Wild Bear (Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (Rescue Bears Book 2)

S
hane panted
into the cool spring air. His hot breath puffed out before him. His bear tongue tasted the scent of the forest. At the border between Fate Mountain Lodge and the wilderness, Shane could feel the call of the wild within him. Maybe it had been a mistake to come back to town.

During his long year in the wilderness living as a bear in a cave, Shane had often missed his crew. His Navy SEAL team had become his brothers. They’d forgiven his wild temper more than once.

Now that he was working for his chief, Levi, he’d been taken back into the fold yet again. As much as Shane wanted to gallop into the forest and never return, living on berries and small game, he wanted to be with his crew even more.

Shane drew away from the wilderness and turned back toward his cabin. Fate Mountain Lodge was his alpha’s business, and Levi ran the place like he’d run things back in the Navy. It was a tight ship, and Levi didn’t take any bullshit.

It wasn’t as if Shane wasn’t doing Levi any favors coming to run the kitchen. His fame alone was attracting plenty of customers to the lodge. Chef Shane Keenan was a legend in the kitchen and his alpha Levi knew that.

Shane trotted to the back porch of his log cabin and jumped into the air, shifting in mid-stride. His tattooed, bearded body landed on his hands and feet on the wood plank porch. He stood, rolling his shoulders, and walked inside, pulling his clothes off the back of the couch.

Shane donned his black chef coat, rolling up the sleeves. After dressing, Shane strolled outside and took the long path from his cabin to the back of the kitchen.

Inside, the morning crew looked up at him with that bit of fear he liked to see in his staff’s eyes. Shane smirked and clapped his hands together as he walked into the center of the kitchen. Today was a normal morning. From lunch through dinner, Shane ran the kitchen and cooked his exquisite meals.

He was known for his west coast fusion-style cooking, utilizing local farms and the abundant seafood from the Pacific Ocean. When he’d owned his own restaurant, he’d been pulling down almost seven figures a year. Now he worked for Levi.

Shane started taking lunch orders, directing the kitchen and working the grill to ensure his entries came out to his high expectations. He didn’t miss the money or the fame he had before the human war he’d had to fight.

“Government sponsored enlistment,” the human government had called it.

It basically amounted to a shifter draft. Maybe things were different now after the war and the Shifter Equality Act.

Public opinion was changing. His crew mate Corey had even invented a dating app to hook up shifter males with curvy human women.

That app was supposed to find a shifter’s fated mate. Shane already knew who his fated mate was, and that relationship was as broken as everything else in his life.

As Shane was closing up for the night, he got a call from Levi.

“The crew was called out on a search and rescue mission. A hiker went missing this morning on the eastern edge of the mountain. We are setting up Alpha Station at the trail head. Corey is sending you the directions now.”

“On my way,” Shane said, pulling his chef coat off.

He put on his leather jacket and went out the front to where his motorcycle was parked. He climbed over the back of the bike and shot out of the parking lot and onto the road. With the wind whipping through his hair and beard, he made his way around the mountain and found Levi at the Alpha Station. He parked his bike and walked over to where Levi and Corey stood under the tent canopy that kept out snow and rain.

“You aren’t dressed for a rescue,” Levi said.

“I’m going out in bear form,” Shane said, shrugging.

“You know that’s against protocol. We need our packs and communication capacities to do this job. Not to mention, grizzlies are dangerous predators that no longer live in these woods. We don’t risk getting shot or scaring a human to death.”

“Come on. I spent a year in bear form and never got shot. Well, there was that once. Okay, maybe twice. But those bullets were way too small to faze me.”

“Shane, you’re making my point for me. We don’t do bear form unless it is absolutely necessary to shift in the field.”

“This is worse than in the military. How do you expect me to keep my bear inside when it would be so much easier as a bear?”

“I’ve uploaded the variables of adding a bear to our team and it is favorable,” Corey said from in front of his computers.

“All right, I’ll allow Shane to take bear form. Just don’t show yourself to humans. Take your clothes and a walkie-talkie with you.”

“Fine,” said Shane. Levi could be so driven by protocol, it slowed everything down.

Shane started to peel off his clothes and threw them over the back of a chair.

“Alpha Station to Delta Crew,” Levi said into the walkie-talkie. “Status report?”

