A Bear's Protection (Shifter Country Bears Book 1) Read online

  A Bear’s Protection

  Shifter Country Bears, Book One

  Dakota West

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

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  EXCERPT: A Bear’s Nemesis, Chapter One

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Cora

  Cora steeled herself as she walked through the cafe doors. She knew her older sister wasn’t going to like what she had to say, but she needed to tell Amelia sooner or later.

  I’m moving to Cascadia, she thought, like she was practicing. I’m moving, but I’ll be fine.

  She marched up to the table where Amelia already sat, sipping a cup of coffee, a matching mug steaming in front of the empty seat meant for Cora.

  Cora’s heart twisted in her chest.

  Who’s going to order me coffee the way I like it after I move? she thought.

  Amelia looked up and smiled.

  “There you are,” she said.

  Cora swallowed and stood up straight. It was now or never.

  “I’m moving to Cascadia,” she said.

  Amelia stared, her mouth open in a perfect little O, her coffee cup frozen halfway to her mouth. Seconds ticked by in silence.

  “Say something,” Cora said.

  “The shifter state?” Amelia finally asked.

  Cora just nodded.

  Amelia set her coffee back on the table without drinking any of it.

  “You can’t let him run your life,” she said.

  Cora sat, hanging her purse across the back of the chair, and she took a long swig of the coffee that Amelia had gotten her.

  Then, without saying anything, she reached into her bag and pulled out a manila envelope. Her hands shook, just a little, as she pulled out a photograph and handed it to her sister.

  Amelia turned red with anger almost immediately, and even though Cora had thought that she couldn’t possible get angry again, she felt the rage building inside her as well.

  “What did the police say?” Amelia asked, her voice barely controlled.

  Cora shook her head, her lips pressed together. “That they can’t prove it’s him, of course,” she said.

  “They mean they don’t want to prove it’s him,” Amelia said.

  She clenched her jaw and looked out the window at the brick buildings lining Main Street. Cora knew that look: when they were kids, that look would have preceded Amelia throwing her coffee cup through the plate glass window, then running off to fight whoever had hurt her little sister.

  Unfortunately for them, Cora and Amelia weren’t from one of the wealthiest families in Charlesville, Virginia, and if Amelia beat someone up, she’d definitely go to jail.

  No matter how much he deserved it.

  “Did they even check for fingerprints?” Amelia asked.

  “They made a whole show of it,” Cora said. “Didn’t find anything. They wouldn’t even increase the restraining order to a thousand feet.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Amelia said. Her voice started to rise. “This asshole sends you a picture of you sleeping with a goddamn hunting knife in the frame and they won’t do anything?”

  “That’s Charlesville’s finest,” Cora said bitterly. “I’ve been switching motels every couple of days to get away from him and they won’t do a thing.”

  “That’s un-fucking-believable,” Amelia said. She leaned in. “Cora, I’ll hunt him down for you. I’m not kidding. Nobody fucks with my baby sister like this.”

  Cora flipped the photo over so it was face down on the table, and then pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

  You promised yourself you weren’t going to get mad about this again, she thought. You can’t let him control you like this. That’s what he wants.

  She forced a smile.

  “If you go to jail for murder, who am I going to call about getting red wine stains out of my carpet?” she asked Amelia, trying to sound lighthearted.

  Amelia didn’t take the bait.

  “Come on, Mealy,” Cora said, using the nickname that she knew her sister hated. “You’re the only one I’ve got. Don’t go to jail.”

  “Stay with me,” Amelia said. “If he tries anything, he’ll meet the business end of Dad’s old hunting rifle.”

  “I can’t do that to you,” Cora said.

  Amelia just sighed and looked down.

  “He’s not going to follow me across the country,” Cora said. “Besides, I’ve always kind of wanted to live out west. It’ll be fun.”

  Amelia made a face.

  “But do you have to move all the way to Cascadia?” she asked. “It’s so far away.”

  “It’s the first place I got a job offer,” Cora said. “I’m going to be copywriting for a boutique marketing firm in Granite Valley.”

  Amelia still looked worried.

  “What if you’re moving out of the frying pan and into the fire?” she asked. Her mug of coffee was almost empty and she picked it up and swirled it around as she spoke. “You know what they say about shifters.”

  Cora raised her eyebrows.

  “Which is?”

  Amelia leaned in.

  “They’re a bunch of sex perverts, Cora,” she said, lowering her voice. “I see it on the news all the time. There are all these exposés about shifter sex parties and stuff.”

  Cora narrowed her eyes. “You need to watch the news less,” she said. “You know none of that is true, right?”

