Table of Contents
Copyright
Foreword
Chapter One – Jason
Chapter Two – Shannon
Chapter Three – Jason
Chapter Four – Shannon
Chapter Five – Jason
Chapter Six – Shannon
Chapter Seven – Jason
Chapter Eight – Shannon
Chapter Nine – Jason
Chapter Ten – Shannon
Chapter Eleven – Jason
Chapter Twelve – Shannon
Chapter Thirteen – Jason
Chapter Fourteen – Shannon
Chapter Fifteen – Jason
Chapter Sixteen – Shannon
Chapter Seventeen – Jason
Chapter Eighteen – Shannon
Chapter Nineteen – Jason
Chapter Twenty – Shannon
Chapter Twenty-One – Jason
Chapter Twenty-Two - Shannon
Chapter Twenty-Three - Jason
Chapter Twenty-Four - Shannon
Chapter Twenty-Five - Jason
Chapter Twenty-Six – Shannon
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Jason
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Shannon
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Jason
Epilogue
Also By Harmony Raines
Get In Touch
Jason
Silverback Redemption
Book Four
***
All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written consent of the author or publisher.
This is a work of fiction and is intended for mature audiences only. All characters within are eighteen years of age or older. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, actual events or places is purely coincidental.
© 2020 Harmony Raines
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Jason
Silverback Redemption
Book Four
A silverback seasoned shifters romance
Bear shifter, Jason, has seen all his fellow Silverback Saviors mated and married.
Now, it’s his turn. High in the mountains he senses her. His mate. The woman he’s waited his whole life for is finally within reach.
However, something holds him back. She’s with someone. A shifter. But not just any shifter.
Dragon!
Shannon and her son, Lorcan, are in trouble. After a clandestine visit from a hunter, who says he knows what Lorcan is, they are forced to leave their home. They journey to Bear Creek in the hope of finding some kind of treasure to pay off a debt they don’t even owe.
The thing that scares Shannon the most is what happens if they don’t find the treasure and pay off the debt.
After keeping Lorcan safe his whole life, her world soon spirals out of control. But then Jason comes into their lives. Jason who calls Shannon his mate and will do anything to keep her and Lorcan safe.
Can she accept his help? Can she trust him?
Perhaps, if they work together, they can find the treasure and pay off the hunter’s debt.
But something is stirring inside Lorcan. Something that he might not be able to control once it’s unleashed. Something that says the treasure is mine.
Chapter One – Jason
Three Silverback Saviors married. His bear was feeling a little left out.
A lot left out, his bear corrected.
There’s nothing we can do about it, Jason said bluntly. If fate has decided we don’t deserve a mate, then we have to accept it.
That’s a fatalist view, his bear answered.
Duh, Jason replied. We don’t have a choice in this. We could look for our mate every second of our lives and we might never find her.
And yet she could walk into our lives right this minute. His bear often fantasized about the moment they would meet their mate. So far that meeting had remained fantasy and Jason was beginning to believe it was now a firm and irrevocable fact that they were destined to live their lives alone.
However, with his bear’s optimism fueling his own hope, Jason glanced around for that special someone who would complete his life. That maybe by thinking about her and wishing they would finally meet her, she would magically appear.
Only for that hope to come crashing down around him as he stood on a cliff looking over Bear Creek with only the birds as company. Even if he pushed his senses to their absolute limit, there was no one there.
Hope would get him nowhere. Hope would break him if he let it.
So will despair, his bear replied.
As if Jason didn’t know. As if he hadn’t nearly drowned in a deep pit of despair. The dark depths of loss and guilt had sucked him under its surface and robbed him of all joy and happiness.
Until he came to Bear Creek. Here he’d made a difference. Here he’d helped people and made friends, close friends who he counted as a family. Maybe there was room for hope.
What there isn’t room for is dwelling in the past. We must push forward, push toward the future. Whether that future includes a mate or not…
You’re right, we can’t let anything get in our way. This life is for living. We have a family. They might not be family by blood, but they are our family all the same. His bear turned away from the edge of the cliff and made his way down the trail leading to The Happy Bear Club. A place where he’d built a new life with his friends who had joined him in his search for redemption.
They had all worked hard to redeem their souls from tragic events along the winding road of life that had led each of them to Bear Creek.
Lengthening his stride, Jason pushed himself harder, his legs working fast to propel him down the mountain. His heart raced and his lungs burned as he sprinted for home.
This was his home. Bear Creek filled with people who had opened their hearts and accepted a group of damaged strangers. He’d never stop working to help those who couldn’t always help themselves.
