by Celia Kyle
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
About Celia Kyle
Copyright Page
SHP
Chapter One
A bear cub sat in her pantry.
Mia squinted and peered into the dim interior. Yup, a bear cub. The small ball of fur shifted, reflective black eyes settling on her with interest.
Heck no, she was not being mauled by a bear.
She slammed the door shut and counted to five, sure it’d been a figment of her imagination. Her mind had been playing tricks on her ever since she’d walked through the door of her deceased grandfather’s home. Part of her wondered if he’d decided to haunt her as he’d always threatened. A familiar pang of grief speared her heart. That fleeting thought brought back the memory of standing at the old man’s graveside less than a week ago, clutching her dad’s hand as her grandfather was lowered into the ground.
Her eyes stung, tears forming and clouding her vision, and she wiped away the moisture as it trailed down her cheeks. He was gone. She needed to push past the grief and live her life. He’d whoop her from one end of the house to the other if he caught her crying over him. The man had lived to a hundred, and he’d been ready for a break already.
A low, barking whine came from the pantry, the solid wood muffling the sound but that didn’t negate the source’s existence.
She had a bear cub. In her pantry.
Gripping the knob, she eased the door open and peeked inside. Yup, still there. Huddled in a tiny ball, little eyes trained on her. Every inch of his fur stood on end.
“Hey, little guy.” Mia kept her voice low, hopefully soothing to the cub. She was either dealing with a wild young one or a baby werebear. She was in Grayslake, Georgia. All werebears, all the time. She glanced at the cub. Mia voted for werebear. Like, really, really voted for werebear.
She hadn’t inherited the ability to shift but her dad easily transformed from man to bear and back. So, she’d grown up knowing about shifters. And he’d told her, and proved to her, over and over again that weres in their animal form still held onto their human thoughts.
She extended a hand toward the cub and kept her voice pitched low. “Hey, sweetheart. Did you get stuck in here? You ready to come out?”
The little cub shook its head and scrambled deeper into the corner.
Crap. Well, crap on one hand and woo-hoo on the other. She was fairly sure she was dealing with a were, but he remained in her pantry.
“Okay,” she sighed. “The thing about it is, you probably belong to someone who is a heck of a lot bigger than you and me put together. Your momma is going to be angry her cub is missing, and I don’t wanna get between you and her.”
Like, really, really didn’t want to get between a cub and its mother. While a werebear had human love in its heart, there was also the bear’s possessiveness and insane drive to kill anything, or anyone, who came between it and its young.
The cub shook its head, and its eyes glistened, shining with moisture that hadn’t been there before. This had to happen on her first day in Grayslake.
“Okay, well, I’m gonna leave the door open. So, when you’re ready to come out—” More trembling and an actual tear escaped the cub’s eye.
Darn it.
“Listen, little guy, or girl, I’m sure you belong to someone and they’re going to be so worried.” She took a chance, and sought to confirm her beliefs. “Why don’t you shift for me and tell me where you live? I’ll take you home—”
The cub whined and clawed the ground, nails digging furrows into the hundred year old wood floors.
“Hey,” she snapped. Cub or not, common courtesy spanned species barriers. “No scratching the floors.” The little bear immediately stopped. “Thank you. Now—”
A harsh, heavy pounding on her front door yanked her attention from the cub. The wood rattled in its frame, reminding her she needed to hunt up a repairman to replace it. The door was original to the house, and she hated to swap it out with something modern, but in a town filled with bears… She’d rather have an extra layer of protection in case one of the residents turned cranky at having a mostly-human in their midst.
The hammering came again, followed by a rough yell, and she sighed. Was everyone in Grayslake intent on disrupting Mia’s move? First the cub and now this guy. She’d only been in town a freakin’ day.
“Answer.” Thud. “This.” Pound. “Door.” Crack.
Aw, the crack did it. She’d buried her grandfather less than a week ago and was moving into his home at his bequest. Now some stranger decided to damage a piece of her memories. She didn’t think so.
Mia looked to the cub once again. “I’ll be right back, little one. Let me…” Her words trailed off as the pungent scent of urine hit her, and a widening puddle emerged from beneath the cub. She didn’t need her father’s shifter senses. The small bear’s stark fear was unmistakable. There was a reason the cub was hiding, cowering, in her pantry, and she guessed it had everything to do with the man darn near breaking down her door.
She held a hand out, palm facing the small one. “Stay.”
The only response she received was a tiny shudder.
More pounding from the front of the house echoed down the hallway, the man’s increasing growls easily reaching her through the old walls. If this guy had anything to do with the cub, like she suspected, then she’d be facing a werebear pretty darned soon.
Which really sucked.
Her visitor pounded on the door so hard the windows rattled, shaking in their ancient casings and the floor trembled from the vibrations. The closer she padded to the front of her house, the more her fear increased. Her heart thumped, sending blood thundering through her body. It assaulted her, attacking her with unseen hands, and she fought against the growing panic. The shifter would scent her terror and feed on it. Heck, it’d probably turn her into a nice, crunchy snack.
And then where would her little cub be?
