by Abby Blake
PUP Squad Alpha 4
Bears’ Claim
Hannah Long is suddenly afraid of children. She doesn't know why. She doesn't know how. She only knows she has to run. Even when she has to leave the man of her dreams behind.
Eric Johansen is a bear-shifter and Hannah's mate. He hasn't told her yet because she's only twenty-seven and human. When she goes missing he regrets waiting patiently and wants his mate in his arms, right now!
West Rindell, a dedicated member of PUP Squad Alpha, wasn't looking for a mate. He was just trying to do his job and find the missing Oracle's receptacle. But sparks fly when he discovers they are one and the same. The fact that sweet Hannah has a submissive streak just makes things way more interesting.
But if they can't stop the group of assassins on her trail, the future her bear-shifters want could end before it truly gets started.
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among cousins.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 22,044 words
BEARS’ CLAIM
PUP Squad Alpha 4
Abby Blake
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
BEARS’ CLAIM
Copyright © 2012 by Abby Blake
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-706-0
First E-book Publication: June 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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BEARS’ CLAIM
PUP Squad Alpha 4
ABBY BLAKE
Copyright © 2012
Prologue
Her heart pounded, her skin crawled, her breathing faltered. The urge to run was near overwhelming. Every day for the past three she’d forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, but today the fear choked her. She stopped, frozen, unable to move forward, her mind creating an invisible line that she could not cross.
“Hannah? Everything okay?”
Her eyes darted to the familiar face of Dr. Eric Johansen. Hannah dragged in a ragged breath, trying to hide her strange behavior.
“Sure,” she said, taking a step back, moving away from that invisible line. “I…um…am due for a break. I’ll just grab a quick coffee.”
“No worries,” Eric said with his usual kind smile. The man was tall enough to be a basketball professional and wide enough to play football but somehow the pediatrician didn’t scare his young patients at all. The weirdest part was that even Hannah felt the same sort of comfort in the big man’s presence.
Strange, especially considering that her current phobia seemed to revolve around a sweet, seven-year-old child who was too ill to harm a fly. How could a man large enough to snap her in half evoke a sense of peace, but an innocent child incite so much terror?
Eric gave her such a kind look that she very much wanted to blurt out her current problem. Unfortunately, fear for her job—and perhaps embarrassment at her current, unexplained fear—stilled her tongue. Admitting such a crazy phobia while working in the children’s ward would only get her transferred out of the job she loved.
“I’ll…um…just go get that coffee then.”
He nodded, but tilted his head slightly as he assessed her tense body language. “You’ve been working really hard lately. Perhaps you should consider taking a vacation. Lord knows you deserve one. What the board expects from the nurses is beyond ridiculous.”
“True,” Hannah said as they moved down the hallway side by side. Every step away from room five made her feel infinitely better. Perhaps that was all it was. Maybe she was just so overworked that the child represented her need to take a break. “In fact,” she said, warming to the idea, “I’ll head over to personnel during my lunch break. A few weeks sitting on a beach drinking cocktails sounds very appealing.”
The doctor laughed quietly. “That does sound nice. Have a drink for me while you’re at it.”
“Will do,” Hannah said, feeling much calmer as they parted ways.
Chapter One
“Eric,” West Rindell called as soon as he saw his cousin. It had been many years since they’d seen each other, but with bear-shifters living several human lifetimes a decade or two wasn’t really that long. Eric, probably better known in this building as Dr. Johansen, glanced up, smiled, and held up a finger to indicate he’d be there in a moment. He then went back to talking to the young child in front of him.
West and Darian stood back, not wanting to get in the man’s way, but eager to get their mission completed. Tracking down the women who were the potential next victims of a pixie assassin was proving way harder than it should have been. The women were only human after all.
“Hey, cuz,” Eric said as he came over to them and wrapped West in a big bear hug. West hugged him back, surprised to realize how much he’d missed the big guy. They’d grown up together, but about fifty years ago they’d chosen very different career paths. Between West’s assignments with PUP Squad Al
pha and Eric’s hectic life as a pediatrician, neither of them got home very often and very rarely at the same time. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“Official business actually.” West glanced around the crowded corridor. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
“Sure,” Eric said with a concerned frown. He led them to an empty consulting room and locked the door behind them. He leaned against the desk and waited for an explanation.
