Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (54 page)

About the Author

When the sun goes down, a Young/New Adult author emerges from her writing cave to eat dinner and put her son to bed. Then, with a swish of a (leather) cape, she transforms into Lisbeth Frost: Adult Author and returns to her cave to write things highly inappropriate for her daytime audiences.

She writes both straight and gay romance, but prefers to write (and read!) M/M. When she isn’t writing, Lisbeth can be found engrossed in Facebook instead of doing all of the things she’s supposed to be doing.

Encounter in the Jungle is her debut story as Lisbeth and she hopes it is as well received as her YA series has been.

To find out more about Lisbeth and to see her upcoming books, head over to:

Facebook

Twitter

Blog

Bear with a Sore Head

Davis Clan Book 1

Skye Jones

When bear shifter, Brenin, meets a feisty human his world is turned upside down. He isn't looking for a mate, but the curvy female is too tempting to resist. Things quickly heat up between them, and if he's not careful the big bad bear might just lose his heart.

Chapter One

She was lost. Not a bit lost. Not lost in the way where she’d be able to find her way back by following the road. No, she’d managed to get completely, utterly, and hopelessly lost. Charlie looked around at the windswept moor to her front, the forest to her back, and tears pricked at her eyes.
Crap.
She might die out here. How long did exposure take to kill you, anyway?

She pulled her supposedly waterproof and windproof jacket around her tighter, but the piece of crap didn’t keep the bone-chilling wind out.

If she survived this, she’d be suing her employers—or at least the idiots her company hired to take them on this team-building exercise. Who the hell sent a bunch of insurance underwriters off to team build anyway? Everyone knew they were the quiet ones. The sales teams loved doing shit like this. Not her.

Think
. She tried to focus her mind on getting back to the group. They’d been walking up a long footpath together, but when they approached the stile leading to the moors, they had been told to split into teams of four and go on some sort of orienteering hell-hike. She despised the great outdoors, unless you were talking a hot, sunny day at the beach. Oh, how she longed for her home and its stunning views over the Menai Straits. Would she ever get to see it again?

“Oh, stop with the melodrama,” she said aloud. “You need to focus. They can’t be far. You only stopped to look at a squirrel and rest your legs, so they must be near.”

The whole situation sent creepy shivers up and down her spine despite her denial of anything wrong. She’d stopped by a rounded hill, enchanted by the small white flowers blooming in this wintery landscape. Two red squirrels ran down a nearby tree and came to a stop right by her. Her colleagues were a few yards away, but she didn’t want to shout for them and scare the squirrels away, given how rare the red ones were. She’d watched them play for what seemed like just a moment, but when she glanced back at her colleagues, they’d gone.

Maybe she ought to call out for them. But fear of who else might be in these scary woods, or out there on the moors, stopped her. It seemed highly improbable that a murderer would take the time to hang out on moorland waiting for a victim. They’d be waiting a bloody long time up here.

Still, the way the wind moaned and groaned through the trees and the desolation of the moors spooked her no end. Not even a bird sang now. How the hell had the cutesy Disney scene she’d been part of a moment ago turned so somber?

Voices reached her, carried on the wind, and her heart lifted. They came from behind, from somewhere in the woods. Laughing and chatting, they sounded like her colleagues and provided immense comfort in this suddenly forbidding landscape. Perhaps not the team she’d lost but one of the teams. And really, who cared? She needed to find someone, and any team would do. Caught in the moment between lost and found, despair and joy, she headed toward the sound.

She set off back into the woods and followed the voices as fast as she could. Her limp didn’t slow her down too badly. She’d had it for so long now it had simply become another part of her. She still kept active and went jogging regularly, as well as playing netball with her local girls’ team. Other people noticed it more than she did, and she hated it when they stared or looked down their noses at her because of it. Not that she let them get to her. They were no better than the idiots who looked with distaste at her size, her red hair, or her glasses.

These days, Charlie did whatever the heck she wanted. Yeah, okay, so maybe not
everything
she wanted. She didn’t date or dance anymore. Those two things were off her list.

