolf hasn’t, because we all need to be around a pack to survive. Our wolves need that companionship, or it is a death sentence for us. I only hunt rogues because they are so dangerous to both humans and the existence of our kind. If the humans ever found out about us, I reckon they would hunt and kill us all in fear of what we could become.

  "He isn't dead," I say, and there's a tense silence between us all.

  "What?" Nikoli asks as he runs his hand through his short hair, clearly shocked and speechless. Which is damn rare for him.

  "When I found him, he wasn't gone. He was drunk, but his wolf hadn't taken over like we were told it did. So, I tied him up and put him in my car," I explain. I see Harper’s lips turn up a little, likely at the thought of me tying my mate up when we met.

  "Who did she tie up?" Colton's voice c
omes across the line as I hear a door open and shut.

  "Her mate," Harper answers with a laugh.

  "Sounds kinky…What kind of chat are you guys having?" Colton asks, and I laugh.

  "Head out of the gutter, vamp boy," I reply as Harper turns the camera so I can wave at Colton, who is leaning against the wardrobe in their room. He looks older, more stressed than usual, and his blonde hair needs a haircut.

  "Back to being serious, where are you? What did you do with the rogue?" Nikoli asks, and I have to swallow the lump of nervousness in my throat before I answer.

  "At the Bearlay pack. I have joined them, and they are giving us both protection," I say quietly. Nikoli doesn’t say anything for a little while, just leans back in his seat, and watches me, thinking.

  "You could have come to us, Gold. You are family. I don't want you to be there if you do not want to be," Harper says quietly, breaking the silence. I keep my eyes locked on Nikoli who briefly looks down at Harper and back to me. He completely understands my reasons for not coming to him for help with the rogue. Nikoli knows about the prince watching the pack, and it is likely he hasn’t told Harper, so she doesn’t get stressed.