Bear Run: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Pine Ridge Bear Shifters Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

smiled tremulously. Was she
crying? If so, he thought it was in happiness. “What, like rock’n’roll?” she
said.
    He smiled back. “Yes. Like Elvis
Pressley.”
    Together, they moved off, into the
woods, him leading the way.
    “So where are we going?” she said.
“Pine Ridge? I think that’s the nearest town.”
    He frowned. “I might get there, but
first I want to find my family.”
    “Your ... family ? But wouldn’t they be in Black Valley?”
    “No. I was raised here, in the
forest, by my own ma and pa, and my brothers and sisters.”
    “So you did have a last name once?”
    He smiled, but it was a sad smile.
“Once.”
    “Were they all bear shifters?”
    He nodded. “One by one, though,
they died. Snake-bit. Hunters. Bear trap that got infected. Conflicts with the
Black Valley bears. At last I realized that the only way to survive was to join
them. The Black Valley shifters. So I went to them and pledged my loyalty to
Kane. He’s the alpha.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Twelve.”
    She sucked in a breath. “Jesus. You
poor thing.”
    A momentary flash of anger rose in
him, then faded. He didn’t want her pity, or anyone’s, and it made him furious
that anyone would think he deserved pity. He was his own man, damn it, in
charge of his own fate, and he needed sympathy from no one. He knew she didn’t
mean it that way, though, but was only trying to show her sympathy. It was
something he’d rarely had directed at him, however, the sympathy of others, and
he didn’t know how to handle it.
    Seeming to realize she had walked
into it, she stammered, “I-I only meant, it’s very sad. What you went through.”
She frowned, and he thought it was a very cute frown. “How old are you? I mean,
how long were you in Black Valley?”
    “I ... don’t know. Not exactly. We
didn’t keep track of the years. But I think I was with them for fourteen
winters.” He smiled. “That’s how we counted the years. I guess you in the
outside world have some fancy-pants way of counting.”
    She smiled back, seeming to enjoy
his lighter tone. “Yeah,” she said. “Real fancy. It’s called a cal-en-dar.”
    “We had one of those once. Used it
for toilet paper.”
    “I guess that answers the question to
that old joke.”
    He arched an eyebrow. “Joke?”
    “Yeah. You know, does a bear shit
in the woods? I guess so—if he’s got a calendar!” She laughed and slapped her
knee, and he thought she looked even cuter than when she frowned.
    He laughed, too. “Fun- ny ,” he said.
    “That would make you, what,
twenty-six?” She bit her lip. “I’m twenty-four. I was supposed to go to
college, but Ma died, and Pa told me I needed to stay home and take her place
in the household, and that anyway girls had no place in college, especially,
well, girls like me ... so I stayed home.” She made a noise of frustration.
“That sounds so lame, saying it like that. I hate that.” She sighed. “I guess
it was lame. I should have fought
harder, should have insisted on going out on my own. But Pa always told me I was
wrong to want to leave, and Bradley said fat cows don’t need to waste their
time going to school to find a man.”
    Taggart sniffed. “You’re not fat.
You’re perfect.”
    She brightened. Sniffing a little,
she said, “You think so?”
    “I know so.” He patted his cock,
which was no longer hard, but that could change at a moment’s notice. “He
thinks so, too.”
    She blushed. Perhaps pointedly
changing the subject, she said, “So where are we going? I mean, where are you
going? I guess I need to decide if I’m going with you.”
    For a moment fear seized him. He
had just met her, but already he couldn’t imagine her leaving him. He wanted to
take her in his arms and smother her with kisses, then tear off her clothes and
...
    He felt a throbbing in his cock and
made himself think of other things, if only so he didn’t scare her off.
    “I’m going to the cabin where my
family used to