A Taste of Honeybear Wine (BBW Bear Shifter Standalone Romance Novel) (Bearfield Book 2) (11 page)

“I know this is weird timing, and we just met,” Alison said. “But if we’re going to be torn apart by wolves I just wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed meeting you, Michael Morrissey.”

“Thanks?” Michael said. “But we aren’t going to be torn apart by wolves.”

“Is this confidence or experience talking?”

“Both? Maybe?”

“That didn’t sound too confident.”

“Sorry, semantic arguments and wolf fighting don’t really go together for me. I may pick the wrong words to sandwich.”

“Sandwich?”

“See?”

Alison looked back and up at the man. He was grinning at his own goofy sense of humor. It was hard to be terrified of wolves at a moment like that, but she was trying. She reached back behind herself and felt his naked butt, firm and warm, like a basketball left in the sun all morning. She gave it a squeeze. “I love you,” she said. “I don’t know why or how, but I love you.”

The growl in Michael’s voice deepened. “I know,” he said. And then added, “I want you to jump onto my back, and hold on no matter what happens.”

“This is a weird time for a piggyback ride.”

“Please.”
 

The wolves barked and growled as Alison clambered up Michael’s back. She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed his powerful back with her thighs. He smelled like sage still, but under that was the Michael smell that made her eyes close with delight. She buried her face in his neck and smelled him, just smelled him, taking his scent into her.
 

“You have one chance,” Michael growled at the wolves. “One chance to leave without getting hurt. And if one of you so much as
touches
my mate, I will sever your spine with my teeth. Got it?” Michael fell forward, landing on his hands and knees, and then, faster than a blink, there was a bear where Michael had been. It happened so quick, Alison could barely believe it. But she was now astride the back of a very large bear with fur the color of molten honey. The same color as Michael’s pretty eyes. The beast’s body was hot under hers, and his fur was remarkably soft against her skin. Should she clutch his neck and risk sliding off forwards? Bears weren’t built like horses, after all. Their necks pointed firmly ground-wards. Or should she scoot back and ride between his shoulders? A more comfortable position, but risky if he decided to run. Or fight.
 

She held onto the neck.

Michael-the-bear took a deep breath, stood up on his hind legs and let loose a bellowing roar that made the wolves scatter, brought tears to Alison’s eyes and sent birds exploding from every treetop for a mile around. The sky was thick with birds, with ravens. If help was coming from Bearfield, they’d know where Michael was now. Was every person in the town a bear shifter? Was an army of five thousand bears, some with glasses still perched on their noses or trailing yarn from the knitting projects they’d dropped, coming to help?
 

Michael fell back to his feet softly. He glanced back at Alison, perched on his back, and she saw that he had the same eyes. Human eyes, in his scruffy bear face. Did he know her as a bear, or was he a mindless animal now? The scientist in Alison had like a million questions. If they got through this, she was going to sit Michel down and make him answer all of them. Well, after they took care of a few other sweaty, sticky, licky, thrusty things for like a week straight.
 

How could she have been so into Drew? So worried about what that man thought? It didn’t matter that she was curvier than most girls, that she had dirt under her nails, that she dressed more like a hiker than a fashion plate. Michael saw those things and loved her. Their love was a crucible already burning away her impurities, her doubts, her self-loathing. The fire in her was hotter than ever and it’d burn at least until Michael took her, if not longer. And every second it burned, more of the real Alison was revealed.

Michael looked at her and shrugged his big bear shoulders in exactly the same way he did as a man, and there was the proof that he was still there. Inside the fur suit, her mate was protecting her.

Five more wolves approached from down the trail, from the direction they’d been headed. They were so large they walked single file on the dusty path. On the middle wolf—larger than the rest with oddly reddish fur—sat that raven jerk who’d robbed her home. He was grinning with a lopsided mouth, his teeth large and luminously white. His nose was even bigger than Alison remembered, hanging off his face in a way that would make toucans jealous. He had greasy straight black hair and a face that was both thin and doughy. He wore a long battered leather coat over jeans and a shirt advertising some band with more skulls and umlauts in their name than actual letters.

“So you’re Jack Sable?” Alison said as the man approached. He looked so out of place in the woods. He looked like he should be working in a dingy music store, having pointless arguments about album art with other employees while he ignored customers. Or like he should be in a van, selling weed to college kids.
 

