Shifting Gears

by Maia Dylan

  Bastian grinned. Damn, she was so fucking cute. “What about both of us?”

  He eyes widened in shock. “At the same time?”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “That might be worth giving up chocolate and margaritas.” Beauty blinked slowly and frowned before turning to look over at Ryker. “You know something? I think you might have been right.”

  Ryker smiled gently. “About what, sweetness?”

  “I think I do have a concussion, and if it’s okay with you guys, I think I’m just going to pass out now.”

  Bastian growled in alarm as she slumped sideways and fell into his arms. What in the hell had they been thinking? Their mate had just been in an accident, and instead of calling for help, or getting her into town as fast as they could, they had stood beside her, being completely and utterly charmed by her.

  “We need to get her to Lucas,” Bastian said as he stood up, gently cradling her in his arms, as Ryker held her wrist gently against her stomach. From the lump forming on the side, it was clear that it had been broken in the crash. Bastian walked carefully, not wanting to hurt their mate any more than she obviously already was.

  When he looked up, he saw Henry and Ford Granger, Jake’s fathers, standing by his truck in their human forms.

  “Jake?” he asked as they drew nearer.

  “He’s with Jenny, and she’s gone all mother bear on his ass,” Ford said with a slight grin. “He shouldn’t have been out here. She’ll talk to him and find out why. Thank you, both of you.”

  “We’re clan,” Ryker said with a shake of his head. “That’s what we do. Could I ask that you clean up this mess? Take the bodies to the edge of the pack lands and leave them there for Ash’s pack to collect. Rain is forecast for overnight so that will help get rid of some of the blood on the highway. Get a hold of the Sheriff and let him know what happened here. He’ll know what to do. Karl! Go into town and bring your tow truck back. I want that Chevy and everything in it brought back to our place.”

  “Make sure you grab the driver’s door,” Bastian added.

  They reached his truck, and when Ryker opened the back door, Bastian slid in carefully, cradling his precious cargo against his chest, making sure not to jostle their unconscious mate too much. Ryker closed the door and climbed into the front to start the truck

  “Ryker, what are we going to do about those damn wolves?” Karl asked through the open truck window.

  Ryker turned to look back at his mate, and Bastian could see the bear clearly in his brother’s eyes. “They declared war on the clan, and in doing so, put our mate in danger. We go to war, and any wolf found on Blackwater land, we kill.”

  Bastian had no problem with that.

  Chapter Three

  Ryker had never had an issue focusing on clan business. He was Alpha. He was born to lead this clan, and it was something he took extremely seriously. But for the first time, sitting as he was at the head of his dining room table, meeting with the other members of his clan, any who could attend the impromptu debrief on the battle that had taken place out on the highway, his mind was on something else.

  Well, if truth be told, it was on someone else. His mate was here in his house. As soon as they’d arrived back, they’d placed her in the master bedroom, and waited for Lucas Sullivan, the clan’s doctor, to arrive. Ryker had wanted to go through her belongings, looking for her wallet or some identification so that he had her name, but Bastian had argued it was an invasion of her privacy or some such shit. His brother was rarely wrong when it came to the emotions of their clan, and what they needed, so he’d stepped back.

  Bastian was upstairs with her now, while Lucas set her arm in a cast. She was still unconscious, and there was a great possibility that she did indeed have a concussion, and the mere thought of that had his bear pacing within him, thirsting for blood.

  “Alpha,” Lucas’s younger brother Tomas said in a dry tone. “Do you think you could dial back on the dominance a little? The rest of us are getting a little uncomfortable.”

  Ryker frowned looking around the table and grimaced. “Shit. Sorry.”

  “Language, Ryker.” He looked over at his Aunt Lauren, mate to Lucas and Tomas as well as his fathers’ sister, and scowled. “And don’t look at me like that. When your mother and your dads get back you won’t hear that from me. For now, with her away, I feel like someone has to carry the mantle. Just because you are our Alpha, it doesn’t mean you can be a potty-mouthed one.”

