by Fox, Piper
Winter Tails
A Limited Edition Winter Shifters Collection
Contents
Bear, It’s Cold Outside
Piper Fox
Sorcery and Silver
Margo Bond Collins
Claimed By The Wolf Pack
Elizabeth Dunlap
Charmed
Stacey Jaine McIntosh
Breath Of A Dragon
Jessica Cage
Winter’s Awakening
Faedra Rose
Saving Patrick
Tricia Schneider
The Thrill of the Chase
Elvira Bathory
Saved By The Snow Leopard
Samantha Bell
Polar Opposites
Samantha Coville
Fire And Ice
Kish Knight
Resolutions
Margo Bond Collins and Blaire Edens
Cat Among The Demons
Lillia Hunter
Twisted Fate
Laurie Treacy
To Claim a Bear
R.L. Wilson
Bear, It’s Cold Outside
Piper Fox
About Bear, It’s Cold Outside
Mallory thought she had it all. Until her entire life plan came crumbling down.
Headed to her grandmother’s house to forget about the promotion she didn’t get, her car gets stuck in the snow in the middle of a mountain. No problem.
Grabbing her winter gear, she’s ready for a hike when her luck strikes again. This time she loses a snowshow and twists her ankle. The dire situation just gets worse when a dangerous growl is way too close for comfort.
When that growl shifts from a giant bear into a hot, naked man, though? Well, that changes everything. At least if she goes with him, she won’t die from hypothermia.
Nothing else is going to plan—why not just see where this thing goes?
Ryan is sick of corporate jerks trying to buy him out.
At least back on his mountain he’s in control. Or at least he was, until his bear finds their mate lying in the fresh powder. Even though he’s wary that she’s just another ploy from the corporation looking to buy his shop, he’s more than willing to play with his unawares mate and convince her to stay.
Chapter 1
Jamming her foot into the accelerator pedal again did nothing but send a fresh spray of snow flying from her stuck tires. “Just great.”
She balled her fists and tried to breathe, counting to ten to try and stave off the anger. “One, two, three,” she said out loud.
She was going nowhere. Counting wasn’t fixing that. It wasn’t like her car was afraid of a timeout in the snow.
Pulling out her cell, she waved it around, searching in vain for a signal.
Nothing. Great. She was going to have to get out. There was no way she would make it down the driveway in her car and obviously up wasn’t happening. If she’d only gotten that promotion, she could have finally gotten a new-to-her SUV. Something more suitable to Alaska and her Gran’s stupid adventures.
Mallory peered out the window and still didn’t recognize the road. Granted, everything looked different with a fresh coat of snow. She wouldn’t have remembered the way anyway. It had been something like ten years since she’d visited.
Flipping over the envelope where she’d noted the directions, Mallory glanced over her shoulder. The mile marker was right. This was the right driveway. Where was Gran sending her now?
Either way, she would not make it in her car and the cabin was nowhere in sight.
With a quick puff of air, she blew the hair out of her face and reached for her hat and gloves. This was going to be cold.
The handle seemed stiff as she pushed the door open. Yeah, the car didn’t want her to get out anymore than she wanted to. The groan of the metal echoed through the mountain.
Bracing herself, she sucked in the frigid mountain air and plunged her booted feet into the snow. A small mound of fresh powder tumbled into the top of her boots, meeting her sockless ankles. She shivered.
“Great.” A quick kick at the snow and she made a small patch for herself to stand in while she raised her phone over her head. Hope bubbled up as one bar showed.
Keeping the phone above her head, she brought her other hand up and tried not to move as she pressed in Gran’s name. The phone rang. Thank the Lord.
It rang again and again until it cut to her voicemail.
Figures, Mallory thought.
Putting her phone in her pocket, she shivered again. Time to push through or freeze to death. Not that her life was exciting or anyone would miss her. The bitter taste of defeat was still fresh in her mouth. She’d done everything she could, and the promotion had still gone to her coworker - a man. Sure, he was hardworking and mostly qualified, but she was better. Everyone said it. The position should’ve been hers.
It was good she got away. Visions of throat punching someone played on a loop in her head. Mallory wasn’t a violent person, but she was sick of being ignored. Sick of being bested by someone because he was a man, not because he was better at the job.
She leaned into the car and grabbed her parka, sliding her arms inside. Nature could take her out, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
Much better.
Maybe her car sucked, but she had her snowshoes and plenty of warm gear to at least get to the cabin. She’d just walk. Maybe the fresh air would clear her mind.
Pushing the driver’s seat forward, she reached for the snowshoes and quickly fastened them to her feet. It had been years since she’d taken the time off to enjoy the outdoors. She almost looked forward to the new adventure, even if she could get over the fact that she couldn’t escape her life forever.
