Betray the Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #4)(10)

What if he were lying and he was a shifter-killing human like the ones that dotted their history? What if he were really taking her off into the woods somewhere to kill her slowly, and she’d just hopped in right beside him without even putting up a fight? Stupid.

Panicked, she placed her hand on the door handle and Blaine frowned as he slid behind the steering wheel. “I won’t hurt you. I live on the outskirts of Bear Valley with my mate but the alpha, Riker, is my brother-in-law. I can take you straight to him. I’m assuming you’ve come to see him?”

“Benson Riker is your brother-in-law? And he didn’t kill you for mating his sister?”

Blaine gave a short laugh and looked at her like he was waiting for the punch line. Then he laughed again and shook his head as he pulled back onto the highway. “I imagine his sister would skin him alive if he tried,” he muttered with a smile still lingering in his voice.

She was confused and scared and none of this made any sense. This wasn’t how clans were run. Rubbing her eyes, she counted to ten silently and tried to keep her heart from leaping out of her rib cage.

“I came to see Joanna Penn,” she told him.

Dark eyebrows winged up, he shot her a surprised look. “You know Jo?”

Jo? The name fit her almost sister mate, and for some reason the freedom of her choosing to go by her shortened name made Anya smile. “We were friends once.”

She wasn’t offering any more information and Blaine, the seemingly smart man he was, wasn’t asking. She was glad. Lying had never been a talent of hers and if she was going to get through this, she was going to have to offer as little information about herself as possible.





Chapter Three



It was almost ten o’clock when Blaine pulled the cruiser through the last grove of lodge pole pines. A field of moon-kissed wild flowers and grass swayed in the breeze. Even in the dark, the Big Horn Mountains were visible behind the row of homes that lined the clearing. They were capped in snow and stood as sentries over the clan. Lights dotted the windows, and Blaine pulled in front of a big home that looked like a dollhouse.

A fire pit cradled lapping flames that illuminated the happy faces of a small crowd in front, relaxed into bag chairs. Two women held sticks with marshmallows over the fire, but when Blaine pulled to a stop, the sound of laughter died down and one of the men unfolded from his chair. He was huge.

The others followed his lead and Blain opened his door and stepped out. “I found a stray on the side of the road,” he explained as she pulled the door handle.

This was the moment she had been dreading since Nathan decided to throw her away yesterday. Nervous flutters filled her stomach, making her nauseous and shaky.

The big man approached and she sank to her knees in front of him, tilting her face to expose her neck. “I’ve come seeking sanctuary.”

The man looked behind him with a furrowed brow. He was striking in the moonlight. Thicker than Nathan, with designer scruff on his chiseled jaw. His short hair was dark, reddish maybe? She couldn’t tell the color in the shadow of the baseball cap he wore over his forehead. Seconds felt like minutes as he studied her and boldly, she held his gaze. As shocking as her brazenness was to her, it didn’t seem to anger him at all.

“Get off your knees, woman. If you need a safe place to stay, you need to talk to my alpha.”

“Oh. You’re not Benson Riker?”

He snorted and shook his head. “No, ma’am. Riker’s inside getting his mate a drink.”

“On account of him bitch-slapping my beer out of my hand and spilling it everywhere,” a woman near the fire said.

Okay. The great alpha she’d heard so much about was serving a woman a drink. “I’m sorry for my mistake. I just assumed you were Riker because…”

His lips quirked up in a slow smile. “Finish that sentence.” He was authoritative and a little pushy, but with an edge of humor. She didn’t understand him. He reeked of dominance and his words practically dripped with self-confidence, but now he was offering his hand to help her up.

Touching him seemed like a bad idea, mainly because Nathan would bleed him. But Nathan wasn’t here, and it felt rude to ignore his kindness. She slipped her palm into the strong warmth of his, and he pulled her up surprisingly gently for such a big man.

“I thought you were Riker because you’re so huge.” As soon as the words left her lips, she wished she could suck them back down into her throat and swallow them.

A man near the fire whistled and the big man threw him a warning glance. “I’m Chase.”

“Anya?” one of the women at the fire asked.

As she stalked closer, Anya’s recognized her long dark hair and open green eyes, and she launched herself at Joanna. She hadn’t known she would feel so relieved to see her, but it felt damned good to know someone among all the strangers.

Joanna hugged her back, squeezing until her back cracked and she buried her face against her neck and wanted to cry. She didn’t even know why she was so emotional.

“What are you doing here?” Joanna breathed, easing back to arm’s length and studying her face in the flickering firelight.

“He threw me away,” she whispered in a broken voice. It was partly true. Mostly true. She wished she could tell her the real traitorous reason she was here, but Nathan would banish her or worse, smudge her right off her family tree if she messed this up.