Montana Wild Bears: Books 1-4 Bundle (BBW Paranormal Werebear Shape Shifter Romance Boxed Set) (22 page)

Jonah ran out of words, deciding to sip at his tea instead. Julian’s piercing blue eyes threatened to drill right through him. He knew full well that Julian could unravel a puzzle faster than he could even imagine, so he probably already had his mind around this one as well. Jonah felt rotten for not having come earlier, but he kept telling himself that keeping up with the state of things was good enough until he was really needed. Jackson was a force of nature on his own, and even though the Alpha trifecta was stronger than any of them alone, Jackson could still hold his own against Ryder without him or Julian. Of course, seeing Julian back home was a relief, and he was confident that with the addition of his friends now returning to Cabinet, the Bitterroot clan would be in for a nasty surprise if they tried to retaliate again. The bigger problem was convincing himself that he could actually go through with anything that had the potential to harm Callie.

“Is she the one?” Susie asked suddenly, catching Jonah off guard. He almost choked on the scalding tea, sputtering for a moment. His hazel eyes went wide with surprise, staring at Susie. She matched his gaze with determination, and Jonah, whose mouth had fallen open at the direct question, latched it shut again.

She sure hasn’t changed.
The look on Julian’s face told Jonah that the tech mogul completely approved of the question.

“I… Yes. I think she is. She’s the one,” Jonah admitted, a small smile creeping on his lips. The admission made him warm up from the inside, no fire or hot beverage needed. He’d been wondering about that for some time now, and the answer had been sitting inside of him for a while. It was no wonder that it had been so hard to leave her side and dive into a conflict that could drag them apart forever. A werebear only had one fated mate and Calliope was his. Being stuck between love and his family was the biggest case of a proverbial rock and a hard place he could possibly imagine.

“Then I’ll talk to Jackson,” Julian said, raising his hand to quiet Jonah before he could object. “Trust me, Jackson is better off hearing this news from me – the general disappointment of the family – than from you. I’ll talk to him, and we’ll give him a moment to digest it. I think you’ll find him ultimately receptive, what with the recent addition of Tess into his life.” Susie nodded as well, further hushing Jonah’s strong-minded protests.

“You’ll love Tess. She’s just what Jackson needed. And, she loves a good love story, so you’ll have a sympathetic ear with her. Julian’s right, that’s the best way to go. But that doesn’t resolve your problem, though. How are you and Callie going to deal with being on opposite ends of this? You know that this won’t get any better before it gets worse,” Susie said, squeezing Julian’s arm for comfort. Jonah felt a hot stab of regret flow through him, seeing them so close. He hadn’t left things on the best of terms with Callie, and he hadn’t spoken to her in a week. Not since she had set off for home. He wasn’t even sure if she ever wanted to talk to him again, though a voice inside him told him that fate wouldn’t allow their story to end so abruptly.

Jonah shrugged his shoulders slightly, managing a weak smile. He had to admit that he was a bit relieved. Finding support from at least one of his brothers was a welcome derailment from what he was expecting, and it made him a bit more secure in his decisions. He was an Alpha, a proud werebear, who knew his place in the universe now, but a curvy, sassy woman still had the power to bring him to his knees and knock his whole world off kilter.

“Alright. I did come here to get some advice, and I’m just going to have to take it. You were always better at politics than I was anyway, Julian,” Jonah said. Finally, he could relax a little. His shoulders slumped, and he exhaled deeply. At least he hadn’t been kicked out of the Arder clan yet for fraternizing with the enemy. He could only hope that Callie was finding some compassion with her people as well.

“It’s settled then. You’ll stay for the night, it is way too wet to try and make it to your lodge. I had it cleaned for you a few days ago.” Jonah looked at Julian, again surprised by his brother’s foresight. For a bear who had been away from the community for so long, Jonah had to admit that Julian’s instincts were spot on. “Just guessed you’d show up any day now. I’ll talk with Jackson tomorrow, and then you can go see him yourself, hat in hand or guitar over your shoulder and all that.”