Darn, she’d already gone and claimed him as her own. Her father was going to laugh his rear-end off and then remind her she couldn’t keep a shifter as a pet.
Ten feet separated her from the entryway, then five.
Okay, she had to get her poop in a group. Taking a deep breath, she dug deep within herself and sought out a good dose of anger. Anger trumped fear any day of the week. A shifter had a hard time getting past the scent of rage. She couldn’t let the bear on the other side of the door know she was very close to crying for her daddy.
The man slammed his fist against the door, cracking the front window. The jagged line sliced through the glass in the bay window. Her favorite window. The one place she coveted when she visited her grandfather. How many nights had they spent sharing the window seat as she read to him?
Okay, she didn’t have to hunt up anger any longer.
Without second guessing herself, Mia turned the knob and wrenched the door open. The move caught the snarling man by surprise, his fist nearly colliding with her face. Had she not ducked, she would have been one dead mostly-human.
The stranger pulled his punch and glared at her. He curled his lip to bare a fang.
But did he apologize
? No!
His exposed canine thickened and lengthened, pushing past his lower lip. She should have—would have—been scared, but she glanced at the window seat, the crack in the glass now longer than before, and her anger renewed.
“Can I help you?” Her words were clipped.
“I want my cub.” The male took a step closer and straightened, chest puffing out in an attempt to intimidate her. The sweet, heavy smell of alcohol wafted to her on the gentle breeze, and she wrinkled her nose.
He towered over her, but Mia stood her ground. If the baby bear in her pantry was this drunk guy’s kid, she wasn’t about to let him in. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know he’s in there.” A low growl surrounded her and her pulse quickened.
“Did you see him come into my home?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Everyone knows better than to hide someone’s young—”
“I wouldn’t ever hide someone’s young.” She crossed her fingers as she lied.
He pointed at her. “Human, you got my nephew in there, and I want him back.”
Mia tightened her grip on the edge of the door. A lot of weres thought of humans as less than dirt and it seemed this man was the same. “I’m only three-quarters human.” Her father was a halfer, but could still shift, while her mother was fully human. “Like I asked, did you see him come in here?”
“I smell him in this house.”
Oh, that was rich. She smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. “Really? Your nephew has hit puberty then?”
She knew the answer, but the snarky angel on her shoulder nudged her into being a butthead.
“I know that kid’s scent.”
“So, he has hit puberty then? Because if he has, calling him a cub has to annoy him.” She glanced behind her, noting the boxes scattered through her home and taking up very spare inch. There was no way for her to hide a four hundred pound shifted teen in her house. “I’m not sure where you think I’d hide an adolescent bear.”
“He’s four.” The werebear swayed in her doorway and more of that sweet stench of alcohol drifted toward her. Blech.
“So, he’s still holding the scent of the forest. I thought males couldn’t scent young before they hit their teens and they had to rely on sight until then. Only mamas recognized their cubs by their smell.” Mia shifted her weight. She sensed the bear getting more pissed as time passed. “At least that’s what Granddaddy told me.” She tapped her chin with a finger. “Maybe he was wrong.”
“He also shoulda told you that you don’t keep a bear from its cub. It’s dangerous. You need to send the boy out here or else you’ll end up dead like—” He snapped his teeth together, and another growl came from him, this time deeper and filled with the man’s beast. Dark brown hair sprouted from his pores, and his mouth began its shift from human male to deadly grizzly.
Aw, crap on a cracker.
She took a step back, putting at least another foot between her and the psycho shifting into a bear in the middle of her small neighborhood. She glanced across the street and met Mrs. Laurie’s gaze. The woman held a cordless phone pressed to her ear. Okay, the ancient woman was either gossiping with Edna at the post office or calling the police. Mia really, really hoped she was getting the cops.
A snarl from her visitor snared her attention. Darn it, his features had taken on more of the beast. His forehead flattened, the distance between his eyes increasing, and his mouth became a fur covered snout. He opened his mouth, exposing two rows of deadly yellowed teeth, and fear rose fast and hot once again.
The man took a step forward, and she had no choice but to back up. Adrenalin filled her veins, pumping fast, and boiling through her body. She had to keep him away from the cub. Fight or flight battled inside her, and she realized she had only one option: fight.
The little cub was terrified of this male, and after meeting him, she easily saw why. He was a drunk and a bully. Based on the way he was trying to physically intimidate her, she didn’t doubt he had abused the cub in some way. Women and children were cherished by weres. This guy seemed to cherish whisky more than anything.
“Sir, I think—”
The jarring whine of a police siren blasted through the air, and some of Mia’s fear fled. Since Grayslake was a shifter town, the cop heading her way probably had some fur hidden beneath the uniform. There was no way the bears would put a human in that position.
The guy on Mia’s porch spun and snarled at the approaching vehicle. If the whirring noise hurt her ears, she couldn’t imagine what it did to the sensitive hearing of the were. Good.
The car screeched to a stop in the street, sliding sideways and making the tires squeal with the sudden halt. The male inside the vehicle flung the door wide and jumped onto the asphalt.
