Kodiak's Claim
Authors: Eve Langlais
Tags: #paranormal, #romance, #fantasy, #bear, #shifter, #shapeshifter, #grizzly, #kodiak, #alpha, #male, #comedy, #humorous, #mystery, #suspense, #urban fantasy, #alaska, #winter
By
Eve Langlais
Copyright © June 2014, Eve Langlais
Cover Art by Aubrey Rose © May 2014
Edited by Devin Govaere
Copy Edited by Amanda L. Pederick
Produced in Canada
Published by Eve Langlais
1606 Main Street, PO Box 151
Stittsville, Ontario, Canada, K2S1A3
ISBN: 978 1927 459 54 6
Kodiak’s Claim
is a work of fiction and the characters, events and dialogue found within the story are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, either living or deceased, is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio recording, email and printing without permission in writing from the author.
He might growl, but she’s not afraid to bite.
Hands full taking care of his clan, the last thing this Kodiak bear needs is a woman poking her cute little nose into his affairs. But when she refuses to back down—and shows the courage to stand up to him—he can’t resist the allure of a curvy city girl.
She’s mine.
All
mine.
And when a rival clan thinks to use her to force his paw, he’ll show them why you never piss off a Kodiak, or threaten what’s his.
Tammy is convinced all men are scum, even gorgeous ones like Reid Carver. She knows he’s hiding something. Something big. She just never expected a real freaking bear hid underneath all those yummy muscles. But when the truth comes out and he tries to scare her off with a roar, she shows him not just bears have bite.
“Call me a fat and boring cow will he?” Tammy huffed as she tossed his favorite jersey on the layer of neatly stacked coals. “Cheat on me with my so-called friend.” The jerk. On to the pile went his CD holder of Xbox games. “How dare he think he can treat me like dirt and laugh about it.” Ha.
Let’s see who laughs last
. She squirted lighter fluid onto the pyre she’d built on the grill.
“And they say breaking up is hard to do.” She held a lit match that said otherwise. The flame danced and flickered as she dropped it, but the tiny stick remained afire and ignited her impromptu bonfire with a
whoosh.
Despite the fire’s captivity within the barbecue, a frisson of fear still shot up her spine. But she didn’t run for the hose or an extinguisher. She faced her fear, just like her shrink taught her to.
As the pile of stuff crackled and burned, she heard the slam of the screen door and the stomp of feet as he trampled down the back porch steps. “What the hell are you doing, you crazy bitch?”
Ooh a new name.
At least this one she deserved. Turning to face him, the heat of her barbecue warming her plump backside, Tammy pasted a cold smirk on her face. “I’d say what I was doing is obvious. I’m cleansing myself of you.”
“With my shit!” he yelled, gesturing to the burning pyre.
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, since you weren’t around when I got the text, I found another way to vent.” A break-up text, which he’d sent after storming out after their fight a few hours ago when she’d confronted him about his dalliance with her friend. To think he’d had the nerve to defend himself, citing her lack of drive when it came to losing weight as to why he’d wandered and stuck his penis in someone else.
I never promised to change myself for him. I like myself just fine as I am.
And ‘as I am’ consisted of a few extra pounds, a very voluptuous frame, and a healthy appetite. Would she like to perhaps sport a skinnier frame? Sure. However, she wasn’t about to give up everything she loved—French fries, pizza, chips and ooh, chocolate ice cream—and start a rigorous exercise regime just to please a man.
Love me as I am,
or at least pretend to.
He waved his hands around wildly. “I’m calling the cops. You don’t have the right to do this.”
“Do what? Barbecue my dinner?” She pointed to the steak sitting on a plate beside the barbecue, thick, red, and sprinkled with a touch of garlic, pepper, and sea salt. Inside her townhouse, rice bubbled in a pot and a salad smothered in a garlic Caesar dressing awaited. Nothing like charbroiled beef to soothe a girl’s hurt feelings. And if that failed, nestled in her fridge, she had some cheesecake smothered in a caramel sauce as backup.
“You’re being deliberately obtuse. You can’t use my stuff as fuel.”
“Prove it. Looks like hot coals to me.” Indeed, while they’d talked, his prized possessions were reduced to indistinguishable lumps. Using oven mitts, Tammy placed a metal grill over the glowing embers. With a deliberate, and admittedly taunting, grin in his direction, she grasped the steak with some tongs and slapped it on.
Mmm, nothing like hearing that sizzle.
“I’d invite you to stay, but as you can see, there’s only enough for one, and besides, you made it quite clear this afternoon you don’t like eating cows. Too fatty. So why don’t you scurry off and visit your little stork of a girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend. We just hooked up for sex. You know full well I’ve got nowhere to stay.”
“Not my problem. The townhouse is in my name as is the mortgage. Seeing as how we never had a rental agreement and we’re no longer a couple, that makes you a trespasser. An unwelcome one. Now, leave before
I
call the cops.”
“You can’t just kick me out. What about my stuff?”
