Redeem the Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #5)

Redeem the Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #5)

T.S. Joyce




Prologue



Two more sleeps until war.

One more day until Hannah Michaels could lose everything she had found. Friends who were more like family, a home…Riker.

She glanced out the kitchen window for the tenth time in the past hour, but her mate still wasn’t there. A surge of anger and panic took her as she cleaned the Glock Jimmy had given her. Had it been only a few months since he and Jeremy had died? It seemed like a lifetime ago—like someone else’s lifetime. Time slipped by so differently now.

Bear Valley had brought her peace. From the way she had let her nerves get to her when she woke from a fitful sleep and got sick in the bathroom earlier, perhaps Bear Valley’s sanctuary had weakened her.

Riker should’ve been in bed by now, in her arms. They had to wake in five hours to leave for the Bridger Teton National Forest to meet the Long Claws for battle. That forest would be haunted with the injustice of so much lost life by the time they were finished with it. Would Riker fall this time?

“Stop it,” she gritted out, loading a full magazine into the weapon until the clack of metal on metal echoed through the kitchen. She couldn’t afford to think like that if she was going to get through this.

Riker was alpha of Bear Valley and one of the strongest bear shifters on earth. She had to trust his experience. He’d led more battles than any other shifter in existence. And after all she had been through, she couldn’t believe for a moment that Riker would be taken from her so soon. She just couldn’t.

“You should be in bed, love,” Riker rumbled in a deep voice behind her.

She smiled as his presence settled her. “I tried, but you weren’t around to tuck me in.” She turned in her chair and spread her knees wide. His cool blue gaze dipped between her legs, and she lifted the hem of her oversized sleep shirt. The lucky lacy panties she had chosen for the trip still sat in her drawer, and a smirk stretched his sensual lips. She breathed for that smile.

Phantoms swam in the blue of his eyes—worry for his people, the strain of impending battle, weariness from preparation. She had the power to make everything go away for a while. For both of them.

Slowly he stalked her, removing his shirt as he approached. Lithe muscle moved across his stomach and chest, and she inhaled deeply. He took the weapon from her hand and set it on the chair beside her with a clunk, then cleared the table with a swipe of his arm. The supplies she had used to clean her weapon clattered to the floor.

“No bed?” she asked, amused.

“You forgot your panties,” he observed huskily as he lifted her onto the mahogany dining table.

“You always rip them off,” she breathed as his lips found her neck.

His finger slid into her and she gasped.

“You don’t like the sound of the fabric ripping?” he murmured against her sensitive earlobe.

“Riker,” she whispered as he circled his finger inside of her.

“Answer me,” he demanded.

“Yes. I like the sound.”

Fingers fumbling, she pulled at the button of his jeans, desperate for his skin against hers. Her body was so sensitive, like all of her nerve endings were lit fuses, waiting for Riker to relieve the burn.

He didn’t even allow her to kick his jeans to the floor before he pulled her legs apart and thrust into her. He pressed against her, harder and harder, until she was engorged with him. Helplessly, she moaned as his lips pressed against hers, tongue driving into her mouth with the rhythm of his bucking hips. Release crashed through her and he slowed, stroking gently as the aftershocks pulsed around him.

“Hannah,” he whispered, easing back. His eyes looked so open, so vulnerable. She was the only one in the world who was privy to this side of him. He searched her face and swallowed hard, like the words he would speak tasted of poison. “I can’t lose you.”

You won’t. She wanted to reassure him with the words so badly, but what chance did she have in a war between bear shifters? She was human and weak. The oracle who had warned him that she would break him someday was going to be right. So many would lay in a field of blood after this battle, and she would be one of them.

Riker pulled her shirt over her head and leaned her back onto the table. The wood was cold where it met her skin, hard and unforgiving like Riker had been when she’d first met him. The table creaked under him as he placed himself between her legs.

“You don’t understand, Hannah. I can’t.”

Frowning, she asked, “What are you saying?”

“You can’t use the gun on the field. It’s against clan law. You won’t be fighting with the rest of us. I need you in the medical tent with Daria.”

Hannah couldn’t just stand around while her people were dying. She had faced Stone, the man she’d testified against, and all of the murderous hit men he sent after her. She had learned to fight—had become strong and hard. It had to be for something. If not for this war, then for what? “That’s asking too much. I can’t just stand in a tent, waiting to see the outcome. Waiting to see if you live. If Joanna, Anya, Brody, Chase…everyone I’ve grown to care about. To see if they’ll be brought to me in pieces while I just stood around and did nothing.”

Riker thrust into her again and she moaned deep in her throat. He wasn’t playing fair.