Read Online Bear Run: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Pine Ridge Bear Shifters Book 1) by Belinda Meyers - Free Book Online

else.”
    “What?”
    “They want to keep you from being
Turned.”
    Her mouth made an O. “I hadn’t even
thought of that. And that can really happen?”
    He wasn’t sure if that was
excitement in her face, or fear. He thought it might be a bit of both.
    “I can claim you,” he said. “Mark
you as mine. The claiming bite Turns you. Puts a bear in you.”
    “Puts a bear in me ...” She placed a hand to her chest as if feeling a bear
awakening there, or imagining what it might feel like. She glanced up at him, looking
embarrassed.
    Another shot rang out. This time
the bullet struck the ground near the tree, showering mud and grass.
    “Demon!” a voice called down from
the upslope. “You won’t take my girl from me! Alice, get your fat ass up here
and I’ll take it easy on ya.”
    “This is your last chance, cow,”
hollered another voice, and Taggart recognized Bradley’s snide tones.
    “Shut it!” snarled the other one,
the one Alice called Pa. In a somewhat gentler voice, he called down, “He’s
right, though, girl! This is it! Come up and rejoin your family or else!”
    “Or else what ?” Alice yelled up to them.
    Of course she would know what else,
but Taggart knew what she was doing. She was trying to get them to say it, as
if just saying it would unnerve them, shame them, scare them out of actually doing
it. Hell, maybe it would.
    A silence passed, but then Bradley
called out, “Then we’ll drill you both, you stupid bitch!”
    A grimace passed across Alice’s
face, and she looked apologetically up to Taggart. “Maybe we can go back the
way we came,” she said. “Keep the tree between us and them, at least far enough
to be out of range, and then make a break for it.”
    “I don’t think that’s such a great
idea,” he said. “Do that and we’ll just get holed up in the cabin. We’ll be
under siege, and with no supplies. Both our bellies are rumbling already.”
    She nodded, her face tight. “What
then?”
    He frowned, thinking.
    “I’ll go to them,” she said in a
small voice.
    “What?”
    She tried on a smile, but it looked
false. “Just as a distraction. Meanwhile you break for it. I’ll steal their
rifle and join you.”
    Such bravery! His love for her
swelled even more. “They seem too willing to shoot you.” He shook his head. “I
won’t let you do it.”
    “You think you can stop me?”
    He kept his voice as level as he
could. “Let’s not find out.”
    She made a fist and smacked it
against the tree. He could tell it wasn’t anger at him, though, but at her pa
and brother.
    “What, then?” she said.
    “ENOUGH WASTIN’ TIME!” Pa shouted
down. “Come out, girl, or we’ll come down to you . An’ we do that we’re liable to shoot you down with the bear.”
He didn’t pronounce it ‘bear’, though, but ‘bur’. We’re liable to shoot you down with the bur.
    “Eat dick!” Alice shouted back, and
Taggart snorted a laugh, shocked but amused. She turned to him and smiled.
“Like that, bur man?”
    He grinned. “I like it just fine.”
He pointed toward the east. “We’ll go that way. I’ll Shift, giving you
shelter.”
    “But they’ll shoot you!”
    “There’s a lot of trees in the way,
and we’ll be moving fast. I don’t think they could get a kill shot, and I can
heal fast from anything else.”
    “Your plan is to shield me with your body ?”
    “That’s right.”
    “No!”
    “It’s the only way.”
    One of her hands stole up to his
face and touched his cheek. Her eyes were swimming, and she had never looked so
beautiful.
    “This is a stupid plan,” she said.
    “I know.” He crushed her to him and
planted his lips against hers. She responded passionately, flattening her
generous body against his, and instantly he could feel himself begin to grow
hard. No time for that, though. He broke away. “Are you ready?”
    “Rock ‘n’ roll.”

Chapter 8

 
 
    Alice couldn’t believe they were doing this. This was
insane. Taggart’s