A Taste of Honeybear Wine (BBW Bear Shifter Standalone Romance Novel) (Bearfield Book 2) (12 page)

But just as the bear was emerging, Michael felt warm, soft lips press against his. Cool hands stroked his forehead. He opened his eyes and Alison was leaning over him, a half-smile on her delicious lips.
 

“Hey, you,” she said. “You looked like you needed that.”

Michael nodded, mesmerized by her. He couldn’t find his voice. All of the storm inside him, the rage and fury, was just gone. Vanished. Dispelled by a kiss. “Thanks,” Michael said, his voice strained. “I thought you were tied up?”

“That guy is as bad at tying knots as he is at getting dressed in the morning,” Alison said. “And I have a really dumb plan. Can you hear him out there? Tell me how far away he is?”

“No, he’s too small. He blends in with all the other birds.”

“Okay, well. Hmm,” she said, chewing her lip as she thought. Michael’s cock twitched at the sight of it, rising to half mast. Alison saw it from the corner of her eye and cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “You just look so amazingly sexy when you do that. I can’t help it.”

Alison took his cock in her hand and squeezed it gently. “We will have so much more time for this later, but I really need you to concentrate right now.”
 

A growl rolled out of his throat. “If you want me to concentrate, you shouldn’t grab me there. That’s whatever the opposite of concentration is.”

“Distraction?”

“What was that?”

“Do you find my hand on your cock distracting?” She smiled at him with wicked glee, like she had no idea how much danger they were in.

“What was the question again?”

She let go of his now achingly hard cock, then bent down and kissed him again, laughing against his lips. “You are such a goof. I am going to have so much fun getting to know you, and being your mate. But for now, let’s escape from this douchebag, okay?”

The wolves rose to their feet, growling at once with teeth bared and thick coils of spittle dripping from their mouths.
 

The bear in Michael stirred. “We can’t leave this place without the wolves attacking.”

“But if we don’t leave, they don’t care what we do, right?”

“I guess?”

“Okay, I’m going to dump some wine on you now.” And before he could say anything, she lifted Sable’s trashy tourist goblet and spilled the sour wine all over Michael’s face.
 

“Ugh,” he said, spitting it out. “Your honey wine is so much better.”

“When he comes back, you need to taunt him about drinking his wine. Can you do that? Just be a huge ass about it.” Alison darted over to the wall of the thicket, where a tangle of purple flowers bloomed. They had the same over-large look as the ones near the Raven Queen’s citadel, with a bulbous meaty pod and a white hooked thorn on the side. As she picked them, she yelped as the thorns cut into her palms. But it didn’t stop her. With bloody palms Alison picked a dozen of the flowers and crushed the pods over the goblet. A thin purple fluid trickled from between her fingers into the drink. Discarding the mashed heap against the treasure pile, she then found a clump of musk sage and rubbed it all over her hands to hide the smell of the crushed flowers.

The wolves watched, but did nothing.
 

“What is that stuff?” Michael asked.

“Aconite,” Alison said, smiling at him. “Super poisonous. And I think I may have gotten some in these cuts on my hands, because they burn like the dickens right now.” Her smile weakened and a look of fear came into her eyes as she quickly retied the gag and wrapped her wrists loosely in the twine bindings, again pretending to be a model captive.

Within minutes Sable returned, flying into the room silently before exploding back into his man form. The air was full of the stink of shift scent, the spicy bloody smell that accompanied transformation.
 

“Oh he’s close. He’s so close,” Sable cackled with glee as he rummaged behind his tattered throne for more enchanted cuffs. He was ignoring Michael and Alison, which would have been a good thing, except that meant he was going to skip the wine and go straight to capturing Marcus.

“That’s tasty wine,” Michael said. “Hope you don’t mind that I had some.”

Sable froze and turned towards Michael, his eyes narrowing as he took in the purple stains marring the shifter’s mouth and chest.

