Bluff Bears: The Complete 4 Book Collection (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance)

by Amelia Jade

  "Like hell it is!" came the reply, followed by another shoulder slam into the door. The trapped woman simply rebounded off of it, rubbing her shoulder where it had made contact with the unmoving metal.

  "The Fire Department is on its way. They should be here in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes," he told her, speaking slowly, trying to occupy her attention so that it would focus on him, not the situation. Each time she looked into his eyes as he talked, she immediately looked away. A small flush crept over Tanner's cheeks as it became obvious she didn't want him staring at her.

  He couldn't help it; she was beautiful beyond words. His bear had already decided that she was to be his mate, something that he had come to think would never happen. The lonely life had seemed set in stone for Tanner until just a few minutes ago, so to believe that this woman here was his mate was a little far-fetched. Fated mates were the stuff of fairy tales and old wives' tales. No shifter that he knew believed in such mumbo-jumbo.

  And yet...

  She looked up at him once again, this time their eyes meeting and holding each other for a long moment. He thought, deep down, that he saw something, an answering look. Just for a moment then, if it had even been there at all, it was gone as she frowned at him once more.

  "Do you have to look at me like that?" she snapped.

  "Sorry," he mumbled, standing up from his crouch next to her window. He leaned against the side of the car, waiting for Calan and contemplating what had just happened.

  ***

  Eventually Calan arrived on the other side of the tree, hopping out of the engine along with Sam, another of Bear Bluffs' firefighters. It was just the two of them tonight, the others either back at the station or on another call. It didn't matter; Calan was already unpacking a large set of metal cutters. They would make short work of the car and have her out of there in no time.

  "Fire Department's here," he said, leaning over to poke his head into the window. The woman inside had mostly ignored him while they waited, not even offering her name.

  "I can see that," she said dryly, the flashing red of the lights easily visible on the other side of the tree, the colors diffused by the water in the air as the rain continued to fall heavily.

  "Okay," he said with a sigh of exasperation, wondering not for the first time what he had done to make her so irritated with him. He felt his own temper, loosely held in check at the best of times, threatening to awaken.

  Now that he thought of it, actually, Tanner was surprised how calm he had been throughout the whole thing. Normally he would have lost his cool by now if anyone else had treated him the way she was. It just went to show that there was something special about this woman, something he had never encountered in another before.

  "Tanner, here, grab this end!" Turning, he saw that Calan was holding out one side of the cutter to him, resting it on the massive tree trunk. The equipment was too heavy for the two men to just hop over the trunk with it. So, as he balanced it on his side, Calan let go and scrambled over to help Tanner with it. Together the two of them wrestled it over to the car.

  "Okay ma'am, how far over can you get?" Calan asked, examining the wreckage for the best place to cut. The last thing they wanted to do was have the car collapse even further by removing any remaining structural support. Thankfully, he didn't appear too worried about that happening. Tanner was happy to help, holding up the cutting end to the frame, as they began to cut out the rest of the door panel, not waiting for Sam to catch up.

  It took mere moments for the cutters to open a pathway for the woman to escape. She slid out quickly, not seeming to heed Calan's warnings about the door being sharp, more interested instead in getting herself out of the car. Once she was out, Sam covered her in a waterproof jacket and guided her back toward the waiting fire truck. There were no ambulance services in Bear Bluffs, so the Fire Department often served a dual role. Several of the members were trained medics as well, though if anything serious happened, they would have to go to the hospital in King City, several hours up the road.

  Under Tanner's watchful eye, the three of them, along with Dylan and Devon as they joined in, got the woman safely back to the truck, closing the door behind her, allowing her some time to dry off and privacy to change into the dry clothes Sam had pointed out to her. He breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed, amazed that she was uninjured besides a few scratches and bruises.

