Loved by the Bear - Part 1 Page 2

  My trainer, Link, is doing his best to sneak up on me, but his scent gives him away. Not only did jail change me, but it turns out I was born for this. I took to most of my training as if I was genetically destined to be a killer. I snap the barrel of my gun shut as I whip around and train the loaded weapon on Link.

  His breath catches the tiniest bit, and I hold my weapon until I see it… his eyes widen. Fear. I smile, and without breaking our gaze I swing my arm to turn my gun toward the target and shoot, sure I’ve hit the center perfectly.

  While I'm excellent at the shooting, fighting, and physical aspects of my training that will make me a great assassin, that's not really why they wanted me. I'm going undercover instead, and apparently my sex appeal is lacking. Go figure.

  Link says, “You’re wanted at the salon.”

  I nod and stroll toward him. He stands his ground when I move toward his space, but I don’t back down until he has to move out of my way, and I brace myself for when our shoulders make contact and he tries to knock me off balance. Careful how well you train them, Link. Because you lost that battle a long time ago.

  Lana, a perky girl with way too much lipstick, greets me at the door of the salon. She frowns and shakes her head. "What did I tell you about maintaining those eyebrows, Josie? Do you realize we have to start all over now?"

  I've learned that rebellion is not the way to go here since the Eradicators have their own form of barbaric rules for punishment. But I know how to play the game and keep the right people on my side. Most of the time. I smile thinking about the fear I saw in Link’s eyes earlier. That guy gets on my last nerve. I say, "I know, Lana, but I just don't have your skill. Show me again, please?"

  She sighs, but I can tell from the smile teasing her lips that I appealed to the girl's ego. "C'mon over to my chair. I just did a video on using a credit card for the lines, and I think you'll like how easy it is."

  I sink into her padded chair with a whoosh. "You're the best. I promise I'll send all my new friends to your Youtube channel."

  Lana curls her lip in disgust. "No thank you. I'd rather go hungry than have werebear support."

  "Sorry. I wasn't thinking." Her reaction is typical of the Eradicators, but I can't seem to get on board. Call me skeptical, or perhaps hopeful that I'm not part evil, but I think there's more to the werebear story than the Eradicators are telling me. Or know. It's not that the leaders, Eric and Robyn, are stupid, but they are arrogant and elitist. They’re convinced that a species which has existed for centuries, possibly as long as man, needs to be eradicated. I'm not so sure. And soon enough I'm going to find out since the mission I've been trained for is to infiltrate a clan by becoming a werebear. And that means falling in love with the most powerful werebear I can land… or pretending to anyway.

  I study myself in the mirror, looking for clues there is a bear underneath my exterior. But what I see is the girl I was before all of this, and I wish that’s who I was right now. Home in my bedroom, with my mother singing in the kitchen as she made dinner, instead of being trapped in the crazy world of Eradicators and werebear.

  "Now," says Lana as she holds up the credit card. She explains how to use it to get the right lines and then makes me apply the wax.

  "Ouch!" I cry out as she yanks the strip of cloth off my forehead.

  "If you'd just do a daily check and pluck—" Her chiding reminds me so much of my mother it hurts.

  "I know.” I blink back the tears in my eyes and focus on Lana’s instructions. “One or two strays a day won't hurt so much."

  "Exactly. I notice you think you're too good to exfoliate too."

  "Do not," I say as if I'm a petulant child, and Lana chuckles. "Every time I wipe sweat from my face I rub extra hard."

  She shakes her head at me. "I suppose none of this matters much. Werebear aren't exactly looking for America's Next Top Model."

  I frown, because according to our intel, werebear like women on the large, soft, and curvy side. I've got large in the form of broad shoulders and a strong man-sized body, but I lack the feminine softness to my appearance. "Actually, it does. Eric says I need to look more girly."

  "But you're not, Josie. You’d rather throw back a beer and belch than sip sweet martinis."

