Bear My Baby (Shifter Squad Six 1) Read online

  BEAR MY BABY

  SHIFTER SQUAD SIX

  BY

  ANYA NOWLAN

  A LITTLE TASTE…

  Cassie was furious with him and he thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

  The way the corners of her mouth turned down a little and how she furrowed her brow made him want to throw her over his shoulder and carry her into the deep recesses of the cabin they were in. He wouldn’t let her out before she was screaming his name at the top of her lungs and not a hint of that frown remained.

  That made him shift his cock in his pants uncomfortably, trying to remain discreet as he sat on a chair by the window facing the yard in front of the house. He could still feel her eyes boring into the back of his head, as if she was willing him to give her some kind of an explanation that could make this all better.

  But he couldn’t. And as things were standing, the adrenaline was still pumping through his veins like ice cold vodka, and he was having a damn hard time drilling his attention down to anything that wasn’t her juicy figure or the way she would squirm underneath him.

  With a grumbly sigh, he adjusted again.

  Fucking hell.

  Copyright © 2015 Anya Nowlan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Bear My Baby

  Shifter Squad Six

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover © Jack of Covers

  You can find all of my books here:

  Amazon Author Page

  www.anyanowlan.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A LITTLE TASTE…

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  TWIN WOLF TROUBLE EXCERPT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cassie

  The echo of her footsteps seemed to chase her, hounding after her like a pack of rabid dogs. Every few steps, Cassandra glanced over her shoulder, her breath hitching in her throat each time. Someone was behind her, she was sure of it. But the streets were completely empty.

  It was dark, the Chicago skyline lit only by artificial lights and the thinnest sliver of the old moon, slowly sinking into nothingness. Cassie could vaguely tell that she must have been sobbing every now and then, the small hiccupping noises in beat with her hurried footsteps.

  Get home, she chanted to herself, hands clutched together on her chest.

  As her apartment building came into view, the deafening humming in her ears she’d been hearing since running out of Mr. Robertson’s house seemed to only grow louder. There it stood, warm and inviting, promising protection and safety, and all Cassie could think about was whether or not the locks would hold.

  Against what? You’re paranoid! You’re alone on the street!

  But was she really?

  She felt something trickle down her forehead and with the back of her left hand, she wiped at it. The hand came away bloody and for the first time that evening, she wondered if the blood was hers or someone else’s. The thick globs of drying blood that covered her hands looked so out of place against her dark skin, a violent juxtaposition against her complexion.

  Without a hint of surprise, she realized that with her hands covered in blood, she would have only spread whatever was on her forehead.

  It all seemed distant to her now. Rushing into her employer’s home when he called her, his breath ragged and his words incoherent. Finding him on the floor of his vast library, gargling his last breaths. Cassie’s chin quivered as she remembered sinking to her knees next to him, dumbly trying to help when it was clearly too late. He’d told her not to call the ambulance. She did anyway. It never came.

  She pushed through the glass doors leading into the foyer and ran to the elevators, all the while expecting a hand to reach out at any moment and stop her. When the doors slid closed in front of her and the foyer was still without a single living person, only bathed in its warm orange lights, Cassie took a lungful of air. A loud wail came with it and she had to fight the urge to clamp her hand over her mouth and hush herself.

  Stop it. Get inside. Get the fuck inside. Then fall apart, she commanded herself.

  Peeling her curvy body off the wall where she’d been leaning seemed to take Herculean effort. Her apartment door loomed ahead like the promise of a better future. She fumbled for her keys in her purse—an expensive white Prada number she’d only gotten because Olivia Pope from Scandal had carried it and she’d been dying to treat herself—and marred the fine leather with dark crimson. She couldn’t have cared less.

  When the key slipped soundly into the lock and the tumblers undid themselves with an encouraging clink, Cassie let out the breath she had seemed to be holding since entering the place.

  There it was, her home. Her big couch, her widescreen TV, her kitchenette. The door to her bedroom was still wide open like she’d left it. Deliriously, the only thing she could think of was getting inside and sinking into a bathtub. But she knew she couldn’t do that. She’d run into the bedroom, put a suitcase together, and keep going. She couldn’t stop. Not now.

  When she was about to step in through the door, a strong hand clamped over her mouth and pulled her back violently. She couldn’t even find the breath to scream.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Connor

  In the back of his mind, Connor knew he was a bit tired. A little worn out, at best. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. That thought alone brought a morbid grin to his lips. Squad Six never slept.

  So, he would endure. Like he always did.

  His step was soft and soundless as he stalked after his prey, keeping her constantly in his sights and never being in hers. He could hear the way she sobbed every now and then, violent reactions to the gruesome scene that had been laid out before her. He couldn’t blame her. The way Robertson had been mangled would have made even the strongest of character a little queasy.

