Two Bears are Better Than One (Alpha Werebear Romance) (Broken Pine Bears Book 1) (18 page)

“Yes!” King grunted, ramming his hips into her again. “Harder, harder, yes!”

As her muscles clenched, milking at King with all their might, Jill bit into him harder than she ever imagined biting someone. She clawed as his back so fiercely she knew it was leaving marks, and was slightly surprised he wasn’t bleeding, but the more she did it, the harder he pushed.

The friction was taking her to places she’d never been. The smells filling her nose seemed clearer, more intense, than ever before. This wasn’t just some almost-public-sex-in-a-cave scenario, Jill realized as a wave of tension gripped her, and King stiffened deep inside.

He thrust again, somehow feeling like he was even deeper than he’d been, no matter how impossible that was. Jill felt
her
hunger rage, felt
her
body grasping, clenching, desperate for as much of him as she could manage.

As the two desperate lovers clung to one another, Jill biting down to squelch a pleasured scream, energy swirled around them. Jill opened her eyes to find King staring straight into them. His face was intent, drawn, intense, as he thrust again. His mouth fell open and she saw for the first time that his teeth were longer, sharper than before. His eyes took on an inhuman glint, with flecks of orange and gold apparent in them.

Their mouths only inches apart, Jill felt King’s breath slide along her prickled, flushed skin. His hands gripped her ass, pulling her onto him. For one long, perfect moment, she felt like the two of them were two bears in one body. She felt the hair creep out of his arms, she felt his muscles grow tighter, thicker and harder, and then he went rigid.

“I can’t...” he groaned. “I can’t stop.”

With a hand on the back of his head, Jill scratched one last time, and bent her head, biting into his shoulder. “Don’t stop,” she hissed. “You’re making me come, don’t stop.”

The pulsing between her legs grew so fast, and so hard, that she thought she was going to hit that wall between an orgasm and blacking out that usually only happened when she had Harry, her friendly battery-powered rabbit.

Then again, the reason those orgasms came on so hard was that she’d be fantasizing about... well, one of these two bears.

Every nerve inside and around Jill’s sex flared to life. Her heart thudded against her ribcage, her breaths coming hot and fast and when she let out her groan, the whole world erupted. Him inside her, and Jill clutching to King’s body, she shook, she trembled, and sailed right past that blackout wall into another dimension.

By the time she came back to Earth, King had stood her up, but was still supporting her. She smiled and let out a vaguely embarrassed little puff of laughter. The delicious stickiness between her legs, the still-prickly heat between them, it all enveloped her, caressed her, and clung to every pore.

Off in the distance, there was a scuffling sound, but neither of the two paid any attention to it. They couldn’t – there was nothing in the world right then for either of them except the other one. King brushed her face with the back of a hand.

“We have to go,” he said softly. “No matter how much I want to stay here, holding you, we...”

“I know,” Jill whispered back, leaning forward to kiss his collarbone. She laughed under her breath. “You know, you’re the first man I didn’t have to bend over to kiss on the neck.”

“King!” a shout from the mouth of the cave, where Rogue was helping the cubs, burst through the darkness, shattering the haze of sex afterglow and sticky heat that held Jill and her mate. “King! There’s trouble!”

His eyes flashed, and those dagger-like fangs that grew in the middle of his squeezing and gripping and moaning looked suddenly more dangerous than sexy. “What’s wrong?” Jill asked.

King squinted and looked past the bend in the cave, toward the entrance. He shook his head.

That’s when the sound of a roar, of a clash, and of a body hitting the ground, reached Jill’s ears. She grabbed King one more time, focused his attention on her. “Don’t get hurt,” she said.

He laughed. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“King!” it was Rogue, shouting again. The tightness in his voice was pain.

“Come out here, King!” a different voice – but a familiar one – shouted. Jill searched her memory trying to place it.

“Draven?” she asked, kind of stunned and not really understanding. “Why is he here?”

“You know him?” Rage flashed through King’s face. “That traitor,” he clenched his teeth and his fists at the same time.

“King! I don’t have time for this! Get out here!” Draven shouted again. “I don’t want anyone hurt, but we don’t have much time!”

Another roar, and another crunching sound hit Jill’s ears.

