by Amira Rain
SOLD
TO THE BEARS
A BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance
AMIRA RAIN
Copyright ©2015 by Amira Rain
All rights reserved.
About This Book
In a dystopian future where fertile women are treated like commodities, curvy Lila is preparing to be the latest in a line of women to be SOLD.
However, unlike most women who are sold, Lila is looking forward to it since she knows who she is going to be sold to.
Adrian and Grant are bear shifters and are part of the “Bears of Sun Creek” tribe. They are impossibly handsome with perfectly chiseled bodies. Long steamy nights of passion and menage-filled ecstasy are a guarantee for a woman that is owned by these bears.
With that in mind, surely any woman in her right mind would jump at the chance of being sold to Adrian and Grant?
Only problem is, Lila is not just any woman and the reason she is eager to be sold is nothing to do with the sex. Lila actually has revenge in mind and the Bears of Sun Creek are her targets....
READ ON TO DISCOVER HOW IT ALL UNRAVELS...
ALSO BY AMIRA RAIN....
HER LION GUARD (LION SHIFTER ROMANCE)
After stumbling upon an underground community of shifters within an abandoned warehouse, Mary-Lou knows she has to run for her life. They smell blood and they are coming after her.
She runs and runs right into the arms of the strong and handsome Jonas. Jonas has the ability to shift into 500 pounds worth of lion and he insists he is there to protect her curvy frame.
He tells her that she has something that they want, and they will stop at nothing till they get it. If she wants to survive she must allow him to become her Lion Guard...
START READING THIS NOW, CLICK HERE
**
A BURDEN TO BEAR
When Sarah meets the man of her dreams she feels that everything is finally going right. Wilson is perfect for her in every way and, most importantly, he loves her curvy frame. His stunning good looks make it easy to understand why any woman would fall head over heels for a man like him.
However, Sarah's best friend Douglas feels like something is not quite right about Wilson and his suspicions lead him into discovering the dark secret that Wilson is hiding. A secret so dark it could mean Sarah's life is in danger.
Only problem is, in order to save her Douglas must also reveal SHOCKING secrets of his own.....
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CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
Fallen branches crunched under my shoes as I ran through the forest, feet flying. I knew they weren't far behind me. I knew if I couldn't sustain my pace, they'd soon have me in their sights. They'd be near enough to slash at me with their long, razor-sharp nails. They were the wolves. And, for the second time in my life, I was literally running for my life from them.
However, this was the first time I'd had to run for my life as an adult woman, at the age of twenty-two. The previous time, I'd only been seven. That was when the wolf shifters had attacked my hometown, a small town called Coldwater in Northern Michigan, and had killed most of the adults, including my parents, just for sport and looting.
I'd run from the town and into the forest nearby, crying and hysterical. With fangs bared, the wolves had chased me, snapping at my heels. Soon I'd been tackled, and the wolf who'd done it raised one long-nailed paw, presumably to slash it across my throat, killing me. Just how my parents had been killed.
But before I'd met the same fate, the wolf who intended to kill me was stopped by one of the community elders in a rare show of mercy and compassion, two things almost completely unheard of by the wolves.
This elder's name was Gray, and he and his wife Estelle eventually adopted me as their own child. By the time I was ten years old, I was calling them mother and father, and they'd referred to me as their daughter.
Which wasn't to say we'd been an entirely happy family. Gray and Estelle, who had no other children, hadn't been the warmest people, and at times, I felt as if they merely tolerated my presence. However, they fed me, and clothed me, and Gray had saved my life. I did grow to love them as parents.
In addition to not being cruel people, Gray and Estelle were also occasionally kind, which was unusual for people from Stony Rapids, the town where we lived, which was populated by a couple thousand shifter wolves, their wives, and their children. Most, though not all, people from Stony Rapids, were exceedingly fierce and stern, men and women alike, and after spending my first seven years in a happier place filled with warmer people, I'd never really gotten used to this. I'd always longed to return to a place of happiness and warmth.
Though after Gray and Estelle had helped to integrate me into the community, I'd come to see these people as my people. Also, after a time, I'd even developed a sense of loyalty to my people, despite the fact that they had killed my real parents.
As a child, I'd just had to let go of that fact, or bury it deep inside of me, in order to survive and find at least a small sliver of happiness with Gray and Estelle.
But now, Gray and Estelle were dead, killed by bear shifters from a town called Sun Creek, which was fifty or so miles away. It was some sort of an unprovoked attack.
