~

 

“Holy crap!” Maggie pulled up short and eyed Roland with a lot of curiosity that was mixed with a little disbelief. She didn’t think that she’d ever come face to face with a shifter before, not knowingly. “Are you a wolf shifter?”

Roland could have headbutted the nearest tree trunk, a good, thick, hardy tree trunk so as not to knock the damn thing over. He offered her a sneer that looked a lot like incredulity to her.

“Wolf shifter?” he growled.

Now that she’d tagged him as a shifter he didn’t feel the need to keep his bear at bay any longer, but a damn wolf? That was just insulting – his bear felt the same way.

“Lion?” Maggie frowned as she looked up at him.

Roland took two long steps towards her. His chest was practically brushing her breasts, and he was toe to toe with her as he looked down his nose.

“Bear,” he growled, just long enough to show her that his beast didn’t appreciate being miscategorised, and a warning to make her turn tail and leave.

He wished she had a damn tail because then making her leave his land definitely wouldn’t have been on his to-do list. He wouldn’t break a shifter female; they weren’t soft.

Maggie guessed that she should have been intimidated by that, by him, and she didn’t know why she wasn’t. Hell, the spotty teenage jerk at the local deli intimidated her – not to mention the barista at the coffee shop, the clerk at the bank, and her elderly neighbor that used to live downstairs from her and Rayner.

Rayner – homelessness – lost damn cause – need – hopelessness – that was a heady list of things that were ganging up on her and had sent her to the middle of nowhere in search of Rayner in the first place. She wasn’t about to run off home now – mainly because in a few days – she wouldn’t have a damn home left to cower in.

“How nice for you,” Maggie blurted out to fill the silence between them. Awkward.

“How the hell do you know Rayner?” Roland had to ask because they were opposites of each other. If they were friends; it was a very strange mix.

“She’s my …” Maggie would dearly have loved to have said friend, but making friends was like pulling her own toenails out. She couldn’t do it in a month of Sundays, and moving across the country hadn’t helped her social awkwardness. “Neighbor – was.”

“And I’m guessing that she doesn’t know you’re coming.”

“Not as dumb as you look, hmm?”

Roland slowly lifted just the one eyebrow and stared down at her. It was kind of hard to look her in the eyes because the woman was looking anywhere but at him.

He guessed she was finding her feet and a backbone, and he’d give her credit for that, but she still didn’t look like she knew what the hell she was doing. But still, kudos to her for standing up to him, even more so since he’d told her he had a monster within him.

“No, I’m probably that damn dumb,” he grumbled, more to himself than to her for what he was about to do. “Come on. Rayner will be around sooner or later. You can wait at my cabin.”

“With you?” Maggie wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. Perhaps she should just go back to her car and wait it out there. Try again later.

“I’m guessing you’re not as dumb as you look, hmm?” he offered back, and for one long moment; a moment that felt like someone dropped a damn stone into his stomach, her eyes flicked to his, and he got full sight of those big baby blues.

“I guess I deserved that,” Maggie muttered, looking anywhere but at him because, in truth, she kind of liked what she saw.

“I guess you did.”

Roland wanted to be able to tell her to get the hell off clan land, he truly did, but there was a part of him that just couldn’t do it. He wasn’t sure that his bear wanted that either – the beast seemed more than interested in the little human female.

His bear was clawing within him for one thing and one thing only; it was urging him to sniff, to take her scent, and damn it to hell and back, but he wanted to do it. He just couldn’t.

“Why are you staring at me like I’m bear food?” Maggie asked, giving him a sideways glare.

“Bear food?” His other eyebrow went upwards towards his hairline to make a matching pair.

“What do bears eat anyhow?” she grumbled.

“Snarky humans,” Roland said, turning sideways and motioning for her to walk on. “Female ones,” he whispered in her ear as she took her first hesitant step.

“Watch it,” Maggie muttered as she yanked her head away from him and almost tripped over her own feet because she’d stupidly tried to take a sideways step away from the behemoth – her and grace didn’t exactly go hand in hand.

Roland chuckled to himself. Even for all of her big talk, the female was still flighty, and she’d almost taken a tumble – not that his arm hadn’t already shot out to save her should she not have been able to do it herself.

He fell into step beside her, resisting the urge to take in her scent and kill off his curiosity once and for all. If she were his, then he’d rather know than not know about it.

But he sure didn’t want to scent her out there in the open like that with eyes on him from inside the woods. He knew exactly who was watching – Bowie – and there was no way in hell that he was letting her anywhere near that man or his monster.  

 

~

~

~

 

“Human female,” Bowie informed Rayner and Dane from far enough away that he didn’t feel like he was a threat to Rayner or her bear. He still didn’t like getting too close to her, not after what he’d done. “Name’s Maggie.”

“Maggie!” Rayner bit out in surprise.

She’d known the voice had sounded familiar, and yet, she would never have guessed in a million years that her ex-neighbor had come looking for her.

“Maggie?” Dane asked.

“We lived next door to each other, not exactly best buds or anything.” Rayner shrugged, then she turned her attention back to Bowie, and as usual the man averted his eyes. “She say what she wanted?”

“Nope.” Bowie gave a small shake of his head.

“Roland got rid of her?” Dane asked.

“Nope.”

“What does that mean?” Dane frowned.

Roland had one job, getting the human off their land, he had to wonder what his brother was playing at.

“Means she’s still here.” Bowie would have followed it up with a smartass comment, but he was still on shaky ground with Dane, and he didn’t want to upset Rayner.

“I get that,” Dane growled. “Why is she still here?”

“Don’t know. I followed them back to Roland’s cabin and then came here.”

“I guess I’m going to have to go find out,” Rayner sighed. She’d much prefer to be chasing down Tank and getting the job done.

Dane had put a call around to all the shifters that he was on reasonable terms with. Apparently, bears would be bears, and there wasn’t some kind of them-against-the-rest-of-the-world attitude, more of a keep out – stay away from my territory thing going on which made cooperation tenuous at best.

Tank didn’t have a clan; he was too much of a rogue bear for that, and his presence would have brought too much scrutiny to the clans for their liking. He was also as wildass as they came, and nobody wanted him on their team because he wasn’t a team player.

Dane had been hoping that someone would give up his location and cut down on the legwork. Still, Rayner felt the need to get out there and hunt him down herself. Maybe, now that she had a bear inside of her, hunt was the wrong word, even if it did feel so damn right.

“I’ll go,” Dane bit down on his annoyance. Why did his damn brothers never do as they were told?

He didn’t want to leave Rayner alone, and he certainly didn’t want to leave her with Bowie, and yet, he needed to know what Roland was playing at by allowing the female to stay.

He didn’t move from the spot.