Untamed Mate: A Shifting Destinies Bear Shifter Romance (Shifters of Bear's Den Book 6)

by Cecilia Lane

  She didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Hudson had given her too many gifts. Her life when he claimed her as his mate that first night. A beer and sandwich snuck inside when she was at one of her low points. Her life again when he saved her for a second time.

  She was quite displeased at being the damsel in need of constant rescue.

  Her private joke faded when the cold fact of death hit her. Hudson might have kept her alive, but Mack and Cullins were still dead. All because they pulled the unlucky duty of guarding her.

  The brush of fur through her mind did little to push away the guilt. Two more names were red and dead because of her touch on their lives.

  Hudson would be better off driving by and leaving her to the darkness.

  “Where are we going?” She rolled her head to the side and tore her gaze from the passing foliage.

  “Old buddy of mine from the service.”

  “You have buddies from the service?” She noted he didn’t specify a particular branch.

  He glanced her way. “You know I served.”

  “Yeah, in the abstract sort of way. Same as knowing you own a green shirt. I have no frame of reference for how you feel about it.” Aw, fuck. Feelings. Those were off limits. She didn’t need to care about those.

  Hudson grunted.

  Well, that lack of response piqued her interest. Stupid cat. It was almost enough to wish for another collar to keep the beast contained.

  Her inner lioness responded with a sending full of bright sunlight and rolling on her back and licking her claws clean. Sure, they were on the run and were likely to be murdered, but they were with their mate.

  Mara wrestled with the competing happiness of her animal and the guilt of her own conscience. Hudson didn’t belong to her. He needed someone better.

  Her stomach twisted into knots, but she forced herself to speak. “You never talk about old service buddies. You only mention Bearden folk.”

  “That’s because some things are best left to the past.” He cut off her questions with a pointed finger out her window. “We’re here.”

  Here was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but wilderness. He turned down a long, bumpy road lined with more trees and underbrush. Ahead, the headlights cut across a wooden deck with boards missing in the railing like punched out teeth.

  The front door swung open as soon as the engine pulled to a stop. Mara followed Hudson’s lead and jumped out of the truck after him.

  “No closer,” a man slurred from the doorway. He stepped forward with a rifle pointed in their direction. “Who’s that?”

  “Kindly point that gun anywhere but my mate, Axel,” Hudson growled.

  He slung his arm over her shoulder and drew her close. Mara shivered as her cheek landed against his side. Heat whipped through her body at the contact.

  “Is she?” Something unreadable crossed Axel’s face, but he lowered the rifle. “Well, come on in. My home is yours.”

  He didn’t wait for them before turning around and heading back inside. Hudson trudged up the steps to the deck first, and Mara followed.

  Axel sank down into a recliner positioned right in front of the television. His rifle rested across his knees and an open bottle of whiskey sat at his side.

  Hudson looked from her to his old friend, then softly closed the door. “Where’s Leslie, Axel? You two had a girl, didn’t you?”

  Axel took a swig straight from the bottle. “Gone. Died a couple years back. Kerry is all I got left of her.” Bleary, red eyes singled out Hudson. “You’da known if you kept in touch.”

  Mara winced. He wasted no time pulling the pin on that grenade. Beside her, Hudson stiffened, then walked slowly to take a seat on the sofa. He made room for her, but there was no way she wanted to step into the middle of that storm. It was awkward enough from the distance.

  “I’ll just get some water and use the bathroom. You two need to talk.”

  “Don’t go far,” Hudson said.

  Axel snorted. “Newly mated, eh? I couldn’t let Leslie out of my sight in those days, either. Or those nights.”

  Heat crawled over Mara’s cheeks and she hurried past the half wall separating the living room from the kitchen. A tiny table scraped against one section of the wall, with a booster seat in one chair. Paper plates made a leaning tower that threatened to spill out of the trash can by a side door.

  Mara’s lioness perked up and looked through her eyes. The tip of her tail twitched. That alertness transferred to her human side. Something wasn’t right.