  "I know.” It’s true. I’ve always been a tomboy. “I thought about telling Eric that werebear probably like all personality types the way people do, but…" I let the sentence hang because both of us know how well telling Eric anything would go.

  Lana taps her lip with a pink fingernail. "Wait. Oh my god, I'm brilliant." She grabs a brush and rips through my hair to pull my long, stick-straight, but thick locks into a high ponytail. "Yep," She smiles at me in the mirror. "This is totally going to work with your strong cheekbones." Lana grabs a tube of mascara, an eyeliner pencil and lip gloss. "Remember the cat eye swoop you learned?"

  I nod. I’d managed to get that technique right pretty quickly because of my steady hand.

  "All you need to do is the eyeliner, a bit of mascara, and some lip gloss. Try it."

  I do as she asks, and once I smack my lips we both grin. I say, "That was easy."

  "Right? And look at you. It works for models, and it totally works for you. If you're feeling sassy, throw on some big sunglasses. You'd rock the glamorous-star-in-hiding look well."

  A sliver of fear sets in as I think about how I'm about to live my life hiding who I really am. "Yeah." I bite my lip.

  "Hey, Josie." Lana twirls my chair around to face her, and she sits on her stool. "You've so got this. You should hear how everyone talks about you. I think Robyn's even jealous about how well you do everything."

  I smile at her attempt to give me a pep talk. "Thanks. I'll be okay."

  "You'll be better than okay. I'm counting on you to rid the world of the vermin. You hear me?"

  I nod, but my stomach is queasy. And it's not just from nerves about the job I have to do. The Eradicators are evil people who will do anything to get what they want. Since they’re my only source of information on werebear, I don’t know what’s fact and what’s fiction. I’m about to set on a course to wipe out werebear completely, and I can’t tell for sure if that’s a good thing or not. When Lana begins to scowl, I paste a smile on my face and speak with fake confidence. "You know what?" I push on the arms of the chair to stand up and then tilt my head with cockiness. "I'm going to crush this assignment. The Le Roux clan has no idea what's coming their way."

  "That's the spirit," says Lana. She wraps her arms around my waist and gives me a hug. "I'm going to miss you, Josie."

  Hugging is so not my thing, but Lana is one of the few people who is always kind to me, so I return the embrace. "Thanks. I'm going to miss you too." I mean it. I do appreciate her big heart. Only there’s no room in it for werebear, and it makes me wonder if she'll feel the same way about me once I'm changed.

  3

  Max

  My bear is clawing at my chest to get out and chase after the woman walking into the airport. Her hips sway as she moves, and I recall the way I grabbed them earlier before I plunged deep into her. Audrey Le Roux. I shift in my seat to relieve the pressure of my pants on my groin. Even the sound of her name makes me hard. I turn my attention to driving and pull out of the drop-off lane into traffic.

  My true mate has haunted my visions for months, and it's the reason I went to Venice Beach this weekend. She found me first though, and it was almost a disaster, considering I had to scramble to cloak my werebear scent. Audrey's not ready for me yet, which is why hooking up with her was a bad idea. My gut burns with desire, and my dick is hard as a rock now as I inhale the remnants of her scent on my skin. I recall Audrey beneath me, rocking those hips up to meet me stroke for—

  The blare of a horn makes me realize I've veered into the next lane, and I jerk back to my space before returning the guy's middle-finger salute as he roars by me. I did manage to keep my werebear status a secret from Audrey, but now that she's had the best sex of her life, she's not going to b
e able to stop thinking about me. And it's not just because I'm an amazing lover. As true mates, we have a fateful connection that is incredibly powerful, something I should have considered more carefully before letting Audrey seduce me into her bed.

  Now that I've set the ball in motion, I have no choice but to follow through. With each mile I drive, the pain of our separation increases, and I don't have the greater need of a family crisis the way Audrey does to distract me. My heart aches as if it's being squeezed in a fist. Fuck. Pain radiates through my arm when I slam my hand against the wheel of my truck. I did this to myself by being with her, and now I have to live with the consequences because Audrey still needs to learn one more thing before—

  My phone rings with Highway to Hell jarring me from my thoughts, and my love-sick pain is quickly replaced with a boyish fear I'll probably never outgrow. I answer, already preparing for his anger. "Dad."

