“They’re here on behalf of your old clan leader,” Rex reminded her. “We won’t hurt them unless they are here to harm you.”
“Be careful,” she sighed. “It’s not Luca or Ransom I’m worried about. It’s Robert.”
“The Guardians of the Shaw pride are there,” Drake said as he held Tessa’s hand at the table. “They’ll make sure no one gets hurt.”
“We will be back later,” Rex told her. He didn’t want to leave her there, but he had to destroy the threat to her safety. They wouldn’t take her away from him. Even if they were not mates, which he and his beast already knew she was, Ada was his, and he’d go to the ends of the earth to find her if she was taken away.
Once they left their land, Gunnar drove them over to the bar. When they stepped inside, the bartender, Cole, greeted them, and Dane, the werepanther, met them at their table in the back of the bar.
“I’m assuming Garrett got in touch with you?” Dane asked. The male ran his hand through his hair, exposing a mangled ear for a second before his wavy, blond hair settled in place, hiding his deformity.
“Yup,” Rex replied. “Tell me what you know about these bears.”
The blonde waitress, Olivia, stopped by the table to take their beer order, promising to return shortly. The Guardian watched her as she walked away before pulling out a chair to take a seat.
“They came in while it was slow and ordered a beer,” Dane explained. “They were quiet and didn’t stay long. I was late arriving today, and as soon as I walked in, I scented them. They looked nervous, watching Cole and Olivia closely. They obviously scented them, but tried to act normal. Cole said they weren’t here more than ten minutes, paid their bill, and left.”
“Did you get a description of their vehicle?” Rex asked. The men paused as Olivia returned with their beers, asking if they wanted anything to eat. She left with a promise to check on them when they refused any food.
“They drove an old, white Buick with Mississippi plates,” Dane answered. “They’re from Benton County.”
“That has to be them,” Rex growled. “That’s where the female we found said her clan lives.”
“I can talk to my alpha to see if he can loan you a few Guardians to help search for them,” Dane offered.
“Right now, I would rather find them on my own.” Rex paused. Ada was confident these males were not out to harm her. “If you see them in here again, I’d rather you call me right away.”
The males exchanged phone numbers. Dane left them at the table with another promise of help from the panthers. It wasn’t that they didn’t want their help. The bears were solitary animals, mostly, and they didn’t want anyone, friend or foe, sniffing around on their lands. It was better to let the Morgan clan deal with the threat on their own. It kept things quiet. The last thing they wanted was the human media to catch wind of the bears.
The panthers were already known to the humans after two of the Shaw pride’s cats were caught on film shifting a few years ago. Since then, they had been stalked by those who wanted to study them. His brother, Gunnar, had been captured by them, but he’d killed a guard at the warehouse north of town where he was taken after he had been captured. The scientist knocked him out and tossed his body at the dump. When he was found, he’d been rushed to the human’s hospital, but shifted when he woke and ran out of the emergency room. It was caught on the hospital’s camera, but the sheriff had made sure the video was destroyed before it fell into the wrong hands.
The bar began to fill up, and Rex watched every male who walked through the door. Olivia kept the two of them restocked with beer while they waited. It was nearing midnight when Rex shook his head and finally decided to give up. “We should head home.”
“I don’t think they’ll be back in here tonight, anyway,” Gunnar sighed. “We have a description of the car now. We can go out in the daytime and look for them if Drake will cover me in the fields tomorrow.”
“I should be out there working with you,” Rex replied, feeling a pang of guilt.
“You worry about Ada,” Gunnar ordered.
“I want her old clan to leave her alone, and I want to know who that male in Montana is who thinks it’s okay to buy a female mate.” Rex was puzzled over the idea there were males out there so desperate for a mate, they would purchase one as if she was nothing more than an online purchase sent to his home.
“If he’s doing it, then I wonder if there are others,” Gunnar said.
“There’s another younger female in the O’Kelly clan,” Rex informed him. “Ada says she doesn’t think Robert O’Kelly will sell the female, but I have a feeling he will.”
“There’re more females?” Gunnar barked, startling two women who sat at a table beside them.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Rex suggested, standing and dropping a bill on the table to tip Olivia. “I’ll explain more on the ride home.”
Rex filled Gunnar in on Anna Claire, and how she had recently matured and was of age to be mated. He was worried what Robert O’Kelly would do to the female now that she’d turned twenty; the age of maturity in their world.
“Why don’t we go in and get her?” Gunnar asked as they parked by the barn. Rex ran his hand down over his face in frustration.
“Drake won’t go for it,” Rex replied.
“He will if he knows there is a young female in trouble,” Gunnar retorted. “Plus, now would be the time to strike while two of their males are away from the clan. How many are in her clan anyway?”
“Seven males and three females,” Rex recalled. “Ada said two of the males are mated to two of the females. Anna Claire is the only unmated female in the clan. With Robert O’Kelly being in charge, that leaves four males.”
“And two of them are away from the clan,” Gunnar replied, doing the math. “I vote we get the assistance of the pride to help us take him down.”
“I need to talk to Ada about how loyal the mated couples are to the clan,” Rex said. “The last thing we need to do is show up on their land and discover we are outnumbered.”
