Knox went back to watching Skye and couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the fact he and his twin were similar in another way too—he didn’t want her to give up her dream to be with him. He knew how important her bar was to her and that meant he was going to be splitting his time between Black Ridge and town, just like Lowe split his time between it and the place where Cameo had rented a small bolthole.
Cameo was determined to continue doing her job as a ranger for as long as she could before people began noticing she was barely ageing now thanks to the bond she had with Lowe. She had managed to move to a position closer to Black Ridge, but still had to spend weekdays staying in her rented home so she could get to work.
Knox missed his brother in the weeks where he stayed with his mate. He glanced at Skye again. Maybe she could keep him distracted. In fact, there was no maybe about it. All he needed to do was time his stays at her place so they coincided with Lowe staying with Cameo and he would be so swept up in his mate that he would forget about missing his brother.
“I know that look,” Lowe grunted, gaining his attention. His brother shot him a smile. “You’ll still miss me… believe me.”
Lowe always had been able to read him.
He felt better about it when Lowe patted Knox’s shoulder.
“I always miss you too.” Lowe took the cooler from him and started towards the females. “Gods know why… although you might be more bearable now you’re mated.”
Saint chuckled.
Knox scowled at Lowe’s back and stalked after his twin. “Yeah, well, life with you has hardly been all peaches and cream. I got to remind you how grouchy you were before you finally mated?”
Cameo raised her beer in the air. “You don’t have to remind me. I was there!”
The females erupted in giggles and Saint chuckled again as Lowe huffed.
Saint slapped Knox on the back, jerking him forwards, towards his brother. “You’ll both still miss each other, and for some godsdamned reason I’ll miss you both too. The Ridge is just too damned quiet when both of you aren’t around.”
Knox hadn’t even thought about how his alpha felt about him and Lowe being away from the pride. He glanced at Saint and then turned to him, lifted his hand and gripped his shoulder as he smiled at him, hoping to reassure him that both he and Lowe would be safe and they would be careful too. Nothing would happen to them.
Besides, he had the feeling that it would be sooner rather than later that Cameo and Skye ended up moving to Black Ridge, although if Skye did that, she could still work at her bar. He looked over his shoulder at them. Both females looked incredibly at home as they stood near the firepit in the middle of the clearing and laughed at something Holly had said.
His heart warmed at the sight of Skye.
She turned to him, her dark eyes lighting up with her smile, and he growled low as she came to him, her hips kicking with each step, stoking his hunger. He swept her into his arms and kissed her, eliciting another cheer from everyone present, and then led her to one of the logs.
Cameo followed them and handed Knox a beer and he eased down onto a log beside Skye. He thanked her by tipping the bottle towards her and grew deeply aware of Skye as she leaned into his side, as she laughed and talked, as her happiness filled him too.
Afternoon turned to evening, and Maverick and Rune joined them, congratulated him and Skye and then made off with two of the brownies Holly had set out on a table for dessert. She chased after them, chastising them, causing Saint to chuckle.
Saint looked towards the Creek and Knox looked there too. He smiled when he saw Rath and everyone coming out of the woods. The four cougar brothers had relaxed a lot over the past few months, the uneasy truce between Black Ridge and Cougar Creek becoming a solid friendship that often saw them visiting each other to pass an evening like this.
As night fell, the smell of steaks had Knox’s stomach growling. He rubbed at it, his mouth watering at the thought of them as he watched Lowe working his magic.
A howl cut through the darkness.
Everyone fell silent.
Rune stiffened and looked off towards the woods behind Knox, on the other side of the creek.
And then he was gone.
“What—?” Skye twisted, looked in the direction Rune had sprinted and then back at Knox.
Her nerves ran into him through their bond.
He took hold of her hand as the wolf howled again, as she tensed and turned a fearful look on the dark trees across the creek. “Rune will be fine. He just really hates wolves. He’ll chase it off so we’re all safe and then he’ll be back.”
Saint looked at Maverick.
Maverick nodded and gave chase.
“The way you said that… Was that a regular wolf… or are there werewolves up here too?” She cast another glance at the woods.
Knox slid his arm around her shoulder and tucked her against him, making her look at him again.
“The wolves live in the valley next door. Run a lodge there.” Saint came to sit on the other side of her and Knox appreciated the hell out of the male reassuring his mate and making her feel safe and protected.
Her voice gained pitch.
“Wait? White Wolf Lodge? The tourist cabins?” Before anyone could answer that, she shrugged it off. “I’m starting to see this world in a whole new light.”
