by Eve Vaughn
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Laid Bear
Copyright © 2012 by Eve Vaughn
ISBN: 978-1-61921-124-7
Edited by Christa Desir
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: August 2012
www.samhainpublishing.com
Laid Bear
Eve Vaughn
Too hot? She’ll have to take more than one taste to decide.
Urban Fairytales, Book 2
After devoting ten years to caring for her grandmother, Zora Calloway is ready for the next stage of her life—until a series of frightening phone calls reminds her of an abusive ex who might still have it in for her. At least she has someplace to run and a job waiting for her when she gets there.
But a near-fatal collision with a huge black bear on a dark, storm-swept road changes everything. She wakes up in a secluded cabin, confronted by her rescuer: a naked hunk in the form of Logan Lamere. An explosive attraction leads her straight into his arms… then she learns they are not alone.
Bear-shifter cousins Heath, Gavin and Logan Lamere had lost faith in finding their mate until Zora comes crashing into their lives. With one glance, they know she’s the one they’ve been waiting for.
Zora is stunned at how easily she succumbs to the temptation to stay for a short while. But the men have forever in mind—if they can persuade their Goldilocks to accept three bears as her mates. And keep her safe from a danger that blindsides them all.
Warning: Three sexy shifters, one willing woman—the bed is just right… .and so is the table… the wall… the woods… If you thought it was really all about the porridge, go to the back of the class.
Chapter One
Zora cursed her decision to veer off the main highway in favor of taking back roads. She hated sitting in traffic, and because of construction the three-lane interstate had been narrowed to one and the speed reduced to half. She’d gone five miles in an hour. With the aid of her road atlas, Zora had taken the first exit she’d come across. Big mistake. At least by now she would have been past the construction part instead of traveling through Bumfuck, Egypt.
It didn’t help that she’d drunk a sixty-four ounce cup of cola she bought at her last pit stop. Three hours ago. Her bladder was strong, but she was pushing her luck. It had been a couple hours since she’d last seen civilization or gotten a proper cell phone signal. Hoping to God she’d see a sign of the main highway soon, she grabbed her map. Zora eyed it and frowned. Nothing seemed to match up. Had she taken a wrong turn? She knew she was somewhere in Tennessee, but which part was anyone’s guess.
Zora tossed the map aside, flipped off the overhead reading light and hit the steering wheel in frustration.
“Dammit.”
Could things get any worse? Nothing had been going right for her since she’d recently buried her Nana. Selling the house and closing the little shop they’d run together had been equally crushing, but there was no way she could have stayed in Covington anyway. The town she’d considered her haven for the past ten years was no longer safe.
Now she had to start all over again with very little money to her name. The hospital bills and estate taxes had been crippling. She didn’t realize it would be such an ordeal driving from the tiny North Carolina town she’d adopted as her home to Ohio.
Zora had hoped to make it to Kentucky by nightfall and find a cheap hotel to catch some shuteye, but the sun had set a long time ago. At least Christine, as she’d dubbed her twenty-year-old, temperamental, gas-guzzling vehicle, was riding smoothly though the fuel gauge was getting dangerously close to empty. As if the car had read her thoughts, it began to make a sputtering sound. Zora groaned. Now wasn’t the time for her car to give her ’tude.
She caressed the steering wheel with the heel of her hand.
“Come on, baby, just a little farther.”
The thought of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, especially in the mountains of Tennessee, sent a shudder coursing through her body. Maybe it was her imagination, but she was sure she heard banjo music playing in the distance.
This was the kind of region where running into a group of hillbillies who were fond of ‘purty’ mouths was more than a possibility.
It was pitch black outside without a star in sight and the road was barely visible even with her brights on. Her day had been shitty enough after getting a late start on her trip and receiving a speeding ticket before she’d crossed the North Carolina state line. She was irritable, sweaty, restless and in dire need of a meal, a hot shower and a warm bed. This journey couldn’t possibly get worse.
As if some twisted fairy of bad luck could hear her internal lament, it began to rain, and not just a light drizzle but a torrential downpour, making what little visibility there was nonexistent.
Zora slammed her palm against the steering wheel. “Shit!”
In normal circumstances she would have pulled over to the side of the road, but Zora had no clue where she was and as a lone female out at night in the middle of nowhere, she had no intention of doing so. Easing her foot off the pedal to reduce speed, she trudged ahead.
She released a sigh of frustration as the rain pelted her car like tiny rocks. The inside of her windshield was starting to fog up because of her non-functional defroster. Taking one hand off the steering wheel, she reached forward and wiped away some of the cloudy condensation. Her momentary lapse of concentration on the road caused Zora to swerve the car.
Zora’s heart plummeted to her feet as she gripped the wheel firmly with both hands and managed to straighten the wheels out.
“That was close,” she muttered to herself, again silently cursing the circumstances that brought her here.
