Bear Cop: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (8 page)

Eve grabbed a branch from the fire pit. The tip was smoldering, red-hot with smoke spiraling up into the air, and she gathered all of her courage. She couldn’t think now. Chris was in danger. Chris was bleeding. Chris—

Again Chris shook himself, and again the jaguar tightened its hold on him, the claws of its hind legs raking across Chris’ back. But this time, Eve was there, making use of the moment of distraction to thrust the burning branch right into the side of the jaguar. The sound that it made could only be described as a shriek. Eve gripped the branch with all her strength and pushed until the stench of burning fur filled the air, and the jaguar finally let go.

Even before the cat hit the ground, Chris was on it in a flurry of rage. There was a loud crunch—and then the jaguar turned back into a human, leg bent at an unnatural angle, knocked out cold in the grass.

***

Chris checked the knots once more to make certain that both of the jaguar shifters were securely tied up. One was still out cold—the other, who seemed to have broken his leg, had come to his senses enough to snarl at Chris in fury. Chris gave him a cold smile and tied him with an extra rope. Chris was still bleeding from the wounds on his chest and legs, and had deep slashes across his back. He wasn’t feeling a whole lot of compassion for a broken leg right now.

“This is your last chance to talk. I guess you have around an hour until we’ll have a full search and rescue squad out here. So either you talk now, or we’ll let them deal with you.”

“You can’t prove anything,” the man spat in a snarl. His limp hair was hanging into his face. He looked as though he hadn’t washed for days.

Chris wondered how long they’d roamed the forest as animals.

“I don’t need proof,” Chris pointed out. “You attacked us! You tried to kill us!”

“And your wounds will be healed before your buddies get here,” the shifter hissed. “Anyway, those are bite wounds. Some wild animal must have got you. What does that have to do with us?” The man’s grin widened. “What, you gonna tell the judge we transformed into large cats?”

Chris grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair and slammed his head back into the tree he’d tied him too.

“I’m warning you,” Chris said with a growl. “This is your last chance. You threatened my mate. I’m not playing. Either you give me a reason for why you’re here, or—”

Eve’s gasp interrupted his sentence. A moment later, she was by his side—not scolding him for not taking care of his own wounds, as he had feared, but to peer at the unwashed face of their prisoner.

“Oh my God!” she said softly, then recoiled as the man snarled at her again. “That’s him! I know him—that’s one of my dad’s friends! The friends that got him into trouble—that’s his friend Desmond!”

The shifter gave her a derisive laugh. “Took you a while! Little Eve—imagine my surprise when I saw your face on TV a month ago. You thought you could run from us. You thought you could take the gems and hide from everyone, but we got you in the end. This isn’t over, Eve. This won’t be over until you give us the jewels.”

Chris bit back a growl at the threat to his mate. “No more games now. It's over. This is your last chance to confess.”

Desmond laughed. “A confession? For what, asshole? Your mate has something that belongs to us. We've worked hard for those goods, you know. Months of planning. And then her father went to jail, and the fucking jewels were nowhere to be found.”

“You set him up,” Chris said, triumph rising in him when it all began to make sense. Not only was Eve innocent, but so was her father.

Desmond hissed again. “We thought that drunk fool had no idea of what was up. We took his keys, and he went to jail instead, just as planned. But the jewels. The jewels weren't there. Which means that
he
set us up instead. And I'm sure little Eve here knows everything about it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Eve straightened, although Chris could see her trembling.

Chris took her hand and squeezed it in support, and she gave him a grateful look before she took a deep breath.

“I never had anything to do with what happened then,” she told Desmond furiously. “I have no idea where your gems are. And if I knew, I wouldn’t want them. I’ve got something far more precious now. I have a home. I have someone who loves me. I’d toss your jewels into the river, if I found them.”

She released Chris hand at last to walk back to the cabin, only to turn back around towards them after a few steps, eyes blazing with rage. Chris thought he’d never seen anything more lovely.

“Also, my mate is a cop, you asshole, and a bear. And we’ve all seen him kick your ass. So you’d better not show up here in Linden Creek ever again!”

“She's right, you know,” Chris murmured threateningly once she was out of ear range. “I'm a cop, and you've tried to kill me. And you've just confessed that you and your friends were behind that theft. You're in such big trouble.”

Desmond growled at him through his teeth, and Chris laughed into the jaguar shifter’s face.

“I'll offer you a deal,” Chris said. “A full confession concerning that jewelry business and her dad's innocence. It will knock a few years off your sentence.”

“Fuck you,” Desmond hissed.

Chris shrugged and drew back.

“It's your life you're throwing away. Suit yourself.”

He followed Eve back to the hut.

They sat down on a bench beneath one of the windows, where they could keep an eye on their prisoners. Eve had the first aid kit back on her lap and pursed her lips.

“You use up a lot more bandages than people are supposed to,” she said in accusation.

“This is the last time you have to patch me up today,” Chris promised.

“Mm-hmm.” Eve didn’t sound convinced at all, but she was smiling when she set to work.

Chris winced when she dabbed some of the stinging liquid onto his wounds. Eve didn't look up, but he could feel that she was trying to work even more carefully.

Not that there was much to be done. The jaguar claws had been sharp, digging deep into his skin. And now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, the slashes burned like fire.

“Almost done,” she murmured.

He nodded, trying to stay still when she moved on to the deepest cut.

A jaguar claw had opened a slash than ran from his shoulder down to his elbow. Dried blood had crusted on his lower arm, and Eve took it into her lap to carefully wipe the red flakes away with a damp cloth. Chris concentrated on breathing slowly when she finally moved on to the cut.

