Novak Grizzly (Daughters of Beasts Book 1) Read online

  Couldn’t be.

  Chills rippled up her arms, and the hair on the back of her neck lifted.

  Couldn’t.

  Be.

  Breath shallow, she made her way past the pristine white trailer next. There was no chair on the front porch, no landscaping, but there was a garden gnome wearing sunglasses with his middle finger up and a welcome mat that read Fuck Off. Quaint.

  The next mobile home appeared to be empty. The single front window was open, and there was nothing on the porch, not even a mat to scrape off muddy boots. There was no skirt around this trailer so she could see the cinderblocks it rested on, as if it had just been brought in recently. 1009.

  “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” she whispered as she came to stand in front of a cream-colored singlewide with a beige porch and green shutters around the single window behind the rocking chair.

  The house numbers were dilapidated and lopsided, barely hanging on by their nails, but easily readable.

  Her eyes prickled with tears of disbelief.

  1010.

  Just like the trailer that had been passed around Damon’s Mountains when she was a kid. The magic one that gave sanctuary to so many.

  Who were these people?

  As if conjured by her thoughts, one of the Crew appeared out of the woods like a ghost. Like a loud, cussing, red-faced, furious, tall-as-an-oak, hot-as-hellfire ghost. He was all chiseled jawline dusted with the perfect amount of dirty blond whiskers, a straight nose that flared slightly with what was probably rage, and an intensity in his pretty bi-colored gold and green eyes. She was pretty sure her mouth plopped open and her ovaries went off like roman candles.

  And then that sexy man yanked off a yellow hard hat to expose sandy brown hair cut short. That hat got tossed into the weeds, and in his other glove-cladded hand, he carried a humongous red log-splitting blade like the damn thing weighed nothing. His jaw was clenched, which made it looked as sharp as a runway model’s, and he was wearing an open blue flannel shirt over a thin white hotboy tank top. His jeans were covered in dirt and oil spots and had rips at the knees, and his work boots had seen some serious trauma. His bright eyes were focused solely on 1010, and when he snarled up his lip, he looked more beast than human. Now that was a man. They didn’t make them like him in the city.

  “Hey, asshole!” the man roared at 1010. “You’re fired!”

  And then the blazing-eyed shifter threw the gigantic blade into the side of the trailer like he was throwing shotput.

  The resulting damage to 1010 ripped right out of her any charitable thought she’d had about the man. She hated him before the blade even made contact with the thin siding of the trailer. Remi jumped out of the way as the deafening crash sounded, but the fury over what the man had just done to the trailer…THE trailer…pounded through her veins. Pain sizzled through every cell in her body in an instant, and she gritted her teeth as her grizzly shredded its way out of her.

  She hit the ground on all fours and was off like lightning to teach that idiot a painful lesson on taking care of important possessions. And 1010 was hella important.

  Someone was yelling from the hole in the side of the trailer, distracting the villain, and just as she drew up to him, murder in her heart, the angry man turned.

  She saw his lips form the words, whuuut theee fuuuuuck? and then she was on him.

  She just wanted to kill him a little. Just a little death to avenge 1010. Nothing major.

  But the man spun out of the way and Changed in a moment. An enormous lion, nearly the size of her bear, came out of him ready to fight, and they locked onto each other with zero hesitation. A brawler. Good. She would’ve felt bad killing a pussy cat. But a big old dominant lion? Now, that would be way more fun to bleed.

  She could hear the yelling from the trailer getting closer, and just as she clamped her teeth on the lion’s shoulder, there was a sharp sting on her backside. And another and another. Her rage turned infinite as she released the predator and spun on the new threat.

  Some idiot with a paintball gun was shooting her from the hole in the wall of 1010! He gave a warrior cry and did that double-tap move on the trigger and just peppered her with paint and pain.

