Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance (28 page)
Read Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance Online
Authors: Selena Kitt
If only he would wait for her.
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IVY
The world has moved on, but Ivy just can’t. Besides, she has everything she needs on her sustainable-living wooded homestead, and no desire to brave this grim new world. Until the day a massive bear chases her into an isolated cabin and she discovers she’s not alone. With a giant bear prowling outside and a gruff, bearded, half-naked savage inside, Ivy finds herself cornered. The man, who calls himself Caleb, says he’ll take her home, but she doesn’t trust him, his offer, or herself with this giant, bronzed, mountain of a man. He might be able to protect her from the sinister enemies lurking outside—but who is going to protect her from Caleb?
CALEB
Shifter by nature, drifter by choice, Caleb is uniquely designed to survive in this dark, new hell-on-earth, where the rule of law has been replaced by brute strength. His scars may be deep but his secrets are deeper, and until he meets feisty, sinfully curvy Ivy one fateful afternoon, he’s not sure there’s much left worth surviving for. Finding himself unable to resist the tempting, scrumptious morsel who lands on his doorstep, he realizes she’s the one he’s been craving, and she’s more than worth fighting for. Caleb is determined to keep her safe from everything dark and dangerous outside. But can he save Ivy from herself?
Ivy had once written a freelance article about a study that had claimed cravings for sweet things ended once you stopped eating processed sugar. Had it been for Huff Po? Or Salon? She couldn’t remember now—and it didn’t matter anymore, not really. She didn’t like thinking about the time before. That way lay madness—and Hostess Ho-Ho’s and Little Debbie snack cakes.
She had written that article with confidence, citing the original study, of course, and pointing to all of the low-carb and paleo eating plans dieters were embracing to get back to the way “we used to eat.” She had been one of those food-conscious crazies, believing that eating like a caveman—or in her case, a cavewoman—would transform her into a svelte Wilma Flintstone. Except she wouldn’t have to use a baby wooly mammoth as a vacuum cleaner or an octopus as a dishwasher.
It hadn’t worked. Ivy’s full hips and soft belly persisted, even when she was eating “paleo.” And she hadn’t even cheated. Was it her fault that the paleo diet allowed things like honey? And sweet potatoes? And
real
maple syrup? And butter, for God’s sake! Butter! She could have challenged Paula Deen to a butter-eating contest back in the day and beaten the pants off her.
Ivy was sure that the study she had carefully cited and believed—because science!—had been completely full of crap. She hadn’t had a bit of “processed” sugar, or hell, processed anything, in over a year, and she still craved sweetness like Winnie-the-Pooh searching for that elusive honey tree.
And she wasn’t the only one who craved sweetness. All she had to do was watch the birds who ate her father’s blackberries and strawberries right off the vine. Even when she covered and protected them with fishing nets, the little chattering sparrows and the giant black squawking crows found a way to pluck the ripest berries, leaving her the smaller, less sweet ones that grew closer to the ground.
It pissed her off to no end.
She’d tried everything to outsmart the critters, but nature, apparently, had a lot more practice than she had finding sweetness. All Ivy had to do, once upon a time, was take a trip to the local IGA grocery store for a Snickers. The animals had always had to compete for the sweetest, ripest morsels, and they were far better at it than she was.
Goddamnit.
She didn’t like going too far from the homestead, but after going out to pick berries one afternoon—she had a craving for strawberry shortcake like you wouldn’t believe—and finding the birds or maybe the cheeky little squirrels or the fat, waddling bandit raccoons, had eaten them all, well, that was that. They’d even gotten to the ones low to the ground, the little buggers!
Then Ivy remembered the berries that grew near Copper Creek. They were wild and plentiful, and deeper into the forest. Half a day’s walk at least. Was she really going to walk all that way for strawberry shortcake?
Damned straight she was.
That’s how she nearly got killed by the biggest bear she’d ever seen in her life.
She was just standing there, minding her own business, pulling some of the biggest, ripest strawberries off the vine with red-stained fingers and plopping them into a bucket some time near dusk. It would be full dark by the time she got home, and more like midnight by the time she’d macerated the strawberries and made the little biscuits. But so worth it. Her mouth was watering just thinking about it.
She was the Little Red Hen in the book her father used to read to her when she was little, growing her own wheat, grinding her own grain, from plant to mouth, she was totally living and eating the way “people used to”—and she’d give her left tit for a goddamned Big Mac or Shamrock Shake. Migraines be damned.
Granted, she hadn’t had one of those in two years. But still. A McDonalds Egg McMuffin? Heaven. Or going into a gas station and grabbing a Moon Pie in a little package? Pre-made food that was made to last until the end of the world? Perfection.
And she didn’t count those awful things her father had ordered from Sam’s Club in bulk that came in tinfoil packages and could feed a million people. They had names like “Savory Stroganoff” and “Southwest Beans and Rice,” but there was nothing savory or Southwest about them in the least. She and Nikon had shared plenty of those—after all, they smelled like dog food, and he seemed to like them.