“Big Bear to Alpha Station. The trails diverge in three different directions. Tracks have been washed away in the rain. We aren’t getting a scent out here and there’s a pretty bad mudslide coming down this side of the mountain.”

“Copy, Big Bear,” Levi said. “Corey, they’ve followed the hiker to this position.” Levi pointed at a spot on the map on Corey’s computer. “The trail diverges here. They aren’t finding anything. I think Shane should take this curve that loops around to the west and meets up with this other trail, where we could send one of the others to meet him.”

“I suggest we send Zach since there are a lot of steep cliffs there. His mountain climbing skill would be useful.”

Shane listened to Levi and Corey’s conversation, dressed only in his boxer shorts. Levi glanced at him with a mixture of amusement and disapproval on his face. Shane slid his thumbs into his underwear and lifted his eyebrows.

“Time to go,” Shane said, dropping his drawers.

Corey and Levi smirked, and Shane stepped out of his boxers and into the rain sodden grass around Alpha Station. It was cold in human form, not that a shifter suffered much from the cold in human form. It took some pretty drastic temperatures to really get under a shifter’s skin. He roared and shifted, growling as he bounded off into the woods.

Trotting down the trail, he smelled the air, opening his shifter senses to the forest. The sharp smell of pine and the deep loam of the wet soil filled his lungs. He could faintly sense the heartbeats of the creatures around him reacting to the grizzly bear in their woods. Grizzlies had disappeared in the wild a long time ago and only shifters remained. That was a human-run world for you.

It was clear that the rains had brought a lot of mudslides to this part of the mountain. These slides could be more dangerous than snow. Hypothermia could get under the skin quickly in a wet environment. Once a human body got too cold, it started to shut down.

Time was of the essence. The sun had set and the crew was using flashlights to find the hiker. Shane was using his shifter senses to make his way through the forest. The moon above was full beyond the murky clouds. It added a gray illumination to the tree boughs and underbrush.

Shane sniffed the air, picking up a faint scent of something human. It was so faint in the moisture-thick air that he could hardly make it out. No, he was certain of it. That was human. He growled and followed the scent until it became stronger. Shane came to a steep cliff that jutted up from the forest floor and into the darkness above. He grunted and moved back and forth, sniffing the air.

The scent was above him. He could make out a ledge above him. Focusing his senses, he heard the faint whimper of a human female. The bear inside him felt a sense of protection for the female. She was stranded up there, cold, wet, and desperate.

He took a few paces back into the cover of the forest, not wanting the terrified woman to see his massive form. As he shifted back to human form, he dropped, pulled on some clothes, and picked up his walkie-talkie.

“Wild Bear to Alpha Station. Eyes on target.” He reported his location to Levi and Corey using the GPS on his walkie-talkie. “She’s up on a ledge below the switchback.”

“Copy that, Wild Bear. Ski Bear is on his way with his repelling equipment.”

His friend Zach had performed in the X-Games as snowboarder back before the war. Now he worked for Levi, giving skiing and mountain climbing lessons to the patrons of the lodge. Zach had always shared Shane’s need to move fast and follow his impulses, as opposed to Levi’s measured approached or Angus’s quiet thoughtfulness. Corey analyzed everything to death, and Drew, the artist of the bunch, followed his aesthetic senses. Shane, being an artist with food, could appreciate that himself.

“Ski Bear to Wild Bear. I’m closing in on your location.”

“Copy that, Ski Bear,” Shane said into the walkie-talkie.

“Alpha Station. Ski Bear has eyes on target. I’m attempting to repel to her location now.”

Shane could hear the sound of rocks dripping down the cliff. The woman started to yell for help and Zach began to speak soothingly to her.

“I’m here now, ma’am. I’m going to get you down,” Shane heard Zach say from above.

“Ski Bear to Alpha Station, strapping target into repelling gear.”

A moment later, the ropes whirled down the mountain, and Zach had the shivering, terrified woman to the ground. Shane pulled a thermal blanket from the pack he’d carried up the trail and wrapped it around the woman’s shoulders.

Shane and Zach helped the hiker walk out of the mountain. When they made it to Alpha Station, the ambulance was already there, ready to take her to the hospital for a full checkup.

