Free Books to Read Online Bear Shifters

  REDEEM THE Acquit

(BEAR VALLEY SHIFTERS, BOOK 5)

By T. S. JOYCE

Other Books in this Series

Bear Valley Shifters

The Witness and the Bear (Book one)

Devoted to the Bear (Volume 2)

Return to the Bear (Book 3)

Beguile the Bear (Volume 4)

Redeem the Deport

Copyright © 2014 by T. South. Joyce

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted nether the Usa Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, redistributed, or transmitted in whatever form or by whatsoever means, or stored in whatever database or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the writer.

Dedication

For the Co-Captains.

Prologue

Two more sleeps until state of war.

One more 24-hour interval 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 fourth dimension in the by hour, only her mate still wasn't there. A surge of anger and panic took her every bit 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 allow her nerves become to her when she woke from a fitful slumber and got sick in the bathroom earlier, possibly Bear Valley's sanctuary had weakened her.

Riker should've been in bed by now, in her arms. They had to wake in 5 hours to go out for the Bridger Teton National Forest to see the Long Claws for boxing. 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?

"End information technology," she gritted out, loading a full magazine into the weapon until the clack of metallic on metallic 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 acquit shifters on earth. She had to trust his experience. He'd led more battles than any other shifter in beingness. And afterward all she had been through, she couldn't believe for a moment that Riker would be taken from her then soon. She simply couldn't.

"You should be in bed, love," Riker rumbled in a deep vocalisation backside her.

She smiled as his presence settled her. "I tried, only you weren't around to tuck me in." She turned in her chair and spread her knees wide. His cool bluish gaze dipped between her legs, and she lifted the hem of her oversized slumber shirt. The lucky lacy panties she had called for the trip notwithstanding 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 get away for a while. For both of them.

Slowly he stalked her, removing his shirt as he approached. Lithe muscle moved beyond his breadbasket and chest, and she inhaled deeply. He took the weapon from her hand and fix information technology 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.

"Yous forgot your panties," he observed huskily as he lifted her onto the mahogany dining table.

"You always rip them off," she breathed every bit his lips found her neck.

His finger slid into her and she gasped.

"Y'all don't similar the sound of the fabric ripping?" he murmured against her sensitive earlobe.

"Riker," she whispered every bit he circled his finger inside of her.

"Answer me," he demanded.

"Yes. I like the sound."

Fingers fumbling, she pulled at the push 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 salve the burn.

He didn't fifty-fifty 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, natural language 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 up, so vulnerable. She was the only one in the earth who was privy to this side of him. He searched her face and swallowed difficult, similar the words he would speak tasted of poison. "I tin can't lose you."

You won't. She wanted to reassure him with the words so desperately, only what take a chance did she have in a war betwixt behave shifters? She was human and weak. The oracle who had warned him that she would break him someday was going to be right. And then many would lay in a field of claret after this battle, and she would be one of them.

Riker pulled her shirt over her head and leaned her dorsum onto the table. The forest 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 yous saying?"

"Yous can't use the gun on the field. It's against clan law. Y'all won't exist fighting with the rest of us. I need y'all in the medical tent with Daria."

Hannah couldn't but stand up around while her people were dying. She had faced Stone, the man she'd testified against, and all of the murderous hitting 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, and then for what? "That'southward asking too much. I can't just stand in a tent, waiting to run across the effect. Waiting to meet 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 only stood around and did nothing."

Riker thrust into her once again and she moaned deep in her throat. He wasn't playing off-white.

Sliding out slowly, he crashed into her again and pleasance congenital and so deeply, her blood hummed.

"Hope me y'all'll stay with Daria until the battle is done."

Arching confronting him, the dining room light higher up them blurred as she met his agonizingly dull penetration. She was putty, numb and useless to coherent thought.

What was he request once more? Oh, yeah. For her to stay backside. No fucking manner.

"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 pilus and his movements became jerkier. Arms flexed hard as stone, hips pumping slowly into her as another orgasm congenital to blinding.

