Vega Brothers: Hannibal: BBW Paranormal Romance Pretend Engagement (The Bear Shifters of Vega Ranch Book 4) (6 page)

“I should get going,” Mikki said, rubbing her elbow as she looked out at the dark ranch, blanketed in the darkness of the night sky. The stars were out and Mikki looked spectacular in the shine of their light.

Hannibal felt his stomach drop. This was the moment that he had been dreading all night. He really didn’t want her to leave.

“You should probably stay over,” he said, hiding his grimace. “It might look suspicious if you leave.”

She laughed and the sound made him immediately feel better. “I told you,” she said. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“No sex,” he said, shaking his head. “I can sleep on the floor.”

She bit her lip as she thought about it.

Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.

“Do you have an extra toothbrush?” she whispered.

“Yes!” he said a little too enthusiastically. “A whole drawer full of them. You can have any color you like.”

She laughed. “Now you’re talking.” She nodded. “Okay. Only if you promise to have blueberry pancakes again for me tomorrow morning.”

Hannibal nodded his head like a jackhammer. He’d have to do some begging to Julius, the resident breakfast chef, but it would be worth it. “Anything you like my fiancee.”

Her smile faded at being called fiancee. “Show me where I’m sleeping.”

He guided her into the house and upstairs to his room. He had a large room with a huge king-sized bed and an ensuite bathroom with a hot tub big enough for four humans or one bear shifter and one human.

“Nice room,” she said, looking around. She picked up a picture frame on his night table. “Your father?”

“Yeah,” he said sadly. Thinking about his father still hurt. He recently passed away and Hannibal was still hurting over it.

She put down the frame and walked over to his bed. His heart raced as she sat down on it. “Comfy,” she said, bouncing up and down on it, making her breasts bounce up and down as well. Hannibal looked away before he got a hard-on and made things awkward.

He couldn’t look away for long, though. She let herself fall back on the bed and stretched her arms up under his pillows. Her breasts stood straight up in the air and he swallowed hard as he watched her. He had dreamed of Mikki lying on his bed but he was usually beside her or on top of her, not creepily staring at her from across the room.

“That floor looks pretty hard,” she said, “and this bed feels like a cloud.”

“Don’t remind me,” he groaned. He suddenly wished that he had opted for carpeting instead of the hardwood floors that he had now.

“Thanks for the wonderful night,” she said, looking up at the ceiling.

“How come you haven’t opened the bag?” he asked, blurting out the question that had been on his mind all day. “I mean, you were so excited.”

She let out a long breath. “There are some things that are harder to fake than others,” she whispered.

Hannibal knew exactly what she was talking about.

“So don’t fake it,” he whispered.

She sighed. “This is supposed to be business, remember? No feelings allowed.”

Hannibal felt his breath catch in his throat.
Some risks are worth taking. Don’t I have that tattooed somewhere?

“That was before I got to know you,” he said, holding his elbow.

She sat back up on the bed and a strange feeling started to come over him as she looked at him. “What are you saying?”

He couldn’t say anything. A force seized him, cementing him in place. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. And now he couldn’t see. The room disappeared into blackness except for Mikki. She was visible in all of her beautiful, stunning light against the darkness of the room. He felt a tremendous pull to her as his soul cemented with hers. He could only stare at her in wonder as his inner bear bonded to her.

He gasped for air when the force finally released him and he could breathe again. His breaths weren’t the same. Nothing was the same. He could sense a change in his core. The room came back into view and he looked up at his mate with shocked eyes.

“Did you just?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he said, settling into the new Hannibal. The Hannibal who had a mate. The Hannibal who would die and kill for the amazing woman sitting in front of him.

“Oh my God,” she said, covering her open mouth with her hands. “You had a stroke!”

“No,” he said with a chuckle. “My bear just bonded to you.” It felt weird to say it out loud. “You’re my mate. Do you know what that means?”

She smiled shyly and nodded. “Come here,” she whispered, opening her arms.

Hannibal’s body flooded with warmth as his nerve endings stirred and tingled. He stepped towards his mate feeling like he was walking on air.

A thunderous knock exploded on the door behind him making them both jump up just as he was about to touch her with his tingling fingers.