Memories of the day her carefully built, though thin and brittle, shell of fake confidence cracked assaulted her. She shook them off. Now really wasn’t the time to get all maudlin. She needed to find her friends.

As she hastened through the woods, she strained to hear any more voices over the crashing of her own feet through the undergrowth, but no more came to her. The wind carried only its own mournful song now and she shivered. Scared, suddenly.

She darted glances to her left and right and behind her too, the feeling of someone at her back too strong to ignore.

“Ooof.” Her momentum came to a sudden halt when she slammed hard into a huge tree. Christ, she might have hurt herself. Pausing to catch her breath and take stock, she looked around.

To the side of the tree ran a long, high fence. She peered closer and saw some sort of door in the wood. Fences meant people, right? A doorway meant people! Maybe a farm or something. She circled around the tree but stumbled over the roots at its base. Her ankle twisted and she cried out as she went down, landing on the forest floor with a muffled thud. Her breath left her body and searing pain shot up her leg.
Fuck
. She’d gone over on the bad one, too. So much for being careful.

Trying to keep calm, she pushed up on her arms, still struggling to breathe. As she got onto her hands and knees, she lifted her head and her breath stalled again.

In front of her, not more than a few feet away, stood a huge bear. Charlie shook her head and blinked twice, then looked again. The bear remained, staring at her like something from her nightmares. Its great head moved side to side as it took another step closer, and it grunted as it sniffed the air.

Her heart raced so fast her head spun. With no oxygen and a rapidly accelerating heart rate, faintness stole over her. Desperate and terrified, she managed to finally drag in a lungful of air and it cleared her mind. A bear! What the hell was a bear doing in the woods in Wales? Her heart nearly came out of her ribcage as the thing continued to stare at her.

Oh, crap, she was going to pee her pants. She pictured the headlines: Girl Found Mauled by Bear in Woods. Had Peed Her Pants. She didn’t want to die. Please don’t let it hurt her. Unable to move, she remained locked in the weird stare-fest with the huge beast.

She needed to think and do something to get out of this mess. She’d spent a fair bit of time watching the National Geographic channel and tried to dredge up the facts she’d taken on board during her viewing. The thing looked to be a grizzly. This animal resembled no small brown bear or a black bear. Too big, too rough looking. The grizzly news wasn’t good. Not good at all. They were deadly, or so she’d heard.

The bear still merely watched her. It didn’t charge her or do much of anything; it simply watched her, doing the odd grunting and scenting the air thing it seemed fond of.
What did you do when faced with an angry bear? Did you run? Or did you fight it? Throw rocks, perhaps
? She remembered the rock-throwing thing from a trip to Yosemite National Park and tips on how to deal with cougars. But bears weren’t cougars, and what the fuckety-fuck was a bear doing in Wales?

It won’t hurt you
. What the hell? The whispery soft voice echoed in her mind clear as day, but when she tried to focus on it, the voice skittered out of reach. It came again, dancing around the edges of her brain.
It means you no harm
. Then a different voice, darker, yet more powerful, made itself known.
It will kill you. It wants you. Wants to take you and hurt you. Come with us instead. We have so many lovely things. Come and visit with us.

There’s no time to go insane
, she berated herself.
You need to deal with the threat before you have the luxury of losing your mind. Deal with the fucking bear
.

Desperate for a weapon of some sort, she scrabbled around on the ground. Fingernails dug into the soft soil, while her eyes never left the animal in front of her, until she hit pay dirt. Her fingers wrapped around something cold and heavy. A quick glance down revealed a large, wet rock. Charlie picked it up, slow and steady, as she pulled herself into a standing position. She didn’t want to hurt this animal, but her life depended on making the thing go away.

“Shoo.” She flapped her arms at it, and she swore the animal understood her. It cocked its head, and a grim approximation of a smile stretched across its huge mouth. Then the thing took one lumbering step forward, and she raised her arm, careful as can be, and threw the rock with all her might and a massive scream of exertion. It glanced off the bear’s head, hitting the side, and the monstrous beast let out a roar.

