by T. S. Joyce
HEART OF THE BEAR
(HELLS CANYON SHIFTERS, BOOK 5)
By T. S. JOYCE
Other Books in this Series
This book is not intended to be a standalone. For your reading enjoyment, the author recommends you read the series in order.
Hells Canyon Shifters
Call of the Bear (Book 1)
Fealty of the Bear (Book 2)
Avenge the Bear (Book 3)
Claim the Bear (Book 4)
Heart of the Bear
Copyright © 2015 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2015, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: January 2015
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoycewrites.wordpress.com
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America
First digital publication: January 2015
Prologue
Rae Lynn Dormer slammed her fist against the desk and scooped everything into an oversized cardboard box on the floor. She didn’t give two squishy shits if she broke anything, because right now, she was in a glorious rage. Her boss, Mark, should hear breaking glass to know exactly how badly he’d messed up.
Stupid bitch? She was stupid bitch for asking for a raise? She’d been working at the Moore Creek Center for Adoption for five years with no increase in pay, and now she was working three people’s jobs because Mark, that ass, couldn’t stop calling her co-workers names. They’d all quit, and now he’d turned his insults on her. She’d made the mistake of letting it slide when he called her an idiot last week, but this was too much, and she wasn’t taking it.
“You’re really going to leave without training someone under you?” Mark asked from the open doorway. He crossed his arms as his dour mouth turned down in disapproval. His thinning hair had been combed too far to the left this morning and was flapping in the breeze that wafted from the vent above his head.
“I would’ve been happy to train someone if you had talked to me in a professional manner in there. I don’t think it’s outrageous for me to ask for a raise at this point. I’m working sixteen hour days with no overtime pay! I don’t even think that’s legal.”
“What about the kids?”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare try and guilt me into staying.”
“I wasn’t saying that you’re a stupid bitch in general, just stupid for asking me about a raise right now.”
She arched her eyebrows until her forehead hurt and scooped up the heavy box. Pens, paperclips, and a pencil holder made by one of the kids clanked together, but not nearly loud enough to match the fury that pounded through her veins. To make up for it, she stomped around his sizable paunch and called out, “Have fun finding someone to work my job,” over her shoulder.
She didn’t need this crap or this stress. Two weeks ago, she’d been offered a job with another adoption agency, and today was the day she was going to change her life. No more late nights or busted social engagements. No more feeling like she’d never get her work done or working late into the night at home when she should’ve been relaxing after a long day. She was going to get a cat! Or a hamster or a flying squirrel or anything cuddly to ease the ache of loneliness this job had dumped on her.
She’d find a new job with normal work hours where she would feel she was actually helping families instead of treading water and getting bogged down in Mark’s mistakes all the time. How many adoptions had fallen through in the last two years because of his carelessness? Two? Three? Too fucking many. And who got to explain that to the hopeful families? She did, and every, single time it leached something from her soul to break their hearts.
No more bad bosses.
From here on, things were going to change.
Her phone trilled from the box, and she frowned at the glowing number. It was a Portland area code that seemed vaguely familiar. She was in no shape to answer the phone right now, though, so she marched around an overgrown azalea bush and balanced the heavy box between herself and her beat up old Honda. Muttering a string of curses for Mark, she dug for her keys as the phone started ringing again.
With a growl, she shoved the box onto the hood and jammed the key into the door to unlock it. Oh, her blood was just boiling! Mark was probably watching her out the window right now with a smirk on his smug little face. She wanted to flip him the bird.
The phone rang again as she pushed the box into her back seat.
“What?” she answered, annoyed at the tenacity of the caller.
“Rae Lynn?” came a small voice.
“Who is this?”
“I don’t know if you remember me, but I talked to you last month about finding an adoptive family for my baby. My name is Shay.”
With a sigh, Rae Lynn sank into the driver’s seat and rested her head on the steering wheel. “I don’t work at the agency anymore, Shay. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“I haven’t talked to anyone else. I only trust you.”
Biting her bottom lip, Rae Lynn knocked her forehead against the steering wheel until a little beep honked out. She felt like grit telling a desperate mother she couldn’t help her anymore. “I can get you in touch with someone else—”
“My son, Samuel, he’s not like regular babies. He’s…we need help.”
Rae Lynn straightened her spine and frowned at a long crack that ran the length of the parking lot. “Are you in trouble?”
“Yes,” the woman murmured. She sounded so frightened. “My people didn’t come back for me. Something has happened to them, and I need to get Samuel to a family who can keep him safe.” Shay inhaled a long, shaky breath. “I need you to take me to Hells Canyon.”
Chapter One
Hells Canyon.
Hells Canyon? Rae Lynn leaned back against the seat cushion as a feeling of rightness settled the fire in her chest. She’d never been there, but she’d heard of it. Wilderness as far as the eye could see covered that mountain range, but she was a city girl. Why the devil would such a place suddenly hold such an instinctive draw for her?
