Claim the Bear (5 page)

Breshia was standing stock still with her and clamped over the back of her neck. Her eyes were so wide.

“Thomas, you should leave now,” she whispered. She dragged her shocked gaze to the man in front of them. “I’ve been claimed.”

She began backing toward the truck, but Thomas lunged for her. Bone shattering fury rippled through Dillon at the thought of his vile hand touching Breshia, and the grizzly who’d been growling his discontent since she’d admitted it was this monster’s claws that had sunk into her back exploded from him.

He roared a challenge and hoped Thomas would change and accept it, just so he could have an excuse to murder the sick son of a bitch. Dillon stood to his full twelve foot height, all fur and mass and teeth. Thomas’s pupils dilated and the gold faded from his eyes until they were nothing but a scared, muddy brown. Spinning, he bolted for his SUV, then peeled away. The black tire tracks that stained the concrete were the only evidence Thomas had ever been here.

Dillon watched the road for a long time as the weight of what he’d just done blanketed him. Slowly, he turned to Breshia, who was heaving breath and staring at him like she’d never seen a bear before.

“What have you done?” she whispered.

With a series of pops and snaps, and a moment of blinding pain, he slipped back into his human skin and plucked his phone off the concrete.

Heart hammering with his adrenaline crash, he punched in Bron’s number and waited the two rings it took for his alpha to pick up.

“Is it done?” Bron asked.

“I can’t.”

The line went quiet. “Dillon—”

“She’s mine now, Bron. The cats can’t have her.”

“Fuck. I’m coming home and you better be at my house when I get there. You know the consequences for disobeying my direct orders, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he answered stiffly. He was going to be bled by both Cress alphas in one day.

“Bring the lioness, too.”

A dial tone blasted through the ear piece and Dillon clenched the phone against the urge to chuck the damned thing into the woods alongside the road.

Welp, he’d sworn never to tether himself to a woman, and here he was. With an explosive sigh, he ran his hands roughly through his hair.

He’d fought Ethan to save her life, so that he might stop the coming war. And now, as he lowered his chin and looked into Breshia’s impossibly green eyes, he was pretty sure he’d just single-handedly brought the wrath of the lion shifters down on his clan.

“I don’t even know your name,” she murmured.

Giving it to her felt like giving a piece of himself, but to hell with it. He was in it now. “Dillon. My name’s Dillon McCain.”

What had just happened? Breshia pulled her hand away from her neck as the truck lurched around a pothole so deep there was probably some damned magma in the bottom of it. Her hand was streaked with red and her neck hurt like hellfire to match her messed up back and bruised side. In the last twelve hours, she’d been clawed, chased off the road, hit by a car, and claimed. Claimed?

“Dillon, I didn’t come here to find a mate. I meant what I said. I came here for sanctuary.”

“Why did he mark you like that? And don’t skirt my questions now. We’re in this together whether you want it or not. I need to know what I’ve just got us both into and how to fix this.”

How much was she allowed to tell this stranger? And what was off limits so she could avoid betraying her pride? Were they her pride anymore, or had she just landed ass first into the middle of a clan of bear shifters?

She studied his profile. Straight nose, smile lines of which she had yet to see a single smile, short, touchable hair on the sides with that sexy messy look up top. His teeth were straight and white. She knew because she couldn’t take her eyes from his snarl when he growled. He’d done that a lot since she’d met him.

“What?” he asked. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

As heat flooded her cheeks, she turned away and bit her lip.

“You’re going to have to learn to talk to me, kitty. I’m your only ally up here, and things are about to get real hairy when we get to Bron’s house. What?”

“It’s really obvious you are way out of my league, Dillon,” she said in a cowardly whisper.

He made a single clicking sound behind his teeth and twitched his neck like she was being ridiculous. “Look, what Asshole Thomas was saying, that’s all bullcrap. You know that, right? It’s not real. That’s what men like him say to keep woman under their thumbs.” His voice lowered. “That’s what my dad used to do to my mom. He was just trying to get to you.”

“It wasn’t just Thomas. Everyone knows what I am.”

“And what are you,” he said, taking his eyes from the road long enough to challenge her with a hard look.

“Useless.”

“Bullshit. If you were useless, why would they want you back so badly?”

“Because I’m supposed to be bred by Thomas,” she blurted out.

“Bred? What does that mean?”

She rubbed her cheeks in an effort to cool them down. “It means it’s my turn to give the pride a cub.”

“Do you want a cub?” he asked in a careful voice.

