Southern Shifters: Inked By The Bear (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Black & White Series Book 2)

by Lissa Matthews

  Bex laughed. She couldn’t help it. Meryl talked about the apple butter so with such an earnest and serious face that it caught Bex off guard. “Well, I tell you what. I’ll send two jars of of each home with you and we won’t tell her.”

  “Deal.”

  “What’s a deal?” Mary asked, walking in the back door and joining them in the dining room where Martin, Luke, Michael, and Gus had started emptying the boxes they’d brought in.

  “Nothing,” Meryl added, still with a straight face. Bex needed to learn that skill. It would come in handy with Gus. As it was, he could tell everything she was thinking and feeling. Hell, he knew when she wasn’t sleeping even if she wasn’t laying right next to him.

  “Where was this taken?” she heard Martin ask, holding a picture up.

  “The woods behind my mom’s inn in Bryson City,” Bex answered, joining him at the table. “If you’d taken the picture from the woods, you’d have seen the back of the house. There was a trellis with trailing roses, a fire pit where we’d sit when it was cold out with warm cider or hot chocolate. Who took this?”

  “I don’t know exactly. One of the wolves from my pack took it years ago, not long after Rex stopped appearing on any radar, when it was assumed he was dead. Lorac was the name of the wolf. He was in my pack, orphaned. No one adopted him, as Gus was adopted. No one took him in. He didn’t want to be taken in. He was angry and defiant.”

  “What happened to his parents?”

  “His father was killed in a fight with a cougar. We don’t know what happened to his mother. She disappeared one day and never came back. There was no trace of her ever found that I’m aware of.”

  “I know I’m the new kid on the shifter block here, but it seems that shifters disappear without a trace an awful lot. You say you can scent me? You smell me, smell things that trigger something you smelled before? Why can’t you smell and scent those who’ve gone missing like that wolf’s mother?”

  All eyes were focused on her, and Bex started to shrink back, but caught herself at the last second. They told her she was a shifter and she knew she was different than she was a few days ago.

  They were in her house, she was involved with a bear shifter, and she was one. She deserved to stand up and have her say.

  Of course, she was also scared shitless. Scared about this new direction her life was headed in, a direction she couldn’t change now if she wanted to, and truth be told, she didn’t want to. She did want to know she wasn’t alone and as she looked around the table at Gus, his parents and his brother, his aunt, she knew she wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be alone again.

  “Because I never knew her,” Luke said. “I never came in contact with her. Only with Lorac’s remains after he was killed and they brought what was left of him back. His mother is likely long dead. What brought me here was the scent that emanated from this one,” Luke said, pointing at Gus. “I knew I’d smelled something on him before. It was a scent I couldn’t place at first, but when you came out of the donut shop and stood next to him, it started to fall into place. I just needed some time to put a few things together in my head.

  “You’re the first woman I’ve met who was born from the mating of a human and a shifter. You have shifter blood. You’re alive and healthy and from what I understand, your mother was alive and healthy throughout her pregnancy. She gave birth to a full-term baby carrying shifter DNA.

  “Normally, I’d have just looked the other way, but this time I couldn’t. It gives me hope for my pack, but we need access to other areas near our home. I’ve traveled all through the woods around the old diner and behind your mother’s home. I’ve traveled all through the woods and followed the scents everywhere I could from where Lorac was found. I’ve been looking for clues and answers. We need to mate with humans, but we need to be wary of them, too.”

  “As a whole?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? I mean, okay, I understand individual cases such as the reason you’re here with all this stuff taking up space in my house, but we’re talking isolated instances, right?” Bex was struggling to understand the fear and the need.

  “No,” Michael stated, joining in the conversation between her and Luke. “The more we’re around humans, the more we’re open to being compromised. Shifters are such a small part of the population. We’re not even supposed to exist.”

  “Not supposed to exist? What do you mean?”

  “Shapeshifters are supposed to be legend,” Michael continued. “Myth. Folklore. Spirit animals from Native American belief systems. We’re not supposed to be real. But we can’t live separately, either. The world is too populated. The cities are too crowded and people move out and into our spaces.”

  “Then,” Luke added. “There’s the fact of needing to breed with humans. I know I keep harping on this, but it’s a fact. If we want to survive, we need the new blood or we just continue bringing weakened babies into the world.