Ivy sighed, lost in her own nostalgic thoughts of Doritos and Oreos. That’s probably why she didn’t hear the bear. He was working his way down the vine, on the other side of a tree that served to screen him from her sight, and vice versa, thankfully. They were both too caught up in what they were doing, that they were nearly on top of each other before they noticed.
He saw her first. It was the shake of his big, brown head that caught her attention, and when she looked up, he was staring right at her. It had to be a male—Ivy was sure of it, just from his massive size. She’d never seen a bear so big in her whole life, and she’d lived a great deal of it in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The bear cocked his head, sniffing the air, and Ivy felt her bladder spasm when she realized he was scenting her. His nostrils flared wide, and he lifted one paw, almost as if in greeting, and she saw his long claws were stained red, like her fingers. For a moment, she panicked, thinking it was blood, and then she realized—they’d both been eating strawberries. She had time to wonder if her mouth was stained red, too, like the fur around the bear’s muzzle, before her instant panic turned into sheer terror.
Ivy reached behind her for the rifle. She carried her father’s AR-15 with her at all times, even when she was just going out to tend her garden. It served for both hunting and protection, if she needed it. She didn’t even know if it was technically legal. But there was no such thing as the second amendment anymore, but in this new world, everyone had a right to bear arms, especially out here. Because, well, bears, for one thing. She shifted the backpack she was wearing and unslung the rifle slowly, afraid if she moved too fast, the bear would make the five or six loping steps it would take to bridge the distance between them and kill her before she could raise it.
But the bear didn’t come for her. Instead, he rose slowly onto his hind legs, giving her a clear shot at his heart. He was the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen, and the sight of him towering over her, his shadow elongated in the light of the fading setting sun, took her breath away. She thought briefly of her father, who had spent his whole life in these woods hunting animals like this—with a camera.
The walls of her little cottage were covered with framed photographs of wildlife, many that had won awards and had been published in magazines like National Geographic and National Wildlife. He’d photographed hundreds of birds and species of insects, not to mention all the small animals like rabbits, badgers and coyotes he’d snapped over the years. But the big animals were his favorites—the cougars, the moose, the elk, even the occasional wolf.
And the bears.
Ivy’s hands shook as she cocked the gun. At this range, she really didn’t have to pay much attention to her aim, but it would be good to shoot his heart, because if the first shot didn’t kill him, she’d be dead before she could get a second shot off.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her finger touched the trigger, and in spite of the danger, she hesitated. He was just such a majestic creature. This close, she could see the intelligence in his eyes. And those eyes!
Blue. Bears don’t have blue eyes!
She knew this bear.
Well, she didn’t know him, exactly—but she’d seen pictures of him. Her father had photographed him before he died. Baby bears were born with blue eyes—like baby humans—but they always quickly changed to brown. All bears—black, brown, grizzly, polar—had brown eyes. It was a Darwinian fact—it made it easier for them to hunt their prey. Genetic mutations were extremely rare—like albino bears, for example. But even those bears had dark eyes. She knew this fact because of her father. He used to say it was silly that bears were named by color, because black bears weren’t always black. They could actually be red, gray, or even brown. Which made “brown” bears confusing, because they could also be black, or even a sort of off-white that they called “blonde.”
This bear was a strange mutation. Her father had documented him years ago, for National Geographic. He’d become the talk of Northern Michigan, and for a while there were talks of making him “protected.” It was strange, to consider a specific animal, rather than a whole species, protected, but it had been done before. There was a bear in Washington they called “Mohawk,” because he had a ginger stripe down his back, and they’d made a law protecting him.
But then the bear had vanished from the area. Her father had told her about it and she’d been sad, thinking he may have been shot. She remembered hoping he’d just moved on. But if he had, well—now he was back. And she was harvesting berries in his territory. It felt like forever since she’d spotted him and raised her rifle, but it had really only been seconds. She was frozen in place, stunned by the magnificent creature’s beauty—and its calm.
She had fully expected him to at least warn her off with a snarl and a roar, but he’d simply risen up onto his hind legs, sniffing the air as if trying to catch her scent. Ivy puzzled over this for a moment, knowing her hesitation could mean her demise. How ironic it would be, to survive the end of the world only to be killed by a giant black bear!
Again, her finger moved to the trigger, sights set.
But she couldn’t do it. Her father’s face flashed through her mind. How many hours had he spent out in the woods, sitting quietly and waiting, looking through the sights of a camera instead of a gun? How could she possibly put an end to this amazing creature? He had made it through, too, just like she had. Their eyes locked, two survivors in a nearly dead world, and Ivy thought she saw the same feeling in the bear’s strange, blue eyes.
She made up her mind and was gone in an instant.