“Let me go, you fucking freak of nature! I’ll have your head mounted on my wall.”
“Don’t think so,” shouted Kyla. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t go to prison for the rest of your life.”
She put her hands gently on Maddox’s face. He was awake, but barely.
“Maddox? Can you hear me?”
The bear grunted and huffed, and she knew that he could.
Then, weakened, he shifted. Kyla could feel the transformation sapping him of more energy than he had.
“Don’t do anything that’s going to exhaust you,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m here, and we aren’t going to move you, not yet. You just stay still.”
She could see that the wound in his side wasn’t bleeding a great deal, but she was worried about the damage that had been done to his insides.
“I’m okay,” Maddox said. “I think.”
“I don’t believe you. When the doctor comes we’ll know for sure.”
Maddox smiled and then let out a quiet laugh.
“What are you doing to me?” asked Kyla through her tears. “How are you laughing right now?”
“I did it,” he said softly. “I saved you.”
Kyla kissed him gently on the lips, holding his head between her hands, and then she rested his face on her lap.
“Of course you did,” she said. “You’re the best man I know.”
“I did it,” he repeated softly.
“Maddox,” said Kyla, a thought occurring to her, “Was it you? The eagle?”
“Yes, sweetheart.” He looked into her eyes, a smile in his own.
She kissed his forehead. “You’re amazing.”
“No, I’m terrible. I nearly got you killed before I actually helped. I’m sorry. I was trying to warn you…”
“Don’t speak, gorgeous man. Nothing matters except that you’re okay.”
Nikki came out of the cabin then with two robes and a clean towel.
“We should apply pressure to the wound until the doctor gets here. Shouldn’t be long now,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” said Kyla as Nikki draped one of the garments over her shoulders.
Maddox winced with the pain of it, but he took it well. Nikki laid the other robe over him to keep him warm; he was beginning to shiver.
The sun was beginning to hide behind mountain peaks as the SUV pulled up to the cabin. Dr. Cooper and Dascha emerged, running to Maddox’s side.
“He looks okay, surprisingly,” said the doctor when he’d had a few minutes to examine his patient. “I think the bullet missed his organs by about a millimeter,” he said, “but we need to get him to the hospital in case. I’ve called an ambulance. We can meet it at the road if you help me get Maddox into the back of the car.”
“Thank you,” said Kyla, who was staring down at her lover’s face. “I’d hate for anything to happen to this man.”
The hunter known as the Ferret was a weaker man than anyone had dared hope for. Tristan discovered after only a few threatening prods with claws that he was the man in charge of the web network, and he released all of his passwords and the contact information about the anti-shifter movement to the alpha, who received it happily and added it to the pile of data that Corgan had supplied. He hoped to present it to the authorities in order to ensure that some rules be laid down about who was allowed entry to the territory.
Tristan and Dascha brought The Ferret (though they agreed in the end that this name was an insult to the animal kingdom) twenty miles away and dropped him with no supplies in another town.
“If we see you again we won’t be merciful,” the alpha told the man, who seemed to have lost his feisty spirit when he’d lost his rifle.
Maddox remained in hospital for several days. Any internal bleeding had been dealt with but he was told that he should stay immobile until he was somewhat healed. Kyla remained by his side.
“And so,” she asked him, “Are you going to head back to Montana, grizzly man?”
Maddox looked up at her light eyes. She tried to read his expression, and though she was attempting to free him of the shackles of a relationship, she desperately hoped not to lose him.
“That depends,” he said.
“On what?”
“Well, the doctors say I’m not to run around too much.”
“So you’ll stay until you feel better?”
“I was thinking that I need some serious rehabilitation,” he said, and his eyes began to drift down her body as they had done the first time they’d met. He brought a large hand up and with his index finger, he traced a line down her neck, settling it between her breasts. “It could take months. I thought I could start with some gentle stroking. And then move on to light nibbling, soft sucking,” with that he allowed his finger to slide to her nipple, which he rubbed gently through her t-shirt, “and eventually, when I feel quite a lot better…” his hand slipped down between her legs and as she spread her thighs apart, he slowly rubbed her through her clothing, “I thought that maybe I could fuck you for days and days and days. And days.”
“God, I hope bears heal fast,” said Kyla.
Sixteen
Over the next weeks, the pack managed a few innovations under Tristan’s watch and in conjunction with the local authorities: the town of Wolf Rock was to be firearms-free. Checkpoints were set up at all the roads leading into the area, approved by government officials who’d agreed to work, going forward, with the shifters offering input.
The Lion’s Head Pub received a new name and sign. It was now The Hunter’s Head, and its symbol was that of a not very bright man wearing a hunting cap, his head attached to a wooden frame. The establishment was going back to its roots; a welcoming locale for shifters of all kinds to congregate.
