GRAY BACK GHOST BEAR

(GRAY BACK BEARS, BOOK 3)

By T. S. JOYCE

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 Other Books in This Series

This book was not written as a standalone.

The author recommends to read these stories in order for optimal reader enjoyment.

Gray Back Bad Bear (Book 1)

Gray Back Alpha Bear (Book 2)

Gray Back Broken Bear (Coming Soon)

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 Gray Back Ghost Bear

Copyright © 2015 by T. S. Joyce

Copyright © 2015, T. S. Joyce

First electronic publication: August 2015

T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoycewrites.wordpress.com

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of
this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or
print, without the author’s permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party
websites or their content.

Published in the United States of America

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 Chapter One

Good for them.

Jason Trager climbed down from the treehouse and watched his
alpha, Creed, and his new mate Gia walk toward the Grayland Mobile Park,
hand in hand. He couldn’t take his eyes off their entwined fingers as they
talked and joked with the other Gray Backs.
Damn, he wished he and Tessa had managed even a fraction of the
respect Creed and Gia had for each other. Things sure would’ve worked out
differently. Tessa. Jason snarled his lip and ripped his gaze away from
Creed and Gia’s clasped hands. Not everyone who found a mate got the
happy ending. He would know. His ending was a life of loneliness and a
crew of blood-thirsty, broken Gray Backs.
“Man, I’m leaving this place,” Clinton muttered beside him.
He always threatened that, so Jason ignored the half-assed threat and
sauntered around a jagged tree stump. The poor pine had probably been a
casualty of Beaston dragging his singlewide up the trail and into the woods
to avoid living with the rest of the crew.
Clinton spat on a pile of leaves. “I’m serious this time. Willa and
Gia are awesome, but you saw what women did to the Ashe Crew.”
Jason sighed and glared at Clinton whose blond brows were jacked
up with seriousness.
“We’ll all be mated in a year,” Clinton said, blue eyes gone round.
“It was one thing having Willa come into the crew, but now Gia? I’m
calling it now. If I stay here, I’m as good as whipped.”
“Then leave,” Jason said. “See who will take you.”
 “Harrison would take me.”
“You gonna be a tree cutter now, Clinton? You gonna be a
Boarlander? You gonna abandon Creed who took you in when no one else
would?”
Easton appeared out of the trees like an apparition, green eyes eerie
and glowing as he walked beside them. “Harrison will kill you as soon as he
finds out how fucked in the head you are, Clinton. So go ahead and leave.
Maybe I’d go to your funeral.”
“You would?” Clinton asked in a shocked tone.
“No.” Easton jogged back into the woods and disappeared behind an
old spruce.
Jason laughed. Easton was bat-guano crazy, but it was funny
watching Clinton get all choked up about him going to his funeral.
Clinton shoved Jason in the shoulder and stomped off in the
direction of his trailer. “Asshole,” he muttered.
Jason made a shocked sound in his throat. “I’m an asshole? Easton
just talked about Harrison killing you, but he doesn’t get in trouble?”
“He doesn’t know any better!” Clinton yelled right before the screen
door to his trailer slammed loudly behind him.
That right there was bull crap at its finest because Jason would bet
his chainsaw that Easton knew a lot more than anyone gave him credit for.
With a deep rattling growl in his throat, he tromped from the dirt
path to the white gravel that surrounded their semi-circle of trailers. Clinton
had been a pissy dick on and off since Willa had been Turned but, damn,
couldn’t he just let them have a good, drama-free hour? This was the
problem with the Gray Backs. They’d had this cool moment in the
treehouse Easton had built for the cub Gia was carrying in her belly, and
they’d all been getting along great, happy that Creed and Matt had come
home after a couple of days in Louisiana with their mates. Everything was
great, but Gray Backs had a tendency to stomp on good moods. Easton with
his death speech and Clinton with his “mantrum,” as Willa called them.
Now, Jason’s mood was headed nowhere good.
He made a ticking sound behind his teeth as he threw the door to his
trailer open and headed straight for the fridge. This morning at the landing
before Creed and Matt returned had sucked as he tried to keep from killing
Easton, who picked a fight every thirty seconds in order for his inner beast
to claim fourth in the crew. Jason didn’t even care! He’d already told Easton
he could be fourth in the crew because, hell on earth, it wasn’t like they
were fighting for second. Easton was challenging him for one of the lowest
ranks. It didn’t make any damned sense, and Jason didn’t care where he
ranked. All he cared about was keeping his bear sane today, tomorrow, and
the next day, too, if he was lucky enough.
He’d managed to survive a couple of days on the landing without
Creed or Matt there to break up the fights, but it had been close. And when
Creed had come back home and the crew had been reunited again, dang it
all, that had been an awesome reunion. And he’d been mooning over how
happy he was for Creed, finding a woman who was his perfect match, and
then Clinton had to go and ruin his happy thoughts.
Jason threw open the refrigerator and yanked a beer out of the front.
With a clink, he popped the cap and dropped it on the floor like a slob—
because Tessa had hated that, and he found pleasure in doing things that
would’ve pissed off his late mate.
She Turned you, and then she left you.
The thought brought a chill up his neck like snow being dumped
into the back of his jacket. His arm hairs stood on end, and his scalp itched
with instinct. Inside, his bear snarled a warning.
 He swallowed his gulp of cold beer and slid a glance over his
shoulder.
Yep, there she was.
“Hey, baby,” Tessa said from her seat on the other side of his two-
person dining table. “Did you miss me?”
“What are you doing here?” he gritted out, closing the refrigerator
door so he could lean on it casually and pretend he wasn’t staying as far
away from her as possible.
“You know what I’m doing here, lover. I’m here because you want
me to be.”
“No.” Jason shook his head slowly. “I really don’t.”
Tessa’s copper-colored hair twitched with her empty laugh, and her
hazel eyes turned icy. “Liar.” She tapped her forehead. “I can hear your lies.
I always knew you best, baby.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Tessa leaned back in her chair and angled her head. She looked
predatory with her hard eyes, but then he couldn’t remember her ever
looking soft.
“Poor Jason, living with all this guilt. Living in a bachelor crew of
crazies and destined to die at his alpha’s hand. Or claw, I should say.” She
lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. “A murderer deserves nothing less.”
“Fuck off, Tessa.” Jason gripped the neck of his beer in a strangle
hold and headed for the door. He didn’t have to listen to this again.
“You don’t leave until I tell you to leave! Walk out that door, and I’ll
come after you. Then what will your precious Gray Backs think when they
see you talking to the air? Hmm? What will Creed think when he sees how
crazy you really are? Murderer.”
 The word brushed across his ears like a frosty wind, and he stopped
in his tracks, just in front of the door. “Stop it.”
“Murderer.”
“You left me!” Jason yelled as he turned on her. “You left me for
him. You weren’t mine to protect anymore!”
Tessa screamed a blood-curdling sound, her mouth opening wider
and wider as her skin melted away from her face. Flesh gave way to
muscle, which gave way to blood and bone, and then Tessa was nothing but
ash. And then she was nothing at all.
Jason squatted down and covered his ears as the scream faded away.
He was no murderer, but that didn’t stop the haunting.
He’d let his mate down, and now Tessa was caught in the in-
between, trapped by the veil that stood between this world and the next.
His mate was dead, but not gone—never gone.
Tessa Trager, his maker, was now his own personal ghost bear.

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 Chapter Two

She could do this. Georgia was a self-sufficient, outdoorsy, gun-

toting, poacher-hunting renegade park ranger descended from a long line of
tough-as-steel Ames women. Cattle-women, peacekeepers, and single
moms dotted her female heritage, so why was she stopped on the side of the
road steadying her hands before she drove the last straightaway into the
Grayland Mobile Park?
Because of bear shifters, that’s why.
She wasn’t afraid of much, but she was definitely afraid of bears.
Grizzlies to be precise, and her trepidation came from a year-long internship
in Alaska assisting a game warden near Kodiak. Now, Kodiak bears were
gnarly, gigantic, aggressive animals made entirely of weapons. They were
able to smite out a puny human with one slap of their ferocious claws, and
here she was about to willingly drive into a camp of registered, real-life
bear shifters. She’d sworn up and down after Alaska she would never work
around brown bears again. Only koala bears, or little sun bears, or for
freak’s sake, black bears sounded like a walk in the park after what she’d
seen on Kodiak Island. Yet, she was about to introduce herself to a
lumberjack crew of notoriously aggressive grizzly shifters.
They lived way out here in the wilds of Wyoming for a reason.
Likely, they didn’t dig visitors, but this was part of the territory she’d
signed on to protect, and she wasn’t going to let her boss, Damon Daye,
down by pussyfooting around the bear shifters who inhabited the area. Her
success as a ranger here depended on a good, professional working
relationship with these people-beasts. And dang it all, these jobs were hard
to land, and she was ready to settle down somewhere for longer than a year.
Her fear of bears was standing in the way of making a home, and she
needed to get over it. Fast.
She popped down the visor mirror and studied her pallid
complexion. God, she even looked scared right now. She sniffed herself, but
she smelled the same way she always did. Powder fresh deodorant and the
hair product she used to define her curls, because goodness knows, she
needed all the help she could get with her wild sandy-colored mane. Bears
could smell things regular people couldn’t, though, and right this very
moment, she probably smelled like terror and didn’t even know it.
Be the lion, not the gazelle.
She narrowed her eyes and let off a growl, then slammed the mirror
closed. She could do this. She was a park ranger, and she was a badass.
Lead foot on the gas of her old, beat-up Jeep Wrangler, she blasted
down the dirt road toward the trailer park. It was November, so the chilly
air that blew through her open windows stung her hands as she gripped the
steering wheel. She’d have to button up the old Jeep for winter soon.
A wooden sign hung over the white gravel road. Someone with an
eye for detail had carved Grayland Mobile Park into the rustic sign in
perfectly spaced block letters. And as she passed under it and got her first
glimpse of the trailer park, she huffed a surprised laugh. This wasn’t like
the one she’d grown up in. Five trailers sat in a semi-circle around a large,
communal fire pit. Four of them had new roofs and fine shingles down the
side of them, giving them a cabin feel. The one on the left side, though…
Now, that one felt more familiar. It was dilapidated and old. The cream
paint was chipping, and the green shutters had seen better days. Even the
house number, 1010, was lopsided and barely hanging on. If she ignored the
sprawling porch off to the side, it looked a lot like the singlewide she’d
lived in until she was eighteen. The mountains behind the park blocked the
sinking sun, and shadows stretched across the patch of grass she had parked
her Jeep in. Georgia cut the engine. It would be dark soon, and she mentally
choked herself for stalling so long to come up here.
A man walked out of one of the middle trailers, the screen door
banging loudly behind him as he jogged down the stairs with a large plate
of raw steaks. Did bear shifters eat raw meat? She should’ve researched
them more. She tracked his short journey to the communal fire pit. The man
was very handsome. Short, dark hair matched his chocolate-colored eyes.
His face was clean-shaven and his cheekbones sharp, so it was easy to see
he was talking to himself, or perhaps singing too low for her to hear. He
was tall, but not as brawny as she’d imagined bear shifters would be. She’d
expected hairy, bulky men, but this one wasn’t like that at all. On closer
inspection, the sloping curves of his defined arm muscles pressed hard
against the gray, thin, long-sleeved shirt he wore over his medium-wash
blue jeans. And the way his waist tapered inward made his shoulders look
much broader.
He opened a grill that was bricked in near the fire pit and jammed a
spatula into the air, then said something sharp to the space beside him. Who
was he talking to? And if he was a shifter, why hadn’t he used his animal
senses to notice she was here? Perhaps their hearing and instincts weren’t as
good as the Kodiak bears she’d dealt with.
Georgia pushed open her door, ignoring the hairs that were rising on
the back of her neck. She had a gun. She was safe.
The man spun so fast he blurred, and those eyes she’d thought had
been dark were suddenly as silver as the back of a minnow. “What the
fuck?” he snarled out.
 Lovely. And terrifying because his voice didn’t sound entirely
human.
But when his silver eyes locked dead center on hers, she gasped and
froze. He looked…not familiar exactly, but not like a stranger either. His
face took on the slack look she probably wore right now. His dark eyebrows
relaxed out of their frown, and his clenched jaw eased open. His breath
hitched as he straightened his spine and narrowed his blazing eyes. “Who
are you?”
She swallowed hard once, then twice, stalling so her voice wouldn’t
come out shaky and scared when she spoke. She cleared her throat and
approached him slowly. “I’m Georgia Ames.”
The man backed up a step, so she locked her legs against any further
forward momentum. She was going to offer her hand for a shake, but
maybe bear shifters didn’t like touch. Or maybe they greeted each other
differently than humans did, she didn’t know.
The man jerked his attention to the space beside him he’d been
talking to earlier and looked around as if he were searching for someone.
With a baffled look on his face, he scanned the entire trailer park before his
eyes landed back on her. He studied her uniform.
“You some kind of game warden? We don’t poach here. Anything
we hunt, we do in season and we buy licenses.”
“No. Yes.” She cleared her throat again and tried to steady her
unraveling nerves. “I’m a park ranger hired by Damon Daye to watch over
his mountains, but I’ll be serving as a type of game warden, too. He’s been
having some poaching problems.”
“I already told you. We don’t poach.”
“No, I’m not accusing you. I’m just here to introduce myself. I’ll be
working all over this place and didn’t want you and your…people…to think
I was trespassing. I’m going over to meet the other lumberjack clans
tomorrow.”
“Crews.”
“I’m sorry?”
The man looked around again with a troubled expression. “We’re
called crews, not clans.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
The silence grew awkward as they stared at each other in the waning
evening light.
The man shifted his weight from side to side and twitched his head
toward the mountains. “My alpha and crew are almost here if you want to
stay and meet them. Today is my day off. Their shift is done, so they’re
headed home right now. It’s not safe for you to come up in these mountains
unannounced from here on, though. It’s different with the Boarlanders and
Ashe Crew. Gray Backs don’t deal with surprise visits from women as
well.” The man scratched the back of his neck and shook his head. “Or
visits from anyone for that matter.”
“Who were you talking to earlier?” Georgia blurted out. The fierce
look on his face made her wish she could swallow those words back down,
but they were out there now. Shoot.
“Nobody.” The man’s narrowed eyes began to fade to the dark,
human color again as he dragged his gaze down her body and back up with
a thoughtful expression. “You want to stay for dinner?”
“Are you going to point that spatula at me the whole time?”
The man looked down at his weapon of choice and dropped it to his
side. “Sorry.”
“And you never told me your name, so I feel weird about staying for
dinner with a complete stranger.”
 “Lady, this ain’t a date.”
Georgia gulped. “Of course…” She pursed her lips as heat blazed up
her neck. “I didn’t… Maybe I should go and come back tomorrow to meet
everyone.” She was backing away slowly as mortification pitched her voice
up an octave. “It was rude of me to show up right at dinner time.”
“Jason. Jason Trager. Now I’m not a stranger, so you can eat with
us.”
“Oh, I don’t eat raw meat, anyway.”
Jason snorted. “Neither do I, Ranger. You just snuck up on me
before I started cooking.”
“Oh.” More blushing. More mortification, and all she wanted to do
was flee. Not only because she was losing all semblance of professionalism
with this man, but he was so intimidatingly attractive and was staring at her
so directly, her tongue felt like it was tripping over itself every time she
spoke. Spending an entire meal with him was an infinitely bad idea.
Jason canted his head. “You smell strange. Not scared, but
something like that. Do I frighten you?”
“Bears frighten me.” Shoot again. Why had she blurted that out?
Stupid mouth shut up.
The corner of his lips lifted slowly in a crooked grin, and she
imagined her ovaries were exploding like fireworks.
“Good,” he said in a deep tenor. “You should be.” He gestured to a
plastic chair near the grill and gave her his back.
Georgia squeezed her eyes tightly closed and wished she could think
up a good enough excuse to bow out of dinner. Nothing came to mind,
though, so she was trapped with the scary, sexy bear-man. She zipped up
her dark brown puff jacket and sank to the edge of the chair as Jason turned
on the grill.
 Even from here, she could feel something powerful rolling off him.
Some electric current that filled the space between them. Jason kept his face
carefully turned away from her as he set the steaks on the grill.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” she asked.
Jason shot her a suspicious glare and walked away. Okaaay. He was
gone for a few minutes, but came back with a couple of beers and a plate of
corn and asparagus on foil. He popped the top on one of the drinks and let
the cap fall to the ground. He handed the bottle to her before doing the same
to his.
“Thanks,” she said on a breath. The nerves were back, all fluttering
around in her stomach like a hive of angry bees.
After taking a long sip from the cold glass bottle, she snuggled
deeper into her jacket.
“You cold?” Jason asked gruffly without looking at her.
“Uh, a little. I think.”
“You think?”
“I have chills, but maybe it’s because…you’re…” Aw, friggin’ A,
her mouth had a mind of its own.
“I’m what?”
Bone-deep terrifying. “Intimidating.” The last of the word wrenched
up an octave, and her lion status plummeted to field mouse.
“Hmm,” he rumbled, the sound more a growl than a human word.
Another chill blasted across her skin despite her thick coat.
“Where are you from, Ranger?” Jason asked as he checked the
underside of one of the steaks.
“All over. I grew up in Big Canoe, Georgia, though. I moved away
from there when I was eighteen and spent a year in Montana, then a year in
South Carolina, then Alaska, then another year in Texas, and oh my gosh,
you can tell me to stop talking at any time. I’m a rambler, Mr. Trager.”
He didn’t answer. Maybe he wasn’t even listening. He just kept
sipping his beer and checking the food as if she wasn’t even there. Okay
then.
“It’s just I don’t go on a lot of social calls, and I’m new in town, and
I’ve never met a bear shifter. I’m camped out at a ranger station Mr. Daye
set up, but I don’t know anyone yet, and I was hoping to make a good
impression on you and your clan. Your crew! Sorry.”
“Damon Daye hired you?” Ah, so he was listening.
“Yes. Some animals were shot illegally on his property, so he put
out an ad. It took me two weeks of phone interviews to land this job.”
Jason slid her a thoughtful look and nodded his head. “Congrats.”
He leaned over and clinked his bottle against hers.
She smiled and ducked her chin so he wouldn’t see the heat in her
cheeks. Then she took another swallow. “Thanks.” She bobbed her head
back and forth and admitted, “You’re the first person to congratulate me.”
“So your name is Georgia and you’re from Georgia. Who made that
decision?”
“My dad.” Before he went to prison. He gave her a name and then
busted on out of her life because he couldn’t seem to stop robbing liquor
stores like a super-winner. “He wasn’t the brightest apple of the bunch.”
“Mmm. Well, I like your name.”
“You do?” God, why did she sound like a teen with a crush? “I
mean, you do. Because my name is awesome.” And she didn’t need the
approval of some bear shifter—sexy or not.
Jason flipped the steaks, then shut the grill. He leaned on a sturdy
table, one arm locked, the other gripping the neck of his beer. His leg was
crossed over the other, and he looked like the epitome of confident male as
he lifted his chin and studied her.
“You don’t smell like fear anymore, Ranger. Now you smell like
arousal. You like what you see when you look at me?”
Her eyes bugged out of her head, and her heart was pounding so
hard it was threatening to eject itself from her chest cavity. “I’m sorry?”
“Do you. Like what you see. When you look at me?” He said it slow
in a deep timbre that warmed her middle.
Unable to speak while trapped in his dark gaze like this, she nodded
once.
Jason opened his mouth to respond, but froze with his ear to the
gravel road that led through the trailer park and into the mountains. He
frowned and settled his gaze back on her. “Don’t smell scared around
Easton, okay?”
“Who’s Easton?”
“You’ll see, just…don’t be scared. You’ll set him off.”
Wait, she didn’t want to set off anyone. Jason was scary enough, and
he was being perfectly cordial. Georgia stood and gripped her beer. “Should
I leave?”
“Fuck, Ranger, now you smell terrified.”
“I can’t help it. I worked around grizzlies in Alaska, and it was
scary, and when I took this job, I didn’t realize I’d be working closely with
brown bears again, and you are practically electric and—”
Jason yanked her arm forward, and his lips crashed onto hers.
Pulling her close, he angled his head and thrust his tongue into her mouth.
Shocked to stillness, Georgia wondered if any of this was real. The chill had
disappeared and was replaced by a staggering warmth that heated her blood.
He was like a furnace, pressing a heatwave against her. Jason’s lips softened
against hers, and the next stroke of his tongue was gentler. Squaring up to
her, his hands slid up her neck and cupped her cheeks.
Melting. She was melting against him. Melting to nothing as she
leaned heavily against him. Dang, it had been so long since she’d been
kissed, and never in her life like this.
Jason sucked gently on her bottom lip and eased back. “There,” he
murmured with a slow smile. “That’s better.”
He pulled away so fast she had to catch herself from falling forward.
And then he was removing steaks from the grill as though he hadn’t just
kissed her silly. Panting, she fell back into the plastic chair and stared at the
set of headlights headed down the mountain toward the trailer park. They
flickered through the trees like lightning bugs, growing closer by the
second.
Her panic was nowhere to be found. All she could feel was the
slightly drunken numbness that only came with several shots of whiskey.
Holy moly, that man could kiss. But she’d meant to be professional, and
kissing a stranger she was supposed to build a working acquaintance with
was definitely not that. She should leave.
“I should go. Thank you for the beer and the…lips.” She fluttered
her fingertips in front of her mouth and stumbled away, knocking the chair
over as she tripped to escape.
“I thought you were supposed to meet the crew.”
“I am. Was. I’ll come back tomorrow.” Or never again.
Jason followed slowly. “Let me feed you,” he said in a strange,
rumbling voice. His eyes were lightening to the color of the moon.
“No, no, I’ve lost my appetite. Stop right there!” She held out her
hands. “You’re making me feel funny. Using your werebear magic
seduction powers or something. This isn’t me. I don’t just kiss strangers.
I’m dating someone!” Okay, dating was an exaggeration. She’d accepted an
invite to grab coffee with one of the locals named Bill Harris, but that
seemed much healthier than whatever was happening between her and
Jason. Too fast, too fiery hot, and right now she wanted to drop her panties
and get laid in his love-shack trailer. Bad ideas all around.
“Seduction powers?” His smile turned flattered. “I’ve still got it
then.”
“What? Was I some sort of an experiment? Yeah, I guess you still
have the extreme hotness you’ve probably always possessed, so
congratulations. You’ve realized your sexpot potential again.” At the
expense of her sanity. Because clearly she’d lost her danged mind around
this man.
Another flattered smile from him, and she screeched and spun for
her Jeep. She wasn’t doing this—feeding Jason’s ego.
But when she reached for the door handle, he was there, leaning
against her door as if he’d been there all along. Her heart lurched into her
throat, and she let off a scream. Jason hunched into himself as if her shrill
shriek had hurt him. He clamped his hand over her mouth, and now he’d
really done it. She kicked his shin and bit his hand.
“Shit!” He yanked away from her as she pulled her gun from the
holster on her hip.
“Don’t touch me again.”
“Easy there, Ranger,” Jason murmured, lifting his hands in
surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you. Put the gun down.”
“What’s going on here?” a man’s voice echoed through the clearing.
Georgia skimmed her gaze to the left where a group of people were
gathering near them. She uncocked the gun and slid it back into its place at
her hip, then shoved past Jason. Nodding at the crew, four men and two
women, she said, “My name’s Georgia Ames, and I came to introduce
myself as the new ranger around here. You all have a nice night now.”
Furious and embarrassed, she yanked open the door of her ride and
slammed it closed behind her. Jason stood back, looking baffled as she
turned the engine and backed away from him and the others. She pulled the
Jeep around and sped off, glancing back only once into her rearview.
Jason Trager had his hands linked behind his head as he watched her
drive away.
The stabbing pain in her chest told her he was even more dangerous
than she’d imagined.
And why was she crying? He’d kissed her, not stabbed her. Sure,
Jason was wielding a raw power she couldn’t even begin to understand, but
he hadn’t been cruel. He’d just surprised her with that kiss, and his speed.
But clamping his hand over her mouth like she was someone to be shushed
had crossed a line. She was so mixed up.
As she rounded a bend, a woman stood in the middle of the road,
illuminated by Georgia’s headlights. She gasped and slammed on the brake,
but she was going too fast. The woman’s red hair was snarled and knotted,
and her eyes hollow. She didn’t look afraid, though, as Georgia skidded
sideways. She looked angry.
Georgia closed her eyes just as she catapulted into the woman, but
there was no impact. There was no noise or vibration that told her she’d hit
the woman. There was nothing at all.
The Jeep rocked to a stop, and a sob clawed its way up Georgia’s
throat as she gripped the wheel and frantically scanned the road for the
body. Besides a cloud of travel dust, the street was empty. Chest heaving,
Georgia turned to check the other side of her Jeep where the woods met the
gravel.
 The woman was sitting in the front seat, staring at her with blazing
silver eyes—eyes the same color as Jason’s.
Terror froze Georgia in place as the woman’s lip lifted in a feral
snarl.
“Never come back here again,” the woman hissed out in a bone-
chilling whisper. “He’s mine.” The last word cracked like lightning and
echoed through the Jeep as the woman disappeared in a cloud of gray
smoke.
Tears streamed down Georgia’s face as she fumbled her foot onto
the gas, then she sped away from the woods of Grayland Mobile Park as
fast as her ride would carry her.