What was she forgetting? She patted down the coat and remembered one more thing, her overnight bag. That would get her through a few days as long as Gran had food.
Either way, it was too late now. It wasn’t like Mallory could run back down the mountain to stock up.
Blowing a kiss at her rag-tag little car, she put her bag over her shoulder and started to walk in the direction she assumed was correct.
How hard could it be to find a cabin, even in the snow? The driveway gave a relatively obvious idea of where to go since the trees on either side framed the path.
She trudged her way up the path, fighting against a new layer of powder falling from the sky as her thighs burned with exertion. Maybe she should have been better at keeping up on her workouts. If her growing ass hadn’t been motivation, this trek up a mountain was.
The cabin was supposed to be less than a mile up the driveway. This shouldn’t be too hard.
Maybe she would finally clear her head and forget that she had every plan to be a partner before her boobs sagged from age and she lost her hair from the stress of the job. Now, though, that wasn’t the case. She’d worked too hard for too long. And all she was left with was deciding where she wanted to go from here.
The bruise to her ego hurt more than she thought it would.
Before she could register what happened, Mallory was on her butt and her head throbbed.
Who the hell put a tree in her way? She rubbed the small bump starting and looked up at the branch jetting into her path. Where had that come from? How had she been so lost in thought that she missed it?
As she pulled her gloved hand away, she cringed at the sight of a sma
ll bit of blood.
This wasn’t good. Her head grew cold as the wind picked up and the blood welling up on her forehead appeared to be freezing.
Mallory pushed her ass up. This day was shitty enough. She wasn’t going to die in the middle of nowhere.
Probably.
Her gloved hands sank into the snow as she tried to push herself up. Several attempts later she was up, but the world tilted. She wobbled as she got up too fast. Her hand slipped as it caught air past a tree she misjudged. A scream caught in her throat as she tumbled back and started to slide down the mountain backwards.
“Oh, no. Help,” she cried out.
Finally, her body piled up enough snow around it to stop her. She laid there as the world continued to spin.
“This sucks,” she shouted , knowing no one but the falling snow could hear her.
Lifting her head and her foot, she curled a lip at the realization she’d lost a snow shoe and her ankle ached.
Yup, this day was getting better and better.
She laid back in the snow and let her arms flop to the side. A rustle of snow blew with the wind. Except, the sound that she heard next wasn’t the wind at all.
What was it? Wind didn’t growl. Not like that, anyway.
If she raised her head and looked back and there was something there, she would scream. No. She would get up and run. She would not die out here still being a failure at her job and in her ugliest underwear ever.
God, she needed a break. No animal attacks. No forest rangers finding her mauled body with granny panties on display through shredded jeans.
This was supposed to be the year of Mallory, and instead it was like the year of Murphy’s law and just as dumb.
She’d missed her career goal, she’d run out of men to date, even scraping the bottom of her metaphorical fish bowl, and now she was going to die by the claws of a wild animal.
She so wasn’t ready to die yet.
Tipping her head back, blinking at the snow drifting into her eyes, she prayed there wouldn’t be anything but a tree.
One more unanswered prayer met her in the form of something massive and hairy.
A scream caught in her throat as a brown furry creature glared at her.
Year of Mallory-schmallory. She was going to die.
Chapter 2
Ryan smelled the faint scent of blood as he peered into the window of an unexpected obstacle.
He sniffed the air again and his pants grew tighter. He glanced back at his truck and up towards his cabin. He wasn’t moving with this car in the way.
His bear wouldn’t let him go anywhere either. Whatever the source of the scent was, his bear wanted it.
He glared at the car. The hood was still warm and snow hadn’t accumulated much, which meant she wasn’t far. The scent of blood also had his pulse thundering in his ears.
Why couldn’t he just leave the scarce scent alone? Something about the blood overrode his anger at the fucking car blocking his driveway. He hadn’t been up to the cabin for months and the one time he decided to get his ass up here, someone had blocked his driveway.
Ryan stripped and threw his clothes onto the seat before he slammed the door of the truck. The bitter cold bit his ass for the few the seconds it took him to shift. His paws sunk into the snow as he started off in the direction of the scent tilting his world.
Fuck.
His bear growled as they approached the source of the delicious scent. He wanted to argue with his beast, but even he couldn’t deny the need to find the source of the scent that had his blood stirring. He’d caught the female’s scent near the car, and the scent alone nearly had him forgetting how to breathe.
If something or someone hurt her, he’d kill them.
He told himself it was logical to look for the owner. The only thing that kept him from losing his shit was the stirring of his blood as the scent hit him with another brisk wisp of the wind.
Ryan couldn’t fight it and couldn’t fight his bear any longer. He followed the quickly disappearing scent of the female.
