Warrior Bear: Satin Mountain Shifters, #3

By Serenity Dare

Satin Mountain Shifters

She's a city girl lost in the woods.

He's a lonely ex-Marine shifter.

 

Melinda

Her escape cost her nearly everything. She protected her sister and she was proud of that, but she was ashamed of pretty much everything else.

She packed what was left of her life and set out hiking the woods she had loved as a child. Her pilgrimage to the past is cut short when disaster strikes.  Soon she finds herself stranded: lost, cold, and soaking wet as darkness falls.

Worse, she is not alone.

 

Quentin

He's a warrior without a battle. He's not looking for love and if he was, it wouldn't be with a city girl.

When he crosses paths with a woman being stalked by two renegade shifters, he can't ignore his desire to protect her. There are dangers lurking in the forested shadows, dangers a city girl wouldn't understand.

He's finally found something worth fighting for, but can he win the bigger battle to gain her trust?

 

Could this be the girl who tames his Warrior Bear?

 

 

This is an open door, sexy shifter romance set in the forests of the Satin Mountains. It's a magical place where the past can be laid to rest, wounds can heal, and love just might conquer all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SMG Creative Works
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223462224

Book preview

Chapter

One

Melinda

Melinda stopped. A wheeze was developing in her chest. A gentle wind danced through the thick canopy of leaves above her. She leaned on her hiking stick, looked at the trees next to the trail.

White Basswood. Red Maple. Her father had taught her them all. When you’re scared, focus on the plants.

Hickory. Sassafras. See Papa, I remember.

She felt the weight of the phone in her pocket. Where it didn’t belong. She should have left it in the bowels of her backpack.

Red Bud. Trillium. Be proud of me, Papa.

She had been on the Heartwood Trail when she hit a spot with cell phone reception. The phone exploded with notification pings.

Why hadn’t she turned off the ringer? Why hadn’t she ignored it? Because she was hoping one of those messages was from Talia. None of them were.

They were all from him.

Wild Ginger. Mayapple.

She was supposed to ignore his messages. But she read them.

She got angry. She kept walking, stomping along the trail, fuming, thinking, tantrum-ing like a toddler. Until her asthma squeezed her lungs, forcing her to stop. As she gasped for air, she realized the trail had disappeared.

Bear markings on a Yellow Buckeye. The bears in this forest are kind, Papa had said. They help people.

The path she was on now wasn’t wide enough to be a human footpath. The undergrowth was crushed down. Pellet-shaped droppings littered the ground. This was a deer trail. Pay attention. When you are in the woods, you must always pay attention.

I’m sorry Papa.

The pack dug into her shoulders. It was new and overloaded. She was out of shape. And lost. Her equipment was untested, but she had her memories. Rhododendrons. Mountain Laurel.

Help me Papa.

She needed a place to rest: a fallen log, maybe a big rock. But all around her was green and growing tall. The undergrowth was tangled. The trees towered over her. There was only a deer trail in front of her.

The sun was dropping in the sky. She had to keep going. That was her new mantra: Keep going. Keep going.

It was quiet, so quiet. As if the world was holding its breath. Worried about what would happen next.

What would happen next is she would keep going. She would toughen up. Get un-lost. Get back in shape. She would break in this equipment and herself.

She would make her Papa proud.

Chapter

Two

Quentin

It was a great day to be a bear. He padded quietly through the woods, taking it all in. The air was heavy with the scents of early fall. Every blooming thing was sending off the last of its pollen before winter, seeding the spring to come. Berries ripened. Fruit matured.

Deer grazed on the greenery, releasing the sweet scent into the air, not unlike the smell of a freshly mowed suburban lawn. This was much lighter, but his sensitive bear’s nose didn’t need to be bludgeoned with a scent to be aware of it.

He emerged from the trees into an overlook. It still had the faint smell of human hikers but nothing fresh, so he sat and enjoyed the view of the mountain ridge across the ravine. At the bottom of the ravine was a feeder stream for the Daring River. He could hear the tumbling water rushing over the rocks below. He basked in the fading light of this glorious day.

Above him, the Satin Mountains rose and the trail he had been following grew steeper. In his human form, he would have remembered the trail name. But in this form, that wasn’t important information. He was leaving his human concerns behind for now. He was just a bear.

Until the wind shifted.

The scent it brought made his heart race and his bear nudged his dormant human side. Mate?

We don’t have a mate, said his human side.

He took a deep inhale.

Not our mate, just a female human.

A stressed female human.

Probably lost.

He moved closer to the edge of the clearing and peered down into the woods where the scent was coming from. Her backpack was too big. A city girl thinking she needed way more than she did.

City girl means lost girl.

She was near the edge of the ridge on a deer trail, so yeah, she was most likely lost.

Not our problem, said his human.

Mate? He scented the air again.

She smelled good. His human side, buried as it was in this form, agreed with his bear, but he couldn’t see himself with a city girl. She was heading his way, so he needed to fade back into the woods.