“We have good reason to believe that one of the nurses who works here has been targeted for assassination by pixies.”
“Are you sure? As far as I know they’re all human. Don’t pixies limit their work to paranormals?”
“Apparently they’ve made an exception for a group of human women.” West didn’t want to say much more than that. The mission was classified on a need-to-know basis, and technically Eric didn’t need to know. “Do you know a nurse called Hannah Long?”
“Hannah?” Eric asked in obvious concern. “She took a vacation four weeks ago. She’s due back to work tomorrow. She was pretty tense last time I saw her, so I was planning on dropping by her place on my way home tonight.”
“So you have her home address?” West asked, watching his cousin’s body language closely. Eric was a caring guy, but his reaction seemed to indicate their relationship was more intimate than simply coworkers. “Just let me grab my keys. I’ll come with you. If she’s home, I can explain who you are, and well if she’s not…” He shrugged, trying to look calm but failing miserably. “Two bears are better than one.”
Darian looked slightly annoyed. He was often mistaken by other paranormals as being simply human. He pulled out his smart phone and started tapping away. “What’s her address?”
Eric grabbed a piece of paper off the notepad on his desk and handed it to Darian. West raised an eyebrow in question, but Eric just shrugged sheepishly. Perhaps Eric’s relationship with Hannah wasn’t as close as he would have liked.
“Got it,” Darian said as he found the coordinates for Hannah’s address. Just before he could open a bounce tunnel, West interrupted with a hand on his shoulder. If he knew one thing at all about the warlock he was working with on this assignment, it was that Darian had the ability to make bounce travel hurt way more than it should if he felt the need. Considering Eric’s assumption and ill-timed “two bears” comment, this bounce was liable to hurt way more than usual.
West didn’t have to say a word. Darian obviously knew what was on his mind because he rolled his eyes and mumbled, “Fine, I’ll play nice.” He did smile rather smugly though when Eric’s mouth fell open at the sight of the bounce tunnel that opened in the room.
“Um…sorry,” Eric managed to mumble as they stepped toward the swirling doorway. “You smell human.”
“That’s the trouble with most shifters,” Darian said with a smirk. “You rely too heavily on what your nose tells you. Maybe once in a while you could use your brain.” He glanced at West and rolled his eyes. “I said I’d play nice. I didn’t say anything about not talking.”
West nodded. He’d only worked with a handful of warlocks over the years, but they all seemed to loathe being mistaken for humans by other paranormals. Considering that they had skills most humans wouldn’t even be able to imagine, it was rather insulting. And to be fair, even if Darian had been human, his cousin should have at least realized by the simple fact that he was working with West that Darian was a highly trained operative. He would certainly be more help in a fight than an unfit, overworked pediatrician who probably hadn’t shifted into his bear form in months.
West stepped into the tunnel and was pleasantly surprised to find the drop to the ground only a few inches and not the several feet it could have been. He nodded his thanks to Darian as Eric stepped out of the tunnel and didn’t break his leg.
As soon as the tunnel closed, West glanced around the area, glad to see that Darian had bounced them into the space between two buildings. If anyone had been walking past the end of the alley, it was unlikely they noticed anything.
“Where to?” he asked as Darian led them out of the alley.
“Third floor.”
West stayed alert as the three of them walked up the steps to the front door of a building without security or a doorman.
A quick glance at Eric showed that he was disturbed by the location of Hannah’s apartment. The elevator had a dust-covered out-of-order sign glued to the door, and it was obvious that it had been that way for some time. They managed to locate the stairs and climbed the three flights quickly. It wouldn’t have made a difference to a pixie assassin where Hannah lived, but the vulnerability of Hannah’s home had them all moving much faster.
A soft knock, a louder rap, and a pounded fist didn’t get a response. Either Hannah wasn’t home or she was refusing to answer the door. Considering his cousin’s emotional attachment to the human, West didn’t even want to consider possibility number three.
