The asshole bear pressed Thorn deeper into the wreckage of the couch, forelegs gripping him in a bone-creaking hug, teeth pressed into his throat. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t free himself from the grip, the couch. His vision went dim. He saw Felicity still atop of Sally in the kitchen, but the bear rolled across the linoleum to dislodge the cat. With a hiss, the cougar was crushed beneath the black bear’s mass.
The room faded, Thorn still unable to get air. Before he lost consciousness, the howling of wolves filled the trailer. A split second later, a whole pack of them burst inside. The place was now utterly full of animals. Three of them raced to the kitchen, cornering Sally and Felicity. Two of them charged at the invader bear, snapping at its flanks.
Thorn snuck in a breath as the enemy swatted the wolves. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glitter of the bear charm on the living room floor. He reached out a paw, the claws awkwardly lifting the chain. Even with limited bear dexterity, he managed to toss the loop over the invader’s head.
With a roar, the grizzly contracted, bear sounds rising to a human scream. Taking a deep breath finally, Thorn shifted along with his enemy. Now with fists instead of claws, he re-broke the asshole’s nose, pounded his jaw, sent a flurry of body blows that resounded in thumps and muffled cracks. In only a moment, the would-be apex fell to the floor, bloody and unconscious.
“I knew you were a pussy,” Thorn breathed.
Growling and snorting caught his attention. Sally bulled past Felicity, knocking the wolves aside. She came at him, mouth wide, aiming for his neck. Thorn jumped aside. The three wolves pulled her down, each grabbing a leg.
“Easy, easy, that’s Sally,” he called. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
The other two wolves stalked forward. Sally dragged the whole pack of them as she tried to shelter in the kitchen corner. Wolves snarled, holding her down as the black bear struggled, grunting and huffing. Thorn approached, slowly, hands held out. Sally snapped at him, teeth sounding like a shot. She managed to throw one of the wolves off and tried to squirm free of the others. Mad eyes locked on Thorn’s.
“Sally, hey!” Felicity shifted to her human form. She clapped her hands in front of the black bear’s face. “Knock it off!”
Sally’s face jerked toward Felicity in surprise.
“Come on back, Sally. That’s enough bear for now. I know you’re in there.”
The black bear stopped struggling. One by one, the wolves let go of her. Warily, they backed away. With a very human groan, the bear shuddered. Her paws narrowed, elongated, the bulk of her slimming down. Contorting and writhing on the floor, she assumed her human shape. She did it so slowly, it was painful to watch. But as she made the final transition, four of the wolves stared at her, tongues lolling.
Outside, the sound of a big V8 roared to life. Thorn saw a trail of blood leading out the door. The invader was running away. He was still wearing Thorn’s amulet. Shit!
The fifth wolf dragged her eyes over each of the males. She let out a growl so low and threatening, even Thorn flinched. Tails between their legs, the four males loped out of the trailer. The female wolf, obviously the alpha, gave Thorn the up-and-down before she disappeared after her pack.
Felicity squinted at Thorn. “Who was that wolf bitch?”
“I think it was Wendy Marino. The neighbor.” He looked at Sally, curled in a fetal position, panting. He walked into the bedroom and came back with a blanket. While he covered Sally, he talked to Felicity without looking at her. “So you believe me now?”
“I kinda believed you before. But, you’re, you know.” He faced her. She made a vague gesture at his nakedness.
Thorn shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Damn sexy.” She looked away. “I’m sorry about the deeds. I thought they would take the target off your back, not make the interloper attack you.”
“Is that why you ran off with them?”
“No.” She moved her eyes to him. “But it’s why I brought them back. They’re, um, lying out in the mud. I should probably get them. Do you have a giant shirt I could borrow?”
He picked the one he’d been wearing off the floor. It was only a little ripped up. Thorn handed it to Felicity. When she shrugged it on, it came about mid-thigh. He couldn’t help staring. “Damn sexy,” he said.
