by Amy Star
House of Bears
THE BEARS OF OREGON BOOK 2
SAMANTHA SNOW & AMY STAR
Copyright © 2020 BY SAMANTHA SNOW & AMY STAR
All rights reserved.
Get Yourself a FREE Best-Selling Paranormal Romance Book!
Join the “Simply Shifters” Mailing list today and gain access to an exclusive FREE classic Paranormal Shifter Romance book by one of our best-selling authors along with many others more to come. You will also be kept up to date on the best book deals in the future on the hottest new Paranormal Romances. We are the HOME of Paranormal Romance, after all!
Click The Link Below To Access Get All This Now!
SimplyShifters.com
Already subscribed?
Okay, Turn The Page!
About This Book
Unrest continues in Silver Spruce, especially once Trevor’s sister, Elise, helps Holly and Loch escape from the silver mines.
Once free, Holly brings Loch to the house, where she must adjust to meeting and courting a mysterious fourth bear…
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE—Holly
Are you there? Holly whispered to her own mind. She heard nothing in return. She hadn’t received an answer for days now. At least, Holly thought it had been days. Maybe it had been weeks or worse, only hours. There was no natural light leaking into the cavern in which her cell was built. There was no way to determine the passing of time.
Only her own thoughts echoed in her mind.
“You have that look on your face again,” Loch said from the cell next to her. For the hundredth time, Holly wished for a dividing panel between the two cells. Loch’s one delight was annoying the hell out of her. It wasn’t like they had anything else to do.
“You should focus on something other than my face,” Holly replied without looking his direction. She’d didn’t want to look at him. He was the only person she’d had regular contact with since she was kidnapped in the woods. Loch might have had something to do with it. He swore he didn’t, more times than she could count, but he had said the opposite to the two men who kidnapped her.
He was all she had in there, and she had no idea whether she could trust him or not.
“I’d love to. Unfortunately, I don’t have a voice in my head to chat with. It must be a nice pastime.”
Holly didn’t say anything. She focused on a pebble just outside of her cell.
“What? No banter today? Come on, it’s the only form of entertainment we have in here.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Holly.” Loch scooted closer until the bars between them forced him to stop. “I know being imprisoned doesn’t inspire much other than despair and contempt for the world, but I’m bored. I hate being bored.”
Holly narrowed her eyes. “Somehow, I don’t feel sorry for you. It may or may not be your fault that I’m in here in the first place. Since I still don’t know anything about you, I’m going to assume you’ve had something to do with this.”
“Innocent until proven guilty means nothing to you?”
“Not where you’re concerned,” Holly snapped.
“Wow. The voice in your head must really be pissing you off today. You’re in quite the mood.”
She went quiet, pressing her lips together. When she was brought to the caverns, which belonged to one of Silver Spruce’s three abandoned silver mines, she heard the voice of the mythical Maiden, the one she now believed herself to be a reincarnation of. She still wasn’t clear on how she could hear the voice of the very being she was meant to be. The Maiden didn’t like to answer questions. She—or it, perhaps—only gave sparse, cryptic advice and more attitude than Holly knew what to do with.
“You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?” His voice was low. Now it was he who didn’t want to look at her.
“Who?”
“You know who I’m talking about.” A low snarl threaded through his words, serving as a reminder to the beast that lurked beneath his skin, not that Holly needed reminding. Loch was one of many Silver Spruce residents that possessed the ability to shift into a bear.
Even now, though she’d seen it with her own eyes on multiple occasions, Holly had a hard time wrapping her head around it. She’d only seen Loch as a bear once. As a bear, his coat was as dark and shiny as his black hair.
“I wasn’t thinking about them,” she mumbled, “but if I were, could you blame me? They’re our only shot at a rescue.”
“Then, we’re going to die here.”
“What do you have against Johnny, Keller, and Garret anyway?”
When Holly arrived in the town of Silver Spruce, Oregon, to sell the house she’d inherited from her Grandmother Pearl, Pearl had conveniently forgotten to mention the three, ruggedly handsome men who lived there. Pearl had also left out the part about bear shifters and the Prophecy of the Maiden, which Holly now found herself at the center of.
Johnny, Keller, and Garret were shifters, just like Loch.
“The real question is, what do they have against me?” he said bitterly.
“You were the one who showed Fang and his sidekick,” Holly evoked the name of her captor, “where I live!”
“They would’ve found you anyway.”
“That’s your reason for helping them?”
“If we go down this road, we’re just going to keep having the same conversation we’ve been having.”
Holly snapped her head around, finally looking at him. “That wouldn’t be the case if you just told me what you’re playing at.”
He smiled. Impish dimples appeared in his cheeks. She didn’t realize he had dimples at all until the other day. Holly looked away. She couldn’t look at his smile without thinking of the kiss they had shared shortly before she was kidnapped. She wasn’t expecting it at the time. She didn’t realize how much she’d wanted to kiss him until his lips touched hers.