  When she first stood up, it had been a shock to see her approaching his height. Tanner was a bear shifter and a big one. He had Kodiak in his genes, one of the largest species of bear out there. He towered over nearly everyone, over six and a half feet of muscle and bone. Yet this woman was approaching six feet in height, if not an inch or so above it herself. She was big. He wondered if she was a shifter as well. The rain was so thick that any scents were dampened to the point that he would likely have to ask her to find out.

  Yet he couldn't deny her beauty. She was confident in her height, unlike many tall women who looked awkward and gawky. This woman, whatever her name was, had a smooth gait that spoke of knowing her own power. It was the walk that made him think she was a shifter, for it had more of a predatory stalker aspect to it than anything a human could manage.

  "What's her name?" Calan asked, wanting to know for his report.

  "I have no idea, she wouldn't give it. She's skittish, that one," he replied, glancing back at the truck as he spoke, not wanting to take his eyes off of her. Calan didn't ask anything else, knowing that if Tanner knew more, he would tell him. Although Calan had only been back in Bear Bluffs for a little over a year, he and Tanner had quickly become good friends.

  For the time being, the men stood around the outside of the truck, pondering what to do with the massive tree blocking the road. Tanner had several chainsaws in his truck, but they weren't going to use those in the rain.

  "Perhaps the winch?" Dylan said, referring to the one on the fire truck, not on Tanner's truck. They would need the help of the fire truck to extract his vehicle, unfortunately. It was just too mired in the mud on the shoulder for anything else to work.

  Grabbing the winch, they ran it out to the tree, looping it several times before hooking it back upon itself. As they worked, the rain lessened considerably, though it was still coming down.

  "Okay Sam, hit it!" Calan said as they backed out of the way. He engaged the winch until the chain went taut. Now they would have to throw the truck into reverse and see if it did anything. The four men walked back toward Sam, not wanting to be in the path if something went wrong.

  "Hey, what's that?" Dylan said, cocking his ear off to the forest on the west side of the road. The others paused, letting their bears come to the surface to help aid their hearing. Something in Dylan's voice warned Tanner that whatever he had heard, he didn't like it. As if to prevent them from hearing anything, the skies opened up again, a deluge of rain coming down, obscuring vision past a few score feet.

  "Sounds like a—" Dylan didn't get to finish his sentence, for the trees on their left erupted, spewing wolves at them. Wolves that were running full speed, jaws snapping as they angled in on the bears.

  "Ambush! Shift!" Tanner bellowed, his voice rising above the cacophony of sounds from the oncoming wolves.

  The five men spread out, opening the link within their minds to allow their bears to come forth. The shift took precious seconds, seconds they might not have.

  They made it. Barely.

  There was no time to react as the fog of shifting faded, leaving the five bears disoriented for just a fraction of a second. It was all the wolves needed, jaws and claws rending and tearing as they sliced through the line. Sam let out of a roar of agony, his leg collapsing under him.

  Tanner had no idea who the wolves were or why they were attacking, but it wasn't the first time he had been in combat with other shifters. Both Calan and Dylan had had the unfortunate luck to have been involved in it before. They knew that the only safety the wolves had was in numbers. One on one, a wolf didn't stand a chance aga
inst a bear, especially not one with the intelligence of a human behind it either.

  The four standing bears backed into a circle, protecting Sam, who did his best to try and stand up, moving toward the truck, to hopeful safety.

  The truck. The woman.

  Tanner's head whipped around as he stared at the truck, realizing that she was stuck in there, unable to hear anything as the rain pelted the sides of the vehicle. She had pulled a blanket across the seats in front of her, preventing her from seeing anything that was going on either.

  The wolves emerged from the forest on the far side, this time stalking forward, evaluating the situation now that the men had shifted. Tanner counted an even two dozen wolves. He tried to identify the alpha, the leader of the pack, but they seemed to move in unison, no one single wolf giving orders.

  As the wolves circled around, he grunted orders to stay firm, to make the wolves come to them. With another bear protecting their backs, it would be hard for the wolves to break through. They had to stay together until they could reach the truck.