His route took him along a grassy plateau before he cut down through a steep valley filled with large boulders, the result of a landslide a couple of winters ago. Jason’s bear strained his back legs as he clambered over a large pile of debris that towered above him. There was a reason he’d chosen this route into the mountains. The debris and boulders made the valley harder to traverse and most hikers avoided it, choosing to follow one of the easier routes into the mountains. Which suited Jason, as much as he loved people, he also craved solitude. Moments of pure aloneness where he could think about the past and the future, but also plan for the present.
His claws dug into the hard-packed earth, embedded with rocks and broken fragments of trees that had slid down from the steep side of the valley. Cresting the top, he slid down the other side of the landslide, gathering speed as he let gravity do its job. It wasn’t exactly elegant, mud and small stones flew into the air and rained down on his silver-tipped bear fur…but it sure was fun. As he neared the ground he leaped into the air. His four paws planted firmly on the ground before Jason’s bear took off at a run once more.
Adrenaline filled his veins as he dodged large boulders and leaped fallen trees. It was times like these when he felt alive, at one with the mountain and whatever it threw his way.
There were always fresh obstacles to navigate on the mountains surrounding Bear Creek. Rockslides, the weather, other wild things. Dragons.
These mount
ains were where he’d seen his first dragon. It wasn’t long after he’d moved to Bear Creek and his mood had been—different—than what it was now. Sad, lost, hopeless.
The sight of a dragon, and at the time, he’d be the first to admit he thought he might be hallucinating, had given him a glimmer of hope. If such a magical beast could exist in this world, one which had proved harsh and uncaring, then surely there was good in the world.
The darkness which had surrounded him, the darkness that had tried to infiltrate every moment of his life, either waking or sleeping, shattered that day. That first chink of hope that had cut through his dark thoughts and shed light on his life had been a catalyst that had pushed him into the life he now led.
Dragons, his bear said in awe. I never get tired of seeing dragons.
Or riding on their backs. Jason had gotten lucky. He’d eventually met the dragons who lived around Bear Creek and now counted them as friends.
A whole family of dragons. His bear sighed in awe. Not many people know about them. We’re one of a lucky few.
Very lucky. Watching a dragon fly or riding on the back of a dragon as it swooped down over the mountain was one of the best experiences of his life. And he’d had some amazing experiences. If only the good memories could rid us of the nightmares that still haunted us. Rid us of nightmares filled with danger and death.
And destruction. Such destruction. His bear fell silent, lost in his own thoughts.
But look at where we live and look at the life we’ve made here, Jason reminded his bear.
His bear was not in the mood to be consoled. The weight of the past sat too heavy on his shoulders. They continued their journey down the valley and across the open plain as the sun began to dip down toward the horizon.
Jason’s nerves jangled, leaving him on edge as his bear pushed his senses to their limit as he tried to figure out what was wrong. Like an itch he couldn’t scratch, the sensation spread through his body like a virus.
A worm of an idea worked its way into his brain, but he wasn’t ready to open himself up to it. He couldn’t live with the disappointment if he was wrong.
Mate. His bear breathed life into the thought even though Jason’s human side resisted.
Where? Until he could see her, touch her, and hear her voice, Jason refused to believe it could be true.
She’s close. His bear lifted his head and scented the air before he swung around and looked toward a valley above the one they’d just passed through. There.
Are you sure? Jason asked. The valley in the distance had fared the worst in the landslide and was almost impassable. Only those hikers who liked a challenge or who didn’t want to take a wide detour to get to some of the higher peaks ventured through it.
I’m certain. One hundred percent certain. His bear didn’t wait for Jason’s human side to answer, he simply turned around and retraced his steps toward the valley.
Questions tumbled around in his brain. Who was she? Why was she here in such an inaccessible place?
Perhaps she’s hurt. Fear gripped his bear as this thought punctured his heart and left cold dread in his veins.
His bear kept his focus on the journey ahead as they navigated their way through the boulders and climbed the mudslides. Their fear pushed them on. What if they were too late? What if this was fate’s final way of punishing him for letting down the people he swore to help?
We have done nothing wrong, his bear told him sharply. What happened was beyond our control.
Jason and his bear had been having the same debate for so long, it was a part of them. Neither would ever win the argument.
She was closer now. Her presence pulled them on up the valley and across a steep rocky outcrop. His bear paused at the mouth of the second valley as he tried to figure out the best way through the fallen debris.
What if this was a trap? Jason looked at the high sides of the valley. Someone could be up there watching him. Waiting.
Why would it be a trap? his bear asked. Who would want to trap us?
His bear was right, but their days spent in the Army had left Jason with a degree of paranoia that he kept completely under control in normal circumstances. This wasn’t a normal circumstance. Not at all.
Extraordinary. His bear huffed and puffed as he put his head down and surged forward into the valley where he would find his mate. The pull of her was incredibly strong, every part of Jason could feel it now. Every fiber of his being resonated at the same emotional level. His heart filled with hope. The same hope he’d denied himself or so long.
