by Cecilia Lane
Runaway Mate
Book Four: Shifters of Bear’s Den
Cecilia Lane
A Shifting Destinies Novel
Copyright © 2018 by Cecilia Lane
Cover Art by Kasmit Covers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Runaway Mate: Shifters of Bear’s Den #4 by Cecilia Lane May 2018
Contents
Runaway Mate
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Next in Series
Also by Cecilia Lane
About the Author
Runaway Mate: Shifters of Bear’s Den Book Four
A bear prowling the edge of danger.
Gray Jennings has a problem. One that could get him put down by his alpha. It started when a rogue military commander laid siege to the town of Bearden and months later, Gray is still shifting in his sleep. His lack of control marks him as a hazard to both humans and other shifters.
He's being watched.
He knows the danger he poses.
So when rich girl Meghan Wilcox comes to town, he vows to stay far away. The last thing Gray needs is a distraction. Even if Meghan's curves and fragile beauty bring out his protective nature.
But the girl's got a secret and worse, her sweet scent stirs his angry bear.
A girl hiding from her enemies.
Meghan's on the run, hiding from a vengeful ex-fiance after she dumped him at the altar. He's humiliated and hunting for her, intent on payback. Out of sheer desperation she seeks safety in the small town of Bearden. Tucked away in a secret cabin, Meghan feels the glimmers of hope. Finally. But a new threat soon arrives in the shape of a terrifying shifter.
A bear who has shifted in his sleep. Gray Jennings.
Meghan gentles him and they form a tentative truce. A bond links her to the formidable shifter, but he's savage and unpredictable. Has she traded one danger for another?
Meghan's past won't stay quiet. Just when her heart is on the edge of loving this untamed shifter, danger looms, threatening all she holds dear. The only one who can save her is the wild and feral bear.
Gray Jennings...
Step into the world of Shifting Destinies, where the men and women you meet might just be a little more than human. Their towns are protected by magic, and their hearts are open and ready for love. But watch your step - more than darkness lurks in the shadows.
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Chapter 1
Meghan Wilcox absentmindedly stroked her ring finger. Up until the day before, a monster of a rock rested there and the missing weight felt odd. Not in a regretful sense. The band was a noose tightening around her neck and the numerous diamonds dragged her into the depths to drown.
She felt lighter than air without that weight on her hand but the fallout was coming. She’d blown a carefully crafted future to bits when she walked out on Bentley.
Her phone rang. She didn’t even bother looking at the screen before rejecting the call and chucking the device back into her purse. She didn’t dare check the total number of missed voice and text messages. Bentley and her mother wouldn’t give up.
She’d been an idiot to let the relationship carry on for so long. Her mother pushed her into dating Bentley and then convinced her to accept the engagement after weeks of a whirlwind romance.
Marriage was supposed to be about true love and passion, neither of which she could force herself to feel. The man was perfect, as her mother frequently gushed. But it was all surface. He was handsome, rich, and did she mention rich? He had fingers in just about everything that made money.
Not that she cared about the money. She’d have her own soon enough. She didn’t connect with Bentley on any level. Too many fights ended in promises to be better, try harder, don’t leave. And she’d cave under the extravagant gifts and notes of apology.
He could pretend to be nice and caring for a short time, but the mask eventually slipped. It fell away in spectacular fashion at their rehearsal dinner. Somehow the topic of shifters came up and Bentley launched into his usual diatribe against supernaturals. When she dared—dared—disagree with him in front of all of his rich friends and corporate stooges, he put her in her place.
Meghan dashed away the tears before they ruined her eyeliner. She would never let a man talk to her that way again. She’d kept her composure until she could slip away from the dinner, took off her ring, and fled the hotel.
A honking horn tugged her out of her memories. She rolled through the stop sign and searched for the bed-and-breakfast. She’d driven through the night and day to arrive in Bearden, Montana. An enclave full of shifters was the last place Bentley would look for her. She just needed a hold out for a month and then she could start her life without a Type-A d-bag telling her what to do.
Four weeks. That was all she needed. All of her acting money stashed away by her mother in a trust fund would transfer to her name. More importantly, her new job would start.
Paper Report was an up-and-coming program, but it already drew numbers to compete with the established investigative journalism shows. The degree she worked so hard for after her sitcom went off the air and years of listening to contract negotiations gave her the edge she needed to become one of their flagship reporters.
