Vega Brothers: Hannibal: BBW Paranormal Romance Pretend Engagement (The Bear Shifters of Vega Ranch Book 4)
Authors: Kim Fox
Tags: #Shifters, #bear shifters, #werewolves, #shapeshifting, #anya nowlan, #t.s. joyce, #terry bolryder, #arianna hawkes, #paranormal romance
The Vega Brothers:
Hannibal
The Bear Shifters of Vega Ranch Book Four
By KIM FOX
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contains explicit love scenes and adult language.
18+
Copyright © 2016 by Kim Fox
Other Titles in the Series
Hannibal
Montana’s Most Eligible Bachelor and bear shifter, Hannibal, is losing his mind. His face has been plastered on the cover of the country’s most popular newspaper, his three brothers are pressuring him like mad to get married, and he has crazed, money-hungry women banging down his door. He doesn’t want a mate and everywhere he looks, people are trying to shove one down his throat.
BBW, Mikki, has just settled down in the spectacular town of Colwood, Montana. She has a job that she likes at the bar in town and everything is going perfectly for the first time in a long time until she makes an innocent suggestion to the hot, frustrated bachelor who walks into her bar. He takes her pretend engagement suggestion as an invitation and her nice, new life gets flipped upside down on her head.
Hannibal and Mikki’s fake engagement begins to grow into something more, but is it acting or are the feelings real? And with the military threat from the Vega brother’s past coming to a head, will any of it really matter?
prologue
“I thought this was our day off,” Slate complained as he walked into the shack. It was bad enough being here in way too fucking hot Colombia, and now he had to come in on his days off too? “I was just about to go the beach and check out the chicas in their string bikinis.” The hot Colombian girls with their bikinis that would make a thong blush were almost worth the insane heat.
Slate plopped down in the cheap folding chair, grabbed a folder off the table and started fanning himself with it.
“You’re late,” Thorn barked from the head of the table, glaring at him with fierce eyes.
“Sorry, Thornado,” Slate said, slinking down in his seat. “It was Karl’s fault.”
“Me?” Karl said, jerking up in his seat. “What did I do?”
Slate stared at his identical twin. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out later.”
Thorn, or The Thornado as he was lovingly called, rolled his eyes and turned away from the two bickering twins. “We don’t have time for this. He’s waiting for us to call.”
Slate straightened up in his chair and opened the folder on the table in front of him, trying to look busy and important. It was fine to fool around in front of Thorn and the rest of the Clawed Squad but the general was a whole different story. He didn’t respond well to his special shifter units fucking around. And even though Slate was all the way across the globe, the general still filled him with nerves.
“Royal,” Thorn said, turning to the blond shifter by his side. “Get him online.”
Royal jumped up and started hitting keys on the laptop that was sitting at the head of the table. Slate took a deep, nervous breath and looked around the table, nodding at Stetson and Stumps. It was getting hotter in the small shack by the minute.
Thorn was sitting with his back straight, watching the screen. Karl scribbled something on a note and slid it over to Slate.
He opened it up and rolled his eyes. His brother had written ‘you suck donkey balls’ on the paper. He folded it up and slid it into his pocket. This was no time to retaliate. Thorn would make him pay if there was any fucking around in front of the general, and Slate was rich with scars from Thorn’s many payments over the years. He didn’t feel like getting another one right now.
The screen popped on and General Samson’s big ugly face glared back at them from inside the laptop. Royal darted back to his seat and sat with his back straight.
“Good morning, General,” Thorn said in his most official sounding voice. “It’s always a pleasure.”
“We need you back at home base,” General Samson snapped, sounding as pissed off as ever. Slate pulled his shirt away from his sticky chest.
Thorn jerked his head back in surprise. “We have the target in our sights, General. We were going to wait until nightfall to complete the mission.”
General Samson glared at him with tight lips and flaring nostrils. “Are you questioning me, Commander Thorn?”
“No, sir,” Thorn said, shaking his head with a gulp. Slate’s stomach fluttered. It was always unsettling to see your alpha be intimidated like that. “I just thought that you should know tha-”
“If I want your opinion,” the general barked. “I’ll give it to you!”
“Yes, sir,” Thorn said with a nod.
“This is urgent and sensitive,” the general said. “We have a unit that has gone rogue.”
Slate glanced around the table at the rest of the squad. Stumps took a deep breath as he listened. Royal was fidgeting with a pen.
Slate had been in the Special Shifter Unit of the military for a long time but he had never heard of a unit going rogue. No wonder the general was yanking them out of Colombia ahead of schedule.
