Alphas of Storm Isle (Complete Boxed Set: Books 1-5): Werebear Shifter Menage Romance

by Sophie Chevalier

  “Well, you’re right—seamen can be from anywhere. Sometimes I sail in American waters, but mostly I work above Queen Charlotte Sound and below the Alaskan Gulf.”

  “How’s that life?” He smelled good, too, even better than the fire.

  “It suits me.” He stroked the side of her face with his rough, thick fingers. She loved the faint scratch of them on her soft white skin. “Why? You wanna make a go of it yourself? I’d take another hand.”

  “You don’t want me as a hand, Hunter.”

  “No. I want you as my mate.”

  She had to flicker her eyes away. It was such a bold, naked statement of desire. Men had never spoken to her like this—so directly, so forcefully, so honestly—before she came to this place, met these people. Such undisguised longing still threw her… even though she loved it. Her chest had gotten hot. “Hunter…”

  “Where are you from, Ginger? Seattle?”

  “I was born in Boston.”

  He whistled. “Far from here.”

  “Farther than you know.” I never thought about bear shifters and seers and clanmeets when I was in Boston. Never. “What about your family, Hunter? I remember—what you said. About how they’re—gone. But I…”

  He brushed some hair behind her ear. “Let’s take a rain check on that, baby.”

  “Do you have anyone?” she persisted, loving the way his fingers traced the curve of her ear.

  “Not blood kin,” he said, slowly.

  “So you’re alone?”

  “All clans are family, so I’m not alone. I live near two packs, up by Kitimat. And I’ve got friends.”

  “Still. You must be lonely.”

  He hesitated. When he spoke, his voice had gotten quiet. “I guess I am.”

  “You think I could take that away?” she asked carefully.

  “I just want you close to me.” His hand slid around onto the back of her neck. “For a long time—or forever. That’s what I want and that’s all I think.”

  “Hunter…” It was a struggle to keep her eyes open: the pleasure of his touch, his nearness, his affection was so inebriating. “Where did you—”

  “You can ask me more questions,” he said huskily, “and I’ll answer them, I will. You deserve to know.” His hand gripped her neck tighter. “But what’s the point, Ginger? Do you really need to hear my address, or my boat number, or my license date? You know what kind of man I am.”

  “But how were you educated—growing up? Did you go to school with regular kids, or—what? Where did you live—with who? Where do you live now? What kind of home? What’s your life like?” she pressed. “I want to know. I want to understand you.”

  His eyes softened; she could see that he was touched. “You mean it, huh, Ginj?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “But you already understand me.” His hand slid across her shoulder, down onto her breastbone. “Our connection’s real, Ginger.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. The things she felt for him were undeniable, primal… genuine.

  “Hunter, I want… I want to…” I want to be in your arms.

  “What do you want, baby?”

  She squirmed over into his lap, and he accepted her, holding her close to his chest, one hand in her hair, one on the deep, soft curve of her waist. Her eyes closed, slowly, and she melted like butterscotch against him, against his hard, warm body. He hummed something lowly into her hair. The fish kept cooking.

  She’d never felt so good.

  The spitting and rustling of the fire half lulled her to sleep—but, at the last moment, she remembered something. Her treat.

  She spiderwalked a hand up his chest to get his attention. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.”

  The hand reached his mouth; she tapped his lips. “You promised me something.”

  “Don’t recall.”

  “Filthy liar.” She could feel her eyes brightening. “Eat me.”

  “Damn, girl, that’s bold. I like it.” His eyes brightened too, burning a hot, liquid gold. “But I need more convincing.”

  “Convincing.” She said the word dryly. “When you promised me.”

  “Indulge me, baby, come on.”

  She shifted so she was leaning on an elbow, then leaned close to kiss him. He growled into it, enjoying her mouth, her vanilla taste.

  It wasn’t long before their kisses grew hungrier, rawer, deeper. She bit his tongue and he made a sound of rough, primal pleasure.

  “Yeah, Ginger,” he hissed. “Use your teeth on me.”

