Trusting the Bear Shifter: A MM Shifter Bonding Alpha Mates Romance (Primal Roar Series Book 2)
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Trusting the Bear Shifter
All Rights Reserved
Copyright JW Constantine 2018
Electronic Edition 2018
Cover design by Love Books Promotions
When Kane comes across a wounded and volatile bear shifter in a cave, his role as healer at the Medve Sanctuary is put to the test. Bennett is out of his head with pain after his mate turned on him, broke their bond and threw him out of the Niedz Clan.
The tortured and brooding shifter tries to drive Kane away, but Kane’s take-charge personality lures him back to the Sanctuary for care. Soon Bennett finds relief in physical activity, but maybe he isn’t ready for the intimacy Kane craves.
Will Kane be able to help Bennett heal? And why are so many shifters breaking bonds with their mates?
Trusting the Bear Shifter
Book 2
Primal Roar Series
by
JW Constantine
-Chapter One-
He hunkered against the damp wall, and a shiver snaked down his spine, contorting his body with its icy touch.
Moss hung off the rock in patches, and water zigzagged down the face, darkening the stone. He’d made his bed in the driest part of the cave, but his jeans were still soaked—what was left of them. The denim hung off his body, ripped and frayed and ill-fitting now that he couldn’t eat.
Another shiver racked him. Nausea followed, but he expected it this time. He clamped his lips against the bile and breathed shallowly. Every hair on his body stood up with the need to shift into his bear form.
Clenching his fingers, he willed his claws to stay beneath his human skin. Once he unleashed his bear, he’d need Raphael more than ever.
Outside the cave entrance, a stick snapped. Bennett froze, on high alert. He strained his ears.
He caught the slight whistle of the wind past the cave entrance.
A few peeper frogs keying up for their nightly chorus.
And footsteps.
He eased away from the cold wall and gained his feet for the first time in days. God, he was weak. More than ever, he wanted to be a bear, running the wilds with the Niedz Clan alongside his mate.
As soon as his mind touched on Raphael, the sickening pain of his loss swept him. But he only let the inner struggle drown him for a moment—someone was in front of the cave.
Crouching to accommodate for the low ceiling, he inched to the opening. It was unlikely anyone would breach the cave. To the naked eye, the entrance wasn’t evident. But Bennett had used his bear senses to locate it. After running nonstop for two days, his only thought had been to find a safe place to rest.
Even that was difficult. Sleep didn’t come. The sickness took over.
Memories of his last moments on the Niedz land flooded back—Raphael’s sharp words, then harder swipes with his claws as he struck out at the mate he was meant to love. Driving Bennett away, forcing him to leave his side.
His home.
Everything he’d ever known.
Bennett swallowed the enormous lump in his throat and stood at the cave opening, listening to the footsteps.
The sounds were too light to be paws. Full-blooded humans did not live in the Medve Territory—only shifters. So whoever was near must be in human form.
For hundreds of years the Medve had been known for peace. The Sanctuary here offered a home to many outcasts, taking in all who no longer belonged with their clans for one reason or another, and they were known for their healing ways.
Bennett could go to the Sanctuary now and be accepted and have his wounds seen to, but he needed solitude more.
Another stick cracked, and the line of muscles down his spine tensed. He clenched his fists, prepared to fight. The long, jagged cut down his thigh burned. Blood seeped onto his jeans, but he ignored the hot flow. The pain in his heart was greater.
Raphael, why have you done this to me?
The light streaming into the cave flickered. A shadow fell over the entrance, and Bennett knew it wasn’t the leaves blowing in the breeze. He held his breath.
“Hello?” The masculine voice was a hook in Bennett’s gut.
His inner bear reared, ready to burst from his human skin. But he couldn’t let that happen. For two days he’d run in a blind haze as a bear, while everything in his being had urged him to turn around and return to the man who’d pushed him away. As soon as he’d set foot on the Medve, he’d shifted into human form.
He’d been unable to face that level of pain again.
His bear wanted Raphael, but Raphael no longer wanted him. If Bennett returned, Raphael would fulfill his threat—to kill him. So he was stuck in this human form forever.
The voice came again. “Hello? I can scent you and your blood. You’re hurt.”
Bennett narrowed his eyes.
A footfall hit the rock at the entrance of the cave. Bennett clamped off a roar of warning, his instinct to hide.
After another step, he couldn’t hold it back. He leaped into sight and faced the shifter. Tall, dressed for hiking, a ball cap covering his sweaty brown hair. Bennett loosed a cry that was a pitiful excuse for his real roar.
Then again, he felt far from that strong, proud bear. Without his mate, he was nothing.
Surprise twisted the man’s features. Understanding dawned in his golden brown eyes.
Bennett snapped. He lunged forward, his fist arcing to strike. The man sidestepped the blow, but Bennett kept charging.
“Stop! I have no wish to fight you!”
Infused with fury that didn’t belong to his current state of mind, Bennett caught the man around the waist. They crashed to the stone floor. The man grunted under Bennett’s weight.
Immediately he tried to shove Bennett off, but he pinned him with a leg move and cocked his fist. “I’ll break your nose,” he panted.