  Hudson switched his attention from her to Axel. “You know how it is. Sometimes you get out, and you don’t want the reminders eating at you. That’s why you settled out here, isn’t it?”

  “I’m here for my safety. No way was I going to bring my family to a death trap.” Axel jammed two fingers into the arm of his recliner, then pointed them at Hudson. “See, you enclave shifters want to believe your occupation was a fluke. No such thing. They knew what they were doing, from the one that got all the blame to the officers above him. They just got caught.”

  A row of whiskey bottles lined one counter, all the way across and three deep. Mara held up an empty bottle and shook it. No liquid sloshed inside. Her eyebrows nearly met her hairline as she turned back toward the scene in the living room.

  Hudson watched from the lumpy couch. She mouthed a single word to him. Drunk.

  He nodded once, and put his attention back on Axel. “You called a couple times. You remember that?”

  Not likely. Mara bristled at the idea of putting any trust in the man. Hudson might believe they were in a good spot, but she wouldn’t settle until she knew the layout of the home and exit points herself. Axel clearly had some issues to work through.

  She trailed out of the kitchen. A prickling in the center of her back forced her to glance behind her. Hudson watched her every step.

  Another shiver worked its way down her spine. She shouldn’t like the attention as much as she did.

  “Think they didn’t know about you? Bullshit. They knew. They always knew. Hell, we were in one of their damnable shifter units! The military sure as fuck knew and were comfortable using us as soldiers.”

  Well, that explained why Hudson hadn’t been forthcoming with details. He served in secret, mysterious, and maybe not entirely legal ways, if some of the rumors she’d heard were true. Shifter special forces were not much more than mercenaries. They ran the missions that would get normal humans killed and if they died, they died. Their kind were disposable. Useful, but disposable.

  Mara knew exactly how that ate at a person.

  Photos lined the wall and told a story of a happy life. Mara pressed her fingers to the bottom of the oldest frame and dragged them through Axel’s world. Dust puffed into the air in her wake.

  A younger Axel and his prom date grinned at the camera. Mara cracked a smile at the bad hair and worse clothes. The wild locks were tamed by the time they were married in a simple ceremony. Axel waved goodbye in his military fatigues. Shadows lined his eyes when he came home.

  Leslie’s round belly and Axel’s ear pressed to her stomach preceded a squalling infant with angry red cheeks. Kerry was an active little child and inherited her father’s shifter genes. She fished and played in mud puddles.

  The last photo formed a lump in Mara’s throat. A grown bear and a cub poked noses together against a setting sun.

  They were obviously a happy family at one point. Even after his mate’s death, he was a doting father to their little girl.

  She used to want that life. How many times had she watched Matthew utterly melt for one of Joy’s smiles and turn that sweet grin toward Kate? Her chest tightened and she pressed her palm over her heart.

  That life wasn’t meant for her. Not anymore.

  Mara reached the end of the hall. One darkened doorway was clearly the bedroom. The smell of fur and man set the fine hairs all over her body on end. That was male territory, and not her male. Her cat didn’t want to go near.
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  The room on the other side was safe, though. The door was already cracked and light filtered into the hallway. Mara tapped her knuckles lightly, expecting to hear the rustle of a child. Nothing.

  She pushed the door open further. Pink floral decorations covered a cheery purple wall. A matching bedspread hung halfway off the twin bed centered against one wall. Stuffed animals were gathered around toy food for a meal that’d upset any stomach: pickles in teacups, with scoops of ice cream over fried eggs.

  Mara whirled away from the memories of tea parties with Joy.

  As she turned, a flash of red on the dresser caught her eye. She knelt down and swiped her fingers against it. Dried blood flaked to the carpet.

  Mara frowned. “Hudson. Come here.”

  She tracked the heavy footfalls down the same path she took and rocked back on her heels when he entered the room.

  Brown eyes turned silver when he focused where she pointed. “Blood?”

  “Old.”

  Hudson’s jaw tightened, and he spun away from her. Mara pushed quickly to her feet and followed him back out to the living room. Axel startled, like he’d forgotten they were there.

