by Stella Night
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Author's Note and Links
Free Preview
My Hero Bear:
Dylan
(Haven Book 2)
by Stella Night
Copyright 2016 STELLA NIGHT
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Enjoy!
“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
― Maya Angelou
Prologue
When an old psychic woman shows up on your doorstep with a warning, only a fool would choose to ignore it. Noah Sinclair was no fool. He was Alpha of the Bear Haven Clan, and Nina Geist had been psychic adviser to the various Alphas of Bear Haven for as long as Noah could remember.
“It’s about your brother, Dylan,” Nina said.
The older woman stood in front of Noah and his wife, Rachel, with her hands on her broad hips. Her gray hair was pulled up into a bun, giving her a grandmotherly look, but Noah didn’t let the older woman’s appearance fool him. Her mind was razor sharp and when she had a vision about something, she was never wrong.
When she’d first arrived at Noah and Rachel’s home a few moments ago, Noah thought she was here for a social visit. He’d been wrong. She was here with news from the mystical realm.
“You had a psychic vision about my brother?” Noah asked. “Did you find him a mate, too?”
He hooked his arm around Rachel’s waist and pulled her close. She leaned her head against his shoulder. After four months together, he still felt a warm thrill when he held her in his arms. Noah knew the feeling would never go away.
Nina’s psychic vibes had been instrumental in Noah and Rachel finding each other. The older woman set Rachel on a crash course with Noah, and fate had taken care of the rest. The couple was mated for life now, and they couldn’t be happier.
He turned his attention back to Nina, wondering if she could do the same thing for Dylan. His younger brother had never been the same since he’d returned home from the military. The right mate could be just what Dylan needed.
“I might have found him a mate,” Nina answered slowly.
She didn’t look excited by the prospect. Her brow furrowed with worry and she chewed her lower lip uncertainly.
Noah’s smile faltered when he saw the pained expression on her face. He exchanged a worried glance with his wife. She seemed to share his concern.
“What’s wrong, Nina?” Rachel asked. “Is Dylan in trouble?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you said you had a vision about Dylan,” Rachel said. “Didn’t it show you what would happen?”
Nina frowned. “No, child. My visions aren’t always crystal clear. Like with you two. I saw that you had the potential to be mates, but the visions didn’t tell me whether you would end up together. My visions for Dylan are even foggier. The future is always so uncertain with the Sinclair brothers.”
“So what did you see?” Noah asked.
“There’s a woman from your brother’s past who needs his help. But Dylan won’t be there to help her. Not unless we intervene and place him in the path of fate.”
“And this woman could be his perfect mate?” Noah asked.
Nina nodded. “There’s a strong chance.”
“Then I don’t see the problem,” Noah said. “We have to make this happen.”
“The problem is Dylan and this woman will be in grave danger if their paths cross. Neither one of them might survive.”
“Are you sure about that?” Noah asked. “Dylan’s the toughest guy I know.”
“Sadly, I’m not sure of anything. I don’t know how this will play out. We might be sending your brother to an early grave.”
“Can’t we warn him?” Rachel asked. “If we let him know to be careful, he’ll be prepared to face whatever danger is heading his way.”
“No, child. He can’t know what’s going on. It could alter the future and result in dire consequences. We can nudge him in the right direction, but fate has to take its course from there.”
“What do you think?” Noah asked Rachel.
“I don’t know. He’s your brother. I shouldn’t be the one to decide.”
Noah shook his head. “You’re a part of our family now. Tell me what you think.”
She seemed to consider it for a second. “I think Dylan is in pain, and the love of a good woman could heal him. I think it’s worth the risk.”
“High risk, high reward,” Noah said. “Dylan would love it. He’s never backed away from a challenge in his life. So what do we have to do?”
“Dylan is out on a Peacekeeper mission for the Society. You need to talk to his boss and get him to go home.”
“That’s it?” Noah asked.
Nina smiled sadly. “That’s it. A simple beginning to a difficult matter. Pray that we’ve made the right choice.”
Chapter 1
Rory Hendrix crept silently through the dark woods, her whole body tense and alert. Moonlight glimmered through breaks in the branches overhead, painting the world in shifting pools of silver and blue. It would have been beautiful if she wasn’t so damn scared.