“Can you open a bounce tunnel into the living room?”
Darian pressed his face against the frosted glass pane beside the door. “I can’t see well enough to know where I’m going. It might be best if you two wait here.” West checked the corridor for witnesses and then nodded. Within moments Darian was through his bounce tunnel and opening the door from the inside. “You need to see this,” he said as he turned and walked back into the living area of the apartment.
The place was a mess. At first glance it looked like someone had been frantically searching for something, but upon closer inspection it looked more like Hannah had packed in a hurry. But not the sort of packing one would expect if a person were running late for a plane to a vacation destination. No, this was more like grab everything of value and leave the place quickly. Hannah’s closet was trashed. There was a pile of discarded clothes on the bed, but they looked like someone had sorted through them quickly, making instant decisions of what to take and what to leave behind. Even her dresser was empty, the discarded drawers giving the impression they were tipped directly into a suitcase. Whatever Hannah had done here, it wasn’t the kind of packing one would do for a four-week vacation.
The nurse had left in a hurry, and every piece of evidence pointed to her not planning on coming back.
“Was she upset when she went on leave?” Darian asked Eric, obviously having come to some of the same conclusions as West.
“She was stressed,” Eric said, “but that’s not unusual for the nurses working in any hospital.”
“Stressed how? Do you remember anything specific?”
Eric started to shake his head, but frowned instead. “About a week before she went on vacation I found her standing frozen in the corridor. It was as if she couldn’t take a step further. At the time I just thought she was tired, maybe distracted.” He shook his head almost as if he couldn’t believe he was saying the words out loud. “But, well I did wonder briefly if she was spooked by something. She didn’t seem to want to go into room five, and I’m pretty sure I saw other nurses attending to that patient for the rest of the week.” He breathed out a self-deprecating half laugh. “It could just have been coincidence, though.”
“Who was the patient in room five that week?”
“It’s a pediatric ward, so it would have been a young child.” He seemed to search his memory for a few moments before adding, “A young girl suffering severe tonsillitis, I think. If it’s the patient I remember, then she spent most of her time sleeping, before and after her surgery.”
“Did she happen to look like a pixie?” Darian asked.
All the color drained from Eric’s face, but he shook his head. “She wasn’t a pixie. She was a very sick little girl. I would have noticed an indestructible paranormal in my hospital.”
“I’m not saying she was a pixie. Only suggesting that maybe she reminded Hannah of a pixie.”
West didn’t like the direction Darian’s thoughts were taking, but it did seem a very plausible explanation for Hannah’s panicked behavior. But the answe
r only brought more questions. How would she know what a pixie looked like if she’d never seen one? If she’d already been attacked, how had she gotten away long enough to pack her bags and run? Most paranormals had no defense against a pixie assassin. A human would have zero chance. But if Hannah hadn’t seen a pixie, how had she known about them?
Realizing that his thoughts were only taking him in circles, West poked around the bedroom hoping to find some sort of clue on where Hannah had gone.
“Does Hannah own a car?”
“I believe so.” Eric rubbed his forehead tiredly. “It was a little white one. I’m not sure what model.” Darian grimaced, and Eric chose to take it as an insult. With no small amount of irritation he growled, “I’m a doctor, not a mechanic.” Darian seemed surprised by the attack, and held his hands up in a sign of feigned surrender. Great, the last thing West needed was his cousin and his mission partner at each other’s throats.
“Look, Eric, why don’t you head back to the hospital. I’ll call you when we find her.”
“What? No. I need to find her.”
“Eric,” West said, feeling way more tired than he should have, “you just said it yourself. You’re a doctor, not a mechanic, not a soldier. Go back to work. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
“No,” he said, sounding more angry than West could remember hearing from his cousin. “You don’t understand. She’s my mate.”
“Your mate?” West asked, his own heart squeezing in his chest. For bear-shifters, finding one’s mate was a rare and precious thing. Losing Hannah before he could claim her would be devastating for Eric.