“I won’t fight you. You’re injured and broken inside.” The man’s warm brown eyes shone with something Bennett recognized—compassion.
He leaped off and stumbled back a few steps into the shadow of the cave. His breath seared through his lungs, each inhalation more painful than the last.
Each breath he drew was one more without Raphael.
Spinning away from the man still sprawled on the floor, he growled, “Get out.”
The intruder’s boots scraped rock as he got to his feet. “Let me help you. I can get you help.” When he spoke, his tone was calm and soothing—two things Bennett had no need for. He deserved pain and hard blows. He pressed his lips into a line.
“Get out!” Bennett’s roar echoed in the depths of the cave.
The man didn’t leave, and Bennett whirled, prepared to assist him out—and right onto his ass. Bennett’s chest rose and fell with pent-up rage.
“I live at the Sanctuary. We have doctors who can help you.”
Bennett stepped forward, his movements slow and rolling, predatory. In his bear form, few people challenged him. His pale coloring alone made him stand out, and many shifters believed his coloring had a magic all of its own and that he was stronger because of it.
He pitched his voice low and stared into the intruder’s eyes. “I don’t need your help or anyone else’s. Get. Out.”
As he stepped into the shifter’s personal space, the man gave him a sympathetic smile.
Bennett looked away from the kindly expression—the wound in his chest no one could see bled at the show of compassion.
But his beast lashed out.
He caught th
e shifter across the chest, raking the claws that had burst from his skin across flesh.
The shifter screamed, his shirt in ribbons.
His skin in ribbons.
The tang of flesh blood filled Bennett’s nostrils. What had he done?
“Get out!” he yelled again.
The shifter clapped a hand across his chest, pain and shock rippling his rugged features. Bennett wanted to cause more pain—he hated this shifter who oozed contentment.
After wheeling around, the shifter rushed from the cave. Bennett stood sentry for long minutes, listening to his footsteps move away down the trail that probably led to the Sanctuary.
When Bennett couldn’t detect any more sounds, he went back to his position against the cold wall and sank into the puddle once more. He shivered, and his stomach heaved. He dropped his face into his hands, seeing Raphael’s features behind his closed eyelids.
But he also saw the utter sadness the shifter had worn at the moment Bennett had clawed him.
Maybe he really had only wanted to help.
* * * * *
“What we need to ask ourselves about these shifters is what do they have in common? The water sources, sure, they all spill into each other. But there must be something more, because why would some shifters remain unharmed by it while others turn on their mates?”
Kane listened intently to Dr. Dirk Dreyer speak on the topic of what was stumping and terrifying all shifters around the lands. The doctor had been working for months to try to uncover the dark links between those bears who were coming to the Sanctuary for healing. And Kane had traveled far to learn from this man.
He was a healer in his own right, though he had no program certification like Dirk did. He had his own magic that was untrained yet full of its own raw power. He felt he could do some good here.
A shuffling noise came from the corridor, and he looked up.
“Dirk.” Ryan appeared in the doorway, and Kane jumped to his feet.
Dr. Dreyer shoved away from his desk with such force, his desk chair wheeled backward and struck the bookcase. “My God, Ryan. Who did this to you?” He rushed around his desk and reached his mate in three long, tension-filled strides.
Kane looked Ryan over, noting leaves clinging to his clothes and dirt and blood smeared on his hands. Kane’s hackles rose as his body prepared to shift to handle the danger.
“I’m okay,” Ryan said.
“Okay? Hell, Ryan! You’re cut to shreds and bleeding.” Dirk’s voice rose with each syllable. He cupped Ryan’s face and stared into his mate’s eyes. The intimate pose struck Kane. He wanted to look away, but he didn’t.
A nurse appeared in the doorway. “Did I hear someone is bleeding?” Jessie wore her hair up in a neat ponytail, her scrubs fresh and unwrinkled. She must have just begun her work shift. By the end of the day, she’d be a disheveled mess. Caring for wounded or emotional shifters in the Sanctuary was no easy task.
“Yes,” Dirk barked. “Get the first-aid cart. Ryan needs attention.”
At his order, she gave a quick nod and left. Kane spun his chair and pushed it closer to Ryan. “Sit.”
Dirk moved Ryan to the chair and pressed him into it. Concern stitched his eyebrows together. He leaned close to Ryan and sniffed deeply. Seeming to deflate, his shoulders sagged. “It wasn’t Anders.”
Ryan jerked. Their gazes met, and something passed between them that made Kane glance away. When Ryan had come to the Sanctuary months ago, he’d been in bad shape. Driven from his clan, beaten and heartbroken after his mate, Anders, decided he no longer wanted him. Later Anders had followed Ryan to the Medve Territory, and Dirk had fought him.
Dirk gently unbuttoned what was left of Ryan’s shirt. The tenderness displayed was hard for Kane to ignore, and a hollow ache took up residence in his stomach.
Dirk’s face mottled red with anger. “Damn. You could have been killed. Where were you?”
“Hiking the trails between the Sanctuary and the waterfalls. I passed the cave and smelled a shifter. He was wounded, bleeding.”