“Thank you. It means a lot to me,” Jonah said, a fraction of his worries lifting from his shoulders. Leave it to the clan to make him feel like there was hope even when he thought there was none.

“You’d do the same for me. Now, how about dinner? I’m starving and all this drama is just making me more ravenous!” Julian said, jumping up and dragging Susie along with him, twirling her around before heading towards the kitchen with her. Jonah grinned and shook his head, following the loving duo with his eyes.

Feels good to be home.

CHAPTER TWO

Calliope rubbed her forehead tiredly as Ryder paced back and forth in the big dining room of his lodge. He’d been treading around in a circle for the better part of an hour, barking random obscenities every now and then and generally looking worse for wear. She’d hoped to god that tales of her relationship with Jonah wouldn’t reach Ryder, but she had had no such luck. A week had gone by since she’d arrived home and all had seemed fine. Until, of course, Ryder had called her up to his house that afternoon and started giving her a long, thorough earful about how her choices affected the whole clan.

You’d think he’d pay attention to the fact that I was together with Jonah long before all of this got blown out of proportion,
Callie thought sourly, staring at the pattern on the parquet floor.

“How could you be so god damn irresponsible?! And why didn’t you come and tell me about this yourself, why did I have to hear about this from…” Ryder suddenly paused, making Callie look up. Her chin was squared in defiance.

“Hear it from who?” she asked, her voice level. She was pleasantly surprised that instead of breaking down and cowering in front of Ryder, she had the fortitude of feeling indignant in the face of his rage.

Who does he think he is, judging me when he used to run with Jacqueline Arder?
She thought to herself, keeping her brown eyes on Ryder. Her defiance only seemed to fuel the fire in the tall blonde werebear, his body obviously tensing up. She wouldn’t put it past him if he were to smack her around for being insolent. Years ago, she couldn’t have imagined the wild but caring Ryder Hunt to be capable of such things, but from what she’d heard recently, nothing could really surprise her anymore. Ryder had changed and not for the better, and it was just her luck that she now had to deal with being on his bad side.

“None of your business, Calliope,” Ryder spat, a growl in his voice. Callie blushed, heat lighting up her cheeks.

“I haven’t done anything wrong. We’ve known each other since we were kids, and when I heard that he enlisted, I wrote to him. You know what happened to Christopher. I felt like I had a duty to talk to him before he ended up going down the same dark path Chris did, and we found that we had a lot to talk about. And it all kind of grew from there.” Even mentioning Christopher to Ryder made Callie’s stomach churn uncomfortably. Her brother had been dead for a few years now, but it still stung as if she had just got the news a few minutes earlier. He died in combat – not the first or the last werebear to go that way. The modern world was no place for a werebear anymore, and when one of them strayed too far from their clan and ended up looking for meaning in the military, it often ended badly.

They were too determined, too driven and dedicated to look out for themselves the way they looked out for others. They made excellent soldiers – daring and willing to do anything for their brothers. But it also wasn’t rare that a werebear died an honorable death on the battlefield, getting too caught up in the service to care about themselves anymore. Whether it was in the military or during clan conflicts, a werebear warrior was a force to reckon with. Still, it meant the loss of werebear lives, which was something that Callie couldn’t stand by after having lost someone so close to her. Her painful past had brought her together with Jonah, and even if they’d had problems lately, it didn’t make their connection any less special.

Ryder glared at her, his lips pushed into a thin line. She was still struck by how much he had changed. Callie had last seen him when he was still with Jackie and living in Bear’s Grove. Her family had left just as the clan migrated to Bitterroot, and Callie drifted further and further from the everyday dealings of the clan. Ryder and Jackie had always had their troubles, but they managed to work them out, for better or for worse. She had to wonder what had driven the wedge between Ryder and Jackie as she had the suspicion that it might explain a lot about Ryder’s recent behavior. Not that Jackson Arder outsmarting Ryder as of late wouldn’t be enough cause for Ryder’s bursts of anger, but still. The Bitterroots were facing some serious financial trouble since Jackson had managed to cut them off again. Some of the bears who had been with the clan throughout the Kadin incident, during which the werewolves drove them from their home of almost six years over the span of a few days, had said that they hadn’t seen Ryder so tense since the last days of the battles.

