Read Bear Run: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Pine Ridge Bear Shifters Book 1) for Free Online

help but stare around them in the dimness, the
hairs on the nape of her neck lifted. Were there others out there, watching
them? Hunting them? Giant, malicious
bears from a certain scary valley, maybe?
    Taggart seemed to sense her unease.
“Don’t worry about the Black Valley shifters,” he said. “I’ll protect you.”
    Yeah,
but who’ll protect YOU? she wanted to say, but didn’t. Male ego and hard
truth didn’t always go well together. Besides, she knew the answer. I’ve got your back, Tag , she thought,
gripping her rifle tight. Nobody better
mess with you while I’m around.
    She had to smile at her own
protectiveness. It shocked her how close she felt to Taggart after only one day
of knocking around the woods together. She sort of missed being able to see him
clearly. See all of him clearly. The
night cloaked him, darn it, save when the moon shone down between a copse of
trees or Alice and Taggart pushed through a clearing. Usually they skirted the
clearings, though, going around the edges. It wouldn’t do to be seen in the
open.
    “Can you smell them?” she said.
    She thought he shook his head but
couldn’t tell. “No,” he said, as if realizing she couldn’t see him. “But they
could be downwind.”
    “You can see, though, right?” she said.
    She bumped into something—a fallen
log, she thought—and flinched, a startled noise coming from her throat. Firm Taggart-y
hands gently pulled her to the side and set her on the right path. Hopefully,
anyway.
    “I can see,” Taggart said. “Just
follow me.”
    “If I could see well enough to
follow you, I wouldn’t need to follow
you!”
    He let out a breath, she thought of
impatience, but instead of snapping at her he reached out a hand and grabbed
her free hand, then tugged her along. The contact was warm and solid, but he
didn’t squeeze her hard, and she liked the feel of his firm, calloused hands.
Here was a man who had lived hard all his life, who was hard, in more ways than one. He was almost an elemental of the
forest, she thought, an extension of it, a part of it. He was like some dashing
forest god. How could she, an overly curvy girl from a nothing mountain town, have
interested a guy like him ?
    Was he interested? She thought so, but there was something in him ... some
reservation, she was sure.
    It’s
the same thing I feel , she realized. He’s
been taught to hate outsiders, and here I am, the ultimate outsider, someone
raised to hate people—beings—like him. It made her furious, the ways their
families (if his clan could be called a family) had twisted each of them, if in
different ways. It made her even more furious to think that it had worked.
    Because she couldn’t deny that
somewhere in the back of her mind was that silly, stupid, hateful voice that
insisted, He’s an animal! A demon! He’ll
turn on you! Don’t trust ‘im ! It was her pa’s voice, of course, but somehow
knowing that didn’t make it go away.
    Be
quiet! she scolded her inner Pa. Her inner Bradley just sneered and said, You know he’s right, you cow. She
growled at him to shut up, but he only sneered wider.
    I’m
going insane , she thought. Talking to
ghosts in my head.
    “How much longer?” she asked
Taggart, trying to keep her voice low. No telling who was out there listening.
    “Not long,” he said. “I think we’re
almost—”
    He stopped suddenly, and she drew
in a sharp breath. What had he seen? Was it Pa and Bradley? Was it Kane and his
asshole bear shifters?
    “Well?” she demanded, starting to
raise her rifle.
    There was a smile in Taggart’s
voice. “We’re there,” he said, and she could hear the relief, the expectation.
“I can see the cabin.”
    A weird sort of glee rose in her. Hope . It fluttered up through her chest
and expanded, filling her, lifting her up. She realized she was smiling, too.
    “Well?” she said. “What are we
waiting for? Let’s go!”
    Still gripping her hand, Taggart
led the way—never getting too eager,