Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance (41 page)

Both brothers? Ivy blinked in surprise, looking between Caleb and the other stranger with the gun. But Caleb’s brother, Jonah, had been killed at the strawberry patch, hadn’t he? Jonah had been mauled by the other giant—

Bear.

Shifter.

Of course, she realized, meeting Caleb’s eyes and seeing the truth there. If Caleb could shift from human to bear and back again—why wouldn’t his brother be able to do so? The bear that had charged at her hadn’t been charging at her—he’d been protecting her from the other man! And Caleb had recognized him and called him by his human name. His brother—Jonah.

“Let her go,” Caleb said. “And we’ll kill you fast instead of slow.”

“Oh ho ho.” Vaughn sounded like he was enjoying this far too much. She couldn’t see his face, but she saw the way Caleb’s jaw tightened when Vaughn grabbed her breast and started kneading it. “Such threats. You know you won’t make it ten yards before my men drop you. I think you forgot how to count. There are only two of you.”

“Oh we can count,” Jonah said, stepping more fully into the light. “And there are only two of us in front of you. But there are thirty more in the rafters.”

Ivy looked up, past the long, silver braided wire that bound her to the pulley and hoist, squinting past the spotlight that tried to blind her, seeing the faces of men—men with guns—hovering up there in the hayloft.

How? How in the world?

Then all hell broke loose.

Rage had burned like a fire in Caleb’s chest, and it took every bit of strength Jonah and the rest of the bear clan had to keep him from going bear and killing as many as he could before they took him down. If the clan hadn’t been close, he might have done just that, but by the time Caleb realized Vaughn actually had Ivy in his possession, Jonah had returned with more than thirty shifters at the ready.

There wasn’t a lot of time for explanations, but between Caleb’s instructions to the men on how to get to the bunker and into the gun safe below ground, and hashing out plans for Ivy’s liberation and the hopefully painful death of every single one of the men that had dared to put a finger on her, Caleb had gleaned that Jonah had found another bear shifter clan further west. He’d been living with them for the past few weeks.

“Mom and Dad were always so solitary,” Jonah told his brother with a shrug. “But there are more of us out there, you know. Lots more.”

Caleb hadn’t known—he’d been too busy trying to live in the human world to pay much attention to the shifter one—but he did now. And he was more grateful than he could ever say.

Vaughn was a sloppy soldier—always had been. He’d never understood the man’s penchant for the military in the first place, because he wasn’t made for it—except that his father had been a highly decorated officer, now retired. Maybe he’d been trying to measure up. Thanks to Vaughn’s lack of attention to detail, he had only put one scout behind the barn. They’d dispatched him silently, and thirty shifters had climbed the ladder to the hayloft while Caleb and Jonah distracted everyone from the front.

It was a far from perfect plan—but Jonah had been one-hundred percent correct about Vaughn. He was determined to keep the shifter brothers alive for his own purposes.

“Don’t shoot those two!” Vaughn screamed over the din, pointing at Caleb and Jonah. He had an arm around Ivy’s neck, and a knife drawn at her throat. “Don’t shoot the goddamned bears! Get the tranc gun! Get the goddamned tranc gun!”

Caleb shot the soldier who went for the tranc gun—he was just a kid for God’s sake—working his way toward Ivy. She was naked, strung up, her face dirty and full of tears, her mouth bloody. Just seeing Vaughn anywhere near her made him crazy.

He glanced up and saw the shifters aiming rifles at the men below, taking cover behind haystacks. Some of them, though, who had looked at the rifles like they were Martian toys when Jonah handed them over, simply jumped down from the rafters and went full bear. There were six bears on the ground now, gnashing and swiping and roaring above the storm.

“Don’t move any closer. I’ll slit this cow’s throat before you can even think about getting a shot off,” Vaughn threatened. His men were falling all around him. The sound of gunfire was deafening and Caleb felt a bullet whiz by his cheek and ducked. “Goddamnit, where’s the tranc gun!”

“Sir.” Behind him, another man was lifting the tranc gun, aiming directly at Caleb.

“No!” Ivy screamed, twisting and squirming in Vaughn’s arms, throwing him off balance. Vaughn swore, regaining his footing, and Caleb saw a trickle of Ivy’s blood sliding down her throat from the tip of the blade.

Caleb growled at Vaughn, low in his throat, distracted from the soldier with the tranc gun by Ivy’s scream. He probably would have been hit with the tranquilizer that the soldier got off just before a bear swiped a big paw at him from behind—a blow so strong it knocked the soldier’s head clean from his shoulders—if Jonah hadn’t shoved him from behind.

Caleb snarled at the attack from behind, whirling to realize it was his brother. Another bullet went flying by his ear and he dodged it out of instinct, although it missed him by a foot. Ivy was sobbing, and the sound filled his chest with heat. He had to get to her. Vaughn had the wire pulled as taut as it would go, Ivy’s arms stretched out high, in front of her, using her body as a shield.

“Come get her.” Vaughn’s face spread with a smile as he lowered the knife from Ivy’s throat, keeping an arm wrapped around her waist. “Come on. She’s all yours.”

Caleb hesitated only a moment. If he could get close enough to grab her—

“Caleb! Behind you!” Ivy screamed as Vaughn pushed her and she swung on the wire, twisting out of control.

Caleb grabbed hold of the wire, but someone slashed at his forearm with a knife from behind—the warning Ivy had given him—and Ivy’s momentum took the wire back out of his hand again as she swung wildly toward Vaughn once more. Caleb, determined not to let him touch her again, went after Vaughn, knocking his knife away and encircling the man’s throat with one big hand.

