Fated Shifter Mates Read online

  Mated to the Clan

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  Contents

  From the Author

  One girl for every Bear Clan

  1. Ellie

  2. Zain

  3. Marcus

  4. Drew

  5. Cole

  6. Ellie

  7. Zain

  8. Marcus

  9. Drew

  10. Cole

  11. Ellie

  12. Zain

  13. Marcus

  14. Drew

  15. Cole

  16. Ellie

  17. Zain

  18. Marcus

  19. Drew

  20. Cole

  21. Ellie

  Afterword

  From the Author

  First and foremost, I’m so grateful to have you as a reader. Thank you. If you haven’t claimed your free copy of my previous release Mated to the Pack (Book I) [Please Click Here] to get your gift.

  If you’re interested in what’s going on in my life, you can join me on Facebook here.

  One girl for every Bear Clan

  When Ellison Harper moved into her own apartment the first thing she found out was that the new super was super hot.

  Not only that, but the only thing not hard about his roommates will be having to look at them.

  But a whole stable of hot guys living below her soon brings some complications as the guys’ shifter secrets begin to be revealed.

  Now she’s got a whole new world of paranormal and paramilitary trouble to contend with.

  Lucky for her, Zain, Marcus, Drew, and Cole are more than able to keep her safe.

  After all, once this bear clan gets a first taste of their true mate there isn’t anything that will threaten their chance to get a second, or third, or fourth….

  Ellie

  The air brakes of the bus hissed as the vehicle jolted. My head hit the seat before me, waking me from my travel-fevered sleep.

  “Ouch.”

  “Watch it, lady,” groused the passenger ahead of me.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I muttered. It wasn’t my fault the vehicle stopped suddenly.

  “What did you say?” said the man. He twisted and squinted at me angrily.

  “I said I pray to the good Lord I don’t have occasion to use the hunting knife in my backpack.” I gave him a sunshiny smile to put on a psycho air, but I also know bus drivers don’t play when it comes to disagreements. We could both get put off. Mr. Angry Man seemed aware of this too, and with a glance to the driver, he grunted and put his eyes forward.

  Reflexively, I fingered my mother’s locket, something she always wore, and now I did in memory of her. Her passing two months ago hit me hard. I missed her horribly and that I was running from my past once again did nothing for my mood.

  Buses are a long, hard way to get somewhere, but if you travel to the middle of nowhere and have no car of your own, they are a necessary evil. On either side on this two-lane highway is a wall of green that claimed the broken back of the Appalachian Mountains. The right side was mostly one long stretch of tree line that climbed the slopes of a mountain range eaten away by a half billion years of existence. Along the left, the land tumbled steeply into a one of the uncounted long lakes of the region. The only relief was the occasional house or a reddish-brown farm stand clinging to the side of the highway as if cutting into the interior represented some great danger. Every minute of the ride stretched out as if the Universe expected you to examine the beginning and end in infinite detail before you could pick up the next moment of time.

  That’s why my lids grew heavy, and I leaned my head between the crack of the seat and wall of the bus, cushioned by my jacket.

  “Hurry, Ainsley, hurry.”

  “Wha—” I’m half-asleep and my mother is trying to lift me, but I’m a big girl. Daddy said so. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

  “We’ve got to go now.”

  “Mrs. Lane, we have to hurry.”

  I stared in the eyes of the big man who stood next to Mommy. His clothes were dark, and he sort of looked like a policeman. The policeman came to school often, and he was nice. This man—I don’t like him. Mommy looked scared.

  A motorbike rumbled on the street. Daddy’s coming home.

  “Oh God,” Mommy gasped.

  “I’ll get her. You get to the van.”

  The big man picked me up, and I kicked and screamed. Daddy was coming home, and I wanted to see him. I was so upset and crying because the man was taking me away from my daddy that I forgot Ginger Bear.

  “Ginger Bear! Ginger Bear! I want my bear!” I screamed as the man put me in the black van and climbed in as Mommy snapped on my seatbelt.

  “We’ll get you another one,” she said.

  “Go!” called the man. The van lurched forward, and I screamed in my fright.

  My head hit the back of the forward seat again but it seemed now I reached my destination.

  “Clarkstown!” called the driver.

  I gathered my backpack and my jacket, checking twice before I walked away. Since that night, I always checked twice before I left a place. If I lost something, I might not get the chance to retrieve it again.