“Someday. Maybe. I’m at the bottom of our pride, like Thomas said. I’ve always been in charge of the nursery. I raise the cubs while the mothers go about their business. The fathers are never involved and I want something different.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I wanted what Logan has.”

“A love match?”

Tears stung her eyes and she rested her cheek against the cool glass of the window. “Yeah. A love match. I didn’t know the words for it, but that’s what I wanted. Which is just another thing that makes me useless as a lioness. I think too differently.”

Dillon slid a big, comforting hand down her leg and squeezed her knee. “I messed it all up for you, didn’t I?”

“It’s okay. You took a big risk, saving me from Thomas. If I can’t have a love match, I’d rather be claimed by someone who would protect me instead of hurt me.”

Dillon’s eyes pooled with sadness and he drew her across the bench seat until she was nestled into his side. It felt nice, absorbing his warmth. And strangely, a humming feeling drifted over her. Everything hurt and she was headed for utter disaster and annihilation with Bronson Cress, alpha of the Hells Canyon shifters, but here in the cab of her new stranger mate’s truck, she felt safe for the first time in her life.

“Whatever happens at Bron’s house tonight, you can’t change into your lion. No matter what, you stay human, and you keep your head down.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing good.”

“Dillon?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you know to bite my neck?”

Dillon guided her head forward and moved her hair to the side, then sucked air through his front teeth. “I think I went too deep. I’ll take care of it. You mentioned Logan. He’s one of my best friends. Everything I know about your people, I learned from him.”

“He told you how to claim a lioness?”

“He claimed his mate Muriel that way. She is a black bear shifter and didn’t know what it meant, but she found out eventually. Nearly mauled him.”

Breshia’s lips trembled and the tears that had been rimming her eyes spilled over. She was so emotional, and confused, and utterly lost on where her future was headed. She’d come here to beg protection, and she’d stumbled into Dillon’s bear. He’d saved her twice now, and for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why he thought he had to do that. Who was she? A nobody. Nothing had changed from this morning until now, except that some handsome stranger had claimed her in front of the man who scared her the most. This morning, she’d found out she was to be the next breeder for the Portland pride, and now there was no chance of her bearing a cub. A part of her was sad that she’d never hold a babe, but a bigger piece of her was relieved that fate had done a one-eighty on her.

In the spirit of being honest, she blurted out, “I haven’t been with a man. If you expect that, you should know I’m not going to be very good at it.”

A smile cracked the corner of his mouth. “How do you know you won’t be very good at it if you’ve never tried?”

Burning heat blasted up her neck and landed in the tips of her ears. “I just…I’m a little nervous about that stuff, and I don’t really know you, and I don’t know what it means to be mated in your clan—”

“Breshia, stop. I don’t expect that. I don’t really know what all this means either, but I guess we can make up our own way through it. How about we do the whole friendship thing and just try not to strangle each other in close quarters. I have an extra bedroom in my house that you can have. We can be roommates.”

“Roommates.” She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but she was hoping that maybe deep down, he would’ve wanted something more from her. That he claimed her for more than mercy.

Stupid. He wasn’t attracted to her. That wasn’t what this was. He was protecting her because that’s what he did. He was a protector and from what she could tell, a pretty decent guy. She’d spent half of her time with him completely naked, and he hadn’t even tried to touch her inappropriately. And from what she could tell, he didn’t look at her with anything but pity. He had ruined her chances of finding a love match, but worse than that, he’d ruined his, and something about that made her stomach clench in on itself. She didn’t want to wreck his life. He’d been kind when he didn’t have to be.

He deserved better.

The sun sat low in the sky, casting shadows of bare trees across the gravel road Dillon turned onto. He bypassed the ranger camp with a tiny salute to a blonde-haired woman who stood wide-eyed in front of an oversized tent. She wore the same park ranger’s uniform that Breshia was wearing, and when she yelled, “What the hell, Dillon?” the Dillon in question ignored her and turned onto another dirt road aimed down the mountain.

“You’re an idiot,” the woman called after them in a sing-songy voice. “Bron’s going to kill you!”

“Is he really going to kill you?”

“No.” He frowned and amended, “I hope not. You like shopping right? You know, since you’re a girl and all.”

“No, I hate shopping.”

He turned a troubled gaze on her that said he couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“I’m serious. I’m expected to dress fashionable around the pride, but it isn’t my favorite thing and I’ve never really had the money to spend on it.”

“Okay,” he drawled, looking at her like she was an alien. “Well, can you stomach it for a few minutes? Your clothes are covered in blood, which will have every bear in the area riled up, and you can’t wear a ranger uniform forever.”

