Alpha Bear, page 12
“Get a room,” Ryker groaned.
“Why use a room when we’ve got the great outdoors?” Hunt shot back. He winked sideways at Patrice, nodding toward the worktable that was still set up from last week. Her face heated at the memory and liquid pooled between her thighs.
“Animals,” Beck muttered as he retrieved a beer from the cooler and popped the top. He handed it to Warner who snickered.
“Speaking of animals,” Patrice said, remembering why she’d been in such a hurry to get out here in the first place. “Rachel called me this morning and said the Shifter Police filed their report last night.”
Hunt and the others fell silent, watching her expectantly. She opened her mouth to continue but a roar from the yard interrupted her. Out in the ring, the two grizzlies finally shoved off from each other and shifted back to two legs. Anchor slung an arm around Grayden’s shoulders and tried rubbing his knuckles on Grayden’s head.
“Get the fuck off, you lunatic,” Grayden yelled, darting away.
“Guys, stop screwing around. Patrice has news,” Hunt barked.
Both of them hurried closer, still naked and laughing and covered in dirt. “What’s up?” Anchor asked.
Hunt turned to Patrice and she went on. “Rachel said the Shifter Police report was filed last night and her phone returned after the video she shot the other night was copied and flagged into evidence.”
“And?” Grayden asked. He didn’t say it but judging from the way his eyes and mouth pulled tight every time they brought it up, Patrice knew he’d been worried for her. For all of them. She suspected he felt responsible for setting it all into motion.
“They ruled it self-defense. No charges are being filed,” Patrice assured him. He let out a silent sigh and his shoulders sagged. She smiled to reassure him but he was staring off into the trees.
“And your status here?” Hunt asked, nerves rolling off him in a tension she could taste on the air.
She knew what he meant. He’d been waiting for this on pins and needles. They both had, although Rachel had already assured Patrice nothing was going to change unless she wanted it to. And she didn’t. In fact, she had no interest in ever being Patty Wilcox ever again.
“I’m still Patrice Monroe of Timber Falls,” she said. “Rachel’s registering me under that name, actually, so we’ll never have this problem again.”
Hunt took a deep breath, his broad chest expanding with it as he stared back at her. In one hand he held the spatula. Behind him, smoke rose from the grill, framing him with an aura of danger and mystery that made Patrice’s pulse quicken. She loved his dark eyes and the black curls that fell onto his forehead. He still reminded her of a fallen angel but now she knew better. He wasn’t fallen at all. Not when his heart was still so pure. She loved the way he cared for her, for his crew. She loved everything about this man, she realized, admiring him now.
“You’re staying then?” Anchor asked, brows furrowed. She forced her gaze from Hunt’s and blinked back at them all, startled to see them all reflecting the same worry as Anchor.
“Of course,” she said and they let out a collective sigh. “I’m not going anywhere. You all are my crew. My family,” she added.
“Damn straight,” Ryker said.
“We weren’t sure if Rachel would want you being our family,” Anchor explained.
“You all are the ones that kept me safe,” Patrice said with a soft smile. “Rachel knows that.”
“We’re also the ones that put you in danger,” Grayden pointed out.
But Hunt waved him off and slid an arm around her waist, leaning in. Ryker groaned and Beck rolled his eyes. Hunt grinned.
“Also, there was an article in the paper about Brinkley and the comments left are very supportive of a certain crew of grizzlies,” Patrice said.
“Yeah, Hardy called this morning to tell us what a great job we’re doing kissing people’s asses,” Beck snorted.
Patrice lifted a brow at that.
“He means we’d like to keep helping out at the bar if you’ll let us,” Hunt said.
She shrugged. “I’d love the help, actually. Business has been booming since you all started working there.”
“What can I say, the ladies love me,” Grayden joked and Warner scowled at him.
“The ladies are drunk,” Beck muttered.
Patrice bit back a laugh.
“You know, I stand corrected,” Hunt said, looking at her but speaking to the men. “I hope the mating call awakens in every single one of you sorry bastards. You should all be so lucky.”
“Well, I won’t turn down a cougar, that’s for sure,” Warner said and Hunt growled at him.
“I meant an older woman,” Warner said, holding up his hands in defense, face reddening. “Not your woman specifically.”
Patrice laughed and Hunt’s glare eased, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Exactly. My woman,” Hunt murmured, leaning in again, this time letting his lips brush hers.
Patrice sighed, angling to give him better access.
It was exactly the way he’d kissed her the other night after he’d scooped her up on the lawn and brought her inside. Rachel had remained with the police while they took statements from the guys and the coroner came to collect Brinkley’s body. But Hunt hadn’t left her side, nuzzling her and pressing soft kisses to every square inch of her body. If she hadn’t loved him before, she would have fallen so hard right then.
Every time she thought of that night with Brinkley, her insides melted a little. She probably should have been scared or disturbed. The man had held a knife to her throat, after all. But when she remembered the way Hunt had come barreling out of the darkness, ferocious and furious—and the rest of them fast on his heels, ready to tear apart anything that threatened her—she could only feel love. And comfort.
