Bear My Baby (Shifter Squad Six 1)

BEAR MY BABY

SHIFTER SQUAD SIX

BY

ANYA NOWLAN
 

A LITTLE TASTE…

Cassie was furious with him and he thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

The way the corners of her mouth turned down a little and how she furrowed her brow made him want to throw her over his shoulder and carry her into the deep recesses of the cabin they were in. He wouldn’t let her out before she was screaming his name at the top of her lungs and not a hint of that frown remained.

That made him shift his cock in his pants uncomfortably, trying to remain discreet as he sat on a chair by the window facing the yard in front of the house. He could still feel her eyes boring into the back of his head, as if she was willing him to give her some kind of an explanation that could make this all better.

But he couldn’t. And as things were standing, the adrenaline was still pumping through his veins like ice cold vodka, and he was having a damn hard time drilling his attention down to anything that wasn’t her juicy figure or the way she would squirm underneath him.

With a grumbly sigh, he adjusted again.

Fucking hell.

Copyright © 2015 Anya Nowlan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bear My Baby

Shifter Squad Six

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of
Anya Nowlan
. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

Cover ©
Jack of Covers

You can find all of my books here:

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

A LITTLE TASTE…

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

TWIN WOLF TROUBLE EXCERPT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

Cassie

The echo of her footsteps seemed to chase her, hounding after her like a pack of rabid dogs. Every few steps, Cassandra glanced over her shoulder, her breath hitching in her throat each time. Someone was behind her, she was sure of it. But the streets were completely empty.

It was dark, the Chicago skyline lit only by artificial lights and the thinnest sliver of the old moon, slowly sinking into nothingness. Cassie could vaguely tell that she must have been sobbing every now and then, the small hiccupping noises in beat with her hurried footsteps.

Get home,
she chanted to herself, hands clutched together on her chest.

As her apartment building came into view, the deafening humming in her ears she’d been hearing since running out of Mr. Robertson’s house seemed to only grow louder. There it stood, warm and inviting, promising protection and safety, and all Cassie could think about was whether or not the locks would hold.

Against what? You’re paranoid! You’re alone on the street!

But was she really?

She felt something trickle down her forehead and with the back of her left hand, she wiped at it. The hand came away bloody and for the first time that evening, she wondered if the blood was hers or someone else’s. The thick globs of drying blood that covered her hands looked so out of place against her dark skin, a violent juxtaposition against her complexion.

Without a hint of surprise, she realized that with her hands covered in blood, she would have only spread whatever was on her forehead.

It all seemed distant to her now. Rushing into her employer’s home when he called her, his breath ragged and his words incoherent. Finding him on the floor of his vast library, gargling his last breaths. Cassie’s chin quivered as she remembered sinking to her knees next to him, dumbly trying to help when it was clearly too late. He’d told her not to call the ambulance. She did anyway. It never came.

She pushed through the glass doors leading into the foyer and ran to the elevators, all the while expecting a hand to reach out at any moment and stop her. When the doors slid closed in front of her and the foyer was still without a single living person, only bathed in its warm orange lights, Cassie took a lungful of air. A loud wail came with it and she had to fight the urge to clamp her hand over her mouth and hush herself.

Stop it. Get inside. Get the fuck inside. Then fall apart,
she commanded herself.

Peeling her curvy body off the wall where she’d been leaning seemed to take Herculean effort. Her apartment door loomed ahead like the promise of a better future. She fumbled for her keys in her purse—an expensive white Prada number she’d only gotten because Olivia Pope from
Scandal
had carried it and she’d been dying to treat herself—and marred the fine leather with dark crimson. She couldn’t have cared less.

When the key slipped soundly into the lock and the tumblers undid themselves with an encouraging clink, Cassie let out the breath she had seemed to be holding since entering the place.

There it was, her home. Her big couch, her widescreen TV, her kitchenette. The door to her bedroom was still wide open like she’d left it. Deliriously, the only thing she could think of was getting inside and sinking into a bathtub. But she knew she couldn’t do that. She’d run into the bedroom, put a suitcase together, and keep going. She couldn’t stop. Not now.

When she was about to step in through the door, a strong hand clamped over her mouth and pulled her back violently. She couldn’t even find the breath to scream.

CHAPTER TWO

Connor

In the back of his mind, Connor knew he was a bit tired. A little worn out, at best. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. That thought alone brought a morbid grin to his lips. Squad Six never slept.

So, he would endure. Like he always did.