  "Maximilien Alexander Lévesque!" booms his deep, gravelly voice. "Mon dieu!"

  I recall the stories my father told me about true-mate love when I was a child, the things he knew my mother would have said if she'd been alive. "Would it help if I said you were right about how I'd feel?" The rumble of his growl almost makes my phone vibrate with its intensity, but I tug on his heartstrings anyway. "Do you think Mom knows?"

  The magic of my mother that lives in me softens his emotions, and he lets out another growl that is lower and threaded with the pain of his loss and heartbreak. I cringe a little at the unnecessary anguish I just caused him, and he says, "She does." He chuckles. "And she'd probably slap me upside the head and remind me of what I fool I was when we first met."

  My father understands the danger of what I did. He fell for a witch in a time when witches and werebear were forbidden to be together. It was especially taboo for him because my father was next in line as the Lévesque alpha and my mother was the clan witch. Mom was his soul mate, a bond that is similar to true mates, and he couldn't stand being without her. But it was a dangerous game they played, hoping to win. Not only did they have to keep their relationship a secret, but when the clan witch had a baby and refused to reveal the father's identity, she became a hot topic for the gossip circles. Her reputation as an extraordinary medicine woman was tarnished. It wasn't until my mother died that she allowed Dad to step forward and claim me as his own.

  It was around this time that a clan in Southeast Canada discovered witch-werebear offspring were a powerful blend of strengths, and it quickly changed the taboo to something alphas coveted. Suddenly Mom was revered for having the foresight to produce such a marvel, but my father was the one who reaped the benefits. It should have crushed his soul that she suffered when he didn't, but my mother put something in place in case of her early demise that wouldn't allow it.

  "It's not all bad, Dad," I say. "Audrey's on her way back to Maine, and three thousand miles should be the perfect reason for us to stay away from each other."

  "'Are you daft, boy?" he scoffs. "Now is when she needs you most."

  "It's not too soon?"

  "Doesn't matter. Being without you will be worse."

  Will it, though? I sigh as traffic forces me to move in a slow crawl. I'm still not convinced my match with Audrey was made in heaven. And neither is Mom, although that's a fact I haven't revealed to my father. While alphas of both sexes are a core of the werebear world, a pair of alphas as true mates is a recent development, considering that until the last few decades most clans isolated themselves. As far as I know, Audrey's parents were the first pair of alphas to mate. But Audrey and I take it to an extreme. There are four alphas in her immediate family and two in mine. And humans think a locker room full of testosterone is bad.

  One thing I do know, though, is that I have no choice in this matter. I was born to help a strong female alpha save a clan, a kingdom, and the entire world of werebear. And if breaking my heart is what I must do in the process, I will. The stream of cars before me blur for a second with the flash of a vision. The scent of nail polish stings my nostrils as I see two women in a beat-up Subaru from decades ago. The sound of loud, off-key singing rings in my ears as they fly down a highway. I say, "Looks like I'm going on a road trip to Maine in whatever it is Audrey drives."

  "Call me when you can."

  I picture my father stroking the medallion that possesses a piece of my mother's soul. It allows him to feel her emotions when he needs her guidance most. The metal of my own medallion is warm on my fingers as I slide it back and forth on its chain. I open up the channel to let her fill my father with the hope he needs as he lets his alpha heir, and the only family he's got left, leave. He knows as well as I do there's a strong possibility I'll never come back.

  I grip the wheel tight as my alpha rumbles in my chest with determination, and I pull out of traffic and gun my engine. The roar drowns out my growl as I race down the breakdown lane to the next exit, intending to go to Audrey's apartment to find her keys. I really hope they're not for the Subaru.

