Dark and Dangerous: Clan of the Bear

By Madelaine Montague

***NEW** Connor and Kiran Artos are Mercs hired to rescue the partner of a top exec at HHR Industries, an American business operating in South America.

What their customer doesn’t realize is that they aren’t ordinary ex Special Forces Army Rangers. They’re bear shifters and that makes them even better at their jobs--and way more dangerous to piss off.

What they don’t realize is that they weren’t actually hired to save the partner--and they're seriously unhappy when they discover what they've been embroiled in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
• Release date: Oct 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005528683

Book preview

DARK AND DANGEROUS:

CLAN OF THE BEAR

By

Madelaine Montague

( c ) copyright by Madris DePasture writing as Madelaine Montague, September 2021

Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, September 2021

ISBN 978-1-60394-

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

Stealth wasn’t exactly their strong suit. Connor and Korin Artos were big men and under any circumstances that made it difficult to sneak up on an enemy. In the South American jungle—where they were currently working—that difficulty was directly proportional to the thickness of the jungle growth they had to wade through.

For that reason, they tended to stick to jungle paths even when they might have made a more direct connection between point A and point B by making a new path through the undergrowth—because they could manage stealth a hell of a lot better.

And, exposed or not, it actually wasn’t a problem for them.

Their hearing was excellent—due entirely to their heritage.

They had no trouble hearing a human, however good they were at stealth, and smelling them, long before there was a problem, giving them plenty of time to leave the trail and melt into the jungle—either to launch a surprise attack or to preserve their covert approach.

They had another advantage over the predators generally to be found in the jungle.

They had been expertly trained in every form of warfare by the U.S. Government as Army Rangers before they’d struck off on their own as Mercs.

Being Mercs paid better, and they hadn’t been thrilled with the leash the Army kept them on.

They’d had enough of that in the old country before they’d migrated to the U.S.

Not that the government back home exerted any influence upon them at all—it was the fact that the only way they could ‘blend’ in the old country was to wear human skin. There was no freedom to just be themselves. Bears had been wiped out in the old country for over a thousand years and they didn’t dare appear—any member of the clan—in their own skin for fear they’d have the entire country up in arms and trying to track them down.

In all honesty, they—Connor and Korin—didn’t understand why any of the clan stayed—or were drawn back to the homeland wherever they might wander.

Well, there was the little matter of finding a mate, but since neither of them felt any great rush to settle with a single female and make little cubs in their image, they figured a trip home could wait a bit.

Connor, in the lead, glanced up at the sky to gauge the time as they neared a rushing brook—which they could hear just a short distance from the path—and signaled a break to Korin.

They’d been walking for hours and Korin was definitely not against it—regardless of the urgency of their task.

Because the bastard that had hired them had allowed a criminal amount of time to elapse before he’d even called them in.

He figured if they didn’t stop soon, though, the bastards were going to hear them coming from his growling stomach.

When they’d found a spot near the water and settled, Connor dropped his pack, dug out a couple of trail bars and bit the first in half as he dragged his map out of his pocket to study it.

Korin took his canteen and Connor’s and refilled them at the brook and then returned and settled with his own protein bars.

Lifting his head after a moment, Connor sniffed the air and turned his head slowly.

Thinking he must have noticed something Korin echoed his movements and then frowned, wondering if Connor was pulling one on him. He didn’t hear or smell a damned thing.

We should be catchin’ up with tha bastard any time now, Connor said quietly when he was sure there was no one close enough to hear his voice.

It was one of the downsides to jungles or forests—whatever they were called. They prevented line of sight, but they magnified sounds.

Korin frowned. Somethin’ about this doesna feel right ta me.

Ye always say tha’, Connor muttered. It comes with tha job.

Korin’s lips tightened. And I wouldna ken this? he growled. I mean tha tale tha man wove fer us.

Connor nodded. I dinna like tha smell of him, neither, if ya want tha truth of it. I’m thinkin’ there’s a big lie there somewhere, but …. We’ll get paid. If I have ta choke it out of tha son-of-a-bitch.

It ain’t tha money tha’s botherin’ me, Connor.

Connor shook his head. He’d have nae reason ta set a trap fer us.

Korin studied his ‘elder’ brother—who was elder only by virtue of having been born first—with more than a little irritation. He shrugged it off after a few moment’s thought, however, with the reflection that Connor was as aware of the flaws in the tale as he was—and no more certain of what his instincts were warning him of. He was satisfied enough that they were working off the same page.

They made short work of the rations they’d allotted themselves and got up to go, stopping to search the jungle with their senses once more before they returned to the trail they’d been following.

As Connor had predicted, they came upon the encampment before another hour had passed and settled to studying the situation.

It didn’t take them five seconds to realize that absolutely nothing about the ‘picture’ was right.

There were maybe a dozen ‘locals’ camped in the clearing they’d found and all indications were that this group had not been there very long—a matter of days, maybe. They had camped on top of an older, more established camp that the brothers realized fairly quickly was the camp they were supposed to find—or at least had been told they would.

Two had become a dozen and now were down by one if the stinking corpse just off the campsite was anything to go by.

And they thought it was.

And there was a woman—being held captive—in the lean-to that had been hastily erected from local materials.

Connor and Korin exchanged a long look.

The woman damned sure wasn’t the kidnapper.

The man that had hired them had indicated that his partner had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom.

He hadn’t said a damned word about his partner being a female, but the body they’d found was white male. The other ‘rambos’ in the camp were local yokels.

They were damned if they could figure out why he’d lied—by omission at least—about his partner. Shouldn’t he have pointed that out immediately?

And who’d sent the new group?

They weren’t buying that they’d just stumbled upon the kidnapper.

Shaking it after a moment, they retreated a short distance to figure out the best tactic for removing the woman without risking getting her killed in a crossfire.

They had to get her out first, they decided.

Which was going to be difficult to say the least.

Because stealth really wasn’t their strong suit.

* * * *

Dana was exhausted from the terror alone that she’d endured since her capture.

She could barely force food down. She could barely sleep—couldn’t at all until sheer exhaustion dragged her from consciousness. And she was dehydrated from the sweltering heat.

To say nothing of the bug bites.

She hadn’t really been afraid—at first—when Eddy, her ex, had kidnapped her and hauled her off into the jungle. Sure he was a bastard—or he wouldn’t have been her ex—and he was a lot of other bad things—lazy and greedy included. But she hadn’t really believed that he would hurt her.

He was just looking for an easy payday. Easy money.

He was always looking for easy money.

The bastard thought manual labor was a Mexican farm worker.

She’d never figured out what was wrong with him that he seemed to think he shouldn’t work like the rest of the human race, but that was Eddy.

Mostly she was just pissed off at the inconvenience to begin with.

Then she’d discovered that his plot was to force her to sign over her shares in the company where she was COO—second only to the CEO Bart Brandon.

That discovery had sent a cold chill through her since it occurred to her forcefully and very quickly that the only way he could get away with the theft was by her death.

Thankfully, it occurred to her before she’d pointed that out.

Not that she thought he wouldn’t already have figured that out, but she

Reviews for Dark and Dangerous

[mintedrose · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The younger brother’s name was Korin at the beginning of the book. By the end of it, it was Kirin. The plot was okay but the story was choppy and not fleshed out. I had no idea what any of the characters looked like . Brothers were big because they are bear shifters, and they thought their mate was beautiful.