“This is going to hurt,” she said in apology when she poured more disinfectant onto a clean cloth.

“I can take it,” he said, only half-jokingly. With his job—and with his bear—he was used to coming home with scratches. Still, he had to press his lips together to stay quiet when she cleaned the long cut with the stinging liquid.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

He reached out with his other arm to gently brush his fingers against her cheek.

“It's not your fault. Those weren't your claws,”

She took a deep breath.

“If not for me, they wouldn't have attacked you.” Eve released his arm at last and met his eyes.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Remember what you made me promise? I wasn't allowed to blame myself for the bridge. The same is true for you. You're not allowed to blame yourself for this.
They
chose to rob that jeweler. You had nothing to do with anything that happened.”

She nodded slowly and tried to give him a smile. “Sorry. I just hate to see you like this.”

“It will heal soon enough, I promise,” he said again, his voice gentle as he allowed his thumb to caress her cheek.

At last she sighed.

“You're right. Sorry. Almost done,” she then said, determined now.

He felt her take hold of his face with one hand. The other dabbed very gently at the scratches the fight had left on his forehead.

It stung, although the pain was not as bad as the deep cuts on his arm which still burned like fire. He forced himself to breathe calmly through it. She was so close that her scent and her warmth surrounded him, and he clung to that comfort. When she drew back at last, she was biting her lips so that he had to refrain from wrapping his arms around her to pull her back and kiss her.

“Just the bandages now. Can you bear just a little more?” she asked when she took up the first aid kit once more.

He raised a brow at her pun until she realized what she had said and began to giggle.

“Sorry,” she said helplessly after a moment, still smiling as she wiped at her eyes.

He laughed and pulled her closer.

“I'll gladly
bear
anything for you.” He gave her a grin, glad to see her happy, if only for a moment, and was rewarded with a quick kiss.

“I think we owe this hut a new first-aid kit,” she said at last when she pulled back. She shook the disinfectant demonstratively, then set it aside to pull out the bandages.

“And new clothes,” Chris said when he look down at himself, his voice wry.

“You go through a lot of clothes, you know that?”

She was shaking her head at him, but he could hear the affection in her words.

“I know it doesn’t look like it,” he admitted, “but I promise I usually don’t destroy any of my clothes at all.”

Eve raised a brow.

“I’m a good bear! I keep it to the weekend!” he said, and after a moment, they both started laughing.

“All right. I’ll see what I can find for you later. I think there was an old Christmas sweater left at the bottom of that suitcase,” she threatened playfully. “I hope you’re fond of reindeers?”

Chris winced again when Eve began to wind one of the bandages around his arm. “It’s probably still preferable to meeting the rescue team naked. But only by a tiny little margin.”

“Mmm.” Eve rested her head against his shoulder when she was done. “From what I’ve seen, there is nothing tiny at all on you.”

Chris ran a teasing hand up her side, admiring the way her soft, generous curves fit his large hands so perfectly. “Flattery in the aftermath of battle? If we didn’t have those tied up jaguars to watch…”

Eve’s eyes were full of light and happiness as she stretched beneath his caress. “Is that a promise for later?”

Her voice had gone deliciously dark, and Chris tangled one hand in her golden hair, admiring once more the way it shone in the sunlight. Her eyes were soft with want, and Chris had to swallow when his body started to show definite interest in that promise.

No one but the contractors had seen his home yet. Linden Creek had seemed like a forever home for a bear shifter—but he had feared that he would never find the mate that would truly make it a home. When his bed had been delivered, he’d stared at it and sighed, trying to convince himself that he might be happier in Linden Creek if he’d just give up the hope that it would happen.

And now it had happened. Now he had a home and a mate.

He couldn’t wait to show it to Eve—he’d bought one of the older houses right where the forest began, so that the bear would feel at home as well. There was also the added advantage of not flashing any neighbors by accident if he came back from his weekend roaming as a bear. There was a garden he hadn’t done anything with so far, and a kitchen the contractors hadn’t yet descended upon.

He suddenly imagined Eve in their kitchen on a sunny afternoon, sunlight gleaming on her hair, experimenting with new recipes for her bakery. He had to bite back a smile when he imagined her showing off a new line of bear-themed cupcakes on the local news. God, he’d never wanted anything as much as this—sharing his home with Eve. Sharing his
life
with Eve. They’d both had to hide their secrets for so long. Now that they had found each other, he wanted to share everything with her.

“Once we’re back home,” he said, meeting her gaze once more with his eyes full of a heated promise, “I want to make love to you in a real bed. My bed.” He hesitated a moment. “Our bed?”

Eve’s eyes widened, as though she knew what he was really asking.

Again Chris reminded himself that secrets had only ever hurt them. And he would never let anyone or anything hurt his perfect mate again.

“You’re my mate, Eve. I’ve never been more certain of anything. I want you by my side, always.”

The bite wounds on his legs didn’t allow him to kneel, and he didn’t have a ring—but he took hold of Eve’s hand now, and pressed a kiss to where a ring would sit. He would buy her the most beautiful ring later. He wanted everyone to know how proud he was of his mate. But for now, nothing mattered but that they had found each other here in the wilderness, that Eve had loved him even when she had to patch him up.

“Will you be my mate, Eve? Will you marry me? I cannot imagine being without you anymore.”

“My mate,” she whispered against his lips, and then, “Yes, yes, yes!”

She laughed, even though her eyes gleamed wetly. When Chris brushed a thumb against an escaping tear, she sniffled.

“Tears of happiness,” she said.