It moved nearer, fearsome teeth on display in a snarl. If the thing were capable of human emotions, she’d say it looked pissed off.

She stepped backward as it neared and glanced around wildly. Maybe she should climb a tree. With her twisted ankle, no way would running save her hide. The thing got so close its hot breath hit her cheek. Odd sounds came from its throat. Low and soft, a growl, but not aggressive. They almost sounded like soothing sounds. A mother bear hushing her cubs. It leaned right in then and sniffed her.

Oh my God, it’s going to eat me.

Her breath came in staccato huffs and her chest hurt as she gasped repeatedly. When it licked its lips and lowered its head, Charlie lost all hope. A strange, rushing sound echoed in her ears, and sparks danced in front of her eyes as her world faded to black.

Chapter Two

Brenin leaned over the prone human female and took another deep inhale.
Mate.
The word rang out in his great bear head, loud and discordant. He didn’t want a mate—and certainly not a human one. But holy hell, her
scent
. It called to him like nothing else on earth. He’d caught it from inside the clan’s land and had taken the massive risk of heading out of their territory in bear form.

He nudged her gently with one large paw, but she didn’t stir. Out cold. He chuffed out a breath and pondered what to do. She’d banged her head when she went down in a dead faint, and she still hadn’t come around. He didn’t mean to scare her and only wanted another lungful of her delicious smell. Concussion presented a real risk now. And anyway, there was no way he’d leave her out here, alone, in the cold. They were near the hill the fae folk frequented. The Gwyllion. They normally inhabited the mountains, but they came into the lower lands during bad weather, which this certainly counted as. The biting wind may have driven them here, and they enjoyed nothing more than luring travelers from the path.

Some of the fae were good, kind. Others were mischief-makers and would enjoy tormenting the human female. The Gwyllion, in particular, were known to enjoy misleading travelers and scaring them half to death. Some of the dark fae even took humans as their enchanted prisoners. One man from a local village had spent thirty years of his life living in a lake with a water fairy. When he finally broke free, he thought he’d fallen asleep for a few hours. But on his return to his family, his wife had died and his kids were all grown-up.

Yeah, Brenin couldn’t leave her here.

He nudged at her with his nose, but she didn’t move. Why was she here in the first place? The Hiraethog area didn’t attract swarms of tourists the way nearby Snowdonia National Park did. Even during the summer months, the woods and moors often lay silent, with only the odd walker to disturb the peace. However, midwinter, the land reverted to its inherent wild loneliness. Few people bothered to walk about the hostile moors and thick forest out of season.

His bear clan’s burgeoning tourism business closed down for the winter, and during this time, he and his fellow bears often changed form and spent time exploring their acreage. There had been a lot more space for them to roam in Canada, at least until the frackers turned up and everything went to shit. But they had more freedom here since he owned the land outright. No one could come and frack here without his permission. And no way would he be giving it. The summer tourism business provided them with enough income for their basic needs. Once again, he thanked his human mother for leaving him the land here. He’d wanted his father to come and live with them, but his dad had ended up living with another clan back home in Canada.

This place had turned out to be perfect for them. The isolation of the area meant they could easily hide their true nature and find time to change into bear form when no humans were around.

Today, he’d been heading back home after a good explore in his grizzly suit when her scent hit him. An olfactory slap to the face, sweet, but also fresh. Sensual, feminine, and warm, it dragged him off course and into the path of the female lying at his feet.

Now, he had a problem. Unless he picked her up in his teeth, he’d hardly be able to carry her, which meant shifting and having to take her back in his arms,
buck naked
. Still, once beyond the fence and back on clan land, no one should see.

Decision made, Bren lowered his head and shifted into his human form, the change almost instant. He kept his bear front and center though as he picked up the human female, pushed the entrance in the fence open, making sure to lock it on the other side, and sprinted back over his land at superhuman speed. His hearing and sense of smell stayed heightened in order to avoid any accidents.

