Free Moves Like Jagger (Wolf Mates Book 4) by Dakota Cassidy Page B

note to self: When animal attacks abound, don’t go off alone in the woods, moron.
    She could just scream. When an animal needed help, she forgot everything—lost track of time—almost to her detriment.
    The growl sounded again, just low enough to make her stiffen, yet try to crane her neck in order to see what she was up against.
    Not that it would matter—she was a cat, for the love of a kitty condo. While certainly she could do some damage with her sharp claws and teeth, the growl didn’t sound like she’d make a drop in the bucket’s difference if she shifted.
    The moon had begun to change position, shining at that very moment on the cave, revealing a dark shadow on the face of the rocks.
    The presence of something very big, something very angry, maybe even very hungry, was right at her doorstep.
    But the hell she was going to have her flesh ripped from her skin before she saw who the perp was.
    So she turned around—probably foolishly if she survived to weigh in on hindsight, but she did it anyway, her mouth freezing in an “O”.
    “Aw, hell,” she murmured before she was able to stop herself.
    A bear. She was face to face with a bear.
    Who assessed her like she was a Christmas goose.
    Why had she moved to Cedar Glen? Hoboken was perfectly fine. She’d loved Hoboken.
    Hoboken didn’t have motherfluffin’ bears!
    That was her last thought before the bear—the immense, snarly, irate bear—lunged for her with a roar.

Chapter 7
    A s the brown bear arced upward, Viv had to give the beast props for being getting so much air. It was pretty damn big to leap so high.
    The mere blip of seconds before it landed on her gave her time to ponder turning and running. But in her human form, there was no way she’d outrun a bear in snow this deep.
    A bear.
    There was a bear preparing to eat her!
    It floated up in front of her in slow-mo as though it had wings, its paws complete with thick, sharp claws, its mouth sporting plenty of teeth to handle even the toughest of human flesh.
    It was graceful and beautiful, almost balletic as it rose upward, roaring and drooling while its claws swiped.
    Almost out of nowhere, another blur of gargantuan sound and noise cut the graceful bear off, knocking it to the ground and howling its discontent with a screech so piercing, Viv’s ears twitched.
    And then it was over and the first bear was tearing ass out of the cluster of rocks and Jagger was standing in front of her.
    Naked.
    She knew it was him. She smelled his cologne. She knew it well because she’d sniffed him a thousand times since this afternoon.
    Her eyes traveled upward, for somehow in her frozen-on-the-spot-in-abject-fear, take-charge-of-her-death attitude, she’d fallen on her ass. As she let her gaze move up along his thick thighs, covered in dark sprinkles of hair, forced her eyes to move past the general groin area and upward to his chest, also rather pleasantly covered in hair—not too much, but just enough to curl her fingers into—her eyes widened.
    He held out his hand to her, pulling her upward until she was safely within the confines of his arms. “Jesus, Viv! Are you okay?”
    “You’re a bear.” She offered her wisdom woodenly.
    “I am, and so was the shifter who tried to attack you,” he responded, running his hands over her face.
    “You’re a bear .”
    Jagger looked down at her, his head tilted, his eyes amused. “You didn’t know?”
    She clapped her hands on his broad shoulders. “Of course I didn’t know! I thought you were a werewolf just like everyone else.”
    “I kind of just assumed everyone knew or that JC probably told you. I would have told you if I’d thought you didn’t know.”
    She needed a minute to process this.
    “Bet you’re wondering about the hibernation thing, aren’t you?” he asked on a chuckle.
    She was wondering a lot of things. Viv hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “This is your cave?”
    “Yep. I like to call it Early Neanderthal: A Still