Being here like this, accepted and one of them, it made her feel like home. She hadn’t felt at home for years now. Maybe ever, but with the Bad News Bears that’s exactly what she felt. She looked up at Hunt and found the same emotion reflected back at her. Here was home, she thought.
“I love you, Patrice,” he whispered into her ear, as if reading her thoughts.
Around them, the men had gone back to their own conversations. Drinking, ribbing each other, and laughing. Patrice smiled, breathing in the scent of him. The scent of his mountain. She shivered with delight. “I love you too,” she whispered back.
Thank you for reading ALPHA BEAR!
If you enjoyed this spicy fated mates romance, you’ll love BRAWLING BEAR. Grizzly shifter Grayden Larchmont fights his demons with his fists, laws be damned. When Officer Rachel arrests him for illegal brawling, she’s determined to do her job—until Grayden’s dark, brooding gaze ignites a fire she can’t ignore.
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“This book grabbed me from the first chapter! Sweet read, great story!” - Amazon reviewer
BRAWLING BEAR
RACHEL
Your badge and your gun are an extension of your body. Rachel snorted as she re-read the pamphlet they’d handed her in the seminar she’d sat through today. She rolled her eyes at the memory of the snickers and elbow-nudging the men seated around her had shared. Of course they’d made it into something dirty. Rachel had a sneaking suspicion if she worked at some big city police department, she wouldn’t have to put up with humor like that. But here in the tiny town of Timber Falls, the men she worked with were forever thinking first with their dicks.
She tossed the pamphlet into the trash and made her way back to her corner desk. She didn’t need a reminder of what it meant to be a good cop. Or of why she’d become one in the first place. Men who thought with their second head instead of their first were her motivation. Today’s seminar had only reaffirmed that. Now, if only the cops who attended these things wouldn’t continue to reaffirm her fears and beliefs about their gender as a whole.
Rachel sank into her desk chair in the far corner of the room and stared out the window at downtown Timber Falls. The building was old brick but it wasn’t awful. A little drafty in the winter so she was thankful summer was well on its way. The lights two stories below twinkled and shone in the moonlight. She loved this view—being able to look down over her tiny town and feel like she had some control over the order of things. The view at night was so peaceful. It was why she never minded working the evening shift.
A pang of loneliness hit her, an emptiness she’d been battling more and more often lately, and she shoved it away. That was the other reason she’d chosen night shift. Working after dark meant she wouldn’t be caught somewhere she shouldn’t be, seeking male companionship. That mistake had cost her dearly in college and she’d be damned if it ever happened again.
After six years as a cop, learning all of the signals, clues, and triggers of predators, she still didn’t take any chances on history repeating itself. Being alone was better than being a victim, she reminded herself.
The landline on her desk rang and she swiveled in her cushioned chair to grab it, thankful for the distraction. “Hawkins,” she said into the receiver.
“Rachel, it’s Joe,” said the voice on the other end. Deep and aged but still capable of carrying volume even in the casual greeting.
Rachel twisted to her right and eyed the Timber Falls Chief of Police through the glass that separated his office from the main room her desk sat in only ten feet away. “Sir,” she said. “Why are you calling me? I’m right here.” She gave a little wave.
The older man behind the massive desk pursed his lips. “I’m too old to be expected to exert myself that way,” he said and Rachel laughed.
Chief Bennett might have been nearing retirement but he could still chase down a perp just as fast as the rookies fresh out of the academy. “Whatever you say,” she said. “What’s up?”
He frowned, his features turning hard as he began to tell her about the reason for his call. Rachel knew, friendly as he was, police business took precedence over chit chat any day. “I got a call about that fight ring you keep jabbering to me about.”
Rachel sat up straighter, her muscles tensing. “The one Clements thought he broke up three months ago?” she asked.
“Sounds like it,” he grumbled, still watching her through the glass window as he spoke to her through the phone line. His bushy eyebrows scrunched together and Rachel knew he didn’t like the idea that they’d closed a case that wasn’t wrapped. “I know you seem to think Clements didn’t nab the ringleader, and since you haven’t shut up about your suspicions that it never really shut down, I’m offering you lead on this. Take a team over. Check it out. Now.”
His tone was hard but Rachel straightened at the order, suddenly wide awake. “Yes, sir.” She refused to acknowledge that Joe might only be giving her the chance because Clements was on vacation. She didn’t care how it came down. She wanted to bust these assholes. Violence hit a certain raw nerve with her and she was chomping at the bit to take these guys down.
She slammed the receiver down, adrenaline already fueling her excitement as she ran through her list of possible choices for her raid team. Trent for sure. He was solid and didn’t question her intuition. One by one, she checked off the ones she’d take and went in search of them.
No one she asked said no. In fact, most of them lit up when she told them the quick and dirty details. She couldn’t blame them. Things had been too quiet lately. The guys were restless. So was she but not necessarily for a case.
Her thoughts were nothing but distracted lately, centering around one person: Grayden Larchmont. He was a member of the Bad News Bears, a local crew of grizzly shifters that had been causing enough trouble over the past several months to earn their rep and the nickname. Grayden was quite possibly the worst of them. A brawler, they called him. Quick temper, huge biceps, a stare that could melt panties and hearts.