This wasn’t a normal request, though. “Shay, this isn’t how things are done. With adoptions, the mother doesn’t usually physically seek out the family she’d like to take the child. There is usually mediation if they aren’t a close relative. Do you know them?”
“I know the woman, Breshia. Her mate is named Dillon. I’ve never met him, but I want to before I entrust the raising of my son with him.”
“Mate?”
“I have a phone number, but I’m not sure how to go about this. There are…complications, and I won’t be welcome where they live. I need an unbiased third party to take me and mediate. I need you to do it. Please.”
Rae Lynn gripped the phone and sighed. “I won’t be able to do the paperwork for the adoption, though, Shay. I’ve just quit the adoption center.”
> “I don’t trust anyone else.”
Why she felt she could trust Rae Lynn without meeting her was beyond her understanding, but the woman sounded desperate and sad. She shouldn’t get involved, not like this, but if the woman was in trouble like she’d said, Rae Lynn couldn’t just turn her back on someone like that. She’d been raised by a single mother who’d needed help from their community. It’s why she’d wanted to work at the adoption center in the first place. It was her calling, and helping someone in need like this felt important. More important than what made sense right now, but she’d have to think more on that later.
“How far away is Hells Canyon?” she asked.
“Oh, thank God. You’ll do it then?”
“How far?”
“It’s a five hour drive. I don’t have a car, but I can pay for gas.”
“I need to stop by and grab an overnight bag. Text me your address, and I’ll pick you and Samuel up after I’m done.” The line went silent. “Shay, are you still there?”
The woman sniffled through the line. “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m here. I’m just…thank you for doing this.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Last time we spoke on the phone, you said you were thinking about raising Samuel yourself. What happened to change your mind?”
“It takes a village to raise a child, especially a child as special as Samuel.” Shay’s voice hitched with emotion. “My village is dead.”
The line clicked and went silent, and as Rae Lynn frowned at the screen of her cell, Shay’s address popped up in her texts. This day had started off strange and was ending the same. At least her life was consistent.
Okay, so she was going to road trip with a stranger into the mountains. She made a mental note to pack both bug spray and mace, then shut the driver’s side door.
A fifteen minute drive through town brought her to the apartment building she’d been renting for the last few years. The price was a little steep, but it was close to work and convenient to the grocery store. Both were equally important to someone who was chained to her job, but who relieved work stress by cooking.
One packed duffle bag, her multi-tool shoved into her back pocket, and a wave for the neighbor down the hall who always stared at her boobs, and she was ready to camp. Or she thought she was. She’d never actually been camping, and when Shay mentioned Hells Canyon, the only thing Rae Lynn could recall hearing about it was the award-winning campsites inside the park. Surely, she’d be able to track down a hotel in an outlying town for the night, but just in case, she had the multi-tool, and she was prepared.
Whatever she’d expected to find when she reached the long winding driveway of the address Shay had texted her, it wasn’t this. Shay lived in a mansion.
Forest surrounded the house on all sides, and giant marble columns propped up a sprawling front porch. It looked like a plantation house from the turn of the century made of deep red brick with summer rose gardens, and a babbling fountain in front.
Rae Lynn checked the address on her phone for the third time. With a shake of her head, she stepped onto the wraparound front porch and toward the mahogany door, then rang the bell. Several notes chimed inside. Rae Lynn pursed her lips and scanned the front yard. The exterior of the house was spotless, but the yard was overgrown.
The door flew open, scaring the piddle out of Rae Lynn. Lurching backward, she threw her hands over her face, then peeked through her fingers. Shay—or so she assumed it was Shay because the woman draped a heavy bag over Rae Lynn’s arms—didn’t so much as nod a greeting.
A baby’s cry filled the hot afternoon air.
“Can you put these in the back of the car? I’m going to grab Samuel, and then I’m ready to leave this place.” Shay said this place like the words were bitter in her mouth.
Utterly baffled, Rae Lynn hefted a trio of bags to the trunk of her Honda, and when she turned around, Shay was there, cradling a small baby with a car seat dangling from her other hand.
The woman seemed confused on how to put the car seat in the back, so Rae Lynn fastened it in and made sure it was tight and secure before she took Samuel from Shay’s arms and buckled him. He was a handsome little fellow with dark hair. His eyes were a steely gray color. Perhaps they were from his father, or perhaps from Shay. Rae Lynn couldn’t tell because Samuel’s mother hadn’t taken her sunglasses off.
Shay groaned and bent in half. A strange noise, like a low rattling sound, radiated from her chest, and Rae Lynn stooped to rub her back. “Are you all right?”
Shay’s skin had gone pale, and a sheen of sweat moistened her forehead and cheeks. “I’m fine. Just not feeling well.”
