Claim the Bear by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page A

as if she were utterly baffled.
    “Will you trust me?”
    “Yes,” she repeated, sounding stronger this time.
    The man lunged for them, but it was already too late. With a smile, Dillon spun Breshia around and sank his elongating teeth into the back of her neck.
    “No!” the shifter yelled.
    Oh, Dillon knew how claiming went with lions, thanks to his friendship with Logan. It usually happened during sex, but from the way the rangy shifter opened and closed his mouth in anger, this had a similar meaning.
    Breshia’s blood ran down the sides of Dillon’s mouth, and he spat crimson onto the asphalt. “Mate,” he rumbled. “Get in the truck.”
    Breshia was standing stock still with her and clamped over the back of her neck. Her eyes were so wide.
    “Thomas, you should leave now,” she whispered. She dragged her shocked gaze to the man in front of them. “I’ve been claimed.”
    She began backing toward the truck, but Thomas lunged for her. Bone shattering fury rippled through Dillon at the thought of his vile hand touching Breshia, and the grizzly who’d been growling his discontent since she’d admitted it was this monster’s claws that had sunk into her back exploded from him.
    He roared a challenge and hoped Thomas would change and accept it, just so he could have an excuse to murder the sick son of a bitch. Dillon stood to his full twelve foot height, all fur and mass and teeth. Thomas’s pupils dilated and the gold faded from his eyes until they were nothing but a scared, muddy brown. Spinning, he bolted for his SUV, then peeled away. The black tire tracks that stained the concrete were the only evidence Thomas had ever been here.
    Dillon watched the road for a long time as the weight of what he’d just done blanketed him. Slowly, he turned to Breshia, who was heaving breath and staring at him like she’d never seen a bear before.
    “What have you done?” she whispered.
    With a series of pops and snaps, and a moment of blinding pain, he slipped back into his human skin and plucked his phone off the concrete.
    Heart hammering with his adrenaline crash, he punched in Bron’s number and waited the two rings it took for his alpha to pick up.
    “Is it done?” Bron asked.
    “I can’t.”
    The line went quiet. “Dillon—”
    “She’s mine now, Bron. The cats can’t have her.”
    “Fuck. I’m coming home and you better be at my house when I get there. You know the consequences for disobeying my direct orders, don’t you?”
    “Yes,” he answered stiffly. He was going to be bled by both Cress alphas in one day.
    “Bring the lioness, too.”
    A dial tone blasted through the ear piece and Dillon clenched the phone against the urge to chuck the damned thing into the woods alongside the road.
    Welp, he’d sworn never to tether himself to a woman, and here he was. With an explosive sigh, he ran his hands roughly through his hair.
    He’d fought Ethan to save her life, so that he might stop the coming war. And now, as he lowered his chin and looked into Breshia’s impossibly green eyes, he was pretty sure he’d just single-handedly brought the wrath of the lion shifters down on his clan.
    “I don’t even know your name,” she murmured.
    Giving it to her felt like giving a piece of himself, but to hell with it. He was in it now. “Dillon. My name’s Dillon McCain.”

Chapter Six
    What had just happened? Breshia pulled her hand away from her neck as the truck lurched around a pothole so deep there was probably some damned magma in the bottom of it. Her hand was streaked with red and her neck hurt like hellfire to match her messed up back and bruised side. In the last twelve hours, she’d been clawed, chased off the road, hit by a car, and claimed. Claimed?
    “Dillon, I didn’t come here to find a mate. I meant what I said. I came here for sanctuary.”
    “Why did he mark you like that? And don’t skirt my questions now. We’re in this together whether you want it or not. I need to know