Kodiak Moment: An Alpha Werebear Paranormal Shifter Romance (The Arcadia Knights Book 2)

A
bby Stone
just wanted that perfect picture, the kind that would make a great memory for her cross-country road trip. She didn't want to leave that pristine wilderness, but real life was calling her back home, and she wanted one last parting shot. So when she caught sight of the giant Kodiak bear, she couldn't believe her luck.

Until a hunter's gun rang out, and that giant bear started running straight at her.

Logan Tucker came to this northern wilderness to get away from civilization, not be hunted by it. All he wanted was to be left alone, allowed to wander free, but now he was being shot at and photographed by a nosy human woman...who may just be his mate.

Too bad he's almost killed her.

A life-or-death decision means profound changes for both of them, and a return to civilization for the prodigal son. For Abby, it means the life she had is gone, perhaps forever. But danger follows the duo back to the world Shifters thought was safe, and may end up threatening everyone they hold dear...

“
S
o
, is that your sidecar parked out front?”

“Yup.” The man had bought Abby a drink, the least she could do was make small talk. She twisted the beer bottle around, picking at the label.

“Not bad. I’m traveling around the world, always love to meet fellow travelers.”

Traveling around the world.
Yeah, they always were. Normally she enjoyed talking to people like that, but not tonight, and not to this man.

His hand moved to her back, and Abby flinched away. Her grip on the beer bottle tightened as he didn’t get the hint, settling his hand against her stiff back. “What’s your story? Don’t usually find pretty girls in a place like this?”

The bar was fairly packed, considering just how far outside civilization she’d wandered. The guy sitting beside her, who’d introduced himself as Jack, had latched onto her the moment she’d walked in the hotel lobby. He’d followed her to the bar, buying her a beer and asking her questions, giving backhanded compliments that set Abby’s teeth on edge. Given the scarcity of women in this part of the Arctic, Abby had grown used to the phenomenon, but sometimes it irked her.

Like tonight.

“Sorry man, I’m just not in the mood for chit-chat.”

“Come on.” He grinned widely beneath that bushy beard. “One more drink.”

Abby pursed her lips. Maybe he really was a nice guy and she was just being rude. But she was too worn out from a long day to play the game, and he reminded her too much of her ex. Abby shook her head, standing up off the barstool. "I need to hit the hay, gotta be on the road early tomorrow."

"Wait, that's it?" He frowned at her. "After I bought you drinks and everything?"

Nope. He was an asshole. Oh, joy. Trying to withhold a snarky comment, she raised her glass to him. "Cheers," she said in a falsely cheerful voice, and walked away from the bar.

To her consternation, Jack followed after her. “Now hang on, maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

"Is there a problem here, miss?”

Abigail paused, turning to see a large man she recognized from the trucker's group standing behind them. He was big, far larger than Jack in both height and girth, and was glaring at the younger man. She was perversely pleased to see his bright red beard was larger and fuller than Dickwad's lumber-sexual offering. Here was the real deal, not some hipster wannabe.

The smile she gave the trucker was genuine. “I’m good, but thanks. Jake here was just saying his goodbyes.”

“It’s
Jack
,” Dickwad corrected her, his eyes narrowing. He seemed smart enough to realize she was messing with him but stupid enough to think he still had a chance. “Come on baby, I didn’t mean anything by what I said.”

His use of the word
baby
immediately set Abby on edge. That word, something that her ex had always called her, was guaran-
damned
-teed to bring out her I-don’t-give-a-shit side. “Good night,” she said firmly, and when he didn’t budge, Abby rolled her eyes and walked away.

The trucker stepped in front of the other man’s path, blocking Dickwad from following after her. From behind her, she heard the trucker mutter something and Dickwad reply. His last words wafted after her:
“Fat bitch.”

She almost turned around right then and there to go confront the asshole. Her hands curled into fists, but Abby forced herself to set one foot in front of the other, ascending the stairs to her hotel room, glad she’d be leaving that city the next day.

To call Black Wolf a city was stretching it. It had an airport, which probably raised its status a bit in the sense of township, but that was only because airplane was the best way to get around this far north. There was the gas station with a diner, one hotel, and a dirt highway. It was a stop in the road for the trucker and pipeline workers, with no civilization for miles.

It was the polar opposite of where Abby had been living lately, and exactly what she needed at that moment.

Her room wasn’t much, a bed and a bathroom. It didn’t matter though; she’d had worse on this trip, and at least these sheets were clean. The duffle bag she kept strapped to the motorcycle seat behind her was already inside. It was the first thing she’d done before her ill-fated attempt to relax at the bar. Abby sat down on the bed with a sigh, then twisted her foot beneath one of the bag’s loops and pulled it toward her.

The first thing she took out was her camera, checking to make sure everything was still securely fastened. The Nikon was her pride and joy, something she’d splurged on right while planning this trip but before she actually left. Carefully tucked away inside the duffle were four additional memory cards, all full of pictures and memories of her travels.

