Bear The Flame (Firebear Brides 2)

by Anya Nowlan

  “You made it!” Redmond said, clapping him on the back. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”

  And that was the truth. Ragnar was at best on a greeting card level with the rest of the family. Redmond couldn’t safely remember when he last saw the man, and even less when he’d seen him smile. Maybe that Christmas twelve years ago? Hell, that could be it.

  “Well, I heard you two numbskulls were trying to solve a mystery and I know how well that usually goes,” Ragnar scoffed grimly, giving the faintest of smirks as they went from a hug to a handshake with Royce.

  “How’d you get here?” Royce asked, but his question was answered by an obviously self-satisfied looking Slate wandering in behind Ragnar, his wife Teresa in tow.

  “You bastard. You flew, didn’t you? And you didn’t tell anyone,” Redmond said accusingly, though his wide grin gave him away.

  He’d been itching to leave a few days ago, but at this point if Slate never took another flight out of Shifter Grove, then it would be fine with him. The pilot just shrugged good-naturedly and gave the Hamilton brothers a wink.

  “Maybe. I don’t know anything. And I definitely don’t know anything about the helicopter bucket I just flew in from Boise, either.”

  “Fire trouble getting too hot to handle?” Ragnar asked absently as Royce and Redmond shared a look.

  Redmond had called Ares that morning to lay out some of his preliminary plans. One of the necessities he’d mentioned was to get a helicopter bucket to aid in putting out the forest fires with Slate’s chopper. He’d assumed Ares to be the kind of guy not to screw around when things were important, but Redmond had to admit that he was impressed by the speed with which Ares had jumped to solving things. Things moved a lot faster in Shifter Grove than they did in Los Angeles and that struck him as damn funny.

  They were just in the process of leading Ragnar back toward Tiana and Rose when a breathless Rake Whiteplains pushed past him, running straight toward the bar where Warren and Austin were standing. Redmond could smell the smoke on the man half a mile away and so could his brothers. The good mood was cut like a knife. When Austin silenced the jukebox and Warren held up his hands to silence the laughter and conversation, Redmond already knew what was coming.

  “Guys, we have to cut our party short. Seems like we have some more work to do. A big patch of forest off of Rake’s ranch has caught on fire. It’s spreading fast and it’s serious.”

  Warren looked straight at the Hamilton brothers and Redmond gave him a short nod of understanding. They were almost out of the chemical extinguishers, but now they had the helicopter bucket, so depending on the situation, they could possibly take care of it. But it wasn’t going to be easy, especially if it was a big fire.

  “I’m going to be handing over the situation to the Hamiltons, standing over there by the door. I think you all know them by now. But we have to move fast. So everyone who can, go get your trucks and we’ll meet on the road leading into the Whiteplains’ ranch!” Warren called, igniting an immediate flurry of activity.

  “I’ll talk to them,” Redmond said, stopping Royce from going to Tiana and Rose. “Go get the truck.”

  Ragnar and Royce peeled off as Redmond rushed to Rose, giving her a hurried kiss on the cheek and grabbing his jacket from the booth they’d claimed earlier in the evening.

  “You have to go again?” she asked, eyes sparkling with worry.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, baby, but I’ll let you know how things are going as soon as I can.”

  “Look out for Royce,” Tiana chided him, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

  “I will,” he promised, taking Rose’s hand and squeezing it quickly as well before heading for the door at a dead run.

  Austin’s Texas was emptying quickly and Redmond was sick to his stomach with the knowledge that he’d have to leave Rose again because of a damn fire. It was glaringly obvious that these were not just accidents. Someone was screwing with Shifter Grove and he sure as hell didn’t like it.

  On his way out of the bar and hopping into Royce’s truck, Redmond didn’t notice the very familiar headlights of a car that had yet to mean anything but trouble. As they drove off toward the glowing redness in the distance where the ranch was, the car began creeping toward the bar.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rose

  Rose had gone from hell to heaven and back to hell again. She wasn’t sure how exactly it had happened, but between Redmond leaving and waiting for Tiana to sort out who could give them a ride back to the house, Conrad had snatched her in the confusion. Now, she was bound and gagged like she was in some twisted action movie, shoved into the trunk of Cole’s and Conrad’s car.

