Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,141

bad mood. Cody hoped it had some kind of magic power because his buzz had all but disappeared and the tracker had not looked away.

“Sure thing.” The bartender gave the tracker the side-eye but he dutifully went over to take his order and clear his empty glasses, taking one last look at Cody with some amount of worry before he returned to the bar.

“I don’t get it.” The tracker leaned on his hand and glared at Cody with heavy-lidded eyes. “What is it, she’s some do-gooder and the kids were getting the shit kicked out of em’ or something? Or is she just crazy? Lot of crazy bitch bear shifters will do that, just grab a cub, I guess. I don’t know. I’ve heard of that-”

“Shut. Your. Mouth.” Cody fixed him with a stare that meant the tracker should immediately be quiet. He considered that warning enough.

His hands were shaking with anger and he hid them under the table.

“I hope I get to kill her myself,” the tracker whispered. “I’ve been fantasizing about it-”

The tracker didn’t get any other word out of his mouth.

Cody had already moved, climbing up on the table and diving over the little wall, shifting into his bear as he did so. The tracker yelled and it was chaos as Cody’s weight splintered the table and two of them went tumbling to the floor as the tracker shifted.

Cody lost all sense of what was going on around him. There was only the tracker’s sharp scent and his words ringing in Cody’s ears as he growled and clawed and fought for purchase. It was fur and blood fighting as two of them wrestled and snapped and scratched at each other. It was a stupid fight really and not Cody’s best but the alcohol had slowed him down a bit and he was dizzy with rage. Luckily, the tracker was much more affected, having had much to drink. Soon enough, Cody had him pinned and he felt a great sense of triumph seeing that expanse of the tracker’s bared throat. His mouth watered at the thought of that blood and sinew in his teeth and he was just about to strike just as another bear barreled into him, ripping him away from his would-be victim and sending him sprawling.

The elders and a few members of the sleuth had shifted and in seconds they had set themselves on Cody, pinning him down until he couldn’t move. Cody was strong and a good fighter, but he couldn’t take on nine bears by himself. They were all on him and he couldn’t breathe with the weight of it, the pungent scent of all that fur and sweat making him wince. Two of the elders became human again in the blink of an eye and they glared down at Cody, breathless.

“Shift back, this instant,” one of them said. Cody obeyed, not having much of a choice.

Cody reluctantly shifted back, hoping he wasn’t about to be crushed to death but the other bears did the same, the members of the sleuth and the tracker the last to become human again.

Half the lounge was in shambles. Cody stumbled to his feet and wiped a bit of blood from his chin, catching his breath. He heard shouts of alarm from the dining hall after all that excitement.

Shit, Cody thought.

The tracker was grinning and he pointed at Cody. His expensive suit was torn and he’d split his lip and had a cut in his head that dripped blood down his cheek. But none of that mattered. He had won. “He told you!” The tracker said. “Did he tell you? He’s an accomplice. With that Jessie bitch. He’s been keeping those kidnapped cubs. He was about to kill me!”

“The cubs are abused,” Cody said through gritted teeth. “That’s why Jessie rescued them-”

“We want this man arrested immediately.” It was the older female bear from the sleuth who spoke. Cody had a feeling that was the one called Sheila the tracker mentioned. “We want him held. There’s a place we know to hold shifters not far from here. We want him and this Jessie taken into custody this second.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” one of the elders said, sighing. Though he at least didn’t look very happy about. “I have to agree. Let’s take him in.”

52

Jessie

Jessie didn’t even see it coming.

There was a low level of anxiety that had followed her around since the day she’d rescued the cubs. It was like a ghost that haunted