OceanofPDF.com
 Chapter Three

Georgia was beautiful, but that wasn’t what had Jason’s head
spinning as she pulled away from the trailer park. When she was there,
Tessa had disappeared. For the few minutes he had talked to the curvy, sexy
park ranger, he hadn’t been afraid of Tessa showing up. He’d almost felt
sane for a little while.
And now she was gone.
“Dude, why was she pointing a gun at you?” Matt asked. It was full
dark now, and the outdoor light strands that illuminated the trailer park cast
one side of his face in shadows.
“I like her,” Willa quipped with a big grin on her face.
Jason made a ticking sound behind his teeth. “You would,” he
muttered.
“Why, Jason?” Creed asked. “What did you do to her?”
“I kissed her, okay? I kissed her, and it pissed her off.” At least he
thought so. She’d seemed to be into their little make-out session, but
apparently he’d been mistaken. More proof he didn’t know jack about
women.
“Do you want me to bring her back here?” Easton asked, his green
eyes blazing as he looked at the road Georgia had disappeared down.
“What? No. She doesn’t belong here, and I don’t want anything to
do with her.” Lies, and if he could hear the false note in his voice, so could
the others.
Frustrated at Willa’s snickering, he blew past them and called over
his shoulder. “Someone take the vegetables off the grill. Dinner’s on.”
 “Where are you going?” Gia, Creed’s pregnant mate, asked.
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
The Gray Backs hurled questions at him, but he wasn’t answering
anything else right now. He needed a minute to wrap his head around what
had just happened. He hadn’t connected on an emotional level with a
woman since Tessa, so why in the balls had he made a move on the park
ranger? Sure, he was trying to get her mind off her fear before she met
Beaston, but if he was being honest, that kiss meant more than a distraction
to him. Relief at the break she offered from Tessa’s constant hounding
perhaps? Or was it more? Maybe it was the way her tan uniform had clung
to those big, soft lookin’ tits of hers, or the way her pants hugged those
thighs he wanted to grab and wrap around his waist. Fuck, he was hard as a
rock right now.
He slammed his trailer door behind him and strode straight for the
bathroom where he hit the tap and waited for the shower to heat up. He
needed to get his head on straight again before he talked to anyone in his
crew about what had just happened. Something inside of him had shifted,
and for a minute there, even his bear had drawn up and stopped snarling.
Jason peeled off his clothes and stepped under the battering hot
water. Leaning on his elbows, he allowed the stream to slide down his back
as he rested his forehead against the shower wall and closed his eyes. She
was there—Georgia Ames. With her full lips and freckles. With that wild
hair he wanted to grip as he rammed into her from behind. His breath came
in short pants as he pulled the first stroke of his dick. Geez, he was hard and
throbbing already as if he was ready to come just thinking about her. He
tightened his grip and imagined sliding into her. Legs locked around him,
begging him to fuck her harder. His hips bucked as he jerked off faster. The
water made his skin slick, and he closed his eyes tighter, imagined burying
himself in her completely. He groaned as the pressure built. Faster, faster,
and he lurched backward until his shoulder blades hit the wall. He gripped
himself harder and yelled out as cum shot up on his stomach in warm
streams. His breath shook as he milked every thrust until his hips bucked
erratically. With a sigh, he rolled his eyes closed and leaned his head back
against the cold, plastic shower wall. Usually, this was the part where the
guilt over Tessa kicked in. Where masturbating to another woman would
make him feel like a cheater because Tessa was still around, filling up his
head and making him feel bad about every mistake he’d made when they’d
been together.
This time, however, he didn’t feel anything but relief.
Jason showered and turned off the water. He grabbed a towel from
the hook near the shower curtain, but startled to a stop as he looked up to
find Tessa standing across the bathroom, watching him.
“You thought about her, didn’t you?”
“Get out,” he said through clenched teeth.
“You said her name.”
Had he said Georgia? Sounded about right, even if he hadn’t meant
to. He didn’t have to explain himself to a figment of his psychotic
imagination though, so he ignored her observations and toweled off his hair.
Tessa’s eyes narrowed with fury as she whispered, “Go to hell.”
As her skin melted away and her scream rattled his skull in the
dramatic way she always left him, Jason muttered, “I’m already there.”
****
Poachers were the worst part of this job.
Most hunters were respectful of hunting seasons and bought the
proper licenses. They took the hunter safety courses and practiced on their
aim, planned all year to take an animal humanely and fed their families on
the meat. And hell, hunters gave more to land conservation than any other
organized group. She came from a giving community of hunters and had
been raised on grass-fed, hormone-free game meat. It was that or starve
because red meat was hard to afford on Mom’s single, small salary when
Georgia had lived in Big Canoe.
Poachers weren’t hunters, though. They were disrespectful thieves
who took animals illegally, who traveled onto private land without licenses
and killed what they wanted when they wanted. Poachers thought they were
above the law.
They were also notoriously dangerous, weapon-carrying a-holes
trying their best not to get caught. Regular, legal-eagle, respectful hunters
would chat with her, sometimes for hours about what animals they’d seen
and passed up. She got a lot of helpful information about the land
management of an area just from having a good report with the locals
during legal hunting seasons. Poachers were different, though. They ran,
and when they were cornered, they lashed out like injured predators.
Georgia shook her head sadly at the expired deer that lay across the
trail. The decomposition said it had died within the last couple of days. The
scavengers hadn’t even found it yet. A bad shot to the back end was the
cause of death. It hadn’t gone far, which proved that the animal had been
poached on Damon Daye’s private land. There was no way it had traveled a
mile west from the public land that surrounded Damon Daye’s mountains.
Not with an injury like that.
She wanted to strangle whoever had dared come into this land and
caused trouble. Already, Georgia was falling in love with this place, and a
fierce protectiveness had infiltrated her over the last week. She scanned the
trail behind the deer and tried to put together where it had run from. She
knelt down and touched a smear of dried blood on a broken sapling.
Splintered branches and trampled, dry grass helped piece together what had
happened. An hour of hiking, and she found an abandoned campsite. The
makeshift fire pit held only charred logs and cold ash, and she could make
out stake holes in the ground where they must’ve set up a tent. Weekenders
probably, gone back to their day jobs yesterday. She’d have to keep an eye
on this corner of Damon’s land come Friday and see if she couldn’t get
lucky and catch them coming back.
She bet Jason could scare the piss out of the poachers.
Georgia drew up short and laughed at how daft she was. Her stupid
mind could bring any thought back around to him. Over the past week,
she’d thought about him a ridiculous amount. In fact, it was downright
embarrassing how obsessed she’d become, thinking about who he was and
where he came from. She’d even researched his crew on the Internet to find
out more about him. Creed, the dark-headed alpha, and Matt were easy to
stalk, but Jason hadn’t any social media pages and hadn’t offered any
information about himself on Cora Wright’s Web site. He was as much a
ghost as the crazy-eyed phantom who’d given her that ominous warning last
week.
A chill brushed up her spine just thinking about the apparition in
these woods with her. Georgia picked up her pace and gave a sigh of relief
when she spotted her ATV where she’d left it. She turned the engine and
sped off toward the ranger station.
Everything in her wanted to see Jason again. Also to apologize for
her reaction to him invading her space like he had. She’d enjoyed being
close to him and now understood why he’d covered her scream with his
hand after the research she’d done taught her about bear shifters’
oversensitive hearing. It had probably been an instinctive reaction driven by
his rattling eardrums.
 But the ghost—or whatever that thing had been—kept her firmly
planted on this side of the mountain.

OceanofPDF.com
 Chapter Four

“He’ll be back,” Creed said, leaning forward, his elbows on his

knees as he wrung his hands.
Jason wished he felt as confident as Creed sounded, but Clinton
hadn’t come back in two days. He’d left a note taped to his front door when
he’d left in the middle of the night.
Don’t want no mate.
Short and to the point, but it was insane how much those four little
words had thrown the Gray Backs into chaos. They were down a man on
the landing where they stripped logs and loaded them for delivery to the
saw mill in Saratoga, but that wasn’t the worst part of all this. The worst
part was the imbalance in the crew now. The Gray Backs were a crew of
messed-up misfits, and they’d all made the mistake of taking their progress
over the past two years for granted. But with Clinton gone, and all of them
scrambling with their inner animals to reestablish the pecking order, it was
obvious just how far they’d come. They’d been this close to B-team level,
but now with Clinton gone, they were put back to C-team.
Jason picked his sack lunch off the ground and dug out a sandwich.
Creed sat in the metal chair beside him under the shade of the giant
lodgepole pine near the landing. Matt sat in the chair next to his alpha, and
beside Jason, the last remaining chair was open. Or it would’ve been if
Tessa wasn’t sitting in it. The other Gray Backs couldn’t see her, though.
Usually, they just sat on top of her, unbeknownst to them, and she would
spit hoodoo curses on them that she’d learned from her family. Bayou bears
were nothing to mess with, and Tessa was just as flippant now with curses
as she had been when she was alive. Now he couldn’t even recall what he
ever saw in her.
Jason bit into his sandwich as Tessa said, “If I was Clinton, I
would’ve done the same thing. Look at this crew. Pathetic batch of limp-
dicked pussy bears. Clinton was the smartest out of all of you.”
Jason shook his head and turned away from her. He wasn’t good for
much, but he could ignore the shit out of the she-demon to his right. He’d
learned how to over the years so he could appear sane. His gaze landed on
Easton, who stood across from him with his arms crossed as he chomped a
bite of apple.
“You want to sit down, man?” Jason offered, gesturing to the chair
Tessa sat in.
Easton shook his head. “Hell no. I’m fine.”
Jason frowned and looked at Tessa, who was now glaring at Easton
with a thoughtful look in her eyes. Jason dragged his attention back to
Easton just in time to see the crazy bruin slide his lightened eyes to where
Tessa sat, then away.
What the fuck?
Jason straightened his spine. “Can you see her?”
Easton wouldn’t look at him anymore.
“What are you talking about?” Creed asked. “See who?”
Jason stood so fast his lunch fell out of his lap and onto the ground.
“Answer me! Can you see her?”
“I don’t see nothin’!” Easton roared. He stepped forward and flipped
Tessa’s chair so hard it landed with a crash into the brush behind them.
Jason hesitated a moment as he watched Tessa disappear in a cloud
of smoke, then he ran after Easton who was already halfway to his truck.
 “Easton!” Creed yelled. “We aren’t done working yet. Get back
here!”
“Dude, you can see Tessa? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
Easton stomped right past the dirt parking area and into the trees.
Jason jogged to catch up and yanked his shoulder.
Easton turned on him with a snarl, his eyes completely inhuman.
“Yeah, I can see that thing. She’s your fault.”
“Oh, here we go. You, too?” Jason got this shit all the time from
Tessa, and now Easton? Everything was his fault, yeah yeah. He turned to
leave. Didn’t matter if Easton saw her or not. He was just as crazy as Jason
was, so it wasn’t really a victory to find out she wasn’t just something he
made up out of guilt.
“You want to know why I dragged my trailer into the woods when I
first came here?”
“Yeah, because Matt pissed you off,” Jason snapped, rounding on
him.
“No, I did it to get away from you and the shit you brought with
you. You know why I didn’t tell you I could see her? Because she didn’t
know! And now she does, so I get to be haunted like you, asshole. I dragged
my trailer into the woods to get away from you.”
Jason drew up short, shocked. “You know about ghosts then? What
do I do about her?”
“I don’t know nothin’, Jason. I can’t help you. I got my own shit to
deal with, obviously. My own ghosts. That demon bitch is your problem,
not mine.”
“Except that’s not how this is supposed to work, Easton! We’re a
crew, and you let me think I was the only one who could see her for two
years.”
 “It’s not my fault. Not my fault! And now you’ve screwed me.”
Easton’s yell turned into a snarl, and he hunched into himself.
“Aw, seriously?” Jason muttered as a giant silver grizzly burst from
Easton’s skin. There he was, that psycho sonofabitch. Beaston couldn’t go
one friggin’ day without bleeding him.
“Easton!” Creed yelled from behind them, voice cracking with
power. It wasn’t any good, though. Easton wasn’t here anymore. Only the
out of control, blood-thirsty animal in his middle.
Jason yelled a curse as he let his bear rip through his skin. The word
tapered to a roar as Easton charged.
Easton mad was a wrecking ball—a relentless, unfeeling, death-
bringer.
Jason lurched onto his hind legs and caught Easton’s impact in the
chest. With a snarl, he threw him to the ground and slashed at him with his
four-inch claws. Easton latched onto the underneath of his front leg and
ripped his flesh. Pain was bright and red, everywhere, but he couldn’t stop.
Beaston wasn’t affected by pain, so Jason couldn’t be either if he wanted to
live. Seconds dragged for an eternity as Easton bowled him over and sank
his teeth into his neck. It was hard to breath. Fuck, he was going for his
windpipe. Jason scrambled, slashing and maiming in desperation. The
sound of tearing skin and the smell of iron was overwhelming. Jason raked
his claws against Easton’s face as a last ditch effort to save his throat, but
Easton wasn’t letting go.
And then his weight and those damned canines were gone. Beaston
was being dragged off by a massive, scarred-up red grizzly. Matt.
Furious, Jason shrank back into his human skin with a grunt at the
blinding pain. Blood poured from his neck and arm. Pit pat, pit pat across
the leaves, staining the ground crimson.
 “Change back!” Creed roared as Matt shoved off Easton’s limp
body.
Easton’s Change was immediate, and painful looking. The forced
ones always were.
“Fuck, man!” Jason yelled. “I was asking you for help. That’s all.”
He stood and swayed as warmth streamed down his chest. “I wasn’t
challenging you!”
Easton scrambled up, clawed and bloody. “We aren’t friends.”
“Yes, we are!”
Easton’s hard eyes faltered, then looked uncertain as he glanced
from face to face. He dragged his fiery green eyes back to Jason, shook his
head, and said softly, “We aren’t.”
Jason jacked up his eyebrows and leveled him with an honest look.
“We are. I was just asking for help. I didn’t mean to put you on her radar. I
was just trying to figure out a way to get her to leave me alone.”
Anger rippled across Easton’s face as he looked at something over
Jason’s shoulder. When Jason turned, Tessa was there, wiggling her fingers
at Easton with an empty smile.
With a growl, Easton turned and disappeared into the woods.
“Let him go,” Creed said when the red bear moved to follow. “He’ll
be no use on the landing today.” Creed sighed heavily and looked troubled
as he swung his attention to Jason. “I think it’s time you tell me what’s
really going on.”