“Uncle!” King roared back. “We call him that, anyway. He was an elder, he abandoned us,” he said to Jill when he saw the confusion spread over her face.

Draven is...? Oh my God this rabbit hole never ends, does it?

“I’ll kill you for what you did!”

King, footsteps heavy and powerful on the stone floor, was running.

Jill followed, unsure what was about to happen, but absolutely certain that no matter what it was, it couldn’t possibly be good.

––––––––

A
s she rounded the last curve of the cave, Jill was just in time to see a massive, golden bear take a swipe at a half-changed one.

Draven was standing stiffly, his old, wrinkled skin lined with scars. The neatly trimmed mustache on his lip was twisted when he changed, a huge scar showing Jill why he’d probably grown it in the first place.

“You damn fool!” the older bear hissed, barely dodging a claw.

“I know you’re a liar,” King said, squaring up as Rogue climbed to his feet. “And a traitor to the clan. You gave us up, old man.”

Draven shook his head. Despite his obvious age, his frame was still heavily muscled, though every time he turned, or shifted his weight, he seemed to favor his right leg slightly. Rogue used the back of his arm to wipe away a trickle of blood from his broken lip. “You never understood. Neither did your parents. He,” the old man pointed with a nod of his head toward Rogue, “he’s the only one who ever did.”

“Me?” Rogue spat blood on the floor. “Understand you? I hate you as much as my brother for what you’ve done. You made them come, you put us in danger in the first place.”

King took a wild swing, which the older bear easily turned aside. “You never fight well when you’re angry, you need to focus.”

That just made the big alpha more angry. He threw another punch, missed again, and stumbled that time. Draven’s smug arrogance was beginning to show a crack or two. “We don’t have time for this, King, and I don’t have time to explain everything. But if you don’t listen to me, the entire clan is going to be in a lab by tomorrow.”

King flexed a fist, his chest rising and falling in slow, heavy breaths. Rogue was hunched over, waiting to strike.

Jill put a hand on Rogue’s back, instantly calming him. “Wait a second,” she said. “This is starting to make sense.”

The radio on Draven’s belt fuzzed up. Someone on the other end demanded a report.

“All clear,” Draven said. “No sign of them yet, but we have time still.” He kept his eyes trained on King the whole time he spoke.

“Report as soon as you find them. GlasCorp management wants those bears in cages by sunrise. And Draven?”

“Sir?” the old bear asked.

“Don’t try anything stupid. We’re watching.”

“Sir. I read loud and clear. Draven out.”

“I’m not out to get you,” Draven said, to the two alphas. “Not out to get you or your cubs, or anything else. If I wanted that, I coulda had you years ago.”

“But you vanished right before the—”

King’s voice was cut off by a helicopter overhead. Draven shook his head. “My greatest regret,” he said, “is that I didn’t do sooner what I’m doing now. You’ll understand, but not right now. I can’t stay here forever, you heard the asshole on the radio.”

“If that’s true, then how the hell did they find us in the first place? Some great hero work, there.” Rogue’s voice was dripping with sarcastic venom. “Why the hell should we believe you? You vanish when we’re kids, then show up all these years later pretending like you’re some kind of magical savior?”

Draven laughed again, a dry, bitter sound that clicked in his throat. “You don’t have to,” he said. The old man lowered a hand, and a sound of metal clicking against metal rang off the cave walls. “You don’t have to believe me, neither of you do. But I figured you wouldn’t. I’m not exactly known for flying by the fur on my ass.”

He laughed at his own joke, and then showed what he was clicking. A silver rod, about four inches long, rested in the old man’s hand. “You’re coming with me, or I’m shooting about six thousand silver nails through every single one of you,” Draven said. His laughing at the joke became a grim smile.

“GlasCorp isn’t taking a single one of you.  They can’t – they won’t – find the truth about us. You’re either going to let me help you escape and get on with a new life somewhere else, or you’re going to get perforated.”

“Uh,” Jill stepped up between Rogue, King, and Draven. “I have a voice, right? My opinion counts? I think it’s probably a real good idea to take him up on this. I mean, we were leaving anyway, right? Wouldn’t hurt to have some protection.”