Shift? asked his bear hopefully.

His human laughed. We’re naked. Human girls prefer strange men they encounter in the woods to wear clothes, remember?

If he had wanted to interact with humans, he would have worn his Teffi-pack. The pack was named for his friend Teffi, who had invented a backpack that could shift with its owner. A simple invention born of a serious need, it allowed a bear to carry human paraphernalia like money and clothing. Or in Teffi’s case, firearms and survival supplies.

Saved her mate. She saved Ray.

After that, all the bears got packs. He had not worn his Teffi-pack on this trek, as he planned to avoid human interaction.

He watched as the girl came up the trail, muttering to herself. Naming things. Wild Ginger. Mayapple. Oh great, a book learner with no sense of the woods. And she talks to herself.

He was definitely avoiding this human.

To his left, the deer trail went back into the woods, heading upward. He shuffled and scratched the ground to make it open and passable. He widened the trail a bit, breaking overhanging branches, crushing down the encroaching foliage, and making the trail obvious.

If she paid attention. If the racket he was making didn’t scare her off. But she was too busy being a walking guidebook Bear markings on a Yellow Buckeye.

Oh-oh, he had forgotten he’d done that.

She’s not afraid.

His bear was right, there was no scent of fear. She identified the deep scratches he had made in that tree, and she wasn’t afraid.

Odd little city girl.

Dude, we turn into a bear. Who’s odd?

He kept working on the trail, making it passable. Hoping she would follow it. If she stayed on this path, she would intersect the marked hiking trail and the phone would work again. She’d either find her way out or call for help.

He came to the stream. He was above the overlook now where he had stopped to rest before his leisurely walk in the woods became a save-the-city-girl-from-herself mission. She was talking to herself again.

Keep going. Keep going.

He knew she would be tempted to cross the stream right here. But the water was deeper than it looked and the current was fast. He imagined her being dragged downstream, floating on that giant backpack. But she wouldn’t float, it would pull her under.

This is where the trail split. A short path went to the water. That’s the one she would want to take. What she needed to do was head north a little further where a footbridge would get her across the water and to the marked trail.

He smashed down the path north, so it was clearly the better choice.

Then, about a foot onto the short trail, he took a dump.

That ought to dissuade her. A big old pile of steaming bear poop. He could imagine her now saying Bear scat in that lyrical way she recited everything. Then she would turn north and west and be on her way.

Chapter

Three

Melinda

The trees parted, and the trail opened up to a grassy area. At last, a space to rest. She dropped the pack next to a patch of wildflowers. Taraxacum, she said out loud. The genus for dandelions, so it encompassed both the dandelions she recognized and their also-flowering cousins she did not.

A huge rock jutting from the earth offered a close-enough-to-comfortable seat. She wondered what kind of rock it was. Rocks had not been her father’s thing. Flora and fauna were. But now that missing information seemed important. As if it were rude to use the rock for her own purposes without at least being able to name it.

She was really losing it now. Alone in the woods, lost, driven mad by her failure to learn basic geology. She laughed at herself. Not out loud. That really would be crazy.

She took some breaths, shallow ones, and thought about digging out her inhaler. She didn’t need it, but best to have it in her jacket pocket if she did. Slow down, she said. Yes, she said it out loud. Slow down. Take deep breaths. The first one was difficult, but she could feel the tightness in her chest easing.

The view was magnificent. Mountains rising opposite her, across the valley. The sun still dropping. Don’t panic. Enjoy this. The sun was tossing reds and purples through the clouds like a child with a new paint set. It was breathtaking, but if she didn’t get moving, she would have to camp here tonight. She looked around. Not the worst idea.

She’d have to get water, though. Her supply was almost gone. She shouldered her pack. She would find water and hopefully find the trail again. If not, once she had water, she would backtrack to this spot. She’d be better prepared to find her way out in the daylight after a good night’s sleep. She was tempted to leave her pack, but that would commit her to backtracking. What if she found a better spot further on?

She shifted the pack on her back. The path was easy enough to follow. It was wider than the deer trail she had been following. The foliage had been recently trampled. Maybe she should have been afraid, but there was a scent in the air that was vaguely familiar and somehow comforting.

She paid attention now, focused on following the trail. One mistake in the woods can be overcome, Papa had said. Making two mistakes is dangerous. Make a third and it could be fatal. She wasn’t going to make even a second mistake.

She worked her way upward. Her asthma had eased. Perhaps having a plan had calmed her enough to let her lungs work properly.

She could hear the stream now. She would achieve her first goal: to get water. There was a side trail that turned toward the sound of the stream. The wider trail went on ahead. She could follow that in the morning. For now, she needed water and to set up camp for the night, before it got dark.

She turned onto the side trail and nearly stepped into a pile of bear scat. Shit! Then laughed at herself. That was the proper term for the pile, but she didn’t cuss. Well, not much.

The pile was between her and the water. She needed water. It would be foolish to walk away from what she needed. You mean like a job?