OceanofPDF.com
 Chapter Five

Georgia was looking forward to the meeting with Damon Daye and
his daughter, Diem. This was the first job she’d ever taken where she didn’t
work with a partner, and it sure did get lonely out here by herself. She was
independent by nature, but at night especially, she wished she had someone
to talk to about her day.
Moving around so much made it hard to keep friends, so she’d
quickly learned not to get too attached to anyone. But even if she was only
giving Damon the breakdown of what she’d found this week, at least she
was talking out loud to another person and not to herself.
The ranger tower was actually a treehouse Damon had contracted
one of the bear shifters who lived around here to build. It was high in the
canopy on the side of a mountain where she could see for miles in front of
her. It was a simple setup with a ladder that led to a small porch. Inside was
a one room station with a desk that housed the phone and maps of the area.
And against one wall was a sturdy cot where she slept at night. Cooking
was done over the fire down below, and there was no plumbing, but every
few days, a drum of fresh water showed up at the base of her tree, delivered
while she was out and about in the woods. She even had her very own
outhouse. She didn’t mind rustic living and had forgone conveniences over
the years. Her mom hadn’t understood her fascination with keeping peace
and property management, but Georgia felt at home in the woods. Her soul
was happiest away from the masses. She’d stopped trying to figure out what
that said about her long ago. Still, the loneliness did creep in, and lately, it
felt like there’d been a cloud hanging over her head when she was usually
bright and chipper. She couldn’t understand it. She would always love the
challenge of outdoor living and depending only on herself, but in recent
days, all she could think about was how nice it would be to talk to Jason
again. Bear shifters seemed marginally less scary when she wasn’t near
them.
With a steadying breath, Georgia studied herself in the mirror.
Freckles, blue eyes with gold middles, and curly hair, all gifts from her
father. Gifts she hated. Genetic presents that reminded her every day that
she was the daughter of a broken man. She ripped her eyes away from her
reflection and wished she could hold her own gaze better. If she were
tougher, she could get over everything that had tainted her life in Big
Canoe. She could call her mother and not feel like she’d let her down. She
could visit her dad in prison and tell him she forgave him. Not for him, but
for the health of her own soul. Instead, she told herself she was strong, over
and over, in hopes that someday it would be true.
She hurried to put on eyeliner and lip gloss, then fluffed her long
curls. She’d worn them down today. After she visited Damon and Diem, she
was going to find her bravery and visit the Gray Back Crew. In the week
since Jason’s kiss, she’d met the Boarlanders and Ashe Crew. They’d all
been kind and easy to talk to. She’d only managed to embarrass herself in
front of the Gray Backs—the crew that felt the most important for some
reason she couldn’t discern.
Georgia locked up the station and climbed down the ladder. Onto the
passenger seat, she tossed her satchel with all of the notes she’d taken over
the past week tucked safely inside. The engine to her trusty Jeep roared to
life, and she puffed steam in front of her face as her warm breath collided
with the cold November air. The first snow would fall soon, and she would
need to track down a more permanent residence than the station. It wasn’t
built to live in, after all.
She ran her fingers through the open air out her window, catching
the cool draft until her skin prickled from the cold. Ancient pines were so
thick here, she couldn’t see far off the side of the road. She slowed for a
rabbit that ran in front of her tires and smiled as the little hare disappeared
into the brush on the other side. Easing onto the gas, she turned on a mixed
CD she’d made when she was in school. Oldies were her jam. And that
right there was how she’d known she and Bill wouldn’t be anything more
than friends when she’d met him for coffee yesterday. He’d scoffed at her
taste instead of listening to why she loved classic rock. If he would’ve
asked, she would’ve told him about how she and her mom would dance
around the living room to these songs when she was young. Mom worked
shifts waiting tables at a local diner, but when she had a night off, she’d turn
on an old radio and sing at the top of her lungs along with Georgia while
they wiggled around that old trailer they’d struggled to afford. Life was
hard. It was cold and revolved around money to buy food, warmth, to pay
the bills, and keep the lights on. But on those nights when Mom was
smiling and dancing and singing, life was perfect.
Up ahead, an old, white Ford truck was pulled over to the side of the
road. Georgia slowed as a man wiped his hands on a greasy rag and waved.
He shut the hood of his truck as she pulled over.
He looked familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on where she’d
met him before.
“Hey,” he called. “I’m broke down. Do you think you can give me a
ride? Bad carburetor.”
“Do you want me to call a tow truck?” she asked. If her Jeep broke
down, she’d be hanged before she abandoned it anywhere.
 “Nah, I have the parts to fix it at my trailer. I’m just up the road.”
“Do I know you?” she asked, canting her head and studying the man
with the dark hair and bright green eyes.
“I’m Easton, fourth in the Gray Backs. I saw you the other night.
You’re Jason’s ranger.” His quick smile appeared and faded as he offered
his hand.
She shook it as the familiarity of his face slid into place. It was
strange that he’d called her Jason’s anything, though. “Uh. I’m a ranger,
yes. I remember you now. I’m sorry I left so quickly. I was actually going to
introduce myself to your crew in an official capacity soon.”
“Official capacity,” he repeated.
He was still clasping her hand, so she pulled away and nodded to
her Jeep. “Hop on in, and I’ll give you a ride.”
“Uh…” Easton closed his eyes tightly as if he were searching for a
word. “Thank you.”
He sauntered over to her ride and climbed inside, then gripped the
roll bar as he waited.
Okay then. Georgia turned down the music and pulled around the
old truck. Grayland Mobile Park was only two miles off the main road, so
the drive wasn’t long. Easton didn’t talk. He only looked out the window,
nostrils flaring as if he were scenting the air.
Jason had mentioned Easton and how she shouldn’t smell afraid
around him. The man beside her didn’t affect her fear trigger like Jason had,
though. Perhaps she’d just gotten used to the bear shifters through meeting
the other crews and researching them over the past week.
They weren’t out-of-control monsters like she’d thought. She smiled
over at Easton and felt silly for how intimidated she’d been by them before.
Easton wouldn’t hurt her.
 None of them would.
****
Jason slid out of Creed’s truck and stared in horror at the front lawn
of his trailer. His belongings were strewn everywhere. Bills and old letters
to home he’d been too chicken to send rolled lazily in the wind.
“What the hell?” he said on a breath.
Creed cursed beside him and shoved his door open. “Easton!”
No answer but the shuffling of paperwork that blew in waves in
front of Creed’s tires.
Jason looked around helplessly at the notebooks, lamps, and broken
dishes that made a trail from his trailer to the fire pit. Flames licked the
sides of the brick, and Jason bolted for the fire. What had Easton done?
Stacks of papers had been burned. The only clue to what they were
was the tattered edges. A piece flew out of the fire and Jason caught it on
the breeze. Scribbled across the scrap of paper were the words I’ll never
need.
Jason swallowed hard as he read Tessa’s cursive. He knew the rest
of that sentence by heart. I’ll never need you like you need me.
Easton had burned her letters, and from the melted scraps of glossy
black, the pictures of him and Tessa together, too. And at the bottom of the
ashes burned her journal.
“Fuck!” he yelled, his voice echoing across the clearing. He wadded
up the scrap in his hands and chucked it into the fire. “I’m going to kill
him.”
Easton had destroyed every good memory he had left of Tessa.
Some of those letters had been knives in his gut, but a few had been good.
Some of those she’d written in the beginning when she still cared about
him. When she’d been excited about Turning him and keeping him forever.
 “Where are Willa and Gia?” he asked as betrayal cracked across his
ribcage. “They could’ve stopped this. Where the hell are they?”
“They’re in town loading up on winter supplies,” Creed answered
quietly.
Matt knelt down beside a line of white powder that encircled
Creed’s entire trailer. He reached down and lifted his finger, then tasted the
stuff. “It’s salt.” Matt looked at Creed with a baffled expression in his wide,
blue eyes. “Why would he make a circle of salt?”
Jason’s face went slack as realization slammed into him. Burning
Tessa’s things. Salt. Jason had been born and raised in the bayou and had
heard of this kind of paranormal warfare before. Jason looked around,
completely shocked as the mess took on new meaning.
Beaston knew more about evicting ghosts than he’d let on.
The rumble of an unfamiliar vehicle sounded across the trailer park.
“What now?” Creed muttered, striding for the road to meet whatever
trouble was headed their way.
When Georgia’s Jeep appeared through the trees, Jason’s pulse hit
its stride, like a racehorse’s hooves beating the sand. She was here, in his
territory. He looked around the littered yard and hooked his hands on his
hips at the overwhelming task before him. She was going to see all of this,
all of him, spread all over the trailer park and out in the open.
Jason narrowed his eyes at Easton who sat in her passenger seat.
What the fuck was he doing with her? He and Matt followed Creed to the
mouth of the road to meet them.
Georgia pulled into the grass, and her eyes met Jason’s. She dropped
her gaze immediately, though, stealing that blue and gold flecked color
from him. Maybe she was still mad about the other day.
 Creed introduced himself, and Matt followed suit. And right when
she swung her attention to Jason, Easton stepped in front of him and
gripped his shoulder.
“Where?” Easton asked.
Confused, Jason asked, “Where is what?”
“Where is she buried?”
Jason blinked slowly, but Easton seemed serious. All right then.
“Dodge City, Kansas. Tessa didn’t want to be buried in a Louisiana
cemetery on account of ghosts. Pretty damn ironic. She’s under the
branches of an old oak tree at Maple Grove Cemetery. Why?”
Easton’s eyes softened as he gestured to his half healed neck.
“Because I can be a good friend.” He turned and strode toward Georgia’s
Jeep. “I’ll be back in a couple of days. Keep your ranger close.”
“What are you going to do?” Jason called.
Easton looked over his shoulder, and his eyes held such fierce
determination. “I’m going to burn her bones.”
“What do you mean burn her bones?” Georgia asked as Easton
hopped into her Jeep.
“You stay here and keep the ghosts at bay. You’ll be good. Willa and
Gia will be nice to you, but that one…” Easton said, pointing to Jason. “He
needs your protection.”
Easton spun out, whipping the tail of the forest green Jeep and
scattering gravel. Georgia ran after him but stopped after ten yards. She’d
never catch up to him.
“Easton!” Creed yelled.
If Easton heard, he didn’t show it. A blaring Beatles song trailed in
the Jeep’s wake as he disappeared around the bend in the road.
 In Easton’s own fucked-up and slightly psychotic way, he was trying
to do something Jason had failed to do for five years.
Sure, Easton had just about slit Jason’s throat earlier. He’d trashed
Jason’s trailer and burned his personal belongings, and yes, he’d definitely
kidnapped Georgia, even if she didn’t realize it yet. Easton had also
committed grand theft auto, and he was about to dig Tessa up from an old
cemetery and break into her coffin to burn her bones.
But Beaston was making a run at getting rid of Tessa.
And that right there was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for
him.

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 Chapter Six

“He just stole my Jeep.” Georgia turned to Creed and Matt who
wore matching frowns. “He just drove off in my car!”
Creed opened his mouth, sighed, and then snapped it closed again.
“I’m calling the police,” she muttered, pulling out her phone.
“Lady, out here you are the police,” Matt pointed out.
Oh. Right. “Okay, he said he’d be back in a couple of days, but I
have work. I have a lot of territory to manage and my ATV won’t cover it
all. Plus, I have to meet Damon Daye and go into town for supplies and
food and…” Her voice trailed off as Jason turned and began picking up
trash from the ground.
Worry snaked through her when she saw the sad but determined
look in his eyes as he scooped trinkets back into an upended wooden crate.
Down the side of his neck, he looked like he’d been mauled. It was covered
in caked, dried blood, and the inside of his bicep had also been laid open.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispered, stumbling forward. “What’s
happened to you?”
“I’m fine,” he said gruffly. Jason pulled the crate to his hip and
sauntered off toward one of the middle trailers where piles of belongings
had been tossed.
“Was he robbed?”
Creed and Matt came to stand on either side of her.
“In some ways he was,” Creed murmured, “but it happened years
ago.”
 Years ago? Georgia frowned and arched her neck back to look at the
dark-headed man. “Is this all his stuff?”
Creed nodded once, and Matt began picking large shards of broken
dishes off the lawn. Jason had disappeared inside, and suddenly the stress of
having her Jeep stolen came secondary to the heaviness that blanketed her
heart. She was having a crap day, but it was clear as water Jason was having
a worse one.
Easton had said Jason needed her protection. She hadn’t any clue
what that meant, but she was willing to stick around long enough to figure it
out. Not much choice for it anyway since she didn’t have a ride.
Georgia called Damon Daye and rescheduled their meeting, then
gathered a comforter and pillow into her arms. She padded up the creaking
porch stairs, opened the screen door, and let herself into his home.
The trailer was trashed, but that wasn’t what locked her legs up.
Jason was squatting in the middle of his living room floor with his hands
linked behind his head, staring at an empty, broken picture frame on the
ground.
He looked…lost.
She dropped the wad of bedding onto the leather couch that sat at an
odd angle across the living area, then stood beside him. She rubbed his back
gently, brushing her fingertips over the hard planes of tight muscles. A
photo had been torn in half, and the only piece that remained was one of
Jason with a glass mug of beer in his hand and a beaming grin on his face.
Someone’s arm was wrapped around his waist, but that person had been
ripped out of the picture and stolen away.
“Who was she?”
Jason leaned against her leg and sighed. Scrubbing his hand over his
face, he said, “Her name was Tessa, and she was my mate.”
 “She died?”
Jason looked up at her and nodded, his eyes hollow.
“Oh, Jason, I’m so sorry.” She shook her head to ward away the
tears that were rimming her eyes but it was no use. One slipped down her
cheek, anyway.
Jason stood and brushed it away with the pad of his thumb. “No
tears for her. She doesn’t deserve them.”
Georgia gasped as realization slammed into her. “Does Tessa have
red hair?”
Jason’s eyes went wide, and he angled his face suspiciously.
“Why?”
“Because I saw a…something. The day I met you, I was driving
away from here and something scared me.”
“A woman?”
She nodded. “She told me to stay away from you. She was in the
road, and I thought I hit her, but when I turned around, she was sitting right
next to me.”
Georgia’s hands began shaking. She’d never experienced anything
like that, and it had frightened her down to her bones.
“Shh,” Jason said, pulling her against his chest. He wrapped her up
in a big, strong hug that numbed her fear little by little. More of that
werebear magic, clearly. “Tessa won’t hurt you. She can’t. She’s just…
stuck.”
“Then why do you need protection? Easton said you needed me.”
Jason eased away from her with a growl. “Easton said too much
about too much.”
He picked up an upended table and set it upright, his back to her.
 “Okay, well obviously I’m in this now, whatever this is, so you
could at least tell me what’s going on because I just walked into something
I don’t understand at all. And you ignoring me every time I ask a question
you don’t like isn’t going to fly.”
“I’m sorry I kissed you.” Jason turned on her, eyes transitioning
from dark brown to stormy gray. “I wanted to tell you that, but I didn’t
know your number or how to find you.”
Georgia drew up like she’d been slapped. His words stung like a
harsh hand against cold skin. Gritting her teeth, she spun for the door. “You
could’ve just let me keep that one, butthole.”
“Butthole?”
She got the door open by inches, but Jason was there with that
startling speed to slam it back.
“Yeah, you’re being a butthole, pardon my barn talk.”
Jason’s face cracked into a grin, and she shoved him.
“Okay, so you hated the kiss, and now you’re teasing me. I’m
actually glad I came here today.”
“Yeah?” he said, eyes dancing as he crossed his arms. “And why’s
that?”
“Because now I know you’re an insensitive jerk and totally not my
type, and I don’t have to think about you anymore. I should’ve known
anyway. I like dad bods!”
“Dad bods?” He was laughing now, and she wanted to punch him in
the mouth hole.
“Yeah, dad bods. Men with dad bods don’t spend eight hours a day
working out at the gym or focusing on their protein intake and carb loading
and looking at their big”—she poked his rock hard pec—“brawny”—she
poked it again because dang, it was really hard— “muscles in the mirror. I
want a man who will pay more attention to me than his leg days, muscle
striations, and body fat percentages. You clearly don’t fit that bill. And why
are you bleeding?” Her voice had gone shrill, but she was in it now—full
anger. “I saw a ghost for you!”
Jason snorted and bit his bottom lip, but it didn’t hide his irritating
smile.
She shrieked on purpose for his sensitive ears and threw open the
door again, only to have him shut it as if he was a cat swatting a ball of
string. She growled and pulled the door handle as hard as she could, but the
darned thing fell off. She blasted backward and nearly put her tailbone
through her windpipe as she hit the ground.
“Ow!” she howled, staring at the traitorous doorknob in her hand.
“Oh my gosh, I broke your door.” Guilt and pain filled her, and she wished
she was skinny enough to hide under the sofa. “I’m so sorry.”
Jason was laughing so hard he was doubled over with his hands on
his knees. As much as she tried to fight the smile, she couldn’t. She burst
out laughing and threw the doorknob at him, which he caught easily.
Jason straightened and wiped his eyes. “God, Ranger, you throw the
cutest tantrums.” He offered her a hand and helped her up. “First off, I’m
never going to have a dad bod. Not even if I tried. The physique is part of
the gig with bear shifters, but I assure you, I don’t spend hours in the gym.
I’m a lumberjack. I stay fit with my job. Second, I don’t regret kissing you.
I just meant I’m sorry it made you mad that first night. I should’ve been
smoother about it.”
“Or waited until we’d known each other more than five minutes. Or
given me a heads up.”
“Yes, or that. Sooo,” he drawled, sinking down onto the arm of the
couch. “You think about me?”
 Heat blasted up her neck, so she busied herself with picking up a set
of scattered coasters. “No.”
“But you said you did.”
She smiled shyly at him as she repeated his earlier words. “Well, I
said too much about too much.”
Jason pulled her hand until she was settled between his legs. With
him sitting on the arm of the couch, she was eye to eye with him. “So, is it
like a crush on me?” he asked low.
She narrowed her eyes playfully and shook her head. “Definitely
not. I’m afraid of bears, and you don’t have a dad bod, remember?”
The corner of his lips twitched as he pulled her even closer. “I’m
going to kiss you now.”
Helplessly, she whispered, “Okay.”
“Swear not to run away?”
“I swear.”
Jason’s lips were soft against hers. This wasn’t the battle-ready
desperate kiss he’d given her the first time. This one was tasting, sipping,
lips moving against each other. His arms wrapped around her waist as he
angled his head and brushed his tongue against her bottom lip. Holy
meatballs, her legs were going numb again. She slid her arms around his
neck and nibbled on his bottom lip. A soft growl rattled his chest, so she
yanked back.
“Sorry. Did I hurt you? Did I make your bear mad?”
Jason shook his head and gave her a sexy smile. “No, Ranger, you
don’t make my bear mad.” He eased back and dipped his gaze to his crotch,
then back up to her.
Jason’s dick looked huge through his jeans. A long, thick, hard roll
was pressed against the fabric there. She pursed her lips, then asked, “I did
that?”
“Yeah, Ranger. You’ve been doing that since the night I met you.”
“You mean…”
His eyes turned absolutely wicked. “I’ve been thinking about you,
too.”
“But…” Georgia looked down at her uniform, all thick canvas under
an ill-fitting puff jacket, making her look like a tomboy blob. “I’m no
super-model, Jason, and you’re…well…you’re about seven levels out of
my league.”
He scoffed and pulled her close again, then grabbed her butt hard.
“Bullshit. Don’t want no stick woman, Georgia. You look just fine to me.”
She frowned at the thought of what Tessa had looked like. She
hadn’t a single curve on her body, but maybe ghosts just looked emaciated.
Still, Jason’s interest still baffled her. Sure, she cleaned up nice, but she’d
never once drawn men to her with her mud-splattered park ranger uniform.
It wasn’t exactly a siren song. “So…you like women with curves?”
“I like women who are nice. Tessa wasn’t nice. Not ever, and I like
to think I learn from my mistakes.”
“But you don’t even know me?” Shut up mouth! Why was she
arguing his attraction to her?
“I know enough. You just got your car jacked, but you came in here
to offer me comfort. You faced your obvious fear of bears to introduce
yourself that first night. You ride an ATV, drive a big old jacked-up Jeep,
and have a connection with this land most humans can’t understand. You
know how to use a weapon safely, and damn woman, you lookin’ sexy is
just an added bonus. Stop questioning why you make my dick hard.”
“You have a filthy mouth, Mr. Trager.”
 “Mmm,” he rumbled as he nipped her neck. “You ain’t heard nothin’
yet.”
Promises, promises, and her naughty mind flitted to his bedroom.
She wondered if his bed was trashed like the rest of his trailer. But no, she
wasn’t that kind of girl. “I don’t sleep with men on the first date.” Honest to
goodness, she’d rarely slept with men at all. Her job hadn’t exactly been a
treasure trove of opportunities to meet potential bedmates.
“Good,” he murmured, smiling against her neck.
Georgia sighed and arched her chin back to give him better access to
her sensitive flesh at the base of her throat. “What do I have to do to protect
you from Tessa?”
Jason pulled away with a sexy little smack of his lips. “I don’t know
exactly. Easton pulled everything of hers out of here and burned it, poured a
circle of salt around the trailer, and headed off to dig her up.”
She cringed at the mental image of Easton robbing a grave.
“Disturbing.”
“Yeah. But he’s actually trying to help, and for Easton, that’s a big
deal. The Gray Backs are a little…broken.”
Georgia couldn’t imagine anything worse than Jason being haunted
by the ghost of his deceased mate. She didn’t even want to know what kind
of trouble the other Gray Backs were harboring.
“When I’m around, do you see Tessa?”
Jason looked around the room and shook his head. “No. Maybe you
being close and taking up my headspace keeps her away. She usually shows
up if I’m thinking about her.”
“Do you think about her a lot?” The question brushed past her lips
softly, and even she could hear the insecurity in her voice. Jason’s late mate
was still very much a part of his life, and Georgia didn’t really know where
she fit yet. He liked to kiss her, sure, but the man was keeping a ghost fed
on thoughts of her. It was a lot. Perhaps too much.
“Tessa left me.”
“Obviously she didn’t.”
“No, I mean when she was alive. We weren’t together when she
died.”
“Oh.” Georgia looked around all the clutter. “But you had all of her
things.”
“Tessa wasn’t just my mate, Georgia. She was my maker, too.”
“Wait, you weren’t born like this?”
Jason angled his head, exposing the side of his neck that hadn’t been
torn to shreds. There was a faint, circular, silver scar there.
She’d done enough Internet research over the past week to know
what that was—a claiming mark. “You used to be human?”
The smile on his face was so sad, it gutted her.
Georgia traced the old scar with her fingertips and sighed. “Oh,
Jason. What did you get yourself into?”
“I was in love. More than love, it felt like. Bigger, wider, all-
encompassing, complete devotion. Tessa told me she was a bear shifter after
we’d been together a month, and by the end of the second month, she’d
talked about Turning me so we could be together without her alpha getting
angry over the risk of her being with a human mate. I was twenty-one when
I got the bite. Never married because the paperwork felt unnecessary after
she’d bit me. She’d marked me, and that was all we needed.” His eyes
lightened to the color of a clear gray sky morning, and he looked away.
“She was sleeping with one of the shifters in her crew by the end of the first
year. I don’t even know how long it had been going on. She’d always been
mean-spirited, and it pissed me off the way she treated people. Like she was
entitled to anything she wanted. Maybe she didn’t see anything wrong with
having two mates, I don’t know. I confronted the guy, but he apparently
already knew all about me. He didn’t care. Tessa didn’t care. I cared.” He
dragged his fiery, sparking eyes to hers. “I wanted to kill them both.”
The fine hairs on Georgia’s arms stood up on end, prickling her skin
despite her warm jacket. “And did you?”
Jason huffed a harsh laugh. “If you ask Tessa’s ghost, I did. I’m no
murderer, though. She was with her crew, with her new mate, when a
skirmish broke out with another crew over a territory dispute. Not all bear
shifters get along as well as the crews around here. Tessa texted me, asking
for me to come pick her up. She said she was scared, but she’d been pulling
that shit a lot. She was messing with my head. Sleeping with me on and off,
telling me it was over with her other mate, telling me she wanted to run
away with me, but going straight back to him. I was done by the time she
asked me for help. I thought it was more head games. A test to see if I’d
come whenever she wanted.” Jason cracked his knuckles loudly. “Her
whole crew was dead by the next morning. All except her other mate who
brought me a box of her things. Pictures she’d kept and letters she’d gotten
from me. A T-shirt of mine she used to sleep in. He said he was sorry he
couldn’t protect her. I hated him, but more than that, I hated myself for not
paying attention to those damned texts she’d sent. Tessa had never admitted
to being afraid before, and it had been right there. She’d said she was
scared, and I should’ve gone and picked her up that night. I was twenty-
three, had already been Turned and mated, and had lost it all because I
couldn’t make her happy, I couldn’t make her stay, and I couldn’t save her.
And all this week I’ve wanted to go find your ranger station and ask you
out. But every time I get myself psyched up to do it, I think, I’ve got nothin’
to offer you.”
 “That’s not true.”
“It is. I have a ghost problem that you’ll obviously have to deal with
since you see her, too. I have a bear that I’m barely in control of most days.
I live out in the middle of nowhere in a trailer park with a crew who are not
safe in society. I mean, shit, Beaston Turned Matt’s mate without her
consent.”
“Beaston?”
“Easton.”
“Oh. Well, I’m here, anyway.”
“Because Easton kidnapped you.”
“No. I’m here because I want to be. I was on my way to meet Mr.
Daye when Easton tricked me into giving him a ride. But I put on extra
make-up today because I was planning on coming to visit the Gray Backs
afterward and apologize for yelling at you. And pointing a gun at you. So
ask me.” She lifted her chin primly. “I’ll wait.”
The smile that spread across his face was slow and steady and
reached his eyes. “Georgia Ames?”
“Yes?”
“Will you help me clean up my trailer?”
Georgia swatted his arm and pouted. “That’s not what I meant, and
you know it.”
Jason’s laugh was infectious, but she did her best to keep a straight
face.
“Georgia, will you go out on a date with me?”
“Are you asking just because I keep the ghost at bay?”
“Dammit woman, you gonna make this hard on me?”
She cocked an eyebrow.
 “No, I’m asking you out because I like you. And also because
you’re hot as fuck.”
Georgia giggled at his crassness and nodded once. “Then I accept.
You better plan something really special for our first date though, Jason,
because I’m very high maintenance.”
Jason made a show of looking down at her muddy hiking boots.
“Oh, Ranger, I don’t doubt it.”