Just as she was on the edge, gear up to spill over the side of the cliff with him, he eased dorsum and gripped her hair tighter. "Mate, promise me," he demanded as placidity as a breath.

His eyes looked so raw, then full of emotion and right in this moment, she'd concord to anything in her ability. He was scared of losing her. And then 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 hope."

Squeezing his eyes closed, as if the relief were besides much to share with her, his hips crashed confronting hers once more 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. Non until the battle began.

If she could save Bear Valley from the encarmine accomplish 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—ever the same, e'er haunting. Why now? It had been years since he'd put it to residue.

At that place was a woman, or a girl perhaps, though he could never run across her face up. A necklace dangled betwixt them and the finish was e'er 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 just thing in the earth he was afraid of now. He was 2nd in the Long Hook Association. Non even expiry itself conjured fear anymore.

No, that wasn't correct. After today he wouldn't exist second anymore. A pang of grief struck him every bit he remembered his blastoff had fallen. Nathan could've been slap-up. 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, merely he had been the ane to take the call from Riker.

The alpha of the enemy association had tried to explicate what happened, only Brooks didn't give a shit what excuses he made. They had killed Nathan, outside of their territory and against clan police. They had killed the terminal living polar bear shifter before he was able to keep his lineage. They were all going to die nether 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, afterward two days of mourning and preparation, alpha challenges would be fabricated to determine who would lead the clan into boxing.

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

Scrubbing his hands over his ii day stubble, he slid out of bed and showered. It was pointless going into one of these brutal challenges clean, but he had another 60 minutes before he was supposed to be at the arena, and he couldn't risk having the dream a second fourth dimension past going back to sleep.

Showered and shaved, he dressed and went for a jog. Cipher too strenuous, just enough concrete exertion to warm up his muscles. He needed this to clear his head before the fights began. Carry shifters trained for this all twelvemonth, the run a risk to accept 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 Conduct Valley. Nathan had died lonely, among enemies. Brooks gritted his teeth and sped upward his pace. He was going to brand them all pay in blood.

Pine, bandbox and alder bathed in the shades of dawn whipped past him as he passed, and he steadied his breathing to lucifer every third step. He liked fourth dimension alone earlier 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 sometime 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 manner out here with such a modest association and piddling money. They had been doomed the second Nathan had set his sights on them.

Brooks would never admit it out loud, just he wished Nathan would've left them lone. It was pitiful killing them. The Kodiaks barely put upwards a fight, information technology happened so fast.

Certain, 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 information technology all confused him. Bear Valley deserved this state of war, but had the Kodiaks? He still didn't know.

A dozen dilapidated log homes in busted sat along the path he ran. Others in the clan called them haunted. They said ghosts roamed the houses, simply to him, he'd always establish a strange kind of sanctuary in them. They seemed…familiar—homier even than his large business firm near Nathan's.

Well, by the business firm that used to be Nathan's, he corrected himself. Fucking Bear Valley.

He made a wide loop and exited the forest near the grooming arena. In the early calorie-free, he could see the jungle gardens that had done so well in the rains of Wyoming. At the last place the main association of Long Claws lived, water had been scarce and maintaining the gardens had been a struggle as they tried to grow enough for the unabridged clan to thrive through wintertime. 3 smaller factions lived in the wilderness of Utah, Nevada and southern Montana. They would be gathering tonight in the Bridger Teton National Forest, uniting as one to destroy Bear Valley.

The thought sent a surge of pride through him. He was a part of the most powerful acquit shifter association in the world. He scanned the arena where the unabridged community was gathering in the early morning lite. He was about to take his shot at leading them into war.

The caller blasted a long, haunting note on a horn to bring in the stragglers. Alpha challenges were mandatory for every able member. In challenges of the past, there had been merriment and bets being placed, raucous discussions over predicted winners and auspicious when the caller announced the first pair of challengers. Non this time. Now, the clan was still in deep mourning over their tardily blastoff. This challenge wasn't supposed to happen. It was but function of the aftermath of losing Nathan. Now, no one muttered much over a whisper if they spoke at all.

