by Cecilia Lane
Bucking Fate
Book Five: Black Claw Ranch
Cecilia Lane
A Shifting Destinies Novel
Copyright © 2019 by Cecilia Lane
Cover Art by Kasmit Covers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Bucking Fate: Black Claw Ranch #5 by Cecilia Lane July 2019
Contents
Bucking Fate
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
New Series
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Also by Cecilia Lane
Bucking Fate: Black Claw Ranch Book Five
Her kidnapper will kill to keep her. So will her mate. She must decide—fight or flee.
Overcoming her torture. . .
Kidnapped and changed against her will, submissive Nora escapes to the small shifter town Bearden. There she rebuilds her courage and her shattered life.
But the kidnapper’s mark prevents her from mating Jesse, a sexy cowbear as kind as he is strong.
A man who gives her the encouragement to slay her fears and take back her independence.
When her past comes howling into town, she can plant her feet and fight or she can turn tail and run—saving everyone but herself.
Guarding her from peril. . .
Under Jesse’s stoic calm, the ghost of a grim childhood rages. When he meets the reserved Nora, he recognizes in her a kindred pain—and the spark of an undiscovered strength.
Strength they will need when a familiar enemy tracks her down and threatens not just her life, but their clan.
Nora’s instinct is to sacrifice herself to save the clan. Jesse’s is to tear down the enemy’s walls and salt the earth with their blood.
Bucking Fate, book 5 in the Black Claw Ranch series, is a steamy werewolf bear shifter paranormal romance for readers who love fated mates, heroines in peril, and tortured cowboy heroes who cherish the women they love.
Download now because you love the story of two tormented fated mates healing and defeating an enemy—together.
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Chapter 1
Nora Morgan traced the cracks in the wall next to her head. One line wiggled out of sight and past where her fingers could reach. She wished she could turn a corner and disappear, too.
The shackles around her wrists itched and burned with the touch of silver as she shifted on the mattress. The chain secured to the wall kept her from moving more than four feet in any direction. Still, she rose to her knees and drew back the mattress as far as possible with her weight still on it. She pressed the tip of her nail into the soft wall and made another mark, then counted the others.
Four weeks since she’d been abducted by a man she’d thought her friend.
Well, maybe not her friend. An acquaintance. A polite customer. A good tipper. Someone she didn’t suspect as being bad news bears. Or wolves. But that didn’t have the right ring to it.
Score for keeping her sanity in captivity.
Those marks were the last of who she used to be. They were her defiance in a situation where she had no control or space of her own. They were her last bit of hope. She could still leave a mark on the world.
Raucous laughter sounded from outside the locked door. Clinking of bottles and glasses followed whatever joke or speech had been made. The clubhouse sounded busy; she couldn’t tell how many Vagabonds were outside her postage-stamp of a room, drinking the night away.
Nora held her breath as boots stomped near the door. When no one made to enter, she settled back down on the bed and breathed a sigh of relief. It was too early and lively for Viho’s return, anyway.
But like every other night since the one she’d woken with a wolf in her middle, he would come. Viho Valdana was her mate and her maker, after all. His place was beside her, clogging up the tiny room with the stench of fur and dominance and madness.
Madness she’d failed to subdue, which he reminded her with great frequency.
Nora’s wolf brushed against her mind. Faint, almost too faint to feel with the silver binding the beast inside her. Nora strained to reach for the sensation. That inner animal was her only friend in the whole world.
A month ago, and she would have thought the idea insane.
“He’s dead!” someone roared. “And it’s your damn fault!”
Nora drew her knees to her chest and hoped the fight would pass quickly.
More murmurings, sharper than before. She could take a guess at what prompted the outburst. Viho’s Vagabonds were being picked off by sworn allies of some previous war. Each death spiraled the pack a little further out of control. They celebrated and mourned the life lost with the same rowdy revelry and thrown accusations.
Viho felt the deaths the hardest, as far as she could tell. He kept so much from her about her new nature, that she wasn’t sure what to believe as fact or fiction. But the sickness he described, she could smell that. The dark cloud around him thickened each time one of his wolves didn’t return from some supply run or patrol or whatever else the biker gang did to occupy their time.
They were surrounded by enemies, that much was clear. Viho had ranted and raved about the traitors many times since taking her as a mate, but never offered her the full story.