OceanofPDF.com
 Chapter Seven

Georgia hung grocery bags the length of both arms because she’d
rather army crawl through a sewer than make a second trip unloading
groceries.
“You hoo!” a woman called.
When Georgia turned around, a tall woman was riding toward her
on the back of a giant grizzly bear.
“Aah!” she screamed, running behind the old beater truck she’d
borrowed from Jason, her arms flapping like a falcon as she tried to rid
herself of the heavy bags.
The woman burst out laughing, and not the soft, polite kind, but the
hunched-over-holding-the-stomach kind.
Georgia frowned so hard she started a headache, and then picked up
an abandoned bag of toilet paper. “Please tell me that is a werebear you’re
riding and not an actual wild bear.”
The woman’s messy bun bobbed as she nodded, apparently still
laughing too hard to speak.
“And are you pregnant?” Georgia asked, staring at the bump that
pressed against the woman’s fitted pink jacket.
“Oh, yeah. I’m super pregnant. With a werebear.” The woman
snorted and hiccupped, then put her fingers over her mouth to hide her grin.
Georgia shook her head and picked up a bag of canned stew. Far be
it for her to judge a pregnant woman riding a werebear. She was pining for
a man who was mated to a ghost. Stones and glass houses, and she had
crappy aim.
 “I’m Gia,” the brunette said, her whiskey brown eyes dancing as she
slid off the back of the grizzly. “I’m Creed’s mate. And this is Willa, second
in the Gray Backs and mate of Matt.”
Georgia rushed to set the groceries on the hood of the truck, then
shook Gia’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I mean, officially. I think I saw
you the first night I introduced myself to the Gray Backs.”
“Yeah, Willa calls you Renegade. We saw you pull that gun on
Jason. Cracked us the hell up.”
Renegade. She liked that nickname. It was way better than the
names she’d been gifted in middle school. Freaky Freckles and Dorky Dots.
The kids in her school had not won most creative.
“Nice.” She smiled at the brown bear who was now sitting like a
human waving at her. “I have to warn you, there is a poacher problem on
this side of Damon’s property. Might not want to travel around this part
while you’re Changed.”
“Eee,” Gia said. “Willa, Change back.”
The bear shrank into a tiny, red-headed woman. Willa spread her
arms out like a ballerina and sang, “Boobs,” in an opera voice as her fur
retracted.
“Whoa, you’re very naked. Or beary naked, ha!” Georgia clamped
her mouth shut as her cheeks burned, but Willa and Gia laughed.
“My teets are beary small,” Willa cracked.
“My ankles are beary swollen,” Gia joked.
“Wait,” Georgia argued. “Your teets aren’t that small.”
“Renegade, you’re ruining the game,” Willa quipped, punching her
fists onto her bare hips.
“Oh, right. My hair is beary curly.”
 “Jason sent us to get you,” Gia said as she pulled a backpack off her
shoulders and handed it to Willa. “He has a surprise for you.”
Georgia busied herself with picking up the rest of the bags off the
ground. “I thought he was still at work.”
“Creedy let him off early,” Willa muttered as she pulled on a pair of
black skinny jeans. “Dang, ladies, it’s cold as balls out here.”
“He let Jason off early? I thought they were low on manpower up on
the landing.”
Willa shimmied into a red sweater that matched the bright dye in her
hair. “Yes, Easton’s in the wind, and Clinton, that wanker stain, cut out on
us. He’ll be back. Probably. The boys haven’t been getting days off since
Clinton left, though, so the best Creed can do is let Jason off early after they
hit their numbers for the day.”
“They already reached their goal?” Georgia looked down at her
weather-proof watch. “It’s only five.”
Willa pulled her hair back into a spikey ponytail and secured it with
a band. “Yeah, well Damon doesn’t exactly give them huge numbers, and
funnily enough, without Beaston around, no one wasted their time fighting
and bleeding today.”
“Do they fight and bleed often?”
“No one bleeds as much as a Gray Back,” Willa and Gia said in
unison.
Georgia thought they were joking at first, but both their faces had
gone serious as they bent down to clean up the mess she’d made.
The women helped her haul the wares she’d picked up at the
grocery store in Saratoga, then Georgia gave them the grand tour of the one-
room watch tower. By the time they’d climbed back down the ladder and
into the bench seat pickup, Georgia’s nerves had left her body. It was
impossible to be edgy around Willa with her wise cracks and quirks and Gia
with her easygoing attitude and ready smile.
“Did you know there are three different kinds of nightcrawlers?”
Willa asked matter of factly as Georgia drove them all toward the trailer
park.
Georgia didn’t have to answer because Willa automatically dove in
to the riveting subject of Canadian versus European nightcrawlers. She
talked about the difference between red wigglers and earthworms, and how
she and Matt had built her compost bins. Willa actually made a decent
income selling the soil they made and worms for people’s yards. She even
had a steady business selling the wiggly critters to a couple of local bait
shops.
By the time she pulled into the Grayland Mobile Park, she knew
practically everything there was to know about worms.
I’m sorry, Gia mouthed.
“Hey, don’t apologize,” Willa groused. “Worms are awesome.”
When Georgia stepped out from behind the wheel, she was greeted
by a small brown and white dog with a long Mohawk shaved up his back
and head.
“Peanut Butter Spike!” Gia crooned, picking him up and snuggling
her nose against his flat face as his tail wagged so fast it was a blur of fur.
She walked away and melted into baby talk, of which Georgia didn’t
understand a word.
Right now she was so anxious to see Jason, she couldn’t stand it.
Last night had been hard, sleeping at the ranger tower and wondering if
Tessa was messing with him while Georgia was away. She’d wanted to stay
the night, but it had seemed too soon.
“Your man is in the ugly trailer,” Willa said with a wink.
 “Oh, Jason’s not my—”
“Save it! He turned all mushy when he talked about you earlier. He’s
yours.”
The heat was back in her cheeks, so Georgia waved her thanks and
speed-walked for the trailer with the lopsided house number, 1010.
To get to the front door, she had to cross a sprawling porch with
fragrant cedar planks and a pair of antique white rocking chairs. Outdoor
lights were strung from a pergola above, and someone had attached empty
flower boxes to the railing. The porch did wonders for the curb appeal of
the old singlewide. She knocked softly. He’d hear it. He was a bear shifter
with incredible hearing.
“Come in,” Jason called from inside.
Georgia pushed open the screen door and froze. The trailer surprised
her. The walls were whitewashed, and the laminate wood flooring was dark
in contrast. The wooden beams across the ceiling were sagging a bit but
gave the living area character. To the left was a small kitchen with faux
wood counters and white cabinets. And if she ignored the mouse dragging
an orange peel across the floor, the place looked downright homey. The
candles flickering on the small dining room table added to the ambiance,
too.
The stretch of her smile felt good as she looked around, but when
her gaze landed on Jason, she drew up short.
He looked exhausted and something more…nervous? He
straightened an orange throw pillow on the couch.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Did you see Tessa today?” She already
knew the answer, though.
Jason’s dark eyes looked dim and haunted, and even his posture was
different. Weaker. He tried to smile, but the expression faltered and
morphed into a grimace. Oh, that Tessa had done a number on him today.
Georgia approached and slid her arms around him. Jason swayed
slightly, back and forth, as he buried his face against her neck. Inhaling
deeply, he pulled her tight against his chest and seemed content to just be.
Relief washed off him in waves as he gripped the back of her hair and held
her close.
“Damn, Ranger. It sure is good to hold you again.”
Back and forth he rocked in a slow dance that didn’t require words
here in this old trailer. He brushed his lips against her temple and sighed.
With the exhalation, his muscles relaxed. Jason was tall enough to rest his
chin on top of her head, but he didn’t. Instead, he brushed his two day scruff
gently against her cheek.
Closing her eyes, she melted against him. She’d never felt so safe
before.
Just to feel closer, she unzipped her jacket and slid it from her
shoulders onto the floor. His heart drummed against her chest, and she fell
harder for him. She’d embraced people before, but this was different. This
was more. This was falling in love without words. It was terrifying and
exciting. It was butterflies and happiness and imaginings of a future that
would stretch on and on if only Tessa would leave him alone.
How he’d handled being haunted by his late mate without going
mad was beyond her and a testament to how strong Jason was. He was
being hounded relentlessly by the same being that took his humanity, and he
was still upright—still trying.
“Why are you cryin’?” he asked, lifting her chin.
Was she? Twin tears streaked down her cheeks, and she wiped one
on her shoulder, unable to hold his gaze. Heart aching, she whispered, “I
wish things were different for you.” For us.
 The corner of his lips lifted in a smile. “Sweet Georgia.” He shook
his head, eyes on her. “I sure got lucky with you.”
But he couldn’t see that she was the lucky one.
“It’s too soon. I know it is, but I want you to live here.” Back and
forth, back and forth. “I helped Gia move out of here and into Creed’s
trailer. I want you close so I can see you when I want. I want you sleeping
near me so I don’t have to worry about you being cold in that tower. Above
everything else, I want you to be happy. To smile and to see these woods as
more than just a temporary home. I’m not asking you to make this old
trailer your home to keep Tessa at bay either, Georgia. I want you here for
me. I’m asking you to settle for less than you deserve, and I know what that
makes me. It makes me selfish.”
“No,” she said, resting her cheek against his chest. She splayed her
hands over the thin material of his sweater, right over his heartbeat, so
steady under her fingers. “It makes you mine.”
A soft rumble rattled against her palm, but she wasn’t scared of his
animal anymore. Jason wouldn’t hurt her. It was a happy noise for only her.
The gaunt look had left his face, and his features had softened. She’d done
that—affected the exhaustion caused by the awful things Tessa had been
spewing at him. Tessa broke him every day, but Georgia could put him back
together. She knew she could.
“I’ll stay here,” she murmured. “It’s strange, but it already feels sort
of like home.”
“It’s not strange. I’ve heard a lot of things about this place. Ten-ten
is magic. It’s a safe haven.”
She opened her eyes just as the first snowflakes of an early winter
storm began to fall outside. And she believed him. Even if she left
tomorrow, she’d never forget this feeling, standing here with Jason as they
danced for the first time. As her heart decided he was hers, no matter how
broken he was. This moment, in this place, would be a comfort for the rest
of her life, no matter what tomorrow would bring.
“I have more to show you.”
She looked up into Jason’s dark eyes. “Are we having our first
date?”
Jason leaned down and kissed her softly, then eased back and
pressed his forehead against hers. “Yeah.”
“Show me.”
With a smile, he bent down and pulled her jacket from the floor,
then zipped her into it. He didn’t bother to put on a coat as he took her hand
and led her out the front door. His stride was strong and powerful, and his
back was straight again, as if she’d recharged him with her touch. She
waved to Willa, who was leaning against the brick ledge of the fire pit,
watching them tromp toward the woods.
Willa gave her a knowing smile and lifted her fingers in response.
Jason looked back at her. The excitement in his eyes made him look
even more handsome somehow. He laughed and pulled her along faster.
With a grin, she ran to keep up with him. Fat snowflakes fell all
around them, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold. His attention was only
for her.
Her long curls bounced around her shoulders as she ran with him.
She hadn’t had this much fun just running freely since she was a child.
Weaving through the pines, Jason slowed the farther they got from the
trailer park.
“There,” he said, pointing up in the trees.
A treehouse had been built between four towering pines. The storm
clouds above cast everything in gray shadows, but a flickering, warm glow
filtered through the warped window panes of the house above them.
Jason climbed the ladder, waiting in the middle for her to follow.
Breathlessly, she scrambled up behind him. The porch was sturdy and well-
built, and a sign over the top of the front door read Willamena Junior or
Darth Vader.
“Don’t ask,” Jason said as he twitched his head in an invitation.
When Jason held open the front door for her, she hesitated in the
entryway. A two-seat table sat in the middle of the single room. In the
center of it was an old fashioned lantern that was the source of the warm
glow. Two plates were covered with checkered napkins and two beers sat
side by side, condensation dripping down the glass bottles and staining the
wood underneath darker. Strands of lights had been hung like gentle rolling
waves from the rafters above.
“Did you cook for me?” She had to force the words through her
thickening throat.
“It was that or take you into Saratoga. The drive is brutal, though.
Maybe we can do that for our second date.”
“Already planning a second date, and you don’t even know if you’ll
like me after our first.”
Jason’s smile lifted the corners of his lips, then faded as he brushed
her hair behind her ear. “I like you fine.”
She cupped his hand to keep his touch on her cheek. “This is the
nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled with his grin. “Good.”
Jason helped her out of her jacket. The treehouse was warm, so she
kicked out of her boots while she was at it. Sitting in a chair, she curled her
legs under her and lifted the napkin off the plate. Thick, dark broth with
lumps of succulent crawfish meat steamed in the shallow bowl of the plate.
It was laid over a bed of dirty rice, and on the side was a thick piece of
buttered bread. It smelled spicy and divine.
“You cooked this?” She didn’t mean to sound so surprised, but wow.
She’d been living off canned stew and chili heated over an open fire for the
past week. “What’s it called?”
“I’m from Louisiana, so it felt right making you food I grew up on.
This is Crawfish Étouffée. It’s my mom’s recipe.”
She took a bite and rolled her eyes closed at the rich flavor that
exploded across her tongue. “Jason, this is amazing.”
He sighed and huffed a laugh as if relieved, which was silly because
really, the man had some serious game. If he was trying to woo her, well…
she was wooed.
“How did you end up here, Georgia?” Jason asked. He leaned over
his plate and nearer to her, as if his food held no interest.
“Well, I was hired by a dragon to hunt poachers and drove here in
my Jeep, which was stolen the day I was sort of kidnapped by a Gray
Back.”
Jason leaned back in the creaking chair and said, “Seriously. I want
to know more about you.”
A wave of insecurity took her. She wanted Jason to continue liking
her, but talking about her past would only hurt his opinion of her. “Okay.
My mom raised me in a small trailer park right on the edge of Big Canoe.
Have you ever been there?”
Jason shook his head and took his first bite.
“Well, it’s a huge plot of land that has been built up with nice homes
on big wilderness lots, but the trailer park was there first, so as long as they
stayed upright, the community couldn’t ask us to leave. It was all my mom
could afford on her tips from the local diner she worked at. She had me
really young and didn’t finish high school, so putting food on the table and
keeping the bills paid was a constant struggle. But it was easier when I
turned sixteen and got a job with the forestry department. It was nothing
big, just picking up trash and calling in any problems around the park. My
boss let me drive this extra Jeep he had from his wife leaving him, and for
the first time I felt fancy. You know? Like, I’d been shivering through all
the winters, sleeping in the same bed as my mom because we had to do that
to keep warm. And we were always worried about not being able to pay the
light bill and get the groceries we needed, and it just sucked. But after
school, when I got to drive around working in the woods, none of that
mattered. I was happy outdoors.”
“Did you go to school in the community?”
“Yeah, and I bet you can guess how that worked out. I made a few
good friends, but the teasing from middle school to high school turned from
freckles to trailer trash.”
Jason reached across the table and held her hand, brushed his thumb
across her knuckles. “You aren’t.”
“No one is. Trailer trash is such a bull crap tease. It’s just a way to
make fun of people who are struggling.”
“So that’s why you said yes to ten-ten so easily. I thought you would
turn it down flat.”
“Ten-ten reminds me of the house I grew up in. The déjà vu is kind
of nice. Plus, I can’t spend the winter in the tower.” She looked out the
warped window panes at the snow falling steadily. It was too early and too
warm to stick yet, but in a month, this place would be blanketed in white. “I
needed to find a viable place to live, anyway. And now I get the added
bonus of being around you and the other Gray Backs. It’s nice, the family
you’ve made for yourself here.”
 Jason huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Ranger, I sure hope you
feel that way after you really get to know us. Do you still talk to your
mom?”
“Not as much as I should. She’s angry I left. Took it personally that I
didn’t stick around after high school to help her pay the bills. I just couldn’t.
I know that’s not how it’s supposed to work, but I didn’t want to stay in Big
Canoe for the rest of my life. I wanted to travel. Not to see different cities,
but to experience different landscapes. So I went after a forestry education
and took the first internship I could get my hands on and worked my way
up. A year at each place, never settling down. And it worked well for me. I
got to see some incredible things. Things a trailer park kid like me wasn’t
going to see unless I went out there and got what I wanted. I tried to send
my mom money, but she wouldn’t cash the checks. I sent her cash once, and
she sent it right back. I failed in her eyes, but I know she loves me. I think
someday, if I can settle down somewhere and show her how happy I am,
she’ll forgive me for leaving.”
“It has to be hard on her if you’re her only kid, but you did the right
thing. You’d resent her and hate your life if you stayed trapped
somewhere.”
“What about you? Do you still talk to your family?”
“I do. I have five brothers, all married and breeding. My parents are
in hog heaven spoiling all the grandbabies. I’m the slow one. The one they
worry over because I never tried to settle again after Tessa.” Jason leaned
back and linked his hands behind his head. “You should’ve seen the vitriol
my mom had for Tessa. She never liked her. It was this constant
uncomfortable situation. I mean, Tessa ruined every holiday we tried to
spend with my family.”
“She didn’t want to share you or what?”
 “Didn’t want to share me, but didn’t want to keep me. I don’t think
Tessa knew what she wanted. Not like I did.”
“Have you dated anyone since her?”
Jason’s single, “Ha!” was loud in the small space. “Woman, you’ve
met her. Tessa doesn’t take too kindly to me moving on. She’s done a bang-
up job of keeping me uninterested in a relationship for half a decade now.”
“So you didn’t sleep with anyone after her?”
“Didn’t say that, but it was always a onetime deal and never
serious.”
“Oh.” Her heart sank, and she focused on eating.
Jason watched her thoughtfully, his dark eyes gone serious.
“Georgia, I’m not going to lie to you. Sugar-coating that stuff would only
hurt you later on when you found out the truth.”
“No, I know. I just…I don’t like competition for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I already have to compete with the ghost of your mate. I
don’t get any of your firsts. You had this really huge life-altering
relationship with her. She Turned you for goodness sakes, and it’s not like
you’ve been able to mourn her passing. She’s still here.”
“I know, but sex with other women—”
“I get it. I do. I did the research, and bear shifters have needs to keep
their animals sated. I understand, really, but to me, you’re already more than
a friend. You feel like mine, and I don’t like thinking about you with other
women.”
“But I wasn’t with those women. I only slept with them.”
“Sleeping with someone is really special to me.”
“Wait, are you a virgin?” Jason’s eyes went wide and apprehensive.
 “No! I slept with my ex-boyfriend. But it was special, and I made
sure it was the right time when I wouldn’t regret it. And your callous
disregard for what love-making can actually be makes me nervous. I don’t
want to be like those other women to you.”
The confusion washed from Jason’s face as he smiled and shook his
head. “Georgia, you’re not. And I’m not pressuring you to sleep with me.
I’m fine with taking this slow if it means I get to keep you. Do you know
what sex was like with the three other women that I’ve slept with besides
Tessa?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Unemotional, boring humping with Tessa standing over the bed
hurling insults that I could hear but my partners couldn’t. I felt awful
afterwards. Sick. Crazy. It was impossible to concentrate and impossible to
enjoy. It was sex for my bear’s sake so that maybe I could keep him steady
for a little while longer. Do you know what happens to a bear shifter who
loses control of his animal?”
“No.” Cora Wright’s pro-shifter website definitely hadn’t said
anything about this.
“It’s the alpha’s responsibility to put that shifter down.”
“You mean…kill you?”
“Yeah. I got lucky and found Creed, and I told him about my mate
passing and begged him to take me in, because rumor had it, Creed would
hold onto his crew longer and give them a chance to fix what was broken.
Sex wasn’t this emotional need to connect with another person. It was a
Hail Mary desperation move when I knew I couldn’t hold control over my
animal anymore. It bought me time.”
“Oh.” She frowned. Georgia wanted to keep her ruffled feathers
because she didn’t like the idea of Jason sleeping with women just for the
sake of sleeping with them. But it had bought him enough time to make it to
her. And if she had to choose between Creed killing Jason or him doing
what he had to do to stay alive, she would choose Jason’s life any day.
“Well, I slept with my ex-boyfriend, Evan, a lot, so there.” She
cracked a grin.
Jason narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t really like that.”
“Sucky feeling, isn’t it?”
“Did Evan make you come?”
Georgia pursed her lips at his unexpected question.
His voice had gone all deep and husky, and he leaned over the table
again. “Did he?”
Trapped. Georgia was trapped in his gaze, unable to escape the
question. “Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Twice,” she whispered.
Jason jammed the table out of the way, its legs groaning across the
floor. He lifted her into his arms as his lips collided with hers. The chair
behind her fell backward and, a moment later, her shoulder blades hit the
wall. Jason’s lips moved against hers with a desperation that enflamed her
middle in an instant. He ground against her, pressing his hard erection onto
the seam of her jeans. God, that felt good. He was right where she was most
sensitive, but still, it didn’t feel close enough. She wanted to feel his skin.
He trailed kisses down her neck and grazed her sensitive skin with
his teeth. She gasped and fumbled with the button of his jeans. She needed
more of him, or she’d go mad.
She yanked down his zipper and shoved his pants and briefs out of
the way, unsheathing his long dick. Holy macaroni, that was not going to fit
inside of her. Desperately, she pulled his sweater over his head. His dark
hair was all mussed in that sexy, just-woke-up look as he kicked out of his
pants completely.
Clothes. Why was she still in her clothes? Kissing and fumbling, she
peeled out of her uniform and left the pieces on the floor with Jason’s.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jason rasped out as she moved to unsnap the
back of her bra.
She hesitated, unsure, but he popped her breasts out of her D-cups
and took a step back.
This was usually the part where she crossed her legs, tried to stand
at a better angle, and sucked in her stomach, but the look on Jason’s face
made all of that completely unnecessary. His eyes lightened, and the man
looked nothing shy of hungry as he raked his blazing eyes down her body.
Lifting her chin high and feeling courageous, she pushed down her
boy-short panties and shrugged out of her bra.
Jason was beautifully masculine, standing there under the soft light
with the snow falling behind him just outside the window. His Adam’s
apple dipped into his thick neck as he swallowed. The strands of light threw
the indentations between his pecs and abs into shadow. His six-pack flexed
with every breath, and when he caught her staring, he smiled, then stepped
back with his hands held out at his sides.
“You’re perfect,” she whispered.
“Even if I don’t have a dad bod?”
She giggled and looked down at the wooden floor boards. Darn the
shyness that crept in at the most inopportune moments. “Even so.”
“So are you. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Jason laughed and ran his hands through his hair. “Do you know how many
times I’ve thought about you like this?”
“Three?”
 Jason cracked up and shook his head. “A lot more than three. My
imaginings didn’t even touch what you really look like, though.”
“What’s different?”
“The freckles on your shoulders.” He brushed his fingertips over her
spots. “I think they’re so fucking cute on your face, but here, they’re just
plain sexy. I want to kiss them.” His voice dipped low and husky as he
stared at her mottled skin with a dreamy look. “Bite them.” He cupped her
breast. “So soft. Softer than I’d imagined.”
“And what did you imagine doing to me?”
“Naughty things.”
“Like?”
“Like laying you under me and coming all over your chest until
you’re slick with my cum. Like sliding into you from behind and ramming
you until you scream my name.” He lifted his gaze from her shoulders.
“Like tasting you.”
“You’d want to?”
“Fuck yeah, you smell delicious. You get aroused so easy around
me. Fills up my head.” Jason blinked slowly.
“Maybe one taste.” Gosh, oh gosh! She was actually going to do
this. With Jason!
“You won’t stick to that rule.” He fell to his knees in front of her
and drew one of her tingling nipples into his mouth. His tongue brushed
against it over and over until her hips rolled forward. Oh, that man had a
clever mouth.
He moved to her other and gave it the same attention while his hand
drifted down her waist. A soft moan moved past her lips as she pressed her
head back against the wall. The rafters were low here, angling upward to
make the vaulted ceiling, but she clutched onto the smooth wooden beam
like a lifeline. Her legs would give out if she didn’t steady herself. Already,
they were numbing by the moment.
Jason cupped her sex, and she gasped as the heel of his hand pressed
against her clit.
“So sensitive for me,” he murmured.
“More,” she pleaded.
When he slid his finger into her, a helpless sound clawed up her
throat.
More, more, more.
Jason leaned forward and tongued her clit, then pushed inside of her.
“Oh!” she cried out, shocked at how good it felt.
“One taste,” he whispered, easing away by centimeters. “Or do you
want more?”
She nodded her head. “More.”
His wicked smile was instant before he grabbed her ass and kissed
her again. This time, he didn’t stop. He didn’t question or hesitate. He ate
her rhythmically, tongue thrusting into her over and over. Three licks, then
he sucked on her clit until she cried out, then back into her with that sexy
tongue of his. She was panting now, losing control as pressure filled her
middle. She was going to come soon. She panted out a mewling sound as
she gave up on the rafter and gripped his hair with both hands. “Jason,” she
said on a shaky sigh as the pleasure turned blinding.
Her orgasm rocketed through her, and she cried out. Jason bit the
inside of her thigh gently, and a tremble worked its way up her spine at how
delicious his teeth felt against her sensitive flesh. He wouldn’t bite her
deeply. She trusted him.
As her body throbbed, Jason stood so fast, he was a blur. Gripping
the back of her neck and pressing his lips against the tripping pulse in her
neck, he slid into her. It didn’t hurt like she’d been worried about. He’d
made sure she was prepared for him. A silly pride filled her that she could
take all of him, and when he eased out and shoved back into her, the orgasm
that was seizing her body transformed into building pressure again.
“One,” he growled out as he thrust into her again.
“Oooh,” she whispered. Jason was on a sexy mission to destroy
Evan’s number.
Even if he wasn’t biting her to claim her, this felt territorial. He slid
into her again, hitting her clit just right. Dang, she was so sensitive right
now after what he’d done with his mouth.
She hugged him closer, reveling in the feel of his steely frame
against hers. A snarl rumbled low in his throat, and he picked her up and
slammed her back against the wall, pulling her legs around his waist. His
powerful hips bucked harder against her. She was losing her mind, moaning
with what he was doing to her. Another orgasm blasted through her, her
body clenching around him as Jason’s growl turned feral. And when he
leaned in to nip at her neck, she could see it. His bear was right there in his
silver moon eyes. They churned like storm clouds for just a moment before
he closed them.
“Two,” he rasped out, slamming into her harder.
Her aftershocks raced on as she clawed at his back. Territorial man,
she got it. She absolutely understood. She wanted to wipe away his memory
of the mate who had failed him, of the emptiness he’d found with those
other women. She wanted Jason all to herself.
Mindlessly, she sank her teeth into his shoulder, right over Tessa’s
claiming mark.
She bit down until she tasted iron, and Jason threw his head back
and roared an inhuman sound. His hips jerked as he shot jets of warmth into
her, over and over until it trickled out of her, too much for her to hold.
The air was heavy, and the strands of lights grew brighter until they
blinded her. She closed her eyes against it and released him from her bite.
Chest heaving, she held onto Jason as he buried his head against her neck,
hiding his eyes.
What had she done? The torn flesh where she’d bitten him was
bleeding, streaming down and pooling in the space just above his
collarbone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Jason had emptied himself completely into her, but was still moving
slowly within, his hips rolling gracefully.
A low chuckle took his throat as he eased his face back to look at
her. His eyes were almost as white as the falling snow outside the window.
Her breath caught in her throat as she brushed her finger across his cheek
under the beautiful, inhuman color.
“Don’t be apologizing for that, Ranger. You bitey”—he nipped her
lip—“sexy”—he kissed her—“beautiful mate.”
“Mate?” The word came out a trembling whisper since Jason was
building another release between her legs.
He pushed into her harder, then eased out slow. “Yeah, Georgia.
Mate. You bite me like that, I’m yours.”
He thrust into her again, and she teetered over the edge, her body
pulsing around him as she moaned his name. Breathlessly, she leaned her
forehead against his.
Jason bucked into her slowly, drawing every last throbbing burst of
pleasure from her. “And now you’re mine. Three.”