“What the hell?” Hannibal asked, whipping his head around. Talk about bad timing.

Someone banged on the door again so hard that it was shaking on its hinges. “One second,” Hannibal yelled.

“Now!” the voice yelled. It sounded like Khan.

Hannibal rushed over and opened the door. Khan was sweating and his shirt was torn. “We need you in the barn. Now.”

Hannibal glanced back at Mikki who was looking nervous on the bed. “Okay, just give me a min-”

“Now!” Khan said, grabbing his collar and yanking him into the hall. Khan slammed the door behind him and looked at him with serious eyes. “This can’t wait.”

six

“What the hell is it?” Hannibal asked Khan over and over again as he followed him outside to the barn.

“This better be good,” Hannibal said as Khan grabbed the two large doors of the barn and yanked them opened. “I was about to have-”

Hannibal’s words caught in his throat when he saw what was inside, rather who was inside.

“Hannibal the Cannibal!” Slate said as he looked up at him with two black eyes. He was tied to a chair with his hands behind his back.

His identical brother Karl was tied up on a chair beside him. He spat out a gob of blood and smiled with a split lip. “Come on in and join the party.”

Hannibal locked eyes with Julius and then Alexander who were both standing behind them on guard. Julius was biting his fingernail, looking worried.

“What did you guys do to them?” he asked Khan. They were badly beaten up with cuts and bruises all over them. Their shifter healing was kicking in but they still looked like they had just come out of the losing end of a brawl.

“Nothing,” Khan said with a shrug. “You know the Ember twins. They’re always at each other’s throats. Alexander heard them fighting behind the stables.”

Alexander stepped towards them. “They took my fun away from me,” he said with a deep threatening voice. “They were both already beaten to a pulp when I found them.”

“Why are you guys here?” Hannibal asked as Khan closed the barn door behind him.

“We came for a beer,” Slate said.

“We wanted to apply for a job on the ranch,” Karl said at the same time as his brother.

“You idiot, Karl!” Slate snapped. “We went over this!”

“Don’t start again,” Karl yelled back, jerking and rocking his chair, trying to inch it over towards his brother. He tried unsuccessfully to kick him with his foot that was tied to the chair.

“You’re just pissed because I got the cool name,” Slate said, sticking out his tongue.

Karl rolled his eyes. “This again? You’re named after a rock! What’s so cool about that?”

“Guys!” Hannibal yelled, interrupting them.
God, it’s like dealing with dumb and dumber.
“Tell us the truth. Why are you guys here?”

Slate sighed. “You know why.”

Hannibal’s stomach dropped. That’s what he was afraid of. If the rest of the Clawed Squad was on the ranch, though, they’d be breaking down the door already. Their alpha and commander Thorn, or Thornado as he was known in the military, ran a tight crew of bear shifters. It was safe to say that Slate and Karl were here for surveillance only. But that meant the rest of the squad would be showing up any day now.

The Clawed Squad had six members, including the two twins, Karl, and Slate. They were a part of General Samson’s Special Shifter Unit, like the Vega Brothers had been before they were released. It wasn’t a coincidence that they found these two bear shifters sneaking around the ranch. It was part of General Samson’s retaliation.

“What are your orders?” Hannibal asked.

The two twins glanced down at the hay covered floor of the barn.

Hannibal felt his chest tighten. “Kill on sight?”

Karl was the first to meet his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Karl!” Slate snapped, glaring at his brother. “You’re going to get
us
smoked.”

Karl lifted his shoulders. “It’s nothing personal guys,” he said, looking around at the four brothers. “You know the General. What he says goes.”

“It’s just business,” Slate said like it was no big deal.

“Just business?” Khan said, grabbing the ax that was hanging on the wall. “And so is this.”

He marched forward towards the tied up men and Hannibal jumped in front of him, placing his hand on his oldest brother’s massive chest. “Wait,” he whispered. “Let me try talking to them first.”

Khan lowered the ax and huffed out a breath, his eyes narrowed over Hannibal’s shoulder at the two bear shifters. “You got thirty seconds. Then it’s chopping time.”

“Oooh, I like that,” Slate said. “That could be your new slogan.”

