Boarlander Cursed Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 5) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page A

light.
    But…
    He’d gotten better, right? Sure, his control over his fucked-up animal was still at about thirteen percent, max, but he’d made some effort over the last year at the Boarland Mobile Park.
    He’d been good. He’d stayed away, but now things were different. Shae had come looking for him. She’d been dreaming of him, sketching his likeness.
    Against all odds, she remembered him.
    She’d come in and blasted apart the cinder block walls he’d constructed to keep others at a distance. Now how would he tuck all his emotions away again? It had taken years the first time, and look what it did to him. He had no shot of being all right, and then this angel shows up hugging him?
    Shae was his light switch. She always had been.
    Clinton jumped off his roof and landed easily on the ground, then strode for his truck, T-shirt swinging from his hand. Fighting this was pointless. She’d been his first mate. In a way, she’d been his only. He’d picked her at age ten and had thought they had their whole lives. Mom and Dad had called him “a lucky one.” He was an early chooser. He was supposed to have more years to make her happy, to love her.
    And then she’d been taken, and nothing had been right since.
    Right now, Shae wanted some connection with him, and it made him sick to think of denying her anything. She’d already been through so much. He wanted to make her smile, but instead, he’d made her cry. Typical Clinton. He spat and yanked the door to his truck open, then blasted out of the trailer park.
    Shae wasn’t the only one good at Internet stalking. She’d given him enough information yesterday for him to track her down. Her friends had rented a cabin, so he’d simply poked around, marked off available cabins, and narrowed his list down to two. And then he’d seen her car parked beside one when he’d gone hunting for her. He’d watched her shadows through the window of her one-bedroom cabin last night. And no, he didn’t feel guilty about being a Peeping-Clinton. He was a monster. Monsters didn’t have guilt over shit like that.
    It was full dawn by the time he reached her cabin. Plenty of time to get her a present. He cut the engine down the drive so he wouldn’t wake her up, then stripped down to his birthday suit and let his bear rip out of his skin.
    This morning, he wouldn’t put those tears in his mate’s eyes again.
    He was going to make up for that by giving her smiles instead.
    ****
    Alyssa swallowed the bile that clawed up the back of her throat and asked, “What is that?”
    Clinton stood in the woodsy front lawn of her cabin, clad in only a pair of jeans, and from his hand dangled one very dead animal.
    Clinton frowned, and in a voice that said it should be obvious, he said, “It’s a present.”
    She pursed her lips to keep from gagging. “You…killed it?”
    “Yeah.” His frown deepened. “You said there was something scratching at your cabin. It was this coyote. Now you can sleep. You’re welcome.”
    Clinton the Monster Shifter had killed for her. She didn’t know whether to be terrified or flattered. “Thank you?”
    Clinton let off a snarl and spun around, then strode off for the dirt road that led off the property. “Forget it. Stupid human, you don’t even know what a good present is.”
    “Hey!” She stomped off the porch, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders. “You can’ t just call me names and think that’s okay. It’s not!” How was he walking so fast? She picked up her pace to a jog. Anger blasted through her veins as she sprinted, and before she could help herself, she shoved him hard in the shoulder blades. “Take it back!”
    Clinton spun and growled a feral sound, but she was good and done with his attitude, so she stomped her foot in fury and held his blazing silver gaze.
    Clinton’s pissed-off expression faltered, and he countered back a couple steps, looking unsure. “Fine. You aren’t a human.”
    “That’s not what I mean,