  “And,” Luke continued,“If we have humans killing us for sport or for revenge, which, if the human’s father did and does, then we have a serious issue that needs to be resolved. The more we’re around humans, the more humans that move into our spaces, the more vigilant we need to be. We can’t let them take us out and we need to find the leaders of this group. Hunters are one thing. Poachers are another. I don’t want any shifters killed for sport. No animal or half-breed should be. Poachers skin us. We’re not used for meat or warmth from our fur. We’re to hang on walls and make rugs out of. Animals and shifters alike.”

  She was horrified. She was horrified and angry. “I understand,” she said, because finally, finally it was starting to make sense to her.

  She met Gus’s gaze, saw the smile on his face, the acceptance in his eyes, and Bex felt whole for the first time in a long, long while. This was her family now. These people, even Luke Blackwood, were her people. Yes, she wanted to claw at him, but she could handle him being in her home when he wasn’t threatening, when he wasn’t being aggressive.

  “So, these poachers, how do you handle them? How do you stop them?”

  “We have to hunt them.”

  “You want to stop them by hunting them?” Okay, now she was back to not understanding. “And how does that make you any different than them? I mean, they don’t know you’re coming after them, so… What am I missing?”

  “I don’t think you’re missing anything, Bex.” She looked up at Gus again when he spoke. “It’s hard to understand, I guess. We’d be defending our kin, our family. We’d be protecting you as much as anyone. I don’t know if this private group is gunning for you or what their intentions are, if they target shifters or animals in general, but I do know, if they’re gunning for us, for you, I’ll take whatever measures are necessary to make sure you’re safe.”

  The fierceness in Gus’s voice touched her and fueled her blood. No one had ever had to stand up for her before and she’d never been faced with violence, not first hand. With Gus, she’d felt that same fierceness, that same protectiveness toward someone else. She didn’t feel weak. She felt beautiful and strong and loved. She had something worth fighting for. She had a family that wanted her.

  She nodded, short and definitive. “Then what do we do? How do we find them? How do we figure out exactly what they’re doing and where they’re doing it?”

  “You’re going to be a force to be reckoned with, cuz,” Michael said, giving her a wink of approval. She beamed back at him.

  “I’m not sure where we start,” Martin said, then motioned toward the boxes and files in front of them. “We have a lot of material to go through. We have other bears to contact and locate, and leads to follow up on from other parts of the country. We’ve entered into an alliance with the Blackwood Pack, off the books. They’re offering us their help in exchange for freedom to roam and explore up into Tennessee without getting shot at. At least not by us.”

  “He’s still alive. That’s what you said, isn’t it Luke?” Gus asked. “The mayor. I mean, I know he’s n
ot the mayor anymore, but I don’t know what the hell his name is.”

  “I think that’s a great thing to call him. It keeps it from being too personal.”

  “The only one it’s personal for is Bex. His son was almost her father. The mayor was very nearly her grandfather. This is all very personal for her.”

  “On some level, maybe,” Bex added. “I didn’t really know them. I never actually met him and I was an infant when his son disappeared.”

  “Did anyone ever find him? The son?”

  “I don’t think so. There’s no mention in any of the files I have that they did. It’s always been assumed from what I can figure that he was killed by either the bear or the wolf.”

  Bex turned and glanced at Mary. She was stoic, standing beside Meryl. They both seemed content to let the men do the talking and maybe they were. Bex wasn’t. If this was going to happen, if they were going to find and bring down those who’d been killing shifters, then she was going to be front and center of it all.

  But in that moment, with the way her son was being talked about, Mary didn’t flinch and didn’t show any trace of emotion. Bex walked toward her and stood on her other side. “I’m sorry about all this,”Bex said softly. “I know it can’t be easy to hear.”

  “It’s not, but he did bad things and he met a bad end. If that man hunted him down, I want him caught. I don’t want done to him what was done to my son. Rex was made to pay for his sins. These men should be made to pay for theirs if they’ve killed innocent shifters and animals. They deserve no less than justice.”

  Bex nodded. “Okay.”

  “And what about you? How are you holding up?” Meryl asked, a soft smile on her face.