She ran. That’s when Fang and his hulking, nameless sidekick knocked her out. After that, the details are foggy. They held her at a camp for a time, but she didn’t know how long. Less than a day, if she had to guess. Likely only a few hours, at the most. Loch was tied to a tree, which was a sight Holly would pay good money to see again.
Both were brought into the silver mine in chains. That was when Holly had heard the voice of the Maiden for the first time. The Maiden helped her figure out she was, in fact, in the silver mines in the northernmost part of Silver Spruce. If she managed to escape, she’d at least have some idea of where to go to get back to her grandmother’s house and the men who were waiting for her.
Yet, a tiny part of her was grateful for the time to herself. Mostly. There was still the issue of Loch’s pushing her buttons for entertainment, and, of course, she’d rather be anywhere but an abandoned silver mine. The only upside of this situation—if it could even be called that—was that she now had time to think.
As if discovering the existence of people who could shift into bears, the Prophecy
of the Maiden, and Grandmother Pearl’s gift of foresight that allowed her to arrange everything before her death wasn’t enough, Holly had a dilemma.
The Prophecy of the Maiden was murky at best. The original Maiden, the one Holly believed spoke into her mind, came to the bear clans before documenting history was widely practiced. There wasn’t a how-to book Holly could read. One thing she did know was that she was going to bear the child with a specific bear shifter referred to only as the King. The title of the King wasn’t bestowed by birthright. The Maiden chose the King.
The good news was that Holly got to choose who she had a child with. The bad news was that she had developed feelings for Johnny, Keller, and Garret. All three of them were eligible to be the King. So was Loch, for that matter, as well as one other bear shifter. Holly cared little for either of them, despite the butterflies that exploded in her stomach whenever she thought about the kiss they had shared.
But the three shifters who’d been by her side through all of this? In the short time she’d known them, she’d grown to care deeply for all three of them. How would she ever pick one? She couldn’t bear the thought of causing any of them pain.
“If you aren’t careful, you’re going to bite right through your lip.” Loch’s voice forced Holly’s thoughts back to the here and now. Sure enough, she’d started chewing on her bottom lip without realizing it. The pain came half a second later. She brought her fingertips to her lip. Sure enough, there were little droplets of blood forming where her teeth dug in.
“You’re in a mood today,” he said when she didn’t say anything to him.
“Being imprisoned doesn’t bring out the best in me.” Holly faced him at last. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk to him or if she was just sick of sitting in her cell in silence. Instead, the smirk she expected to find on Loch’s face was replaced by a tight-lipped scowl.
“What?” she asked.
“We have company.”
Before Holly could ask what he meant, a man stepped through an archway carved into the cavern wall.
Holly had only seen him once, the day she was brought here. His name was Trevor. He was the fifth shifter eligible to be King. He was the one who had arranged her kidnapping.
“Hello, darling,” he purred. “It’s about time you and I got to know each other.”
CHAPTER TWO—Holly
“Touch her, and I’ll break your spine,” Loch snarled.
“How are you going to do that?” Trevor didn’t take his eyes off of Holly. “If you can get through the enchanted bars and the fairy-glass shackles, if you want to exhaust yourself trying, by all means. Go right ahead.”
Loch, knowing everything Trevor said was true, scowled as if he could shoot daggers from his eyes into Trevor’s chest. Holly appreciated the anger on her behalf. She wasn’t sure how she should react. She didn’t want to go with Trevor at all, but she didn’t want to risk angering him, either.
He wanted to wed her, the reincarnation of the Maiden, to solidify himself as the King of all of the bear clans. His background confused Holly. He was one of the firstborn sons of Silver Spruce, yet he had left the town some time ago. Holly wasn’t sure when. She only knew of Trevor’s existence because he was on one of the family trees Pearl had painted on the walls of her study.
Somehow, he became the leader of a faction of bear shifters who wanted to return to the dark ways. They wanted to shed their humanity and live only as bears. However, they did not wish to roam the woods, eating berries and searching for honey. Those of this faction believed they were above all other forms of life. In shedding their humanity, they would be free to take over human towns or whatever else they wanted.
Centuries ago, when this happened for the first time, the Maiden had appeared in the forest. She returned humanity to the shifters who had nearly lost themselves to the dark ways. She prevented a shifter war against humans.
“Come.” Trevor offered Holly his hand. When she refused to take it, he gripped her wrist and yanked her to her feet.
“Do not think that because you are the Maiden, I will not harm your pretty face,” Trevor hissed.
“If you do, you’ll only be doing yourself a disservice.” Holly tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. She refused to let him see her fear.
“Oh, please.” Trevor rolled his eyes and dragged Holly from her cell.