She just had to lie low and avoid her spurned ex for four weeks. Then she could leave the small town in remote Montana and get on with her life.
Meghan matched her speed to a slow-moving tractor ahead of her. Bearden was not what she expected. None of the pictures or even the travel brochure she picked up on her last stop for gas prepared her for the reality. She was used to a sprawling metropolis with a coffee shop on every corner and people packing the sidewalks and streets. Bearden had none of the hectic bustle.
She passed the short stretch of Main Street before she even realized it. The town square and another stop sign pulled her up short. She peered into her rearview mirror and counted one diner and one coffee shop.
That coffee needed to be good. She’d be living off of it for a month. Going without good coffee might just drive her back to Los Angeles sooner than she preferred.
She made a
right and was immediately thrown into another curve wrapping around the square. Another restaurant caught her eye by being the only other restaurant on the road. Pierre’s Fine Dining didn’t specify what sort of cuisine was on the menu. With any luck, it’d be less greasy than the diner’s offerings.
Even though it was nothing that she was used to, Meghan liked the charm. Big trees lined the streets and the square. Flowers bloomed around the thick trunks. Her tiny sports car was obviously out of place next to the big trucks in various degrees of disrepair or cleanliness. Even the people walking around weren’t the polished personas she dealt with on a daily basis. They weren’t putting on a show or trying to be seen. They were simply living out their lives. It was something she never had the chance to do.
Muriel’s Bed and Breakfast was her destination. Without an obvious parking lot, she pulled close to the curb and let herself out. Meghan chewed on her lower lip before hauling her suitcase out of the trunk. Muriel’s didn’t seem to be the sort of place where a bellboy would gather her things and take them to her room.
She dragged her bag up the short steps and into the front lobby. At least it wasn’t too heavy. She only had a week’s worth of clothes at the resort and doubling back to retrieve her belongings from Bentley’s home in Beverly Hills didn’t seem the wisest choice when she was running from her own wedding.
A woman of indeterminable age beamed her a smile in greeting. “Welcome to Muriel’s,” the woman said. “You looking for a room, darlin’?”
“I have a reservation. Under Alma James?” That’d been the first thing she crossed off her list of tasks when she decided where to go. The bed-and-breakfast wasn’t equipped for online reservations, so she called them up as she cruised along the interstate and gave them her usual fake name.
The woman nodded and clicked buttons on her ancient computer. She kept glancing up with a more curious expression each time and Meghan prepared herself for what came next. Some people outright shouted her name, while others needed to work themselves into it. Either way, she’d been recognized.
The woman leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Are you Meghan Wilcox? From Family Promises?”
Meghan smiled broadly. It was show time. “I am. But I’d appreciate if you kept that quiet.” She pulled a bill from her wallet and slid it over the counter. It never hurt to pay for silence.
Muriel slid the bill back to her with a shake of her head. “No need for that, Ms. James.” She winked. “I’ll even give you one of the private suites at the back of the property. My daughter used to love your show.”
Flattered and appreciative, Meghan tucked the bill back into her wallet. Maybe Bearden wouldn’t be so bad even with terrible coffee. “Well, let her know I’m grateful. It’s because of fans like her that I got to work. Would she like an autograph?”
Muriel’s smile broadened. “That’s such a sweet thing to offer, thank you. I just know she’ll love this.”
Meghan scrawled her signature on the business card Muriel handed her.
She’d seen too many stars rise and fall over the years. Heck, even her career was on the outs. She hadn’t acted in over five years. The only reason her name had any recent relevancy was due to her upcoming nuptials with Bentley Moore.
Meghan made a note to buy stock in gossip magazines. She was about to be a big story as soon as her split with Bentley was announced.
Her head swam with a stray thought. The cancellation of Family Promises was the happiest day of her life. She should have known Bentley wasn’t the one for her when his proposal didn’t come close to competing with that day.
Even though she rejoiced at getting out of the spotlight, she still insisted on being nice to the fans. Bentley hated it. She sometimes thought he didn’t like competing with her former fame. He wanted her to be the perfect, silent trophy, and she wouldn’t fit herself to that mold.
So many people said she gave them inspiration or they felt like they grew up with her. She couldn’t discard the importance they saw in her. She made them happy and that, in turn, made her happy. If she had to take an extra five minutes to sign some napkins when she was recognized at dinner, so be it.
