Werebear Mountain_Dane

by A. B Lee

  Roland had to say that Rayner looked interested in the idea, while his brother just looked as if he could rip his head off and hand it back to him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ~

  “You don’t take a human to a bear fight.” Giles stood outside the nicest place that Rayner had ever been to in her life before and eyed Dane as if he thought he was insane.

  “I didn’t take her, she followed me…”

  “Well, if you can’t even control your pet human…”

  “Damn, where’d you dig this guy up, and can we put him back there?” Rayner offered the vampire a look of pure contempt. “Pet human my ass.” She grumbled.

  Her arm was hurting, and her temper was more than frayed. If the bloodsucker expected nice, then he’d learn that respect earned respect with her.

  “She’s my mate,” Dane growled a long hard warning to the bloodsucker and Giles grimaced before he relented.

  “The one and only damn time I’ll do this favor for you,” he said, tossing open the door to his house, and motioning for them to go inside. “Keep your damn brother on a chain if you have to before someone has to put him out of his misery,” he offered as Dane drew level with him in the doorway.

  “I’m going to forget you said that because you’re helping her,” Dane growled, stepping in front of the vampire with Rayner at his back, and standing toe to toe with the man.

  “Please don’t. Take it as a warning, and if it isn’t me, well, let’s just say that others have noticed Bowie’s behavior.” Giles informed him.

  It wasn’t really anything that Dane didn’t already know, but he didn’t need to hear it, especially not then.

  “Is that a damn threat?” Dane growled low in his chest.

  “Well … yes,” Giles offered back with a caged smirk on his lips and laughter in his eyes.

  “Let’s just leave,” Rayner rushed out.

  She wasn’t feeling much like trying to step in between a shifter and a vampire. Her head was throbbing, and her arm was aching something fierce, and she just wanted to go to bed with a bottle of Jack and blot it all out.

  “Not yet, little human,” Giles said as he drew his gaze from Dane and eyed the feisty female.

  He’d been reading her thoughts, gauging her reactions, and generally stalking her persona since she’d arrived at his door.

  Something was off, and he didn’t like it.

  ~

  ~

  ~

  “It’s strange the way the world turns. One day a vampire is considered the monster in the darkness, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, a myth, legend, fairytale to write books and make movies about. The next, the world finds out that the supernatural element that it feared is, in fact, a waking nightmare, and sitting on top of the pile are the vampires.” Giles said as he busied himself pouring three large glasses of Scotch because he thought she looked like she needed it.

  “Your point?” Dane asked.

  The last thing he needed was a recent history lesson. His bear was prowling within him, clawing for freedom against the danger that the vampire posed at being that close to his mate.

  “Bear with me, no pun intended, or maybe a little,” Giles offered with a smug smile on his lips that annoyed Dane to the point where he would willingly rip the man’s arm off and beat him over the head with it.

  “Vampires, not particularly wanting to go to war with the human population — food source — decided that if they didn’t want to be hunted, caged, used her nefarious reasons such as warfare then they needed to make themselves indispensable. We became the unofficial gatekeepers of the supernatural world, and thereby taking our collective heads off the bloodied block.”

  Giles turned his back on Rayner, allowed just one claw to elongate, sliced the razor-sharp talon across his palm, and squeezed his blood into her drink. Dane watched him do it without complaint or question.

  “Good for you,” Rayner offered back.

  She didn’t want to be there. She knew what was coming, Dane had told her in no uncertain terms, and the thought of it made her uneasy.

  When the vampire turned, took a few step toward her without hesitation even when Dane growled a warning to him, and offered her a drink, she was more than happy to accept it.

  “The point of the gatekeeper is to report wrongdoing. In some cases, we are expected to just deal with the problem…”

  “I ask again, your point?” Dane growled.

  He didn’t like it — the vampire’s blood was in the glass that he’d offered to his mate, and she was going to drink it without her knowledge. He didn’t see his mate as the squeamish type, but the vampire was probably right, and it was best that she didn’t know until the deed was done.

  Rayner gladly tossed back the contents of the cut crystal glass and was glad that the feeling of fire that burned way down wasn’t from the cut from the bear. If she’d ever needed a drink in her life — it was then.

  “Now we can get to the point,” Giles said. Taking the glass back from Rayner and offering her a second glass. “I think you’re going to need this.”

  “I don’t know why you think I’m going to need this — but, I know why I need this,” Rayner said as she took the offering.

  “You’ve already taken my blood. It was in the first drink,” Giles informed her, and her hand hesitated as the glass was en route to her lips. Her gaze fell to the liquid, and she didn’t appreciate the small chuckle at the vampire offered. “That one is just Scotch.” He assured her.

  “Sure?” Rayner asked.

  “I’m a man of my word,” the vampire offered back, and she cocked a shoulder, took the glass to her lips, and tossed liquid fire down the back of her throat. “Sometimes.”

