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  BEAR TRAPPED

  Jaide Fox

  Other titles by Jaide Fox:

  Mating Heat 1: Mating Rights (Interracial Fantasy Romance)

  Mating Heat 2: Bear Trapped (Interracial Fantasy Romance)

  Beastmen of Shadowmere 1: Marked by the Beast (Interracial Fantasy Romance)

  Beastmen of Shadowmere 2: Seduced by the Beast (Interracial Fantasy Romance)

  Beastmen of Shadowmere 3: Conquered by the Beast (Interracial Fantasy Romance)

  Dark Lords 1: Captured by the Dark Lord (Dark Fantasy Romance)

  Dark Lords 2: Seized by the Vampire Lord (Dark Fantasy Romance)

  Dark Lords 3: Ensnared by the Dream Lord (Dark Fantasy Romance)

  Captured by Aliens 1: Alien’s Captive (Interracial Futuristic Romance)

  Captured by Aliens 2: Alien Insurgence (Interracial Futuristic Romance)

  Captured by Aliens 3: Alien Intent (Interracial Futuristic Romance)

  Captured by Aliens 4: Alien Resistance (Interracial Futuristic Romance—Coming late 2015)

  Interstellar Mayhem 1: StarCaught (Futuristic Romance)

  Interstellar Mayhem 2: StarRomped (Futuristic Romance)

  Pleasure Masters 1: Ravaged (Futuristic Romance)

  Pleasure Masters 2: Dominated (Futuristic Romance)

  Pleasure Masters 3: Mastered (Futuristic Romance)

  PleasureBot (Futuristic Romance)

  Trained for Pleasure (Futuristic Romance)

  Archangel (Futuristic Romance)

  Summoner’s Captive (Dark Fantasy Romance)

  Earth Girls Aren’t Easy (Interracial Futuristic Romance)

  His Forbidden Fruit (Interracial Fantasy Romance)

  Renegade (Futuristic Romance--in TAMING THE ALPHA Box Set)

  Eden 1: Primal (Futuristic Romance—COMING SOON)

  © Copyright by Jaide Fox March 2015

  Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright March 2015

  www.jaidefoxbooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  Escaping the town of Fangor required little effort and subterfuge on Kimber’s part. Within the first few days after the attack on the city by rogue bears from the Ursine clan, her people—the wolf clan—were too busy in the forest finding suitably thick timber to replace the broken gates and ramparts that surrounded the town. By pure luck, she’d escaped granting mating rights to a man unworthy and uninteresting to her.

  Unlike her friend, Mali, who’d found a love match worth envy with Jaxon, Kimber had been unable to drum up enough interest in any of the available males in the clan during the Moonlight Festival. Certainly there were handsome suitors, but she wanted more than just a pretty face. She wanted a man who would value and treasure her, as Mali had with Jaxon. She only had to observe them for a moment to see that Jaxon adored Mali, and nothing less would do for her. Perhaps it was wrong to desire such things. Her mama had told her to find someone she could be friends with, which made little sense to her. What about passion and lust? Why even bother mating at all if she could only muster lukewarm feelings toward a mate?

  She wondered if her lack of attraction could be pin-pointed to her nonexistent mating heat. Kimber sighed heavily, hefting her belongings into a better position on her back. Mali had invited her to travel with her and Jaxon to her parents’ home, but that had been out of the question for Kimber. She had no intention of being the odd wheel on that journey.

  She could return to her own home, but the image of disappointment on her family’s faces was more than she could endure. With four small children still at home, they’d struggled to gather a proper cache of clothing and supplies to send her away with. They would not want to know that she’d neglected choosing a partner for something as silly as passion.

  Winter approached, leaving the valley floor cold, moist, and misty as the weather settled over the land. Fangor was long behind her. What possessed her in this madness to think she could live in the wild by herself until spring? Glancing around with every step, she kept her eyes peeled for a suitable resting place for the night. The days grew shorter and shorter, and she didn’t relish the possibility that she would have to spend another frigid night under the stars without a den.

  She’d never traveled this far north, however, and her ignorance of the area tempted her to turn back, swallow her pride, and face her family’s crushed dreams of her happily mated. Obviously, it was too far to walk to the coast—which was her original, poorly planned idea. Mountains seemed to cover the land for miles, reaching for the sky with jagged, rocky hands tipped in snow. Dried, brown leaves coated the ground, and soon even that disappeared as spruce and pine surged from hardened dirt.

  This was no place for a comfortable night’s rest. She stopped and looked up, hoping for a depression against the wind. A dark shadow smudged the hill, and at first, she thought it just a shadow from an outcrop of rock. She realized after studying the spot for several minutes that it was a cave. A thrill raced through her but she tamped it down before she could get too excited. It could be occupied already, or not nearly big enough for her to sleep in.

  Kimber scaled the hill, ignoring the sounds of rocks and gravel tumbling down the hillside as she struggled to the cave using roots for leverage when her thighs screamed at the abuse. She felt like a mountain goat when she finally reached her goal and stood victorious and out of breath at the entrance. The cave was bigger than it appeared from below--a full two feet higher than her head and broad enough she could walk inside abreast of a companion.