She’d only seen him a couple of times and at each meeting, his dark gray eyes had left her restless and unsettled. They’d also shown up in her dreams at night. She needed something to get her mind off him because if there was one thing about Grayden Larchmont she knew to be true, it was that he really was bad news. Rachel had no room or desire for guys like that.
Work, she reminded herself as she went to the locker room and strapped on her vest. She had something else to focus on now.
Mentally, she ran through everything she knew about the case. The fight ring had started a year ago. They had learned of it slowly, mostly through victims showing up in the hospital, battered and bloody and scant on the details. No one liked a narc, she knew. But what did they have to lose? They’d already gotten their asses kicked. Might as well come clean about the who and where.
It’d taken her six months to convince one of them of that logic. Even after he’d spilled the beans about it, they hadn’t been able to shut it down. Not when the fights were held at a different location each time. It didn’t even run on a regular schedule. Some sort of underground word of mouth phone chain alerted the players with less than a day’s notice. By the time the Timber Falls PD knew where a fight had been held, it was already done. The warehouse or factory or abandoned property already deserted.
Three months ago, the case had ended abruptly when Clements, an ex-military transfer from narcotics and a guy who always got on Rachel’s nerves, had gotten an anonymous tip and singlehandedly broken the ring up on Rachel’s night off. Apparently, it hadn’t really ended with those arrests because here it was falling into her lap again. Clements would be furious. Rachel didn’t give a shit. This case was hers now.
Locked and loaded, Rachel met with her team and briefed them on the details, scant as they were from Joe’s source—some preteen riding his bike too far from home. She showed everyone the location of the address on the city map before loading everyone up into two vans.
“Damn, Clements is going to be pissed when he finds out his case isn’t closed,” said Trent, another beat cop and part of her takedown team. He drove and she rode shotgun, radio handy as she coordinated the other men in the van behind them.
She laughed but it was full of tension, not amusement. Rachel had learned early on that cop business went more smoothly when your emotions were turned down low. In moments like these, she didn’t have friends or enemies. She saw only the case. The perp. The arrest.
“That’ll teach him to go on vacation,” she shot back and Trent chuckled.
The rest of the drive was spent getting orders out over the radio and stashing the van far enough away that they wouldn’t be spotted. The address Joe had given her was for an old water treatment plant—now abandoned after the water company had relocated up the mountain to be closer to the fresh streams that supplied Timber Falls. Rachel knew the layout from past patrols and took the alleyway between this one and the building next to it, careful to keep her steps silent as she neared.
Her heart pounded as it always did when she did a raid like this one. Anything could happen. She had no control over what waited for them inside. She had only training and if her suspicions were correct—that this ring was run by shifters, not humans—she’d need every bit of training in order to take them down once and for all. The Shifter Police were probably better suited for this case, but Timber Falls was a small town. No Shifter Police station for at least 50 miles. And they didn’t have that kind of time tonight. Not if they wanted to get in while the fight was still happening.
Trent stayed close while the rest of the men spread out to flank the building in question. Rachel shot a look overhead and scowled. Although she’d appreciated the moonlight earlier, it didn’t cover them nearly as much as a cloudy night would have. Not that it would matter if there really were shifters brawling inside. With their heightened sense of sight and smell, they probably already knew the police were coming.
Rachel reached the corner of the cement building and spotted the back entrance to the warehouse. She pulled up short, her muscles pulling taut as she studied what blocked their entrance inside.
A man, nothing more than a bulky shadow from this far away, stood beside the heavy metal door. He brought something to his lips and the lit end of a cigarette illuminated his face in a red glow. She didn’t recognize him but that didn’t mean anything. He could be a shifter. He could be the ringleader for all she knew, although probably not if he was on door duty.
She nodded at Trent and he gave a hand signal to their man on the roof. They waited. A second later, there was a small pop followed by a rush of air and the man at the door crumpled. Rachel grinned. Tranq darts were her favorite weapon. Not deadly enough to ruin her chances at the arrest or getting the info she needed from a perp but incapacitating all the same. Besides, shifters wouldn’t respond to their bullets like ordinary humans anyway. And shifter or no, Rachel detested the idea of killing. It wasn’t for her to decide, taking a life. Years of experience and training had helped her cope with that fear but she still felt it rise up anytime she was faced with the possibility of having to use lethal force. She’d never killed anyone before and she hoped she wouldn’t have to start tonight.
The moment the man hit the ground, Rachel and the others took off at a run.
With several extra pounds packed along her ample curves, she wasn’t the fastest. But then she didn’t have to be there first. She was lead. The others would clear the way for her. Trent and a couple others reached the door first and threw it open, guns aimed. Rachel raised her own weapon just as she reached the doorway being held open for her by one of her team.
She heard the roar and cheer of dozens of raised voices. The hum drowned out her team’s attempt to yell for everyone to stop moving. Rachel hurried forward, crouched, bent at the knees, gun aimed straight ahead. The roar of voices grew louder. This had to be it. The yells were deafening.