  Well now she was going to have to kill everything! The lion swatted her back legs so hard she fell to her butt and took one ill-aimed pink pellet of paint right in the bear-tit, and now everyone was going to die. Except when she spun to end that stupid lion’s life, another equally massive, black-maned lion was brawling with him. She roared because this was her kill and the other lion was ruining everything. But they didn’t listen. Then the paintball sniper was laughing like a lunatic and shooting at his own Crew, pink paint splattering against their tawny fur, and this entire Crew was a friggin’ disaster. They were fighting each other! No one was even paying attention to her anymore—the big pissed-off grizzly bear.

  The black-maned lion swatted the other back a few feet and Changed into a very tall, very muscular, very naked, very tattooed, very scarred-up giant of a man with bright gold eyes and a black mohawk. “Change back!” he yelled, veins popping in his neck.

  The first lion roared, but it turned into a man’s yell as his body broke back into the sandy-haired man. Beside her, the other idiot tripped and fell out of the hole in the trailer. When his paintball gun went off, he shot Mohawk in the left ass cheek. He clenched hard and turned a terrifying glare onto the clutz lying on his belly in the weeds, his bare feet propped up on the trailer.

  “Whoops,” the Village Idiot muttered. “Accident.”

  Remi Changed back, but no one even glanced over at her.

  “Seriously?” the sandy-haired man asked Mohawk, standing to his full height. His shoulder was badly clawed, but she couldn’t remember if she’d done that or if it was from the lion fight. Red was streaming down his arm. “A grizzly shifter attacks me, and your response is to fight me, too? Some Alpha you are.” His words were low and simmered with hot rage. He stood there, staring down his own Alpha, his fists clenched at the sides of his powerful thighs.

  Big dick. Remi swallowed hard and blinked but it wasn’t a mirage. That man was hung like a damn mammoth. Look away. Look anywhere but at his dick. Don’t get caught. Look at Mohawk.

  She ripped her attention away from the sandy-haired man’s nethers just in time to see the Alpha shrugged up one shoulder like he didn’t give a rip about the call-out. He bent at the waist and picked up a piece of tattered jeans. “That was my favorite pair.” His attention arched to her. “Why are you here?”

  “My name is—”

  “I know who you are. Why are you here?” he repeated.

  “I invited her,” the sniper muttered from where he was still lying in the grass in his blue plaid boxer shorts, fiddling with his paintball gun.

  “What?” the two brawler lions demanded in unison.

  “I put out an ad for someone to cook us food because I’m tired of eating chili dogs for every meal, and I thought it would be more fun to have someone else here than hang around with you two dipshits all day. We’re supposed to give her a trailer and pay her thirty thousand a year, too. So, you know, get your checkbook out, Alpha.” The way he said the last word was like a cuss word.

  All three of these men hated each other.

  Seriously…what had Juno and Dad gotten her into?

  “I think I should leave,” she gritted out, good and pissed they’d wasted her time and money in travel expenses. “Y’all are a disaster.”

  The sandy-haired man’s gaze landed on her at last, and something changed in his face and demeanor. His eyes were still too bright, but the rigid lines of his face softened for just a moment before he put on a mask of aloofness. “Who are you?” he asked, lifting his chin slightly.

  “I’m out of here.” She turned and, bare-ass naked, limped past her shredded clothes back toward the trail that would lead her out of there. A little piece of her was irritated these boys were getting a good look at her pink painted ass, but more than anything, she was just disappointed. Not just in the loss of this opportunity, but the destruction of 1010, the horrible timing in having to see that happen, this mess of a Crew, this not being her escape after all. She was disappointed in everyone and everything, her life in general, all of it. This was the last blow she wanted to deal with. It was all too much, too overwhelming. A mountain had rested on her shoulders to begin with and this added rock was one rock too heavy.

  The back of her leg hurt so bad, she almost couldn’t put weight on it. Stupid lion had got one good slap on her, claws extended. She hoped that injury on his shoulder was her doing.

  “Don’t leave!” the paintballer yelled. “That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks! You totally kicked Kamp’s ass!”

