A Wife For The Bear: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Bear Brides Book 3)

Also by NATALIE KRISTEN

BEAR
BRIDES

A Bride For The Bear

A Date For The Bear

A Wife For The Bear

Billionaire
Bear Shifters Romance

Taken By The Bear

Owned By The Bear

Saved By The Bear

MISTY
VALLEY SHIFTERS

Growl
For Me

Fight
For Me

Purrfect
For Me

MATE
series

Alpha
Mate

Bear
Mate

Vampire
Mate

Wolf
Mate

Wild
Mate

Dark
Mate

Blood
Mate

NORTH
WOLVES

To
Kill A Wolf

ALPHA
GAME

Alpha
Game

Alpha
Game 2

Alpha
Game 3

DARK
erotic romance

Rapture
In The Dark

Release
In The Dark

One
Night With Death

Lisha Kwok waved cheerfully
and called out her goodbyes and goodnights to the other two
librarians. Polly and Josephine frowned worriedly at her but she
shook her head and waved them off before they could open their
mouths. She knew what they were going to say, and she appreciated
their concern. Really she did, but she was fine on her own. She had
to be.

“Don't worry, I'll make
it home safely. I can protect myself.” Lisha curled her
fingers into claws and slashed at an imaginary assailant. “Besides,
no one will want to rob me. I practically have nothing in my purse.”
She straightened up and shrugged.

Polly, a middle-aged,
motherly woman sighed. “You should move to a safer
neighborhood, Lisha. Walking home alone every night just isn't...”

“My sister is a real
estate agent. I'll ask her to see if there are any cheap apartments
for rent closer to the library,” Josephine said. Josephine was
younger than Polly but just as motherly. “Polly's right. It's
not safe and you won't let us walk you home...”

“If you walk me home,
then I'll have to walk you home. I worry about you too. Then we'll
end up walking to and fro the whole night,” Lisha laughed.
“See you tomorrow!”

Lisha blew them a kiss and
hurried off before they could raise any more objections. Polly and
Josephine were sweet, and she counted them as her first real friends
since she moved to Moonstone Creek three months ago. In fact, they
were her only friends. She didn't socialize at all outside of work.
She had always been introverted, but now more than ever, she found
that withdrawing into her shell was a necessary means to stay alive.

Lisha ducked her head and
walked briskly. No one would pay attention to her. She wore her
straight, black hair in a tight bun at her nape, and her work attire
consisted of loose slacks and long-sleeved blouses which she kept
buttoned up to her neck. She was only twenty-two, but with her
severe hairstyle and conservative, dull dressing, no one would give
her a second glance.

She had to stay under the
radar and avoid attention. Mack Kross had been put away. But she
just had a feeling that she was still being watched.

Lisha tightened her arms
around herself as the memory of her dad surfaced in her mind. She
wanted to remember his life, but always it was his death that flashed
before her eyes.

She saw him getting out of
the car and walking up to the house, briefcase in one hand, a big
pizza box in the other. He usually worked late, but every Friday,
without fail, he would get off work on time to spend the evening with
his daughter. They would have junk food and watch a movie, or have a
karaoke session. Lisha usually worked long hours as a web designer
in a small, start-up IT firm but Fridays were sacred. It was Fun
Friday, a time to bond and catch up with her dad. Her dad was a
widower, and he had practically brought Lisha up single-handedly.
Her mother's family had objected to the marriage and they'd turned
their backs on their only daughter when she went against their wishes
and married Daren Kwok. Her mom's family had been fully human, and
they didn't want their daughter marrying a shifter. Her dad never
hid nor flaunted his shifter status. He lived and worked largely in
human society, and when he needed to shift, he would drive way out of
the city and let his animal out in the wilderness. It was only after
Lisha turned eighteen that her dad let her accompany him on his long
drives out into the country. He'd wanted to show her the basics of
shifting so she would be prepared if and when her animal emerged.
She was only half shifter, so there was a possibility that she might
live her life as a full human, without her animal ever surfacing.
Female weretigers would experience their first shift between the ages
of eighteen and twenty-four. If she passed her twenty-fifth birthday
without shifting, then it was quite certain that her animal would
never emerge in her lifetime.