“It wasn’t as good as the queen’s, of course,” he continued. “But that’s to be expected. You just do it for show, don’t you? I mean, that’s not even a real goblet or real jewels. I can spot pasteboard jewelry at a hundred paces, you ridiculous man. And a pewter mug with a shitty paint job even easier. It’s like a metaphor for you, isn’t it?” The raven sorcerer went still with rage, so Michael kept on. “A pretender. An upstart. You lack the qualities of a real ruler, so you dress up and make a mockery of it without even realizing it’s what you’re doing. Take this chair you’re on, for example. The queen had a genuine pre-Victorian, French-designed divan with fluted ash legs original to the chair and an upholstery job that, while not original, was still at least a hundred years old and performed by a true craftsman. And what do you have, some garbage chair? I mean, I like ikea as much as the next guy—I’ve been to the one in Emeryville more times than I count—but you pick that as your throne? You should have come by my shop. I have a great used toilet with antique shit stains that you’d be right at home on.”

Jack Sable trembled with rage. Had Michael overdone it? If he lashed out and killed Alison, that’d be the end of them. Of all of them. Michael would bear out, and get enslaved. And every one of his friends and family would fall prey to the sorcerer’s bindings until eventually the weird awful raven became the de facto ruler of the shifter clans of North America.

The raven shifter lifted his goblet to his lips and emptied the whole thing, slurping noisily as he drank. “You think you are more cultured than I? You backwoods redneck. You country pumpkin. You classless American fool. I am from Montreal! We invented culture, you barbaric ape. And I am a raven, cleverest of all animals. You have nothing on me.”

“There’s an animal more clever than ravens,” Michael said, grinning at the raven shifter.

“Who? Dolphins? Dolphins are assholes. Have you ever met a dolphin shifter?”

“No. Not dolphins,” Michael said. “Her.” He nodded at Alison, who waved at Sable.

“But . . . But I tied you up?” the raven said before falling very heavily backwards, toppling over his throne, and rolling into his mountain of treasure, which shifted and trembled and then spilled over him in a tinny clatter, like an avalanche of pennies.

With a
tink tink tink
, the bracelets fell off of Michael and all the wolves.

“What the hell was that stuff you gave him?” Michael said, turning to Alison just in time to catch her as she collapsed. A white froth bubbled on her lips.
 

“Aconite,” she said in a weak voice, a smile on her lips. “Monkshood. Devil’s Rocket. Woman’s Bane. Also called the Queen of all Poisons.” She coughed harshly, her body doubling up in pain. “I think I may have done something very stupid.” She clutched at Michael with her bloody palms, stained purple from the juice of the poison.

Michael clutched her body to him and roared, letting all who could hear that his mate was in trouble. “Marcus,” he said. “Where are you? I need you!”

An answering roar sounded from not so far away, but judging by the tremors in Alison’s body, it was far enough away to be useless. She was going to die.

The reddish wolf padded over and sniffed at her, then transformed into a young man with a thin wiry build. He had red hair and a close-cropped beard. “Please, let us help,” the boy said, his eyes full of tears. “This is wolfsbane poisoning. We know a cure. But we must take her to it, there is no time.”

Michael slung Alison over his back, looked the wolf in the eye and said, “Lead the way.” He almost added,
but if she dies, you die
. But he didn’t need to. The wolves could smell it on him. To lose a mate was a terrible thing.

The reddish wolf shifted and barked at the rest of the pack and then they took off in a storm into the woods. Michael followed seconds later as a bear, with his mate carefully balanced in the middle of his back.

Chapter 8

Bearly Survived

When Alison woke, the first thing she smelled was frying butter. She heard the sizzle of the pan, a murmuring of voices. Something soft and heavy and warm was on top of her. Her eyes felt gummy and took a moment to open.

There on top of her, and around her, was a pile of wolves. The same wolves from before, from Jack Sable’s pack. But what were they doing on her? She didn’t feel in danger or threatened. She felt cozy, sleepy like a Sunday afternoon.

The house was unfamiliar but pretty, with polished redwood beams forming the floor and walls. It was a log cabin on a grand scale, built for a large family and outfitted with the comfortable touches that said
home
to her. Not a vacation rental.

Alison tried to push the wolves off, but the big animals were snoring soundly and she didn’t think it was a good idea to push too hard. They were wolves, after all. So instead she called out to the voices murmuring nearby. “Water,” she said, her voice a cracked whisper.

The murmuring ceased and in the span of a breath, she was surrounded by the biggest, handsomest, most concerned-looking men she’d ever seen. Michael and his two brothers loomed over her, their faces all showing the same expression with a deep furrow right between the eyebrows.