Maybe Shay was sick. Maybe she was bad off, and that’s why she felt the pressure to find Samuel a home. Sadness washed over Rae Lynn as she looked from the woman to her tiny baby, gurgling away in his car seat.
She helped Shay into the passenger seat, then made her way around the front. A cloud covered the sun and cast Shay’s imposing house into shadow. It suddenly looked haunted. Rae Lynn’s instinct to flee this place was overwhelming. She half-expected to see ghosts staring out the windows as she tore her gaze away and slid behind the wheel. Whatever had happened here over the life of this house had tainted it, and nothing in her regretted not going inside.
“If you’re feeling sick, tell me, and I’ll pull the car over, okay?”
Shay nodded her head and rested her cheek against the window. Her arms were wrapped tightly across her middle, as if she were trying to hold herself together.
“Pulling the car over won’t fix what’s wrong with me,” Shay said in a somber tone. “Best you get us to the Seven Devils Mountains as fast as you can. It’ll be safer for all of us there.”
****
Something was definitely wrong with Shay.
She’d fallen asleep against the window, but was groaning as if she’d been in pain for nearly five hours now. As Rae Lynn pulled onto a smaller two-lane road that led farther into the mountains, Shay woke up and handed Rae Lynn her cell phone. It was already dialing. “I need you to tell Breshia we are on our way with Samuel.”
“If you know her, why don’t you want to talk to her yourself?” Rae Lynn asked.
The line clicked and a rich, masculine voice answered. “Ranger tower, this is Jesse.”
“Uhhh…” Rae Lynn searched desperately for inspiration. Shay hadn’t exactly prepared her. “May I please speak to Breshia?”
The line was quiet for a moment. “Who is this?” Jesse asked.
“My name is Rae Lynn Dormer. I’m on my way to Hells Canyon with a client of mine, and we need to get in touch with Breshia and her husband.”
“Mmm-kay,” he drawled out. “Now, what are you?”
Rae Lynn narrowed her eyes at the road passing under her tires. What a rude ass to phrase a question like that. She wasn’t a what. She was more than her occupation. “I’m an adoption agent. Or I was… Look, is Breshia there or not?”
“An adoption agent for who?”
“For Shay Woodard—who, again, is looking for Breshia.” Not some nosy a-hole in a ranger tower.
“Breshia is down in Joseph.”
“Do you have a number I can reach her at?” Rae Lynn shrugged at Shay’s questioning glance.
“Look, lady—”
“Rae Lynn.”
A long, steady sigh sounded through the speaker. “Look, Rae Lynn, I’m not a phone operator, nor do I have all of the phone numbers of everyone around here. I can’t help you.”
“Jesse, was it?”
“Mmm hmm. Jesse Hayes.”
Rae Lynn gripped the wheel with her free hand until her knuckles turned white. She gritted her teeth. “Mr. Hayes, I’ve had a shitty day, okay? I quit my job, and now I’m making an unexpected road trip all the way from Portland to meet up with a woman I can’t seem to get a hold of. Surely, you can at least point me in the right direction.”
“You sound like a feisty littl
e thing.” The irritating man’s voice sounded amused, but then it darkened when he said, “You’ll need that if you bring that woman up here.”
“Why does everything sound like a half-veiled threat today?”
Shay groaned again and buckled into herself.
“What was that?” Jesse asked, like he could actually hear Shay, which was impossible.
“What was what?”
“Don’t play coy with me, woman. Is she bleeding?”
“Who? Shay? No, she’s not bleeding.”
“Does she look sick?”
Alarms rang like freaking fire engines in her head. In a small voice, she squeaked out, “Yes.”
“Shit. Please tell me you aren’t in the car with her.”
Rae Lynn cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “Should I not be?”
“How far away are you from Hells Canyon?” His voice didn’t sound amused anymore. It sounded worried and demanding.
“GPS says we are about ten minutes away from the campsites. I see the turn-off for them right now.”
“Don’t turn into there! Go straight until you see a dirt road veering off into the woods about a mile down the road. Take a right on that, and it’ll bring you right to the ranger station. Everything will be okay. Just come straight to me. Now, hand the phone to Shay.”
Rae Lynn did as she was told, and even from her seat across the car, she could hear Jesse yelling at the woman in the passenger’s seat.
“Fuck you. I have more control than that,” Shay said in a breathy voice. “I won’t. I swear I won’t. Just have Breshia come for my son, and then let me go. I won’t ever bother your kind again.”
She hung up the phone as Rae Lynn turned onto the dirt road Jesse had instructed her to. “What’s happening?” she asked. “And don’t give me some bullshit answer. What have you got me into?”
“What’s happening?” Shay repeated, angling her face as she slowly slid her sunglasses down her nose. Her eyes were a blazing gold color over a slow, feral looking smile. “You’re about to find out all about monsters, Rae Lynn.”