OceanofPDF.com
 Chapter Eight

Jason traced his finger lightly from one freckle to the next on
Georgia’s back. He smiled as she giggled. He pressed harder as he
connected her spots so it wouldn’t tickle her so much.
She lay on her stomach on a pile of blankets that had been stashed in
the treehouse. Dinner was long gone, eaten on the floor as she’d sat
between his legs, talking and laughing. This woman, his woman, eased his
soul in ways he couldn’t ever explain to her. And not once tonight had he
seen Tessa. For a moment, watching Georgia’s slow smile and her lips
move with her words, he forgot he was broken at all.
Georgia didn’t know it yet, but she possessed magic. It’s the only
thing that could explain how normal he felt right now, propped up on his
elbow, lying beside the woman he’d do anything for.
His attraction to her had been instant and shocking, but after tonight,
his fate was sealed to collide with hers for always. His heart and body
already belonged to her, but he wouldn’t say such things out loud. Georgia
was human and didn’t understand how fast a bond worked. He was a simple
man who didn’t know much, but he knew one thing. Georgia was his in all
the ways that mattered.
This wasn’t like with Tessa. It wasn’t hard love or painful affection.
It wasn’t waiting for a rare compliment and enduring so much bad. It wasn’t
fighting and throwing hateful words like grenades. It wasn’t absorbing
animosity because the words “I love you” had been used. It wasn’t sticking
around out of stubbornness or a fear of failing a relationship.
 Being with Georgia was easy. It was a song his heart had memorized
that he could sing without thinking about the lyrics. Two weeks ago, he’d
been headed to hell, but Georgia had caught him. She’d hugged him close
and stopped his freefall.
“If you were a shifter, you’d be a leopard.” He traced another shape
into her freckled skin.
“Or perhaps a cheetah,” she said, her full, petal-pink lips spreading
in a happy smile. “Not a scary bear.”
“Never a bear,” he agreed, his mind skittering away from the
thought of her with silver eyes.
“Never?”
Gooseflesh rippled across her back and arms, so he pulled the
blanket firmly over her to keep in the warmth. The snow had stopped, but
the sun had gone down and taken its warmth with it.
“I let Tessa Turn me, and it has been my biggest regret. I had to hide
what I was from the people I loved the most.”
“Your family?”
He nodded. “My mom called me the day I registered with the Gray
Backs. One of her friends had told her that her youngest son was a bear
shifter. She should’ve heard it from me.”
“Was she upset?” Georgia asked, her strange-colored blue and gold
eyes filling with sympathy.
“She cried on the phone for a long time. It was after Tessa had left
me—after she died. Mom guessed what had happened right away and knew
it was Tessa who Turned me. I’d written all these letters, hell bent on
sending them to her and Dad someday because I was too chicken shit to
admit out loud I’d given up being human for a woman like Tessa. I felt
weak. Ashamed. They’d set this incredible example of a loving, healthy
relationship, and I’d ignored all of that when I chose someone like Tessa.”
Jason pressed his lips against her shoulder. Georgia’s skin was soft
as silk, so he let them linger there before he said, “I want to take you to my
hometown for the holidays. We have a while yet, but I want my family to
meet you. They’ll love you.”
“Jason?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, brushing a strand of that long, curly hair
away from her heart-shaped cheeks that had gone rosy as the night had
worn on.
“What if someday I asked you to Turn me?”
“I won’t.”
“But what if it’s what I wanted? What if I wanted your claiming
mark?”
Jason sighed and lay down beside her. When she was nestled against
his arm, he stared up at the cedar rafters above them. “I want to give you
everything you want, Georgia. I want you to be happy. I want to be the one
who makes you smile the most, but a bear isn’t something I can give you.
Everything started going wrong when Tessa marked me. I don’t want you
trapped in the same life.”
Georgia kissed his chest and snuggled closer to him, quiet and
thoughtful now. Minutes passed before he realized her breathing had
changed. It had deepened to the slow and steady rhythm of sleep. He pulled
his eyes away from the rafters to look at her face. A tear track was still
damp on her nose, and a tiny drop of moisture sat on his arm.
He brushed her heartache away and sucked it from his thumb to
taste her tear. He deserved the pain it caused him, but he wouldn’t take his
denial back.
He wouldn’t curse her like Tessa had done to him.
That’s not how love worked.