Was it possible? After the other three Silverback Saviors had found their mates, he thought their luck must surely run out. Yet here she was.
If we find her. Jason still couldn’t allow himself to cling on to that hope and give himself over to it, mind, body, and soul. If he did and this was a mistake, or his mate was ripped away from him, he wouldn’t survive.
If anyone else had said those words to Jason, he’d have accused them of being overdramatic. But after the pain and loss he’d experienced before, the same pain and loss that had driven him here to Bear Creek, he knew it was true. Just as he knew it was true that his mate was in front of him, around two hundred feet above him in the half-buried valley.
As he ran forward, his bear constantly reassessed the obstacles ahead of them. Mounds of mud garnished with broken trees and stunted bushes that still clung to life were easy enough for his four-legged side to climb over. The piles of rocks and boulders that looked as if someone had sliced the side of the mountain were more suited for his human side. He’d need to climb them carefully if he didn’t want to end up buried beneath them.
Wouldn’t that be ironic? His bear grinned sardonically. We find our mate only to perish.
And if she isn’t a shifter, she’d have no idea she came so close to the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with. Ironic indeed. Jason would be gone. Forgotten.
Don’t think it, his bear snapped.
I won’t. Jason buried the thought that had popped into his head unbidden and unwelcome. Maybe that was what he deserved.
His bear plowed forward, digging his claws into the mud and dirt as he hauled his large body up the mud bank. As he moved, he trained his senses in the direction of his mate, listening for any sound that might tell him why she was here and what she was doing.
There’s someone else with her. His bear stopped. A male. The silver-tipped hair running the length of his back bristled as he sensed another presence.
Jason tried to soothe his bear through the connection between their minds, but his bear was ready to fight to the death to claim his mate. With huge strides he surged upward, conquering the mound of dirt just as he would conquer his mate’s heart.
Hey, cool heads, Jason warned his bear as he threw himself down the other side of the landslide and wove his way through the debris lining the valley floor. When he reached the foot of the boulders, he began to climb.
This is my part, Jason said firmly but his bear took no notice and instead began to climb. His claws grazed the rocks as he pulled his way up onto a large section of sheer cliff face that now lay horizontal instead of vertical. Let go. Jason didn’t command his bear. This wasn’t a battle of wills Jason could win. He was at his bear’s mercy. If his bear decided to hang on to the world and not let go, then Jason would have to live with it.
With heaving sides, and straining legs, his bear climbed higher, however, a steep section of rock left him stranded with no way to get to his mate.
Let go, Jason said gently. I’ll find her.
She’s with another man, his bear reminded him savagely.
And what do you intend to do, rip his throat out in front of our mate? Jason asked.
No, but what if she’s in danger? The anguish in his bear’s voice spoke of their innermost fear. That they would not be able to save their mate in the same way they had not been able to save their friends. That they would once more let down people who should be able to count on them.
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br /> I’ll deal with it. And if I can’t, I’ll give control back to you. I promise.
A shift in his mind signaled his bear’s willingness to allow their human side to come back into the world. The air shimmered and crackled with static electricity as the bear faded from the mountainside to be replaced by Jason’s human form.
Even before he was fully corporeal, Jason reached for a handhold in the rock and pulled himself up. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the summit of the rockslide, which gave him a view of the valley beyond. I can’t see her.
She’s there somewhere. His bear pushed at the barriers of Jason’s mind, trying to break out, break free so that he could find her.
Jason pushed back, keeping control over his shifter side as he tried to figure out where his mate was. From his raised viewpoint he couldn’t see any sign of movement, nothing moved in the valley below, not even a leaf fluttering in the breeze.
“Where are you?” Jason asked aloud. But no answer came to him.
Chapter Two – Shannon
“Lorcan, what is it?” Shannon hissed as her son raised his head and stared toward the narrow crack in the cliff face they’d squeezed through to enter the cave beyond. A chill crept down her spine. If there was anyone out there who meant them harm, there was no escape, no other way out.
“There’s someone out there.” Lorcan turned his wide, frightened eyes toward Shannon, confirming her worst fear. Her first thought was how to protect her son. Her second was how had it come to this?
“Who is it?” Shannon asked, even though there was no way to see outside from their position toward the back of the cave. But her son didn’t need to only rely on his eyes to see who was out there. He’d developed a sixth sense. Almost like X-ray vision, he could sense things around him.
“I don’t know. Not exactly.” Lorcan took a step toward the entrance. “Maybe if I was closer.”
Shannon shook her head. “You should stay back.” If Lorcan could sense someone outside the cave then there was a chance whoever was out there might be able to sense him, if he got too close.
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