  Her keen vision allowed her to look into the space shrouded in darkness by the deep walls. A fire had once been kept in the mouth, evidenced by scattered ash and small bits of charcoal. Further inside, she could see dead, dried spruce bows where someone had once made a bed, but there was no sign of recent residence. Kimber hefted her bag from her shoulders and sat it on the dirty cave floor.

  Beyond the dim shafts of light, the cave reached back another fifteen feet. There was no one inside—it looked abandoned. “Hello?” she called, receiving no reply except the scratch of leaves on rock as the wind howled through the walls.

  “Kimber, you’ve just found your new home,” she said to herself. “Time to go on a hunt and get dinner for tonight.” The fact that she’d begun talking to herself didn’t disturb her nearly as much as it had before. She guessed having a roof over her head and a place to sit out the winter had given her more confidence in her ability to rough it in the wild.

  Kimber peeled her long, red wool cloak off and followed it with her dress, dropping both on top of her bag. Her first priority was to hunt dinner. Once that was taken care of, she’d collect wood and clean up the space to make it more comfortable.

  She felt positively giddy as she crouched to the ground and allowed her beast to take control, transforming her with practiced ease into the form of a sleek, silver wolf with flecks of reddish brown around her thick neck.

  ***

  Heavily laden with abundant wool skins, boar hide, and two bags stuffed with dried goods, pots and pans, tools, and everything else he could think of to sustain him until the spring, Braeden lumbered up the familiar landscape to the winter cave he’d hibernated in every winter since he was a young lad. Every year he seemed to bring more supplies to his winter retreat. At some point, he might make this his year round home but not just yet.

  Breathing heavily from the burden and the accompanying sweat on his brow in spite of the plunging temperature, he didn’t notice the small depressions in the ground leading up to his cave until he was nearly upon it.

  The scent of a wolf and fresh blood tic
kled his sensitive nose. He paused only for a moment before the blinding anger washed over his head and clouded his mind with the ferocity to protect his territory. With an agility that defied his enormous size, he bounded the final distance with two steps, landing in the mouth of the cave with a roar that rattled his own ear drums as it reverberated along the walls with deafening sound. No wolf was going to take his cave from him. He didn’t give a damn about truces. This was his cave!

  His bags fell away as he bared his chest and shoulders and balled his hands into tight fists, ready for a fight. He was brought up short in his fury by the sight of a naked woman bent over a pile of clothing. Rich, dark skin imbued with reddish tones and curved over an ample backside and gloriously rounded breasts stunned him into a stupefied silence. A lifeless boulder could not have been more unmoving than Braeden at that moment.

  The brown skinned woman stood and faced him, narrowing her eyes, unafraid and bold and obviously lacking good sense or one: she should have screamed; two: she should have run; three: she made no attempt to preserve her modesty.

  She bared perfect white teeth in a snarl that made her deep brown eyes look deadly.

  Braeden realized his adrenaline had increased the blood flow from his brain to his groin. That or the fact that he hadn’t seen a naked woman in years.

  Somehow, he kicked the stiff cogs of his brain back into rotation. He shook his head as if slinging off a shroud. “Are ye daft?” he roared, diverting his attention from her tits and the slit peeking from betwixt her legs up to her round face and evil brownish black eyes. “This is my cave!”

  “This is my cave. I was here first,” she said through clenched teeth, lifting her chin with bravado.

  “You’re mad? It’s mine. It’s been mine since I was a boy. Get out!” he roared again, ignoring the stab of guilt in his attempt to terrorize her into submission.

  She didn’t flinch and didn’t back down—just stood there, calmly watching him. For some reason, her lack of response shrunk his anger from a boil to a simmer. He stood there in the entrance, trying to think of some way to grab her and throw her out without hurting her or getting injured in the process. She looked lithe and small enough to slip through his arms if she wanted. He had no idea how quickly she could shift into a wolf, but by the looks of her, she would flay him alive with her teeth if he made an attempt to touch her.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Braeden.”

  “My name is Kimber. Do you not know the wolf and ursine clans have made peace? Is that why you feel safe in threatening me?”

  He was outraged! He frowned. “I’ve done no such thing. I would never harm a woman, even a she-wolf like you,” he sneered.

  “Coming in here yelling at me to leave—I view that as a threat. Who do you think you are puffing your chest up at me?”

  She had a talent for getting his ire up almost at once. “I’ve been wintering in this cave for years.”

  Kimber narrowed her eyes and remained silent.

  The thought that he could just pick her up and pitch her out the opening reoccurred to him, but more likely she would only change to a wolf the moment he stepped closer and cause him bodily harm before he was forced to retreat or do the unthinkable—hurt her defending himself. It was the truth that he’d never hurt a woman before in his life, and he wasn’t about to start with her.

  Reluctantly, he realized they were at an impasse which led him to something his mama had taught him many years ago when dealing with his older brothers—sometimes the only way to get peace is to let the meaner of the argument have their way. At least until he could figure out a way around them. “I tell you what, you can stay here for the night and leave in the morning. I won’t throw you out into the cold. It’s too late in the day for that.”