  “Stop playing with my mate, she’s not food,” Dane growled. That brought Giles’ attention right back to him.

  “We have a problem.” The vampire wasn’t about to sugarcoat it for either of them. They were mates, in his mind they both needed to know what was happening.

  “How so?” Dane asked, the growl of his beast still underlining his words.

  “While my blood will heal the wounds, there is a fifty-fifty chance that it will not counteract the venom in her blood. Your brother didn’t just claw your mate — he must have bitten her as well…”

  “I was there — he did not bite,” Dane was adamant.

  He could remember the incident as if it was happening right in front of him, and he had played it over and over within his mind asking himself if he could have saved his mate from Bowie’s bear.

  “Perhaps, he caught her unintentionally, but the venom is still in her blood,” Giles assured him.

  “Okay, human here.” Rayner lifted her hand as if she was back in school, and waved it at the supernatural element in the room. She didn’t understand what they were talking about.

  Dane turned his gaze upon. She had the immediate feeling that whatever it was, it was not good. That feeling was only made worse when he raised a shaky hand and ran it through his mop of unruly hair.

  The low, deep, growl that rolled through his chest just put the cherry on top of the cake. Perhaps, in her line of work, she should have read up more on shifters, vampires, and anything that could do her harm.

  “I should report this.” Giles kept his attention focused on the shifter.

  “You know what will happen,” Dane couldn’t bear the thought.

  Not her — not his mate — and not now.

  “I do.” Giles didn’t like it.

  With the bear venom in her blood, Rayner could transition. A bitten human into a bear shifter – that would bring unwanted attention to their area from outside influences.

  Giles didn’t like that idea.

  While it was true that the vampire blood could heal humans most of the time, a bite from a shifter was different. If the authorities found out that she was in danger of transitioning then protocol said that they should take her, cage her, so that she wasn’t a danger to anyone around her.

 
Giles certainly didn’t like that idea either.

  Dane would not be allowed anywhere near her. His bear would go bat-shit crazy. A bat-shit crazy bear meant that Giles would have to step in and kill him.

  While putting a frenzied bear out of its misery didn’t bother him in the slightest, it could be avoided.

  And then there was Bowie. That psycho bear would be under an immediate death sentence.

  Whether he’d intended to bite the human, or not, the fact remained that he would still have broken the human laws.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ~

  “I’m going to kill Bowie…” Dane felt rage within him. For one long moment, it almost consumed him like a tidal wave.

  “I don’t think you’re seeing the wood for the trees.” The vampire motioned back toward Rayner with a nod of his head. “This isn’t about your psycho brother right now. This is about her. If she transitions…”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Rayner demanded as she pushed up to her feet. She could hear them just fine, but she didn’t have a clue what they were discussing.

  She felt hot like she had the damn flu but without all the other joys that went with. She didn’t think that was anything to do with the Scotch, but she had to wonder if it was to do with the vampire’s blood.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Dane was adamant. That couldn’t happen to his mate — no damn way.

  “I’ve been around long enough to know that you never say never. You need to be prepared. She — needs to be prepared,” Giles warned him.

  “Are you going to report this?” Dane demanded.

  His mind was racing, spinning. Yes, he wanted to kill his brother — but, more importantly — he might just need to kill the vampire first.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Giles tapped his temple. He’d been reading the both of them since they’d walked through his door.

  Dane growled. His hands fisted at his sides as he considered all of his options.

  He wouldn’t have the element of surprise if he tried to kill the vampire, but at least trying was better doing nothing at all.

  “Rayner — leave now,” Dane growled out the warning to his mate.

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen until I get some answers.”

  She wasn’t about to walk out and let boys being boys. She’d already been in the midst of a shifter fight, and she had to ask herself if she wanted to witness one between a vampire and Dane as well.

  “Trust me, if you shift into your bear in my house then you and I are going to have a problem,” Giles warned him.

  “You threatened my mate,” Dane growled. He felt his beast rising to the surface within him.

  “The paranoid nature of the shifter strikes again. I have no intention of reporting your mate, or your brother for that matter, but I do need to know that you have this situation under control so that it doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass with the powers that be,” Giles said.

  He wasn’t about to put his life, his cosy existence, and everything that he had on the line for Dane.

  “Why would I trust you?” Dane demanded.

  “For the same reason you came here in the first place — a lack of options — you have no choice.”

  “If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on…” Rayner felt as if she was losing the fight that she was having with her temper.

  She had an irrational need to punch something or someone. Usually, it took a lot more than two idiots ignoring her, making out as if she was invisible to rile her up that damn badly.

  It felt as if something was clawing at the back of her mind to be heard, recognized, like that word that was on the tip of her tongue that you couldn’t quite manage to find. She felt the frustration rise within her; it mixed with anger, rage, and the need to find out what the hell was going on.

