by Zoe Chant
Bad Boy Bear
(Bears of Pinerock County #2)
by Zoe Chant
This book was previously titled Bad Boy Biker Bear.
Copyright Zoe Chant 2016
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
A note from Zoe Chant
Next in the Bears of Pinerock County series …
This book was previously titled Bad Boy Biker Bear.
If you already bought this book under its previous title and accidentally bought it again, you can return it to Amazon and get a full refund. If you borrowed it, you can return it and borrow a new book at no extra cost. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have any questions or issues.
Chapter One
In the woods behind the town of Silver Hill, where she'd lived all her life, Saffron Blake ran as hard as she could.
She ran for her virtue, for her honor, and perhaps for her life.
Saffron was wearing a wedding dress with a heavy leather jacket thrown over the top of it. The jacket helped protect her otherwise bare arms from whipping branches, but long folds of white tulle swished around her legs, catching on twigs, getting tangled under her feet. She stumbled, ripped them free, and kept going. The lacy dress, snow-white and unblemished a half-hour ago, was quickly becoming a ragged, dirty wreck.
Saffron didn't care. She hadn't picked it out. She hadn't wanted any of this at all.
She hoped her parents wouldn't be in too much trouble for helping her escape. She hated to leave them behind, to leave all her friends and family at the mercy of the Black Wings gang. But right now, the most important thing was getting out of town before she was irrevocably trapped in a lifelong nightmare from which there was no escape.
It had only been two weeks since her twenty-fifth birthday, when all of this had started. On that day, the leader of the Black Wings, the shifter gang that had run Silver Hill since the days when it was a frontier mining town, had walked into her father's hardware store and announced that Saffron was going to marry him.
She'd lived all her life in Silver Hill, and all that time she'd watched the Black Wings riding through town on their sleek motorcycles, and the way everyone turned away in fear when they passed by. People spoke about them with veiled fear and hatred, but were afraid to speak in more than whispers. The Black Wings could march into any shop in town and demand anything they liked.
Even if what they wanted was her.
Saffron's family had protested. They'd first tried to talk the Black Wings out of it, and then threatened them with lawyers, although Saffron knew that her family's shaky financial situation meant they'd probably have to sell the store to afford it. Meanwhile the neighbors had drawn away, isolating her family and leaving them to face the Black Wings alone. Saffron had become a pariah in town; people she'd known all her life turned away when she walked down the street. No one wanted to draw the gang's anger.
Meanwhile, the wedding dress had arrived on her doorstep in a large silver box. It was more expensive than anything her family could ever have afforded, and she absolutely hated it. It just figured, Saffron thought grimly, tripping again and leaving yet another length of tulle tangled in the bushes, that the one chance she had to run, she'd be wearing the stupid thing.
Ever since Creed had selected her as his bride, she hadn't been allowed to leave her house. There were always four or five Black Wings hanging out in the yard, trampling her mother's flower garden and leaning on the leather seats of their bikes. But her family had talked Creed into letting her go to Tina Hopewell's dressmaking shop to have alterations done. The dress had to fit her properly, didn't it?
And Tina Hopewell had been friends with Saffron's mother ever since they were little girls. There was a door out the back of the shop. Saffron wished she'd had time to change, but with Tina and her mother distracting the gang, all she'd been able to do was grab her jacket before she fled.
She had always been a jacket-and-jeans kind of girl, cultivating a bad-girl persona, at least by the standards of her small town. As a teenager she had dyed a purple stripe in her hair, and gotten a few little tattoos. Now she wished she hadn't, because she thought that might have been what attracted Creed. He was probably thinking how nice she'd look sitting on the back of his bike.
I'm not sitting on any damn bike. Not for you.
She thought about shifting to her fox, leaping out of her dress and running through the woods on four paws instead of the two human feet that were currently wearing uncomfortable white slippers, highly impractical for running through the woods. But then she'd be completely naked when she shifted back—and, anyway, the highway was right ahead of her.
She scrambled up the embankment, just as a trucker came roaring along in an 18-wheeler. Wildly she waved her arms, but he didn't see her, or if he did, he didn't bother to stop.
Panting, she sank down in a heap of wedding dress remnants. For a moment she thought about how she must look: a woman in a black leather jacket over the top of a torn-up wedding dress. Her hair had been pinned up at the dressmaker's, but now it was falling down in a messy tangle of dark curls with leaves and sticks caught in them.
No wonder the trucker had driven by, she thought, ruefully picking a leaf out of her hair. She must look like a crazy woman.
Another truck was coming. Saffron pulled herself to her feet, limping in her stupid little white shoes. She stuck out her thumb, but the truck showed no signs of slowing down, and didn't even bother pulling over to give her more room. It whipped past mere feet from her face, swirling her messed-up hair and what was left of her white skirt in a cloud of blowing dust.
"Yeah, same to you, buddy!" she yelled after him.
And then she thought: I'm doomed. She should have had a better plan for getting out of town, but there had been no time to think of one, and no better opportunities with her family being watched all the time. How long could she stay here before the Black Wings came after her?