Something crashed through the underbrush to her left. She froze in her tracks. Rory cocked her ear toward the noise, but all she could hear was the hammering beat of her own heart.
She sniffed the air. Smells of the forest filled her nose. The dark, rich soil, the earthy scent of fallen autumn leaves, and there, running through it all like a bright red thread, was the source of the noise.
Just a rabbit, she thought. Some of the tension drained from her at the realization.
Her mouth watered at the thought of food. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Three days at least. Her stomach growled almost as loud as her inner bear.
Her instincts urged her to shift so she could hunt. In bear form, she could catch the rabbit before it knew what hit it. But hunting was a risk she couldn’t take. Not when she was being hunted herself.
She felt a thin trickle of relief that the men chasing her hadn’t caught up with her again. The last time she’d sensed them was the day before, over fifty miles away.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t still on her trail. She couldn’t let her guard down now. One slip, one mistake, and it was game over for Rory. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t rest. Not until she found Dylan.
The thought of seeing him again after all these years sent a spike of fear through her. They hadn’t parted on the best terms. The last thing she’d told him was she never wanted to see him again.
Now, she was the one seeking him out. But it wasn’t like she had a choice. Everyone she’d ever loved was dead. Dylan was the only one she could turn to after fleeing from the Stone Bear Clan with nothing but the clothes on her back.
<
br /> For years, she’d dreamed about striking out on her own into the great wide world. Now, here she was, far from home. It should have been thrilling, exciting. But all she felt was fear.
She’d left in the wake of tragedy, and she might not have a home to go back to. If she survived at all.
It was funny. Ever since her mother died when she was a little girl, her father and brother had been overprotective of Rory. They’d kept her cooped up in their secluded little town of Stonebrook, hidden away from the world. She used to hate the way they isolated her from everything.
Now her father and brother were dead, and she would have given anything to have them back, fussing over her. She felt the weight of their absence all the heavier out here in the dark woods alone.
She thrust those thoughts aside. There’d be time for looking back later. For now, she had to keep moving forward. Her destination was close.
She’d visited the Sinclair Family home before, back in happier times. The rustic house was nestled at the far end of a remote valley, flush against the base of a towering cliff face. It was hidden away behind dense forest like something out of a fairy tale.
A lone dirt road was the only way in and out of the valley, although Rory was avoiding the road because she would be too exposed out there. The rest of the valley was filled with an ancient forest, lush and thick.
All three of the Sinclair brothers had inherited the place from their parents, but Dylan was the one who lived there. His brothers chose homes closer to the town of Bear Haven.
Dylan, the middle brother, preferred to be alone.
He’d told her his favorite thing about the place was the natural beauty of the towering old forest around the house. He said he felt closer to nature out here. Bears usually needed that connection to the land. It was why bear shifters rarely settled in cities, unlike wolves and big cat shifters who were comfortable almost anywhere.
As she moved deeper into the valley, something felt off about this old familiar stretch of woods. The forest seemed to be thinning out. Too much moonlight shined through the trees up ahead. Rory stumbled out of the underbrush and into a clearing where no clearing used to be.
The lush forest of trees in front of Dylan’s home was gone. A large empty space had taken their place. The once magnificent trees lay scattered and splintered on the ground, as if they’d been knocked over by a violent storm.
There had to be hundreds of fallen trees. Maybe thousands. Their trunks looked white under the moonlight, almost like bones. The sight of it sent a shudder through her.
Something terrible had happened here, leaving a brutal scar on the once beautiful forest. Panic arose in Rory. Had something happened to Dylan?
A terrible sense of dread weighed on her soul. It never occurred to her that he wouldn’t be here when she arrived. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in four years, Rory had heard countless stories about him.
Since he’d returned home from the military and started working as a Peacekeeper, Dylan had become something of a legend in the shifter world. Children spoke of him the way they talked about super heroes. And plenty of women got weak in the knees when his name was mentioned, which annoyed Rory to no end.
When someone achieved mythic status like Dylan had, it didn’t seem possible that anything could hurt him. But judging from the miserable state of the once-happy valley, some terrible calamity must have transpired here.
She wondered if Dylan was even alive.