Michael growled under her, the vibrations deeply pleasant as they traveled up her thighs.
 

“We were not formally introduced,” he said, giving a short bow from the wolf’s back. He had a strange accent, like French but not French. French-Canadian maybe? “Mister bear, whatever your name is. I am only going to say this once. Shift back to your muscle-bound lumbering man form or I will put one bullet right through your mate here.” The raven man produced a matte black handgun from under his coat and aimed it squarely at Alison’s chest. “And just so we don’t have any more confusion about these matters, you are both my prisoners now.”

Chapter 7

Bearly Captured

They’d been so close to the thicket where Jack Sable was squatting, Michael could have kicked himself. Another quarter mile down the trail and they would have been there. But no, he had to stop and drink Alison’s amazing honey wine and kiss her amazing lips and smell her amazing wetness drawing him in. As a rule, Michael didn’t have many regrets. He lived a simple life of hard work, good sleep, and easy pleasures. But if the goddamn raven shifter killed his mate before he had a chance to live his entire life getting to know her, he’d be furious. He’d crack the mountain with his rage. Even now, his bear thrashed about inside him, clawing to get out.

The thicket where Sable lived with his wolf pack was a poor imitation of the Raven Queen’s citadel. It was an overgrown thornbush, thick with flowers and choked with weeds. The thorny tendrils formed a canopy overhead, reducing the sun to a scattering of beams piercing the darkness. The wolves lounged in beast form in a loose pile, surrounding a central point where a cast-off ikea lounger moldered. Did Sable realize he was making a shabby mirror of the queen’s splendor? Or was this just what ravens did? The far wall of the lair, behind Sable’s ratty throne, was a heap of stolen goods. TVs, laptops, bowls full of jewelry, jars of pennies. Somewhere in there was the lockbox. Michael was sure of it. And in the box was the pendant. His father’s pendant.

“She sent you, didn’t she?” Jack Sable squawked in his odd accent. “She couldn’t stand the competition, eh? Eh?” He cackled with laughter, bouncing in his chair and spinning his handgun around like a child playing cowboy.

“Look dude, I don’t care what weird stuff you’re up to out here. I just want the box you stole from my mate and then we’ll leave. I promise no harm will come to you.” He tried to keep it friendly, to keep the growl out of his voice. But the bear was strong and supremely pissed off. Their mate was in danger and it was all he could do not to bear-out and fuck everyone up. The growl came anyway.

“Lies!” the raven shifter screamed. “Lies! You’re assassins! Sent to punish me. First she welcomes me with open arms and closed legs. Me! Jack Sable, alpha of
Les Monts Groulx
! I should be king here. She should be happy to lick my toes, to bear my young. The arts I know! The gifts I’ve learned! Traded much for them I have. But it was worth it, so worth it.”

“Les Monts Groulx? Is that in Oregon?” Michael sat on the floor in front of Sable, his arms locked in silvered cuffs. Alison was next to him, her hands tied with simple rope, her mouth gagged. This Sable guy didn’t seem to like women much. The wolves all had cuffs like Michael’s, though just one per wolf. Silver, suspiciously thin, and maybe an inch wide—weird runes were etched into the surface, shining with an eerie blue light. There was magic in the bindings. Michael hated magic. The few wizards he’d met had either been laughably fuzzy-headed, their minds eaten by whatever arcane depths they’d probed, or complete psychotic a-holes, like Sable. Something about bending the rules of reality either made a mind snap, or dissolved it.
 

“Oregon? Oregon!” Sable drew his gun and fired a shot at Michael. It harmlessly bounced off his shoulder. No weapon forged by man could hurt him, or so the old story went. “It’s Quebec, you provincial bumpkin. The center of North American culture.”

One of the wolves seemed to laugh at that in a yelping, barking, whining sort of way. Sable shot the wolf a glance and gestured with his hand, and the poor beast yelped in pain. It’s the bracelets, Michael realized, he’s controlling the wolves with them. He’s their alpha, he’s drawing their strength into himself and channeling it back to control them. What a jerk. With the bracelets on, the wolves couldn’t regain human form. He wasn’t sure how he knew, he just did. Just like he knew that if he shifted into a bear, Sable would control him as well. He was powerless, locked up, at the mercy of a lunatic raven and still completely naked.
 