  She screamed and kicked at the closed trunk, trying her damndest to wiggle out of the binds that held her. But it was no use. If there was one thing henchmen were usually good at, it was making sure their tied-up bounty stayed like that: immobile. The car sped along the dirt roads; she could tell that much because of the constant bumps and sharp turns along the path. After a while, she could get the gag out of her mouth, but kept herself from yelling. It wouldn’t do any good anyway if there was no one to hear it.

  Swallowing her panic, Rose was trying to keep a level head on her shoulders.

  What can I do? How the hell can I get out of this? she asked herself, hoping against hope to get some sort of a brilliant idea that would make it all better.

  But before she could come up with this dazzling plot, the car slowed and then came to a sudden stop. When the trunk was opened and she was met with Cole’s and Conrad’s sneering faces. Rose screamed as loud as her lungs allowed. Cole just snickered in reply as Conrad fished her out and threw her over his shoulder.

  “Scream all you want, Rosey. No one to hear you here,” Cole said conversationally as he slammed the trunk and all three of them walked toward a house that was still in the middle of construction.

  Shifter Grove had a wealth of houses still being built. Because of the recent boom in the little shifter-human town, demand seemed to always be higher than supply for new living spaces, and different projects were worked on depending on the availability of materials and time. This one seemed to be no different. The house was probably waiting for roofing shingles considering the look of things.

  Cole knocked on the door respectfully and the voice that called from within made Rose’s blood ice over.

  “Come in,” it called, slick and smooth.

  They entered and Rose was set down on a chair in the middle of the living room. There were a few cots opened along the walls with signs of being lived in for at least a few days. This must have been where Cole and Conrad had been holing up, and now Kenner. She swallowed hard as he walked up to her, stopping right in front of her with his arms across his chest. Kenner did not look happy.

  “Rosey, honey. You’ve been a bad girl, I hear,” he said, grinning his predatory grin.

  While Redmond always made her swoon a little when he put on his cocky bad boy face, it looked so damn out of place on Kenner. He was a tall, rather slim man, built wiry but strong. Dressing in carefully tailored suits, he always looked like a million bucks, despite his angular features and the cold, conniving look in his green eyes. When she’d first met him, she’d mistaken callousness for efficiency and that had cost her dearly.

  “Let me go,” Rose hissed, her hands tied behind her back and her legs pretty useless as well. “You can’t make me come back with you like this! I’ll just keep escaping!”

  It sounded desperate even to her, but she was a prisoner. No denying the obvious.

  “And I will keep bringing you back,” he said casually, dropping down on his haunches.

  They were on eye level now, Kenner staring into her blue eyes with all the interest of an eagle ready to pluck out the heart of its prey. He traced his thumb down the side of her face and she winced, marked by a chuckle from Cole. Kenner tossed him a sharp glare and the man raised his hands apologetically, making himself scarce and finding another room to haunt.
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  “Now that we have our privacy, Rosey, tell me. Why do you keep making things difficult for us, hmm? You know I don’t like playing games, and still you seem to be intent on trying my patience,” he said, dropping his voice lower to that threatening tone she knew far too well from her voice mails and the few times she’d been dumb enough to get caught by him alone after breaking up with him.

  “I don’t want you,” Rose pressed out between thin lips, shaking all over but holding on to her anger. “We’re over. I’m not interested in being your girl, I don’t want to work for you, I don’t want any of this. Please let me put this all in the past and move on, I beg you! I don’t want this kind of life and I think you need to be with someone who wants the same things you do,” she said, trying to rationalize with him.

  But it was like a herring trying to talk some sense into a hungry shark. She had already lost and she just didn’t want to face it yet. Kenner grinned, slicking his reddish-blond hair back. Once, she’d thought that the way he wore his hair made him look sophisticated. Now she knew it was just a front for the monster hidden inside of him.