OceanofPDF.com
 Chapter Nine

Jason followed Georgia’s laughter. It tinkled like a bell, echoing off

the dilapidated wooden walls. Gray and splintered, the stairwell didn’t put
him off—not if Georgia was laughing. If she was happy, everything was
okay.
He raced up to the next landing and caught his first glimpse of her.
Just a twitch of her hair as she disappeared to the next set of stairs. Damn,
she was fast.
“Catch me if you can,” she sang.
Breathing hard, he leaned over the railing and looked up. The tower
they were in seemed to stretch on forever. He frowned, but Georgia giggled
again, and the sound warmed his heart.
She peeked her head out, waiting for him around the next corner,
and just as he caught up to her, she took off again. He was tired and slow.
Where had his shifter speed gone?
He climbed and climbed, always missing Georgia by inches. He just
wanted to hold her and feel her laughter vibrating against his chest.
She skidded to a stop at the top landing. A wall had been cut out and
a jagged walkway led to nothing. Beside the hole in the wall sat an ax,
silver and shiny, sharp blade gleaming in the muted light.
Georgia turned, her eyes scared. She wore a white dress that
whipped around her legs as she backed onto the platform.
“Georgia, don’t!”
She took another step back, and the fear in her eyes made way for
sadness. “I trust you,” she whispered.
 He lurched forward as she fell off the edge. Skidding on his
stomach, he reached for her hand but only brushed her fingertips. “No!” he
screamed as she fell down to oblivion.
And just before she disappeared, she opened her mouth and
screamed as her skin melted away from her face and her bones turned to
ash.
“She’s not for you,” a hard voice said from behind him.
He turned to find Tessa leaned on the porch railing just inside of the
tower. With a roar of fury, he picked up the ax and rushed her. Just before
he reached her, he locked his legs and skidded to a stop as he rotated his
hips and blasted the ax toward her. The blade sliced through her like smoke,
never really touching her, but it sank deep into a thick beam. It splintered,
and the tower rocked. Jason yanked the ax out of the creaking wood.
“That’s right, Jason. Take us both down.” Tessa’s voice bounced off
the walls before she appeared in front of the beam again. “That’s all I’ve
ever wanted.”
Madness consumed him. She’d done this—taken Georgia. He
slammed the ax through her again, and the beam shattered inward.
Dust, rock, and wood rained down as the floor beneath his feet
shifted.
Tessa appeared at his right as he gripped onto the splintering railing.
“All I ever wanted was for you to come with me,” she whispered.
****
Gasping, Jason lurched up. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he murmured as he
struggled to breathe. Frantically, he patted Georgia’s arms and back, but she
was warm and alive beside him in the treehouse. She was still here, under
the bed they’d made with spare blankets, and all tucked up beside him.
 A soft rattling sounded, stopped, then vibrated again. Jason cast the
moon outside a frown, then padded over to his jeans in search of his phone.
It was the middle of the night. Who the devil was calling him right now?
Beaston, the caller ID read.
“Hey, man,” he whispered. “Hang on.”
He shimmied into his jeans and opened the door as quietly as he
could so he wouldn’t disturb Georgia. Out on the porch, he lifted the phone
to his ear and said, “Sorry. I was trying not to wake someone.”
“Your ranger.”
Jason smiled and sighed. “Yeah, Georgia.”
“Are you in the treehouse?” Easton asked.
“How did you know?”
“I can hear it. The trees make different sounds.”
Jason crossed his arms over his chest to ward off the chilly breeze.
“Oh.” A soft noise perked his senses up. Narrowing his eyes, Jason
searched the woods as far as he could in the light of the half moon.
Someone was crying.
No, not someone. Something.
“I burned the bones,” Easton murmured. “There was a guard, so it
took me longer than I thought it would to get to her body. Is she gone?”
The sniffling, quiet crying got louder as the wind changed
directions.
“No.”
“Shit.” Easton sighed on the other end. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Okay. Easton?”
“What?” Easton asked.
“Thanks for trying to help me. It means a lot.”
The line was quiet so long, Jason thought he’d already hung up.
 “You’re my best friend,” Easton muttered.
The line went dead, and Jason pulled the phone back to stare at the
screen as the glow faded.
He’d thought Easton wasn’t capable of wanting friendship. Sure,
he’d softened up to Willa and Gia, but he was always ready to fight when it
came to him and the other men in the Gray Backs.
The corners of Jason’s lips lifted in a baffled smile.
He’d never been anyone’s best friend before.
A pathetic whimper pulled his attention from the phone in his hands.
With a sigh, he climbed down the ladder, then moved through the brush
toward the sound of Tessa’s misery.
He wasn’t a stupid man. Tessa couldn’t get close to him when he
was with Georgia, so she had to use what she could as bait to lure him
farther away from his mate. Did he want to be out here in the dead of night
half naked in the cold? Hell no. But he also knew Tessa enough to realize
she wasn’t going to stop with the sniffling until he gave her whatever
attention she needed. And he had to be up in a couple hours for work on the
landing. He needed sleep.
She sat against a tree, knees to her chest, face buried on her arms as
she cried. Her vulnerability wasn’t what stopped him in his tracks, though.
Tessa was only half a ghost. He could see right through her to the rough tree
bark behind her.
Jason leaned against a tree and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Why did you give me that nightmare, Tessa?”
She looked up at him with startled eyes, but he knew this game. She
sniffed and stood. “Because you won’t listen to me.”
“What are you talking about? I have no choice. You talk all the
fucking time.”
 “But you don’t hear me. I don’t want to leave. Not without you. And
now look what you’ve done to me.” She looked down at her transparent
body.
The burning of her bones had done this.
“I don’t want to come with you, Tessa. And if you ever cared for
me, you wouldn’t ask.”
“I do care for you. Why do you think I’m here waiting? And now
you’re with her. I heard you bonding with her. What about our bond?”
“We didn’t ever have one! Tessa, a bond isn’t just temporarily liking
someone and wanting to fuck them on the regular. A bond is unbreakable
stitches that hold your heart right up against someone else’s. If you’d ever
bonded to me, you wouldn’t have left me for another mate. You couldn’t
have. I’m not going with you. I’m not dying so you can use me as a crutch.”
“You love me!”
“I don’t. I haven’t in a long time. I pity you, but no, I don’t love
you.”
Tessa’s voice dipped to a whisper. “But you don’t love her.”
Jason shifted his weight and held her gaze so she could see the
honesty in his eyes when he said, “Wrong again.”
Tessa’s eyes blazed as she opened her mouth, but Jason had
expected this. He turned away from her gory show and walked back to the
treehouse.
By the time he’d reached the bottom rung of the ladder, Tessa’s
scream had faded away.

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 Chapter Ten

Jason couldn’t take his eyes off Georgia. She drove this way and
that on her ATV, standing straight up, arms locked on the handlebars as she
scanned the forest floor in front of her.
He hadn’t meant to stalk her, only to meet up with her, but when
he’d followed her scent from the ranger tower out here, he hadn’t been able
to stop observing her. He didn’t know this Georgia. Not yet.
She revved the motor and pulled her four-wheeler around a clump of
brush. She was wearing a brown, button-down shirt that clung to that
hourglass figure he found so damned sexy. Her thick cargo pants clung to
her ass just right, and her hair was in a ponytail, whipping behind her when
she gunned the accelerator. Her puff jacket was open and a long hunting
knife hung down from her belt on one side, a handgun on the other. Both of
which she wore and maneuvered around as if the weapons were an
extension of herself.
Georgia was a badass.
His dick thumped against the seam of his jeans as he moved forward
to show himself. Her eyes met his the second he moved. Surprise faded to
relief, then to happiness as her face brightened with that gorgeous smile he
breathed for.
Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, and her breath, like his,
steamed out in front of her on every exhale as she drove toward him. God,
she was beautiful.
“What are you looking for?”
Her smile slipped. “Bodies.”
 “What?”
“We have a poacher problem I’m trying to work out. They keep
moving inward, closer to Boarlander territory, and it has me nervous. I need
to stop them before they get bold enough, and close enough, to take a bear,
if you catch my drift. I’ve already warned Harrison and his crew, and
they’re on the lookout, but I’ve dealt with this crap before, and these people
aren’t acting like regular poachers. They aren’t the get in, take their animals
illegally, and get out type. I’ve found three old campsites. That’s ballsy,
setting up tents and staying overnight.”
“Maybe they don’t know it’s private land.”
“How could they not? They have to pass through gates with no
trespassing signs on them.”
“Hmm,” Jason said. Uneasiness slipped over his shoulders thinking
about his mate going head-to-head with these assholes, but this was her job.
And like she’d said, she’d dealt with poachers before. Still, his instincts
were blaring to tuck her up against him where she would be safe and
protected. But he’d learned from Gia and Willa, if they’re mate became
overbearing like that, those Gray Back women would put the hurt on them.
He suspected Georgia was no different and just as strong.
“You know what gets me?” she asked, scanning the woods with a
troubled furrow to her delicate eyebrows. “They aren’t keeping their kills.
Hunters are respectful about taking meat, but these guys? They’re just
shooting for sport.” She swung her bright gaze back to Jason. “I’ve never
seen poachers leave their game behind like this. Bad shots and not even
trying to track down the animals.”
“You want me to sniff around? See if I can’t find something you
missed?”
“You mean as a bear?”
 “Yeah.”
“Nope. I don’t want your animal anywhere near here. Plus, I’m
terrified of bears, remember? Now hop on up here and take me back to the
ranger tower, sexy dick.” Georgia slapped her hand over her mouth as her
eyes went wide. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I just said that.”
Jason laughed and pulled her hand away from her mouth. “Said
what? Dick?”
“I don’t cuss.”
“Ranger, I think it’s sexy when you let naughty words slip. Call me
sexy dick whenever you want.”
Her cheeks blazed bright red, making her freckles disappear
completely. Damn she was cute. He leaned forward and kissed her, nipping
her lip right before he pulled away. He climbed in front of her on the ATV
and pulled her arms around his waist. It felt as if she’d been made to fit
right against him like this. He revved the engine, then hit the gas. Georgia
laughed breathlessly as he sped through the piney woods toward the
treehouse.
Over the sound of the whipping wind, Georgia asked, “How was
Tessa today?”
Relentless, haunting, heartbreaking. When the ghost wasn’t spewing
hate at him, her sobbing rattled around in his mind, making it hard to focus
on working the processor up on the landing. With Clinton gone, he’d taken
over the big machine to strip the lumber into neat, limbless logs with
perfectly cut ends. The entire shift had been a miserable affair as he
operated heavy machinery in the midst of Tessa’s efforts to ruin his
confidence. Georgia didn’t have to know how much Tessa had been
battering him, though. She would only worry and put her job on hold to
come up to the landing if she thought she could protect him. That’s how
Georgia was. Selfless.
“Tessa was fine.”
“Good. When is Easton getting home? I picked him up a present.”
“Any time now. What did you get him?”
She squeaked and ducked a low-hanging branch with him. “You’ll
see.”
Jason pulled the ATV into the shed that kept it safe from Mother
Nature. It was warmer under the metal awning with the wind blocked. Jason
turned around in the seat. Facing her, he gripped her jacket and pulled her in
close. “I came here to ask you on a second date.”
“Mr. Trager,” she said, placing her hand on her chest and looking
scandalized. “You mean I wasn’t just a one night stand?”
“Never. Are you free tonight?”
Georgia frowned at the woods outside the shed door. “If it was
Friday, I’d say no because I have some poacher hunting to do this weekend,
but since it’s only Thursday, I’ll accept.” Her blue-gold eyes danced when
she gifted him with a happy glance. “Where are you taking me?”
“Into Saratoga, but I have to tell you something. It won’t just be us.
Creed wants us to go to Sammy’s Bar together and get a night off from all
the crap going on with Clinton and Tessa. Some of the Ashe Crew are
awesome on the microphone—good old country boy crooners, and they
have a special show tonight. Usually they play on the weekends, but Tagan,
their alpha, has invited us out tonight. I know it might not be your scene,
but I kind of want everyone to see you on my arm.”
“You gonna show me off?” she asked, quirking her eyebrow.
“Hell yeah, I am. A couple of weeks ago I was basically
sleepwalking through my life, and now I feel…I don’t know…alive again.
Let’s go out drinking and listen to some live music and pretend we’re a
normal couple for the night. Like we don’t have a ghost tailing us.”
Georgia bit her lip, then admitted, “I think this is the first party I’ve
ever been invited to.”
“Bullshit, that can’t be true.”
“It is!” She lifted both his hands and intertwined her fingers with
his. “I’ve been in the woods for years with one or two co-workers at most,
and all of them have been grizzly, old, grumpy, mountain men. There
haven’t been a lot of opportunities to go buck wild.”
Jason kissed the knuckles of her gloves and offered her a wicked
grin. “Well, I’m glad I’m your first then. Now say something dirty. I want to
watch your lips around a filthy word.”
“Hard pass.”
“I’ll reward you.”
Georgia glared and sighed, but he could see her conviction faltering.
“You look fuckin’ sexy.”
“Oh, damn woman, say that in my ear.”
That beautiful blush was back in her cheeks as she leaned forward.
When she pulled his earlobe between her lips and sucked, he groaned and
rolled his hips against hers. Fuck, he could probably cream his pants just
dry humping her.
“You look fuckin’ sexy,” she murmured.
Jason angled his chin and pressed his lips against hers, then thrust
his tongue in her mouth. She let off that sexy little moan she had last night
when he’d done something she liked. His mate was a noisy little creature,
letting him know what buttons she liked pushed best.
He popped the button of her pants open as she draped her legs over
his thighs.
 “Jason, we’re out in the open,” she whispered between kisses.
“No one’s around,” he said, unzipping her. “I can hear if anyone
comes near. Which is usually really annoying, hearing everything, but right
now, I’m glad to be a shifter.” He dipped his voice low and took on a deep
bayou Cajun accent. “We gon’ have some fun in the woods now.”
Georgia’s laugh was cut short when he slid his hand into her open
pants. She was so wet already, he could slide into her easy if that’s what he
was after. This one was just for Georgia though, because as good as sex in
the woods sounded right now, she was human, and it was cold, and he
wouldn’t risk getting her sick just so he could get off.
He slid his finger into her, and she clenched around him as she
gripped the back of his neck and whispered his name. “Oh, Jason.”
“Fuck yes, tell me what you like.”
He pushed into her slowly, then added another finger. Palming her,
he buried his fingers deep inside of her, and she bucked forward against the
heel of his hand.
“That, I like that.”
He growled. His bear was desperate to have his throbbing dick
inside her instead of his finger. The next needy sound she made dumped
him over the edge. He pushed into her faster as he unzipped his jeans and
pulled a quick stroke of himself. God, he was hard. He’d had a chronic
boner since he’d met Georgia and, fuck it all, she was here with him, letting
him touch her, allowing him to bring her to climax. He was the luckiest
SOB on the planet. He jerked off in rhythm to her bucking hips, imagining
himself buried inside of her, ramming her over and over as he kissed her
lips.
“I’m going to come,” she rasped out, breath coming in quick pants.
 Well they would match then because the pulsing pressure in his
groin was too much now. The snarl in his throat ripped through him louder
as she tossed her head back and cried out. Her body squeezed his fingers
hard, her climax encouraging his own.
He gritted his teeth and buried his face against her neck. In a rush,
Georgia pulled her arms from around his neck and lifted her shirt, then
pressed her stomach against his dick just as he blew his load. Heat flooded
him as he sprayed her torso, marking her completely with his scent. With
their bodies pressed together against his shaft, he jerked erratically in the
slickness he’d created until he was sated and emptied completely.
Jason’s limbs felt heavy as he leaned forward and hugged her. They
were a mess now, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was soaking up the
satisfaction of being with Georgia—his mate.
He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her nose. He trailed his lips down her
neck and held her close because she should feel adored after what she’d
shared with him.
“Jason?”
The nervousness in her voice made him ease back so he could see
her eyes. “What is it?”
“I think I love you.”
Those words slammed around his insides, changing him from the
core out. A fierce protectiveness washed over him as he sat straighter in the
seat. His Georgia. He would never let anything bad happen to her. He’d
give anything to keep her happy, to keep that smile on her face, because
she’d given him this gift.
She accepted the broken pieces of him and the ghost that trailed
after him wherever he went. His strong, caring mate saw past all his flaws
and found the parts of him he’d thought he’d lost.
 She’d just saved him with those words.
He swallowed his emotions down and cupped her soft cheek. “I love
you, too.”

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 Chapter Eleven

She shouldn’t be, but Georgia was nervous as all get-out. Sure,
she’d met all the Gray Backs and was comfortable with them, but she
hadn’t gone out with a group in…well…ever.
“Knock, knock,” Willa sang as she did hopscotch hops right into the
bedroom of ten-ten where Georgia was getting dressed.
“Uh, come in?” Clearly, trailer etiquette wasn’t Willa’s strong suit.
“Damn, girl, you have some jugs!” Willa jumped on the bed,
twisting in the air like a tiny acrobat, and landed spread out like a starfish.
“I’m jealous.”
“Ha!” Georgia said, her self-consciousness melting away. “Don’t be.
They are a pain in the backside.” And front side.
“Bet Jason likes them, though, am I right?” Willa held up her hand
for a high five.
Shaking her head, Georgia tried to hide her grin and slapped Willa’s
palm. “What am I supposed to wear tonight? Half of my clothes are ranger
gear, and the other half are T-shirts and sneakers.”
“The last one. I’m wearing this.”
My Worms are Better than Yours, her black T-shirt read. And her
feet dangling off the end of the bed were encased in an old pair of rainbow-
colored Converse. Today she was wearing her spikey, crimson dyed hair in
ponytails on the top of her head.
Georgia picked out a solid green cotton T and pulled it over her
jeans. She liked Willa. There was no pressure to be anything more than
what she already was around Matt’s mate. She and Gia had also gone out of
their way to make her feel included. She didn’t know much about where
they came from, but Georgia would bet her compass they’d been on the
outside looking in before. From her experience, that kind of sensitivity was
often learned, not inherent.
“If I tell you something, you swear not to laugh?”
Willa rolled over and grinned. “No.”
Georgia snorted and sat on the end of the bed. “I bit Jason.”
Willa’s chestnut brown eyes went round as saucers. “You did?
Explain.”
“I know I’m human and can’t give a claiming mark, but I hated that
Tessa’s mark was on him, so I bit him there. Hard.”
“When you were boinking?”
Heat blasted through Georgia’s cheeks like magma, and she closed
her eyes to keep her bravery. “Yes.” The admission came out a tiny squeak.
“Ahahaha,” Willa crowed, rolling over and clutching her belly as
she kicked her legs up in the air. “That’s awesome. Dude! You’re a Gray
Back! Bitey, blood-thirsty little C-teamer. I should’ve known you were
going to be one of us when you pulled a gun on Jason that first night.”
“Shhh,” Georgia said, trying not to laugh. “I’m embarrassed about
it. It was in the moment, but afterward he called me his mate, and it’s kind
of a big deal because bears terrify me, and now I’m mated to one. Kind of. I
can’t really be a Gray Back, though. He said he won’t ever Turn me.”
“So? Gia’s as much a Gray Back as me, and she’s entirely human.
Hell, Peanut Butter Spike is a Gray Back, and he’s a dog. You’re GB now,
Georgia. Claim that shit. We’re awesome.”
“Are y’all ready?” Jason asked, sticking his head in her bedroom.
Did nobody knock in this trailer park before barging in?
 “Nerd!” Matt called from outside. “Come on, woman, we’re burnin’
daylight.”
“Geez, Griz, take your pants off! I’m coming,” Willa called,
flopping off the side of the bed.
“That’s not how the saying goes, Wil,” Jason said, shaking his head.
“It’s keep your pants on, not take them off.”
Willa gripped Jason’s shoulders with a beaming grin and shook him.
Then she made chomping sounds around his neck and called,
“Congratulations!” over her shoulder as she left.
“So, we’re telling people now?” Jason asked Georgia.
“Is that okay?”
Jason strode to her and lifted her in his arms. Spinning slowly, he
murmured, “It’s more than okay. Guess what?”
“What?”
“I hear your Jeep.”
“Easton’s back?”
A short nod was all he got out before she scrambled out of his arms.
Oh, she knew what Easton had tried to do for Jason, and that made him a
friend in her book. Anyone who cared for the man she loved like that was
A-Okay by her. And Jason had told her Tessa was weaker now, half
disappeared after Easton had burned her bones.
She grabbed the paper bag from the suitcase she’d brought here
from the ranger tower and headed for the door.
Dang, her Jeep was a sight for sore eyes. Easton must’ve washed it
somewhere along the way because the mud splatters were gone, leaving
only the matted-with-age green paint job. She’d bought it for the memories
of riding around in the Wrangler her very first boss had let her drive. She
didn’t have many material possessions and didn’t want them, but her ride
was special.
Easton wasn’t smiling or meeting anyone’s gaze as she made her
way through the other Gray Backs who were gathering on the white gravel
road by the communal fire pit.
And when he turned off the engine and got out, he immediately said,
“I’m sorry for taking your car. I filled it up with gas and was really careful.”
She waved her hand, batting away his apology right before she
hugged him up tight.
Behind her, Willa gasped, but she didn’t care if she was being a
crazy person right now. Easton was good, and she was glad he was back.
Maybe they could figure out this Tessa problem together now and give
Jason back his life, once and for all.
Easton froze under her, hunched over and barely breathing. When
she pulled away, she wiped her watering eyes and handed him the brown
paper bag with the present she’d found at a metal shop in town.
Easton searched her face with his wild green eyes, then dipped his
gaze to the crackling present in her hands.
“What is this?”
“A thank you.”
Easton looked over her shoulder at the others and shrugged slowly.
“For what?”
“For helping Jason.”
He took the bag and pulled out the small branding iron inside. It had
a capital E with a circle around it.
“It’s so you can put your signature on the tree houses you build. You
can heat it in a fire and it’ll burn the E into the wood. It took me a little
while, but I figured out it was you who built the ranger tower I’ve been
living in. You’re very good.”
“I’m not good,” he said softly with a shake of his head.
“You are.”
His startled eyes lifted from the iron he held reverently in his hands.
Slowly, as if he didn’t want to startle her, he wrapped his arms around her
shoulders and hugged her. A soft, “Awww,” sounded from behind her, and a
moment later, Willa threw her arms around them. Easton rested his head
against Willa’s and smiled, and Gia, sniffling and emotional, hugged them
from the other side.
Georgia already felt at home in this place, but this right here shifted
something deep inside of her. She’d found Jason and felt like the luckiest
woman in the world, but here, in this old trailer park in the middle of
nowhere, she’d somehow found more.
She’d found friends.
****
Jason leaned back on the bar top and watched Georgia with Willa
and Gia. Gia had one hand protectively over the slope of her belly as she
excitedly ran through the songs on the old jukebox in the corner. Georgia
and Willa bantered back and forth about which one to choose next. Damn it
was good to see his woman smiling and having fun with his crew.
Creed leaned against the bar in between him and Easton and gave a
two fingered wave to the bartender. He ordered a round of six shots—one
for every Gray Back except Gia.
Surprised by the drink selection of his usually controlled alpha,
Jason asked, “What are we celebrating tonight, boss?”
“What aren’t we celebrating?” Creed turned and clapped Easton on
the back beside him, then threw his arm over Jason’s shoulders on his other
side. “The crew is together, we survived another week on the landing, your
ghost is—”
“Staring at me from that window over there,” Jason said.
“Getting weaker,” Creed continued as if he hadn’t interrupted.
“Easton’s out for the first time with us, and the Gray Back women are
happy and safe. And yesterday, Gia and I found out we’re having a little
girl.”
“What?” Matt said, sloshing his beer as he twisted on his bar stool
and looked around Easton’s far side. “A girl?”
Creed’s dark eyes danced as a grin split his face. “Yeah, boys. The
Gray Backs are gonna be raising a little girl.”
“I’ll be damned,” Jason muttered happily as he stared at the swell of
Gia’s stomach. He clapped Creed on the back. “You done good, alpha.”
Harrison and a few of his Boarlanders streamed through the door.
Clinton followed them in, causing the smile to fall from Creed’s face.
“Yeah,” the dark-headed alpha said as his mouth ticked. “I’ve done
real good.”
“That shit ain’t your fault,” Easton growled low. “Clinton left
because he’s too weak to be a Gray Back. He’s chicken shit about a mate,
but that don’t have nothin’ to do with you.” Easton’s gaze arched to Willa,
Gia, and Georgia. “He doesn’t deserve to protect a woman anyhow. D-
team.”
Jason laughed louder than he’d meant to, and Easton shot him a
startled look. “That was funny,” Jason explained.
Easton offered him a baffled smile and took the shot of whiskey
Creed was handing him. Matt let off a shrill whistle for the girls, which got
him playfully flipped off by Willa. Matt’s wicked smile said he liked when
his mate got sassy. While the girls made their way through the crowd, Creed
laid down the rules.
“Tonight is for fun. No Changing, no fighting, no getting your cages
rattled by banter from the other crews.”
“We would never,” Matt joked.
“Bullshit,” Creed muttered, handing Jason a shot. “I’m serious. No
bleeding tonight.”
Jason pulled Georgia between his legs and kissed the back of her
neck as they lifted their tiny glasses high into the middle. The shots clinked
against each other as Willa said, “Cheers to the best damned group of
monsters a weirdo could ask for. C-team!”
“C-team,” they said in unison, then tossed back their drinks.
On the stage, Denison and Brighton Beck of the Ashe Crew were
tuning their guitars. Denison was sitting in a chair under the spotlight, a
pitcher of beer sitting beside him on a stool. He pulled the microphone
down to his lips and said, “Rumor has it a little human took her teeth to one
of my good friends in the Gray Back Crew.”
Georgia went rigid between Jason’s legs. He massaged her shoulders
and lifted his hand, then pointed at his mate. “Right here.”
Georgia looked back at him with wide, shocked eyes. She’d done
her make-up nice and looked smokin’ hot in her tight jeans and curve-
fitting shirt. Pride swelled inside of him as the other crews lifted their
drinks and whistled, catcalled, and howled.
“A new mate in a crew is a beautiful thing. Welcome to the
madness, Georgia. Good luck keeping that lucky bastard in line. This song’s
for you.”
The noise level was deafening in Sammy’s bar now, and Georgia
covered her rosy cheeks with her hands, as if that would help cool the heat
there. Laughing, she buried her face against Jason’s chest as the first notes
of the song rang out above the cheers and jeers of the bar. Denison was
wearing a big old shit-eating grin that matched his twin brother, Brighton’s,
as he sang the first words of the song, loud and clear in his deep timbre.
“Brute,” Georgia accused, easing back to look at Jason. “You
could’ve warned me.”
“Mmm,” Jason murmured, pressing his lips against her forehead.
“Where’s the fun in that? And besides, you were the one who said we were
telling people. Now curse like the delinquent Gray Back you are.”
Georgia nuzzled against his face and wrapped her arms around his
neck. Easing back, she crinkled up her nose and whispered, “As far as
second dates go, this one is pretty fuckin’ awesome.”