They stood a few feet from a purple blob in the snow. Delicate strands of hair spread out from under a hat. Slowly he approached her. Was she dead?
His bear growled.
Mate.
The wind blew the scent to them again and again, and Ryan fought against instinct. Instead of acting on their need to claim the female, they slowly approached, curious.
Why was this female up here? Why was she bleeding? Why was she wearing so many clothes?
That last one shouldn’t have been a thought.
She moved, and his bear stepped closer.
They sniffed the air again. The thought came to him again.
Mate. Mine.
Only the beautiful scent wasn’t pure anymore. No. The sour scent of fear tainted her sweet smell.
His bear paused and twisted his head. They looked into the trees for a threat. Nothing told him there was anything or anyone around.
“Don’t you come near me! Stay,” she yelled.
His bear looked over their shoulder once more. Was she talking to a dog? Stay? He did not stay at command. Not on their mountain.
Ryan let the scent of her suck him in. He wanted to taste her.
“Stop. Go away,” she screamed.
This time Ryan pushed his bear’s instincts aside and listened to her, watched her.
Oh.
She was yelling at him. Right.
He shifted and slowly stood on two feet. He shook the snow off his hands and slicked back his unkempt air.
He studied her, ignoring the chill of the air on his cock. He probably needed the bath of cold air as his senses got confused between wanting her and realizing she was scared. And hurt. He needed to not forget the hurt part.
Slowly he closed the distance between them, treating her like a wounded animal.
With a sigh, he shook his head. She was trespassing.
The bear within him didn’t care if she was trespassing or merely lost, he just cared she was there. Of course, his bear tried to push its way back up and take over. Ryan snarled at his damn soul. His bear would be angry at him for what he was about to do, but he’d come up here to clear his head and instead he was staring at a female that had no business being up here. Regardless of what his soul said.
Sure. She was his mate, but from the smell of things she couldn’t know that. She was human.
Why was she here? Did someone send her to spy on him? He still wasn’t selling his fucking shop. There was no other answer he could see for her to be here.
He’d come up here to get away from the stress. He didn’t want the deal, and he’d nearly killed the little shit trying to force his hand. Corporate greed had no end, it seemed. They saw something they wanted and didn’t seem to get the giant neon flashing fuck off written on his face every time they stopped by. He was sick of it.
Ryan took all his pent up anger and stormed through the snow, stopping at the woman.
“Why are you here?”
Her eyes grew large and her mouth formed a little ‘o’. Her lips, pink from the cold, were gorgeous and full. He could almost imagine her mouth around his cock, could see her cheeks flushed from coming for him over and over.
He shook his head. Fuck, he wasn’t hard up for a woman. No, a mate. He just needed to get away until he could get his temper under control. His business partner swore he would beat off the starving wolves of the buyers. But now, Ryan just felt himself growing more pissed off. Ha. More like sexually frustrated. With each breath, her scent went straight to his groin.
She needed to get out of his head.
“Answer me, woman. Why are you here?”
He glared as she tried to push herself up, but as he took her in, he noticed her wince and slowly laid back down.
“Are you okay?”
She let out a little whimper. “No.”
Well, fuck.
“If I get you up, can you stand by this tree? When I shift, can you climb on?”
Okay. At least she didn’t babble, he supposed.
His bear didn’t care what was going on. He just kept growling and making this a fuck load harder than it needed to be. He couldn’t possibly control his cock, his damn bear, and console this female. The male brain had its limits, and it simply wasn’t ready for this kind of shit.
“Alright. I’ll help you over there.”
Gently he lifted her, realizing she was missing a snowshoe on one foot. Why was she snowshoeing? Was his competition that hard up they would send a woman all the way out here and force her to snowshoe up a damn mountain just to buy his shop?
How was one repair shop that much of a threat? He had a few contracts with some truckers and larger outfits, but nothing that was going to make millions in profits.
Ryan held his breath as he carried her over to a small tree on the shoulder of the makeshift driveway.
His business sure didn’t seem worth sending out some poor woman for.
Well, if she was willing to come this far, maybe he’d play with her a bit. He didn’t have to accept her as a mate. He’d lived this long as a bachelor, he hardly needed to change that now.
The poof of her jacket hid her delicious curves, but his hand wrapped around her waist and could feel the temptations below. Yeah. He could most definitely enjoy teasing this woman before he sent her back empty-handed.
Maybe her body was the distraction he needed.
Chapter 3
Mallory couldn’t stop staring. She wanted to. But, damn.
He was all man. No, he was a bear. Gran might have mentioned the legends of the men here, but Mallory didn’t really believe them. Hell, her mom said that Gran had gone crazy living out in this small town for too long.