Free Bear Run: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Pine Ridge Bear Shifters Book 1) by Belinda Meyers Page A

vicious fight and you’ve been shot twice, and what
have you had to eat? One snack bar!” She looked so worried for him that he felt
something warm swell inside him. For the first time in a long while, he had
someone other than Sam that cared about him. Family , he thought. She was like family. Had she really become that
close to him so soon? His bear growled in the affirmative inside him, and that
warm feeling only grew. Mate , he
thought. She’s truly my mate.
    She was right, too. Hunger raged
through him, weakening and disorienting him. It was an awful thing to feel,
that devouring, mindless hunger. He hadn’t had time to hunt or even scavenge.
Black Valley shifters didn’t scavenge as a rule, but there were always
exceptions. Besides, he wasn’t of Black Valley anymore.
    “You can’t make it much more,” she
said. “No, don’t act brave. I can tell. And it’s not because you’re not tough,
so don’t give me that I’m-too-tough-to-need-food look. I know, Taggart. I know.
You need to eat.” There was a firmness in her voice that he liked. She was
taking charge now.
    The road noise grew closer, and the
trees were thinning around them. Shortly they came upon a road leading up a
winding path, around the shoulder of the mountain, and above, just peeking
around the shoulder further up, Taggart could see the short spires and ornate
roofs of a quiet mountain town. Curls of smoke rose from a few chimneys, but
this was summer, and fairly warm, so there weren’t many of these.
    When Alice and Taggart reached the
forest’s edge, they crouched low, half expecting some form of ambush.
    “Wait here,” she said.
    “No,” he said. “I’m going with you.
They could pop up anytime.”
    She smiled patiently. “Your Black
Valley friends won’t dare go after us in the town. At least, I don’t think so.
And my family can’t pull anything, either.”
    “You hope.”
    She nodded, pained. “Yeah. They
could be that crazy. But you’re naked, Tag. You can’t go into town like that.”
    He looked down at himself, then
grunted. “Townfolk.” He said it wryly. The ways of civilization were all but
foreign to him, but he supposed he had better get used to it. He was abandoning
the wild and taking up a new life, a life beside Alice and his brother Mike in
Pine Ridge. A better life.
    “Let me go in and get you some
clothes.” She patted her pockets, as if reassuring herself of something. “I
don’t have my purse, but I always carry a wallet with me, just in case. I have
a credit card, and I can get some clothes for you. And some food.”
    That was the big thing, and they
both knew it. Without food he wouldn’t be able to heal himself, and then he
really would stick out.
    “Later we can get a motel room,”
she added, her eyes averted.
    “Just get tents. We can sleep in
the forest and be beholden to no one.”
    She smiled. “Maybe. But those
assholes can get us in the forest.”
    “True. And Mike might have
somewhere for us to stay.”
    “Somewhere with soap.”
    “And coffee,” he added with a
smile. Off her look, he said, “That is one thing I like about civilization. I love coffee.”
    She smiled back. “Me, too. Lots of
sugar and cream.”
    “I know you like cream.”
    Her cheeks reddened. “Alright,
then. Stay here. Okay?”
    Reluctantly, he nodded. “Just be
careful.”
    She tilted up her face for a kiss.
He crushed his lips against hers and pressed her body to him. She moaned into
his mouth, then broke away, panting.
    “Later,” she promised.
    He was already growing hard.
“Hurry,” he said.
    She looked down at his cock and
swallowed. Without another word, she turned about and scampered to the road,
then began to trot beside it toward the town. Taggart hated to see her go, but
he supposed a huge naked man bleeding from the shoulder would only attract
attention in Pine Ridge. Fools , he
thought. Hiding behind walls and clothes
and customs. Let them live in the wild! That’ll make men of them. But