“Talk to her,” Gunnar ordered, stepping out of the truck. He started to close the door, but paused to lean inside. “No female should be treated the way Ada and Anna Claire are being treated, Rex.”
Rex agreed, so he turned off the engine and headed inside to get answers from Ada. After that, he’d talk to Drake. Maybe the panthers would be of use to them after all.
“You want to put Robert down?” Ada gasped.
“It’s the only way to get him out of power,” Rex explained. “I need to know how loyal your clan is to Robert.”
“The mated couples are old and stay out of his business,” she began. “Martha and Peggy, along with their mates, Alfred and Doug, are not loyal to Robert. The two men he sent to find me, Luca and Ransom, are related to him, but from what I’ve experienced with those two, they hate him. The last two males, Dwayne and Arthur Knobs, are brothers who came to our clan about five years ago, and they would lay down their lives for Robert and whatever scheme he has going on. I always kept my distance from them because they gave me the creeps.”
“If Luca and Ransom are here,” Rex began, voicing his plan out loud. “Then all we have to worry about is getting through Dwayne and Arthur to get to Robert, correct?”
“That is correct,” Ada agreed. “I just want Anna Claire out of there and away from her father. He’s a scary man, and I need to make sure she is safe from him and the unmated males. I don’t know what they’ve done to her since I ran away, and I fear Robert may have sold her to the male in Montana in my place.”
“We will go after Robert and make sure the female is unharmed,” he promised. “Now, we all need our rest. Tomorrow, we will make a plan to take down the leader of your old clan.”
Ada climbed into Rex’s bed, replaying the words he’d just spoken in her mind. They were going to kill Robert. She couldn’t believe it was happening. For many years, she’d seen him as an unbeatable force. During her childh
ood, she daydreamed about the time when he would finally die and the clan would be free to do as they pleased, because none of the males had the balls to stand up to him. It was funny how the two older females and their mates were left alone. Even with Robert being so brutal and evil to everyone else, he never tried to rule them.
“No clan should have a ruler who puts fear into his people,” Rex said from the doorway. Ada propped herself up on her elbow so she could look at him as he stood in the doorway. “We don’t have a leader here. Hell, most bear clans don’t have alphas. We are solitary by nature.”
“See, I didn’t know that.” Ada frowned, there really wasn’t much she knew about things outside of the land she grew up on. If it wasn’t for her bear knowing by instinct what to do during the winter, she would’ve starved or froze to death.
“You have so much to learn about our kind,” he sobered. “Ada, I am so sorry you had to grow up in that environment.”
“I’m out of there now,” she sighed, holding back tears.
“How old are you?” Rex asked.
“Twenty-four, you?”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
Rex’s maturity made him come across as being a much older male. Ada was sad she’d missed out on so much from her youth, but at least she had a skill she could use. Martha made sure of that when the old woman took her under her wing and showed her how to live off the land.
“Get some rest, Ada,” Rex said, bringing her out of her thoughts. She yawned and turned off the lamp on the bedside table. It didn’t take her long to fall asleep, knowing peace would come to her clan once Robert O’Kelly was taken out of power.
Gaia sat cross-legged on her living room floor. Her eyes were closed as she meditated in the darkened room. She’d been there for hours, channeling the elements to give her the strength to build a storm system worthy of just enough destruction to keep the Morgan clan from going after the O’Kelly clan the next day.
Robert O’Kelly was expecting a shipment of illegal guns on the same day Rex and his brothers planned to go to Ada’s old clan. Gaia needed to keep them away for at least another three days. They wouldn’t be safe until the guns and ammo were picked up by the people who were coming to the O’Kelly’s land for the transfer.
Gaia couldn’t interfere by telling those Morgan boys the future. It was imperative they made their own fate, but she could easily control the weather to make sure they stayed inside during the day. The damage from the storm she cooked up would keep them busy for a few days, at most.
As soon as she felt the warm breeze through her soul, she knew it was done. A bad storm; one with a lot of hail and heavy rains with a few teeny, tiny tornados would be in the works for their town. It only took five more minutes before the weather radio sounded its first watches for the area, and Gaia smiled, knowing she was keeping her promise to the Morgan boys’ mother and her old friend.
Chapter 8
The alert on Rex’s phone woke him from a dead sleep. The area was under a tornado watch for the next twelve hours. He quickly turned on the television, lowering the volume so as not to wake up Ada. The local weatherman spoke of dangerous storms lasting from lunchtime all the way until midnight.
It was spring in the south, after all, and it was time for the warmer weather to come into the area, bringing storms with it. He cursed to himself as he continued to watch the report. There would be no working in the fields today for his brothers, and he sure as hell couldn’t head to the O’Kelly’s land to kill that son of a bitch, Robert, for the crimes against Ada and possibly Anna Claire.
Rex pulled a shirt over his head and grabbed a pair of jeans, dressing in his living room while Ada slept in his bed. He grabbed socks and boots, trying his hardest not to imagine curling up beside her during one of these massive storms, and walked out of his room barefoot. They’d be perfectly fine in his room since it was underground. If they were mates, he was sure he could find something for them to do to ride out the storms for the night, but she wasn’t.
