Bear Mountain Clan Brides: romantic bbw werebear menage (7 page)

Trudi was surprised when I told her that I wasn’t coming back to town, that I had arranged to complete my degree through modules over the internet.

I attended for seminars and tutorials, at least for the next four months. After that I was showing rather too much. I would have looked very out of the ordinary and it would have raised a lot of awkward questions.

The interview that I sent to Trudi was the most popular that she ever published. Probably the picture at the head of it was enough to see to that, that and Bernhard’s name.

She tried repeatedly to get me to write more, but I’m not really interested. I’ve got all the billionaires that I need up here in our little valley. The five little cub billionaires take up most of my time.

Whatever hours I have free outside of that, we spend them starting the next litter. It’s ex
haust
ing, I’m telling you.

All night, every night. And I’m sore. God, I can’t wait for tonight.

I LOVE to hear from readers,
 

Keep in touch and get advance news and some special offers by
signing up here

(I won’t ever share your email address with anyone, and that’s a promise)

The Cabin

was Bear

Taken for the Alpha’s Line

Ursula Maya

Dedicated to my own
very special bear

I LOVE to hear from readers.

To keep in touch and get advance news
and some
very
special offers,
just
sign up here

(I won’t ever share your email address with anyone, and that’s a promise)

Ursula

It’s been such a long, long time. We endured, through storms, forest fires, and the decades of careless slaughter. Years of pain. Great pain. All of our packs have diminished. All of us have suffered.

Our habitat has shrunken to tiny corners bordered by the machines and the stink of man. Our food has almost all been either taken and put behind wire and metal or simply chased away.

This luscious young female can set us free. She can save our line. There’s still time. Only a little time, but enough.

All the sound in the heat of the tiny cabin was the heavy breath of the three big men, Hayley’s hot panting, and the hard rain that drummed on the thin wooden roof.

Hayley breathed the warm scent of old pine as Ben pressed her face against the cabin wall. His breath was hot on her back as his strong hands slid her skirt up to the tops of her shaking legs.

Her knees weakened as his fingers slipped up along the insides of her thighs and found her hot, soft wetness. The rumble of his voice made her chest swell and shake. The thrum of the growls vibrated the wood floor beneath her feet.

His hands parted her thighs wider and his strong fingers made her gasp and convulse. His hand cupped her, then dragged back and forth along her furrow.

“Barney, Bruno,” Ben said, “I think she’s about ready.”

Hayley should probably have been afraid of the bear. She was uphill from him, but with two bounds he could be on her. He would have to leap uphill, but if she tried to run then so would he. He was huge and he looked like he could move very fast.

A breeze cooled her back and the shine in his dark treacle-colored eyes held her as his snout lifted to sniff her on the air. Maybe she was just stupid like all the idiot tourists who ignored the warnings about bears. Bears and food, bears and trash, bears and babies. Bears and just about anything with a pulse. Maybe she shouldn’t have gotten so close.

When she had first seen him, when she looked down the grassy slope and spotted the golden-brown ridge of his back, she should have remained still. She should have stayed half-hidden behind the rough silver-gray tree-trunk. He might not have noticed her. But he did.

“The bear is a top predator,” her teacher, Mr. Grant, had said. “It means there isn’t a living thing that will eat the bear, nor is there a living thing that the bear can’t eat.” He’d been looking right at Hayley when he said, “And that includes you.”

Even back then in high school, Hayley had been fascinated by bears. In her small town, there were stories of children taken by them, and almost every year it was a pretext for her Uncle Jonas and his drinking buddies to go onto the mountain and hunt the bear.

In heavy wool, plaid jackets the men loaded their pickups with camping kits, ammunition, and whiskey. After a few nights on the mountainside they returned with stories of heroic encounters.

They told brash, unbelievable tales of strength and quick-witted agility, qualities which none of the surly crew ever showed in their normal lives.

Jonas said, “Mortal danger can find the hero in a man.” Hayley thought,
Whiskey can help some men find a hero when they look in a mirror
, but she kept that to herself.

Once Hayley saw the matted carcass of a bear draped in the back of Uncle Jonas’ pickup. The men displayed the poor dead creature like a captured flag or an Olympic torch. After that, Hayley tried to avoid seeing their grim trophies.

It still made no sense to Hayley that a bear would risk venturing to the edges of town to hunt children. Not when deer ran through the woods, squirrels scampered in the trees, and salmon leapt up the streams.