“They have to be eliminated at once,” General Samson said. “I need the Clawed Squad in Montana A.S.A-fucking-P.”
“Montana?” Thorn said as a bead of sweat snaked down his temple. “Is that?”
“Yes,” the general said through a clenched jaw, his eyes raging with anger. “The Vega Brothers.”
one
Hannibal shuddered as he opened his email inbox. “Three hundred and seventeen emails,” he said, feeling his blood pressure rise. He hadn’t even had his morning coffee yet and he was already way too stressed out.
Julius walked over to where Hannibal was sitting at the kitchen table and looked over his shoulder. “Just marry one already!”
Hannibal sighed. His brothers were relentless. “They’re all insane!” he complained. “They just want me for my money.”
Alexander laughed as he sipped on his coffee from across the table. “And you just want them for
your
money too.”
When Hannibal’s father had died he left the family home, a log mansion on a nine thousand acre ranch in beautiful Montana, and the family fortune to him and his three brothers. The only catch, and it was a big one, was that all four of the boys had to get married and take on mates within a year or the property and fortune would get transferred over to the state.
His three older brothers, Khan, Alexander, and Julius had all gotten married to their mates and Hannibal was the only one left. Alexander’s mate, Elena, was a newspaper reporter who had written a story about him and plastered it on the front page of America’s number one newspaper, The New York Gazette. She had written, without his knowledge, that he was heir to an immense family fortune and was looking for a bride. Now, Montana’s Most Eligible Bachelor had marriage proposals coming out of his wazoo.
The only problem was, he didn’t want to get married. At all.
“What about her?” Julius said, pointing to a random email. “Susan Ryan. Just meet her at city hall and marry her.”
“Let’s see,” Hannibal said, clicking on her email. Hannibal grimaced. She was a pretty woman but she was surrounded by over fifty porcelain dolls. They were sitting all around her on the floor, the couch, her lap and the shelf over her head. All of their creepy eyes were staring at him like a horror movie come to life.
Julius spat his coffee out as he laughed. “She’s perfect!”
Hannibal sighed as he shook his head. “They’re all like this, or worse.”
“She’s not that bad,” Julius said, wiping the coffee off his chin.
“It’s not her that I’m worried about,” Hannibal said, shuddering. “It’s her army of dolls coming to life and killing me in the middle of the night.”
Alexander perked up and looked out the wall of windows behind Hannibal. “There’s another one coming.”
Hannibal pinched his lips together and turned around towards the windows with his throat feeling like it was closing up. Sure enough, a red car was driving down the Vega Ranch’s dirt road toward the house. Khan was outside on the path, walking up to the car with his hands in the air.
Thank God.
Hannibal had put his oldest brother Khan, the tough Kodiak shifter, in charge of security. There had been way too many women showing up unannounced at the ranch lately.
The car stopped in front of Khan. Julius, Alexander, and Hannibal all watched from the kitchen as he walked around to the driver’s side and bent down in front of the open window.
“Another crazy one,” Hannibal said, muttering.
“Maybe not,” Julius said, rubbing his chin while watching. “Maybe she’s the woman of your dreams.”
“What’s he saying?” Hannibal asked, straining to hear with his enhanced shifter hearing. “Can anyone hear?”
“Not with you rambling,” Alexander said.
But no one could hear through the thick windows. Hannibal could only watch with his pulse racing and his stomach in knots. The women who just showed up at his door uninvited were the craziest of them all.
Khan stood back up and shook his head.
“Thank God,” Hannibal said, exhaling in relief. “He’s going to kick them out.”
Khan turned his head up, looking directly at them, and pointed at Hannibal. “Shit,” Hannibal said, ducking.
He peeked through the crack in the chair and cursed as Khan opened the door for the driver.
“Traitorous bastard,” Hannibal mumbled, closing his eyes as the woman got out of the car.
“Whoa!” Julius yelled as Alexander roared with laughter.
Hannibal jerked his head up and opened his eyes. The woman was standing on his property wearing a full wedding dress and veil. Hannibal’s blood pressure skyrocketed as she waved at him and blew him a kiss. The passenger door opened and a priest in full black robe stepped out. He was clutching a bible to his chest.
“Looks like you’re getting married this morning,” Alexander said, slapping his back with a hard whack.
“Looks like you’re getting murdered tonight,” Julius said, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “At least we’ll get the deed of the ranch first.”
“I’m going to kill Khan,” Hannibal said, staring at his brother who was guiding the bride and priest towards the house. “I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet.”