Nervously she looked up at the sky. A bird flitted by and she flinched, but it was only a swallow. Not a hawk or an eagle or any of the other birds favored by the Black Wings.
They'll be coming, though. You can't run far enough and fast enough to escape, not on foot.
If only someone would stop for her.
Chapter Two
Remy Hayes cruised down the open highway. Nothing but empty road ahead of him and the song of his motorcycle tires underneath him—just the way he liked it.
He felt lighter and less trapped with every mile that passed, taking him further away from Pinerock County and his bear clan's ranch. He should have done this years ago. In fact, he wasn't sure why he never had.
He tried to squash all his second guessing, the little voice of conscience, or maybe just nervousness, telling him he'd made a mistake.
Alec, his clan alpha, had not taken Remy's departure well at all. Alec had a thing for wanting to keep everything exactly like it had always been. But things were changing, now that Alec's brother Axl had found his mate and brought her back to live at the ranch. And Remy thought maybe that was a sign that it was time for things to change for him, too. He'd lived in Pinerock County his whole life, but as much as he loved the ranch, he'd never quite felt lik
e he fit in there. It was becoming obvious to him that he wasn't going to find a mate of his own in the sparsely populated rural county where he'd lived all his life. If he wanted to get his real life started, he had to go out and find it.
And his bear was restless. His bear wanted to be on the road. If he was perfectly honest with himself, it felt as if his bear was pushing him toward something. He'd been having itchy feet for years—wanting to travel, wanting to see something different—but it had really kicked into high gear after Axl's mate Tara came to live at the ranch.
Remy's bear wanted something. Remy wasn't sure entirely what, but he did know it couldn't be found in Pinerock County. His bear wanted him on the road.
And sometimes he saw flashes of a beautiful woman with brilliant blue eyes. It was the eyes he remembered, waking from fragmentary dreams. Was she real? He wasn't sure, but he felt as if he'd never be able to rest unless he knew for sure.
He'd told his brother Cody first. The two had always been close, and Cody was supportive of his decision. "Alec's going to hate it, though," his brother had said, his usually good-humored expression turning serious.
"I'll deal with Alec."
He had, in all honesty, thought about slipping out under the cover of darkness. Not telling Alec, just leaving. Alec might not even notice for days, since Remy no longer lived at the ranch; he rented a room in town. But he was back at the ranch almost every day anyway, having dinner with the rest of his clan or helping out with the cattle roundups.
And if Alec found out that he'd left without asking the clan alpha's permission, he might not have a clan to come back to.
So he'd told Alec. And Alec, just as Remy was afraid of, had exploded. He'd accused Remy of abandoning the clan and threatened to exile him. All the while, Axl was yelling at Alec, and Axl's mate Tara was yelling at both of them.
Alec had ended up shifting into his enormous grizzly. For an instant Remy had braced himself, unsure if he was about to have to shift and defend himself in a fight. He could feel his bear rising up angrily inside him. But Alec just snarled at all of them and stalked off into the wilderness around the ranch.
Remy had turned to look at his remaining cousin. "Do you think that means he's giving me permission to leave?"
"I think you'd better leave before he comes back," Axl had said, dryly.
So Remy had grabbed his to-go bag, and gone.
Which meant things with Alec were still unresolved.
In spite of his outwardly intimidating appearance—big, tattooed, with close-cropped hair and a studded leather jacket—Remy didn't like getting into fights. Oh, he'd fight if he had to, of course, to protect other people or defend himself. But he hated the idea that he might have to get into a real fight with Alec, if he ever wanted to come back to the ranch that had been his home for his entire life.
I just hope we're not making a terrible mistake, he told his bear.
We're not, his bear replied. There's something better out there for us. Something we'd be missing out on, otherwise. I can feel it.
Remy thought of a pair of blue eyes, as bright as the summer sky over the ranch, and leaned into the wind.
***
After four more trucks and two cars refused to stop for her, Saffron sank into a despondent heap by the side of the road.
I've made a terrible mistake. I never should have tried to run. It'll just make it worse when they catch me and take me back.
This time, a voice answered from inside her. It was the voice of her fox, which was usually still and quiet inside her. The only time it had spoken to her lately was a single word, back at Tina Hopewell's dressmaking shop: Run!
Now it told her to be calm. We're going to get out of this.
How do you know? she demanded, and scanned the sky again. It remained blue and empty. They'd noticed she was missing by now, surely?
The distant roar of an engine galvanized her into action. She scrambled to her feet, and then halted nervously. That wasn't the sound of a truck. It was the roar of a motorcycle.
They've found me! she thought in terror.
Don't run! her fox told her. That's not the Black Wings. It's someone else. Someone you're going to want to meet.
For having been mostly quiet all her life, her fox certainly had become opinionated and chatty now. She didn't know quite how to react. But she had grown up in a shifter family, and her parents had always told her that a shifter's animal was often wiser than their human mind.