  “You say that like you think this is up to you, Rosey. It isn’t. You’re mine and I won’t let anyone take you from me, do you understand? You can make this hard or you can make this easy. If your choice is to keep running around in circles, so be it—I can track you down far better than you can run away. This little exercise should have proven that much, I think.”

  He captured her chin between his long, spindly fingers and held her in place as he leaned in, kissing her on the mouth. She loved every kiss she had with Redmond, but with Kenner, it just left her feeling violated. There was no affection in that kiss, not from him and certainly not from her, because she was not responding at all. The fact that he still pressed himself on her despite her obvious unwillingness to participate made it all the more creepy for her.

  “You’re mine, Rosey. Don’t forget it. Saves us both a lot of headache,” Kenner said casually as he stood up to his full height, smirking wryly. “And don’t worry about your little boyfriend. We’ll be gone long before he thinks twice about you. I can assure you that you’ll never see him again.”

  Her objections and screams died on her lips, feeling like the wind just got ripped out of her lungs. Gasping for breath, Rose felt tears pool in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks as Kenner walked out of the living room and toward where Cole and Conrad had gone.

  She couldn’t even pray for a better outcome. The last thing she wanted was for Redmond to get mixed up with these animals. He was a werebear, sure, but there were three of these guys, and by the way Kenner’s hip bulged underneath his suit jacket, she knew they’d come armed. No sensible fox or raccoon would go against a much larger shifter without some form of self-protection.

  Sobbing quietly, Rose cursed herself for ever thinking this was a good idea. Running had never solved a damn thing in her life and now she had potentially gotten the man she loved into as big of a mess as she was in. Hoping and praying that Redmond would show up as much as she wished that he wouldn’t, Rose waited for the inevitable.

  A lifetime of misery with a damn fox seemed like a better alternative to seeing Redmond getting hurt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Redmond

  As with all things in his life lately, Rose’s disappearance came like a kick in the gut for Redmond. He was in the middle of cutting a path through the woods with Deacon North and his cousin, trying to create a fire line before Rake’s ranch, when Tiana and Royce came running to him out of seemingly nowhere. Tiana was frantic and one look at Royce told Redmond that things were serious.

  “What’s going on?” he asked sharply, dropping the axe.

  “It’s Rose. She’s gone missing. I think I saw that car pulling out from Austin’s Texas that Royce described in our yard a few days ago,” Tiana said, her voice shaking.

  “Did you let Diesel know?” Redmond asked, already striding toward the road, quickly trying to figure out the easiest way to make it back to town and figure out where the hell Rose had been taken.

  “Yeah. I told him,” Royce said, grabbing Redmond by the shoulder and making him whip around angrily. “Hey. Keep a cool head. She’ll be fine, she’s a smart girl,” Royce said stiffly.

  Redmond relaxed a tiny bit, though his bear was up in arms, vowing to shred through anyone daring to keep him from Rose. With a sigh, Redmond nodded and put his hand on Royce’s.

  “Thanks. Can you take over here?” he asked, knowing that the fire wasn’t too far.

  They could already hear Slate approaching with the helicopter, having filled up the bucket in a nearby mountain lake, but it would be a hard fight to get the blaze under control.

  “Yeah. Go get your girl,” Royce said.

  No one needed to tell Redmond twice.

  It was all a blur from there. How he got the truck from one of the locals—he didn’t even know who, just that it was a big Ford F-150 and all he could think about was running over Kenner and his fucking cronies. How he made it to Shifter Grove and how he picked up the very obvious scent of raccoons outside of Austin’s Texas. They may have made conniving little henchmen, but they had such a distinctive smell that Redmond had to wonder why people bothered to hire them at all. Everyone knew raccoons were nothing but trouble.

  Somewhere between losing his mind and getting on the trail, Redmond ran into Diesel, the sheriff. He’d smelled the same scent, and the firm, serenely threatening look the panther shifter wore filled Redmond with all the confidence he needed. Whatever he was going to meet when he found Kenner and Rose, he knew that the law would find a way to side with him.