  “Where’s Kerry, Axel?” Hudson demanded.

  Axel’s face fell. He drew in a shuddering breath and began babbling in the next. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. They took her right out of my arms and shoved my phone into my hand. They wanted to get you here. Her, too, I guess. She’s my baby girl, Hud. My sweet baby girl. She’s all I have left of Leslie.”

  Fat tears welled at the corners of his eyes. Mara opened her mouth to angrily demand more answers of who and when and throw accusations in his face. How could he have let anyone take his little girl?

  Glass shattered behind her and a bullet whizzed by her head.

  The room erupted into movement. She slammed herself to the floor, and Hudson fell across her a second later. He belly-crawled over her, then reached to pull Axel out of the recliner and down with them. The timing couldn’t have been better; a bullet sank deep into the recliner where his head had just rested.

  “What did you do, Axel?” Hudson growled.

  “Phone calls. I made phone calls. I had to keep Kerry safe,” Axel answered in a steadier tone than before. “They came to me a week ago, said they’d been trying to reach you and found we served together. One of those motherfuckers stuck Kerry with a tranq when she opened the door.”

  Another barrage of bullets shot through the glass in the kitchen, then glass rained down around them from the big panes in the living room. Mara flinched when each one found a home somewhere in the walls.

  Hudson gestured forward, then behind. “Shooters on both sides, likely stomping the hell out of the woods. We should go before they get closer.”

  “Go. I’ll hold these fuckers off.” Axel swung the rifle up and pointed it at the back door. “And Hud? Keep my girl safe if you find her.”

  The men exchanged a long look filled with all the honor of old time battle buddies. An entire conversation happened in the span of that look, one where Hudson pleaded with Axel to load up with them and Axel refusing.

  Accepting his decision, Hudson nodded, and moved to crouch near the door. “Stay low,” he told Mara and waved her forward.

  Sucking down a deep breath to calm her raging cat, Mara crawled after Hudson.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked, reaching for the handle.

  Mara nodded.

  “On my word.” He eased open the front door as soon as she neared and rolled out onto the deck. He kept the truck between himself and the hunters in the woods, whipping open the passenger door and tumbling inside.

  “Now!” he shouted and waved her on.

  A roar from inside the home cheered her on, followed by crashes of broken furniture and walls. Axel took the fight outside and away from the front of the house to give them time to escape.

  Shots rang out just as she repeated Hudson’s journey. Out the door and onto the deck, she made herself as small as possible. She jumped down the steps and dove right into the truck. Hudson twisted the key in the ignition as soon as her feet cleared the ground. The truck fishtailed away from Axel’s home even before her door clicked shut.

  “We’re not going to make it. They’ll shoot up the truck,” she said under her breath. Sendings from her cat made her jumpy and her fists opened and closed. She wanted to shake out the tension in her body. A fight was coming and these bastards deserved all the damage in the world for hurting a little girl.

  “We’ll make it,” Hudson swore.

  He slammed his foot on the accelerator and spun onto the road away from Axel’s property.

  Headlights lit up behind them and shot forward. “Faster, faster,” Mara chanted as she watched them reflected in the mirror.

  Fur and fury scented the air, and a growl sawed out of Hudson’s chest. Her cat picked up on the noise and matched it with her own.

  She would not die tonight. Not until she tasted hunter blood.

  A roar was the only warning before a large, black shape barreled into the side of the pursuing vehicle. Metal groaned, and a door flung off before the SUV pulled to one side and rolled end over end.

  “Atta boy,” Hudson muttered, eyes locked on the scene in the rearview mirror. “Give ‘em hell.”

  On her next inhale, she smelled blood.

  “You’re hit,” she hissed.

  “It’s fine,” he insisted with all the stubbornness a man could muster.

  Mara looked for something to bandage his wound before he bled all over the place. Behind his seat and stuffed into a pocket, she found an old cloth. Clean enough, when she took a sniff. “Let me see.”