Not that she’d asked. She’d learned early to only speak when he directed a question her way, just like some of the bullies and staff in the group homes of her childhood. Even if she wanted to know more, her wolf crouched down in fear anytime the man came near. Nora understood very little about her other nature, but the instinct to stay away from Viho was clear.
Submissive, he called her. Always with a raised lip and the scent of disappointment.
She wanted to snap back that it wasn’t her freaking idea to be abducted, changed, and mated in the first place. The dark glint of Viho’s eyes and the heavy air around him stilled her tongue. He terrified her even in the best of moods. She didn’t want to prod him into darker ones.
Her voice was just one more item on the list of things he’d taken from her. Safety and security swirled down the drain the moment he slapped a hand over her
mouth and dragged her into the alley.
Remembered fear laced through her veins, sharp enough to drag a wince from her. Nora whimpered and tried to cast her thoughts anywhere else, but that was the danger of living in a dark room with nothing but the subdued impression of a wolf in her head. She had no one and nothing to distract her.
He’d smelled like leather when he pushed her against the brick wall. She’d thought her life over when he pinned her with a hand around her throat and raised glowing gold eyes to hers. But no, the horror had only just begun.
Viho knocked her out cold with a sharp blow to the head. When she woke again, fire burned in her veins and on her side and shoulder.
He needed a mate to keep steady, he’d said, and only a wolf would do.
One month. All she wanted was to step back into her old life and wake from her living nightmare.
Nora jumped at the sound of a crash. Another followed. The walls shook with the force of bodies slamming against them. The ceiling rained down bits of popcorn plaster as the fight raged on.
The fight spread from the grunts and growls inside the clubhouse to howling wolves outside. Motorcycles fired up and sped off.
Nora pushed herself upright and chewed her lower lip, wide eyes staring at the closed door. There were too many sounds to pick through and gain some idea of what happened on the other side. A brawl between the pack? Or worse, Viho’s enemies making their move?
Viho was evil, absolutely. She didn’t want him to live a moment longer than necessary, and the rest of his pack could follow him straight to hell.
But they were the devils she knew. What would Viho’s enemies do to the man’s mate?
Nora’s stomach turned with the possibilities, and her inner wolf whined.
Something hard landed against the door. Again. Nora lunged as far from the door as possible. She pressed herself small as a third kick broke the lock and slammed the door open.
Light slashed over the bed. She blinked at the man standing in the frame.
Jensen, she thought. He’d been kind to her on the few times Viho allowed anyone else into the room.
“Get up,” he growled as he stomped into the room.
The scent of fur and anger made Nora cower.
Something soft flickered in his eyes and he passed a hand over his face. His voice lost its growl when he spoke again.
“We don’t have time for that. Get up, or stay here. This is your chance.”
“Chance for what?” Nora whispered.
Only a handful of possibilities flashed through her head. She imagined Viho dead in a pool of his own blood or torn to pieces by warring members of other packs. Maybe she was being moved to safety.
Or maybe Jensen had decided to claim her as his own.
She wasn’t some spoil of war!
A small growl pushed up from her middle before it died under the gold eyes he settled on her.
“Your freedom.”
Nora’s mouth dropped open. The words were just noise for a full second. She didn’t dare to process them. She didn’t want them to turn into some sick joke.
Jensen pressed his lips together tightly. He raised his hands as he approached her bed. A quick movement snatched the key off the wall. Viho kept it there, staring her in the face. But did she take the chance to run? No. Never. Not when she knew what would happen if she dared. Even if she broke free, there was no running anywhere but straight out the door and through the thick of the fighting.
Then Jensen knelt, reaching for her hands.
Real. The offer was real.
Her heart pounded as hope welled.
“Wh—” she started. Her throat worked with a swallow. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because no one deserves what he did to you.” Jensen shoved the key into the shackles. A quick twist and they fell from her wrists. Then he tugged her to her feet and she took more wobbling steps than she’d been allowed in a month. “Stay close.”
Freedom. She just had to make it through the outer door.
Nora’s legs shook with her first step out of her room. The scent of blood clogged up her nose. Wolves and men fought all around, tearing into each other with fangs and punches and knives and claws. They were all faces she recognized from her brief glimpses out of her door.
The pack shattered around her.
“Come on,” Jensen growled again. He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and drew her close. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she stuck to the man’s side.