“You should have called it quits the moment we decided to run the Arders out of their lands, Calliope,” Ryder said, his malice barely contained.

“We? You mean you and your goons? I never agreed to that. What we are doing is not right and you know that. Jackie would be disgusted by what you’re doing,” Callie said, and Ryder stopped dead in his tracks. She could feel his inner bear roaring at her across the room, and it made her hackles stand up. As much as she was willing to test Ryder’s limits, she didn’t want to push him past them. He was mad and, judging by his recent actions, that could mean just about anything. Callie quickly raised her hands up a bit, blanching in the face of his rage.

Note to self, don’t mention Jackie around him.

Callie pulled back as Ryder stopped in front of her and leant into her, putting both hands on the armrests of her chair. She had to bite down a yelp that wanted to gather in her throat. His piercing blue eyes stared right through her, and her breath caught in her chest as his lip curled up in a snarl.

“Last I checked, you weren’t even a senior in this clan, Calliope Masters. In fact, you’re barely in this clan at all. You should be thankful for your blood and the way your parents served the clan, because without them you might not have a home or a family to come to. So, unless you want to find out what
really
disgusting things I could do to you, you better watch your words when you’re talking to your Alpha,”
Ryder growled. Callie bit down on a retort. She might have not agreed with his methods, but Ryder Hunt was her Alpha, and there were some lines she couldn’t cross, even if she wanted to. Really, really wanted to.

“You know, you better learn how to behave, Calliope. Or I’m just going to have to teach you some lessons about how good clan members treat their Alpha,” Ryder said. He ran a finger down her cheek, and Callie cringed. His breath was hot on her neck as he considered the thin red streak he left with the edge of his nail, and Callie thought her heart would explode in her chest.

Her silence seemed to appease him a bit, and Ryder continued his frantic pacing, looking deep in thought. When he stopped again, Callie’s heart dropped right through her chest. He had that horrific glint in his eyes that told her he had a plan for her, and that she wouldn’t like it. “Now, since you’ve decided to be a nuisance and fuck the enemy, we might as well get something out of it. I think you’re just who we needed to get the upper hand on the Arders. I’ll be expecting to hear from you soon on what they’re planning.”

He used to be such a handsome man… Now he’s just terrifying,
she thought to herself, ignoring the shiver that traipsed down her spine. His presence was powerful and all-consuming. There were a lot of things to be said about Ryder Hunt, but no one could describe him as weak. He had always been a strong leader, but the misfortune that had befallen him over the last few years, often due to his own bidding, seemed to have taught him to feed on the rage that boiled in him. For a split second, Callie imagined what would happen if Jonah caught Ryder and her like that. Even in the face of danger she could barely keep her thoughts away from him.

She was inches from jumping up and running out of the room just to get away from him, when a chatter of voices sounded in the hallway and the tall forms of Troy and a few others appeared in the doorway. Troy peered in curiously, quirking a brow at the exchange, and Callie breathed a sigh of relief as Ryder snapped back.

“Everything alright?” Troy asked, his voice guarded. Even Ryder’s closest confidants had learned to tread carefully around the Alpha. The scar on Troy’s forehead was a bitter memory of his first contact with Jackson, and Callie had the feeling that it was only one of the many scars and wounds her clan would have to deal with if Ryder kept going down his chosen path.

“Just splendid,” Ryder hissed with a low voice, tossing a glance at Callie. She nodded reluctantly, her breathing returning to normal. It wasn’t like her to be shaken by so little, but there was something about Ryder those days that brought goose bumps to her skin. He had become dangerous and erratic – two things that didn’t go well with being the leader of a werebear clan. “Callie was just telling me what a good girl she’s going to be. She’s been fucking the little Arder brother. Now, she’s going to be doing it for us.” Ryder grinned wickedly and Callie made to quickly get out of the chair and away from Ryder while she still could.