Protected by the Claws: A Motorcycle Club Bear Shifter Romance Read online

  “What?”

  “Well, hello to you too, daughter. I see that you’re in a good mood.”

  “We have another case and instead of going to the scene, you’re calling me in here. So, my mood isn’t the greatest at the moment. What is it? I have work to do.”

  Dad wasn’t happy with my answer and his large chest puffed out like he was airing up. He didn’t like when I talked to him this way. I knew that, but he should have known that I wasn’t going to be bothered by his blustering. Everyone else was afraid of Dad, but not me. It had been a long time since he’d been able to make me do something I didn’t want to do.

  “You need to check your tone, Detective. I’m still your boss.”

  I didn’t need the reminder. I loved my job, but I hated my boss. It was a weird situation that I was still trying to figure out.

  “What can I do for you, boss?”

  He didn’t like that change either. Dad was getting angrier by the moment, and I wasn’t going to smooth it over. Let him be mad is how I saw it. He didn’t care if he pissed anyone else off, so why should I?

  “I don’t want you on this case. This is the second one in less than two weeks, and this doesn’t look good. It looks like we have something strange going on, and it’s dangerous. I don’t want you to turn out like one of the victims, Kayla. I’m asking as your dad, not your boss. Step down from it and give it to Jesse. He will work with Fred on this one, and then you can get on something more your speed. As your first case, I don’t want it to be this one.”

  “Do you not think that I can do it? Because if that is the case, why did you hire me?”

  He never had faith in me, and I didn’t want to think that this was the reason why he didn’t want me on such a big case, but I wasn’t sure. Dad wasn’t the type that did much more than criticize and even though I couldn’t stand him most of the time, I still wanted some validation from him. It didn’t make sense but didn’t change the way that it was and how I felt.

  “That’s not what I said at all, Kayla. I think you can do anything you put your mind to, and that’s why I want you away from this case. You will ignore how dangerous it is to prove yourself, and something will happen to you. Your mother would never forgive me.”

  “She’s not here, Dad, and that means that she doesn’t have a say. She would want me to help people. So, as your daughter, I’m going to respectfully tell you that I’m not backing down. This is my case; my second scene and I’m going to take care of it. I’m an adult, Dad, and at some point, you’re going to have to realize that you don’t get to decide what I do in my life anymore. I’m not like the rest of these guys working for you. You’re not going to run me.”

  He scowled at me. “Fine, I see how this is going to go. Just know that everyone is going to be watching you on this, so don’t fuck it up. I want this figured out, and the culprit taken down.”

  “Culprit?”

  “Not everything is how it first appears, Kayla. Keep your eyes open, and you’re bound to find out the truth.”

  I thanked him a little sarcastically and got out of there before he pushed some more. Dad liked to have things his way, and I was honestly surprised that he didn’t just pull me off of it directly. It wasn’t like he cared about what I thought. He must be worried about how others would see it. Dad didn’t care about much, but he was very worried about his reputation. Always had cared more what others thought than his own family. I was used to it.

  Freddy was ready when I got out of the office. He frowned a little when I told him I was ready to go. He knew about the request to get me dropped off the case and had apparently agreed with it, even wanted it. I wasn’t going to forget that, but I was professional enough to know that starting a scene or bringing it up wasn’t going to give me the best results.

  “Come on, Freddy, let’s go. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  I should have been used to this by now. It wasn’t the first case that I’d had that required me to look at things that were hard to see. I’d seen wrecks, death, suicide, and just about everything else in between. Shady Way was a small town, but there seemed to be a little bit of everything here from a cop’s perspective. Crime found its way into the town and hadn’t gotten out of it. Dad tried to make it safe, but then something like this happened, for the second time, and it made everyone question how safe it really was here.

  Freddy was not taking the scene well at all and when he took off suddenly, I could have guessed that he was going to go yak in the bushes somewhere. He talked a lot of crap to me about everything, but I could tell that there was a softer side of him, and that was most likely why he didn’t like working with me. At least me, the woman in the department, didn’t puke every time I saw a dead body. I had a better stomach than that though I’m not going to say that this wasn’t disturbing.

  People were taking pictures, and nosy neighbors were going to have to be pushed back so that no one saw the body. It was a woman in her thirties, and she was laid out in her back yard. I was thankful for the fence that kept everyone’s eyes away. It was ten-feet-tall, and privacy was now ours. It had been hers before and now ours. Brittany Rogers had privacy when she was attacked and killed, and now I would have some while I tried to figure out who had done this horrible thing to her.

  The scene was a mess and the woman that everyone described as bubbly and full of life was in pieces. She was no longer the life of the party, and her face was screwed up in a scream that no one else heard. It was a tragic end to a beautiful life, and I was angered that this had happened to her. I vowed to figure out what it was that had done this to her. This was my job, to right wrongs and to make sure that the guilty paid. The fact that it was a bear doing it didn’t change anything. I was going to find it and put it down to make sure that this didn’t happen again to someone else.