Jessie returned, pushing the first-aid cart. Kane moved aside to allow her room to attend Ryan. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms, mind revolving around the fact there was a wounded shifter hiding in a cave. What had happened to put him there?
Dirk rocked back on his heels and shoved his fingers through his brown hair, sending it into spikes. Ryan hissed as Jessie blotted the blood on his chest with gauze soaked in antibacterial wash. Shifters would heal on their own, but Dirk would have never allowed it. As his new mate, he was very protective of Ryan.
“Another pushed out by his mate?” he asked Ryan.
Kane tensed, waiting for the answer.
Ryan nodded and winced when Jessie prodded the ragged flesh over his pec. “He is. I could smell his sickness.” A shudder ripped through him, and he paled slightly. “Too well I remember that withdrawal. It was stamped all over this poor shifter.”
“Did he give his name?”
A wry smile tipped up the corner of Ryan’s mouth. “He was hardly in the mood for conversation. In fact, he only told me to get out. Several times.” He looked down at the gouges on his chest.
They fell into silence as Jessie finished cleaning the wounds. Then she used gauze strips and tape to bandage the whole area. When she finished, Dirk took Ryan’s hand, scuffing his knuckles with slow, sensual movements of his fingers.
For a long time, Kane had been wanting what shifters like Dirk and Ryan shared. That bond, the person to lean on forever. The hole in Kane’s chest stretched, and he dropped his gaze to his lace-up work boots.
“Kane.”
He glanced up, startled to find Dirk staring at him. “Yes?”
“Go to the cave and see if you can draw the shifter back to the Sanctuary.”
He widened his eyes. “You want me to bring Ryan’s attacker back here?” If it were Kane’s mate who had been attacked, he’d kill the stranger. Was that Dirk’s objective?
Dirk’s mouth tightened. “As much as I want to lay into the man for doing this to my mate, I won’t. He’s hurting, irrational with pain. He needs care, and alone he’ll eventually die.”
Ryan nodded. “He can’t eat. He’s skin and bones.”
Dirk trained his gaze on Ryan, eyes soft. “As you were when you first arrived at the Sanctuary.”
Kane’s heart throbbed heavily.
Dirk’s entire world revolved around Ryan. Turning his hand over, Ryan gripped Dirk’s fingers.
“I’ll go,” Kane said, breaking the moment.
The couple and Jessie looked at him, hope in their eyes. It was their life’s work to care for those shifters who were in need.
Moving toward the door, Kane’s mind jumped ahead to strategy. How would he approach a volatile shifter? After many turbulent years of fighting, he’d come to the Sanctuary seeking something more than discord in his clan, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten how to pin down a wild bear and force them into submission, if that was what it took.
He looked at his scarred knuckles.
Now he persuaded with words, but the wounded shifter might be beyond rational thought.
At the door, he turned back and speared Jessie in his gaze. “Keep the first-aid supplies handy. I might need you to patch me up when I return.”
-Chapter Two-
The shifter was waiting for dark to ambush him.
Bennett closed his eyes and allowed his hearing to roam. This was a different shifter.
They were coming after him.
How many would he have to fight off? How many would he be able to before his energy reserves crashed?
Bennett’s muscled tightened. He wasn’t going to be taken alive. He’d fight to be left alone.
A quiet step, closer.
Bennett readied himself. Niedz Clansmen were warriors. For most of his lifetime, his people had been at war with neighboring clans. Sometimes they even had a scuffle with humans, who believed them to be bear attacks.
As the light streaming into the cave dimmed, Bennett fought his sickness. Though with his nausea and chills came bittersweet memories of Raphael.
They’d met during summer, just before mating season. Raphael was with a war party when they came across Bennett hunting on his own.
Raphael descended from alphas, and though he was not considered a clan leader, he’d beckoned for Bennett to come to him, and he was unable to refuse.
Raphael had seated him at his side before the fire, and they’d talked long into the night. Long enough for Bennett to decide no matter what Raphael’s order had been, he didn’t want to go against him.
He would have followed that bright-eyed, charismatic shifter anywhere.
They shared a meal of fresh moose venison chunks speared on sticks and roasted over the fire. The others sitting with them drifted away to make their beds in the woods for the night, and Raphael had led him far from the group.
In a copse of trees, he’d circled Bennett. The caress of his gaze had been the start of their foreplay. By the time Raphael had made a complete revolution around Bennett, he was aching for the shifter.
In the moonlight he appeared to be all angles—sharp cheekbones, defined chest. The dips and swells of his muscles called to Bennett. But only when Raphael moved in and bit into his neck, claiming him, had Bennett lost his heart.
His stomach cramped, and he folded around it. His mouth watered and for a dizzying moment he thought he’d retch. Gasping, he fought his way to the surface of the sickness.
When he came to, he was drenched in pungent sweat and the shifter was in the cave with him.
Bennett twisted his head, making a sweep of the darkened space. Damn, how long had he been out of it?
He dragged himself forward and sniffed the air. Pine, fresh mint and something darker met his nostrils. Something primal.
This was a strong shifter. Not Niedz—Bennett couldn’t place the shifter with a clan—and he was unmated.