The Witness and the Bear: (Werebear Shifter Romance) (3 page)

Some of the onlookers had followed them to the house and one of them shouted, “Looks like our alpha has his hands full with this one,” to the laughter and jeers of others.

Hands hanging loosely at his waist like he didn’t know what to do with them, Riker narrowed his eyes at her. “Please come inside with me so I can explain what is going on.”

Earth spinning, she stood and stomped past him with what little dignity remained. It took her three tries to open the front door, and when he finally reached around her, filling her head with his sexy manly smell and warmth, she gnashed her teeth at him for getting too close, then
promptly fell on her face inside the entryway. She didn’t even bother to get up. Just lay there against the cool wood floors in a puddle of mortification.

“Cameron,
” Riker said blandly. “Go get the healer for our guest.”

Riker paced the room and Hannah watched as she sucked loudly on an orange slice the healer, Daria,
had brought her. In the kindest act she’d witnessed since crossing the no trespassing sign riddled fence, the woman had brought her an entire fruit tray.

“I was supposed to win the challenges, fuck Merit, and live semi-happily ever after,” he growled.

Hannah smacked her lips. “Sounds romantic.”

“Just stop, okay?” His hand slashed the air between them. “This entire mess is your fault.”

“My fault? I didn’t beat a man to a pulp, then drag my own self into a bedroom ranting about mating or bedding or whatever. I got dropped off in the woods and then shoved into your little fighting ring at the wrong time.”

Daria hissed as she unwrapped the
last of the bandages around Hannah’s ribcage. “Who did this to you?”

“I’d rather not discuss it.”

“Keep your secrets, girl. Who repaired you?”

Riker’s eyes
shifted completely gray as his pupils retracted to nothing. He stared at her breasts, which had bobbed free of their gauze bindings.

Heat flooded her cheeks and she winced as she reached for the
blanket to cover herself.

“Shit,” Riker murmured, dropping his gaze to his growing erection. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Probably best it be a cold one,” she muttered as he shut the bathroom door behind him.

“I heard that,” he called through the barrier.

She clacked her mouth closed and Daria laughed. “Can he really hear that well?” Hannah whispered.

Poking and prodding, the woman
nodded. “Yes. Now tell me who did this.”

“A veterinarian. It was the best we could do. I’d almost bled out and the hospitals weren’t safe.”

“Three shots?”

Her nostrils flared as she sighed. Remembering how these injuries came to be destroyed her. “Yes. All straight through but one clipped a lung.”

“The stitches have to be redone, Hannah. I’m sorry.”

Closing her eyes against the pulsing pain and the fear of more, she nodded. Daria was older, with gray streaks
through her dark hair and an easy smile. Her summer blue eyes were animated when she listened, and when she spoke she sounded genuine. Something about the woman made Hannah trust her.

Shuffling her position on Riker
’s oversized bed, she stalled. “Riker’s hurt too.”

“He’ll hold, darlin’. He’s a bear.”

“Me too, in the mornings, but attitude doesn’t heal you.”

A slight frown took Daria’s eyebrows but she pursed her lips against whatever she was going to say.

“I want to see him,” a woman’s shrill voice rang out from the porch.

The door flew open and crashed against the wall and
high heels echoed off the floor boards.

Even expecting it, Hannah jumped when Merit flew in like a witch without her broomstick.

“Where is he?”

Hannah sucked her lips in her mouth and pointed to the bathroom door. “Showering.”

“I want you gone,” the woman said.

“Lady, I wouldn’t be here if I had any choice about it.”

“You aren’t one of us and we had a plan.” Her voice was getting annoyingly whiney. “Riker and I have talked about this. He wants me. I’m the one everyone has agreed will fit him best. He’s mine.”

Ignoring the gnawing, possessive feeling that clawed her hands into the sheets, Hannah smiled cheerily. “Fantastic. You can have him.”
She didn’t know what kind of shit storm she’d wiggled into, nor did she want to. Her wants were simple. Sleep and to have less bullets flying her way. Sexy Riker would complicate everything, so if Merit wanted him, she could mate or bed or fuck him, or whatever modern cults were calling it these days.