Even though she’d reconnected with her cousin Bernice, who’d invited Zora to stay with her, it wasn’t quite the same.
She’d had family and a purpose in Covington and the thought of starting over again was scary.
The eerily high screech of tires across a slick plane brought Zora out of her silent musings as her car skidded to the right side of the road.
Fuck!
She whispered a silent prayer for the rain to subside at least enough for her to see where the hell she was going. God obviously wasn’t listening because it started to hail. She thought the rain had beat down on her car pretty hard before, but now it sounded as if her vehicle was being pelted by stones. Great. Even if she wanted to, there was no way she could continue on like this. She’d just have to suck up her misgivings and pull over. She’d only be out here long enough to wait out the storm, which hopefully wouldn’t last too much longer. Easing the wheel to the right, Zora swerved Christine toward what she assumed was the side of the road.
Boom!
Her car crashed into a large object, causing her head to snap forward. The sickening crunch of her car sent her heart plummeting. Shit! Shit! Shit! What the hell did she just hit?
Zora was thankful she wore her seatbelt and Christine was an older model made of much sturdier material than its newer counterparts. The collision
could have been much worse. As much as Zora wanted to drive away, she couldn’t do it without at least making sure she hadn’t killed someone.
“Please let it be an inanimate object. Don’t let it be a person,” she chanted, rubbing the stiffening sensation in her neck.
Without turning the ignition, she undid her seat belt and got out of the car. Rain and hail hit her skin like needle pricks, soaking her within seconds. Zora shielded her face as she walked to the front of her vehicle.
Seeing the victim Christine had claimed made Zora wish she’d hit a person. It was an animal—a bear. Slowly making its way to a standing position was the most massive creature she’d ever seen. It wobbled as though trying to find the ground beneath its feet. Zora wasn’t crazy enough to stick around to help or be its midnight snack.
With a squeak, she raced to the driver’s side door, grateful she forgot to close it and that she’d left the engine running.
From the way the bear had gained its balance, Zora figured it would be fine, but there was no guarantee she would be if she waited a second longer. Slipping back into her vehicle and yanking the door closed, she shifted the gear to drive. She slammed on the gas with every intention of maneuvering the car around the bear. In her panicked state, she didn’t take into account the slickness of the road.
Her car hydroplaned, turning a three-sixty.
“Aaaaaahhh!” She screamed until her throat was raw.
Desperately trying to gain control of the vehicle, she clutched the steering wheel for dear life and pumped the brakes frantically. This only served to send her spinning off the road and down a steep incline. Brief moments of her life flashed through her mind like moving pictures, and Zora was certain she was going to die tonight.
She jerked the wheel to the side in one last desperate attempt to stop the car’s progress. Nothing. The car crashed into a tree. But this time, she wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
“Still not awake yet? How much longer do you think she’ll be out?” Heath leaned against the doorway, his arms folded and eyes narrowed in concentrated scrutiny on the prone woman in bed.
Gavin dabbed a damp washcloth over his patient’s forehead. “Don’t know. She banged her skull pretty good, but she’s responding to the medicine better than I expected.”
“You sure giving her our medicine is the right thing to do?
Her system may reject it. She may be our onida, but she’s not a shifter like us.”
“True, but remember, because our forefather’s genetic code was bred into her ancestors, her immune system should be able to handle more than the average human’s, enabling her to sustain the potency of our medicine.”
Heath walked farther into the room, his frown deepening.
“Even still, isn’t that risky?”
Gavin nodded but buried his own anxiety. While he was almost certain she’d be fine, there were still some variables that tinged his thoughts with a little doubt. “Yes. I took a chance, I know, but she’s recovering beautifully, just as I suspected she would. She’s a fighter, this one. The swelling’s gone down and the gash over her eye is healing nicely. Her bones may take another day or so to mend. I won’t know for sure until she wakes up, but if need be, I’ll mix another batch of the potion and utilize my healing abilities. The combination of the two should do the trick.”
A soft moan escaped her full lips as she moved her head from side to side beneath Gavin’s careful ministrations. Other than that, she remained asleep. She’d been out for the past four days since he’d found her. Since she’d hit him with her car, subsequently crashing it.
In most circumstances, Gavin would have put her in his pickup and taken her on the half-hour drive to the hospital, but from the moment he laid eyes on her—inhaled her scent— he was hard pressed to let her go. He knew right away she was
an onida—wife, a descendant of those who were specifically bred to mate with his kind. Her scent gave her away. From what he knew of the legends, an unmated onida secreted pheromones that drove Kelowna males wild with lust, and filled them with an instant need to claim her. It’s how Gavin felt times one thousand.