  Much of my life was like that. We moved more places than I could remember. I didn’t understand until I was older that the person we ran from was my father. I didn’t know what a bad man he was.

  Dangerous.

  Criminal.

  Wanted.

  Road weariness sizzled through my bones as I stepped shakily from the bus. The driver had pulled my luggage, and it sat forlorn on the ground.

  “Is that it?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He looked at me expectantly, and I dug into my pocket for a dollar, the last one I had. There was some money in my online account. But things looked grim in the one- street town, tenanted with one large building whose sign called it the General Store, and
a single gas station. I may not find an ATM to draw out some cash here.

  Maybe it’s better that way.

  He glanced at the dollar and twisted his mouth in disapproval but screw him. I wasn’t flush with cash, and I would not spend it like I was.

  “Thanks for a pleasant ride,” I said as I picked up the luggage. He grumbled and climbed the stairs to his seat. There wasn’t even a rest stop for him and the other passengers before he rolled out leaving me behind.

  With a groan of tires on gravel, the bus pulled away, and a man stood there at the doorway of the gas station. It wasn’t hard to notice him. Apparently, they grow them big here in Maine because this guy was six-one of solid muscle with a jaw square enough to cut glass. His green eyes twinkled from under a baseball cap.

  “You must be Ellie.”

  “I am.”

  He walked forward and stuck out his hand. I offered mine, and he took it, covering my tiny hand completely, but instead of squeezing it, sheltered it with its warmth. I looked up into his eyes and saw only welcome.

  “Cole Clark.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Clark.”

  “Cole.”

  “Ellie Harper.”

  He smiled slowly and broadly as if he hid a secret. “I thought we established that already.”

  My eyes narrowed. This guy wasn’t poking fun at me, was he? And no. I am not nervous. There is no reason for me to be even if the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen is holding my hand. Those butterflies fluttering in my stomach are from too much coffee and too little food in the past three days.

  “I’ll take that,” he said, releasing my hand and reaching for my luggage exactly at the same time as my stomach squelched its underfed state.

  “Our next stop is the General Store. You best stock up on whatever eats you want because I only come into town once a week.”

  “Um, ah,” I said, my face turning red because it suddenly washed over me how ignorant I was about my present surroundings. “Does it take debit cards?”

  He smiled amused by my naivete.

  “Debit cards?” he asked as if he never heard of them.

  Oh shit. What the hell would I do now?

  The door of the gas station opened, and a man bigger than Cole in a sheriff’s uniform stepped out holding a cup of coffee and walked to us. He was six-two at least, with arms that look liked they’d seen plenty of time in the gym or hauling logs. One never knew in the middle of nowhere in Maine.

  “This man bothering you, ma’am?” he said with an air of authority that did not brook disrespect.

  “Sheriff,” said Cole coolly. “Ms. Harper just asked if the General Store took debit cards.”

  “And you asked what debit cards are,” he said with a rumble of disapproval.

  Cole gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.

  “So, you are bothering her. No wonder the census is down at the lodge if you keep harassing the customers. And you the manager. Apologize to Ms. Harper.”

  Wow. Law-and-order in Clarkstown extended to enforcing courtesy. This sheriff was a hard-ass.

  Instead Cole chuckled.

  “Ms. Harper, meet Sheriff Zain Clark, my cousin and co-owner of the Clarkstown Lodge.”

  “Damn straight,” rumbled Zain.

  “Nice to meet you, Sheriff.”

  “Call me, Zain. We will share digs.”

  Sharing? What?

  The sheriff’s eyes glinted with mischief, and I got that for the second time in two seconds I got played.

  “Who’s pulling her leg now?” said Cole with exasperation in his voice. “You have your own cabin, Ms. Harper. In fact, I’ve started up the wood stove already so it will be nice and cozy when we get there. No, Zain, and my other two cousins, Marcus and Drew, live at the main lodge with me. But since guests usually spend most of their time in the lodge, it’s easy to think we are living together. But don’t worry, Zain has promised not to harass the guests this season.”

  “Says who?” said Mr. Law-and-Order with a smile.

  “Let’s go, Ellie, before he cuffs us for his own amusement.”

  “He does that?”

  “He wishes,” snorted Cole.

  “I’ll see you later,” said Zain smiling. “Oh, and to answer your question, Ms. Harper, the cashless society follows us even into the depth of Maine’s woods. Your debit card works at any of Clarktown’s fine establishments.”