Ever since Shane had pissed off the wrong communications liaison and had almost gotten them all stranded behind enemy lines, Shane had been on Levi’s bad side. The thing was, Shane had been pissed off on Levi’s behalf. Shane knew that asshole communications liaison had been involved in kicking the shit out of Levi for dating a human girl. Back then, shifters were still experiencing the brutal backlash from coming out to the public.

The crew slowly returned to Alpha Station, and Shane stuck around to help pack up the station and get everything off the mountain and back to town.

“Let’s celebrate at the brewery tonight,” Angus said, slapping Levi on the back.

Big Bear Angus was Levi’s second in command. If Angus said they should celebrate at Drew’s brewery, then Levi would listen. Levi said he didn’t like celebrating at the brewery because the bears all got so drunk when they did.

“Fine, we’ll celebrate at the brewery tonight. Drew could use the support right now,” Levi said.

Drew had gotten himself involved with a human woman he’d met on the Internet. Shane would never be that dumb.

The crew loaded the rest of Alpha Station, and Shane climbed his motorcycle. Corey and Zach rode with Levi, and Angus and Drew rode in Drew’s SUV.

They made it to Drew’s brewery long after closing time and went in through the back door. Drew quickly turned off the alarm and the guys piled inside, taking the hallway past the tanks to the tasting room.

The crew threw off their jackets as Drew turned on the lights and went behind the bar, folding his flannel shirt up over his tattooed arms. He looked more morose than usual, and Shane knew exactly why. That human woman Drew had hooked up with was his fated mated.

Angus stepped up to the bar, his massive shoulders taking up the space of two human men. Angus was the Big Bear of the crew. He looked fierce as fuck, but he was really a gentle giant when it came down to it. Shane slid into a bench beside Angus, and Drew poured them both full pints of his famous Fate Mountain Lager.

“So, have you heard from that woman of yours?” Angus said thoughtfully to Drew.

It was what everyone was thinking. Shane wasn’t about to open that wound.

“No. And I’d rather not talk about it,” Drew said, hiding behind a fake smile on his bearded face.

Shane threw back a pint of beer and was feeling pretty damn good. Angus took out his phone and started to flick over the screen.

“What are you doing?” Shane asked Angus, looking over his shoulder.

“I was checking out Corey’s dating app at Mate.com,” Angus admitted.

“You’d sign up for that after what happened with Drew?” Shane said, perplexed.

“Look at what happened for Levi,” Angus said, not looking up from his phone. “Levi and Juliet are as happy as clams. She’s an awesome girl,” Angus said.

“Did you get a match yet?” Shane asked, looking over Angus’s shoulder.

“Make your own profile,” Angus said, moving his shoulder and blocking Shane from view.

“Fine. Maybe I will. I could go for some human tail. I could get some too. Shifters are now hot, hunky heroes. I heard it on the radio last night.”

“This site finds you your fated mate, not human tail,” Angus grumbled.

Shane didn’t care about finding a fated mate or a human woman to hook up with. He wanted to prove a point. Since the end of the war, the culture had gone from demonizing shifters to deifying them. So many male shifters had been drafted into the military that now the media was heralding them as heroes.

Those women just wanted to fuck hot shifter males so they could put selfies of it on the Internet.

Well, he’d show them. He’d give those human women a piece of Shane Keenan’s wild side and see how many likes and shares they got then. He sat at a table with a fresh pint of beer. Zach put a loud rock song on the stereo and started jumping around and singing. Corey and Levi were sitting at a table in front of Shane, sharing a pitcher of Drew’s famous beer.

“Corey’s vowed to be a bachelor forever,” Levi said over his shoulder, lifting a pint in Geek Bear’s direction.

“Relationships are nothing but drama,” Corey said. “I don’t need the distractions in my life.”

“I don’t blame you,” Shane said.

Shane flicked through his phone, found his browser, and searched for Mate.com. When he opened the link, the app started to download to his phone.

A moment later, he opened the thing and started the sign-up process. This would be great. He couldn’t wait to start messing with these fickle human females. Since there were far fewer shifter females than males, shifters often had to find their mates among humans. If it was a byproduct of his race’s genes or the hand of fate, as so many of his kind believed, the result was the same. Shifter males needed human women to procreate the race.