The biggest change, though, was the announcement to the world that shifters of all shapes and sizes were invited, welcome, to come to Wolf Rock to live. The hope was that the town would become a sort of refuge for their kind, where they were free to roam, to socialize, and to leave whenever they wanted to. With the arrival of Maddox and Corgan the world had opened up and Tristan and the pack had discussed the desire for schools for young shifters to help them socialize and learn to hunt, to protect, to excel in their roles.
Already new cabins were being built in the woods; new dens, new homes.
Kyla was filled with delight one day when, sitting with Maddox under the sun as he stroked her thigh, she watched a gigantic male lion and a crane make their way down the town’s main street. Over the days following they saw any number of creatures, from doves to elephants, roam through town. Perhaps the most beautiful and exotic shifter was a white tiger, a sleek man from Asia.
Shops were being leased to designers, who were coming up with innovative new ways to clothe the morphs, various garments fitting various shapes. A whole new industry was being established and the Longtooth Pack couldn’t have been happier to be at its forefront.
Maddox had been offered a job as a teacher in the new school, which was tucked away in the woods. His special ability to change into any conceivable creature was a skill that he was learning to control, and he was to work with the “gifted children,” to nurture their skills. Their gifts didn’t always match his, but occasionally they brought with them talents like heightened sight, as in the case of a pure eagle shifter, or extreme speed as in the case of a cheetah. Occasionally one would come along who had visions like Kyla’s, and these too were to be nurtured. She hoped also to gain control over her own mind and her own visions; to use them to help others.
Kyla went by the cabin one evening to say hello to Nikki and Tristan and to plan strategy for the upcoming months. She had a new job for which she didn’t yet have a title, but Nikki referred to her as “Mistress of Everything,” since her duties seemed to cover every facet of Wolf Rock from the school to organizing yoga classes.
The three were having a quiet dinner when the door opened.
Maddox walked in, which was a surprise—a pleasant one for Kyla,
who hadn’t expected to see him for hours as he’d said he had some errands to run—but it was Nikki who reacted. She stood up, tears filling her eyes, and Kyla looked at her, puzzled until she sniffed the air and realized that her man wasn’t alone.
From behind him, a small woman stepped out. She was about fifty years old and pretty. Her hair was a sort of dirty blond with hints of grey, and she looked an awful lot like Nikki.
“Mom!” The pack’s newest member threw herself across the room and embraced her mother.
Kyla looked at Tristan, whose eyes were also welling with tears.
“Thanks, Maddox, for picking her up,” he said to the grizzly man, walking over to shake his hand before offering Nikki’s mother a hug.
The woman hugged him back, looking apprehensive but content.
“I’m so glad you came,” said Nikki. “I wasn’t sure you ever would.”
“Well, it’s time for me to move on,” her mother said. “And you seem to love it here so I thought I should have a look around.”
“I’m so glad.”
With that, Kyla walked up to Maddox and put her arms around his waist. The next step, she knew, was to get his own parents to come. But for now she adored him for what he’d done for Nikki.
“I love you,” she said.
“You do?”
“Mm hmm.”
“I am a damn fine chauffeur,” he offered, which caused Kyla to smack him on the arm.
“What a response,” she said.
“Also, and this is important,” he continued, his large hands on her shoulders, “I love you. Massively, totally, incredibly, perfectly, Kyla Greene. I love you.”
If you’d like to be informed of future releases and special offers, please sign up:
Carina Wilder's Mailing List
This is the second book in the Wolf Rock Shifters Series, though each is meant as a stand-alone novel. The first is available for $0.99 here:
Winning the Alpha
The first two books of the Billionaires and Curves Series are available here:
Taken With You
Crazy About You
The Way to You
Excerpt from Winning the Alpha :
“Tristan…” I said.
“I know. You’re here for Craig, and I’m a traitor for even thinking these things, let alone saying them. But I want you, Nikki. With every inch of my body I want you. I have since the moment I saw you.”
I wanted to reach down and rip my dress open, to shove his beautiful face into my chest, to ask him, beg him, to take my firm, sensitive nipples in his mouth. I wanted to tear his pants off and to eat him, to suck his perfect cock until I satisfied him. To push his face between my legs, doing what I knew he wanted to do to me. In that moment I would have thrown it all away; the show, the chance to stay around, for five minutes naked with this man. But I couldn’t jeopardize his future, his life. And after what I’d seen the previous night I could only imagine that Craig would try to tear his throat out if he learned that Tristan was after one of his women.
“I have to go,” I said. They were the most difficult four words of my life so far, even though I knew I’d see him soon.
Tristan stood and removed his hands from the arms of the chair. I looked down and saw that there were distinct indentations in the fabric from his strong grip, as though all the energy of his longing had been transferred into his grasping fingers.
He turned away from me and said, “Go, then.” His voice was as tense as his body.
I left the room silently, full of regret but determined to keep myself in the game.
Bearing Up In Wolf Rock (A BBW Bear Shifter Romance) (Wolf Rock Shifters) Page 13