  But she had taken it like a champ. Or as well as one could expect when faced with the reality of having someone they knew, someone they might have even cared for a little, die in front of their eyes.

  Connor glided along the dark streets, giving chase from a vantage point that would keep him mobile and away from the prying, curious eyes of anyone else chasing her. And he was sure he wasn’t the only one playing this game. There wasn’t even anything specific that hinted at it. Just the wild, all-encompassing knowledge that he wasn’t the on
ly predator in the game, and probably not even the biggest one there. But he liked a challenge.

  He leapt across another narrow alleyway between two buildings, thanking the spirits above that there was a strong housing crisis and empty space was about as rare as a well-kept park. Connor’s boots scrambled against the rough texture of the roof of the building he landed on, and with the seasoned ease and grace of a man perfectly in control of his body, he moved forward. Never slowing, never stopping. Not as long as she was moving, anyway.

  “Good girl,” he murmured to himself, watching her make a beeline for her home.

  Connor swung his body over the ledge, all two hundred and thirty pounds and six foot three of it landing on the rickety stairs leading down onto the street along the side of the building. His feet moved like lightning across the steps, eating up the distance. He was on the ground before she could push in through the front door, and around the corner of the building when she looked back.

  His ears were pricked, listening to anything out of the ordinary. He knew they couldn’t be far. Probably right on top of him and his mark, chasing much the same as he was. Only Connor would get to her first.

  “Movement in the bedroom,” Thatch called, the earpiece in Connor’s ear making an annoying buzzing sound along with the information.

  “Movement in the left stairwell,” Grant added.

  His team was scattered, all holding onto their posts while Connor was tasked with the chase itself. And he could be sure that he wasn’t the only one with backup. There was something about professional jobs that really reeked and could hit you in the face a mile away. That was probably why the woman was so freaked—it was so damn obvious that it was hard to ignore.

  With a hissing snarl, Connor changed his direction, fluidly spinning around on his heel and charging down the other side of the building. His heart rate picked up and he knew that right then, his muscles would start preparing for the inevitable fight or flight that was to follow. He couldn’t see a damn thing other than the gray, fluorescent walls of the right-side stairwell that led up. His steps were now heavy and hurried instead of silent.

  Connor flew up to the fifth floor faster than any normal man could. A decade in the Navy SEALs did that to a man. It didn’t hurt that he was a werebear and could put many top-tier sprinters to shame. A low growl thrummed in his throat as the smell hit him straight in the face when he pulled open the door leading into the corridor.

  Wolves.

  It was always fucking wolves.

  He’d never been in the building but he already knew it like the back of his hand. A looping left, a straight, narrow corridor, the elevators, and then her apartment. It had two adjoining rooms; she liked the color lavender and her home was kept spotless. And she was in so much fucking trouble that it took his squad to dig her out.

  The carpets on the floors softened his steps as he pounded down the corridor, the black pants, combat boots, and long-sleeved T-shirt making him look like something out of an action movie gone wrong in an upper-class apartment building. He was almost expecting a doorman to pop up from somewhere and give him a snooty comment about how the building had a dress code.

  “They’re up on the fourth, lieutenant. You don’t have a lot of time,” Grant drawled, a note of tension in his voice.

  Connor grinned. Close calls. He loved those.

  His surefooted step wavered for a moment when he rounded the corner and her scent hit him. He stumbled over his feet a little, narrowly avoiding face-planting into the wall. Connor swallowed the growl, a mix of annoyance at himself and a reaction to her smell. She smelled like… she smelled like heaven.

  Get over your fucking self, he mentally snarled.

  And then she came into view. At the same time, another ping sounded in his ear.

  “They’re on the fifth. Not only in the apartment. She’s at the door. Get the fuck out.”

  Thatch’s voice was tinny in his ear. He didn’t need to tell Connor twice.

  Distantly, he found himself taking in the mouthwatering shape of the woman he was set to rescue. The heavy swell of her breasts, the pleasing curve of her wide hips, that chocolate skin that begged to be licked. Connor could see a fleeting flash of her soft, ruby lips, the ones he’d admired when they’d kept watch on Robertson’s house. But there was something about seeing her through the lens of a pair of binoculars and then in person that really threw Connor for a loop.

  Still, reaction and training kicked in when his brain wanted to take a moment to truly appreciate the gorgeous creature that fate had landed before him. He looped an arm around her waist and slammed his hand over her mouth, squeezing hard so even if she tried, her screams would be muffled yelps at best. Instinctively, she clawed at his arm.