A surge of protectiveness like nothing he’d ever experienced had hit him harder than a ton of bricks, making him realize right away what she was. His pulse raced, his body vibrated with emotion and his cock stiffened. The sight of her, the smell of her, the feel of her skin told him she was the woman he and his cousins had been waiting for.
She even had a birthmark on her left hip that resembled a bear’s head. Yes, she was definitely the one. The woman they’d dreamed of. Their mate. Unable to help himself, he grazed her cheek with the back of his hand, reveling in the softness of her rich brown skin that reminded him of creamy milk chocolate. Her body, though banged and bruised, was a thing of perfection with long limbs and a voluptuous frame.
When Gavin examined her to determine her injuries, it had been necessary to strip her. As a healer, he was used to seeing naked bodies of all shapes, sizes and colors but none of them had affected him the way this woman’s had. From her larger than average breasts capped with blackberry-colored nipples, wide hips, thick thighs and round high ass, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The neatly groomed thatch of hair covering her pussy made his cock hard when he’d gotten a peek of it.
She was what some would consider full-figured, but with her height, she was perfectly proportioned and toned as if she worked out or was just naturally fit. The dark beauty seemed to be made especially for them.
God, she was gorgeous with her large eyes, which he knew were brown from the brief minute she’d opened them as he tended to her wounds. Her nose was wide with a rounded tip that suited her face. Those full sensual lips had him fantasizing about what they’d taste like and how soft they’d be beneath his—he was dying to kiss them.
His gaze slid over her face and rested on the remarkable color of her hair that framed her face against the stark white pillow. Gavin fingered one of her golden locks that were a hue between brown and blond. The color was unusual for someone with her skin tone, but it suited her. Whether she dyed her hair pink, green or blue, she’d still be gorgeous to him. He also liked the way the neat little dreadlocks formed around her head in an array of spirals and curls. When she was fully recovered and realized she belonged to them, he’d enjoy grabbing onto her luxuriantly thick hair as he rode her hard and long. His dick stirred in anticipation.
He realized they had a ways to go before that point, but he wouldn’t deny what he knew almost from the moment he laid eyes on her.
Gavin snapped out of his deep contemplation when Heath waved a hand in his face. “Earth to Gavin.”
Gavin reluctantly dragged his gaze away from their mate to turn his attention to his cousin. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“I’ve been talking to you for the last minute. You were spacing out.”
“It’s hard to think when she’s around. Life is about to change for me, you and Logan.”
Heath chuckled. “Yep. Guess our bachelor days are over. I lost count of how many times I’ve stopped in here, waiting for her to wake up and acknowledge us, ya know?”
A smirk tilted Gavin’s lips. “Tell me about it. Logan has been roaming the house like a caged beast. He’s not the most patient person on his best day, but I think if our little Goldilocks doesn’t wake up soon, there’s no telling what Logan will do. He wanted me to give her more of the potion right away to speed up the healing process. I knew she’d be able to handle our medicine, but I’m not going to push it by giving her too much of it at once. Where is he now, by the way?”
“He went out for a run, said her scent was driving him crazy. You’d think he never had a woman before from the way he’s carrying on.”
Gavin nodded in understanding. “He hasn’t had this woman. But you’re right. If Logan goes all alpha on her, he may frighten her.”
“He was on to something though. When she wakes up, we should start as we intend to go. She’ll have to get used to us.”
“Oh yeah? And exactly how do we broach that subject? ‘Hi, I’m Gavin and these are my cousins, Heath and Logan. We can shift into bears, and by the way, you’re our mate and we expect you to deal with it because you have no choice’.” He snorted. “That’ll go over well.”
Heath rubbed his chin as frown lines deepened in his face.
“I see your point, but she’ll have to know sooner or later, and I prefer sooner. We’ll give her time to adjust to the idea, of course, but I don’t see the point in wasting time. We only have a month before we head back home. I don’t want to spend the bulk of it tiptoeing around what we are. It’s fortunate we even found her. I thought… ” Heath broke off as his voice flooded with emotion.
Gavin knew exactly how his cousin felt. There weren’t many of his kind left because there weren’t enough females who could carry their seed. He and his cousins were descended from the Kelowna clan, a group of sentient bears who had at one point lived peacefully among humans. As time
passed
and
the
environment
changed
with
industrialization and the influx of hostile humans, their kind suffered. Diseases their systems could not handle were introduced to them, leaving only the strong to survive. Most babies came out stillborn and a large portion of their females didn’t survive childbirth.
It came to a point where the males outnumbered the females in alarming proportions. As a solution to their crisis, elders of the Kelowna reached out to the humans who knew of their existence for help. Thus began an attempt to successfully breed with humans to save their race. Of the successful attempts, two types of babies were born. The first, a newly evolved breed that could take the shape of bear and human—what the modern Kelowna now were. The second type was the onida, mostly human, without the ability to shift but able to mate and breed healthy offspring with the Kelowna.