As he moved over familiar ground on his way back through the clan’s territory, something cold hit his nose. He looked up and his heart sank.
Snow.
The female in his arms already shivered, her stupidly light coat doing nothing to protect her from the cold. He powered forward, lungs screaming as his feet ate up the ground. He didn’t need to look down as he let his preternatural senses guide him safely back. Only once near home did he begin to slow. The sight of the large, old farmhouse soothed him and he began to calm down. Now he could get the woman warmed up.

Once the adrenaline of the run began to wear off, he became achingly aware of the soft, curvaceous female in his arms. Her scent once more wrapped itself around him, calling to him, enticing him.

She began to stir already. He knew a little about brain injury and remembered that being out for less than thirty minutes meant her injuries were hopefully mild. Worry for her health nagged at him, and he already found himself wanting to care for her and protect her.

Oh no, he didn’t! No falling for the human female. Yes, she might be excellent mate material; her scent told him as much. In fact, they were almost made for one another. But it rarely worked between bears and humans. He ought to damn well know.

He banged on the door with his bare foot, wincing as pain shot through his toes. Great, now he had a sore head from the glancing blow of the rock
and
sore feet.

It peeled back to reveal the face of his cousin, Kyle. Dark blue eyes widened in surprise as Kyle took in a naked and surely disheveled Brenin and the female in his arms.

“What the fuck?” Kyle moved back as Bren entered the hallway.

“What the fuck, indeed. Came across her in the woods. She fainted, my fault as she saw me as my bear, and she hit her head on the way down. She may have a concussion, so we need to watch out for her.”

“She witnessed you as a bear, and you’re bringing her back here?” Kyle’s expression darkened.

“What else should I do? I can’t leave her out there in the woods. She’d get hypothermia. Plus, I sensed the fae out there. I’d never leave anyone to them.”

“Why the heck is a human female wandering around the forest alone?” Eric entered the room with his mate, Aiyana, by his side.

Eric and Aiyana made up two more members of his small clan. They’d happily agreed to move to Wales, to come live on Bren’s ancestral land, when the alternative was staying to see their home spoiled by fracking and open-cast mining.

“I don’t think she’s alone,” he told them. “There are a lot of humans out there today, doing some sort of orienteering shit or something. Crawling all over the place, they are. I scented her, near the border of our land, and I stopped.”

“Why did you stop?” Eric asked the question Brenin had been dreading.

Bren swallowed and looked at the expectant faces. “She’s a perfect match as my mate.”

“Your
mate
?” Eric echoed his words, eyes wide.

No wonder Eric seemed so surprised. Bears were notoriously fussy when it came to finding their mates, and the idea of Bren finding his on a cold day in the middle of nowhere seemed…crazy.

“But…she’s human,” Kyle supplied. “And we all know how you feel about human and bear matches.”

“I’m not going to
take
her as my mate, obviously.” He climbed the stairs to the bedrooms, wanting to get the female laid down. His clan came after him, hot on his heels.

At the top of the stairs, Justin appeared, arms crossed over his broad chest. Oh great, another of the clan around to witness everything.

He moved out of the way when Brenin reached him, but his scowl said it all. Brenin ignored them all and headed down the long corridor to the guest room.

The place was huge. It housed nine bedrooms, and they only used four of them to sleep in. One of the spares, they’d turned into an office, and another became a games room for the guys. Two were untouched and still wore a cloak of heavy, musty wallpaper. The whole place had been covered in the stuff when they’d arrived. Thankfully, Aiyana used her decorating skills on the end room to turn it into a light, welcoming spare room. It might be nice to have another female around. Oh, no. There he went again.

He kicked open the door and strode to the bed, where he lay the female down with as much care as possible.

Justin hovered by, the scowl still painted across his features.

“Make yourself useful and go fetch me some sweat pants,” Bren snapped.

Justin narrowed his eyes but did as asked. He returned with the soft cotton sweat pants a moment later and a tee to go with, and Bren pulled the clothes on.

“I heard you tell these guys you think this woman is your mate.” Justin didn’t beat around the bush. “She’s not. She’s human, and British, and so the idea is bullcrap.”