“I don’t have any money, because I left without my purse.” She left without everything, actually. Officially, she was the worst escape artist in the history of them. “Do you have a coffee shop in town?”

“Why, do you need coffee?”

“No, I need a job. I missed my shift at work today, and my boss is a stickler about no-shows. I’m pretty sure I’m fired, and anyway, I can’t go back to work in Portland without seeing the pride again. I need a job here so I can make my own money.”

“Oh. We have a small coffee shop. It’s a mom-and-pop, hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but when you’re ready, we can see if they’re hiring. Until you find work, I don’t mind buying you the things you need though.”

And it seemed he really didn’t. Two pair of jeans, a pair of hiking boots he insisted she needed, a ten-pack of utterly un-sexy panties, three soft cotton sweaters, a toothbrush, toiletries and make-up, and Dillon didn’t even blink when he paid. Nor did he pay any attention when people stared at her. She got that reaction a lot because her freckles were so dark, but she would remedy that soon enough with the thick foundation he’d just purchased for her.

“Do we have time to clean up before we meet your alpha?” she asked shyly. She really wasn’t trying to be a pain, but she wanted to make a good first impression.

“Yeah. We’ll get some food in our stomachs too before we go over there. Bron is in Portland with his mate. She works from there, and has to go to meetings a couple of times a month with the television station she works with. They probably won’t be back for another few hours at least.”

Relief and anxiety fought for space inside of her. She was glad she had more time before Bron would likely murder her, but the waiting was hard too. She was already ripping up the edge of the brown paper bag with all of her new things in it just to steady her pounding heart rate.

Full dark had fallen by the time Dillon pulled in front of a modest one story cabin. It was covered in natural wood siding and the front stoop was adorned with stonework. The porch railings were stained instead of painted and piney wilderness surrounded the cozy home on all sides.

When she turned her gaze on Dillon, he was smiling. It was the first one of them she’d seen on his face, and it froze the breath in her throat. He was even more striking happy than he’d been mad.

“You like it?” he asked low, like her answer mattered.

Afraid her voice would crack, she nodded.

“I built it.” He canted his head and added, “Bron, Trent and I built it together after I bought the land.

“Trent Cress?” She’d heard about him before.

Sadness washed his smile away. “He died last year, and this was the last big project we all did together.”

Her heart ached for him as she looked at the house in a different light. It wasn’t just beautiful. It was built on memories that were obviously important to Dillon.

He took the bag from her hands and said, “Wait there.”

She hadn’t any idea what she was waiting for, but he jogged around the front end of his truck and opened her door like gentlemen she’d read about in magazines. Her very own werebear in shining armor.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. The answer mattered more than she could ever admit to him.

Leaning on the door frame, too close and too far away all at once, he explained, “My mom was with a bad man and it made her sad. You remind me of her. I couldn’t do anything for her, but I can keep you safe. I know I can.”

His answer was the sweetest, saddest admission she’d ever heard. She reminded him of his broken mother, which gutted her, but he could’ve dropped her off at the nearest rest stop today after he fake-claimed her, and he hadn’t. He’d treated her better than anyone had in her life, and her loyal heart latched onto him a little more.

“I know I’m not what you want in a mate—”

“Breshia,” he warned.

“No, let me finish. I know I’m not what you probably imagined, and that this was forced, but if it’s friendship you want, I can do that. I’ll try my best to repay the kindness you’ve shown me today. And if you ever need the company of someone you connect with more, I’ll understand.”

He looked utterly shocked. “You’re giving me permission to sleep with other women?”

“I’m saying I’ll understand if you need…someone…more than me.”

He shook his head and gripped her waist before lowering her down to the ground in front of him. “You’re one crazy kitty, you know that? And that sounds like a woman trap if I’ve ever heard one.”

She frowned at his receding back. It wasn’t her intention to set a trap. She was being honest with what she was willing to sacrifice to see him happy. Her looks didn’t do it for him, she got that. She was trying to tell him she understood and that it was okay. Words had never been her strength though, so she shut the truck door as softly as possible and followed him up the porch stairs. She would just have to try again later, when she’d had time to think on how exactly to word it.

He flipped the light switch inside, and recessed lighting lit up a homey interior. Light upper walls contrasted with dark painted lower walls, separated by tasteful wainscoting. Each trinket and decoration fit perfectly. For a bachelor, he was exceedingly tidy. In fact, this place was cleaner than the pride’s house.