Bear His Bond: Wylde Den Two (Alaskan Den Men Book 9) Read Online Free Page B

him. “I do and you will. We’ll figure it out and then we can get back to the fun times, Pepper.” He tilted her chin up to meet her gaze. “Woman, you make me want to do things that I’ve never done before.”
    Unease tightened the muscles of his shoulders beneath her touch. His gaze swam with something close to what looked as though he had a lot more to say on the matter, but instead he sealed his lips in a fine line.
    Men. Wylde men to be exact. She’d witnessed that same pursed lips look on all six brothers and she knew for a fact it originated with the elder of the crew. A man as burly and unruly as his offspring.
    It took all she had not to push Everett to say what she saw written clear as the Alaskan sky on his face. But if she did that she would scare him off and could kiss her last remaining days here with him goodbye.
    The way his eyes swirled between a deep gold and liquid amber seemed to read like he wanted to say their time together meant more to him than a quickie, a fun weekend. Then again, maybe she only wanted to hear the words, true or not.
    She opened her to mouth to ask but sucked in a brutal gasp instead.
    A single crack carried across the expanse of the lake, and Pepper hit the ground before Everett had even ducked.
    “Are you crazy? Get down!” She knew gunfire when she heard it. Reaching up, she tugged on Everett’s hand, but he slipped away from her, took several paces back and inhaled long and deep until his chest doubled in size. What in the hell was he doing? From where she crouched, she couldn’t see anything but the small crease lines at the corners of his eyes and the space between his brows deepened into a fierce scowl. What she couldn’t see with her human eyes or pick up with her watered-down sense of smell his heightened shifter senses had no problem detecting from the way he shook his head from side to side.
    From one second to the next the calm atmosphere morphed despite the sun’s determination to fight the encroaching grayness.
    She cast a wary eye over their eerily silent surroundings. Everything from the faint chirp of crickets to the occasional call of birds fell quiet. “What? What is it? A hunter? Do you think they shot at us or a bear or something? I mean a real one? Not that you’re not one, but…” Geez! Shut up, Pepper .
    Looking between Everett and the section of woods at their back, she let her words drift.
    Everett blinked back at her before speaking. “We’re not alone. Stay here, stay low. I’ll be right back.” He kneeled beside her and helped her sit up enough to where the top of the grass brushed just above eye level and spoke in a hushed, grated tone that gave nothing away.
    “Everett, what does that mean? You need to tell me what I need to be shooting—my gun or my camera for proof of Sasquatch.”
    That got his attention. His entire body went rigid and he yanked off his glasses, hitting her with a look that held no room for misinterpretation. Shock widened his eyes and his sigh came across loud and clear. “We’ll talk about why you think you need a gun when you have me later.” His frown lightened a couple of shades. “I’m not touching the whole bigfoot thing.”
    She pushed up to her knees and came nose-to-nose with a very unamused werebear shifter.
    “See why talking is important? I need deets not macho bullcrap. And like it’s so strange. There are shifters, aren’t there?” She waved a hand at him. She knew most people in her profession looked at her with a side eye and gave her a wide berth for the radical thinking, but that was probably neither here nor there at the moment.
    He gave her the same side glare but with a glint of humor instead of cruel judgment.
    “I’m just saying.” She turned back to the area he was focused on.
    “Stay here. Gather your samples while I check this out.”
    “Yeah, buster that’s not going to work.” She threw a hand out to stop him. “What did you pick up?” One thing she wouldn’t be