At least it wasn’t raining.

“So what do you want with us? Are you going to ransom me back to my brother? I’m sure he’d pay handsomely for us. Before he ripped your head from your shoulders.” He didn’t want to say it, he wanted to be nice. But the bear in him was so furious it was getting to him. He couldn’t shift or he’d be a slave. But if he kept the bear caged too long, he’d shift anyway.

“Here’s what is going to happen. This queen, she has hid her people from me. Afraid I will capture them like I did my wolf pack, like I did you.” Jack Sable leapt up from his throne and danced around the room in manic glee, like a scarecrow caught in a tornado. “And I will. Oh I will! Jack Sable always wins. He always gets what he wants. Hee hee! The ravens hide too well. The shadows are their homes and these woods are so full of shadows. So I will make a deal with you, bear man—if you bring me the head of the Raven Queen, I will let your mate live.”

“But I’m guessing you’ll keep her right here. Forever. Just like the wolves?” The shift pulsed inside Michael, threatening to take him. The raven sorcerer was not allowed to mention his mate. He shouldn’t even look at her.
 

“Of course!” Sable’s jerking dance continued. “It’s my destiny to rule. It’s my fate! I’ve seen it written on the stars at night, on the underside of leaves, in the whorls of snow on the mountains of my home. You can’t stop fate, boy.” The raven produced a jeweled goblet from behind his throne. It was gaudy and ostentatious and about as authentic as a plastic spoon. He snapped his fingers and one of the wolves popped up from the pile and padded over to the heap of stolen treasures, selecting a bottle of wine. The wolf loudly gnawed the top of the bottle off, spitting the cork and shattered glass onto the floor, before gently gripping the body of the wine bottle in its teeth and pouring it into the raven’s cup. “Do you see?” Sable cawed. “When I found these mutts they were alone and terrified. Their alpha had been in a freak accident.” He winked theatrically. “But with a new alpha and a firm hand, even these mangy dogs can be trained to be useful.”
 

The wolf’s eyes belied the idea he was trained. He had murder eyes. If Michael could deactivate the bracelets, the wolves would do his job for him. But how? What did Michael know about magic?

Jack Sable lifted his goblet to his mouth, about to sip the wine, when a furious roar shook the earth. Marcus. Marcus was coming. He’d heard Michael’s call and was on his way—not so far, in fact. The roar made the raven freeze, all the blood draining from his pallid skin. But then a wicked smile split his face in two. He put the goblet down and leapt up.
 

“Is that the alpha I hear? Oh, and it sounds like he’s crashing about as a bear? How unfortunate for him.”

“Leave him out of this,” Michael growled. He was on the edge of shifting. Marcus’s call was too much, too strong. Every bear for fifty miles would come at once to help. Every shifter would shift and obey their alpha, and fucking Jack Sable would be there with his enchanted traps to catch each and every one of them.

“I need to take a quick look outside. Stay here,” he squawked to his wolves. “Make sure the bear doesn’t do anything stupid. And if the woman tries to leave, kill her.”

Jack Sable shifted into his raven form and flew out through a hole in the wall.
 

Michael fell onto his face, panting. The bear was forcing its way to the surface. He couldn’t stand the threats against his mate. He needed to defend her, to protect her. He rolled over onto his back, his arms cuffed painfully behind himself, and roared at the pain. He’d never held in a shift before. His bear wasn’t used to being denied and it really, really didn’t like it. The wolves backed away. They were smarter than they looked.
 

He could feel claws pressing through his fingers, his bones creaking and snapping. His skin burned with the need to change, to sprout fur and rampage. The bear didn’t understand traps or cages or magic bracelets that turned you into a wizard’s butt monkey. He closed his eyes and tried to think about something that wasn’t the silver bracelets cutting into his wrists, or the way Sable pointed his gun at Alison, or Marcus getting caught and enslaved by the damn wizard. It was no use. He had no calm to cling to, no life raft in his storm of emotion. The bear was coming, and when it did, he’d be under Sable’s control. Sable’d be able to make him do anything, hurt anyone, and he’d be unable to stop.