  She put her hands on her hips. He noticed it made her breasts sit higher and her dark nipples winked at him—in his mind, that is. The black wool pants covering his groin was his only protection from her noticing the raging hard cock that seemed out for blood. Bastard serpent with a mind of his own! Braeden shifted on his feet, waiting for her answer and surreptitiously giving his cock a pinch to cut off the blood flow.

  “That won’t work for me. I’m staying here until the spring,” she finally said. “I have nowhere else to go.”

  Anger and outraged bubbled up inside him again. “The hell you are!”

  “The hell I’m not!”

  He jutted his chin angrily, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He stomped a foot, turned around, threw up his hands as if the beast gods would suddenly answer his prayers and sweep her out of the cave with a strong wind. He turned back around and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. “All right. You can stay. We’ll share the space together. The cave is big enough for the two of us. You keep to your side and I’ll stay on mine.”

  “Agreed,” she said. Thankfully, she stooped to grab her dress and slipped it over her head. The moment she did, his whole body breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Make yourself useful and get us some firewood, Braeden,” she ordered, pointing at the cave’s entrance.

  His mouth dropped open at her gall. He snapped it shut and offered her a thunderous glare. “I’m not here to serve you.”

  She grinned wickedly and her eyes twinkled, giving him an eerie feeling that perhaps she was possessed by the devil with her lack of fear. Or addle-brained, which was more likely.

  “Aren’t you?” she asked.

  Chapter Two

  Kimber waited until the ursine had left the cave and his strangely pleasing and alien scent had dissipated before she allowed herself to collapse on the floor. Her nerves crumbled. Hands shaking, she hugged her knees against her chest and swallowed gulps of air, forcing an unnatural calm to sift through her insides in place of panic. The smile had been meant to disarm him. Her mama had taught her a man’s ire could be soothed with a flirtatious smile. That it had worked relieved and amazed her. No doubt her bare breasts had aided in the conflict.

  The bear shifter had given her the worst fright of her life when he burst in. Had she not been trapped with his huge frame blocking the entrance and a solid rock wall in the rear, she would have run for her life without taking any of her belongings—even if it meant escaping naked. Her eardrums still ached from his deafening roars. That he hadn’t rended her limb from limb but stopped in his tirade had been the only thing keeping her from melting into a frightened puddle at his feet.

  She couldn’t explain his sudden shift any more than she could understand where she’d gotten the courage to stand her ground and face him. He was gone now, if only for a short time. She was grateful for the chance to think about her situation. As much as she was loathe to stay, she knew her chances of finding somewhere else to spend the long winter nights were low. A woman with half a brain would slink out while she could. Kimber didn’t have the luxury to indulge in this late in the evening or the season.

  Outside the sky was gray and heavy with precipitation. With the plummeting temperature, she could easily be caught in a snowstorm. Even though she could shift into a wolf, with no den, she wouldn’t last long in bad weather.

  She would stay. And if he made one wrong move, she’d shift and rip his throat out or leave him full of holes. He might think he was big and bad, but she knew she could move with greater agility in wolf form if it came down to it.

  Kimber had the feeling he was more bark than bite, given the fact he cowed down so quickly. She was actually rather amused now that she thought about it—a big lug like him letting a woman tell him what to do. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe the bear clan weren’t complete savages as she’d always thought. She might even be persuaded to think he was handsome in a rough sort of way—if one was attracted to men that were built like brick walls, covered in black hair, with a square jaw and angry eyebrows. She didn’t remember much more than fury and bewilderment on his face.

  Disturbed and determined to put it out of h
er mind, she set about cleaning up the cave, taking the old branches and putting them into the depression that marked his fire pit after clearing out the old ash with a long branch tipped with fresh spruce to get the job done. Moving to the back, she began sweeping debris to the front to give them a clean surface to rest on for the night and to make sure there were no rodents hiding in the crevices. She figured it was too cold to worry about snakes and spiders.

  Humming as she worked, she stirred the contents of the cave into a dust storm. She buried her face in her shoulder until the dust settled and froze when she saw she’d managed to coat the bundle of his belongings in a fine coat of dust. Kimber swallowed and worried her bottom lip, wondering how angry he would be to find his stuff dirty—or if it would matter at all. Perhaps she’d pretend not to notice what she’d done. Ignorance was bliss, wasn’t it?

  Kimber scurried to the entrance to break and drop her bow on the fire bundle just as Braeden returned with an armload of hewn wood. She wondered if he’d broken the arm thick logs with his bare hands, since she hadn’t noticed him taking a hatchet, but as he turned, she saw the glint of the blade hanging on his hip.

  She gulped as he gave her a narrow-eyed, suspicious look and set the logs down before kneeling. She realized that she was, in fact, a certain level of insane. Her actions couldn’t be excused as anything but desperate and crazy and she knew it. He could be a rogue bear for all she knew. No—no that couldn’t be right. A rogue bear would have just plowed over her and done unthinkable acts with her body before killing and possibly devouring her.

  Kimber gave herself a mental shake. She couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded and bewildered that she could be in an enclosed space with a bear shifter and not feel endangered.

  “You aren’t going to kill me?” she asked, watching him and keeping her escape route free.