  The wolves began a complicated game, darting in, snapping at the bears from different directions. They were trying to pull the circle wider by making the bears respond, and it was working, despite his best efforts to prevent it. As Tanner watched in horror, the circle disintegrated. The bears were now on their own, vastly overwhelmed.

  He batted a paw at a wolf darting in at his underside, the thick limb connecting solidly, sending the attacker flying into the trees, where he struck a branch with a loud crack and then lay very still.

  One down...twenty-two to go he noted, as Devon took another wolf down, crushing it underneath him as he rolled. Yet even as he did, a wolf darted in and took a big chunk of flesh out of his side, blood spilling out and down his fur. Things were not going well. There were just too many of them.

  Bellowing a battle cry, he charged forward, spilling wolves like bowling pins as they regrouped from an attack on Calan.

  Who were these wolves? Why were they here?

  Too much of this didn't make sense to him.

  Chapter Two

  Alyssa

  The rain was coming down, hammering the roof noisily. She lay in a corner under a blanket, hoping that the men would get moving sooner rather than later. Alyssa needed to keep moving, to leave the gorgeous man with the icy-blue eyes behind. She couldn't afford to give in to him.

  But you want to...

  The voice inside her head didn't always say what Alyssa wanted to hear, but she had learned that it rarely lied. Shaking her head now though, she dismissed the thoughts, doing her best to focus on the situation at hand. She had spent too long in King City, too long indeed. It would have been better for everyone if she had moved on two months ago. Yet something had kept her there, something had told her she was safe there.

  It was wrong.

  That was why she hadn't wanted to give her name, or say anything more than a simple thank you as they got her out of the car. Alyssa was more worried at this point about getting a new car and getting herself on the road again, so that she could keep moving. The last thing she wanted now was to make friends, or to have people think she was on their side.

  A noise outside caught her attention as the rain softened for a moment. It sounded like a bear. An irate bear. Coming to full attention now, she listened carefully, letting her own bear's senses come to the fore, augmenting her human hearing. Roars and snarls intermingled with each other.

  Gathering herself, she carefully pulled aside the blanket she had set up to block the view of her changing from outside. What she saw shocked her to the core. Five massive bears were engaged in a brawl with more wolves than she could count. The shock-white of their fur made them stand out in the darkness, but despite the easy targets, there were too many of them for the bears to handle. They were losing.

  Scrambling away from the window, Alyssa pressed herself against the back wall of the cab, fear in her eyes. They were under attack. There was fighting going on between shifters. She hated the thought of it, never understanding why it happened at all, even if it was infrequent. Despite being a bear shifter herself, Alyssa didn't like to fight; she didn't consider herself a fighter even if she had all the requisite tools and then some.

  Deep within, her bear snarled, angry at her thoughts. It wanted to go out there and help fight, she realized with a start. It wanted to die with them, for they were outnumbered and at least one of the bears she had seen was hurt in a bad way, one of its legs not working, dragging behind it.

  Unbidden, her bear shot an image into her head. It was of her, trapped inside the car, and the men struggling and working hard to free her. They had practically saved her life, and in return they were going to die because of it. Her bear was disgusted with the idea that she would rather stay in the cab than go out there and fight. It was a long-standing battle between the two of them. Alyssa had learned at a young age that fighting back wasn't the answer, but that instead she should run away, as fast as she could. That's what she wanted to do now, searching for the keys to the fire truck, determined to drive it out of there.

  "Damnit!" she said, giving up the search and punching the wheel as she sat back into the seat, trying to control her breathing. Outside, the bears continued to try and defend, but there were just too many wolves encircling them. Inside, her bear became even more agitated, trying its hardest to escape, to go to its fellows.

  There didn't seem to be too many other options for her. She could sit in the cab until they finished the bears off, or she could fight. Slinking away wasn't an option, for she was too exposed; in fact, it was surprising that none of the wolves had noticed the movement in the cab yet. It was only a matter of time until they turned their attention toward her.