“I just want to say, I did want to trick you out of those deeds. It was on my agenda, okay? I’m a bitch and I’ll own up to that. But after I had them—I don’t know, I didn’t want the deeds, and not have you. Does that make me weak?”
“I handed them over to you. You didn’t even have to trick me. Does that make me a sucker?”
Felicity hiked her shoulders. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“You are so weak.”
“What’s weak is letting that asshole get away. Who was he, anyway?”
“My great-uncle, kinda sorta. Or so he says.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know, the two of you look a little alike, but you smell alike, too. That must be why you didn’t know he was stalking you.”
“That could be.” Thorn’s eyebrows knitted in thought. “He turned my father. My father stole my mother away from him.”
Felicity moved closer, putting a hand on his chest. “She’s still alive, Thorn.” She spelled out some of what Oscar had learned, and suspected.
“I gathered that from the way the asshole tried to kill me.” He folded his arms, the memory of the psycho bear’s words lingering. “He’s got my charm. He’s stuck healing at a human rate until he can take it off under the full moon. But it’s the only thing that kept Sally from going full tilt mad-bear-in-heat on us.”
“I can handle her,” Felicity said. “No way is anything coming between me and my bear again. Not even my own stupid greed.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve always heard of love at first sight, but never thought much of it. Probably because I’d never been in love before. But it’s true. Even in the crappy bar, I knew there was something special there. Maybe I’m just screwing this up.”
“You’re saying you fell in love with me from the moment you first saw me?”
He nodded. “That’s clearer.”
Felicity dropped her eyes. “Me, too, I think. I tried to escape it, tried to carry on like I didn’t need you. I feel like I didn’t come here by chance.”
“The stars aligned, and we were brought together,” Thorn said.
She raised her eyes again. “Yeah, like that. That’s beautifully put.”
“Or totally fucking crazy.”
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Chapter Twenty-Nine
Felicity walked outside and retrieved her briefcase. It was ruined. The deeds inside were still fine. She brought them back into the trailer, and handed them to Thorn.
He didn’t take them.
“I want you to keep them.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need them. I need you.”
“I need us,” he said. “All my life, I’ve been doing things the hard way, and I didn’t even know it until I met you. So hold onto them. For us. It’s funny. If I had tried to fight this asshole by myself, I’d be a bearskin rug by now. If you hadn’t shown up and kicked the shit out of Sally, I wouldn’t have gotten the shotgun away from that asshole. If the wolves hadn’t shown up, Sally would’ve kicked my naked ass. Why are the wolves being so nice to me, anyway?”
“Maybe they figured out they had a good thing going with you as the apex.”
“Maybe someone gave them a talking to.”
“Maybe.” Felicity bit her lower lip and put the documents in the muddy case. “You forgive me for not really swindling you?”
“Yep.” He put his hands on his hips. “You forgive me for not really cheating on you?”
She lowered her voice, imitating him. “Yep.”
“Do you feel weird talking like this, pretty much naked with an u
nconscious naked woman on the kitchen floor?”
“Totally.” Felicity studied the trailer. “We should drop the bartender off and go to my place.”
“Your place?”
“It kinda looks like a cougar, three bears and a pack of wolves thrashed this trailer.”
Thorn shrugged with his eyebrows. “My place kinda sucks right now. I do have lunchmeat and bread in the car.”
“Where’s your truck?”
“I butt-fucked it with a tree.”
“Why do I believe you?”
“Because you love me?”
Felicity dropped the case on the floor and stepped into Thorn’s arms. “I am totally, absolutely, and definitely against my better judgement, in love with you, Lumberjack.”
His eyes held hers. “I’m in love with you, too.”
They came together in a kiss. Thorn felt his rod responding. He held her tightly, kissed her more firmly. She responded with breathless sounds and nails in his neck.
“We can probably pull off a quickie before Sally wakes up,” he whispered.
