Free Jade Crew: Captive Bear (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Ridgeback Bears Book 4) by Amelia Jade Page B

tick,” he prodded gently.
    “Oh, that story.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. He didn’t know if she was going to give him detail or a brief summary, though he hoped the former.
    “Well, interesting fact, I’m born and raised here in the Valley. Not many can say that.”
    It was true. There were a number of folks who either grew up and then left the Valley, or moved there for job opportunities. It kept constant groups of people coming and going, which meant those that stayed there once they graduated high school were small in number.
    “Let’s see. My mom came here before shifters were known to the world, and discovered a man she just couldn’t do without, I guess. They were a hot thing for a while, and I was the result. Apparently he wasn’t happy, and he left. So I was raised an only child by a single mother, who didn’t speak much English. She did her best for me though,” her eyes practically glowed with the love she felt, “but it was still pretty rough.”
    “I’m so sorry,” he said meaningfully, reaching out to touch her hand. He meant every bit of it too. For a shifter, family life and a mate were the most important things in life. Loyalty to their mate until they died was paramount, and something that was just ingrained in them. He could never understand how human men could create a child and then just leave.
    “He was a shifter.”
    “What?” Darren’s eyebrows arched in surprise as he scrambled to secure his glass, having almost dropped it in shock. “You’re a shifter?”
    It wasn’t quite what he had meant to say, but if she was a shifter, she had concealed it better than anyone he had ever met before, to the point of it being almost impossible. Shifters could scent each other, and there was no trace of it on her. He wouldn’t have believed anyone else who claimed she was of shifter lineage. Only the fact that she had told him to his face convinced him.
    On top of that, he also felt almost sick. No shifter should ever do that to a woman. Especially one who had borne his children. Mothers were to be loved and cherished, tended to and praised for raising a shifter’s cubs, human or otherwise.
    His bear raged internally, wanting to track the man down and hurt him. Badly. Even though his offspring hadn’t been a shifter, that didn’t mean she wasn’t still his daughter.
    The combining of shifter and human DNA was a poorly understood science, though certain patterns were clear. If a male shifter mated with a human woman, the odds of their child being a shifter were near one hundred percent if it was a male offspring, and over three-quarters if it was female. When it came to male humans and female shifters, the waters were a lot murkier, though again the males had a higher chance to inherit the shifter gene. Overall, the odds were against Kierra being human.
    She shook her head. “No, purebred human, sorry to break it to you.”
    Darren smiled. “Nothing wrong with that in my books. Still, it explains a lot.”
    “What do you mean?” she said dangerously, her eyes narrowing.
    “The reasons you’re running an anti-shifter platform, and that you don’t ‘get close’ to shifters as you put it yesterday.”
    Her expression relaxed. “Oh, that.”
    He smiled. “Yeah, that. Look,” his expression became serious, “I’m not out to get you, or to foil your plans or to hurt you. I’m genuinely interested in you, and I feel a solid…something. More than a spark. A draw, an urge. Things that I don’t normally feel for someone. Hell, which I may never have felt. I’m sorry if that comes across too strong, but I don’t want to hide anything, or give the wrong impression.”
    She stared at him for a long time before responding. The silence stretched, becoming so painful he ached to speak, to say something, but he couldn’t. The next words needed to be hers.
    “I understand. Sort of. I know what you mean, even if I can’t understand why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. Or even