  Bex shrugged. “I’m okay for the time being. I might break down later, but so far, so good,” she said, trying to reassure the two older women. “I’m just trying to take it all in, figure out where I fit in with it.”

  “You’re right in the middle of it.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure I want to be there. It could get messy.”

  “Gus will watch out for you. We all will, but especially Gus.”

  Bex agreed. Gus would watch out for her. He would keep her as safe as she let him. He wanted to tattoo bear paws on her hip and she’d asked for the claws to go with them. He was going to ink her, but she was already marked. Had been since he’d walked into her line of sight at the bank in Bryson City.

  She smiled once more at Mary, at Meryl, then made her way into Gus’s arms. “This is going to be hard, pretty girl. I can tell them all to go away, to take their quest elsewhere. You don’t have to be part of it.”

  “That’s sweet, but yes, I do have to be part of it. I’m part of all of it. I didn’t ask for it, but here it is and here I am.”

  “All right.”

  “You know, maybe I should go pay Beck’s father a visit.”

  Luke laughed. “I bet that’d go over like a lead balloon, but damn it’d be entertaining as hell. I’d like a front row seat to that show.”

  “No way, Wolf,” Michael interjected, getting in Luke’s face. They were like oil and water. They would be the best of friends or the worst of enemies. Talk about a show to watch.

  “You can’t be serious, Bex.”

  “Why not? I don’t know what I’d find out, or what I’d learn, but maybe it’s worth a shot.” It was also likely she needed to keep her mouth shut. “You know, out of the pan, and into the fire.”

  “You’re not going alone.” The words were growled in her ear and the arms around her tightened without mercy.

  “Nope. You’d be going with me.”

  Gus nodded, fire and fear, blazing in his eyes. “Damn straight.” He leaned down and kissed her hard. “Damn straight,” he said again.

  Bex smiled. Damn straight.

  It was time to take control of her life and to start helping right some wrongs that had nothing and yet had everything to do with what happened to her mother. She’d like to know what happened to Beck too, her mother’s fiancé. She’d like to help bring peace to Mary. And she’d like to help Gus find out if his parent’s deaths were accidental or on purpose.

  She could do all that now. She had a support system. She had a family. They were right, too. There was strength in numbers.

  And, she thought with a smile, she was a shifter. It was time she figured out how to embrace it.

  Thank you for reading Inked By The Bear. Writing in Eliza Gayle’s Southern Shifters Kindle World was such a unique and fun adventure the first time around, that I couldn’t resist doing so again.

  As you no doubt figured, there will be a Book Three and it’ll come out in the next few weeks so that you can start getting some additional answers to the questions Bex, and Gus have begun asking.

  I also want to thank my cover artist, Blackraven’s Designs, for creating such an incredibly unique cover that fit the story of Gus and Bex, perfectly. Twice.

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  Ink To Bear

  Black &White Series, Book One

  Southern Shifters Kindle World

  Big, and built, Gus is one werebear most other shifters, and hybrids steer clear of; unless he’s got the ink out. Then, they line up for the chance to see him work and maybe, just maybe, get a little ink of their own. He’s made a name for himself as a traveling tattoo artist, but he’s a loner and his only rule is to never stay any place long enough to learn names.

  But, he sees her…

  Bex is alone now. No family since her mother passed. Few people she would call friend. And she’s just sold the last remaining link to her childhood. None of it seems real and yet, it’s all too much reality for her. She wants to start her new life and she wants out of her small hometown.

  Her way out comes in the form of a broad shouldered, tattooed biker, offering take her anywhere she wants to go, even if it means going over the infamous Tail of the Dragon mountain pass and through territory that isn’t always friendly to his kind.

  She’s never been on a motorcycle. She’s never been this close to a shifter. She’s never done anything reckless. Can she trust him to keep her safe? More importantly, can she trust herself and her feelings when she climbs on and wraps herself around him?

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  Please Check Out The Kindle Worlds Southern Shifters Page For Information On How You Can Contribute To Eliza Gayle’s Southern Shifters, Too!

  About Lissa

  Born and raised in the South and currently living in North Carolina, talented, multi-published author, Lissa Matthews has many loves in her life: Family, friends, NASCAR, football, music of all kinds, cooking, BDSM, penning stories filled with feisty heroines and naughty heros, and last, but certainly not least, coffee.