Leaning back against the pillows, she held the heavy camera above her and clicked through the pictures she’d taken over the last few days. She’d detoured off the main highway to hit a series of glaciers high up the mountain trails, places no truckers would ever take their rigs. Indeed, her sidecar had barely made the journey; the high altitudes had almost been too much for the carbureted bike, but a little fiddling halfway up the mountain range, then again back down, had allowed her to continue.

Tonight was the first time in nearly a week she was someplace with an electrical socket, so she decided it was time to move the images on the cards to her computer and free them up for more potential pictures. Leaving the camera on the bed, she exited her room and, careful to skirt the attached hotel bar, headed outside.

The sidecar rig was where she left it, looking very much like it fit in with the grubby little town. Abby circled around to the trunk of the sidecar itself, working the key into the rusted lock, then trying to jiggle the ornery thing open. After leaning the key just right, she managed to get it to open enough to survey what was inside, but let loose a torrent of curses when she saw the interior was wet. The seals on the door had failed, allowing the rain from earlier to coat everything inside.

Abby had a love-hate relationship with her Ural. On the one hand, she loved the way it looked. “Old School” didn’t even begin to describe it; the bikes of today looked almost the exact same as those made decades before. Heck, the parts probably would match up. You couldn’t go faster than fifty-five miles per hour without rattling off important bits, but it took most hills and roads with the ease of a tractor. This sidecar rig was less than a decade old but looked like an antique, something that Abby loved. It was dead-simple to work on too; everything was right there out in the open.

On the downside, there was a reason they made everything so accessible: reliability, or rather the lack thereof. Every time Abby stopped, there was something that needed tightening, fixing, repairing, or adjusting. Twice on the journey, it had died on her, once while she’d been truly in the middle of nowhere. It had taken her two days to figure out the problem. There hadn’t been a soul around the entire time except for wildlife; she’d gotten some amazing pictures when she wasn’t banging madly at the blasted machine.

She didn’t trust it as far as she could throw the almost half-ton POS, and yet, oddly, she wouldn’t trade the rust bucket in for a brand new bike or car.

Well, okay, sometimes when it pissed her off, she might. Gladly. But she knew she’d end up regretting it.

Muttering under her breath, she grabbed the remaining bags along with her laptop case, and hauled them inside. All of her clothes were, at best, damp; she’d need to string them out to dry overnight, and pray the humidity would be low enough for that to happen. She was most worried about her laptop, but gave a grateful sigh when she pulled it free and the case was still bone dry. The water had gotten onto the case, but hadn’t penetrated all the way through.

She’d have to haul everything in plastic back there from now on, but at least nothing had been completely ruined. This time.

Abby set up her computer, then plugged the first memory card in to upload before stretching her damp clothes over any and all surfaces she could find. A washing machine would have been preferred, but hotels this far out didn’t come with first world amenities like that. Just as well, she didn’t have any change, and didn’t feel like heading to the bar to make some.

Her stomach rumbled and she snagged a protein bar from the bag, nibbling on it as she settled back onto the bed with her camera. She scrolled through the images one by one, deleting any that were too blurry, and pausing on some to remember the majesty of those ice behemoths. Pictures, sadly, didn’t do the glaciers justice; in 2D, they just looked like faint blue mountains.

But Abby had stood close to them, stared up at the ragged peaks from only a few hundred yards away. Several she’d had to hike to find, but it had been worth the journey.

The first animal picture clicked through, a large female moose and her baby, and Abby’s smile widened. The natural vistas out this way were phenomenal, but her favorite pictures were of animals. She’d glimpsed everything from seals to moose, and had the pictures to prove it. They were definitely some of the more popular pictures on her blog, which, she reminded herself, she was way behind on updating. Perks, and downside depending on the day, to being out in the boonies: no internet.

No internet, no blog. No blog…no funding for her trip out into the boonies. Nice little catch twenty-two there. Most of her journey was funded with her dwindling savings, but a few people she’d met along the way or who she interacted with online occasionally sent her small donations that kept her afloat and paid for gas. She’d kept her blog as updated as possible, both for family and friends to keep tabs on her, but also to share the beauty she’d seen so far in her travels.

So far on her trip, the only animals she really hadn’t gotten any good pictures of were the northern predators. Usually, that would probably be a good thing, but she wished there was a safe way to get some shots of them in the wild. Polar bears, wolves, lynx, grizzly bears - those would be some incredible shots to share with readers. Her animal pictures were always favorites on the blog, and happy readers meant more donations to continue her trip.

It had been too long since she’d been in a bed this soft, and Abby began to doze. Yawning, she set the camera aside before she dropped it, swapping out the memory card in her laptop for another before rolling over on the pillow. She shut off the light, basking in the warmth and relative dryness of the room. Such a stark contrast to her tent, which needed to be air-dried itself, although this hotel room was far too small to do that. Oh well, hopefully next time she found civilization, she could give it a proper airing out.

Closing her eyes, she snuggled into the pillow, content with this modicum of civilization, visions of bears and wolves frolicking in her dreams.