With me having no other family in Stony Rapids, their deaths had left me unprotected, Within weeks, I'd been told that I was going to be sold at an auction where young women were purchased like slaves. The town elders had told me this in a matter-of-fact, almost casual way. No one had even apologized.
Stony Rapids had always been a town with limited resources, but in the past several years, the community had become downright impoverished. Occasionally selling young women at auction was one way income was raised. This was because young women had become a very valuable commodity since an event most people simply called The Freeze, when shifters of varying kinds had taken over the world several hundred years earlier and most of the human population had died.
Since then, fertility and birth rates had been low, though recently they'd seemed to be on the rise ever since some dragon shifters had removed a radioactive amulet from the continent. However, despite this, young women were still a small minority of the population, and therefore, very sought-after. So sought-after, in fact, that bear and dragon shifters would come from hundreds of miles around any time young women from Stony Rapids were auctioned off.
I'd never even made it to the auction block. Shortly before dawn, I'd made a decision. I wasn't going to be sold like a piece of meat. Especially not to the bear shifters, who'd killed my adoptive parents. And, since bears and dragons were the only shifters expected at the auction that morning, I figured I had a one-in-two chance of that happening, an
d those odds were just too high for me.
It would be one thing if I were sold to the dragons, who lived in a city called Ashcrest, several hundred miles to the south. The wolf shifters weren't exactly friends of the dragons, though the people of Stony Rapids periodically purchased different items manufactured there.
If these items were any indication, Ashcrest was a very sophisticated, wealthy, technologically advanced city. I'd heard tales that their paved roads were smooth as silk; their houses and buildings were bright and gleaming, as were the several hundred cars in the city; and their royal family lived in a towering castle. My adoptive mother had also told me once that the folks in Ashcrest were a kind, noble people. I didn't think I'd mind living in Ashcrest. Especially if my husband were kind and noble. And maybe even handsome.
The bear shifters of Sun Creek, however, I knew next to nothing about them. They'd historically been our enemies, and we never traded with them or purchased goods from them. As far as I knew, no one from Stony Rapids had ever even been inside their town, save for the occasional woman from Stony Rapids purchased at auction.
Of course, those women never returned to report back. All I knew was that the bears of Sun Creek must be exceptionally cruel people, because they seemed to have killed my adoptive parents in cold blood, while they'd simply been enjoying a canoe trip down a river just outside of town. I knew I'd rather die than be purchased by these people. I'd rather die than become mated to one of them.
So, I'd decided to make a run for it in the last shades of darkness before dawn on the day of the auction, despite the elders of Stony Rapids declaring that if any of the three young women to be sold at auction that day tried to make an escape beforehand, they would be killed.
My plan was to try to make the journey to Ashcrest on foot and beg for mercy. I'd offer myself up to be mated with any of their dragon shifters as long as they wouldn't return me to Stony Rapids, where I'd be surely killed, or send me to the bears of Sun Creek, which I'd consider a fate worse than death.
I knew that the odds of me making it the several hundred miles south to Ashcrest on foot without being caught weren't great, but I was desperate. I felt I had to at least try to escape. I just couldn't take the one-in-two chance that I'd be sold to the bears.
I'd packed a compass, clothes, food, and bottles of water in a large, sturdy backpack. I'd also grabbed my longbow and some arrows. I was decent with a bow and arrow, and I knew I might at least have a shot at defending myself. And then I'd crept out of my house and into the forest adjacent to the town, heading south.
At first, everything went according to plan. The forest was quiet and still. The lightening pre-dawn sky had given me just enough light to navigate the woods, I’d walked for twenty minutes without hearing even the faintest hint of anyone following me. It was about this time that I'd started to think I was home free. I was going to make it the several hundred miles south to Ashcrest, and safety. Eventually.
But immediately after, I'd heard a sound that had turned my blood to ice. It was a howl, and several others answered it. They sounded fairly near behind me. Heart pounding, I'd taken off running. The howls immediately began getting nearer and nearer. I'd dropped my longbow, arrows, and gear bag in an attempt to run even faster, for whatever little good that did. The wolves were still coming.
Now, despite me running full-out, thorny branches scratching my face while the sun's first rays lit the forest, the wolves were right behind me. I knew I couldn't let up. I couldn't slow. Not even for a second. Not even for a fraction of a second. My life depended on it.
I could now feel the wolves so close behind me that I could clearly hear their snarls and growls. They were maybe only twenty or thirty feet back. And suddenly, I had to know exactly how close behind me. It wasn't really even a conscious thought, though. It was more of an instinct. I wasn't even aware that I was going to take a lightning-fast look until my head turned, seemingly on its own.