A hundred bear shifters waited somberly around the edges of the arena fence as the beginning challengers stepped in the ring. Omar and Chris Reed were beginning. Brothers who had been fatigued together, only anyone with instincts for battle could tell who would win this one. Chris was smarter, but Omar had the brawn and the ruthless savagery to match his size.

Two brown bears burst from the pacing men and the caller was barely out of the way before they crashed against each other, locked with ripping claws like they would impale each other. Maybe they would. More tragic things had happened in the pursuit of alpha than two brothers warring to the death for the title.

Brooks leaned against the fence railing, scratching his bottom lip with the corner of his thumbnail as he studied how Omar moved. He jerked his caput to the left when he was most to rake a hook out, and his shoulders tensed when he was about to lunge.

When Chris lay in a tattered pile in the mud, Omar shifted back into his human grade and yelled a victor's cry. Merit, the adult female who had come from the Long Claws to become one of Nathan's mates, kissed him soundly when Omar returned to the fence. She had apparently picked her side by side target in Omar.

Greta and Apr stood somberly to the side, a fog of misery around them as if they didn't desire to be hither, watching the challenges. Both of Nathan's mates were dressed in black from head to toe, and Greta seemed to be sniffling. She had been inconsolable at the funeral. Those two were good examples of how a proper mate should human action. Not like this Merit woman who was now looking around with her chin lifted primly in the air, every bit if the somber congratulations and slow adulation were for herself.

Brooks made a single click against his teeth and looked away. He had no respect for alpha chasers, and less for a woman who latched onto another when her lover was barely cold in his grave.

His gaze landed on Greta over again and he shook his head slowly. If he were interested in a mate, he'd take one of them just to ease their plight. They would exist moved out of their roomy house and cast to the outskirts of the clan without Nathan hither to garner respect.

Nathan's appetites had been too many to foist upon ane mate. Or at to the lowest degree, that'due south what he had told Brooks when he'd had likewise much to drinkable one dark. The tardily alpha didn't accept friends. He had picked Brooks solely for his size and battle readiness, only sometimes he thought if Nathan hadn't been blastoff, and if his acquit hadn't glutted on the power from it and pushed the humanity from him, they would've gotten along fine. Instead, the human relationship had merely existed on mutual respect, one warrior to another. He had talked well-nigh the need for several mates to continue his lineage, only information technology was all bullshit. Nathan had been looking for something.

He'd been searching for someone to fix any was broken inside of him.

Brooks didn't need anyone to fix him. If he needed something done, he'd practice it his damned cocky. That'south where Nathan had failed. He'd chased women, mates, and lost sight of the Long Claw's futurity. Brooks would cutting off his arm before he let what happened to Nathan happen to him. Women muddied the mind.

He dragged his gaze back to Merit, who now had her dress hiked upwards her thighs. Omar had her backed against a tree and was pumping his load into her as she moaned loud plenty to be heard over the roaring bears at present contesting in the loonshit. No one seemed to notice or care that the virtually mate of the late blastoff was getting thoroughly fucked where everyone could come across.

"Brooks and Darren," the caller yelled out.

Inhaling deeply to wipe the sight of Merit and Omar from his listen, he closed his optics and opened them slowly, focusing on Darren. He was big, and a expert fighter, just Brooks' conduct was secure in his impending victory. He had yet to find a match for his animal, and Darren wasn't going to be the first.

At xx-4, Brooks had waited until he was seasoned in the arena, until his bear was full-grown and mature plenty to win this fight. He'd waited until his gangly legs and arms had been layered with muscle. Brooks had waited to claiming for alpha until he knew he was prepare, not just physically, but mentally likewise. If he won here today, he would lead his clan into battle, then in the aftermath, he'd bring information technology dorsum to its sometime glory.

He didn't requite a shit about rank, or the power it would afford him. His claiming stemmed from the simple fact that he had been born with an innate need to lead people. Suppressing it for the past x 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 mortality that would occur here today.

His time was now.

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