  Angrily she made her decision, taking a peek to see where the wolves were. It seemed most were concentrated on the left-hand side of the truck, so she moved over to the right, slowly opening the door. Thankfully all their focus was elsewhere, so she made it outside undetected for a split second. It was all she needed, giving her bear permission, committing herself to the fight. She closed her eyes and the transformation began.

  Her weight doubled, then doubled again in a matter of moments, forcing her over onto all fours. The bones within her limbs expanded rapidly, the muscles growing to match, so that she could now easily support the continuing extra weight of her bear form. Her hips and shoulders swiveled until standing on four limbs was now the norm for her. The change overtook her face, her head twisting in mild discomfort as her jaw jutted forward abruptly, elongating into the muzzle of her bear.

  When it was all said and done, where before had been the human Alyssa, there was now over fifteen hundred pounds of fury. Her rage flared at having to commit to violence, promising swift pain to those who would not relent. Alyssa had buried a lot within her, and her bear manifested much of it.

  Instead of roaring a battle cry, she simply leaned forward and flexed her massive legs, propelling herself forward in a flash. The first wolf didn't know what had struck it. It was dead before it hit the ground. She raked her claws down the side of a second before her jaw snapped around the neck of a third, distracting the others for just long enough.

  It was all the time the other bears needed, and they launched back onto the attack. The biggest bear, another Kodiak like herself, launched itself at the biggest knot of wolves, scattering them and taking one down in the process. When he moved on, the wolf stayed behind, its head listing at an unnatural angle.

  Thanks to her efforts, the wolves were scattered, retreating back into the forest. None of them believed that that would last, however, so they would need to load up and get out of there quickly. The fire truck presented the only option. Even as she watched, the Kodiak bear shifted quickly into Tanner, who stood up and began to bark orders. She turned away and went to sit back in the cab. It was only then that she noticed that their situation had just gone from bad to worse.

  The rear tire was flat. She scampered forward, only t
o find that the other rear tire was in the same condition. Both of them had been slashed. The truck was going nowhere soon, meaning they were stuck there. She sat down heavily, angry about the entire situation, wishing she could just be on her way. The wolves worried her, enough that she stayed somewhat close to the safety of others.

  Dylan and Calan stayed in bear form as well, watching both sides of the forest for signs of the wolves, so that they could give a warning to the others. The rain had let up some, enough that they could see into the woods a little, so they would have several moments' warning before the attackers returned.

  "Devon, here's a phone, call Jet. Get him and whoever else he can round up out here now, on the double."

  "How's the leg Sam?"

  "Broken, somewhere below my knee I think. I don't know how I managed that," he gasped, his face flush with pain. She watched as Tanner crouched near him, taking care of his wounded comrades. With a pat of the shoulder, he stood up at came toward her. Not wanting to deal with anything sentimental, and still upset about being forced to fight, she growled at him warningly.

  "Fine, have it your way," he said, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation as he turned back to the others. She could see the tension between his shoulders, hating herself for being so standoffish, but knowing that it was for the best.

  With a soft chuffle her bear settled down, thoroughly unhappy at being soaked. Internally she snorted, for once the two of them were in complete agreement. The rain sucked.

  The wolves gave them almost twenty minutes before they showed back up. They flowed out of the forest on both sides, forming into two lines. A quick count showed that three-quarters of their original numbers were still on their feet and itching for a fight. For a quick second, Alyssa wondered why the wolves were so persistent. But when her brain arrived at an answer, she shut down the line of thought completely, not ready to accept it.

  Without any visible signal, the wolves attacked. She rushed to rejoin the others, but her loner stance from earlier had doomed her. She was cut off by half a dozen wolves, the biggest and meanest of the bunch. They advanced on her, jaws snarling and snapping, the movement sending flecks of saliva flying through the air. She could take several of them, but this was too many even for her to emerge victorious.