“The rest of your junk is on the front porch. You probably walked right past those trash bags on your way in. Take them when you leave, or tomorrow night, I’m having flame-kissed kebobs.” Yummy. Marinated chicken chunks with red and green peppers over some spicy, pan-fried noodles.
She derived a certain satisfaction in watching the muscles in his jaw work. Not an impressive jaw as they went, kind of like the rest of him. What could she say? She’d foolishly fallen for his false charm and lies. Story of her life. A story she kept repeating. At least now Tammy no longer cried when they disappointed her and broke her heart. She got even.
“You’re not just a fat, lousy lay, you’re a nutjob. No man will ever want you,” the jerk snapped as he stomped back through her house.
Maybe. But Tammy wasn’t about to change herself. If fate meant for her to live a life alone, then so be it. There was always ice cream and Netflix to fall back on.
“What the hell do you mean we lost another shipment?” Reid’s bellow didn’t quite shake the walls of his office, but it was close. His desk didn’t fare so well when he slammed his fist down, leaving a dent in its already abused surface.
His second-in-command didn’t flinch, but Brody did grimace. “I hate to say it, but it looks like we’re being targeted.”
“Gee, do you think?” was Reid’s sarcastic reply. “The question is, by who? Who is dumb enough to screw with us?”
Make that screw with me.
His temper and general take-no-shit attitude was known far and wide amongst humans and shifters alike. It would take an idiot with large balls—big goddamned hairy ones—and a little brain to fuck with him. Reid didn’t always play by the rules. Actually, he usually made them, and heck, sometimes even he didn’t obey them.
As leader of his clan, Reid’s word was law. His fist was justice. And his bellow meant run, because if he caught you… Let’s just say, in the shifter world, justice was often quick, painful and at times, final. Reid had no patience for excuses, and no mercy for idiots.
However, it seemed someone either didn’t know of his reputation or ignored it. That or they were positioning themselves to challenge him.
Bring it.
He might not like the paperwork duties that came with leading a mixed clan, but he’d be damned if he’d let some sneaky asshole waltz in and take it from him.
“No one’s yet stepped forward to claim responsibility. But, given only our transport trucks have been targeted, I’d say it’s deliberate, and they’re not being gentle about it. We’re missing three drivers now, not clan residents but transient workers. Three loads vanished into thin air and not one fucking witness,” Brody added.
What Brody didn’t say aloud was that, given they found blood staining the ground at the last registered satellite locations of the vehicles, the likelihood of the drivers still being alive was slim to none. The fact that whoever made their move didn’t care if lives were lost proved troubling. Stealing and poaching was one thing. Reid and the other clans who chose to live in the Alaskan wilds had done it for decades, maybe even centuries. Hard to tell since they didn’t keep any written accounts. But while they did have a few epic clashes, usually over territories or women—which he couldn’t grasp, no honey pot was worth that kind of trouble—casualties were usually a result of a face-to-face battle, not coldly calculated ambushes. There was no honor in those.
Then again there would be little honor but a lot of screaming when he got his paws on the bastard responsible and squeezed his skull into a pulpy mush. As alpha of his clan, he’d get to decide on the justice.
Fuck with me and I’ll destroy you.
Reid drummed his fingers on his desktop. “When is our next run due to come in?”
“Couple of days. Travis is bringing in a load of supplies then loading up again with whatever the mine’s got for us to haul out. With the loss of the last shipment, our partners down south are bitching.”
“Because it’s our fault we got hijacked.” Reid couldn’t help his sarcastic growl. While he might control who lived in his town, shifters and a few humans in on the secret, the outside world was another thing. Doing business with only his kind wasn’t an option, which meant that explaining to human CEOs that a rival was poaching and planning a hostile takeover of his town wasn’t a viable excuse. His buyers didn’t want sob stories; they wanted what they ordered whether it be coal, fish or lumber. Goods he planned to deliver. Deliveries he needed for money, which he turned around and used to buy supplies for the clan. Supplies that had also gone missing, which meant there was going to be some grumbling soon, mostly by him if he didn’t get to replenish his brown sugar stash. Fuck his cousins and their honey. Reid’s sweet tooth ran towards brown sugar and maple syrup.
“Get me a map of the route. I want some of our men positioned at the more obvious ambush spots and watching. If there’s another attack, I want someone to see who’s leading it and report back.” Because something about the whole thing stank. The fact that the drivers didn’t belong to the clan was a glaring suspicion. Had Reid harbored criminals in his midst? But why wait so long to steal?
Jonathon, missing with the first truck, had worked as a driver for the company for almost fifteen months now. Steven for six. Only the last missing driver had spent less than a month in his position.
Were the missing trucks part of a planned heist engineered from the inside? Yes, they’d found blood at the scenes, but it wasn’t too farfetched to wonder if someone planted it to throw them off the trail.
That was where the watching men came in. If this were the work of some transients, Travis wouldn’t run into any problems during his run. If, however, an outside force truly was looking to undermine his power base, then Reid wanted to know.
“I’ll have them in position well before the truck’s expected to run past. What about engaging if Travis is attacked?”
“If they can help, then by all means they’d better get their furry asses into gear right quick. Better yet, send them out armed.”