“What does her being British have to do with anything?” Aiyana tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulders with a flick of her hand.

“Bears don’t exist here. Haven’t for centuries. So why would a British woman have the gene mutation to make her a match for a bear shifter? Makes no sense.”

Aiyana sighed. “First, the gene mutation theory isn’t proven when it comes to human and bear mates. Second, bears did live here. A long time ago maybe, but they did. So it’s possible a British female, or male, might carry such a gene.”

“I still call bull.” Justin almost pouted, and if Bren weren’t so worried about the female, he’d kick his cousin’s surly ass.

The woman moaned and her eyelids flickered.

“Eric, can you fetch some water and a cool cloth?” Aiyana asked as she frowned down at their guest. “The rest of you guys clear the room. I’ll get her wet clothes off. They’ll give the poor thing hypothermia.”

The males all shuffled out of the room, and once the door closed behind them, Brenin fixed each of the guys with a hard stare. “Not one more word about this female, okay? I won’t be keeping her here. I know bear and human matches aren’t always easy, and I have no desire whatsoever to repeat the clusterfuck that was my parents’ mating.”

He didn’t need to go into details. All the clan knew the way his father fell for his mother and then spent a sad life watching his human wife age and eventually die, long before he would, because she refused to be turned into a shifter. The sadness he witnessed in his parents’ mating cast a long shadow and still affected him now.

“However, she’s here now, as our guest, and I expect each one of you to treat her with the respect this status incurs. Once she’s awake and I’m sure she’s not concussed, I’ll take her home. If she starts talking about bears, we’ll simply suggest to her it was all nothing more than a vivid dream while passed out.”

Take her home. The words made his bear sad. The damn fool animal already wanted to keep the human woman near. Maybe Bren ought to have left her out in the woods. It would have been simpler. Safer for him, if not her. But what kind of male left a defenseless female? Only a worthless one.

“Might work. She’ll probably believe in nasty dreams more than she will in bears roaming around North Wales.” Eric spoke from the top of the stairs, where he’d paused, chewing his cheek. “Pity you don’t wanna keep her around, though. Aiyana would love some female company.”

Christ
. Brenin ground his teeth. Justin wanted her gone; Eric wanted her to stay. For the love of the gods, why did he accept the role of leader again? Oh, yeah, because Justin was too hot headed. Eric too laid-back. Aiyana would have made an excellent leader, better than him for sure, but their society forbade any turned bear from running a clan. Only born bears were allowed to lead. So it fell to him.

Aiyana opened the door and beckoned him back in. The female lay under the covers now. With her red hair fanned out across the pillow and a pink glow in her cheeks and on her lips, she looked like something from a fairy tale. Which reminded him.

“I think the fae have something to do with this.” He kept his voice low. When the clan first arrived in Wales, they’d made sure not to step on any toes. A lone pack of wolf shifters lived up in the mountains. A few ancient but powerful Druids made the area their home, and they learned all about the fairies. So far, they’d all lived in peace with one another.

“Possibly. They like to lure people off course.” She frowned. “Bit naughty to lead her right to our land, though. They haven’t created any mischief with us before.”

Eric came back into the room, carrying a tray with a jug of water, some ice cubes in a bowl, a tumbler, and a cloth. Aiyana took it from him and placed it on the bedside table. She sat on the bed beside the still sleeping woman and dipped the cloth into the bowl of water, squeezing to wring out excess liquid. Gentle as can be, she ran the cloth across the woman’s brow.

After wiping the woman’s face, she took one of the ice cubes and swiped it across her full lips. After a few passes, the woman moaned and her eyes fluttered.

Bren held his breath as her thick lashes seemed to almost pry themselves apart. Damp tendrils of hair clung to her forehead and the side of her face, and a smattering of freckles dotted her cute, upturned nose.

Her naturally pale skin complemented her red hair and ruddy, full lips. She looked like a flame-haired angel to him. He turned away. He didn’t want her here. Spending his time cataloging her beauty did him no favors at all.