“Hey, hi. How are you feeling? Take it easy, you’ve been out a while.” Michael handed her a water and she sipped it gingerly, the cool liquid stinging her throat.

“Is this your house?” she asked Michael. She didn’t want to talk about the elephant in the room, any of the elephants. She’d almost died. She knew it was a risk when she poisoned Jack Sable, but it was her risk to take. Aconite is crazy toxic. Giant mutant aconite probably more so. But she was alive, and probably fine, and felt vindicated in her reckless behavior.

Matt laughed, like the idea of Michael living in a house like this was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “Michael’s house is somewhat smaller,” he said.
 

“It’s a shack,” Marcus said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“I usually sleep in the woods,” Michael said, shrugging and grinning at her.

“Then I guess you’ll have to move in to my place.” Alison drank some more water and felt instantly slightly better. “I’ve got like eight bedrooms after all.”

“I was hoping I could share yours.”

“Good, because only one of them is clean.”

“Poor thing, it must feel out of place. Maybe we should make it dirty?”

Marcus’s posture stiffened. “Well, anyway, I gotta go. Glad you made it, Miss Meadows.” The big man tugged on a jacket and gathered up his hat to make his way to the door.

“Call me Alison. Please?”

Marcus looked back. “You got it, Alison.” And then he left.

“I think he likes her,” Matt said.

“Did you see how he gushed?” Michael added. “I almost told him not to be so emotional. He may even have had an expression there.”
 

Matt snorted with suppressed laughter, then a woman’s voice from the kitchen asked, “Is she awake? Ask if she wants pancakes.”
 

“She wants pancakes, Mina,” Matt said.
 

Alisom didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. The idea of pancakes made her mouth flood with saliva, her heart race, her stomach gurgle. These men were bears. They could tell.

Matt shot a look at Michael, who was gazing at Alison with the biggest, brownest, more adoring eyes ever. “I’ll go set the table,” he said, leaving the two of them alone.

“So you’re a bear,” Alison said. Now that the urgency of their quest was gone, there were a whole lot of things they had to talk about.

“Do you mind?” he asked, genuine worry in his voice.

“I’m just glad you aren’t a were-snake or a hamster shifter. I’m allergic to hamsters.”

Michael laughed but then quieted as one of the wolves yelped in his sleep, rolled over and fell off the low couch where Alison had been ensconced. The big canine hit the floor with a meaty thud, then kept snoring.

“You were out three days,” Michael said, kneeling on the floor between wolves, getting as close to her as he could. “Shawna Killdeer gave you a massive dose of atropine and some other things I can’t even begin to pronounce. She said you almost didn’t make it, but that you had some help.” He reached out and touched her forehead with two fingers.

“The Raven Queen’s kiss?” Her forehead no longer had that cold burning feeling.

“Probably?” Michael shrugged. “Magic never has clear answers.”

One of the wolves scratched himself in his sleep, sending bits of hair and fur floating into the air.

“I’m covered in werewolves,” Alison said matter-of-factly. Her body was awake, but her mind wasn’t fully online yet. “Why am I covered in werewolves?”

“They were really worried about you and felt guilty about, y’know, you getting poisoned. Also I think they just have nowhere to go now. Most of them took off, heading back to wherever Jack Sable kidnapped them from, but these guys are orphans. Omegas. They don’t have an alpha and none of them are equipped to rise up and take the responsibility. It’s different for bears, so I don’t really know. They’re Marcus’s problem now.” Michael cocked his head. “But they’re kind of cute when they sleep, like giant smelly puppies.”

“We’re going to have extra bedrooms,” Alison said. And they’d need help cleaning the house, fixing the house, clearing the grounds and constructing the restaurant. A pack of eager-to-please werewolves might come in handy for those sorts of things. And she’d need staff once the place was up and running. Maybe it could work?

“Marcus already tried twice to go clear your house out, to fix it up. It took Matt and me both to hold him back. I figured you’d want a hand in it, want to make your own decisions. He understood that, but the guy can’t bear the thought of not doing a job that he could be doing, especially if it meant ditching your mom. She’s been on his ass since we brought you here.”