Knox tugged her closer to him and she glanced at him, lingered as their eyes met. “Welcome to my crazy world.”
She smiled. “Our crazy world.”
Looked as if she wanted to kiss him.
“Honey-bourbon-glazed steaks are ready,” Lowe announced.
Knox groaned, torn between kissing her and grabbing one before the others could. Skye must have felt the war within him, the pain caused by the thought of everyone but him getting their hands on the delicious, sweet steaks that he was sure Lowe had made just for him, a special treat to celebrate his mating, because she frowned at him.
“You really should keep a hive if you love honey that much.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. I just got why you have a honey obsession. You’re a bear!”
Everyone laughed.
Even Skye.
Her eyes lit up with it, with the love he could feel in her. His female. His mate. His Skye.
Knox growled and silenced her with a kiss.
Might have thought about drizzling her with honey and bourbon and licking it off her.
The End
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Unleashed by her Bear - Preview
Another wave of sickness rolled over her, bringing darkness in its wake again, and Callie fought it, fearing she would pass out. She couldn’t pass out. She panted hard, each rapid breath stirring the old brown pine needles as she flopped onto her side, battling the encroaching darkness. She had to stay awake. If she passed out, she would shift, and if she shifted…
Sickness washed through her again, her stomach turning at just the thought.
So she waged a war against the pain that burned inside her, fire that seared her right hind leg and was growing stronger with every agonising second that trickled past. She waged a war with her body, refusing t
o let go of her wolf form, desperately clinging to it because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
Callie mustered enough strength to continue her assault on the thick wire that had tightened around her right leg, twisted and frantically chewed on it. The metallic taste of it was joined with that of blood on her tongue as she bit closer to her leg. The snare had already cut deep into her flesh. If she couldn’t get it loose, if she couldn’t stop the pain from forcing her to shift back or the darkness from taking her, something that would also result in her returning to her human form, that snare was going to cause her a world of pain far worse than it was now.
As her ankle grew, the wire would slice into her flesh and hobble her by either causing a wound so deep she wouldn’t be able to place weight on her leg or by snapping the bone. Hell, it might even take her foot clean off. Wounds and broken bones she could mend, but she couldn’t grow her foot back.
She snarled and growled, bit the wire and shook her head, trying to loosen it and free herself.
All the while aware of her surroundings, that at any moment the men who were after her could catch up with her.
She stilled, somehow made it through another wave of nausea that threatened to have her blacking out, and gave herself a moment to recover before attacking the old hunter’s trap again. She couldn’t afford to waste a second. She had to keep moving.
She had lost Carrigan and his men at the start of this valley, but every second she spent trying to free herself was a second that brought them closer to finding her.
She cursed and it came out as a mournful howl, something she regretted as the night went deathly still. That howl would carry for miles, giving away her position, but her wolf side was agitated, her instinct to call for help strong. Somewhere out there was White Wolf Lodge. She had to be close to it by now. If she called for help, someone might hear her and come to find her.
Someone might save her.
She should have reached that place of sanctuary by now, feared she had missed it somehow, even when she wasn’t sure how that was possible. By all accounts, the lodge was large, with many tourist cabins on one side of the property, and just as many cabins for the wolf shifters who called it home on the other. It wasn’t possible that she had managed to miss such a large group of cabins.
The urge to howl again rushed through her as the snare tightened further rather than loosening. Callie tamped it down, deeply aware that Carrigan was closing in on her, terrified of him finding her. Her heart laboured at just the thought, fear swift to sink sharp talons into her and seize hold of her, to shake and rattle her.
She couldn’t go back to his pack.
She just couldn’t.
The things he had threatened to do to her and the way the other males had looked at her, and the state of the females she had seen there, all ran around her head, tormenting her, working to tear down what little strength she had as they terrified her. She wasn’t there now. She was free. Almost. She glared at the wire and started biting it again, shaking her head as she managed to get a fang into the loop, working it loose. She had escaped from that place, had narrowly avoided suffering the same terrible fate those females had, and she wasn’t going back.
She wouldn’t let him catch her.
She wouldn’t.
If it came down to it, she would risk hobbling herself.
Gods, the thought of shifting back and allowing the wire to cut into her leg sickened her, hit her hard enough that she immediately changed her mind. She couldn’t do it. She released the wire when her efforts to loosen it did nothing and flopped onto her side again, panting hard, needing a moment to breathe.
She had tried to shift back a few times, to let the snare slice into her ankle, but each time fear had stopped her.