  Ryker had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.” He looked up as the back door opened and Henry Granger walked in, pocketing his cell phone. “What did the council have to say?”

  Henry sat down heavily on one of the chairs. “Nothing good I’m afraid, Alpha. Apparently, it is true, when an elder on the council passes their treaties are considered null and void unless the rest of the council swear them into law.”

  Ryker frowned. “And they didn’t with Chubbuck’s?” That seemed strange.

  Henry nodded. “They swore every one of them into law, except for this one. According to Gerrard, every single council member said yes except for one.”

  “Let me guess, it would have been the wolf representative.”

  “And you would be correct,” Henry said, the anger in his voice clear in the tone. “And before you ask, no, the wolf rep is not of the Ashford clan, but he’s just as fucking dodgy.”

  Ryker said back in his chair, a continuous rumbling growl coming from deep within him. “That goddamn wolf is a pain in my a-a-armpit.” The snicker that followed helped to take the edge of his anger a little. Not a lot, but enough for him to take a deep breath and pull himself more under control. “And I noticed you didn’t reprimand Henry for his bad language, Aunt Lauren.” The woman did nothing but grin at him. “Okay, so I guess we are officially at war with the Ashford pack.”

  A wave of unease filled the room. These people, his people, would fight until their dying breath for their clan, and each other. There was no questioning that. But they weren’t in their fighting prime, and hell, most of them had been nurturers and helpers within the clan, not enforcers. Every single one of their strongest were currently walking the lands, looking for their mates. All that were left were the twelve of them, and a small group of humans that called Blackwater Falls their home and fell beneath the protection of the clan. Most were aware of them as shifters, but some were oblivious to a world they had no knowledge of.

  “We’ll coordinate with the Sheriff and the rest of the town,” Tomas said. “You and Bastian are going to need to protect your mate. You’re vulnerable now that you have found her.”

  Ryker saw his aunt turn her head slowly to stare at her mate, and, having seen his mother turn that same expression on his fathers, he sat back in his chair to watch the fireworks.

  “You think that having a mate, finding the one woman the fates have destined you worthy of, makes you weak?” Lauren’s tone was slow and measured, and Ryker saw all the men at the table wince at her tone.

  Tomas frowned, as if he could sense the trap looming before him but had no idea how to avoid falling face first into it. “No, love, that’s not what I said.”

  Lauren growled low. “No, you used the word ‘vulnerable’. Which to me means the same damn thing. A mate does not weaken a man, Tomas, and you of all people should know that. Before the bond snapped into place for the three of us, I always felt untethered, as if there was nothing in this town, nothing in this place that could hold me here. I was on the verge of leaving to find my own path to happiness, completely unaware that you and Lucas were already heading here to find me. As soon as that bond connected us, that all disappeared, and for the first time I felt like I was home. I was connected. I was stronger.” Lauren stood up, Tomas staring up at her in awe. “But apparently you didn’t feel the same way.”

  Lauran stormed out of the kitchen, pushing past her other mate as Lucas stepped back into the room. Lucas took one look at his mate’s face, then turned a glare
on his brother.

  “What the hell did you do now, moron?”

  Tomas sighed as he stood up from the table. “Pissed off our mate, and put my foot in my mouth at the same time.”

  Lucas shook his head. “Well, that has always been one of your greatest skills, now hasn’t it? Come on, we’d better go find her, and you can start with the groveling.”

  Tomas turned to look at Ryker. “I didn’t mean that your mate made you weak, Ryker. My mate is right. Finding the woman who completes you, who brings with her the missing part of your heart and soul, definitely gives you strength. Having something so damn precious to lose does that. But you and Bastian have a weakness now, one you never had before, and one you will do anything for.” A grin broke across Tomas’s face. “And if you’re a lucky son of a bitch like me, your woman will be as feisty and passionate as mine.”

  Tomas walked out, and Lucas turned to follow him, but hesitated, looking back at Ryker over his shoulder. “Your mate is resting comfortably, but is showing signs of waking, so you might want to wrap this meeting up fast and get upstairs so you can be there when she wakes up.”

