Redeem the Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #5)(4)

He didn’t give a shit about rank, or the power it would afford him. His challenge stemmed from the simple fact that he had been born with an innate need to lead people. Suppressing it for the past ten years had been hard, but this was it.

He stepped into the arena and pulled his shirt over his head, preparing his inner bear for the bloodshed that would occur here today.

His time was now.





Chapter Two



Corin Dunbar shouldered her duffle bag and closed the door to the small cottage behind her. It was barely light out, but she was accustomed to waking early to work at the old diner in Sheridan. Four shifts a week there and on her days off, Juan supervised her early mornings in the wheat fields. Even if she wasn’t headed off to war, she wouldn’t be able to sleep late if her life depended on it.

She was a morning person and usually jovial, but by tomorrow, her friends would be maimed and killed. She’d be killed. Her headspace was filled with fear and anticipation, leaving no room for happy thoughts and musings on what a beautiful morning it had turned out to be. Inhaling the moist, earthy air, she stepped onto the path that would lead her through the woods and toward the alpha’s house.

She’d volunteered with her friend, Anya Bure, to load supplies in preparation for the trip deep into the mountains. Her wet hair bumped against her shoulders with each step, and she bit her lip as she checked off everything she’d brought once again to make sure she didn’t forget anything. The mental list was short. She only needed to get through today, because tomorrow morning would likely be her last on this earth.

She was a realist, and also a black bear on the small side. She’d fight for her people against the Long Claws, but she’d be one of the still mounds on the battlefield come tomorrow. Training had helped to strengthen her, and taught her how to fight, but what chance did she have against a brown bear? None in the world, that’s what.

Maybe when she died, she would finally be reunited with him again.

Tears had long ago dried over the loss of her childhood friend. No, he had been more than that. They had been promised. And not the archaic promise of binding two children too young to know better together. They had picked their path, she and Daniel, and the Long Claws had shredded both of their futures.

Now Daniel was nothing but bones in a shallow grave, and she would soon join him at the claws of the same murderers who had killed her entire clan. Anger simmered in her blood. Now, they would hurt the life she’d pieced together after they had demolished her birth clan.

She would die tomorrow, but she’d take every Long Claw she could down with her into the bloody beyond to protect her friends here.

Doves cooed from the branches above, telling the forest the time for morning had come. The first streaks of pink light brushed the horizon. She stopped and watched the edges turn orange. After she was gone, the sun would still rise and the doves would continue greeting the dawn. Life would go on, just not for her and countless others who would fall tomorrow. She was just a small part of this world. She would need to remind herself of that when the fear got too great. Everyone died. And she’d been spared ten years ago from a battle she hadn’t seen coming. One of the only survivors from her birth clan, she’d had ten years to live a full life where her people’s had all been cut short.

She’d escaped her fate for a decade. It was sad how the Long Claws had come back to collect her last breath like death reapers.

In the clearing ahead, the bustle of activity was dizzying. Like angered ants around an abused mound, Bear Valley shifters moved this way and that, loading hummers, pickup trucks and jeeps. Someone had attached a flatbed trailer to Riker’s jacked up truck, and Anya nodded her head in greeting from the other side.

“Hey you,” Anya called, then winced.

Jogging, Corin took a box of water bottles from her hands and settled it onto the trailer. “Did you not take your herbal tea this morning?”

Anya had been maimed by the last alpha of the Long Claw Clan. Claw marks drifted across her neck and tapered off in her cheek. It should’ve looked gruesome, but the scars made Corin admire her friend even more. Thanks to her shifter healing, Anya looked like a warrior now. The mouse she’d been when Anya first came into the training ring the first day Corin set eyes upon her didn’t exist anymore. Now, Anya seemed fearless.

Hannah, Riker’s human mate, frowned and hefted another box of waters to the trailer. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Crap, they were holding up the line. Corin pulled Anya by the elbow off to the side and Hannah followed.

“I’m fine,” Anya said unconvincingly.

Tears were already welling up in her eyes and Hannah frowned at Corin.

Shrugging, Corin asked, “Is it too soon to be putting a strain on you?”

“It’s not the scars,” she said through a trembling smile. Slowly, she slid the collar of her shirt to the side to reveal three fresh cuts—a mate’s mark.

“Holy hell balls,” Hannah whispered as a grin cracked her face wide open. She shoved the shirt out of the way further, exposing Anya’s entire shoulder.

Corin hugged her, hard. Her heart was filled to bursting with happiness for Anya. She’d been misused under the care of the Long Claws and was told she was the mate of the domineering alpha. He’d tried to kill her when she wouldn’t betray Bear Valley and in the midst of the chaos, Anya had found an inspiring love with Chase—with her true mate.