  With a rough growl, Hudson uncurled his arm. Mara pushed aside the heat spreading through her and the constant, sawing noises rising from her inner lioness. She had an arm to wrap up.

  But even with the blood wiped away from his graze with a bullet and the rag tied around him, she couldn’t let him go. His arm felt too good resting over her legs. She selfishly wanted to hold on to that feeling instead of giving in to the shock that waited now that adrenaline no longer pumped through her veins.

  He could have died because of her.

  Not once did he stop to consider his actions. Instead, he sprang into the fight immediately. Her cat wanted to rub up and down his body with appreciation for the strong, protective male.

  Mara drew a shuddering breath and slid her hand into his.

  Chapter 7

  Even knowing Axel ripped apart the SUV trying to take them down, Hudson couldn’t help but scan the road behind them every minute. There was no shaking the sinking feeling in his stomach or the desperate need to keep the quiet woman at his side safe.

  Mara had barely spoken a word since they pulled onto the interstate and merged into the light, nighttime traffic. He hoped, deep as they were in Washington, no one would take too much notice of them. He’d be more comfortable once he ditched the truck and found something else to drive.

  They’d been watched. Compromised. For how long, he couldn’t say. The people that went after them were too organized and knew too much. He’d tried to keep his people apart and in their own compartments. Clan and family, those were in Bearden. Men he fought with, they were separate from his life in the enclave. There was no mixing, especially with a man like Axel who chose to do his own separation from their time together.

  Too much bad tainted those years. Now the dam was breaking and the parts of his life were flowing into one another.

  He’d wanted a different path. Plans were put into motion after he left the fights and blood and guns behind. Bearden called his name, and he answered. He made a place for himself with the Strathorns, kept a routine to steady his bear, prepared to live and breathe one day at a time. Maybe he’d find his mate, or at least someone he could settle down with.

  Then Mara walked into the aftermath of a raid and gave herself up.

  He glanced from his thigh where her hand rested, and dragged his gaze up her wris
t and arm, to her shoulder and neck. Her head rested against the window and her eyes were closed in the reflection.

  His life wasn’t the only one twisted around and unrecognizable.

  Hudson dropped his hand over hers. She shifted in her sleep, then settled back again. Her hand never left his leg.

  That touch didn’t make all their pain worth it. Nothing could make him believe a little girl taken from her home or a woman forced into working with their enemy was worth the outcome. Her hand on him, though, made the struggles tolerable. Her touch gave him hope that maybe, someday, they could look back and see how they were brought closer together because of what they overcame.

  Hudson took the next exit and followed signs for a motel. Half of the ancient neon arrow pointing the way to the front office was burned out and only two other cars were in the parking lot. Perfect place to bed down.

  He pulled to a stop out of sight from the road.

  Only when the truck engine cut did Mara startle awake. She blinked sleepy eyes at him and out the window. “Where are we?”

  “Motel. Thought you might want to sleep in a real bed, and I need to get this cleaned up.” He pointed to his arm. She’d done a fair job wrapping him up and his shifter nature took care of the rest. He wanted to make sure nothing had been left inside and wash the dried blood from his skin.

  When she didn’t say anything else, he shoved his door open and dug out a long sleeve flannel from the toolbox in the bed of his truck.

  “Hudson?”

  He turned to her peering at him through her rolled down window. Her eyes were clearer than before. More amber than blue, too. His bear wanted to rumble a greeting to her inner cat.

  “Don’t use a credit card.”

  He hitched his lips up in a half-smile. “Already ahead of you, kitty. Settle back. I’ll get us checked in.”

  He’d called Callum from the road. His alpha said Judah was squaring off against the SEA agents crawling all over town. Somehow, camera footage disappeared. Only a few grainy images were pulled from the firehouse security tapes. The Bearden police won the right to investigate the murders of Mack and Cullins. Judah claimed it was all a delaying tactic to keep their agent out of hot water or shifter custody. Callum ended the call with advice to stay away. Hudson promised to check in again, and promptly removed the battery from his phone in case anyone tried to track him.