  Ryker’s heartbeat accelerated at the thought of his mate waking, and he stood up, quickly saying goodbye to his clan as they all gave him knowing looks, but he didn’t really give a shit. He wanted to get to his mate, and he didn’t care who knew.

  Chapter Four

  Hannah woke up slowly. She felt groggy, like she was hung over, and her entire body ached. She opened her eyes, then immediately slammed them shut as the light in the room caused sharp shards of pain to erupt within them.

  “Ow,” she groaned quietly and reached a hand up to cover her eyes.

  The door to the room she was in suddenly burst open, which had her squeaking in surprise. Her eyes opened wide in fear, despite the pain, and she pushed up to slide back on the bed, away from the huge man who had just come barreling into the room. No, check that, the two large men who had just come barreling into the room.

  “What is it, baby? What hurts?” The first one through the door asked as he walked toward the bed and dropped to his knees beside it.

  “Is it your head? Lucas said the concussion wasn’t too bad, but that you would have a headache for the next few days. He left some medication to help.” The taller of the two frowned at her from where he stood at the foot of the humungous bed she was lying in.

  “It’s damn good to see you awake, though,” the first one said as he moved to sit down on the bed level with her knees, and she scrambled sideways to put some distance between them. When she saw that she was out of arms’ reach, but only halfway across the bed, she was distracted for a moment.

  “What in the hell is the size of this bed?” she asked as she took in the sheer expanse of the mattress she lay on. “I mean, I once stayed in a hotel in Oregon that had California kings, and I thought that was huge, but this thing makes that one look like a damn cot.”

  “Most things in the bedroom are bigger here in Blackwater,” the one sitting near her said with an exaggerated wiggle of his eyebrows. The way his half smile reached his blue eyes and made them twinkle had a memory leaping to the fore within her mind.

  “Holy shit!” She scrambled across the bed to climb out on the other side, crying out when she saw that her right wrist was encased in a plaster cast. “You’re the were-bear men that were fighting those poor wolves out on the highway.”

  “Guilty as charged,” the first guy said. “We’re bear shifters. Black bears to be specific, and those ‘poor wolves’ were in fact wolf shifters who were trying to kill us, but let’s not get bogged down in semantics. At least not until we’ve introduced ourselves. My name is Bastian Barrett, Beta for the Blackwater Clan. The guy standing at the end of the bed is my brother Ryker, and he’s the Alpha of the clan.”

  Ryker nodded in her direction like he was gracing her with his acknowledgment and that got her back up a little. “Alpha, huh? What does that mean then? You’re the head bear in the group and get the first choice of all the eats in the stolen pick-a-nick baskets?”

  Ryker’s eyes narrowed slightly, but the one called Bastian filled the room with laughter.

  “Man, you gotta love a woman who not only gives you shit but throws in a Yogi Bear reference while doing it. He may get the first choice of all the eats, sweetness, but I’m better looking,” Bastian said with a grin.

  Hannah didn’t know about that. He was good looking for sure, hell, he was sex on a stick, but so was Ryker. There was a strong family resemblance between them. They each had strong jaws, sparkling blue eyes, and dark blond hair, but where Ryker’s was cropped short and close in an almost military style, Bastian’s was longer and fell almost to his shoulders. As her mind cleared, the series of events that brought her here came back to her and she remembered them standing and kneeling before her in all their naked glory. In very clear, vivid detail.

  She knew that both were inked, sporting what looked like four claw marks tattooed on the left side of their chests. Ryker had words written in cursive script down his ribs on his right side, but she had no clue what they said, just knew they were there. She was a woman that loved tattoos on a man, so she remembered them most vividly. And they could both be proud of what they had in the man part department. Boy howdy, could they. Glancing back up, she saw that both men were grinning at her like they could read her mind, and she cursed the sweep of heat that rose into her cheeks.

