Redeem the Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #5)(2)

Sliding out slowly, he crashed into her again and pleasure built so deeply, her blood hummed.

“Promise me you’ll stay with Daria until the battle is done.”

Arching against him, the dining room light above them blurred as she met his agonizingly slow penetration. She was putty, numb and useless to coherent thought.

What was he asking again? Oh, yeah. For her to stay behind. No f*cking way.

“Riker,” she said with a ready rejection.

“Oh, Hannah,” he breathed against her ear. His hips flexed and a soft groan left his sexy lips. Damn him, she was swirling off for outer space again.

He gripped her hair and his movements became jerkier. Arms flexed hard as stone, hips pumping slowly into her as another orgasm built to blinding.

Just as she was on the edge, ready to spill over the side of the cliff with him, he eased back and gripped her hair tighter. “Mate, promise me,” he demanded as quiet as a breath.

His eyes looked so raw, so full of emotion and right in this moment, she’d agree to anything in her power. He was scared of losing her. So scared, the fear had etched itself into the impossibly blue hues of his gaze.

A tear fled the outer corner of her eye and she offered the barest nod.

“Say it,” he said, pressing into her again.

“I promise.”

Squeezing his eyes closed, as if the relief were too much to share with her, his hips crashed against hers again and again until she clawed his back and came as he poured into her with warm, throbbing shots.

Holding him close as their pounding hearts mirrored each other, she stared at the kitchen ceiling. She would follow through with her promise, and it would mess with her plans.

Giving up wasn’t an option though. Not until the battle began.

If she could save Bear Valley from the bloody reach of the Long Claws, then promise or no, she was going to find a way.





Chapter One



Brooks gasped and sat up in bed. He’d had the dream again—always the same, always haunting. Why now? It had been years since he’d put it to rest.

There was a woman, or a girl perhaps, though he could never see her face. A necklace dangled between them and the end was always the same. She opened her mouth wide and screamed. The sound of terror echoed through him, and woke him frightened.

He hated it.

The dream was the only thing in the world he was afraid of now. He was second in the Long Claw Clan. Not even death itself conjured fear anymore.

No, that wasn’t right. After today he wouldn’t be second anymore. A pang of grief struck him as he remembered his alpha had fallen. Nathan could’ve been great. In his lifetime he could’ve expanded the Long Claw’s territory by ten times. Brooks didn’t know why his alpha had gone to Bear Valley two nights ago, but he had been the one to take the call from Riker.

The alpha of the enemy clan had tried to explain what happened, but Brooks didn’t give a shit what excuses he made. They had killed Nathan, outside of their territory and against clan law. They had killed the last living polar bear shifter before he was able to continue his lineage. They were all going to die under the Long Claw’s wrath.

Riker defended his clan’s right to kill Nathan, and Brooks had wanted to shatter the phone against the wall. Instead, he had declared war. Bear Valley would burn for what they had done.

Now, after two days of mourning and preparation, alpha challenges would be made to determine who would lead the clan into battle.

The dream of the faceless woman was a bad omen for how this would go.

Scrubbing his hands over his two day stubble, he slid out of bed and showered. It was pointless going into one of these brutal challenges clean, but he had another hour before he was supposed to be at the arena, and he couldn’t risk having the dream a second time by going back to sleep.

Showered and shaved, he dressed and went for a jog. Nothing too strenuous, just enough physical exertion to warm up his muscles. He needed this to clear his head before the fights began. Bear shifters trained for this all year, the chance to take over alpha rank, and he was no different. It had just come much earlier than he had expected this time around.

A surge of fury took him when he thought of Bear Valley. Nathan had died alone, among enemies. Brooks gritted his teeth and sped up his pace. He was going to make them all pay in blood.

Pine, spruce and alder bathed in the shades of dawn whipped by him as he passed, and he steadied his breathing to match every third step. He liked time alone before he faced his responsibilities to the clan every day, so the trail he jogged was always the same. He took the rarely used path to the old Kodiak cabins. When the Long Claws had settled here a couple of years back, he’d been intrigued by the cabins. He had wondered how the Kodiaks lived way out here with such a small clan and little money. They had been doomed the second Nathan had set his sights on them.

Brooks would never admit it out loud, but he wished Nathan would’ve left them alone. It was sad killing them. The Kodiaks barely put up a fight, it happened so fast.

Sure, he knew the necessity of fighting other bear shifters. It had been pounded into his head since he was a boy, but sometimes the why of it all confused him. Bear Valley deserved this war, but had the Kodiaks? He still didn’t know.

A dozen dilapidated log homes in disrepair sat along the path he ran. Others in the clan called them haunted. They said ghosts roamed the houses, but to him, he’d always found a strange kind of sanctuary in them. They seemed…familiar—homier even than his big house near Nathan’s.