  Together they tracked the scent to the half-finished house outside of Shifter Grove. They left their trucks far away and continued on foot, keeping quiet and approaching in a way so the wind wouldn’t carry their scent to the house. Bears had strong noses, but foxes were better still and Redmond didn’t want to take any risks with tipping Kenner off before Rose was safely in his arms.

  If he’s done anything to her, I’ll rip his spine out, Redmond thought darkly, his hands itching for Kenner’s neck.

  Diesel had grabbed a shotgun from the truck and the closer they got to the house, the better of an idea it looked like to Redmond. There was only so much a bear could do against bullets, though one as determined as he was could take a good few hits before he’d stumble. Still, backup was appreciated. Weighing his options, Redmond finally decided on the most dramatic and easiest one.

  When they’d gotten close enough, he simply walked up to the door and knocked. He heard scrambling on the other side, along with voices. Rose’s scent was maddeningly clear here, all cherries and vanilla, and he had to physically restrain himself from barging through the door and immediately carrying her out.

  Every muscle in his body was flexed and ready to go when the door opened, leaving him staring mutely down the barrel of a gun.

  “We weren’t expecting visitors,” the man said. Redmond guessed that he was Cole based on Rose’s description.

  “Sorry to mess up your dinner plans,” Redmond said with an easy grin, pushing past him and ignoring the gun completely.

  “I could shoot you in the head right now, you know.”

  “Yeah, but you won’t,” Redmond scoffed, blindly stalking through the house and into the living room.

  When he saw Rose sitting there, tied up on the chair, he just about exploded. Gritting his teeth together, his blue eyes flashed dark brown and for the life of him, he couldn’t make them turn back. The bear was too fucking pissed off.

  “Redmond!” she said, her face lit with both relief and fear at the same time.

  “So this is the beau,” Kenner said casually, leaning on the doorway that lead into the living room from the kitchen. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure yet. I am Kenner Dealy. And you must be the piece of shit bear who thought he could take my girl from me.”

  The way he delivered those comments was like he was a bored announcer sa
ying the same thing for the twentieth time that day. Redmond wanted to rush to her and untie her right away, but the three guns trained on him now gave him pause. He turned around to face Kenner, murder in his eyes.

  “I can’t take something away that never belonged to you in the first place, buddy,” he ground out, every word an exercise in self-control. “And by the fact that you have to have her tied up, I get the feeling the lady doesn’t appreciate your brand of affection. Now, how about you wise up and let her go before something really unfortunate has to happen?”

  Kenner grinned mildly, showing a row of perfectly white teeth. Redmond couldn’t wait to kick in every last one of them.

  “I don’t think that will work for us today, Mr. Hamilton,” he said in a leisurely way, straightening up.

  He was taller than Redmond, but not by much. Kenner cocked his gun and Cole and Conrad did the same. Redmond was standing a few feet from Rose, right in front of her with his back turned to her. He was sure they wouldn’t shoot him if it meant risking a shot at her, but playing chicken with a bunch of psychos was never something he liked doing.

  “Yeah? Well, I guess we can dance, then,” Redmond hissed, throwing his self-control out with any shred of remorse he may have had about beating up three people.

  The shift took him faster than it ever had. It was easy giving in to it this time, when the bear was so close to the surface and just itching to get out. His body expanded and elongated, dropping from two legs to four. Thick fur sprouted to cover him from head to toe and his chiseled chin and hard features warped into a terrifying maw and deadly jaws, itching to snap around a raccoon or a fox. When he let out his first roar as the grizzly bear, a searing bite of pain ran through him at the same moment.

  Conrad, seemingly the only man in the room who could really read the situation right, had changed his position so he could shoot at Redmond without hitting Rose. The bullet bit into Redmond’s flank. With a growl, he ignored it and went straight for the main culprit, barging into Kenner like a tank into a hedgerow. Everything seemed to slow down around him as he plowed into the fox shifter, who hadn’t had time to do more than start the shift process himself.