She looked over her shoulder and caught Loch’s eye. He looked like he was prepared to claw his way out of his cell with his bare hands. Before he could do anything stupid, Holly gave the slightest shake of her head. Loch appeared to simmer down but only a little.
Trevor led Holly down one of the rock tunnels. The only light came from torches crackling with real fire. Hadn’t these idiots ever heard of a flashlight, or were they just too committed to their aesthetic to use practical forms of lighting?
Before long, they came to a metal door. Trevor pushed inside, dragging Holly behind him, though she wasn’t struggling. She didn’t see the point. He was far stronger than her, and she didn’t know the way out.
Inside the room, there was nothing more than one simple wooden table surrounded by eight simple wooden chairs. All were empty except for one.
A woman sat in the chair farthest from the door. Her face was set in a permanent scowl. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face. Intricate braids adored the top and sides of her head. She wore dark jeans, sturdy hiking boots, and a simple gray, long-sleeved shirt. She had the same facial structure as Trevor, but Holly didn’t recall seeing her face on the mural of family trees.
“This is the Maiden?” The woman looked at Holly with a critical eye. “She doesn’t look like much.”
“Did you expect her to be in robes of silk, emitting an otherworldly glow?” Trevor shot back. He pulled out a chair and motioned for Holly to sit.
It wasn’t a suggestion. Holly knew a command when she saw one. She settled into the stiff chair, refusing to look at Trevor or the mysterious woman.
“I expected…” the woman paused to think of the right word, “more.”
Holly had half a mind to be offended. Had that woman ever been part of an ancient and confusing prophecy? Probably not. Who was she to say Holly wasn’t enough of whatever she needed to be?
“I’m certain she’ll live up to our expectations, Elise.”
The woman, Elise, said nothing. Instead, she kept her gaze trained on Holly.
“Why did you bring me to this room?” Holly asked. “What are you going to do here that you couldn’t do in my cell?”
“Are you saying you’re ungrateful to leave your cell?” Trevor walked around the table, arms folded over his chest, until he was directly across from Holly. He slid into a chair. His eyes bored into her. Holly could see his pale eye, the color of fresh snow, as clear as day. His other eye, the dark one, looked like nothing more than a shadowy hole in Trevor’s eye socket. The only way she could tell that he did, in fact, have two eyes, was by the way the dark one glinted in the light.
“I find it hard to be grateful for anything these days,” Holly muttered.
“And here I thought the Maiden was supposed to be humble,” Trevor tutted.
“Why am I here?” Holly ignored his barb.
“You’re here to answer my questions,” Trevor replied.
Elise stayed silent. She had to be Trevor’s sister. Maybe a cousin. They were obviously related. Her skin was more olive in tone, and her hair was a deeper shade of brown, almost black.
“What questions?”
“Do you hear the voice of the Maiden?” Elise spoke up.
How could anyone know about that? Had they overheard her conversations with Loch? She rarely talked about the voice of the Maiden, but what was she supposed to do? Not talk about the phantom voice in her head?
“No.”
“Liar,” Elise hissed.
“Prove it.”
Holly’s gall caught Elise off guard. She was halfway out of her seat when she paused.
“Excuse me?”<
br />
“Prove that I hear the Maiden’s voice,” Holly repeated. “Better yet, can you even prove that I am the Maiden?”
“You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t,” Trevor snapped.
“How do you figure?”
“The three who reside in your grandmother’s estate—the other firstborn sons—they would go to great lengths to protect you. Why else would they do that if you were not the Maiden of legend?”
“Because they aren’t total dicks,” Holly muttered. “Any halfway decent human being would offer help if they knew some creepy dudes were skulking around in the woods, creeping on their friend’s granddaughter.”
“I should cut out your tongue for your insolence.” Elise procured a needle-like blade from her hiking boot.
“Sister.” A warning rumbled through Trevor’s voice. “That’s not the way to get any good information out of anyone.”
“You say that now,” Elise smirked, “but ask me again when she’s writhing in pain.”
Holly felt the color drain from her face as her stomach wound itself into knots.
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“You must have heard the voice. The stars, the runes, and the bones all say you should be hearing the voice by now,” Trevor insisted.
Stars? Runes? Bones? What the hell did all that mean?
“How can I hear the voice of someone I’m supposed to be?” Holly replied. “Isn’t that just called thinking? If you want to know if I’ve been thinking, yes, I have. If you want to know what I’m thinking, prepare to be insulted.”
“We have read from ancient scrolls found in the cave of the first bear clan who started recording our history that the Maiden is a formless entity that chooses a host. Is that true?”
“Wait.” Holly blinked in surprise. “You’re coming to me to check your facts?” She wanted to laugh but resisted the urge. Laughing in their faces didn’t seem like a smart idea.