  Dropping her eyes, her gaze was immediately captured. “Whose t-shirt am I wearing?”

  It was a tour t-shirt for the band Disturbed, and it was huge on her, falling to her knees.

  “Mine,” Ryker answered. “You couldn’t sleep in your jeans, and they had to cut that black long-sleeved t-shirt of yours to get that cast on your arm. Besides, it does my heart good to see you wearing something of mine. They're a band that—”

  “I know who they are,” Hannah interrupted with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I have all their albums and was probably one of the first to pre-order Immortalized when it was first released.” Hannah ignored the fact that both men’s eyes widened and their jaws practically slammed to the floor. “What I would rather know is who put me in this t-shirt?”

  Ryker’s mouth morphed into a wicked grin. “We did.”

  “But we did it in a respectful way, and hardly looked at all,” Bastian rushed to say, his hands out in front of him. He obviously had more of a survival instinct than his older brother.

  Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Hardly? Y’all hardly looked?”

  “To be fair, love,” Bastian said with a shrug, “you are the hottest thing on the planet as far as we’re concerned, and we are red-blooded males. It was hard not to look just a little. But we had our Aunt Lauren in the room with us the whole time, and she didn’t allow us to see any of the good parts.”

  Hannah shook her head at the innocent puppy dog look he gave her. She had to fight a giggle at them staring at her with completely different expressions. Ryker was still grinning wickedly, and Bastian’s face was the picture of contrition, complete with puppy dog eyes.

  “Are you going to tell us your name, beautiful?” Ryker asked, tilting his head to look at her, his gaze intent.

  “Hannah. Hannah Browne.” Hannah didn’t know why she had answered so honestly and immediately but figured they might have gone through her handbag and found out her identity anyway. From the way they both seemed surprised, she knew they hadn’t.

  “The new owner of the garage in town? It’s nice to know that you’re going to be living here, Hannah.” The way Ryker said her name had her swallowing hard. “Let me be the first to welcome you here to Blackwater Falls.” He stepped toward her slowly, obviously not wanting to scare her, but it didn’t stop her from watching his approach warily.

  “Thanks, and that’s close enough,” Hannah said firmly. “I’m not too sure how I feel about living in a town where people explode into bears. Where in the hell am I? If I was in an accident, why am I not in a hospital?”<
br />
  “You’re at our place,” Bastian answered as he stepped up beside his brother. Hannah hadn’t even heard him get up from the bed. “We don’t have a hospital. Our Uncle Lucas is the doctor here in town and he operates a clinic, but he couldn’t be with you all night. With your concussion, you needed someone to look after you. It was our pleasure to volunteer.”

  “But why would you do that?”

  Ryker smiled. “There’s a whole slew of reasons why it should be us looking after you, but none more important than the fact that it was partly our fault that you crashed your truck in the forest yesterday afternoon.”

  Hannah’s heart clenched at the reminder. “Speaking of which, where is my Chevy? You didn’t just leave her out on that highway, did you?”

  Bastian was already shaking his head. “No, love, we had Karl, the man you purchased the business from, bring the Chevy into town, and it’s over in the garage waiting for you. Hell, I guess I should say it’s over in your garage since you own the business now.”

  Hannah felt a shiver of delight at hearing that. “Yeah, damn right I do, and just because this town seems to be heavy on the exploding bear side of things, I am not letting that run me off. Owning a garage has been my dream since I was five years old standing beside my dad helping him change the oil in a 1956 Mustang.”

  “No one is going to run you out of town, baby,” Bastian promised. “And if they were, then we would most definitely have something to say about that.”

  The room filled with the sound of a cowbell being hit rhythmically moments before the opening chords of “Low Rider” sounded in the room. “That’s my phone. Where is it?”

  “I love that song!” Bastian said as he moved to the opposite side of the room and grabbed her phone from a set of drawers she hadn’t even noticed before. It went silent as he handed it to her, and she ran her thumb across the screen to activate it and see who called just as it rang for the second time. She grinned when she saw who it was and immediately answered it.