I'd made a huge mistake. I realized it instantly. Not that I would have probably been able to outrun the wolves anyway. They surely would have caught up with me very soon. I knew this. But I'd just had to try to fight for my life. My survival instincts, which had always seemed to be such a constant in my life, had made me at least make an attempt to outrun the wolves.
The moment I turned my head for a fraction-of-a-second backward glance, I tripped over a root or a branch or something and went down hard.
Knowing what was about to happen next, I immediately flipped myself over onto my rear and began trying to crawl away backward. "Please don't kill me. Please."
It was too late. The wolves were already on me. Two of them pounced, knocking me flat on my back. Each of them pinned one of my shoulders to the ground with a wide, mighty paw. One of them leered, his expression almost human, baring his long, yellowed, razor-sharp teeth.
I shut my eyes. I didn't want to know the exact moment that death was coming. I didn't want my last thought to be one of absolute terror. I was a fighter, but I knew the game was up. Thrashing around would only make things worse, maybe even prolong my pain. Trembling, I tried to let myself go limp like a rag doll. I tried to think of my parents. Not my adoptive parents, though I loved them. I tried to think of my first parents, the ones who'd treated me so kindly and warmly. The ones I wanted to see the most.
But, to my horror, or, my increasing horror, actually, I couldn't quite picture their faces. It had been too long. I was far too terrified to focus. I could, however, recall that my mother had loved gardening, had loved tending roses in particular, and so I just thought of roses. Those I could picture vividly, despite the fact that not many of them were grown in Stony Rapids. People in Stony Rapids never seemed much interested in nurturing beautiful things.
I pictured red roses, and great big pink roses, and a special kind of tiny yellow rose my mother had grown. I pictured dozens of these tiny yellow roses in a vase on our kitchen table, where my mother had loved to display them. I pictured myself smelling them, filling my nostrils with their sweet scent, upon returning home from school, like I had vague memories of doing. All the while, a silent prayer to the wolves ran through my mind, over and over, on a loop. Please be quick.
The wolves snapped and snarled for a short while as I thought of my mother's roses, but then they quieted. Suddenly. I just had a gut feeling that teeth or nails were about to rip open my throat. While tears pricked my closed eyelids, I thought of my mother's roses even harder, trying to picture each small, delicate leaf and petal with crystal-clear clarity. I was going to die seeing beauty. I was going to die looking at beautiful roses that my first mother had nurtured, and grown, and loved.
At the same time, I couldn't help but brace myself, tensing every muscle in my body. But nothing happened. I heard a voice instead.
"No, don't. I've changed my mind. We won't kill her. We need the money too badly."
I instantly recognized the voice as belonging to Malachi, the alpha and leader of the wolves. Not a second after he'd spoken, I felt the two wolves pinning me, remove their paws from my shoulders. With my breath coming in shallow gasps, I opened my eyes slowly and propped myself up on my elbows, daring to believe that my life might actually be spared.
In front of me, Malachi stood in human form, fully dressed, because when shifters shifted into animal form and back again, their clothes magically shifted with them. He was an older man with black hair streaked with gray. He was tall and well-built, making him physically imposing. He'd actually been friends with my adoptive father, who'd been one of his most trusted elders. And now, though it seemed he was going to spare my life, he was selling me. I was still having a hard time getting over the shock. The betrayal.
The two wolves who'd pounced on me had shifted into human form as well and now flanked him.
One of them, a man named Randall, leered at me, revealing yellowed teeth. "Guess you're lucky you're worth so much money. The bears seem like they're going to pay a pretty high price for you, despite the fact that by attemp
ting an escape, you've proven yourself as a tough one to control. They seem up for that, though. It actually made them even more interested in purchasing you than they might have been otherwise. They said they might be interested in a 'spirited' girl. Maybe their men like a challenge. They should be along any second now."
I cringed inwardly, my relief at my life being spared turning to dread. So, my attempt to save myself had been a failure. Not only that, but I, myself had ruined any chance of me being purchased by the dragon shifters from Ashcrest. Now I would be purchased by the bears. Whether I thought I'd rather die or not. I sat up fully, curling my hands into fists, beyond angry at myself.
Before Randall, Malachi, or the other wolf shifter could say anything further, three men came through the woods behind them and came to a stop just to the right of them. One of them was an attractive man of maybe about forty, with reddish-brown hair and green eyes.
