by Lily Cahill
Skye never saw him coming. One minute, she was walking down the center of the dimly-lit alley. The next, she was being hauled off her feet with a hand over her mouth and an arm banded across her body, pinning her arms to her sides before she could even strike out.
She was dragged against a brick wall in a deep shadow behind a trash bin. More out of panic than design, she was kicking wildly at her assailant. The heel of her brown leather boot must have connected, because the mugger swore in her ear. His hand loosened for a moment. Skye tried to buck her way free of him, but his hand was back in seconds. And now, she could see he was holding a long metal bar that glinted in the dim light.
Skye froze.
"You see that, bitch?" the mugger hissed in her ear. "I'll beat the shit out of you and leave you to die right here."
Skye whimpered in fear. She had taken self-defense classes, but they definitely hadn't captured the abject terror of being overpowered and threatened with death. She managed to stutter, "What ... what do you want?"
"Give me the bag, and I'll let you go."
The mugger loosened his hold slightly, staying behind her. She couldn't see his face, but she could still see the metal bar. Shuddering, Skye slipped her bag off her shoulder and dropped it on the ground
Warily, the mugger shifted away from her. Then he shoved her, hard, into the edge of the trash bin.
Skye's head collided with the cold metal, and pain exploded behind her eyes. Instinctively, she pressed her hands to her forehead, as if she could hold back the agony with her palms. The world revolved, and she felt herself tilting to one side.
Next thing she knew, her cheek hit the asphalt. Every time she tried to open her eyes, the street and the trash bins spun sickeningly. In her reeling vision, she saw the mugger running down the alley.
Out of nowhere, a figure hurtled out of the sky and landed on the mugger's back. Skye stifled a scream. Her mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Her head injury must be worse than she feared. The figure didn't look right, didn't look...human.
Then it raised its head from the mugger's prone body. Light caught in its dark eyes and sharp teeth.
In the middle of Chicago, she had been saved by a bear.
Chapter Three
Marcus
Marcus Sinclair stood on the roof of his condo, brooding.
Earlier that night, he had used every ounce of his self-control to leave O'Malley's Pub without talking to the gorgeous, curvy woman he had seen sitting in a booth with a friend. He'd been eating a solitary dinner at the bar when she came in, and he hadn't been able to take his eyes off her for the rest of the meal. Her ample figure, wild hair, and tawny skin captivated him beyond reason.
He had even gone so far as to approach her table before good sense returned. He didn't have the time to bring a woman into his life, or the inclination. Not now, when his place in the Billionaire Bear Brotherhood, or B3, was on the line.
Like all the members of the B3, he had the rare ability of transforming his body into a bear, combined with the even rarer ability to build a fortune out of hard work and astute decisions. Marcus' family had been founding members of the Brotherhood, which connected billionaire bear shifters all over the world. B3 took care of its own...but God help the shifter who crossed them.
Marcus knew that better than most. It had only been six months since his father was drummed out of B3 in disgrace. There were plenty of shifters who thought Marcus might follow in his father's footsteps.
But there were others who had faith in him. Recently, the Council had chosen Marcus as the property developer for their newest retreat near Chicago. When it was built, Marcus and the other shifters would have a place to go where they could shift into their bear forms and escape from the pressures of being human. And Marcus was taking the job seriously. A perfect piece of land had just become available, one that Marcus had visited in his childhood. He was prepared to do whatever it took to secure it for B3.
That did not include chasing after a woman, no matter how beautiful she was.
Still, after he'd left the restaurant it had been impossible to get her out of his mind. O'Malley's was just down the street from the old industrial building that he had converted into a four-story condo, but he'd taken a long walk along the nearby waterfront to settle his system.
But he'd known, as soon as he returned to his large and luxurious rooms, that it wasn't enough. He had tried to work, but thoughts of the woman kept returning. Something about her had made the wildness in him come to life.
More than anything, he wanted to shift, and let his bear side roar.
He took a deep breath of the night air and wished it tasted of trees and rich earth. Instead, his lungs filled with exhaust and the tang of steel. He loved Chicago, loved its energy and vitality, but when the bear inside him was stirred up the city seemed too small, too crowded.
And his bear was stirred up now. That woman had awakened the animal inside him, and he was having a hard time putting it to sleep again.
He had never seen the woman in O'Malley's before, even though he ate there several times a week. He loved to cook--his kitchen, on the second floor of his condo, would make any chef drool--but he found it depressing to cook for one. Instead, he usually found himself sitting at one restaurant or another, making small talk with strangers to avoid the silence at home.
A fantasy rose in his mind. He would love to cook for the woman he had seen in the bar. He could imagine her eyes fluttering with pleasure when she tasted his food. Then when she was done, he'd taste her and make those eyes flutter with ecstasy.
The fantasy was so real--her hands in his hair, her thick thighs muffling her cries in his ears--that he almost didn't believe it when he saw her turn onto the street below.
It felt a little creepy to be watching her from above, but he couldn't take his eyes off her. The way her generous ass swayed as she walked had his cock straining at the front of his jeans.