  “We’ve hit a little snag,” Giles offered as he turned toward her, ignoring the posturing of the shifter. Although, he was still more than aware of the danger that Dane presented.

  “In English,” Rayner demanded.

  She didn’t need them to paint a pretty picture, sugarcoat anything for her, but she needed answers fast before her head exploded.

  “The vampire thinks that my brother may have inadvertently bitten you,” Dane said.

  It wasn’t a conversation that Dane had ever expected to have — especially, not with his mate. His brother was a fuck up of epic proportions, and yet, Dane had never truly foreseen this happening.

  The law demanded that he kill his brother, but right then and there he was more worried about his mate transitioning into a damn beast. Cursed. He felt the deep shame of his brother’s actions within him.

  He was the alpha of their clan. It was his responsibility to police his brothers — a police the rules — the law of their people, their kind, and he’d screwed up beyond all recognition.

  “And that’s not good,” Rayner said.

  Her mind was spinning. It was hard enough to concentrate on his words and to find the information that she must have had in her brain somewhere on shifter bites, let alone try to read between the damn lines.

  “Not unless you have a passion to wear fur,” Giles offered back.

  Dane growled long and hard at the man as he shot him a dark glare. In Dane’s reasoning, it was no time for sarcasm and stupidity.

  “It would appear that this affects all of us now,” Dane reminded the vampire. “All of our lives are on the line here.”

  “Oh — crap…” Rayner’s brain finally kicked in and the information that she’d been seeking snapped front and center.

  A moment ago her legs had felt so strong, then they gave way beneath her, and her backside hit the cushion once more. Bitten. She knew what that meant.

  Dane was on one knee in front of her before she could blink. He wanted to reach for her, but the moment that his hand came out in front of him, he saw her wince, noted the way that her body pulled back just an inch, more than enough to make him hold in place.

  “There’s a chance that the vampire’s blood will stop you transitioning,” Dane growled.

  He was trying to be as gentle as possible with her, sugarcoat what might happen, at the same time that he was praying that it didn’t, and trying to decide how he would deal with it if it did.

  “But there’s a chance that it won’t,” Giles said.

  He didn’t think that she needed to be babied. She was strong of will, of mind, and of the body, and that was something that her mate didn’t realize because he couldn’t hear her thoughts.

  “That’s not…” Dane growled a warning at the man.

  “No — I need to understand this,” Rayner said.

  She knew that she needed the answers that the vampire was providing for her. She could understand why Dane would not want to face the situation head-on, but she needed to.

  “Well, you’ve already pulled up a chair — let’s crack open the good Scotch and put our cards on the table,” Giles said.

  He certainly could use a drink. She wasn’t the only one whose future was hanging by a thread.

  “That sounds damn good to me.” Rayner nodded.

  “I need to get you out of here — home,” Dane growled once more at the thought of taking her back to his land.

  He wasn’t quite sure what he’d do when he saw his brother, but he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to rip the man’s head off — kill him where he stood.

  “No, she needs to stay here — she needs to hear this. And I need to keep an eye on her,” Giles said as he cracked open his best Scotch, and poured them a large drink.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ~

  Dane couldn’t help feeling aggrieved that his mate had agreed with the vampire about staying on the man’s land, but he could understand it.

  It hadn’t been the vampire that had infected her with the venom that threatened to turn her into a monster.

  It hadn’t been the vampire that had put her humanity on the line.


  It had been the vampire that had offered her his blood and a possible antidote.

  He could see why she would put a little more faith in the vampire than in her own mate. He didn’t like it — his beast didn’t like it — but that was the way that she wanted it, and he couldn’t deny her that choice.

  Dane paced around her like a predator deciding if it was going in for the kill or not. She’d asked for some time alone and some air after hearing what the vampire had to say about the ramifications of being bitten. He certainly couldn’t deny her that either, but he could stay as damn close as possible to her.

  If she was transitioning, then he needed to be extra-vigilant of the vampire. The man could decide to end her rather than face repercussions himself.

  Dane wasn’t going to let that happen. She was his mate, and he would defend her with his life.

  The snatched looks that she tossed in his direction made his heart hit his ribs every time. Guilt played over his nerves, and anger festered within him for his brother’s part in all that had happened.

  He was damned if she did transition and damned if she didn’t. What did he know about helping a bitten human?

  Either way, would she ever forgive him?

  Could she ever forgive him?

  ~

  ~

  ~

  Rayner had never been good with what ifs. Her life had been about one simple thing; do it or go home with your tail between your legs.

  The fact that she might be getting a tail wasn’t lost on her. Hell, she might be getting a whole suit.

  Rayner liked to take every day as it came — lemons and all — but, today was a day that she’d like to restart.

  Would she have done anything differently? Not if she didn’t know then what she knew now.

  A bear mate. In the grand scheme of things that didn’t seem so bad anymore.