His step was soft and soundless as he stalked after his prey, keeping her constantly in his sights and never being in hers. He could hear the way she sobbed every now and then, violent reactions to the gruesome scene that had been laid out before her. He couldn’t blame her. The way Robertson had been mangled would have made even the strongest of character a little queasy.

But she had taken it like a champ. Or as well as one could expect when faced with the reality of having someone they knew, someone they might have even cared for a little, die in front of their eyes.

Connor glided along the dark streets, giving chase from a vantage point that would keep him mobile and away from the prying, curious eyes of anyone else chasing her. And he was sure he wasn’t the only one playing this game. There wasn’t even anything specific that hinted at it. Just the wild, all-encompassing knowledge that he wasn’t the only predator in the game, and probably not even the biggest one there. But he liked a challenge.

He leapt across another narrow alleyway between two buildings, thanking the spirits above that there was a strong housing crisis and empty space was about as rare as a well-kept park. Connor’s boots scrambled against the rough texture of the roof of the building he landed on, and with the seasoned ease and grace of a man perfectly in control of his body, he moved forward. Never slowing, never stopping. Not as long as she was moving, anyway.

“Good girl,” he murmured to himself, watching her make a beeline for her home.

Connor swung his body over the ledge, all two hundred and thirty pounds and six foot three of it landing on the rickety stairs leading down onto the street along the side of the building. His feet moved like lightning across the steps, eating up the distance. He was on the ground before she could push in through the front door, and around the corner of the building when she looked back.

His ears were pricked, listening to anything out of the ordinary. He knew they couldn’t be far. Probably right on top of him and his mark, chasing much the same as he was. Only Connor would get to her first.

“Movement in the bedroom,” Thatch called, the earpiece in Connor’s ear making an annoying buzzing sound along with the information.

“Movement in the left stairwell,” Grant added.

His team was scattered, all holding onto their posts while Connor was tasked with the chase itself. And he could be sure that he wasn’t the only one with backup. There was something about professional jobs that really reeked and could hit you in the face a mile away. That was probably why the woman was so freaked—it was so damn obvious that it was hard to ignore.

With a hissing snarl, Connor changed his direction, fluidly spinning around on his heel and charging down the other side of the building. His heart rate picked up and he knew that right then, his muscles would start preparing for the inevitable fight or flight that was to follow. He couldn’t see a damn thing other than the gray, fluorescent walls of the right-side stairwell that led up. His steps were now heavy and hurried instead of silent.

Connor flew up to the fifth floor faster than any normal man could. A decade in the Navy SEALs did that to a man. It didn’t hurt that he was a werebear and could put many top-tier sprinters to shame. A low growl thrummed in his throat as the smell hit him straight in the face when he pulled open the door leading into the corridor.

Wolves.

It was always fucking wolves.

He’d never been in the building but he already knew it like the back of his hand. A looping left, a straight, narrow corridor, the elevators, and then her apartment. It had two adjoining rooms; she liked the color lavender and her home was kept spotless. And she was in so much fucking trouble that it took his squad to dig her out.

The carpets on the floors softened his steps as he pounded down the corridor, the black pants, combat boots, and long-sleeved T-shirt making him look like something out of an action movie gone wrong in an upper-class apartment building. He was almost expecting a doorman to pop up from somewhere and give him a snooty comment about how the building had a dress code.

“They’re up on the fourth, lieutenant. You don’t have a lot of time,” Grant drawled, a note of tension in his voice.

Connor grinned. Close calls. He loved those.

His surefooted step wavered for a moment when he rounded the corner and her scent hit him. He stumbled over his feet a little, narrowly avoiding face-planting into the wall. Connor swallowed the growl, a mix of annoyance at himself and a reaction to her smell. She smelled like… she smelled like heaven.

Get over your fucking self,
he mentally snarled.

And then she came into view. At the same time, another ping sounded in his ear.

“They’re on the fifth. Not only in the apartment. She’s at the door. Get the fuck out.”

Thatch’s voice was tinny in his ear. He didn’t need to tell Connor twice.

Distantly, he found himself taking in the mouthwatering shape of the woman he was set to rescue. The heavy swell of her breasts, the pleasing curve of her wide hips, that chocolate skin that begged to be licked. Connor could see a fleeting flash of her soft, ruby lips, the ones he’d admired when they’d kept watch on Robertson’s house. But there was something about seeing her through the lens of a pair of binoculars and then in person that really threw Connor for a loop.