Felicity whispered back. “Just so you know, if you’re hoping she wakes up and joins us for a threesome, I’ll castrate you first.”
“Let’s drop her off on the way to your place, then.”
***
Three hours later, they lay together under Felicity’s satin sheets, panting in the afterglow of having made love.
“Y’know, I don’t think there’s any reason the territory couldn’t have two apex predators,” Thorn said into her hair.
“You don’t mean you and that asshole—do we even know his name?”
“I never got it. I think it might be Asshole.” He snuggled closer to her, spooning. “But that’s not what I meant. I meant you and me. Bears and cougars don’t compete for the same stuff.”
“I prefer the term mountain lion. Cougar sounds like I’m old.”
“Puma?”
“Hell, no. That sounds like some gross condition boys get during puberty.” Felicity lowered her voice and dragged out the words. “‘I can’t play basketball this year coach, I got puma.’”
Thorn chuckled. “Mountain lion it is then.”
Felicity rolled over. Even in the dark, her eyes were bright. “This might sound stupid and girly, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy.”
“Well then put a bra on me backwards and call me Cindy Lou. Nothing has made me as happy as falling in love with you.” Thorn smiled, and then let his face fall into seriousness. “I mean it.”
Later, Thorn lay awake, staring out at the dim city lights below Felicity’s high windows. Lost in the darkness beyond were his mountains, out of sight, but within his heart.
He was happy. There were still a lot of things to take care of. Training Sally to be a shifter, and to stop trying to hump his leg; getting rid of Uncle Crazy Bear once and for all; perhaps even tracking down his mother.
But for now, he drifted off to sleep, content. He had everything he needed. Wolves backing him up, the most beautiful country in the world where he could run free, and the cat he loved next to him in bed.
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The Jaguar’s Romance
Emilia Hartley
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Chapter One
Sally sat in an eight-by-eight room, empty save the table in front of her, two chairs on the other side of it, and a steel loop that handcuffs slid through on the top. From the window in the door, she could see the sheriff’s deputies in the hall, some of them peeking in on her, some ignoring her. She had the right to a phone call, but who would she talk to? Arrested. Her emotions see-sawed between mortification and terror, each end of the spectrum bringing on nausea and a strange tingle she could only associate with frostbite.
How long had she been in here? It felt like hours. Sally read enough paperback mysteries to know that they wanted her to sweat. She found the tactic surprisingly effective.
What had she done? Only two months before, a mysterious creature crashed into her boring life. It bit her, with the consequence that she now harbored an inner beast, an animal that emerged on the full moon. Is that why she was here? Had her bear broken free and hurt someone?
Nobody knew about the shifting stuff. Except for the others who changed into animals. One of them was named Thorn, a lumberjack and the sexiest man on two feet. He was occasionally the meanest bear on four feet. Sally had a brain-staggering crush on the guy. But Thorn had found someone else, a beautiful and wealthy (Sally was pretty sure) blonde who shifted into a mountain lion. This was no big shock to Sally. She wasn’t much to look at, save the big boobs she concealed under loose clothes. Otherwise, she was mostly dorky.
Dorky or not, she was still an upstanding citizen, a business owner, a tax payer. She felt a little outraged. It was bad enough that some mysterious were-bear had bitten her and changed her life. But arrested? Heck, she’d never even gotten a ticket. Well, a parking ticket that one time. Sally was pretty sure this wasn’t about a parking ticket.
She took a deep breath. When nervous, she tended to babble. Luckily, she wasn’t nervous—just scared out of her freaking mind.
Two detectives burst into the room, one sitting, one pacing. Seated was Monroe, an older man with a lot of broken blood vessels in a jowly face. Good cop. Goldfarb was in motion, tall and lean with a shaved head. Bad cop.
“Let’s go over this again, Sally. Where were you last night?” Monroe asked.