“It’s chopping time!” Karl said, imitating Khan but in a deeper more exaggerated voice.

Hannibal rolled his eyes and then turned towards them. The Vega Brothers had worked with the Clawed Squad a few times over the years and they had always gotten along fairly well with the six shifters, except for a few instances, but that didn’t mean anything now. They all knew that Thorn and his boys would cut them down in a second if General Samson gave the order. That was the kind of power that the general had.

“Do you know why the general gave the order to eliminate us?” Hannibal asked, squatting down in front of them.

“Did you forget his birthday?” Karl asked.

“Hey!” Julius said, slapping the back of his head. “
I
make the jokes around here.”

Hannibal just ignored both of them. “We got released from service and then he returned a few weeks later, forcing us to fight again. We refused.”

“Bad move,” Slate said, wincing. “No wonder he airlifted us out of Colombia for this.”

“We’re slaves to him and his special program forever,” Hannibal said. He pointed from one twin to the other. “And so are both of you and the rest of the Clawed Squad. Unless you help us put a stop to him and his program for good.”

“You want us to betray the general?” Slate asked with an amused expression on his face.

“No,” Hannibal said. “I want you to help us kill the general.”

Slate and Karl glanced at each other.

“Then what?” Slate asked, turning back to Hannibal. “We have no jobs, no skills, no place to live. The military is all that we know.”

Hannibal waved over his brothers and they all huddled up. They spoke for a few minutes and then walked back to their places.

“We can give you a chunk of the Vega Ranch if you help us out,” Hannibal said, already feeling that it was a bad idea. Who would want these guys as neighbors? But the Vega brothers didn’t have much choice right now. They had to do something to stop the violence from occurring in order to protect their mates.

“Half of the ranch,” Karl said.

“A third,” Hannibal fired back.

“A quarter,” Karl said.

Hannibal nodded. “Deal!”

“You idiot,” Slate said, turning towards his brother. “A third is more than a quarter!”

“Huh?” Karl said, looking up at the ceiling in confusion.

“Forget my brother,” Slate said. “This is above our pay grade anyway. We have to talk to the Thornado about it.”

Khan stepped forward, gripping the ax with white knuckles. “We can’t let them go,” he hissed. “They’ll return and put a bullet in the back of our heads when we’re sleeping.”

Hannibal held up his hand to Khan. “A chunk of our land in payment for our freedom, and yours. You boys can start your own ranch on the north side of our land. There’s trout the size of whales in the river, acres of pristine forest, beautiful views. Three thousand acres of prime Montana land. What do you say?”

“I say we send them back to the general with their heads in a box,” Khan said, scratching his cheek with the blade of the ax.

“I don’t know about this,” Alexander said, looking like he was agreeing with Khan.

Hannibal ignored them and tried to read the twin’s faces. They weren’t giving him much.

Slate shrugged. “We can deliver the message to Thorn. That’s all we can do.”

“You know us,” Hannibal said. “We always got along well with the Clawed Squad.” He glanced up at Alexander and grimaced. “At least most of us did. We’re the ones with the targets on our backs right now, but one day it will be you guys.”

“That day is right now,” Khan said, stepping forward with the ax.

Hannibal grabbed it and yanked it out of his hands.

He walked over to the twins with the ax in his hands. “We all have mates now living with us. There’s an innocent four-year-old in the house, two pregnant women, and two other humans. They have nothing to do with this.” He stood in front of them and stared Slate in the eyes. “If you guys don’t accept our deal, I want your words that they won’t be harmed when you come back.”

“Kill ‘em,” Khan urged from behind him. “Don’t take the chance, Hannibal.”

“Deal,” Slate said with his eyes locked on him.

He turned to Karl. “Deal,” the second shifter said with a serious face.

“Alright,” Hannibal said, holding a nervous breath as he walked around the chairs. He bent down and cut the ropes with the blade of the ax.

Khan groaned as the two shifters rubbed their wrists and stood up.

“Three thousand acres?” Slate said, holding out his open palm.

Hannibal shook it. “Three thousand acres.”

“Can you two not kill each other before you return back to the base?” Julius asked.