Free Avenge the Bear by T. S. Joyce

the evening shadows, the man she recognized from the lookout tower jogged toward her, illuminated on one side by a fire pit some distance off. As he approached, he offered her a two fingered wave and turned a glower onto Rieland. “That’s no way to treat a visitor.”
    “It’s exactly the way to treat an unwelcome visitor. Butt out, Jesse. I have this handled, and as second—”
    “Don’t give me that second in the clan bullshit. Challenges aren’t over yet. And even if you did secure it, Ethan would be pissed if he found out you were shooing away his…Reese.” He shifted a green-eyed gaze to her. “You are Reese Evans, right?”
    “Uh, yeah.” His Reese? Maybe all the shifters here were off their rockers.
    “Ethan isn’t here. He’s got an overnight shift up at the tower. You can go up there if you’re determined. If not, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”
    “Okay,” she said, frowning in the direction of the road that led to the ranger tower. Maybe she could remember how to get there. She didn’t really think she’d have the balls to come back tomorrow. It was tonight, while she still had her nerve, or never.
    “You’ve lost your damned mind,” Rieland spat out. “You’re going to trust her with him up in that tower?”
    Jesse’s face was an experiment in irritation. “Why would I care? In case you haven’t noticed, Ethan is alpha and certainly capable of making his own decisions on who he has a conversation with.”
    “Fine.” Rieland’s mouse brown eyebrow arched up. “I’m going with her.”
    Jesse sighed and said, “I challenge you.”
    “What?” Rieland growled.
    Jesse flicked his fingers in a subtle shooing gesture at Reese, then pulled his shirt over his head. “Let’s do this, Rieland. My boy is waiting on dinner and I don’t have all night. I challenge you for second.”
    An ugly little screech left the tiny woman’s lips and Reese steered the truck toward the tower road while she tried not to laugh. She didn’t know Jesse, but anyone who went head to head with that tiny terminator was a friend of hers. Hunching under the sound of a grizzly’s roar that whooshed in through her open window, she drove the truck through the tree line.
    A raccoon skittered across the road in front of her headlights, and she slowed to let it pass. The night was still and cool and the leaves above barely whispered in the soft breeze. Wild grasses, brush and moss-covered tree trunks lined the road. She came to several forks in the road, but from what she remembered, Ethan had driven straight through on the main to get to the campsite.
    The tower was some distance off the road, so she drove slowly and squinted into the darkness. Just as she thought she’d missed it and better double back, a light shone through the darkness up ahead. She parked beside Ethan’s green Bronco and stepped onto a stone walkway that led to a set of stairs.
    The wind picked up as she hit the first flight, but for the life of her, she couldn’t tell if it was urging her forward or back. And it wasn’t until she reached the top platform, fifty feet above the ground, that she realized she hadn’t rehearsed what she was going to say to him.
    She knocked softly, then wiped her damp palms against her jeans.
    “Come in,” a terse, deep voice boomed from inside.
    The metal door shrieked a shrill sound that made her ears ring as she opened it. Ethan stood with his back to her, leaned against locked elbows over a table with several maps. He wore a solid black T-shirt over green cargo pants that were tight against his backside, and loose at his work boots. His triceps flexed as he moved to mark something with a pen.
    “Tell me the coordinates,” he ordered.
    She thought he was talking to her, but when she opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he was talking about, another voice came over a phone Ethan had apparently set to speaker. A masculine voice rattled off several numbers.
    “Okay,