Lisha thought of the way her
dad gazed at her mom's photographs which could be found in almost
every corner of the house. It was clear her father loved her mother
deeply and still missed her very much. Her parents' wedding pictures
could be found among the framed photographs of Lisha and her dad.
Her dad might be busy, but he was always there for her. He had
taught her how to ride a bike and skateboard. He was there at her
school concerts, her birthday parties, her graduation. They were
lucky they'd had wonderful neighbors. When she was younger, she
would go to her neighbor's house after school and do her homework
there until her dad came to pick her up.

Tiger shifters were solitary
but social creatures. There were only very few tiger clans around,
and they were small in number. Daren Kwok didn't belong to a pack or
clan. His mate, Annabelle, was human, and he knew that she missed
her family. Perhaps he hoped that one day her family would accept
and bless their marriage, and she would be reunited with her family.
But when Annabelle died in childbirth, her family blamed Daren.
Annabelle had died giving birth to his child, and they wanted nothing
to do with him and his half-shifter offspring. Lisha never knew her
grandparents, and she didn't miss them. Her dad made sure that her
childhood was filled with fun, laughter and so much love.

Daren was a good father, and
a responsible, respectable, successful member of human society. As a
prosecutor, he made sure justice was done and he kept dangerous
elements off the street. He did his part to make the world a better,
safer place for all. Lisha was proud of her dad and the work he did.
But in the end, it was his work that killed him.

Her dad never made it home
for Fun Friday that evening.

He was gunned down before he
could make it to the front door.

Lisha had instinctively dived
behind a tree and clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her
screams. She had just hopped off the bus and was walking towards the
house. She had been about to break into a gleeful run and call out
to her dad when a car glided silently past her on the road. For some
reason, a shiver slid down her spine and she froze beside a huge
tree, barely thirty feet from her house.

Her dad had probably felt the
same chill in his bones. It was clear that he sensed danger. She
saw his black eyes turn feral and claws glinted just before the pizza
box fell to the ground.

Lisha saw the drive-by
shooter pump two silver bullets into her father's chest. Even in his
agony, Daren Kwok found the strength and resolve to lunge towards his
assassin. In a flash, he was flying towards the car, his claws fully
extended. He raked his claws across the shooter's face, scarring him
and effectively marking him out for identification. And he would
have his murderer's skin under his claws. Even as he died, Daren
Kwok wanted to make sure that there would be enough evidence to put
his murderer away.

Lisha saw the man press his
gun against her father's heart and squeeze the trigger.

It had been a silver bullet.

Her father had turned and met
her eyes just as the car sped away. With his last breath, he had
given her a smile and a nod. He was proud of her, and he had faith
in her. He knew that his little girl was a survivor. She had hidden
herself well, and she would stay alive.

The murderer, Mack Kross, was
hunted down and tried. Lisha had testified at his trial, giving
accurate, detailed testimony as a witness to the murder of Daren
Kwok.

Mack was put away, but he had
refused to give any names to the police and the prosecutors. After
the trial, one of the prosecutors, her father's old colleague, had
quietly told Lisha that she suspected that a syndicate was behind
Daren's murder. Daren Kwok was the lead prosecutor in a human
trafficking case, and this syndicate had a wide reach. That meant
that Mack didn't act alone. And Lisha—was in danger.

After the funeral and the
trial, Lisha decided that she couldn't stay in the same place and
wait to be killed. She had to leave, stay alive, start anew. And
she couldn't possibly stay in the house alone. It was too painful,
too hard. Passing her dad's empty bedroom, his study, the kitchen.
Sitting down for dinner alone at the dining table, doing laundry and
ironing for one, looking out the window and knowing she would never
see him stroll up the driveway again, was just...impossible. She
couldn't do it.

After donating most of her
father's clothes and belongings, Lisha folded a few of his favorite
items into a suitcase. Then she sold the house and packed her bags.
She was leaving, and hopefully she would make a new life for herself.

Lisha had decided on
Moonstone Creek, a small, busy shifter town. It wasn't too
prominent, and it wasn't too out of the way. And being a half
shifter herself, she thought that she could probably blend in and
remain invisible in a town full of shifters. If her first shift came
upon her unannounced and unexpectedly, at least she wouldn't cause
that much of a stir.