  His body reacted immediately. There was a sudden flash of heat traveling through him, claiming him with a ferocity that he’d only expect from a bullet to the chest. It felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him, but his body still worked. His legs still moved. Connor almost lifted her up as he dragged her backward, angling her toward where he’d come from and shoving her on along the well-lit, bright corridor.

  “I’m here to help. Move or we’re both dead,” he hissed in her ear, hit with the sudden and indescribable urge to bite and lick at that delicate part of her instead.

  She looked up at him with hazel eyes sparkling with threads of gold, wide with fear. He didn’t stop, keeping her moving and running forward as well. A door slammed in the distance, and then he could hear shouts. He couldn’t make them out but what he did know was that they only had one direction to run in. And the fucking wolves would know it too.

  She gave a tiny little nod and tentatively he took his hand off her mouth, immediately missing the feeling of her warm breath against his skin. Connor let her go and grabbed her hand instead, tugging her along as his other hand grabbed for one of the sidearms secured on his hip. The shouting moved faster and at least three pairs of combat boots were slamming down the corridor in addition to his own.

  Fuck.

  “Do everything I tell you to,” he said, casting her a quick glance.

  Her face was marked with streaks of blood and her hand was warm in his, still coated with the lifeblood of her employer. She was visibly shaking, even while she was giving it her all to keep in step with Connor. Seeing her like that, eyes sunken and her body struggling to keep up with everything that she’d seen and done that night, broke Connor’s heart. He’d make fucking certain that nothing would hurt her again.

  Any other time, he would have stopped to think about how fucking ridiculous that sounded, but not this time.

  He had to protect her. No matter what.

  The footsteps came closer, a deafening flurry that trundled down the corridor. When Connor pushed open the door to the stairwell, a bullet bit into the plaster right next to his head, making his left ear whine and lock up. The woman whose hand he was holding screamed and he shoved her into the stairwell ahead of him, spinning back quickly to fire off a few shots behind him at the black, approaching figures.

  Connor growled under his breath, kicking the door shut behind him. There was a plan for a plan for a plan. Contingency after every contingency. But these bastards were going through his arsenal damn fast. The announcement from Tex, Thatch’s twin, sounded in Connor’s ringing head the same moment he heard another set of footsteps rushing up the stairs.

  “Movement in the right stairwell. Advise moving to the roof.”

  “No shit,” Connor hissed under his breath, half-pulling, half-carrying his dark-haired goddess up those steps to the tenth floor.

  “What?” she asked, her voice quivering.

  He didn’t answer. There was no time for pleasantries. No time to enjoy the absolutely maddening tingle her touch made run through him. No time to focus on the fact that he knew what this feeling was, and he knew exactly what it meant. No time to look at her and memorize every tiny detail in that face. No. There was only time to survive.

  He didn’t
even know her name. It hadn’t been important for the mission. His team knew, of course. They’d scoped all the possible players out, and she’d been right in the middle of the list. But all he knew was that she was the right girl at the wrong place at the wrong time. And now she was in more shit than she could ever hope to shovel out of on her own.

  They almost fell through the door that led onto the roof, as it was often unlocked in buildings like that. There wasn’t a fire escape up that high, but one started a few stories down. Ropes and harnesses were piled in a corner, out of sight, waiting for Connor and his package.

  “Get behind that, honey. Duck down. Don’t look up. Don’t come out. If they get through me, jump off the ledge on the left side of the roof. There’s a fire exit down there. My team will get you on the ground. Don’t look back,” he barked at her, his light blue eyes boring into hers as he pointed toward the wide air ducts in the middle of the roof.

  He could hear several pairs of combat boots beating up the steps, so close he could almost taste them. And there she was, staring at him like an angel shoved into the middle of something she wasn’t supposed to be in. Hesitant. Afraid. But a fire burned in her eyes that made him lick his lips.

  Not fucking now. Focus.

  “GO!” he hissed, diving to the other side so he could be behind the corner of the outcrop of the stairwell.

  “Dutch, you in place?” he whispered, touching one hand to his ear and reloading a new clip into his gun.

  “Lock and load.”

  The party was just about to start.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cassie

  Her breath was right where it had been when she’d been running toward her home—the one place where she was supposed to be safe—right in her throat. Every manner of adrenaline and heat was pounding through her, blinding and deafening her while at the same time making her all the more keenly aware of her surroundings.

  Cassie’s legs ached. Her hands shook like she was a drug addict going without a dose for too long. Her throat was dry and her lungs were screaming at her from the way she’d flown up the stairs. And now she was crouching behind an air vent, the constant, loud hum of the air rushing through it muffling everything else.