Last night, the moon was full. Sally had locked herself in the cellar of a house she inherited so the bear she shifted into couldn’t go on a rampage. It was only her second full moon and she hadn’t gotten control of her ursine half yet. Telling the cops this would land her in a psychiatric facility. “Camping?”
“Thirty degrees in the mountains last night,” Goldfarb paced.
When the sheriff’s deputies contacted her, she was walking to the bar she owned early in the morning. She had a sleeping bag, an empty cooler, some paperbacks, so camping seemed a good excuse. How could she tell them she’d spent the night as a black bear? The deputies demanded her cell phone, and then arrested her.
Monroe nodded. “What is your relationship to a man named Thorn?”
“We’re friends.” Why were they asking about Thorn? An image formed in her mind. Linebacker huge, rough features, blue eyes, that brown hair that streaked blond, muscles that bulged from everywhere, she just wanted to sink her teeth into—Whoa, whoa, girl! The moon made her a little randy. She’d been warned about that. Sally reined herself in. “He’s a customer.”
“Which is it? Witnesses say you had a thing for Thorn,” Monroe said.
Jeeze! Was it that obvious?
“Uh…” Sally said.
Goldfarb paced behind her. “Were you angry when he hooked up with that property developer?”
The developer, Felicity Malkin, looked like a Victoria’s Secret model, the kind of woman a plain, nerdy girl like Sally never stood a chance against. “Mostly a little sad,” Sally admitted. Why were they asking her about this? The whole thing was pretty embarrassing.
“You any good with auto mechanics, Sally?” Monroe switched gears fast. “Work on your own car at all? Change your tires, your fluids?”
Sally shook her head. “I just have the gas station guys fill the tank when it’s empty, and take it in when the check engine light comes on.”
Now, Goldfarb changed it up. “So you closed your bar at two a.m. and then decided to go camping in the freezing cold, is that right?”
Not sure where any of this was going, she pulled a single chestnut out of all the mystery books and cop TV shows she’d enjoyed. “Should I be talking to you without a lawyer?”
“If you’ve got something to hide, you should have a lawyer present,” Goldfarb challenged. “What are you hiding?”
Sally blinked, trying to sort out that loaded question. It was a very similar one to the questions the deputi
es asked, which landed her in this little room. As if on cue, a woman burst into the room. She was a little shorter than Sally, willowy and athletic, with long dark hair that hung to her hips. Her features were broad, her skin a sandy color that spoke of the beach, and if not for her power suit and briefcase, she might be mistaken for a surfer.
Obsidian eyes met Sally’s. “Did the deputies that arrested you mirandize you before taking your cell phone?”
“No.” Who was this?
“Unless you’re going to charge my client, we’re done here, Detectives,” the surfer said.
Client? Sally stood, following the woman out of the interrogation room. She doubted she could afford a lawyer, let alone a lawyer that looked like a surfer. Still, she would’ve sold her left foot to get away from those detectives.
The two of them walked to the courthouse parking lot. “I’m Iwalani Johnson, Sally; Felicity Malkin called me when she heard what happened.”
“Maybe you can explain it to me?”
“A friend of yours went off the road in his truck near the summit of Mount Hood.”
Sally started. “Thorn? The cops were asking me about him.”
“That’s right,” Johnson led her to an SUV. “Apparently, Thorn was led up this particularly twisting section of road by a text begging him for help. The text came from your cell phone.”
“What?” Sally stopped short. “No. That’s—”
“Impossible, right?” Iwalani suppressed a smile. “Because you had no thumbs.”
Sally’s voice was all air. “You know?”
“Of course. While I run a general criminal defense practice, I have a great interest in keeping cases involving shifters out of the spotlight. Attempted homicide is the kind of case that draws attention. Otherwise, you’d have to sell your little bar just for getting you out of that interview room.”
The bear, the bar, the near abject poverty--“How can you know so much about me?”
“That would be my doing.”
The Apex Shifter Complete Set: Books 1 - 3 Page 15