  His hand roved from her hip up to her neck, and then into her hair, but she gripped his wrist and pulled it back down to her soft, flushed breast. He squeezed and she gasped.

  “Eat me, Hunter,” she whispered, her voice low and sweet. “Lick my pussy.”

  He exhaled, sharply. “I want nothing more, girl.”

  Gripping her middle—making her giggle—he rolled her onto her back so his full weight was on her. She loved the hot, muscular press of his body on hers: she couldn’t resist running her hands over his powerful shoulders, his strong arms, his cut, hair-shaded chest. Instinctively, surrenderingly, her thighs spread. He was an alpha male—rugged; built; pure man—and all she wanted to do was give him her body.

  He kissed her mouth, domineeringly—her body melted like hot pudding—and then her jawline and her neck. She felt him teething her throat, like an animal proving its authority—an animal holding back a kill bite—and her back arched.

  So good. So raw. Her arms went around his neck.

  But he slid away from her, kissing and nipping her collar bone, licking the skin between her breasts, sucking her peony-pink nipples to diamond hardness. Her hips raised desperately off the cave floor, working against him, but he was still a long way off from her wet, swollen pussy and he was taking his time.

  He kissed the soft, firm skin of her flat stomach, raising goose bumps—then lower: the curves of her hips, the tops of her thighs, a few inches underneath her belly button. Spreading her legs roughly, he was confronted with her sex, and his breath hitched; she bit her bottom lip. The sight of her pink, dewy lips, glistening with juices, made his eyes fill with golden hunger.

  One arm he wrapped around her thigh, his fingers digging into her flesh for purchase; with the other hand, he ran his thumb over her flushed, swollen cunt. She hissed, arched her back, and angled her hips further toward him.

  “That’s right, Ginger,” he growled. “Offer yourself.”

  Reaching down, she parted her pussy lips with two fingers, revealing a deeper, clutching pink. His cock jerked; a bead of pre-come slid down from the head.

  He sucked on his middle finger, coating it in spit, and then pressed it slowly, carefully inside her. She groaned, tipping back her head; her pussy clenched tight as he pushed in to the knuckle.

  He started slow, easing it in and easing it out, but she growled and rocked her hips impatiently, so he pressed a second finger in—she sighed—and began pumping fast and rough. She liked that better, her breath shortening with each stroke.

  “More,” she whined after a minute, so he pushed a third finger in. The sound of pleasure that she made echoed wantonly in the sea cave.

  Rotating her hips, she pumped her pussy hard, then harder against his fingers. She didn’t want things gentle—she wanted them lusty, passionate, wild.

  Fingering her fast and rough, he crushed his calloused thumb against her pink, swollen clit. She cried out lewdly, then wriggled her hips wildly, dislodging his fingers.

  “Eat me,” she gasped, widening her legs. “Like you promised!”

  He pulled her thighs further apart and lowered his face to her cunt.

  She could see him inhale her scent. “Sweet, Ginj,” he rumbled. “Sweet like apples.”

  Once, twice, he kissed her lips—then he buried his face outright between her legs.

  She moaned, her mind seared blank by the pleasure of his mouth.

  His rough beard on her soft thighs was de
licious; so was his hot, rough tongue working on her soaked, delicate folds. She knew he liked what he was doing—he was groaning against her pussy. She reached down to play with her clit as he pressed his tongue inside her and he bit, softly, at her labia—then he forced her fingers away and sucked her clit himself, with abandon.

  So good. So good. So good.

  He grabbed her waist and crushed her even nearer, her heels on his back spurring him on. She was moaning and thrusting her hips, forcing him to eat her out harder—his fingers were inside her, his teeth were on her clit—

  Her sizzling pussy clasped on his tongue—her clit pulsed, throbbing against his tongue—and she came. His hot, coarse style had been just what she needed, and the dam between her hips burst with a vengeance.

  “Come for me!” he rasped against her orgasming cunt. “Good girl! My Ginger!”

  His Ginger.

  Maybe I am.