The bathroom door opened and Riker
sauntered out, clad in jeans and toweling off his hair. Which he somehow managed to make look sexy, even right out of the shower. Damn him. She popped another grape into her mouth and smiled at his sneer.

“Merit, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight is Hannah’s night.”

“Oh. My. Gravy. You just made this sound like one of those polygamist camps. Is that what this is? Plural families and multiple wives?” She’d always been fascinated by the dynamics, and now she’d get to experience what their lives were really like firsthand!

“No!” Riker and Merit both yelled and Hannah shrank back into the pillows.

“I don’t share,” Merit snarled.

“I don’t either, you lunatic. Which is why I told you, you can have him.”

Riker’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what? You can’t do that. I have to choose.”

“Why, because you’re the man?” she asked, eyebrows cocked. “It’s the two-thousands,
hunky. It’s not all about the boys anymore.”

“Jesus,” Merit said with a humorless laugh. Her brunette curls
bobbed gently with the shake of her head and the shiny strands caught in the light. “Does she know anything?”

“Ow!” Hannah yelped as Daria’s medical scissors skimmed one of the bullet holes.

“Yep, we’re going to numb you,” the woman said, seemingly unaffected by the soap opera going on behind her.

Riker’s eyes crashed onto hers. “Were you shot?”

“I thought you could hear everything in the whole wide world, Riker. I talked to Daria about this earl—,”

“Were you shot?” he roared.

She cleared her throat once, just so he wouldn’t think she had to answer every question he asked immediately. “Several times.”

“Merit, leave.”

“Riker—”

“As your alpha,” he
gritted out between clenched teeth, “I’m telling you to leave.”

A furious noise came from the woman and she spun and left, stabbing the defenseless floor planks again
with her stilettos. Why was she wearing those shoes anyway? Had she looked around? No one to see her but sister wives and pine trees. The runway was a million miles away from this place.

Daria jabbed her with a needle and the liquid inside felt cold as it hit her wounds.

Riker was looking at her breasts again.

Oh hang it, let him look. It had been forever since a man enjoyed
the sight of her body, and if Riker was kind enough to ignore all of the maiming and scarring that Stone’s cronies had done to her chest, the man deserved a peaky peak.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “I think you need to start telling me who’s after you.”

“A psychopath who is currently sitting in jail with half of his hit men. The other half are looking for me. I testified against them. They’re in the big house because of me, and they want revenge.”

“Witness protection?”

“Yes. And no. I was in protection and Jeremy was my handler, but someone kept telling Stone’s men where I was hiding. They caught up to us, and...” Leaning her head back against the headboard, she sighed. What else could she say? The paranoia, the fear, the loss she couldn’t bring herself to talk to anyone about. It was all so heavy and she wanted one night to think of something else. Anything else.

Dammit, she wanted to smile again.

The bed sank in as he sat beside her. “You’ve got us both in a bad spot now, Hannah. You don’t even realize how serious you stepping into the ring tonight was.”

“Pushed. I was pushed by a dark haired girl, about yay high.” She lifted her hand to his bare chest, almost, but not quite brushing it.
“She pulled my hair and shoved me forward.”

“What color were her eyes?” he asked.

“Dark. Caramel colored. She was pretty.”

“Jenny,” Daria said.

Riker raked his hands through his damp hair and a low rumble sounded from him. “What did she do to me?”

“Who’s Jenny?” Hannah asked.

Daria pulled another stitch. “His sister. She doesn’t like Merit much.”

Both eyebrows arched, Hannah said, “I can’t imagine why. And can you put a damned shirt on? Geez, we just met and it’s like a naked party in here.”

Twitching his head to the side, a rakish smile stretched his face. She wasn’t a cardiologist, but that smile probably just stopped her heart. His eyes seemed even brighter as he asked, “You don’t like what you see?”

“Don’t. Don’t be that boy who knows they’re sexy but still needs compliments.”