  4

  Audrey

  My body jerks as the plane hits the ground in Maine, and I resist the urge to reach out to brace myself as the pilot brakes. I got to my gate in California with a few minutes to spare, and I texted Everett with the time I was scheduled to land in Bangor so someone could pick me up. Now that I'm in range, I can communicate telepathically with the alpha of my clan. Since that's both of my parents, I let them know I've arrived.

  My mom answers. "Sierra's picking you up, honey. Can't wait to see you."

  "Mom?"

  "No word yet. We'll talk more when you get home."

  Effectively shut down, I let out a sigh. My relationship with my mother had always been close before I left. But even though she was on my side about me going to Venice Beach, I think deep down I disappointed her.

  I shake off that train of thought. There isn't anything I can do about it now, and I've got more important things to worry about. As the wheels of my suitcase rumble along behind me, I make my way to the baggage claim area and passenger pick up area searching for Sierra, my mother's best friend and the woman who reminds her to have fun. I spot her right away because she's the kind of person who shines like a beacon in a room full of people.

  Sierra's arms open up for me as I rush over, and she holds me tight. "Audrey, my god, we've missed you."

  Even though Sierra isn't my aunt, she might as well be because she's like a second mother to me. The warmth of her embrace makes me feel as if I'm nine years old again, and it gives me a sense that everything is going to be okay. But when we break apart, reality takes over as I see her concerned expression. For a moment I dare to hope that my free-spirited brother just took off on a crazy road trip without telling anyone and we're just trying to figure out where. "What do we know?"

  She shakes her head toward the door. "Let's get out of here."

  A blast of warm air I didn't expect washes over us once we get outside. Since we're still around people, I make small talk. "Must have been a hot one today."

  "The worst," says Sierra as she moves quickly toward the short-term parking lot. "Donna's sure the world is going to end from global warming before she dies, and she's really pissed about it."

  I laugh as I imagine my grandmother saying that. She lost her filter long before she turned seventy. We've reached Sierra's SUV, and our doors thud solidly to seal us inside. I wait for Sierra to talk.

  She turns on the car, and it clunks into gear as she shifts to drive. "Connell never made it to his jam session the night before last, and at first the band didn't think much about it because he's often late. When he didn't show up at all they called him, and the phone rolled over to voicemail as if he'd turned it off."

  "That doesn't sound like him. If he's not listening to music, then he's talking to some girl."

  "Exactly. Jason said he was a little worried but figured it was classic Connell to flake out on them."

  Jason is one of Sierra's sons and Connell's best friend. "It is. Damn him." I scowl as I imagine the lea
d his kidnappers have got.

  "When he didn't show up for his shift at Ink It yesterday, his coworkers thought he'd forgotten, and they covered for him. It wasn't until this morning we figured out he was missing."

  Ink It is the tattoo parlor Sierra and my mother started when they moved to Maine as young women. My brother may not be an alpha, but he carries on my mother's family legacy of being an exceptional tattoo artist. "Where does his phone say he is?"

  Sierra glances at me with concern before she pulls out onto the highway. "The bottom of the Penobscot River."

  My chest tightens as it suddenly becomes hard to breath. "Do you—" I can't say what I fear as my throat thickens with the urge to cry and my skin tingles with my bear's urge to get out and destroy everything in our path with her rage. A growl is rumbling in my chest, and because I’m with one of my own, I let the roar of my alpha out before stopping my shift.

  "Nobody thinks he's dead, Audrey. They found his car at the Roadhouse, where Katy, Bella’s daughter and his current girlfriend, tends bar."

  Bella is the clan witch for the Robichaux, the clan I'll eventually become alpha for. I bet Katy, who has the powerful gene combination of a werebear father and witch mother, is already being utilized to help find Connell.

  Sierra continues, "When she was questioned, she told us they'd had a fight earlier in the week. We think he went there to apologize to her and never made it inside. Whoever took him tossed his phone into the river so he couldn't be tracked."

  I let out a long breath of air to calm my bear and offer Sierra a wry smile. “At least this time Connell had the good sense to date someone who can actually help him out of this mess."