“Griss,” the massive police officer stepped around the car door and Mia gulped. The cop gripped a handgun with both hands. Shooting him wouldn’t put the bear shifter down, but it would hinder his destructive capabilities. “What’s going on here?”
“Skin’s got my nephew. His parents died and left him to me. Told you last week. He’s mine, damn it.”
Skin. She hated the derogatory name prejudiced weres had given humans. She bit her tongue on the need to correct him.
“Uh-huh.” The gun-toting male kept coming, moving in slow, even steps.
As inappropriate as it was, Mia drooled over the guy. Just a tiny bit. What else could she do? The cop was tall, topping six feet, with wide shoulders and she could only imagine the muscles hidden by his uniform. His brown hair shined in the day’s bright sunlight, the rays dancing over the strands. Even from the great distance, she was caught by his vivid blue eyes. At the moment, they were hard and angry, but she didn’t doubt they could reflect kindness just as easily. His strong, square jaw elicited feelings of safety within her. His entire, overwhelming presence made her think of… being naked. She was really feeling her dry spell.
Then the stranger—Griss—growled and the sound snapped her out of her lusty haze. Right. A man trying to get through her to get at that poor cub took precedence over the hot cop.
The really hot cop.
“It’s my damn boy, Ty.” Griss’s voice was deeper, more of a roaring snarl than anything.
“She might not have him.” Twenty feet separated the cop, Ty, from the half-shifted bear. “Either way, I can’t have you wearing your fur on the street. Come on down, now.”
Griss swayed and stumbled toward the steps. “You gonna get that boy back? He’s mine.”
“Uh-huh.” Ty nodded. “We’ll talk about it, Griss.”
Mia snorted. They weren’t talking about anything if it involved giving the terrorized cub to the man before her.
Then she realized snorting had been a mistake.
Especially when Griss, even larger than before, spun on her and roared. It wasn’t a low snarl or the wall shaking roar of before. Nope, the male was so loud her bay window splintered and shattered into a million pieces.
“Griss, damn it!” The echoing pop from the cop’s handgun reached her a split second before a bullet plowed into the frame of her door.
The collision splintered the aged wood and slivers punctured her cheek and temple. She flinched, the stinging pain of the cuts slicing through her. Reacting to the ache, she placed her hand over the wounds and winced. Wetness lay beneath her palm, and the liquid spread more with every second.
But the shot did its job. The lumbering were spun back to the officer and snarled, advancing on the gorgeous man. She really hoped the guy had another dozen bullets or so. Otherwise, he was just gonna end up with a face full of pissed off werebear.
The angry male plodded down the creaking wooden steps and headed straight for the cop. The officer could start shooting any time now.
Only a split second later, she realized why he hadn’t. Another cop crept around the corner of her house, bent low as he stalked the half-shifted bear. The moment he was behind the distracted male he shot at the
man’s back. Two metal probes burst from the gun and launched across the distance, firmly embedding in the shifter’s back. Ah, a Taser. The angry man jerked and twitched, screaming with the pain of fifty thousand volts bursting through his muscles. He spasmed and jolted, finally falling to the ground in a trembling heap. As he lay there, disoriented by the electricity blasting through him, the features of his bear receded.
“Damn it, Ty.” Another round of jerks wracked the man’s body.
“Don’t blame me. Van is the one that got ya.” The officer holstered his weapon and slowly approached Griss. His attention was split between the trembling man and the other cop still firmly holding the butt of the Taser, finger near the trigger. Ty squatted by Griss and stared down at the prone man. “Now, if you’d done as I said, you wouldn’t be eating Miss…”
The officer looked to her. Mia took a few tentative steps onto the worn porch and stuttered out her name. “B-B-Baker. Mia Baker.”
“You wouldn’t be eating Miss Baker’s front lawn.”
“She’s got my—”
“Uh-huh.” Ty nodded. “I hear ya. Why don’t we head to the station and we can talk about it? Maybe have a cup of coffee.”
“Damn it.” Griss struggled to get his hands and knees beneath him, but the other officer was quicker. Van had a set of cuffs on the bear so fast, Mia hadn’t seen him move.
The second Griss realized he was captured he struggled anew, snarling and yanking at the cuffs.
“Come on. You don’t want me to hit you again, do ya?” Van sounded like he wouldn’t have minded one bit, but the threat quieted the drunken werebear and eventually the two men wrangled Griss into the backseat of the car.
Through it all, Mia watched the way Ty’s uniform clung to him, outlined his muscles and nicely framed his ass. Darn, she wanted to nibble it.
“Miss Baker?” Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed Van’s approach. Standing on the ground while she remained on the porch, she noted he was eye level. He stared at her with eyes eerily familiar and very much like Ty’s.
“What?” She shook her head and grimaced. “Sorry.”
“No problem, ma’am.” He gestured behind him. “We’re gonna get Griss back to the station.” He grinned, a wicked smile that crept into her and slithered over her nerves. A hint of arousal unfurled, but it had nothing—nothing—on what happened to her body when she’d first seen Ty. Van leaned forward, propped his forearm on the porch rail, and gave her a wink. “Then I’ll be back to take your statement.”