Even Uncle Jonas had been able to bring back a salmon on occasion, and Uncle Jonas was no bear.

This bear had been snuffling low among the trees. Hayley almost missed seeing him as she walked along the ridge when the corner of her eye caught the ripple of his coat. She’d stopped, transfixed.

The sight of the strong beast stirred Hayley immediately. Her pulse thickened. Her heart pounded and her chest swelled. Something primal called to her. Something familiar and ancient.

Dark golden-brown fur fanned over the thick shoulder blade. The hump of his back was unmistakable. She took two steps down the slope without thinking. When his ears pricked up and his long head began to rise, Hayley froze on the spot. His front paws lifted as he turned his head to look straight at her.

Her breath halted in her chest. Slowly, in the shade of the tree he stood to face her. His mouth was open and the breeze ruffled through his fur as he sniffed the air. Hayley’s mouth dried. He was huge. He was splendid. He was very near.

Of course Hayley had glimpsed a live bear before, but always from a long way away. He leaned forward and dropped his paws to the ground. His snout stretched towards her.

A movement in the bushes behind the bear took her eye off him. A thick furry hat and a plaid jacket rose up. A shaft of dull metal pointed at the back of the bear.

“NO!” Hayley’s hands flew up and without thinking she started forward.

She almost reached the bear when the hunter shouted, “Git outa the
way!
”

As the bear was turning to face him, the rifle’s muzzle flashed and a dull
crack
echoed in the trees. The bear dove and the hunter sprang back. With a roar the bear loped downhill fast into the darkness of the woods.

Before he was gone, Hayley was sure he was limping on one front paw. Her eyes blazed and stung as she swung her gaze from the disappearing bear to the trigger-happy idiot.

It wasn’t Jonas, but a man a lot like him. Big and red in the face with narrow, furtive eyes. He held his lips tight and his thin tongue flicked between them often.

“You could thank me any way you want, Miss.”

“I’ll thank you to fuck right off, if you’d be so kind, before I tell you what I really think.”

“You entitled young bitch, I just saved your ample ass.”

“Don’t pretend you took a shot at that fine creature on my account.” She glowered, her eyes misting. “If I hadn’t been here, you would have taken the shot just the same.”

“If you hadn’t have been there, I wouldn’t have missed,” he snarled.

“Then you
weren’t
protecting me
at all
. You’re here just to kill the bear.”

The hunter glowered at Hayley. She stood her ground and stared right back at him. Eventually he snarled then he whirled around and he left with his rifle over his shoulder, pointed idly back toward her.

She first followed the path that the bear had taken. Her head shook with fury and sadness as her eyes raked the ground and the bushes for traces of his path. She was sure he must have been injured.

High mountain paths had become Hayley’s refuge when she was at school, and when she’d moved to the city, the passion hadn’t left her. This morning she had as much need as ever for the quiet, the solitude, and the space to think that the mountainsides gave her.

Setting out early, she drove up as far as the paved road took her, up to the lot in front of a country-style store,
Hank’s Hike and Hunt
. She took her pack and left her trusty Toyota, heading straight up into the trees. She climbed until she found a view to stop her.

Blue-gray morning mist rose slowly through the trees in the long valley. The mist hazed the low sunlight and the limbs and fingers of the trees glowed in silhouette.

The soft air, the sound of the breeze in the high forest, the cool stillness all cleared her mind and washed her spirit clean from the grit and grime of city life.

When the hard-edged clatter and bustle of urban life all got too noisy to bear, Hayley’s sturdy boots and her little backpack took her out on the high slopes, out through the pines and into the rare, clean air.

Her life was about to change, probably for the worse, and she couldn’t face it all. She needed to breathe, to walk and to think.

Drawing and painting with watercolor was like meditation for Hayley. Looking long at a subject with soft concentration, a soft intensity, making light, precise marks on the thick paper, so faint they were hardly visible.

Then washing the color across, quickly blending the hues to give the streaky sky and the shape of the green and gray terrain. At the end came the foreground detail. A tree, a path, a cabin with a rising plume of smoke. A deer, maybe, or an eagle.

The concentration took her out of the world that she knew, and it parked her city life in orbit. She was one with the world as she walked, observed, studied, and recorded, and she forgot her worries about the job, the bills, and now the apartment.