They’d almost touched. Hell, he’d been so close to her when he pulled the towel from her body that he could feel the heat of the shower coming off her skin. He’d seen her body as a mate would; not as a member of a clan. There was a difference between seeing one of your clan mates nude for a shift and seeing your potential mate’s body. If he closed his eyes, he could pull up a mental image of her standing there bare to him.
With everything going on, Rex wanted to touch her, but knowing there was a threat to Ada meant they should probably wait. If they were unsuccessful at putting Robert O’Kelly down and the man touched Ada after they’d mated, it would cause her excruciating pain.
Rex shivered from the thought of his female being in pain. Knowing she had been freezing in that shallow den for two and a half months had already shattered his heart. She’d been through enough in her life. He wasn’t going to put her in a situation where she could be hurt again.
Ada was his female. There was no doubt about his mating instinct when he was with her. His beast clawed at his mind and body every time she was near. Protectiveness was an understatement when it came to Ada. Rex wanted to destroy anyone who treated her badly. If he thought he was protective of her now, imagine how bad he’d be after they had officially mated.
“Storm’s a brewin’,” Drake grumbled as Rex entered the kitchen, stopping to pour himself a cup of coffee.
“It’s going to get bad this afternoon,” Rex informed him.
“Gunnar just left to check on the equipment and fields,” Drake announced. “We can spend the morning making sure nothing outside gets blown around when this sucker hits.”
“Let me get my boots on and I’ll head out there with you,” Rex offered, downing the hot liquid as fast as he could without burning his throat.
They spent the next hour moving light objects into the barn and securing everything they could as the sky began to darken. Gunnar arrived, parking his truck under the overhang of one of the barns.
“Fields look fine,” he grunted as he knocked dirt off his jeans.
“I wanted to go to Hickory Flat today to scope out the O’Kelly’s land,” Rex admitted as he turned over the old wrought iron table by the back door. “I’m still nervous with those two bears being in our territory.”
“We haven’t heard from the sheriff or those cats yet,” Drake shrugged. “They’ll call one of us if they come back around.”
“We may need the pride’s help,” Rex stated as he moved a chair closer to the house. “I don’t want us to go there and be outnumbered.”
“We can go tomorrow night once these storms are gone,” Gunnar said as he pushed the door open to go inside.
Ada and Tessa were at the kitchen table, sipping on their coffee. Little Aria was in Ada’s arms, and Rex froze in place. Seeing the woman who was to be his mate holding a cub in her arms solidified his need for her.
“Rex?” Ada called out, bringing him out of his daydreams. “Everything okay?”
“Yes,” he recovered. “We have bad storms coming today. Drake and I were securing everything outside in case we have tornados or high winds this afternoon.”
Like it was timed, thunder rumbled off in the distance, and Ada glanced toward the window over the kitchen sink. “It’s getting dark out there already.”
“Our rooms are the best place for us to be,” Drake stated. “Let’s eat and retire to our quarters until this is over.”
“Sounds like a great idea,” Tessa said as Drake rested his large hand on her shoulder. Rex had to look away from the affection those two often showed when they were feeling their mating connection.
Gunnar offered to whip up a quick meal, and Tessa took Aria from Ada so she could put the cub down for a nap. Drake sat on the small community living area’s couch and turned on the television. Tornados were already touching down in Arkansas.
“I’m assuming you are not going to Hickory Flat today,” Ada stated, shivering from whatever thought had run through her mind.
&n
bsp; “No, we will wait,” Rex promised.
“I don’t want you to get hurt, but I also need to make sure Anna Claire is okay,” she worried. “I just hope he hasn’t sold her off yet.”
“The fact that you speak about selling a female off as if it was a normal event sets my anger off in so many ways, Ada.” Rex pulled out a chair from the table and turned it around so he was facing her side. Ada scooted her chair over and turned it slightly from its position under the table. Her eyes were starting to glow.
“That’s all I’ve ever known, Rex,” she reminded him.
“How many others has he sold?”
“Three that I know of,” she admitted, making Rex’s beast roar with rage. He tightened his fists at his side and took a calming breath. “To answer your next question, I don’t know where they are.”
“I promise you, I will find Anna Claire and get her away from Robert O’Kelly,” Rex vowed.
“If you’re not too late,” Ada whispered and wiped away one lone tear rolling down her cheek.
Chapter 9
The storm damage was bad.
When they emerged the next morning, Rex stood on the porch with his brother, Drake, and surveyed the front part of their land. Multiple trees were down, and the ones that had survived were void of their limbs.
“This is going to take us three days to clean up,” Drake huffed.
“Gunnar is already checking on the equipment,” Rex added. His brother had left at first light to drive out to their fields. The plows stayed in the field until it was time to move to the next one, and if anything had happened to the equipment during the storms, Rex would be working day and night to get it back up and running as soon as possible.
“Oh my,” Ada gasped from the threshold. Rex turned around to see her standing there with her hand over her mouth. “This is bad…really bad.”
“We are going to clean it all up,” Drake promised as he put an old baseball cap on his head.
Mating Instinct (Morgan Clan Bears, Book 2) Page 6