  “This is pretty open and shut.”

  I looked to Freddy and couldn’t disagree more.

  “How so?”

  “It’s just like the other one. It’s a mauling.”

  “I would take that as a reason if this was Alaska, and we had bears all over here. But we don’t. This is Kansas, and I don’t hear of many besides the National Park that had some bought in. This can’t be open and shut because we need to figure out where a bear came from and where it is now.”

  Why was he writing this off like this was no big deal? It was a big deal. This was the second bear mauling of a person in the last two weeks, and there was no reason for a bear to be in the area. It was a mystery that we had to solve and writing it off didn’t seem like any real plan to have. It felt like a cop-out, and I wasn’t going to let it go that easily. Freddy could if he wanted. I didn’t really need a partner anyways. Somehow a bear had gotten into the area, and my working theory in my head was that it was someone’s pet. I still didn’t get if it was an intentional thing, or if the bear had somehow just gotten free and was now wreaking havoc.

  He waved me off. “You’re worried about it too much. It won’t be hard to find the bear. We just have to follow the tracks out back. They go through a couple of yards and go back into the woods. I think that’s where we should be going.

  It was the first thing that he’d said all night that was helpful. I wanted him to know that I was here for the duration, and I wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t like me as a partner, but like I had done my whole life, I felt like I was always trying to convince him that I was just as good as every other man on the force. It was a hard feat to manage for a man that didn’t even believe that I should be here. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I refused.

  “So, let’s go check it out. I know these woods pretty good.”

  “Don’t you think we should wait?”

  “For what?”

  Freddy looked nervous and I wondered if he was acting this way because he was afraid. I liked to think that there was nothing to worry about, but there was. The kill was fresh, and we apparently had a wild bear on our hands that seemed to like the taste of human blood. It wa
sn’t what I thought I would be doing for my first big case but chasing footprints into the night was my next plan of action. My partner didn’t want to go with me, but when I suggested that he stay back if he was scared, he trounced into the woods without looking back at me. I smiled to myself. Whatever worked, right?

  Truth was, whether I was trying to prove myself or not. I didn’t want to be back there in the woods by myself. Not with everything else that was going on. There was something in the air and I don’t know why, but I had a feeling that it was only going to get worse before it got better. Unless we found the animal and put it down, I had a bad vibe that it was going to keep attacking people and leaving bodies in its wake.

  Chapter 2

  Kayla

  The woods were not as inviting as I remembered. Before I could stop myself, I started to look back, and I was comforted by the fact that I could still see the lights from all the cars and medical personnel that were on the scene.

  “You know, I’m surprised that your dad even let you come out here. After what happened to him and all.”

  He was referring to the large scars that he had across his face. It was done by a bear ten years before in these same woods. Before, no one knew where the bear had come from, but this time around, I wasn’t going to rest until I figured it out. This had happened before in Shady Way, and I was going to try my best to make sure that it never happened again.

  “I’m a detective. It doesn’t matter what my father wants. This is my case, and I’m not going to let him push me off of it.”

  He just clicked his tongue at me. “You’re as stubborn as he is. I’ll give you that.”

  We didn’t say anything else to each other for quite a while. I knew that I was supposed to have a retort, but it did me no good, and finally I was calming down in the woods. I don’t remember it being this dark. I couldn’t see the moon out at all behind the clouds. When they finally receded enough to give me a look at where I was, I knew exactly where we were and the tracks that were so perfect led right to an old building that I hadn’t been to in ten years.

  Now the little building had none of the cheery yellow paint that it once had and instead was peeled off and dingy; it didn’t look the same. There was no longer any carpet in the house, having been rotted off for some time. It didn’t look like the teens from the high school had used it to party in for a while. That must happen when the sheriff is mauled in such a way. No one wants to take their chances of the bear coming back, and I can’t say that I blamed them.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Freddy had his gun drawn, and he was ready to go in, sure that the bear was in there and we were going to be heroes.

  “I’ve been here before…” Why did I feel so strange all of a sudden and feel like I was here for a reason? I didn’t know what that reason was, but I had to think that there was something to this. It wasn’t just coincidence; it couldn’t be. The little mini house made me think of the last time I was here, and I shivered with the memory.

  “Well, come on. Let’s see if the animal is still in there, and we can wrap this up before too long.”

  I didn’t see any damage to the door, and I had to wonder how he thought it was possible. How could a bear be in there? What did he do, shut the door after he went in? It didn’t make any sense, but I got my gun out anyways, just in case. Something led us here, and we had to find out what that something was. It was our job after all, no matter how scared we were. I sure as hell wasn’t going to claim that I wasn’t afraid. I was scared shitless, and all I could think about was what was in that building that I knew so well.