Freedom. She could taste the open skies and dirt and perfume of flowers. Ten more steps.
A man knocked into Jensen and shoved her sideways. A ragged, terrified snarl worked out of Nora’s throat, but Jensen kept her moving.
Three steps.
Two.
They burst out of the door. The grip on her didn’t lessen as he directed her toward the group of men standing near their motorcycles. She could put names to some of the faces. Bryce was as mean as Viho most of the time. Ellis had kind eyes, like Jensen. The others were simply faces in the pack. Strangers, though she’d lived next to them for a month.
“The fuck is this?” Bryce growled.
Nora dropped her eyes and used Jensen’s body as a shield.
“You taking his mate, too? Wasn’t enough to split the damn pack?”
“She has as much right to leave as us. Unless you want to be the one to put her back in her cage?”
The others muttered and dropped their eyes. Not Bryce. His growl grew louder and made Nora’s hair stand on end.
“Jensen!”
The group whirled as one. Nora whimpered when she saw Viho. He looked larger than life framed in the doorway, arms spread wide. Scratches ran down his chest; claw marks, most likely. Blood dripped from the knives in his hands to the dirt beneath his boots.
Nora’s heart sank to her stomach. Her entire body shook with fear.
There would be no freedom.
No open skies or wind in her fur.
Only chains and shackles and a mate she hated with every fiber of her being.
Viho roared wordlessly and ran, eyes blazing with the power of his inner wolf.
Jensen turned into the attack, throwing a final order over his shoulder. Regret shined in his gold eyes. “Run free.”
Nora’s wolf ripped out of her in all the bone-breaking pain she’d grown to know in the month since being abducted. Fur slid through her pores and her paws hit the ground, a whine blasting out of her throat.
Then she ran unseeing, unthinking, away from her nightmare.
Chapter 2
Being second to a clan of fucked up bears was a shit job.
And one he was failing at.
Jesse King pushed down his irritation to keep his lip from lifting in a snarl. His patience dwindled rapidly as he surveyed the scene below him.
No wonder he’d found a calf with Trent Crowley’s tags on the Ashford side of the fence. Entire sections were missing. Splintered posts littered the ground with fragments of barbed wire fence sticking up like wild hairs. Cows scattered and mooed in all directions on both sides of the territory line.
In the middle of the chaos, one giant beast of a bear and a scarred up lion tore into one another. Blood streamed down their sides and muddied the dirt under their feet. They reared back on hind legs and smacked each other before slamming down on four paws. Lunge, swipe, roar, bite. Neither one backed off.
Hunter watched from the Ashford territory, while Trent, the alpha of the lion pride, lingered with two others on the Crowley side.
“You just going to let this go on?” Jesse shouted to Trent.
Trent turned gold eyes on him and shrugged.
Motherfucker.
Jesse’s horse danced under him until he squeezed her sides and brought her back under control. He longed to give her free rein and ride into the sunset. Better that than the feel of fur and dominance grinding against his skin.
His bear rolled through him with agitation. The blood in the air pricked a
t the beast’s need to fight.
But no. He had responsibilities. Someone had to keep the place from burning to the ground.
With Ethan and Tansey away to check out a potential horse to add to their stable—and taking an extra day, no doubt to enjoy some quality time without the constant interruptions of the clan—Jesse had the shit duty of holding down the fort and making sure the babies didn’t stab themselves in the eyes.
Or brawl with the neighboring lion pride.
Or tear down the fence between territories, mix the herds, and create work where they had none before.
At that moment, a little smoke and ash might improve the situation.
Jesse dismounted and dropped the calf to the ground. The little one sprang forward to join the mixed herd as soon as she was free while he stalked toward the brawling beasts. “Shift back!”
The order fell on deaf ears.
Jesse’s bear pulsed under his skin at the defiance. Fur stroked against his head and claws slashed at his middle. The lion, he understood. They weren’t in the same clan. Hell, half the time they weren’t even on speaking terms.
Alex? Alex knew the order of things. And Jesse would be damned before he let them kill each other while he was in charge.
There’d been a brief moment when Jesse hoped Alex taking a mate might calm him down. Those dreams crashed with more flames than the Hindenburg when Liv turned out to be a match made in hell. Where everyone saw Alex for his true asshat self, Liv only laughed and encouraged him.