  She rolled her eyes and stepped around a neon green lawn chair someone had left toppled in the yard. Nah, on second thought? She turned and punted it. In her fury, she’d used her bad leg and it hurt like a mother-lover. The chair broke into splinters against a tree, and that, at least, was four percent satisfying.

  “What’s your name?”

  Remi shot a look back over her shoulder. The sandy-haired man was following. Kamp the 1010 Destroyer.

  She ignored him and made it to the tree line, but she could still hear him following behind her. She tried to growl, but the bear inside of her wouldn’t cooperate. Weird and obnoxious.

  “Hey, wait up a sec,” Kamp said, pulling her elbow gently.

  She spun and shoved him in the chest. “Don’t you touch me.”

  Hands thrown up, he backed off. “You’re hurt.”

  “And naked and annoyed, and I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  His shoulders lifted with the big gust of wind he inhaled. “Look, it’s getting dark. We have an extra trailer with a bed and
everything. We’re shitty at being a Crew, but we’re all good at doctoring.”

  “And why is that? Because you fight all the time?”

  He flashed her a ghost of a smile and covered his dick with his hands, then shook his head at the ground. “Look, none of us want to be here. I get you wanting to go, but I don’t feel right watching you leave, bleeding because of me. Let me fix you up, you can get some good sleep tonight, and let me check the bandages in the morning, then you can go. No one will try to stop you.”

  The rock music cut off suddenly in the distance. He glanced back at the woods and yelled, “Don’t touch my machine!” His voice echoed through the mountains.

  “I’m changing your splitter blade like you asked, you cock-sucking-thunder-twat!” came the echoing reply.

  Remi snorted, but cleared her throat to hide it because Kamp was definitely growling.

  His jaw twitched with how hard he was clenching his teeth. He really did have a model face, and an intensity to his gaze that would buckle most woman at the knees. She was trying to keep her eyes north of the border, but his dick was so big he was having a hard time keeping it all covered up.

  “Look,” he said, “I can offer you first aid and a chili dog.”

  “You shouldn’t have hurt that trailer,” she gritted out softly.

  A frown tainted his striking features. “Why do you care?”

  “Because the number is 1010. You could’ve thrown that blade through any other trailer here, but you picked that one. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

  “Remington Novak.”

  His face went totally slack, and his lips parted in shock. Oh, he knew who she was all right. Most shifters had that reaction when they heard her last name. Daughter of Beaston, one of the most well-known shifters on the planet. One of the most well-respected. One of the most terrifying if anyone laid a finger on a person he loved. She’d always been under the umbrella of her father’s protection, and it intimidated most.

  Kamp swallowed hard and cleared his throat, gestured to her leg. “It’s bleeding pretty bad. Come on.” He twitched his head and turned on his heel. He didn’t look back as he walked away, as if he expected her to follow. Normally, she wouldn’t follow a man. Normally, she would’ve flipped him off behind his back, made her way to her truck, and sprayed gravel as she peeled out just to spite his bossy ways. But he was bleeding really bad, too, and hadn’t winced or complained, wasn’t even favoring it.

  “You’re hurt, too.”

  “Not really.”

  “Is this the part where you’re going to lure me into your singlewide and get me to doctor you back? Because I have to tell you, I’m not that kind of girl.”

  “Good,” he called out simply. “I don’t like people touching me. You’re safe from me.”

  Remi frowned at his receding silhouette. Well, that was an unexpected answer. And what had he meant about none of them want to be here? Why would they form a Crew then? Crews were usually groups of friends who depended on each other, but these three men didn’t fit that bill. A shifter who didn’t like touch? Well, that was shocking. Touch was important to their animals. It was a security blanket.

  But her dad had told her to come here and breathe. She didn’t know what that meant, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to stay the night, just one night, and then she could leave in the morning.

  “Light the fires and kick the tires, Novak,” Kamp called over his shoulder. “If you bleed out, your dad will skin me alive.”