  “What if it is, though?” Amelia gave her sister a pointed look. “The triad thing is true.”

  “Mealy, they’re just people,” Cora said.

  “People who turn into animals.”

  “So?”

  “So shifters are just a little... uncivilized. It’s the wild west out there.”

  Cora shook her head. “You know how you’re always bitching about diversity in your teaching staff?” she asked. “It’s because you say shit like this.”

  Amelia was the principal at an elementary school, and she looked pissed.

  “I’d never say that at work. I’m not an idiot,” she said.

  “But you think it,” said Cora.

  “I’m worried about you!” Amelia said. “You’ve had a stalker for months, and now you’re moving to a place where the normal relationship is one woman with two men.”

  Cora had to laugh. It was either that, or yell at her sister.

  “I promise that getting involved in a triad is the last thing on my mind,” she said. “I’m ready to swear off men forever, frankly.”

  “Oh, Cora, I didn’t mean it that way,” Amelia said. She moved her hand across the table and took Cora’s hand in hers, looking down. Cora realized that she could see tears start below her sister’s eyelashes.

  “I just don’t want you to leave,” she said, quietly. “I could kill him for taking you away from me. I really could.”

  “I kno
w,” Cora said. “I promise we’ll still see each other. He can’t make us stop being sisters.”

  Amelia squeezed her hand, but before Cora could say anything, the waitress arrived, carrying two plates of food.

  “Blueberry pancakes, extra bacon?” she asked.

  Amelia pointed at Cora, and the waitress set the pancakes in front of her.

  “I ordered for you,” Amelia said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Blueberry pancakes and bacon were Cora’s favorite.

  “Of course not,” Cora said.

  “What are you going to do without me?” Amelia asked, tucking into her eggs and sausage.

  “I have no idea,” Cora said truthfully.

  Chapter Two

  Ash

  From where he was sitting in his patrol car, Ash could see the Welcome to California state sign, maybe a quarter of a mile away. He felt a little bit dirty setting up a speed trap just inside the state of Cascadia, but the county needed money, and the speed limit went down from 75 in California to 70 in Cascadia.

  Besides, everyone who drove this road with any regularity knew that he was there, sitting in the perfect spot, behind a rise, hidden by the dense pine trees. He only ever caught people from out of town in his speed trap, and they weren’t going to come dispute him in court.

  Pay attention to the speed limit, he thought to himself. How hard is that?

  Just then, a small blue car zoomed past him. He didn’t need to look at the readout on his radar gun to know the car was doing at least ninety.

  Finally, he thought, as he turned on his lights and pulled out onto the highway, pressing the gas pedal almost to the floor to catch up. The moment the car heard his sirens, the brake lights flashed and it slowed down to about fifty, wiggling a little in its lane as the driver panicked. Finally, the driver pulled over into a turnout surrounded by evergreens.

  Following protocol, Ash radioed back to the station that he had pulled someone over. Traffic stops rarely broke bad in these parts, but one never knew.

  He walked toward the driver’s side, his right hand on his belt near his gun, just in case, when the door to the car flew open and a short girl with curly brown hair popped out of the car, a wild look in her eyes.

  Right away, Ash’s bear roared.

  His ears rang. His vision went blurry. He could tell that there was something wrong — this girl was afraid of something.

  He reeled.

  What the hell is happening? he thought, stopping in his tracks for split second.

  He felt a thousand impulses, all firing at once. He wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her, feeling her soft, smooth flesh against his own, bend down and kiss her.

  He also wanted to find whatever it was she was afraid of and tear it into a thousand tiny pieces. In that instant, Ash knew he would do anything to keep this girl safe.

  He could barely keep him below the surface, the animal inside him fighting to get out and go on a rampage.

  Finally, his police training took over, and he found his voice. His human voice.

  “Ma’am,” he said, holding his left hand out and moving his right toward his gun. “Please get back in the car.”

  Her eyes darted to his hand, close to his gun. Oddly, the sight of it seemed to calm her down — the opposite of what usually happened.

  He started to sweat, the beads rolling down the back of his neck and into his collar.

  Down, he thought, trying to calm his bear. Calm down.

  “Can I see your badge?” she asked. Her eyes were still a little wild, but she seemed to be calming down.

  Ash held it out toward her, and she looked it over carefully without touching it.

  Whatever was happening, his badge had put her at ease.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, pushing one hand through the mass of her hair, totally oblivious to the struggle going on inside Ash. “It’s nothing. My ID is actually in the trunk, and I thought you would need that?”

  Ash thought his heart might pound right out of his chest, and his mouth went dry. Even from five feet away, he was almost overpowered by her scent, a combination of musk and vanilla and some other deeper, truer odor that was simply her.