God, she was sexy. For a brief moment, he considered following her, charming her, getting her in to his bed. It was the sort of thing his father would do. Which was Marcus' way of knowing he should do the opposite.
Still, he couldn't tear his gaze away from her. She was almost beneath his building now, and he had to step closer to the edge of the roof to keep her in his view. He frowned when he saw her huddled in her sweatshirt. It was April in Chicago--too cold to go without a jacket. She needed a man to warm her up.
She turned into the alleyway beside his building. Like he was a magnet and she was the North Pole, he moved to keep her in his gaze. He would never see her again, he reasoned with himself. He might as well see as much of her as he could before she walked out of his life.
A flicker of movement in the shadows resolved into the shape of a man. He was following the woman down the alley. Just as Marcus shouted in warning, the assailant ran up behind the woman, seized her, and dragged her into the darkness.
Marcus' bear roared to life. He put no thought to the risk, to the taboo; all he could think was that he had to protect her. In seconds, Marcus the man was gone. In his place, a huge brown bear was streaking across the roof.
He didn't bother with the stairs to the street. Instead, he hurtled over the roof and crashed from one level of fire escape to the next. His claws ground against metal as he leaped down each flight of stairs.
Marcus saw the mugger come running out from between two trash bins, where he must have left the woman. With a roar, Marcus launched himself off the last fire escape and landed heavily on the man. A black purse went spinning in one direction. In the other, a club skittered along the pavement and underneath a pile of pallets.
Marcus felt time slow. He hadn't heard a gunshot, but the idea that the woman might be injured, or even killed, made him blind with terror.
The man beneath him was squealing and begging for his life, but Marcus wasn't concerned with him. The only thing that mattered was the woman. He thumped the man's head against the pavement and knocked him out.
>
It was dark in the alley, but not too dark for him to see the woman sprawled on the asphalt. She lay unmoving on the cold cement. For a moment, he feared the worst, but then he saw her move.
She was trying to sit up, but her arms were wobbling with the effort. Her eyes were unfocused and her head was reeling. He couldn't smell any blood, but he could see she was going to have one heck of a lump on her forehead.
Her lips kept parting and closing, as if she was trying to speak. Wanting to calm her, he moved closer. She reached one shaking hand toward him and laid it on his head.
"You're a bear," she said dumbly.
Oh, shit. He'd been so worried about her he'd forgotten one of the key tenets of the Billionaire Bear Brotherhood. He could only show his bear form to a fellow shifter, or to his mate. He had used his bear for good, but B3 had a zero-tolerance policy. And frankly, Marcus agreed with it--the Brotherhood operated in secrecy, and if one of them was exposed to the world as a bear shifter, they were all at risk.
Not to mention, it was exactly what had gotten his father kicked out only a few months before.
He did the only thing he could--he ran.
Chapter Four
Marcus
Just before he hit the end of the alley, Marcus transformed back into a man. Still running, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. "A woman's been mugged," he said, and quickly rattled off the location.
The street was blessedly empty, and he sprinted around the block until he could come back to the alley from the other side. The woman was still sitting on the ground, holding her head.
"Are you all right?" he asked, crouching down beside her.
"I ...." Her eyes widened the moment she recognized him. "But you're ... you."
She was shivering. He whipped off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. "Me?"
"At the restaurant, earlier. But ...," she put a hand to her head.
He felt a totally inappropriate surge of triumph. So she had noticed him too. But then he saw the large welt on her forehead and concern beat out satisfaction. "I already called 911. Can you tell me your name?"
"Skye," she said, gently brushing her fingers over the sore spot on her head. "The guy got away."
Marcus looked up and, disappointed, realized that the mugger must have come to while he was running around the block. "That's too bad."
"The bear chased him away."
Her words sent a cold frisson down Marcus' spine. He needed to nip that idea in the bud. He forced himself to laugh. "The bear?"
Her nod was small this time, but decisive. "A bear came flying off the side of the building and saved me."
"You could have a concussion. It sounds like you might be hallucinating." It made him feel like shit to plant that in her mind, but it was for the best. If she found out there were bear shifters in the world, it would be much more of a shock than a bump on the head.
"I know what I saw," she said. Her brown eyes met his, stubborn and confused. "But how could I have seen that? A bear? In the middle of the city?"
Sirens were screaming down the street now. He needed to make sure she didn't say anything that might expose him. "Yeah, that sounds like the product of a head injury to me. If I were you, I wouldn't mention that to the cops. It will make them mistrust your judgment."
She looked down the alley, as if trying to recreate the scene in her mind.
"The only bears in Chicago are the football team," he said, hating himself.
She laughed a little. She looked up at him, and there was something in her face--something yearning, something hopeful--that sent a hard jolt to his heart.
Then the cops and paramedics swirled around them, and Marcus had to step back.
He gave his statement, making it sound as if he had seen the mugging from the window of his apartment. Though he told himself he should leave, that he should get back to work, he watched and waited while the woman talked to the cops.