So she waited and nervously stuck out her thumb as the motorcycle drew closer. Her fox was right, it wasn't one of the Black Wings' bikes, and the rider wasn't wearing their colors—the blood-red jackets with the big black eagle's wing on the back that they all wore. He was wearing a helmet, though, so she couldn't see much of him otherwise.
The bike slowed and pulled off onto the shoulder. The driver swung his leg down. He was a big guy, broad-shouldered and tall, and she couldn't help admiring the spread of those impressive shoulders under his motorcycle leathers. But she couldn't see anything of his face, just the tinted visor of his helmet turned toward her. She had no idea what he was thinking as he looked at her. Probably that she was some kind of crazy lady wearing a filthy wedding dress. But ... he had stopped for her. The thought belatedly occurred to her that she'd never hitchhiked before and wasn't even sure about the proper etiquette at this point.
"Um ... I need a ride?"
"Yeah," he said, slightly muffled. "I figured from the way you were holding your thumb out."
Then he reached up with black-gloved hands and pulled his helmet off.
Saffron wasn't sure what she expected. The only bikers she'd met were the Black Wings, most of whom were big scary guys, the kind with scars and broken noses from getting into bar fights.
This guy was nothing like them at all.
The first thing that hit her was a pair of the most gorgeous gray-green eyes she'd ever seen. His face was sculpted and rugged, too masculine to be beautiful, but strikingly perfect; she'd never seen a pair of cheekbones like that except on movie stars. His hair was cropped close to his head, and the harsh style suited him, lending an extra touch of powerful masculinity.
His face lit up with a gorgeous smile, and at the same moment, Saffron felt a fierce surge of ... something. She'd never felt anything like it before, desire and attraction and a great heat spreading outward from her chest. Right then she wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anyone. She wanted to pull him off the motorcycle, tear all his clothes off, and have him take her right there on the roadside. Just standing here looking at him was making her impossibly wet.
She'd heard of this moment from her parents, but with everything happening with the Black Wings, she'd never thought she would get a chance to experience it for herself.
"You're my mate!" she said before she could stop herself. Inside, her vixen preened in delight.
"You're real!" he said with equal delight.
"Real?" she repeated, startled.
"Yes, I've been dreaming about you. My bear—" He hesitated. "You're a shifter, aren't you? You knew; I mean, you recognized me too just now, didn't you? My cousin Axl is mated to a human woman, and she didn't know what she was feeling—"
"Yes, I'm a shifter." She was beaming now, the desperate terror of a few minutes ago temporarily forgotten. "I'm a fox, a gray fox. You're a bear? Really? What kind?" A bear could stand up to even the Black Wings' alpha, couldn't he? Creed was an eagle, the biggest she'd ever seen, and he had some black bears and big cats in his gang, but maybe—
"Grizzly," the motorcyclist said with another of those beautiful, panty-melting grins, and hope, pure hope, flared in her for the first time since Creed had pointed at her and said, That one, she's mine.
Thinking of Creed made her look up at the sky, and she gasped in dismay. Birds of prey were circling high above them, two hawks and a dark-winged vulture. Just one of them might be an ordinary bird, but all three together—no. No. They'd found her.
"What's wrong?"
She shook her head wildly. For an instant she was torn with desperate indecision. If she went with him, he'd be in terrible danger. But if she stayed—
"There are terrible people after me," she said. "See those birds up there? Those are some of their scouts."
"Well, what are you waiting for, then? Get on, quick!"
He handed her his helmet, and she climbed onto the pillion seat behind his. Just touching him was an experience, even through his heavy leather jacket. Little sparks seemed to dance through her. She had to lift up the tattered skirt of her wedding dress, all too conscious that she was wearing nothing under it except a lacy pair of underwear, and spread her legs, straddling the bike. His narrow hips nested between hers. The idling engine throbbed under her, vibrating her clit lightly against her underwear. Oh God. Being this close, having him there, made her tingle everywhere. Was it possible to have an orgasm just from touching somebody?
I could strip the panties off right now—lift up the skirt of this stupid dress, have him bend me over the bike, take me with his jacket still on—
"Helmet on," he said, breaking into her thoughts before the fantasy could really get going. "It's going to be much too big for you, but better than nothing."
"I know," she said, shaking her mind out of the places it was going. She pulled the helmet over her unpinned mess of hair. "I've always wanted to ride, but I could never afford a bike."
"Well, now's your chance." He revved the motorcycle; the big engine roared, and a surge of excitement and desire flared in her. The open road waited in front of them, and she was free. Creed and his Black Wings would have to catch her now.
The problem was, she was very afraid they would. Pessimistic doubts were already starting to tear down her moment of optimism. What if all she was doing was getting them both killed?
"You'll need to hang onto me."
She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his leather-clad waist. Now her whole front was pressed against his muscular back, her skirt hiked up and bare legs pressed against his jeans-clad thighs. She was pretty sure this was the most turned on she'd ever been in her life, and she hadn't even kissed him yet.