  Chapter 6

  Her education continued. He kept her at digging and fishing until she could get her own food, and spent long hours teaching her all the bear-edible plants she should look for to eat. Skunk cabbage, sedge, sea milkwort, huckleberry and cranberry; sow thistle, and watercress, and, ironically, wild ginger.

  He also taught her how to defend herself, bear-style. “You’re a woman,” he said, “but you still need to know how to wrestle.” So he had them go through whole series of mock battles—first blowing and huffing, then charging, grappling, tussling, biting, and, finally, rolling together on the ground. She couldn’t beat him, obviously, but that wasn’t the point. He just wanted her to know how to fight.

  “You could take another woman, no problem,” he told her confidently. “You’re strong, Ginger. I can actually feel it when you close your jaws on me.”

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to hurt—”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you’re strong.”

  He had her dig out squirrels and voles, but she always let them go from out under her big, flat paw once their dens were opened. It drove him insane—but he never forced her to eat them.

  One day he even made her climb a tree—a big, thick hemlock. “Grizzly bears don’t climb,” she’d tried to protest, but he’d waved that off as a myth.

  “I don’t climb. I’m too big. But kids and women can climb when it suits them, so get up there.”

  The view of the straight from that height was lovely, she had to admit. The water looked like a big purple plate in the dusky light.

  He showed her how to dig a den, how to navigate the woods at night—it was easy, it turned out, since her bear-eyes had a tapetum lucidum like a cat’s and she could see in the dark—and how to find and raid raptors’ nests, although, again, she refused to eat the eggs.

  They coupled all the time. Sometimes during the day, deep in the woods in the ferns, but mostly at night. Every night.

  Her needs were stronger, her appetites fiercer than they’d ever been—and her orgasms were deeper, too, more primal. There was no way she could deny her hunger for him, and so whenever the longing to be mated came over her she’d throw herself down on all fours and let him take her. His shaft sunk deep in her silky, needy pussy was feral bliss. She’d never had better sex in her life.

  Just like he’d warned, they were fucking. Often.

  And she loved it.

  It was always human sex; she had no interest in bear mating, and he told her that was normal and neither did he. She was glad to hear that.

  At night, after a session of animal passion, she’d curl up close to him with her arm around his neck and listen to him tell her those things that he couldn’t show her.

  “We’ve got a hierarchy. It’s mostly the same as wild bears’, but not completely.” The fire would be burning, flickering orange light over them and crackling. “Powerful men and elders are most dominant—usually—then powerful women and women with children. Single women who’ve never whelped and have no clout, teenagers, and little kids come last.”

  “Powerful? Meaning strong?”

  “Sure, strong.” She never got tired of his fingers in her hair, or tracing the lines of her face. “But it can mean other things, too. Clever. Influential.”

  “How is that any different from wild bears’ hierarchy? You know, actual human beings recognized a long time ago that men and women are equal and should be recognized as such…”

  “In the wild, it’s always men in their prime at the top of the heap. Always. But we’ve got human minds… actual human minds… so we respect our elders—either gender—and our women, too. If a woman got big enough to fight for Alpha, there’s no law to stop her. They just usually don’t. And you better believe that weak men rank below single women.”

  When the fire burned out, sometimes she could see shooting stars past the cave mouth, or through one of its stony oculi. She’d never seen a night sky so bright and so dusted with stars. It must look like this everywhere, but there’s too much light pollution to see it.

  Not everything he had to tell her was pleasant. Men sometimes killed each other in bear-form fights, over women or territory. Shifters who didn’t work hard enough to manage their animal half could be violent, or become too purely wild—he told her once that a woman had killed her own cubs when she’d birthed them too early, the way a real sow might. And sometimes shifters were shot by normal humans, who thought they were nuisance bears—or trophy animals.

  “Knew a guy who was killed, way up North,” Hunter said. “Near Prince-of-Wales. Shot by a bunch of tourists in a boat while he was wandering up the coast. See, you gotta be careful, Ginger. Anywhere people are—or might go—if it’s not a park, like Katmai or Yellowstone, then it’s not really safe to change forms. Sometimes even then it’s dangerous. Learn when the hunting seasons are, okay? I don’t want you to end up as someone’s rug.”