But no, his home was still standing. It was no longer hidden away, though. The place looked terribly exposed up against the cliff wall. She squinted into the darkness and caught the dim flicker of light in the window.
Somebody was home.
She let out a shaky breath, afraid of seeing him again after all these years. The prospect was almost as terrifying as the men behind her. If there’d been anyone else to turn to, she would have gone to them. But there was no one else but Dylan. She had no choice.
Rory stepped into the moonlit clearing, picking her way over fallen trees. She couldn’t help but feel exposed in the light of the full moon, like someone was watching her.
***
Dylan watched the tiny figure struggle over the limbs of ruined trees. The cool autumn breeze was blowing in the wrong direction, making it impossible for him to catch the intruder’s scent, even with Dylan’s keen senses. The one thing he knew was the uninvited visitor was female.
Was this the sign Noah had warned him about?
This whole situation was troubling. Dylan had been yanked from an assignment for the Bear Haven Preservation Society by Mason Raines himself, the president of the Society. In the four years he’d worked as a Peacekeeper, he’d never been taken off a case. The work he did for the Society was too important.
To the general public, the Society presented itself as a group that set up nature preserves around the country. What the public didn’t know was those nature preserves were actually safe havens for various shifter groups.
Humans didn’t know about shifters. Most humans anyway. Some of Dylan’s supernatural brethren lived normal lives right alongside humans, hiding in plain sight. Others preferred more secluded surroundings, away from cities and possible detection.
Those shifters were welcome to live in the Society’s nature preserves, protected by the Society itself. In exchange, those shifter groups agreed to live by the Society’s rules. When those rules were broken, the Society sent in Peacekeepers like Dylan to make things right.
He’d been on a Peacekeeping mission with his brother, Xander. Some wolves from a rogue pack were looking to expand their territory by pushing out a smaller, weaker group of deer shifters. Dylan and Xander were there to bring the wolves back in line and settle the dispute.
Then he got the call.
The Society sent someone to take Dylan’s place and instructed him to go home. When Dylan asked why, all Mason said was to ask his brother, Noah.
Noah didn’t have much more in the way of answers. He said that Dylan needed to go back home and wait for a sign. No amount of questioning would get Noah to say anything else.
Dylan didn’t like being kept in the dark, but he trusted his brother completely. So despite the cryptic instructions, Dylan did as he was told.
As far as assignments went, spending a few days at home wasn’t so bad. Dylan liked being alone, away from the world and away from all the terrible things he saw on a regular basis. Things were simpler out here. Less complicated.
Only now he was no longer alone.
A certain someone was making a beeline for his house. A certain female someone. The idea irritated him more than it should. Most lonely, eligible bachelors would be thrilled to get some female company out here in the middle of nowhere.
But Dylan was different.
He didn’t have much interest in hooking up with anyone for more than one night. Relationships didn’t interest him at all. Not anymore. Not after Aurora.
He’d fallen in love with her the moment he saw her. She had dark eyes, pale skin, and a smile that stopped his heart. He still dreamed about that smile sometimes, but it was the only time he ever saw it these days. She hadn’t smiled at him like that since before he’d gone off to join the military.
That had been almost nine years ago. So long it felt like a lifetime ago. She wasn’t someone he liked to think about, but in some ways, she was never far from his thoughts.
It was one of the many things that tortured him late at night when he tried to sleep. He tried to remind himself he was the one who walked away, but it didn’t take the sting out of how much he missed her.
Dylan tried to put these thoughts out of his mind. He focused instead on the shadowy woman making her way towards the house. She moved slowly, almost painfully, like she was about to topple over at any moment.
A person didn’t move that way if they were on the attack. They moved that way if they were running from something. She looked like she had been running for a long time.
Dylan loo
ked behind her, straining his eyes to see what she was running from. He thought he caught a glimpse of something, but it could have been a trick of the light. His night vision was impressive but it didn’t work as well over long distances.
Nothing moved. He must have been imagining things.
Dylan chalked it up to paranoia. Years spent fighting had that effect on a person. He saw demons in every shadow, and danger hiding around every corner. It was just a part of who he was now. It made it difficult for him to breathe easy or trust anyone.
It was one of the reasons he liked being out here all alone. He didn’t have to be on his guard all the time.