The cut on Caleb’s forearm wasn’t deep, but it stung like hell and it was bleeding a ton, making it hard for him to keep a grip on Vaughn’s throat. Behind him, he heard Jonah say, “To your left,” and he ducked out of the way of a goddamned baseball bat. Who brought a baseball bat to a gun and bear fight, for chrissakes?

It was just enough of a distraction for Vaughn to escape. Caleb howled with frustration, grabbing the knife from the floor and turning to go cut Ivy down. But Vaughn was there already. He had her around the waist, grinning wildly at Caleb, his face and neck full of the blood from Caleb’s wound.

“Is this what you want?” Vaughn taunted him, running a hand up to tweak Ivy’s nipple. She cried out, kicking wildly at him, but not getting any purchase. “I’ll rip her goddamned throat out with my teeth before I let you have her. You understand me?”

Caleb hesitated. He’d seen what they could do with their teeth, human or not. It was devastating.

“One last kiss, sweetheart. Show him what he’s missing.” Vaughn turned Ivy’s face to him and she cried out again, trying to turn her face away. She was screaming obscenities at him the whole time—Caleb thought,
that’s my Ivy!
—trying to get away, even though she was bound tight.

Caleb raised his rifle the moment Vaughn looked away, seeing the man’s tongue threatening to choke Ivy, filled with so much hate and anger he could barely hold the goddamned gun steady. The thing weighed a ton.

And that’s when Ivy went bear.

It happened fast—the same way all shifters do—except when she changed, the wires binding her wrists snapped like twine. All she had to do was open her mouth and close it again—her jaws snapped closed on the surprised man’s throat, and Caleb saw his eyes widen in both recognition of what was happening to him and, at the same time, utter disbelief.

Caleb watched with a similar expression on his face, his body frozen in place. Ivy shook her head once from side to side, making sure she’d gotten to the artery—Caleb could see the pulsing spray paint the already bloody wall when she kicked Vaughn’s body aside.

The commotion that had been already dying down—most of Vaughn’s men were killed or maimed so badly they couldn’t fight back by then—came to a near standstill.

Ivy shook herself off—she was sleek and perfectly black, the most beautiful bear Caleb had ever laid eyes on, shifter or not—and then she was back.

“Caleb?”

He heard her whisper his name and he went to her, pulling off his jacket and putting it around her shoulders as he gathered her in to him. She trembled in his arms, looking around as the bears, who had pretty much buttoned up the mission, began to change back into men around her.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, feeling her fear. He’d been scared, too, the first time he’d shifted. He was just a cub when it had happened—a few months old—and it took some trial and error to get the hang of it. And then, in his teens, there was a time when he’d lost control again. All the hormones, that’s what his father had said. That’s how Vaughn had discovered his secret in the first place.

“Holy shit,” Ivy whispered, turning her wide eyes up to him. “Did I just turn into a motherfucking bear?”

“Yeah.” He laughed, holding her so close he thought he might break her, but he didn’t want to let her go. “You sure motherfucking did.”

How in the hell had he not known she was a shifter? How had she not known? He’d heard of late bloomers, but this was a little ridiculous!

“It was your blood.” Jonah spoke up, smiling down at the two of them. “When he kissed her. He had your blood all over his face. That’s what let me shift back, too.”

Caleb nodded at this explanation, not fully understanding but accepting it.

“I love you.” Ivy whispered this to him, turning Caleb’s face to hers so she could kiss him. They were both bloody and dirty, and he tasted copper in her mouth. She’d never tasted more delicious to him. “I never said it, before. But I love you.”

“I love you, too, shortcake,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck. Goddamn, even when she was a bloody mess, he wanted her. He couldn’t wait to get her away from everyone and everything and have her completely to himself. “Nothing says love like ripping a man’s throat out for me.”

“I told you I was stronger than I looked.” She giggled when he threw his head back and laughed.

Then he kissed her like he was never going to stop.

“So how does this work?” Ivy plucked strawberries from the vine, looking back at Caleb with a coy little smile. “Do I have one? Or a litter? Are they babies or cubs?”

Caleb laughed, yanking his pants up and buttoning them. “I forgot you didn’t grow up shifter.”

“Well, our baby—or babies—will grow up shifter.” She bit into a strawberry—so ripe and juicy. This year’s crop was even sweeter than the last. And she loved walking all the way out here with Caleb to pick them.

In the distance, she heard the sounds of hammers and smiled. Jonah had made quick work of that old shack, turning it into a real home.

Their home had been a mess. Her father’s photographs had been smashed, but not ruined, thank God. The letter had surprised her—found hidden behind the frame of the photograph of the bear.

It had shattered when it fell to the floor—what a mess they’d had to clean, but at least the place hadn’t burned down like in her dream. That’s when she’d discovered she was adopted. Found on his doorstep, her father confessed in his letter.

She was sure, somewhere out there, were shifter parents and an explanation.

“Yes, they will.” Caleb grabbed her from behind, rubbing stubble over her cheeks, reddening them.

“Are you going to grow your beard out now?” she complained, reaching back to caress his beautiful face.

“If you want. You know I’ll do anything for you.” Caleb grabbed her ass as he turned her around to kiss her, then smacked it, making her yelp. “Now go make me some shortcake, shortcake.”

She still couldn’t believe, sometimes, how lucky she was, Ivy thought as she took her mate’s hand and they started walking back toward home.

She was the luckiest damned shifter girl left on the planet.

The End

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