Callie angled her head and stared through the canopy of the evergreen forest, past spindly pine and spruce branches and the thicker ones of the firs, gazing at the clear night sky. A million stars spotted it even in the smallest of gaps, the sight of them seeming to calm her as they gave her something else to focus on. A voice in the back of her mind whispered that she wasn’t going to get out of this trap without shifting back, without accepting the pain that would come with her transformation into her human form. If she didn’t find the strength to embrace that pain and do what was necessary, then Carrigan would find her.
Surely it was better to suffer a short burst of pain that would linger for a few days at most than subject herself to years of abuse? Years of being used by males who believed they owned her and had a right to her body. Years of living with males who looked down on her, treating her as inferior, as something that existed to serve them.
She huffed, blowing pine needles in all directions as her head dropped back to the ground.
All wolf packs were the same. Females were inferior, had few rights and never a say in anything, even in the more progressive packs in Canada. She had thought her pack different once, back when her family had been alive and she had been young and blind to the true nature of it. Then, when she had learned of the European packs and how many of them were making grand, sweeping changes to bring about equality, she had started to take a good hard look at her pack and hadn’t liked what she had seen.
But even her pack had started looking progressive when she had seen the one Carrigan ran.
At least the males at her family’s pack hadn’t done as they pleased with females, taking them whether they were willing or not, slaking their urges whenever they struck with little regard for how it made the female feel.
Carrigan treated the female members of his pack as if they existed only to please the males.
Callie stared at the trunk of the nearest towering pine, the breeze stirring her black fur.
The White Wolf pack were meant to be different. More than just progressive. The alpha there believed in treating females with respect and kindness. He listened to them, even went as far as seeking their opinions about things and involving them in the running of his pack.
A pack that was made up of wolves from every corner of Canada and some from south of the border too.
According to the things she had heard, the pack alpha accepted anyone who came to him, no questions asked.
Gods, she hoped that was true.
She wouldn’t blame him if he did turn her away though. She was bringing trouble in her wake, something he would have to deal with for her, and the closer she got to meeting him, the more she felt she was asking too much of a male she didn’t know. She wasn’t just asking him to take her in. She was asking him to fix her problem for her too.
Callie looked at her leg and the trap.
None of that mattered right now though. If she didn’t escape this snare, she wouldn’t even get the chance to find out whether the male would welcome her into his pack as he had everyone else. She would never know whether he might have dealt with her problem for her, or at the very least helped her deal with it.
Carrigan would find her and would drag her back to his pack.
She pulled herself together, shunning the part of her that wanted to give up, and sat up again. The wire was slick with her blood as she bit at it, getting her fang into the loop again, twisting her body at an awkward angle in order to make another attempt at loosening it.
Only she locked up tight as she heard a noise in the distance.
Her ears twitched, flicking back and forth, her senses reaching out in all directions as her heart laboured and fear mounted inside her. Was it Carrigan? One of his men?
The warm night breeze swirled around her, carrying the scent of pine needles and damp dirt.
And male.
But the rich, earthy scent wasn’t one she recognised.
Callie looked at the wire looped around her right leg, dread pooling in her stomach. Was it the hunter come to claim his prize?
Panic seized her, fear that she was going to end up stuffed and mounted on display, or worse, her skin spread out as a rug before a fire, flooding her. She bolted into action on inst
inct, yelped as the wire pulled taut and cut into her flesh, reminding her she couldn’t escape. Her instincts went haywire as fear rolled through her, bringing her primal ones to the fore. In her current form, it meant her wolf ones. The instinct to survive had her wrestling against the wire and no matter how hard she tried to shut it down, she couldn’t calm herself enough to convince herself to stop trying to escape something that was inescapable.
The scent grew stronger, filling her lungs as she heard soft footsteps approaching her, and a strange calm came over her, eased her fear enough that she could think straight and wrest back control from her primal instincts. She didn’t question it, just attacked the wire again, biting at it and shaking her head, loosening it.
And it was loosening.
Callie could almost taste her freedom.
A pair of heavy black boots stepped into view.
She locked up tight, fear drumming through her veins, her heart thundering as she slowly lifted her gaze.
Taking in the mountain of a male who was striding towards her with grim purpose.
Not a wolf.
Not a hunter either.
This towering brute who looked as if he was darkness made flesh in a black fleece that stretched tight over an impossibly broad chest and jeans that hugged legs like tree trunks, with his dark hair cut close to his scalp to reveal a deep scar that darted from his left temple to the crown of his head was something else.
And the look in his cold, emotionless pale blue eyes said he wanted to kill her.
Unleashed by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 4)
Saved by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 3) Page 18