“Right,” Rogue said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Unless of course he’s just going to lead us out of here like a line of ducklings, and then turn us all over for a reward.”

“I guess there’s that,” Jill said. “Then again,” she trailed off, her eyes focused on the thing in Draven’s hand. “I’m not sure there’s much of a choice either way.”

The old man smiled, and then in his gravelly voice, he said: “I like this one. I’m glad you finally found her. I was wondering when you’d get around to it.”

Jill shot a glance at Rogue first, then King, but neither looked away from the old bear with the detonator. If anything strange was said, they didn’t react. Or maybe they were just too focused on trying to decide whether or not there was a real threat, whether or not that detonator would actually do anything if he decided to push the button.

“Two weeks,” Draven said. “You’re wondering about the bombs? All the time since you two have been distracted with honey bear here? I had all the time in the world to strap this place full of bombs. She didn’t have anything to do with it, this was all me. You two keep disappearing. And your cubs aren’t anywhere near as careful as older bears. It isn’t their fault though,” he said when he saw one of them look back. “The very thing that we can all use to keep out of human vision?” He winked, his single eye glinting in the firelight. “GlasCorp took it and made it more powerful.”

“You,” Rogue snarled, tensing again. “You
bastard!
” he dove again, but apparently took Draven by surprise with his sudden outburst of rage. Hair and claws and fangs and sprouting fur flew. Rogue was bloody and beaten, but not afraid. Definitely,
definitely
not afraid.

He swiped at Draven, but the old man got out of the way just in time to catch the claw on his shoulder instead of straight into his jugular where it had been originally aimed.

“What’s the point?” the old man grunted, taking an elbow to the stomach, and then managed to wrap a thick, changing arm around Rogue’s neck. As he bore down, squeezing as hard as he could, the alpha’s face started turning all kinds of interesting shades of purple, blue and green as he struggled to free himself. “Why... are you fighting? What do you hope to gain?”

In something that resembled a professional wrestling match, Rogue slid to the ground then kicked back to his feet, flipping his momentum around and slamming the old man backwards into the cave wall. Dust fell from above, and thirty pairs of wide-open eyes watched the brawl. The younger bear got a hand in between their bodies and got a handful of Draven’s face, yanking hard on the side of the old man’s cheek.

Rogue threw one punch, then a second, but a moment later, the wily, older bear fell to a knee, flipped himself onto his back and used the momentum to carry himself back over on top of Rogue. Draven whipped his fist across the big bear’s mouth once, and then with a smooth, almost unseen motion, flicked a metal baton out of his boot and pressed it across Rogue’s Adam’s apple.

“Can you stop now?” Draven hissed, his voice tight in his throat. “Why the fuck would I go to all this trouble to get money by turning you in? I’m almost eighty years old, I’ve invested well, I don’t need a bunch of cash for selling out my family. I got into this because it’s the only way I saw to
save
all of you. But I will absolutely blow you all into goddamn pieces if it means that our secret stays safe from prying, scientist eyes.”

Rogue struggled against the old man, and just watching her mate try to fight off someone that he simply couldn’t put a lump in Jill’s throat. This man – this bear – who when they first met, she thought was just about the strongest thing on the planet? He looked helpless underneath this guy who was probably three times his age.

The big bear pushed back, but Draven just popped the back of his head backward against the cave floor with a sickening
thud
. “This goes a lot deeper than you think,” the old man said. “A lot deeper than you can even imagine.”

“Can’t... breathe,” Rogue sputtered.

“I know, are you done fighting? Nod yes and I’ll let you up. If my eighty year old bones can do this, don’t you think maybe there’s a reason?”

Rogue nodded and the old man hopped to his feet with agility that defied all reason.
An experiment? On him?
Jill wondered.
That’d explain the strength and the power, and being able to hide, but... holy shit that’s too crazy even for me.

He stuck out a hand, pulling Rogue to his feet. “Nephew,” he said, “if I wanted to kill you just then, I could have snapped your neck like a twig.”

Nephew? Jesus
. Jill shook her head, reaching instinctively for King, who she found had relaxed some when her fingers wrapped around his lower forearm and it wasn’t bulged out and tight with strain. She worked her fingers in between his, and as soon as their palms touched, King’s shoulders sagged, slightly relaxed.