“Sexy, huh?”

“I’m not talking to you anymore until you put on a shirt.”

“But then wouldn’t you feel uncomfortable as the only one in the room with no shirt on?”

He had a point. “Fine. Do what you want. I’m unaffected.”

He was staring at her breasts again.

“Done for now,” Daria announced, cutting
the excess off the final suture. “I’ll come back in the morning and bind you, but for now you can put these over the new stitches.” She dropped a package of square gauze and a roll of medical tape onto the crumpled navy comforter. “Riker can help you if you need it.”

“Riker can—wait, I don’t know if he should touch me.”

“Why not?” Riker sounded offended.

“Because it feels…dangerous.”

“Good instincts,” Daria said mysteriously, and left, medical bag in hand.

“Why am I here?” Hannah asked weakly. Nothing any of them had said since she’d arrived made any sense. “Why am I in your bedroom?”

Tugging her hands, he pulled her from the bed and stood her in front of the mirror over the dresser.

The package of gauze made a ripping sound, and he bit off a length of tape and settled it onto one
of the holes in her back. “You’re supposed to sleep with me, Hannah.” His voice was deep, rich, gentle. A tremble traveled up her spine and his hands gripped her shoulders as if he was steadying her.

“And then you’ll sleep with Merit?”

Through the mirror, she could see his reflection as he concentrated on her back. He nodded. “It wasn’t the way I wanted it. I never wanted to choose.”

“Do you love her?”

“No. Never will. It would be a mating of convenience. Clan law says I must, so I must.”

“Don’t you fancy any of the other girls here?”

“No.”

Sadness washed over her. He would live a loveless life because of some silly law his people abided by. And for what? So he could be leader? It wasn’t fair.

Her voice trembled. “What if I’m not ready to sleep with you? I know you’ll choose Merit, so why go through with our part? You could just tell the others we did and pick her.”

Slow
ly, he turned her until her breasts brushed his stomach. “They’d know the difference, Hannah. They could tell.”

“How?”

“You’d smell the same. You wouldn’t smell like me.”

Cold scrubbed over her skin and she swallowed hard. Why would anyone try to smell
her? This all sounded so archaic and wrong, and as desperate as she was to feel safe at last, was it worth getting on board where love and marriage were treated without reverence? “What if I say no?”

His eyes were soft and dipped to her lips. “I wouldn’t make you. They’d strip me of my title though if I can’t uphold the laws set in place to continue our kind. Alpha would go to one of the challengers who lost tonight.”

She released a trembling breath. “I’ve only been with one person before and it wasn’t…it wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be. I know you aren’t asking about other partners, but it seems important to tell you why this is so hard for me. Sex isn’t casual for me, Riker. I just met you, and even if I’m drawn to you, and think you are very handsome, I can’t sleep with someone I just met. It’s more personal than that to me.”

His fingers brushed her cheek and he rested his forehead against hers. The sigh he gave sounded of relief, not frustration. “Can I tell you a secret?” His hands cupped her neck, gently massaged the tense
knots there.

She reached up and encircled his wrists in her hands, wanting to hold his touch longer. Her stomach clenched and sang with
neediness she hadn’t ever known, but she’d made the right choice. “Tell me anything. I’m good with secrets.”

Leaning forward until his lips brushed her ear, he whispered, “I wish it was like that for me too.”

She eased back, searched the sadness that swam in his gray gaze. “It can be.”

A slight shake of his head
denied that sex could have anything to do with feelings. “Not for me. Not with Merit.”

Sh
e sucked air into her lungs until they hurt, then blew it out. “Shit.” He had to stop saying things like that if she was going to toe the edge of the chaos that enveloped this place.

“I wish we’d met somewhere else,” he rumbled.
Hooking a finger under her chin, he lifted until she was caught in his gaze. Slowly, he leaned forward until his lips touched hers.

She melted. Sagging under the gentle caress of his mouth, he caught her waist and followed her down
to sit beside her on the plush mattress. His tongue brushed the seam of her lips and she opened for him, invited him to taste her.