The mugger had dropped her bag, so Skye--he finally got a name to go with that tempting body--hadn't lost any property. She hadn't gotten a good look at her attacker, so she couldn't give the cops much of a description. They found the club the mugger had used to bash her, but they didn't seem hopeful about getting prints.
In short, they were nowhere.
After an hour, Marcus was fed up. He pushed past the cops questioning Skye and hoisted her to her feet. "That's enough. She's gone through it with you twice already."
"Sir, we still have a few questions," one of the cops protested.
"You can ask her tomorrow," he said. "Now she's going home to rest."
Before anyone could argue, he put his arm around Skye and led her out into the street. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, I've had better days," she said with a sigh. "But I've also had worse. Thanks for getting me out of there."
"No problem." He could smell her hair, sweet like strawberries. She was still wearing his coat, but under its bulk he could feel her rounded figure. Though his groin had different ideas, he knew he ought to get away from her as quick as possible. "You probably shouldn't drive. I'll call my service for you."
She laughed, then cut off when she realized he was serious. "No, I'll be fine. I'll just take the El."
Marcus frowned. "You are not taking the El train after a head injury."
"I do it every day," she said.
"You don't have a car?"
Her spine stiffened. "No. There's no need for a car in the city. It's a waste of money."
As a man who had three cars and twice as many motorcycles, he didn't agree. But it seemed pointless to argue about that when he wanted to argue about something else. "You aren't taking the train tonight. My service will be here in ten minutes."
She rolled her eyes and slipped out from under his supportive arm. "Look, I appreciate the white knight act, but I'm fine. The train is only a couple of blocks away, and--"
She only got a few steps before she swayed, nearly stumbling. Marcus caught her in his arms.
Somehow, his arms were under the coat, around her body. Her soft breasts were pressed against his chest, and his hands were resting just above that gorgeous ass.
Their eyes met. She touched the tip of her tongue to her lush lower lip. His cock began to swell at the sight. Her lips were so soft, so close. All he had to do was lower his head, and his mouth would be on hers.
Marcus abruptly stepped back. His heart was pounding, and no wonder--all the blood that would normally be in his brain was flooding his cock. But one thing was clear to him. He was not going to take advantage of this woman. He was not his father.
He had to get rid of her. He saw a yellow cab approaching and stepped into the street.
"I'm not taking a cab, either," the woman said. "I'm taking the train."
"Not tonight, you aren't." Pent-up desire made the words come out in a growl. He turned to the driver and pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He handed the driver a hundred dollar bill. "Make sure she gets home safe, okay?"
"You got it," said the cabby, making the bill disappear.
When he turned back to her, she had her hands on her hips. She looked adorable, completely swallowed up by his coat. "You can't just tell me what to do."
He raised an eyebrow. "You said you wanted to go home."
She frowned. "Yeah, but ...."
"Don't argue."
"I don't want your money."
She was so fierce. He would have paid twice that amount to make sure she was safe. "Money's only worth what it can buy. Tonight, it buys you a safe ride home. That's worth it to me."
She stared at him. "Are you, like, some sort of guardian angel?"
"Hardly," he laughed. "Come on, get in the cab."
Cautiously, she lowered herself into the back seat. "How can I find you to repay you?"
"Just stay safe," he said. "That's repayment enough."
He closed the door on her before she could respond. He thumped twice on the roof of the cab, which obediently pulled away from
the curb.
He didn't know her last name. She didn't know his name. They would never see each other again, and that was for the best. She was a distraction he didn't need.
Still, he watched the cab until it disappeared.
Chapter Five
Skye
"Sylvester, you're an idiot."
Skye looked up from her computer screen, where she was researching bear sightings in the Chicago area. "Oh yeah, A.J.? What did I do this time?"
Her editor glowered down at her. "You think you're fooling anybody with that ball cap? You've got a bruise on your forehead the size of a paperweight."
"It's nothing." Skye squirmed under A.J.'s gaze. "I got mugged, all right? But it's no big deal, I'm fine."
A.J. looked at her for a moment, then shook his head. "You're an idiot for not taking the day off."
Skye opened her arms to the loud, crowded, smelly newsroom. "And miss the chance to spend the day in paradise?"
A.J. grunted appreciatively. "My office," he said, and walked away without seeing if she was following.
When she sat in the chair opposite him, A.J. asked, "Where are you at with that property I sent you to look at the other day?"
Skye was prepared. "45 acres of trees, lakes and brush outside of Rothbury, near the lake on the Michigan side. The town is population of 432. The property was owned by the family of an industrialist who recently died and they are looking to reduce their tax burden. It's on the border of Manistee State Park, and only accessible by dirt road."
"All right," A.J. said.
"The town is 90 percent white, according to Wikipedia. So thanks for sending my brown ass up there."
A.J. grinned. "You wanted the tough assignments, Sylvester."
Skye wasn't done grumbling. She was used to feeling different, but that didn't mean she had to like it. "The town is like Deliverance or some shit. A whole bunch of white people with beards wearing overalls. Men and women--I could hardly tell them apart. I drove through town and I could have sworn I heard banjos."