Her phone rang three more times while Muriel finished up their transaction.
Locked inside her new room, Meghan prepared to give in to the exhaustion of a nearly twenty-hour drive. She let her purse and luggage fall to the floor and eyed the queen bed with more love than she ever felt for her ex-fiancé.
Then her purse chimed again and she let off of frustrated groan at the ceiling.
“What?” she demanded when she answered on the fourth ring.
“Your mother assured me this was simply a case of cold feet. But as you weren’t at the church three hours ago, I assume your idiotic note was telling the truth.”
Meghan made a face. First words out of Bentley’s mouth and he already insulted her. “I don’t want to marry you,” she said.
“I don’t care what you want,” he growled. “You’ll be back at the hotel in one hour. We can still make a courthouse appearance and arrive at the reception late.”
“That’s not happening.” And not just because she was much too far away to meet his deadline.
“I have no wish to listen to your excuses. One hour, Meghan.” The line went dead.
Meghan hissed at the phone in her hand and threw it on the bed. For good measure, she raised both her middle fingers at the device. Typical Bentley. Making demands of her rather than asking. If he truly cared for her, he would have asked why she left the way she did. Instead, he called and ordered her home.
It was his home anyway. Nothing about the place was welcoming to her. They lived together for six months, and for six months he refused to let her change a thing about the place. The unwillingness to blend their lives was just one more sign they weren’t meant to be together.
The wedding was the same. His ideas, his plans. She’d been given strict guidelines for her dress. At least the drive from Napa was shorter than from Hollywood.
Her phone rang again and she dove for it, intending to let loose all the curse words that were slapped out of her at a young age. Well-behaved actresses did not let themselves sound like street urchins, her mother always said.
Mimsy’s name popped onto the screen and Meghan let go of the phone like it’d turned into a poisonous snake. She wasn’t ready to talk to her mother.
She just needed to dodge her old life for a month.
Chapter 2
The sun baked Gray Jennings. He cracked open one eye and winced with pain. His head felt stuffed and his body ached like he alone cleaned out the entire stock of The Roost’s alcohol and then changed shape fifteen times. Stomach heaving, he rolled over. Twigs and leaves cracked underneath them.
Fuck.
He caught sight of the nearest tree trunk. His eyes moved around the clearing and took in all the damage that he’d caused. Every last one of them was clawed to shit.
“Fuck,” he muttered aloud.
He’d shifted in his sleep and found his way back to the clearing where the lives of Bearden went wrong. Again.
He was losing it. Almost an entire year had passed since the military surrounded the town and rounded up the citizens. None of the others in his clan were having as much trouble as he was getting over the incident. None of them were slowly losing their minds.
The rogue commander had been intent on selling the residents of the enclave to the highest bidder, if not outright killing them all. Cole nearly died from a shot intended for his human mate. Callum and the others had been rounded up. Leah and Hudson took tranquilizer darts. Government hearing after committee after hearing found no one in the enclave deserving of punishment while those responsible were ousted from their positions of power. The damage was done and Gray still couldn’t move past those events. The bear inside him wanted to fight and bleed every last motherfucker that tried to hurt his people but they weren’t given a shifter’s sort of justice. No, they were held up as martyrs by the pro-huma
n movement wanting to eradicate every last person with a drop of magic in their blood.
His bear rolled through him with a fresh wave of pain. Gray dug his hands into the dirt below him and swallowed hard. Even after a night tearing up the clearing where they’d all been held, his bear couldn’t find peace. The animal wanted to rip and roar and bite and claw everything.
Gray panted with his mouth open. He’d give his left nut for a night of quiet. Just one, eight hour stretch of continuous sleep where he didn’t worry about waking up naked in the woods. He could wake up normally without any worry that he’d hurt someone while his bear had control of his body.
That brought another pang. He wanted someone who had his back, like the other mated pairs in the clan. Cole took a bullet for Rylee that night and shoved her behind his back anytime the clan got rowdy. As much as Leah and Callum bickered, they always ended up in each other’s arms. Nolan went to the mat for Becca the moment someone started in on her, usually her own fault. A support system was sorely lacking in his own life.
He was a realist. It looked increasingly likely that he’d be put down before the end of the year. He was losing his mind. He couldn’t subject someone to his shit when he couldn’t even sleep through the night.