Mated to the Alpha Bear (Werebear Shifter Billionaire Paranormal Romance Standalone)

Copyright 2015 Luna Noir

All rights reserved.

Mated to the Alpha Bear

Book design by Luna Noir

Cover Image Copyright 2015
CanStockPhotos

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Warning: This book
contains graphic depictions of consenting adults engaging in explicit sexual
activities, and is only intended for mature readers over the age of 18.

The
glass toppled from her tray and crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces.
Nora McMillan cursed; she had rushed to finish her shift in time to make it
outside before the blood bus left. The drive ended at 5 and she wanted to make
sure she had time to donate before they closed up shop. They had been parked
out in the mall lot all day, but the diner had been busy and she hadn’t found a
moment to slip away. Now she had to clean this up too.

Nora
crouched down and began picking up shards of glass, her white skirt riding up
to expose her creamy thighs. A wolf whistle came from a nearby table and she
wished she was permitted to dress more modestly. She felt eyes upon her chest
and realized just how much of her ample cleavage was visible as she leaned
over. Ugh. She hated this place; the constant ogling, the darlings and
sweethearts, customers with wandering hands, and to top it all off was the
shitty tips.

She
collected the glass in a hurry and dumped it into the trash. Then, before
anybody else could flag her down, she booked it out the door. She crossed the
lot to the mobile blood collection bus. She rapped her knuckles against the
door and an older woman slid it open. Her face was crinkled and her hair was
going gray, but she smiled with a pleasant glow.

“We
were just about to call it a day, but we’ve always got time for one more.” She
stepped aside and beckoned Nora to enter. The interior appeared surprisingly
large; there was a spacious open area and then two nooks with small beds and
curtain dividers. A refrigerator was tucked in one corner, and a small table
stood next to it littered with needles and tubing.

A
man in a white lab coat was sitting at a small desk, writing something. Nora
noticed his broad shoulders over the back of the chair; the only other thing
she could make out was his shaggy dark hair.  Strange for a doctor, she
thought.  Still she sensed something strange about the man, there was almost an
aura of power surrounding him. Nora smiled to herself at how ridiculous that
sounded; he’s just a guy in a lab coat writing in a book, nothing special
there. Then he stood up and turned to her.

Damn,
she
thought. Maybe there was
something
special about him; he stood at least
six feet tall, and even with the lab coat hiding most of his body, Nora could
tell he was in excellent shape. His skin was deeply tanned, like he spent most
of his time outside, and his features were striking. His eyes were a dark brown
and regarded her pensively.

“I’m
Dr. Kent,” he said and his voice seemed to reverberate from the walls of the
bus.

“Nora,”
she said. “I’m Nora McMillan.”

“Well
Nora,” Dr. Kent said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you and steal your blood.”

He
smiled and Nora giggled loudly, then felt her face turn red. He went on to ask
her all the usual questions, had she eaten recently, was she afraid of needles,
had she ever fainted, and she just nodded or shook her head in response. Then
he began asking about her family history, which she thought was a little odd
when all she was doing was donating blood. But Dr. Kent was handsome, and she
didn’t mind one bit if he wanted to draw out their conversation.
Maybe he’s
trying to flirt?

She
could have sworn Dr. Kent seemed unusually interested in how her grandparents
emigrated from Eastern Europe, but he was probably just trying to be polite.
Finally, he asked her to lay down on one of the small beds. She did as she was
told and he rolled up one of her sleeves and tied a tourniquet around her
bicep. The sensation of his fingers against her skin sent a tingle through her
body and she looked up into his deep brown eyes as he worked. He glanced up and
met her gaze, then flashed a broad smile.

“This
might pinch a bit,” he said as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He picked
up the needle and she watched his face as he gently stuck her. She was so
focused on the gorgeous doctor that she hardly even felt the needle. Before she
knew it, he was finished and taping a cotton ball to her arm. She stood up and
suddenly felt light headed. The room spun, her knees went weak, and Nora fell.

Dr.
Kent’s strong arms caught her before she reached the floor. She felt his
muscular chest pressing against her back and she could tell he was holding her
effortlessly. Then she could smell him, a faint mix of sweat and cologne, and
it was intoxicating. Her head was still reeling, but now she wasn’t sure if the
cause was the blood loss or her doctor. He lifted her easily and set her back
on the bed. Nora was disappointed to feel him let her go.  

 
Everything stopped spinning as the handsome doctor returned with a juice box
and a cookie. Nora felt like a child as she took them; she held the cookie in
her mouth while inserting the tiny straw into the juice box. She looked
ridiculous, but she didn’t mind so much because the doctor was still smiling at
her. She was a little grateful for the dizzy spell, knowing that if she’d still
had any color left in her face, it would be beet red.

“Feeling
any better, Nora?”

Hearing
her name come from his lips sent another shiver through her. She smiled and
assured him she was just fine. She immediately regretted saying that, because
he nodded once and returned to his desk where he began filling out paperwork.

She
remained on the bed for another minute before the older woman laid her hand on
Nora’s arm and asked if she was ready to go. Nora nodded and the woman helped
her to her feet. Dr. Kent turned to her and said “Goodnight Nora, and thank you
so much.”

He
smiled at her once more, and Nora almost tripped down the stairs on her way
out. The woman released her arm when they reached the concrete of the parking
lot and bid her goodnight. Nora got into her car and sat quietly in the
driver’s seat for a few minutes until she was sure her mind was clear. It was
hard to think of anything besides the doctor’s body pressed against her and his
strong arms wrapped around her. Finally, she blocked those thoughts and drove
herself home.