  Remi looked down at her throbbing leg. Well, he wasn’t wrong. Beaston hadn’t gotten that nickname because he was tame. Plus, Kamp had a very appealing hide, she thought, checking out his muscular ass as he made his way to one of the trailers. It would be tragic if he got skinned.

  So, she limped along behind him.

  One night, no more, and she could get some of her questions answered.

  Just one teeny tiny miniscule little night, and then she could get back to her life as a city bear.

  Chapter Four

  “That’s Rhett,” Kamp said in a growly voice as he gestured to the man dragging a pillow, a blue comforter, and a bag of cool ranch potato chips from 1010 to 1009.

  He didn’t have any tattoos and looked fit as fuck with perfectly spiked hair and a devil-may-care expression. He was more like a model than a logger. Rhett winked at her just before he made his way into 1009.

  Kamp huffed a pissed-off sound and dragged his attention back to the first-aid kit he was rifling through on his porch. Kit was a bit of an understatement. It was a huge plastic bin with bulk medical supplies.

  He’d brought her a pair of ripped-up jean shorts that fell past her knees and had to be belted and a plain blue T-shirt that smelled like laundry detergent and cologne. Not that she was sniffing, but it smelled really good. She couldn’t look any frumpier if she tried. Going commando in denim was downright uncomfortable, and her nipples were all perked up thanks to the soft fabric rubbing on them and the cool October breeze.

  “Do you use that first-aid kit often?” she asked as she sat down on the single brown lawn chair beside the front door.

  “If you were a normie, I’d lie and say ‘Nope, it’s only for rare occasions.’ But you’re a Novak, which means you were raised in the Gray Back Crew.” His lips twisted in a smirk. “Which means there’s no need to pretend monsters don’t exist with a girl who was raised by them. I’m guessing you’re pretty good at first aid yourself.” Locking her up with a bright gaze, he challenged her, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Huh, he really did have bi-colored eyes. The green one stayed nice and steady, and the other changed from gold, to green, and back to gold with his emotions. He was really handsome, kneeling there, a roll of bandages in one hand, clad in only a pair of old jeans and a belt with a bald eagle on the belt buckle. His muscles weren’t just for show. He was a worker. She could tell the difference between a gym rat and a man who built his body on work for pay.

  “You’re not wrong,” she murmured. “The Gray Backs have the reputation for being one of the most volatile Crews in the world, right?”

  He nodded and opened a water bottle, then positioned the lip of it over her clawed-up leg, a washrag held under the gashes. “That’s what I’ve heard. I was raised on tales of the shifters of Damon’s Mountains. My mom followed the Crews like the humans did. Every news story, every article, every post online…”

  When he poured the water over the marks, she winced and stared off into the woods. With stuff like this, it was better not to look until it was cleaned and done.

  “Tough giiiirl,” he murmured. Was that a purr at the end? Just a split second of one? Or had she imagined it?

  Next was the bad part. Whatever cleaning solution he used burned like she’d stuck her leg in a fire, but like he’d said, she was a Novak, and Novaks didn’t show weakness. So she kept perfectly still and clasped her hands in her lap primly. More water, and then he was bandaging her up with quick, skilled, confident motions. A few strips of purple tape to keep it in place, and she was right as rain. Still hurt, but not as bad.

  “I won’t touch you,” she promised, gesturing to his bleeding shoulder.

  Kamp looked at his injury and backed up a couple of steps. And then he poured the bottle of cleaner over his arm without even a grimace. “All done,” he murmured. “Don’t fuss. You’ll waste your time.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Why don’t you like touch?”

  “Never have. I wasn’t a kid who needed a lot of hugs.” He stared off into the woods with his arms crossed over his chest, so she supposed he was done with this conversation. Stubborn man. But when she parted her lips to change the subject, he said low, “I had a lady, and she needed touch, and I gave in. I gave in and I started to like it, and I started to crave it, and I started to need it, and it made me weak.” He slid a bright eyed glance at her, and then down at the toe of his boots as he finished, “And it hurt worse when she left.”