  Freddy wanted to be the man, and he wanted to go first. Considering how badly I was shaking inside, I let him go ahead. I sure as hell wasn’t going to argue with him. There was no point to it, really. If he wanted to go in first like a commando, I was going to let him do it. There was nothing else that I was going to worry about. I was going to back him up, and hopefully we could end this particular reign of terror tonight, so no one else would be afraid to go out at night. It was going to be all over the news by morning, so I wanted to have something to bring to the people to help them figure it out. If not, there was going to be a lot of nervous residents that would be wondering if living in a small town was as safe as they thought it was. I wanted to make sure that it was.

  I heard Freddy breathing hard as I followed him in. The place was dark, save for the flashlight that he held in front of him, more like a weapon then a source of light. My heart was pounding in my chest as he opened the door, and we moved into another room. Each room was empty, and when we got to the back room, I knew that the place was clear.

  “That’s all there is. There isn’t anywhere else that a bear could be hiding.”

  “Maybe we missed the tracks leading out?”

  I agreed that we should check for more, but I didn’t see any and after walking around the place three times, it appeared that the huge animal had vanished into thin air. It made no sense, but nothing really did anymore. All I could think about was how I was going to write this up. Either way, I had to get out of here because it was bringing back too many memories. Some were good, and some were the worst days of my life.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Freddy was never this concerned about me, so it made me think that I really must look like crap for him to keep asking. Again, I told him I was fine, but I still didn’t know if I was or not. It was hard to be okay when I was thinking about painful memories from the past. It was hard not to think about it. About Baron and everything that happened in this place and what happened afterwards because of this place.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just been a long night. Doesn’t look like there is anything else that we can do. Do you have any more ideas?”

  He told me that he didn’t, and for once, I was thankful for no leads. It meant that I could go home and get out of these clothes. I needed to get away from this place, these woods, and get my head stuck back on right.

  I waved goodbye to Freddy before we went our separate ways. I should have gone back to the station and started on the report that was going to take longer than the midnight walk had taken. It would be the worst part of the whole thing on my side, and I could already tell that Freddy was going to do whatever he could to get out of the desk work. I was the woman, so naturally it would go to me to do.

  Frustrated with my gender and every man on my team that thought I was less than because of it. I knew that I was going to do a respectable job because I had no other choice. I had something to prove, as well as a killer to find, no matter what species it was. I had a feeling that this latest case was going to be more than we’d bargained for, and I wasn’t ready to write it off just yet. I couldn’t. There was too much going on at the moment.

  I was supposed to go home and get some sleep before I had to go back to work. Sometimes I thought that I should just sleep there and stop pretending that I had a life outside of the office. I didn’t. That much was clear because I had too much to prove and being a woman made me work twice as hard.

  My car found its way to the bar down from my house. I liked it because a lot of cops were found there, and it was close enough to my apartment that I didn’t have to go far. If I drank too much, I could just walk home, and I wouldn’t to worry about finding a ride or getting a cab. It was the best of both worlds, and Trudy’s little pub was my home away from home.

  “Hey honey. Looks like you had a rough one.”

  Trudy was behind the bar, where she always was, and I took up the stool that had become my regular seat when I was in here. The decorations were null, and the people dull, but the booze was poured quickly, and I liked the wit of the bartender. She was all the entertainment needed to get my mind off of what was going on. I wouldn’t have to talk much. Trudy was the town gossip, and all I had to do was listen to get what I wanted out of her.

  “It was long, that’s for sure.”

  “Well I think I heard about what you were out in tonight. Had another k
illing, didn’t ya?”

  I agreed, though I wasn’t officially supposed to say anything to her or anyone else about the investigation. It didn’t really matter though. Everyone in the town already knew about it, and when I came in, several tables had gone silent. Now I didn’t know if they didn’t want me to hear the gossip, or if they were trying to get some more through the older, gray-haired woman that was asking questions now. She looked all sweet and innocent, but Trudy was just as bad as everyone else. She liked to gossip, and she was one of the worst too I’d been known to get information from her from time to time. She never wanted anything in return. She just wanted to be a part of it, and I waited for what she had.

  “What did you hear?”

  “I hear that there have been bear attacks again.”

  “Again?”

  “When your father was attacked, several other people were for months afterwards. It was strange because the attacks started out of the blue and then they ended the same way. No one ever caught the bear, but he killed over five people before it all stopped. Ten years later and it starts back up again? I don’t know what it is, but it sounds like a curse. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now, Kayla.”

  I told her that I was taking precautions, but I wasn’t afraid of any bears. They weren’t even supposed to be here, so if they were, it was a strange coincidence and most likely a man-made problem. It could very well be a smuggled pet that someone wasn’t taking care of, or the bear just got away. Whatever it was, this time I was going to make sure to figure it out and stop the perpetrator, whether it be animal or human. It just didn’t seem to be something that nature would have derived. It felt made up, and I wanted to know how this was possible a decade later and still no one knew anything.