~

James
Kent was alone in his private lab looking over today’s samples. Several petri
dishes with dark clotted blood were arranged on the workbench. So far he’d had
no luck, but that wasn’t unusual. He often went months without a single
compatible sample.

God,
he wished it were more like the movies; anybody who had ever received so much
as a scratch from a werewolf always seemed to turn. Maybe it was different with
bears, or there was just no truth to the movies at all.

Three
years ago, he had been a happily married man from a wealthy family on his way
to a promising career in medicine. He was an active member of Doctors Without
Borders; when one of their volunteers fell ill, James filled in for him on a
three month trip to rural Romania. It was there that he’d been attacked.

James
had gone alone to a small village several miles from their base camp. After
spending the day performing checkups and administering vaccines for the local
children, he headed back to camp that night. Suddenly there was something in
the road, something big. He veered to the right and the jeep overturned,
leaving him suspended upside down by his seat belt.

When
his head stopped spinning he climbed down and checked himself over. Some cuts
and bruises, but he’d be alright. There was no sign of the thing he had seen.
He dug his satellite phone out of the overturned car and dialed the base.
Before he could say a word, something slammed into him from behind, knocking
the wind out of him. A sharp pain tore across his back as he fell to the
ground. He screamed at the pain and scrambled towards the jeep. James pulled
himself into the vehicle and turned around.

A
hulking brown bear was closing on him with hunger in its eyes. It was larger
than any bear he had ever seen, even on all fours it stood as tall as him. He
crawled backwards to the far side of the jeep, putting as much metal between
him and the creature as possible. The bear pushed against the side of the jeep
and it lurched. James clung to the roll cage as the car moved, pain still
burning in his back. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back and knew he
was bleeding heavily. The bear reached inside, but couldn’t reach the doctor.
It tore at the door and ripped it away from the body of the vehicle. James
crawled out the opposite side as the bear thrust its body into the vehicle,
snarling.

He
ran into the woods, not once looking back until fatigue and blood loss got the
better of him. He collapsed in the forest, and when he finally awoke he was on
a cot back in the base camp. It took weeks of recovery before he was able to travel.
He was sent back home to his wife and recovered quickly. He attributed his
remarkable recovery to his talented peers, and soon life was back to normal.
Even better, he was going to be a father!

Then
James woke one morning, naked in a field with no recollection of how he’d
gotten there. It took months for him to piece everything together, and by the
time he had, his wife was already experiencing complications with the
pregnancy. By the time he realized what he had truly become, it was too late.
His poor wife just couldn’t handle the supernatural child she was carrying, and
James lost them both.

He
was devastated; James took an extended leave from work and disappeared from his
social circles. He took the time to mourn, and to learn more about what he had
become. He learned to control his shifting; he could transform into a bear at
will, and though it was a struggle at first he was able to maintain control of
himself in bear form as well.

The
part that continued to elude him, however, was the science behind what he was.
At first, he believed it could be transmitted from a bite, like the legends
say. He tested his blood and saliva and found nothing out of the ordinary; but
when his blood mixed with another’s, even of the same type, it turned dark and
clotted. He believed this incompatibility was the reason he’d lost his wife.
Though years had passed, he kept to himself, closely guarding his heart because
he knew any woman he loved would be doomed to a fate the same as his wife.

James
began volunteering with the blood bank last year, and was secretly bringing
home small samples from each donor. He tested them in the lab he had
constructed in the estate he had inherited from his parents. He had been
ecstatic when he discovered the first sample that was compatible with his own.
It belonged to a sixty year old man with no children or close family, but it
gave him hope that he’d one day find another woman he could love without fear.

Out
of the thousands of samples he had tested, so far he’d only found a dozen
compatible people. They all hailed from the same region of Eastern Europe,
which he thought explained why there were few reports of creatures such as
himself in the United States. None of the potential matches had been suitable
mates; over half were male, and of the females only one was young enough to
still bear a child. He had found reasons to meet with the woman multiple times,
but there was no chemistry there. He had debated offering to pay the woman to
carry his child, but in the end decided that his baby should be born into a
loving family.

James
checked back to the samples from today; he had drawn blood from nearly forty
people outside the mall, few fit the descriptors he was looking for, but he
tested each and every one. If any were found compatible, he’d look into their
family. It was possible for those who were biologically compatible but
otherwise not viable options to have sisters or daughters who might be worth
looking into. He knew it was strange to be searching for a mate based on
genetics, but he could think of no other way. He often worried that he’d end up
stuck with someone he didn’t truly care for, just because they happened to be
biologically capable.

Then
he held his breath; the sample from the young waitress,
Nora was her name
– he thought, appeared to have remained viable after mixing with his serum.
James smiled.
I’m getting better at this
, he thought. He had noticed an
unusual scent about the woman; it was alluring, but too musky to be perfume. He
hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now he realized his body had been
reacting to the smell of a potential mate.

~

Nora
set the food down upon the table, careful to get each meal to the person who
ordered it, and then asked if they needed anything else before heading over to
the new table she had just been assigned. There was a man sitting alone at the
table, and she thought he looked familiar. She approached from behind, admiring
the man’s broad shoulders. Then he turned around and it took a moment for his
face to register.