Read Online Bought By The Military Bear: BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (BBW Shifter Romance, BBW Paranormal Romance, Military Romance, Werebear Romance) by Ashley Hunter - Free Book Online

 
     
    Chapter 1
     
     
    Kathleen sobbed as her stepfather slammed his beer mug down so hard on the bar she was sure it should’ve shattered. The loud crack didn’t silence all of the loud drunken arguing, but it dulled it enough so her father’s voice could be heard.
     
    “Right, Jed, what’d I just tell you? You can’t just buy her out. This here’s gonna be a right proper auction, like’n I seen on TV. Smile, dear.”
     
    Kicking Kathleen in the hip as she lay on the floor, beaten, chained, and handcuffed to the bar.
     
    He added in a growl, “Smile!”
     
    Afraid of what he’d do if she didn’t, Kathleen tried holding her breath to stop the crying and pulled her lips back.
     
    “Aw, now look at that. A finer angel never would you see,” her stepfather said.
     
    “Buck, Steve, you sit two down right now a’fore I shoot ya. You wanted a part of this, so you gotta follow the rules.”
     
    “How high can we go?” Henry asked from the back.
     
    “Well boys, that’s the beauty. I gotta lot a debt, and this here useless fatty is gonna finally pull some weight around ‘ere. You go as high as you want, and to the highest bid goes this… thing. Smile!” he shouted and kicked her again.
     
    Kathleen screamed, surprised by his sudden viciousness and tried to smile again.
     
    A few of the older men in the front, fat and hideous as they were, ran wormy tongues over their chapped lips.
     
    “An’ you’re not going to want her back?” Jed asked, his eyes hungrily roaming over her body from top to bottom.
     
    “A’course not, Jed. Damnit boy don’t you listen? You buy her, you get to keep her. Once she’s yours, I don’t want anything t’do with her or you. You take her home, you do whatever you want. She cooks real fine, as you can tell, and she can mend a shoe or shirt or what have you. This’n here has the learnin’ y’all need, and she talks real good on the phone.”
     
    “Yeah,” another man asked. This one she didn’t recognize, but he was just as revolting as all the rest, “but how good is she at other things?”
     
    “What other things?” her stepfather asked.
     
    “ Other things.”
     
    The men all laughed knowingly at that one, a few nudging one another with their elbows. Her stepfather laughed and waved his hands to calm them down.
     
    “I’m sure she does those just fine. Don’t tell me about it, because I don’t care. I just want her good ‘n gone. Y’all ready t’start bidding?”
     
    A raucous roar crashed through the bar as the men all stomped their feet and shouted.
     
    “Right then, how ‘bout we start things nice ‘n easy. Say, ten bucks?”
     
    “I got ten bucks!”
     
    “Ten? Fer that, I got twenty!”
     
    “Twenty-five.”
     
    It was happening. As the men rattled off higher and higher numbers, it settled into Kathleen’s bones that this was really happening.
     
    No amount of hoping and praying was going to stop this now. He was doing it. That bastard of a stepfather was really doing it.
    The drunken lush was only too happy to sit and mooch off of her mother, and when she died, he refused to move out. Kathleen had been staying at home to take care of her mother as her health worsened.
     
    At nights, she worked as a waitress at the local diner. After repeated – and refused—come-on attempts by her stepfather, he’d finally had enough.
     
    Tonight, as she tried to leave for work, he clocked her across the face so hard she saw stars. In all her, life she’d never experienced the shift in perspective that made the ground seem like it came up, instead of her body falling down.
     
    Punching, kicking, he beat her senseless, tied her up, and tossed her in the back of the truck.
     
    The whole way his drunken mouth ranted about all of the medical bills he had to pay now due to her mother’s failed health, and how the only way this was going to be solved was through selling Kathleen off to the highest bidder.
     
    Somehow, in some broken