  Those stories scared her. “You think I could ever lose control—or be shot?”

  “I don’t know about being shot. But losing control… with you, Ginger, I can’t picture it.” He rubbed the rim of her ear affectionately. “A city girl like you? Nah. Fuck, never. You’re too much a part of the human world.”

  “So you think I can go home—to Seattle? After all of this?”

  “Yeah, I do. Did someone tell you otherwise? Hell, if MacAlister can live there, so can you.” He snorted just thinking of Dane. “Listen: I’m training you so you can live any way you want to, Ginger. Just drive out to Glacier on the weekends. Let the animal out sometimes and you’ll be fine.”

  “I couldn’t stand Saltspring.” It was hard to admit that. “All the smells. All the people.”

  “You’ll adjust.” He was serious. “You’re strong, Ginger, just like I’m always saying. If you wanna go home to Seattle, then go ahead and go home. You’ll make it work. You’ve lived in cities your whole life—any bear who told you it’s not possible wouldn’t even know! Most of ’em live in the wilds: Kootenay, Fairbanks, Haines… they could never tolerate a place like Vancouver, or Portland—or, hell, Seattle. But you can.”

  “I thought you wanted me.” She bit the tip of his thumb, which had found its way to her mouth while he held her face. “But you live on the water—not in Seattle.”

  “Seattle’s on a coast, isn’t it?”

  “Hunter…”

  “I’m serious. I’m not gonna make you live on the Pacific or in Prince Rupert if that’s not what you want. I work a long season, anyway—gone for months.” He kissed her deeply. “But once it’s over, Ginger… I can put in anywhere… Seattle, even…”

  The thought made her flush.

  She lost track of the days, of time. The sun went up, crested, and went down. She was getting used to her new body and her new senses—accepting them, almost. There were still evenings where she had brief, hard crying fits—full of anger and fear and frustration—but he would hold her and wait them out, soothing her when she was finished, stroking her hair.

  “Don’t be bitter,” he’d whisper. “Everything will be fine, Ginger. I promise.
”

  Gradually, she started to believe him. Not only did her fear ebb, draining away bit by bit, but it was slowly being replaced with something else: wonder.

  A new world was opening up to her, one where she could hear a moth’s wings flutter and a rabbit’s heart beating, where she could shift red cedar logs with a single shove, where she could smell the clams hidden in the tidal silt and the swamp-nettle before it opened. She had to admit it was a beautiful world. The wilderness bloomed for her like never before.

  She felt tough and healthy and fierce. Lusty. Alive. Every day she felt more awake—and stronger—than ever before. If nothing else, the shift had made her powerful.

  And she found she loved being with Hunter, loved falling asleep and waking up in his arms, loved spending the brisk, sunny days with him. Somehow—slowly—she’d come to trust him. Really trust him.

  And maybe love him.

  ***

  “I have to take us back, Ginger.”

  She looked up from skipping stones. “Back? Where?”

  “To Storm Isle.”

  She stared at him, not sure she’d heard right. There were a few unused pebbles in her hand; she dropped them slowly into the water with a plunk, plunk, plunk. “There? Why?”

  He got up from where he’d been sitting on a log. “It’s been two weeks. Did you know that?”

  “No.” She gazed into the smooth, slow-running stream. “I wasn’t counting.”

  “Listen, Ginger, it’s time to go back. You have to spend some time there.”

  “No, I don’t. Why should I?”

  He came toward her, put a hand on her arm. “Because they’re your family, Ginger. You have to know—”

  She shook him off. “They’re not. I hated it there, Hunter—it scared me. I don’t want to go back.”

  “But you don’t hate spending time with me? You’re not scared of me?”

  “No, I love spending time with you, but you’re different. The bears in that place… I just don’t like them.”

  “You like Cat and her kin.”

  “They’re different too.”

  He hesitated. “You liked Dane.”