Jade Crew: Fallen Bear (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Ridgeback Bears Book 7) Read Online Free PDF Page A

she saw him for the first time.
    Oh my God he’s gorgeous!
    Thick dark brown hair hung down from his head. She could tell that it wasn’t by choice, but simply because he had been unable to stay groomed in the cell. A matching beard, shaded much more toward black covered his face, but it didn’t matter. The slightly crooked nose passed almost unnoticed as she met his eyes.
    While the rest of him was in desperate need of some regular maintenance, there was nothing wrong with the vivid, intelligent brown eyes that were looking back at her. The pools of hazelnut seemed to ebb and flow as she became lost within them. All the moisture fled her mouth, forcing her to swallow hard.
    Almost unbeknownst to her, in the periphery of her vision, Garrett and Gabriel seemed to exchange a few words. Then Gabriel moved back to the console, and moments later, the steel separating her from Evan began to retract. The sudden loud grinding startled her, snapping the fragile moment that had begun between them and slamming Victoria roughly back into the present as she remembered there were a number of other people in the room.
    She wondered if all of them had seen what she had felt, or if to the outside world it had been nothing more than a look of thanks as Evan freed her.
    A large shape stepped in front of her, blocking her view. She looked up into the hard, uncompromising eyes of Gabriel.
    “Do you agree to follow his lead, and to obey the rules of the Valley?”
    “I don’t know the rules,” she said, peering around him to get another glimpse of Evan. “But I will take him as my Alpha,” she told them all, stating the words aloud.
    But will he take me?
    The scenario running through her head was vastly different than the one she was vocalizing. It involved a lot more than just following his lead as a normal crew member though, that was for sure.
    And if he were to command me to do certain things, that wouldn’t be too terrible either…
    Blushing at the thoroughly wicked thoughts that suddenly flooded her mind, Victoria stepped around the seemingly immovable rock that was Gabriel and made her way to Evan’s side. Once there, she had to fight down the sudden urge to take his hand, or to link her arm with his. The animal within her roared loudly at that denial, fighting with her human instinct.
    Is this really happening this way? We met in a fucking jail!
    Still, she had to admit that there were no rules on where mates might meet, and there was no denying that’s what her bear thought he was. Victoria herself wasn’t quite ready to admit that just yet. She needed to know him a bit better before she completely succumbed to whatever it was that her bear felt was between them. It wouldn’t be the first time it had launched her at a man, though this time felt vastly different than any before. Usually it was a simple physical urge, to enjoy a night of rough passion before being slapped in the face by reality the next day.
    This didn’t feel like that, however. There were elements of it, including the thoughts of getting him alone. Other images, barely formed ideas, and possibilities echoed around as well. They were too faint for her to pick up on just yet, but there nonetheless. She wondered what her brain was trying to show her, but decided she didn’t want to see it.
    Not yet at least…

***
    “Feel better?” she teased as the shifters emerged from the showers.
    Evan smiled with more energy than she had seen from him yet. “You have no idea!”
    Her eyes traveled over him, noting the changes. He had scraped the beard down to a short stubble, and his hair had been trimmed back down to a more respectable level as well, though it still needed a professional’s touch. Fresh clothes and a long hot shower had made a remarkable difference in the appearance of the entire crew.
    Which is what they were, she realized. They were a crew now. While they had no name, nowhere to live, and no real sense of identity, the framework was there. It