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 Chapter Twelve

Two weeks was all it had taken to fall in love with her life in ten-ten.
Two weeks, and Georgia had grown to adore Willa, Gia, Creed, Matt, and
Easton. Heck, even Nards and Peanut Butter Spike had wiggled their way
into her heart. But more than that, she’d fallen hopelessly in love with
Jason.
He was sweet and tender, but with a primal, raw power that said he
held himself in check at all times, especially around her.
Holding her coffee in one hand with her backpack slung over her
shoulder, Georgia smiled at the little mouse that toted a sliver of toast she’d
given him across the living room floor. She shut the door to 1010 and made
her way down the porch stairs. The morning light was muted and gray, and
the dark clouds above warned of a storm. It was cold enough for snow
again.
Georgia took a sip of the hot coffee to ward off thoughts of how
frigid it would be riding along Damon Daye’s territory line today. She’d
missed the poachers on the last two Fridays. They were crafty, setting up on
different mountains, always close to the property line, but last week, they’d
trekked into an area they hadn’t before and took a deer way too close to the
Boarlander’s territory for comfort.
She had to stop them.
“You’re up early, Ranger,” Jason said from his screened in porch.
“I was trying to catch your naked morning coffee,” she teased.
Her eyes had nearly plopped out of her head the first time she’d seen
him standing there with his dick out, drinking a steaming cup of Joe. He’d
told her he did it because Tessa had hated it, and she always left him alone
for those few minutes in the morning when he pissed her off enough.
Georgia, however, was a big fan. Straight-backed man with six-pack
abs flexing as he stretched. Long dick at half-mast as he blew on his coffee.
Those dark, dancing eyes, daring her to look between his legs. Naked coffee
time was her favorite time of day.
He pushed open the screen door and jogged down the stairs, meeting
her right in front of his landscaping. “Too cold this morning. My balls just
straight-up refused the abuse.” He wore jeans over heavy, mud-splattered
work boots and a thick canvas jacket that made his shoulders appear even
wider as it tapered to his narrow waist. His green winter hat made his eyes
look lighter, and paired with that sexy scruff he’d grown on his jaw over the
last few days, he looked rugged and delicious.
“Morning, Georgia,” Gia called from the trailer that stood between
1010 and Jason’s singlewide. Gia waved, then leaned down to kiss her mate
goodbye.
Creed let the kiss linger and palmed Gia’s growing belly, drawing a
blush from Georgia blushed at witnessing such a tender moment.
Jason pulled her into a hug and murmured, “That’s going to be us
someday.”
Georgia clenched his jacket in her fists and sighed. She could
imagine it. Her belly swelling with Jason’s child. Him touching her like
Creed always touched Gia’s stomach. A little boy who looked like Jason,
dark hair with her curly texture, and almond-colored, intelligent eyes like
his daddy. And an easy smile like the both of them, because she and Jason
would be awesome at raising a baby together. They might not raise him in a
fancy house but would make sure their child was happy.
 With a sigh, she pushed up on her tiptoes and kissed his throat, right
where his pulse was tripping. “You will make a good daddy someday.”
Creed whistled the ten minute warning behind them as he pulled
down the tailgate of his jacked-up truck and began to unload spare lumber.
Jason grabbed her hand and pulled her up the porch stairs of the
screened-in porch and into his trailer. Inside, he kicked the door closed
behind them.
“What are you doing?” she asked through a giggle as he unzipped
her jacket.
“All that talk about making a baby made me want to practice with
you, Ranger. Shimmy on out of those pants, quick now. We only have ten
minutes.”
“Challenge accepted,” she murmured as she stripped down.
Jason was faster and was clad in nothing but a smile in no time. He
picked her up and fell onto the bed with her, then threw the thick comforter
over their heads.
“I like this,” she whispered, holding down the corners of the covers.
“It’s like our own little world in here.”
Jason stared at her with such adoration, her heart thumped
erratically in her chest. She’d never imagined in her lifetime that a man
would look at her the way Jason did, and somehow, after all her travels,
she’d found him.
“Can I ask you something?”
Georgia nodded. “Anything.”
“You can say no.”
“Jason, ask me.”
“I know you love ten-ten, but…I want you to move into my trailer.
With me.”
 Georgia pulled his palm to her mouth and left a lingering kiss there,
stalling so her words wouldn’t come out all breathy and excited. “What if
you get tired of me?”
“I won’t. I want you in my bed. I hate having to say goodnight to
you at your doorstep, and I stay up half the night staring at the ceiling
thinking about you. Wishing I could hold you and talk to you when I want. I
want to wake up next to you.”
She kissed his palm again, enjoying how nervous he seemed. As if
she was going to say no. Two weeks ago, she’d been living in a cold ranger
tower thinking about him all day and all night, and now he wanted her with
him always. She must’ve fallen into a field of four leaf clovers she didn’t
know about.
She pressed her hand against his chest to feel if his heart was
beating as fast as hers. It was. Right here, with his question hanging in the
air between them, in the warmth of his home and bed, she could see her
future stretch on and on. She’d always flown by the seat of her pants. She’d
had to with this job, but Jason offered her stability. He offered her a happy
life.
She hated sleeping so close, yet so far away from him, too.
Slowly, she leaned up and sipped his lips. When she eased back,
Georgia nodded her head and left the answer in her tear-rimmed eyes.
Jason smiled and shook his head as if she’d bewildered him, eyes
dipping to her lips before he kissed her.
He slid into her slowly, his powerful body curving over hers. The
muscles in his back tensed and flexed under her palms as he filled her, then
pulled out slowly. His tongue brushed hers as he pushed into her harder.
A soft moan sighed past her lips as she reveled in how gentle such a
powerful man could be. He liked it hard, and from behind best. She’d
learned that over the last couple of weeks, but he rarely gave into the
instinct to flip her over, and he always made sure she came first before he
took her from behind. But most of the time, he was soft, drawing her
orgasms out with sweet touches.
Jason gritted his teeth as he thrust into her again, his eyes blazing
that light silver that she’d grown to cherish. The animal inside of him
wasn’t what had broken him. The animal Tessa had given him had enabled
him to weather things that would’ve brought weaker men to their knees. His
bear had made him strong enough to wait for Georgia to stumble into his
life.
She gasped as he gripped her wrists and held them over her head
against the mattress. The soft snarl that rattled his throat as he bucked into
her faster sent delicious shivers up her spine. She cried out his name as
release exploded through her middle. Fists clenched, nails dug into her
palms. Jason slammed into her again and froze, every muscle in his body
rigid against her as his dick throbbed inside, warming her from the middle
out with his release.
Georgia’s chest heaved as Jason’s kisses trailed to her jawline, then
to her ear. She reveled in his warmth. Outside, the day was cold and gray,
but in here, everything seemed brighter. Troubles didn’t exist under this
blanket fort he’d made. She wished she could linger in this moment for
hours, connected to her mate and sated from his careful attention.
Outside, Creed trilled a whistle that made Jason hunch into himself.
Georgia rushed to cover his ears, but he bit the inside of her arm playfully
and pulled out of her.
“Time to go do work. I’ll move your things in here tonight if you
want.”
“I want.”
 Jason chuckled and threw the covers off, then rushed to re-dress. He
grabbed his coat and a sack lunch from the dresser and threw open the door
just as Creed yelled for him to, “Hurry up!”
Jason turned and rushed back to her, kissed her hard, told her he
loved her, and then bolted out the door. That man left her breathless and
filled with the fluttery sensation of falling.
As appealing as the idea of lingering in her new home was, she had
gotten up early for a reason. Today was Friday, and if the poachers followed
their regular routine, they’d be setting up camp somewhere on Damon’s
land today. One look in the bathroom mirror, and she nearly split her spleen
laughing. Good grief, the man had done a number on her hair. It stuck up
everywhere. She pulled it into a messy bun at the back of her head, then got
dressed and gave Jason’s trailer—her trailer now, too—one last glance
before she left.
She was on the cusp of something great here. She felt it down to her
bones and beyond. In her soul, she knew this place could be home if she
was open to it. If she was ready for it.
The first snowflakes of the coming storm floated down slowly in
front of her, and she caught one on her glove. It was a perfect star shape.
She stumbled on gravel near the fire pit and laughed as she caught herself.
Her amusement was cut short as chills blasted up her arms despite her
heavy winter coat. When she made her way over the dry grass her Jeep was
parked in, her instincts screamed, and she stepped carefully around the spot
that just didn’t feel right. Tessa was invisible to her now. She’d disappeared
from everyone but Jason the night Easton had burned her bones. But just
because she couldn’t see the Gray Back ghost bear didn’t mean Tessa
wasn’t still lingering. Jason didn’t like to talk about it, but he’d admitted
last night that Tessa mostly just cried and watched him now.
 A part of Georgia pitied his late mate. But then she’d think about
how Tessa had betrayed him in life. How she betrayed him still by torturing
him as she did, and Georgia’s empathy flew the coop.
Jason belonged to Georgia. Not to an apparition who refused to
retract her claws from his skin and move on.
After tossing her backpack into the back seat, Georgia adjusted her
belt with the gun and knife so she could sit comfortably in the Jeep for her
ride to the ranger tower. The uneasy feeling and prickly skin didn’t
disappear when she shut her door and turned over the engine, though.
With a frown, she looked at the seat beside her, empty to the naked
eye. “Tessa, what do you want?”
“They’re here,” came the whispered reply, so soft she could’ve
imagined it.
It could be a trick. A way for Tessa to mess with her head, but what
would be the point? Shoot. Something in her sang that Tessa was right.
Georgia hit the gas and blasted out of the trailer park. The backroads were
still covered in patches of snow that hadn’t melted in the shade of the
towering pines. The car lurched side to side as she rushed over potholes and
divots, through trenched-out tire treads, and around overgrown brush. The
woods passed in a blur.
Tessa wasn’t in the seat beside her anymore. Georgia didn’t know
how she knew, but the Jeep felt empty and safe again. The cold breath of
the shade wasn’t here to chill her blood.
The tires locked up as she slammed on the brake under the ranger
tower. The ground was littered with maps and notes. The windows had been
busted out, and the ground was glittering with shattered glass. The radio
she’d used to communicate with the crews and with Damon Daye was
busted into a dozen pieces on the forest floor, as if someone had stomped on
it repeatedly.
“No,” she murmured as anger blasted through her. She checked the
load in her handgun and made sure the safety was on—a habit, but a good
one that kept her from shooting her toes off. Door thrown open, she slid
from the Jeep, then scaled the ladder. No one was inside the tower. In fact,
there was nothing left except words scratched into the wooden walls.
Long, angry knife strokes spelled out this is your warning bitch.
Her heart thumped erratically as rage congealed her blood. They’d
been watching her. Somehow, they’d known she was tracking them. And
this was the cowardly way they let her know? Her warning? Screw that. She
didn’t need a warning from these assholes. She knew what she was up
against when she’d taken this job. Damon Daye had been upfront about the
poacher problem. She wasn’t scared then, and she sure as shit wasn’t scared
now.
She climbed down the ladder and leapt from the bottom rung, then
bolted for the shed. Please let the quad be okay.
The idiots had disconnected the battery and chucked it behind the
shed, but other than that, it was unharmed. She knew the inner workings of
her ATV like the back of her hand and had it checked over and running
again in under sixty seconds. As soon as she had it backed out of the shed,
she jammed the gas and blasted toward the fresh tire tracks that bisected the
sparse patches of thin snow.
The white flakes were falling harder now, obscuring the tracks layer
by layer. Georgia’s stomach dipped to her tailbone as she engaged another
gear and slammed the accelerator down. The fat tires skidded on the snow
around the turns, but she had to find them. And an instinct on where they
were made her angrier by the moment. If they’d been watching her and
knew she was tracking them, then their campsite patterns had been
deliberate. Bait for her to check on one side of the mountain, but this was
the big one. They were here for a reason. She hadn’t pieced everything
together yet, but she would.
A roar rattled the trees up ahead, and Georgia stuttered on the gas.
She could see movement in the spaces between the trees, but the grove was
so thick here and the snow falling harder by the minute, she couldn’t be
sure what it was.
Another roar shook the earth beneath her four-wheeler as the
monster bruin grizzly stepped into a clearing. He surged forward, mouth
open and long, white canines bared. His ears were flat against his head.
When a Kodiak bear had gotten that look, whatever he was after was about
to die.
A shot rang out. It didn’t have that echoing sound of a miss. The
bear stumbled forward and staggered just as another shot rang out.
“No!” she screamed as she skidded to a stop.
Brown bears didn’t live here. The only reason for a grizzly to be
here was that it wasn’t a grizzly at all, but a bear shifter.
Horror filled her as everything threaded together into a bigger
picture in her mind.
The poachers weren’t here to take illegal game.
They were here to hunt shifters. They were here to hunt people.
Georgia lurched off the ATV, drawing her weapon as she did. Lifting
the gun, she popped off a round at the man aiming a rifle at the downed
bear, then ducked down behind her quad. Who was it? One of the
Boarlanders? One of the Ashe Crew? Fuck, it didn’t matter. They were hers
to protect—all of them.
 She fired off another round and jogged forward around her ATV and
headed for a thick grove of pines, knees bent so she could keep her aim
steady.
An echoing curse cracked against the mountain as she winged the
man through the trees. The rifle swung around to her, and two shots
ricocheted simultaneously off a tree right beside her. At least two shooters
then.
“Get up!” she screamed at the bear. “You need to move!”
The bear was staining the snow crimson as it swung its block head
toward her. Agony swam in his brown eyes.
“I’m bleeding out, man!” one of the poachers yelled.
Good. He deserved it.
The rifle trained on the bear again. She couldn’t just watch them kill
him. He was a man who had Changed into this bear to protect his territory,
his people.
“Run!” she yelled as she lifted her gun and unloaded on the poacher,
one bullet after the other. The man’s body was hidden behind a tree, only
his weapon visible around the trunk. Jamming another clip in her gun, she
ducked another bark-splintering ricochet and pulled her weapon.
The quiet woods exploded with gunfire the second she eased around
the tree.
It wasn’t two shooters as she’d thought. This was a massive hunt.
People hunting people, and they weren’t poachers at all. They were serial
killers, gathered with one purpose. To hunt down the bear shifters that had
made their home here.
The smattering of bullets exploding against the bark right above her
head said her fate was sealed. She was surrounded.
 Fear slashed through her chest, but it was too late now. Too late to
call for backup that wouldn’t arrive until long after she was gone. Too late
to call Damon and explain what was happening here. Too late to call Jason
and tell him she was sorry.
Aim.
One shot.
Man down.
Aim, and all the while, the trees were being battered by the spray of
gunfire around her.
Searing pain blasted through her left arm, rocketing her backward
with the force of the bullet. She cried out and lifted the gun again.
One shot.
Miss.
One shot.
Miss.
They were all around her, hunting as a pack, and no tree could shield
her now.
A man stepped out from behind the trees with a cruel twist for a
mouth. His weapon was trained on her, scope glinting in the muted light.
Her arm was on fire, clutched tight to her stomach in an attempt
ease the pain.
“Did you not get our warning in your little treehouse, bitch?” he
asked.
The gun shook in her hand. One more shot left if she’d counted
correctly.
“You can’t do this.” She’d meant for her voice to come out strong
and authoritative, but as more men holding rifles emerged from the trees, it
came out a shaky whisper instead.
 “We can. Do you know how much these men have paid to hunt a
real life grizzly shifter?” His blue eyes sparked as he took a step toward her.
“Thousands.”
“You’re killing people!”
The bear groaned from the ground ten yards away.
“That’s not a person,” the man spat out. “It’s a monster, and I’m just
the guide to annihilate them from the face of the planet. For a fee, of
course.”
So here was the leader. The one who’d organized it all. Her finger
brushed the trigger.
“I wouldn’t,” he advised. “You have a lot of weapons trained on you
right now, and your clip is empty. I counted your shots.”
With an empty smile, the man swung his rifle to the bear. “You can
watch.”
A sob clawed up her throat. Not for her or the bear or for what she
was about to do. But because Jason was going to lose a second mate. It
wasn’t Tessa who was meant to destroy him. It was her.
As the man took aim, Georgia gritted out, “You counted wrong.”
She pulled the trigger and the man’s eyes went wide as blood trickled down
the bridge of his nose. He fell to the snow like a sack of stones.
And then pain.
So much pain.
Burning, ripping, tearing ache that dropped her to her knees.
The bear dragged its broken body toward her. The gunfire stopped.
The only noise was a cold chuckle from one of the shifter hunters. “Got us a
female,” he said low.
Georgia struggled for breath and fell backward. She couldn’t feel
her legs, but her stomach felt like someone had started a fire inside of her.
She focused on the bear. He was intent on reaching her. They would kill
him soon, but at least she’d tried her best to save him. She could die
knowing she was no coward. Still, it was tragic that both of their deaths
meant nothing. The other crews didn’t even know they were being hunted.
Her breath came in short pants as her lungs struggled to pull oxygen
past the fluid filling them. Warmth trickled down the side of her mouth as
she clutched her stomach.
The bear was clawing the ground desperately trying to reach her.
Trying to be there for her when she passed. Sweet bear. She wished he
wasn’t going to die alone.
She stretched her fingertips out for him. Her hands were covered in
sticky red, contrasting with the white snowflakes that fell onto her shaking
open palm. A man stood over her, the devil’s look in his empty hazel eyes.
He lifted his gun just as a giant shadow covered them all.
With a frown, the man looked up, but nothing was in the sky save
storm clouds and the birds the gunfight had ousted from their roosts. “What
was that?” he muttered.
Georgia smiled. “Bears aren’t the only monsters you have to fear in
these woods, poacher.”
The man looked down at her as a wave of uncertainty washed
through his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means if the bears don’t get you…the dragons will.”
And then there was fire.