  “Yeah,” said Cole. “All three.”

  Zain

  It was a busy day, so there was no time to think about the adorable woman that rented a cabin from us. I forgot what Cole said about how long she'd stay. Cole told me she wanted a quiet place to work. Most of our female guests were twenty years older. Now I wish I listened more because I could see where five foot-seven of blond hair and curves could spice things up.

  I purposely ignored that this was precisely what I berated Cole for regularly. He fell in love at least once a summer and built a sizeable little black book for hook-ups. Somehow the women never stuck to Cole long-term material. But they would need to leave city life behind and move in with a backwoodsman and his three cousins. So, Cole remained the "summer attraction" for the lodge, a role that we all disparaged and secretly envied.

  Well, everyone but me.

  No.

  Really.

  I pulled the cruiser over to the General Store which doubles as the government center of our little town. The post office is there, as well as a single room we share with the town clerk, Mrs. Ahern, who only kept office hours three days a week. Drew was there, going through the mail.

  “Hey,” he said brightening when he spotted me. “Have you heard about the bear and the stripper?”

  “Probably,” I said as I lifted the hinged part of the counter that let me into the desk area. “You've regaled me with every one of your jokes at least five times.

  “Then, why did the turtle cross the road?”

  I picked up the mail and flipped through it. “Ask Marcus. He’s the game warden of the family.”

  “You’re no fun,” complained Drew, and I arched an eyebrow at his remark.

  “Okay, here’s a new one. A little law enforcement humor.”

  I sat at my desk and pressed the power button on my computer. "Go ahead," I said, hoping he kept this short. If Drew gets the jokes out his system now, my cousin will slow down for the rest of the day.

  “Get this. A man breaks into a home in the middle of the night and searches for the valuables with a flashlight when he hears a voice say, ‘Jesus is watching you.’ Startled, the man looks around quickly but doesn't see anything, so he continues his search. He goes to pick up a stereo when he hears again, ‘Jesus is watching you.'

  “Now freaking out, the thief scans the room more carefully for the source of the warning and sees a parrot on a perch in the corner. The thief then whispers, ‘Was that you?’

  “The parrot replies, ‘Yes, it was.’

  “Amused with the bird, the thief says, ‘Thanks for the warning, but I'm an atheist. So, what's your name?’ And the parrot answers, ‘Moses.’

  “Now laughing out loud, the thief asks, ‘What kind of people name a parrot Moses?' And the parrot replies, ‘The same kind that name their Rottweiler Jesus.'"

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “What? Not even a little funny?”

  “No,” I said. “Hey, did you pull the recent most-wanted off the FBI site?” I stared at one face, a one percenter biker on the run for drug trafficking, and he seemed familiar. I glanced at the name—Xavier Lane. Nope. Don’t know him But I sent it to the laser printer so I can stick it on the bulletin board.

  “Like one of them will show up here.”

  "I don't know. It's easy to get lost on the Trail. Marcus told me last night that some hikers complained to him about some suspicious characters hanging out on the Trail."

  “Uh, huh,” Drew said, unconvinced. “One. It’s too damn cold at night right now to sleep up there. Two. Hikers aren’t likely to come across hard
core mountain men waiting for someone to find them suspicious.”

  “That is exactly what I told Marcus. But you can’t be too careful.”

  “Did you see the request from Dunlop County for extra help during their Motorbike Festival?”

  I had pushed the request aside. We are a two-man operation for four thousand, though mostly uninhabited, square miles. I didn’t like sending one of us off to another county.

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to go.”

  “No.”

  “Things have been quiet here, and to tell you the truth, I’m a little bored.”

  “In that case—no.”

  “Alpha asshole,” Drew grumbled, turning back to his computer.

  The office door pushed opened, and Marcus entered.

  “Hi, Stumpy,” said Drew in rare form today. “Did you hear the one—”

  Marcus drew the unfortunate nickname of Stumpy since he went to the SUNY School of Forestry. The denizens of that school tended to suffer that nickname.

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t even—”

  “Yeah, I did. You talk in your sleep. Loudly. Right through the walls.”

  “I do not,” said Drew.

  “Suit yourself. But I now know your passwords for your phone and your laptop.”

  “You do not.”

  Marcus chuckled. “But now, just to be sure, you’ll have to change them anyway.”