  His head swam.

  Stop it, he told himself. You’re the authority here.

  Not that he could hear himself over the deafening roar of his own animal. The girl had on an old, faded Baltimore Orioles t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops, but even so, Ash could see the perfect outline of her curves, the swell of her hips and bosom.

  Push her up against the car and take her, the bear whispered. He absolutely ached to touch her, squeeze her, slide his lips along her neck and listen to the noises she made...

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Ash swallowed, then cleared his throat.

  “Please just get back in the car,” he managed to say.

  The girl gave him a long look, her deep hazel eyes examining him from head to toe. Then she turned and got back in the car.

  She looked just as good from behind, and Ash savored watching the sensual swell of her ass as she stepped away.

  Then Ash collected himself, walked up to the car, and bent down.

  “Hi, ma’am,” he said. He had to rescue this interaction, somehow. It had already gone pretty far off the rails, but he still needed to act professional.

  Somehow.

  “Are you aware of the speed limit in Cascadia?” he asked, adjusting his hat.

  The girl turned slightly pink and her eyes searched the road ahead.

  “Actually, no,” she said, sounding embarrassed.

  “It’s seventy,” Ash said. He was doing his best to sound stern, but there was something off in the girl’s manner. When he’d first seen her, she’d been jumpy, almost terrified, and now she didn’t seem bothered that she was getting a traffic ticket. In fact, she seemed almost relieved.

  “According to my radar gun, you were doing at least ninety-five.”

  At that, her eyebrows shot up. She looked genuinely surprised.

  “Holy shit, I was?”

  Ash couldn’t help but smile. Beyond the fact that this girl was smoking hot, she had a half-innocent, half-feisty attitude that he found charming.

  “You were,” he told her. “Actually, our radar guns are kind of old and they get squirrely around ninety-five, so you might have been going faster.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Fuck,” she muttered.

  “License and registration, please?”

  She leaned over to the glovebox and pulled it open, revealing a veritable cache of papers and sunscreen bottles, and just pulled the whole mess out and onto the passenger seat.

  “Sorry,” she said, her voice echoing a little from inside the car. “I guess I’m a little unprepared.”

  “Take your time,” he said.

  He didn’t mind watching her ass as she leaned over. He didn’t mind at all.

  At last, she came back with a piece of paper that was partly translucent and slightly greasy.

  “I think some sunscreen got spilled on that,” she said sheepishly. “It gets really hot in the glovebox, and then it sort of explodes everywhere.”

  He nodded, looking down at the paper.

  Cora Sapphire Leighton.

  “You’re from Virginia?”

  She nodded, her curls bouncing, as she looked up at him through long, lustrous eyelashes.

  “But I’m actually moving to Granite Valley.” She gestured at her back seat, which was full of stuff and topped with a blanket.

  “Cora Sapphire,” he said. “That’s a nice name.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “My sister is Amelia Emerald. My parents had a... thing.” She paused. “Should I go get my ID now, or...?”

  Ash nodded once, curtly, and stepped back. A few other cars went by, all of them slowing as soon as they came around the bend and saw the police car on the sid
e of the road, all looking curiously at Ash and Cora.

  Cora, he thought.

  It sounded like music.

  She dug through the trunk for a moment before pulling out a backpack, rummaging through it, and finally handing him a Virginia ID.

  “My hair was shorter then,” she said, as if trying to explain something. It was clearly her, though.

  “Thanks,” said Ash. “I’ll just run these. Please wait in the car.”

  By the time he was back in the squad car, radioing in Cora’s information, his bear had quieted down to more of a growl than a roar.

  It was still there, though, and it was pretty certain of two things.

  One: he had to see this girl again, no matter what.

  Two: she was in some kind of trouble.

  He ran her ID and plates, but nothing came up.

  At least she’s not on the run, he thought to himself.

  He sat in the driver’s seat of his car for a few minutes, trying to process what was happening and catch his breath. He’d never been so bowled over just by seeing someone before, not like this.

  Hunter, his mate, bowled him over, of course. But they had known each other for years already when they started sneaking around as teenagers. They’d never had a first, single moment like this.

  That relationship had happened slowly, the two of them spending more and more time together, until one day at fifteen years old, they’d kissed and fireworks had practically gone off.

  He smiled at the memory. It had been at the high school, of all places, waiting for their ride after football practice. They’d been horsing around outside and suddenly ended up face-to-face, when Ash’s bear had taken over and pressed Hunter up against a wall, kissing the other boy until his lips hurt.

  Ash hadn’t been a very good kisser at fifteen, but neither had Hunter.