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 Chapter Thirteen

“They’re here,” Tessa whispered again. She was barely visible

anymore, but Jason could still hear her just fine.
“Piss off, Tessa.” He picked up another log and balanced it over his
shoulder. He walked right through her transparent body to load the lumber
into the back of the truck. Up here, he didn’t have to hide how strong he
was. No humans came up this far into Damon’s wilderness, and even if they
did, Jason was a registered shifter. They could get over it.
He picked up another huge log and tossed it in the back with the
others.
“They’re here,” Tessa repeated for the tenth time.
“Who! Who are here, Tessa? Who?” He blasted his hands on his
fists and glared at the ghost.
“The poachers.” Tessa’s soft words whipped around on the breeze.
“Save her. Save yourself.”
All of the fine hairs on his body electrified as he watched Tessa
disappear. “Creed?”
His alpha stopped stacking loops of cable at the edge of the landing.
“What?”
Jason swung his gaze in the direction of the ranger tower. “I don’t
know. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you mean?”
From the edge of the landing, he could see all of Damon Daye’s
mountains. A flock of birds left a tree near the edge of Boarlander territory,
and Jason narrowed his eyes at their cawing escape. “I think I need to go.”
 “Is it Georgia?”
“Yeah.” He bolted for his truck.
A shrill whistle rang out from his alpha, and before he’d pulled out
of the parking lot, the other Gray Backs were loading into Creed’s truck.
“Hurry,” Tessa’s whisper urged.
Jason slammed his foot on the gas and took the first switchback
dangerously fast. His heart pounded hard against his sternum, faster and
faster, as if it was urging him on, too.
This was silly. He blasted through the Grayland Mobile Park and
onto the dirt road that led to the ranger station. He’d probably get there and
she’d be making her rounds, looking at him like he’d lost his mind, and
Tessa would get a good cackling laugh at her sick joke.
A shot rang out. It was faint, but the blast short, perking up his
sensitive ears and making them tingle. Whoever had pulled that trigger had
hit what they were aiming for.
“Oh God,” he murmured as he spotted the trashed ranger station
ahead. The snow hadn’t quite covered the debris underneath it yet.
More gunfire echoed through the woods as he blasted past the tower.
Something was wrong. Georgia wasn’t here, and the ATV was gone, too.
God no. No, no, no.
“Hang on, baby. I’m coming,” he gritted out as he zoomed around a
brush pile. Georgia’s ATV tracks were faint and half filled in with snow, but
he could still read them.
A whooshing sound drowned out the gunfire and threw his truck to
the side. He fishtailed, but regained control. Above him, a gigantic blue and
cream-colored dragon was pushing himself through the air, his powerful
wings beating down so hard, trees bent with the wind he created under him.
 “Fuck!” Jason yelled. Tessa wasn’t playing a joke on him. The only
thing that pulled Damon Daye from his human skin was if one of his people
were in trouble.
Georgia, Georgia, Georgia, hang on.
A smaller dragon flew overhead. Damon’s daughter, Diem, was
flying with the same urgency, and to his left, a giant grizzly charged through
the woods. It was Tagan, alpha of the Ashe Crew, and his bears were
running behind him, shaking the earth under his tires with their powerful
strides.
The gunfire had died off, and Jason could see fire now. Tall flames
licked the trees in rows as black smoke billowed into the sky.
He slammed on the brake and threw it in park. His feet hit the
ground running. He could smell her now, his Georgia. Georgia, iron, and
smoke. Animal and injured pine bark. The metallic smell of bullets and the
faint scent of smoke that came from gun barrels when they fired.
Flames everywhere. “Georgia!” he yelled as he ran as fast as he
could.
There.
She was lying beside Harrison in his bear form, clutching his paw as
she struggled to breathe. Blood. Blood everywhere, and her chest rocked
with her efforts to stay alive. Blood on snow. Red soaking white. Her face
so pale, and those beautiful freckles stark against her colorless cheeks.
She was crying. Tears streamed down the corners of her eyes as he
reached her.
“I thought you wouldn’t get here in time,” she whispered brokenly.
“Georgia,” Jason whispered, pulling her head onto his lap.
One look at her stomach, and he ripped his gaze away as his vision
blurred with tears. This wasn’t fixable. “No. No! I just got you!”
 Georgia’s face crumpled as more tears streamed down her face.
“Jason. Jason, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that. I’m so sorry.”
“Baby,” he crooned, resting his forehead against hers. “I don’t want
you to go.”
“Change her,” Tessa whispered. “Claim her.”
Jason looked up, and she stood there with the saddest eyes. A wall
of flames was behind her, but through them, he could see bears battling,
tearing and ripping at the bastards who had done this. Georgia would be
avenged, but that didn’t make him feel better. Not now.
Tessa disappeared and then reappeared right in front of him. She
flickered like an old television screen. “Do it fast before it’s too late. Save
her. Save yourself.”
He looked down at his mate’s crumpled body as the life left her
eyes. “I love you,” he told Georgia, ripping her open jacket to the side.
“Forgive me.”
He pulled her sweater away to expose her shoulder, and then he
clamped his teeth down until he touched bone.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t flinch either, and when he pulled
back, his mouth wet with her blood, her eyes were closed.
“No!” he roared. He laid her down and pressed his palms hard
against her chest, over and over. If he could keep her heart beating with
CPR until she Changed… “You can’t leave me, Georgia. Not now. I need
you. Do you hear me? I need you!”
“Jason,” Creed said as soft as the breeze.
He put a hand on Jason’s shoulder, but he shook his alpha off. “Get
the fuck away from me.” He breathed into her mouth.
How long had he been doing this? Minutes? Hours?
“Jason,” Creed said again, “she’s gone.”
 Easton dropped to his knees in the snow beside him, and the next
time Jason breathed air into her mouth, he took over pumping his fists
against her chest. Willa was standing over them, weeping, but this wasn’t it.
That couldn’t be all the time he got with Georgia. He wasn’t quitting.
He bit her again, and then again on her other shoulder while Easton
kept her heart pumping.
“Come on, Georgia. Breathe!” Matt yelled behind him, loud enough
to echo through the clearing where the other crews were gathering around
Jason as he and Easton fought to save her life.
Creed knelt down beside them and felt her wrist for a pulse, but that
didn’t stop Jason from breathing oxygen into her mouth again.
The snarl was so soft he had to be imagining it. It was just wishful
thinking, so he slammed his fists against her chest. “Wake up, Georgia!
Don’t you fucking leave me!”
The growl grew louder, and he froze. It wasn’t a familiar warning. It
wasn’t Easton’s or Creed’s. It wasn’t his or Matt’s or Willa’s. This feral
sound, he’d never heard before. It was the sound of a new Gray Back.
Easton heard it, too, because he stood and backed slowly away with
a hopeful smile.
“Please, baby,” Jason rasped as he pulled her head into his lap again.
“Let that bear have you, Georgia. Let her save you, baby.”
Georgia’s back bowed against him as she opened her mouth and
roared. The sound was deafening and full of agony and fury. Her bear was
going to bleed him ripping out of her, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t let her
do this alone.
Snowflakes landed on her dark lashes as she relaxed against him.
And when her eyes opened and her pupils retracted, silver churned
there like the storm clouds above.
 Tessa knelt down next to Georgia. She looked down at his mate as
Georgia dragged in a long, ragged breath. Tessa’s sad gaze lifted to Jason,
and she opened her mouth to scream. Only this time she didn’t shriek and
melt away to ash. This time, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
And then she faded to nothing.

OceanofPDF.com
 Chapter Fourteen

Georgia gasped. Her body was floating and numb, but perhaps that
was from the snow under her. Inside, a strange sensation filled her. She
could almost feel her body repairing itself, organ by organ. Her stomach
burned as it fused together.
The evergreen branches above were perfectly clear. She could see
every knob on every limb and every single pine needle with startling
accuracy. Her shoulders hurt. Everything ached, but her shoulders were
burning with a different kind of agony. It was fading though, slowly.
Something unsettling moved inside of her, and an unfamiliar rumble
rattled her throat. The pressure expanded from the size of a marble until it
filled every cell of her body. She gritted her teeth and fought to stay whole,
but she was shattering like broken mirror glass.
She screamed, but she didn’t recognize her voice. It was deep and
feral. Terrifying.
Her back arched as her insides exploded.
The roar tapered off, and she landed hard on the unforgiving snowy
ground.
“She saved my life,” a man said, pointing to her. “The park ranger
saved my life.” He was naked and covered in blood, surrounded by a
handful of men who were trying to stop his holes from weeping crimson.
“Shh, Harrison,” one of them said, “she’s scared.” He gave her a
wary look, then went back to digging into Harrison’s side with searching
fingers. He yanked, and a piece of misshapen, bloody metal fell onto the
snow.
 The man was right. She was scared. Her body didn’t work right. Her
bones felt like they’d all been broken in the gunfight and had fused together
differently. She tried to stand, but fell. Propping up on her hands and feet,
she looked around for Jason. He’d been there in the end. She needed him to
tell her she was going to be all right.
He stood off to the side, holding his shoulder. A long, bloody claw
mark stretched from the middle of his chest around his arm. Through his
shredded jacket, she could see a flap of his skin hanging from the bottom
cut. He was soaking his coat in red. Who’d done that to her mate? She
would kill them.
“You’re beautiful,” Jason murmured, confusing her. Why wasn’t he
angry about his injury?
He was looking at her with a strange expression—awe, relief, and
something more. Reverence?
Georgia swayed and tried to catch her balance, but the world was
different. She didn’t fit into it like she used to.
Willa stood behind Jason and was sobbing against Matt’s chest. She
didn’t want Willa to cry. Georgia took a timid step forward to comfort her,
but the movement under her dragged her attention to her feet.
A blond, furred, giant paw sat half sunk in the snow. Long, curved
claws arched from them like daggers. The claws were as white as the snow.
Shocked, she looked up at Jason, who was approaching slowly. “I
had to Turn you. I’m sorry. I know it was selfish, but I couldn’t lose you.”
You claimed me? The words she’d meant to say came out a soft
rumble in her chest.
She studied her chest and front legs. They were powerful and
covered in thick, coarse fur only a couple shades darker than the snowflakes
that fell on her. The pad of her foot was light pink. She’d never seen a bear
this color before, and she huffed a funny-sounding laugh. She was a bear.
She sat back heavily into the snow, which didn’t feel cold at all
against her new body.
Wow. A bear. She’d always been afraid of them, and now she was
one. She could give a Kodiak bear a run for its money now.
She shook her massive head, and snow exploded into the air around
her. The dragons she’d seen were gone, but some of the bears remained.
The poachers were nowhere to be found, but the clearing smelled like blood
and smoke, and the snow was stained where the bodies should’ve been.
I’m alive.
The thought brushed across her mind and made her lightheaded. She
wasn’t supposed to have made it out of that, but Jason had changed her fate.
Changed her.
She looked down at her paw, as big as a dinner plate.
He’d given her a bear.
Emotion washed over her. If she could have cried in this form, she
would’ve. Instead, she scrambled toward Jason unsteadily and pressed her
forehead against his chest. Already he was healing, and he laughed and held
on as she knocked him backward with her clumsiness.
He sighed and closed his eyes, then rested his cheek against hers.
She held perfectly still so she wouldn’t hurt him.
“Damn, Ranger, I’m glad you’re okay.” His grip in her fur tightened.
Willa blasted into her, arms spread wide as she hugged her and
sobbed openly. “You scared the shit out of us, Renegade!”
The Boarlanders and Ashe Crew milled around them, but Georgia’s
eyes were only for the Gray Backs. Gia was walking toward them from the
tree line with a shocked look on her face as she cradled her hands around
her belly and stared at Georgia.
Matt, Creed, and Easton stood beside each other, looking pale and
shaken, but smiling.
She’d thought she would never see her friends again, but Jason had
given her a second chance.
He’d given her a place to settle and a family.
Her mate hadn’t given up on her.
He’d saved her.
Jason took a step back as a slow smile spread across his face. His
dark eyes swam with emotion, but his voice was strong and clear as he said,
“Welcome to the C-team, Ranger.”

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 Chapter Fifteen

Winterizing Willa’s worm shack was even less fun than it sounded.
It was dirty, back-breaking work to make sure the enormous shed
Matt and Willa had built in the woods behind their trailer would stay warm
enough through the cold months.
But even filthy, covered in compost, and sweating despite the cold,
Georgia couldn’t stop from laughing. Partly because Willa’s jokes were
shockingly crude, and partly because Gia’s laugh was infectious, but mostly
because she was just so danged grateful to be alive to experience moments
like these—breathless ones filled with happiness. The ones that would cling
to her always because they were too bright to forget.
Her inner bear perked up, and her new senses told her that her mate
was near. She grinned and turned just as Jason ducked under the front door.
His greeting smile matched hers. Today, they were going to Change
together and explore the woods as bears. She still got giddy butterflies when
she thought about the animal resting inside of her. Everything was clearer
and smelled different. Noises had changed, and her attention was flighty,
but Jason had assured her that was part of getting used to being a bear
shifter.
He was an exceptionally patient teacher, her mate.
When Creed, Easton, and Matt filed in through the open door,
Georgia’s smile wavered. “What’s going on? I thought you were supposed
to be up on the landing.”
“I made you this,” Easton said low. He stepped forward and handed
her a leather sheath.
 “Oh, Easton, you didn’t have do this.”
“Girls like things that match,” he said mysteriously.
She pulled the fine, polished wooden handle of a knife, exposing the
first inch of shiny silver. J + G had been etched into the metal. Jason and
Georgia. This was Easton’s acceptance of her in the crew. She’d seen Willa
and Gia’s knives and had secretly hoped for one someday. Easton’s knives
were works of art, though, and took him time to make.
She hugged Easton’s neck, and this time, he patted her back instead
of standing there frozen.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I love it.”
Easton nodded and offered her a shy smile as he eased back beside
Creed.
When she looked at Jason, he’d dropped to one knee, holding a box
with a thin gold band lined with tiny diamonds. It was perfect as it glinted
in the sunlight that streamed through the windows.
Willa and Gia whooped and howled, and the boys clapped slowly.
Tears burned Georgia’s eyes instantly, and she clasped her hand over
her mouth to keep her emotions quiet.
“Georgia, you’ve saved me in more ways than you can ever know,”
Jason murmured. “I still can’t believe someone as caring, as strong, and as
beautiful as you could choose a man like me, but it makes me want to be
better for you. You have that effect on people, drawing out their best selves.
I’m proud to have you on my arm and proud to bear your mark. And I’m
damn proud that you bear my mark.”
“Marks,” Willa corrected.
The scars on her shoulders tingled at the mention of them. Georgia
didn’t remember him biting her, but she was eternally happy he had.
 Jason huffed a laugh and nodded. “Marks.” He lifted his clear,
steady eyes to hers. “And I’d be proud if you took my last name, too.
Georgia Ames, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Her tears spilled over as she nodded her answer.
Jason slipped the ring on her finger, then stood and lifted her off her
feet, crushing her against him. He spun slowly as the Gray Backs rushed
them. She was being squashed by them and couldn’t draw a deep breath,
but she didn’t care.
Her crew was fierce. They fought like titans, but when it came down
to it, they protected each other. They joked about being a broken crew, a C-
team, but she didn’t see that. Their flaws made her Gray Backs beautiful.
Georgia looked down at her mate. Her happy smile was reflected in
his eyes.
He was strong and protective—trustworthy with her heart.
He’d given her a life that fulfilled her and friends who would always
be there for her, but more importantly than all of that, he’d given himself.
His struggles could’ve shattered him, but he’d fought to keep his
bear in control for all those years since his last mate had passed.
And now, Tessa was gone, and he was free.
Jason spoke of how strong and caring she was, but Georgia was the
lucky one.
He’d banished his ghosts for her.

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Up Next in the Gray Back Bears Series

Gray Back Broken Bear

Coming September 2015
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 New Release Newsletter Sign-Up

For new releases, exclusive sneak peeks, and giveaways, sign up for T. S. Joyce’s Bear Shifter

Romance Newsletter HERE.

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Want More of these Characters?

Read T. S. Joyce’s bestselling Saw Bears series.

Complete series, available now.

Lumberjack Werebear (Book 1)

Woodcutter Werebear (Book 2)

Timberman Werebear (Book 3)

Sawman Werebear (Book 4)

Axman Werebear (Book 5)

Woodsman Werebear (Book 6)

Lumberman Werebear (Book 7)

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Other Series by T. S. Joyce

Fire Bears

Bear My Soul (Book 1)

Bear the Burn (Book 2)

Bear the Heat (Book 3)

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 Bear Valley Shifters

The Witness and the Bear (Book 1)

Devoted to the Bear (Book 2)

Return to the Bear (Book 3)

Betray the Bear (Book 4)

Redeem the Bear (Book 5)

Bear Valley Valentine (Valentine’s Day Novella)

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Hells Canyon Shifters

Call of the Bear (Book 1)

Fealty of the Bear (Book 2)

Avenge the Bear (Book 3)

Claim the Bear (Book 4)
Heart of the Bear (Book 5)
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 Wolf Brides

Wolf Bride (Book 1)

Red Snow Bride (Book 2)

Dawson Bride (Book 3)

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Standalone Shifter Romance

Coveted by the Bear

Amazon
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Standalone Contemporary Romance

Shelter Me Home

Amazon
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 About the Author

T. S. Joyce

T.S. Joyce is devoted to bringing hot shifter romances to readers. Hungry alpha males are her

calling card, and the wilder the men, the more she'll make them pour their hearts out. Experienced at

handling an alpha male of her own, she lives in a tiny town, outside of a tiny city, and devotes her life

to writing big stories. Foodie, bear whisperer, ninja, thief of tiny bottles of awesome smelling hotel

shampoo, nap connoisseur, movie fanatic, and zombie slayer, and most of this bio is true.

Bear Shifters? Check

Smoldering Alpha Hotness? Double Check

Sexy Scenes? Fasten up your girdles, ladies and gents, it’s gonna to be a wild ride.

For more information about T. S. Joyce and her work, visit her website here.

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Contents
Other Books in This Series
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Up Next in the Gray Back Bears Series
Newsletter Sign-Up
Want More of these Characters?
Other Series by T. S. Joyce
Bear Valley Shifters
Hells Canyon Shifters
Wolf Brides
Standalone Shifter Romance
Standalone Contemporary Romance
About the Author

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