Read Online Betray The Bear by T.S. Joyce - Free Book Online

close. The head of the cattle barns, Shane, had ordered them to round up the calves and yearlings to work. Which sounded simple enough, but she’d never ridden a four-wheeler before and ‘working’ them meant wrestling them to the ground and castrating the little bulls, then driving the rest into shoots to deworm and dehorn the ones that needed such attentions. She was filthy and her clothes were stiff from the sweat she’d perspired today. And the smell that clung to her skin was definitely bovine in nature.
    “Hannah?” Anya asked. “Would it be against the rules for me to visit your healer?”
    “I guess I could take you by Daria’s house right now. Are you hurt?”
    “No, not me. Well, I do have some questions I couldn’t ask the Long Claw healer on account of Nathan finding out everything that went on there. But also, I need a few ingredients for a balm for an injury Chase sustained. If she doesn’t have them, maybe she could point me in the right direction on where to get them.”
    “Oh,” Hannah said with a frown.
    Anya was still desperately trying to wrap her head around the fact that Hannah was human, and the only mate of the alpha of Bear Valley, but she had been really nice and patient with her all day. Anya liked her. It was easy to see why she and Joanna and Riker’s sister, Jenny, were so close.
    A little pang of sadness washed through her when she thought about not being here to build a bond with them. She might’ve liked life her e if she’d come to Bear Valley under different circumstances.
    “There’s Jo,” Hannah said, waving t o the woman jogging toward them.
    With the rhythm of Joanna’s gait, her dark hair swung from side to side. She squeezed Anya’s shoulder and fell in step beside them.
    “How were the meetings?” Hannah asked.
    “Good. The budget was approved to order twenty more solar panels and we’ll be building three new houses beginning next week. Cameron has been on a tear with the finances.”
    Hannah turned to Anya and explained, “Jo is thinking about applying for a council member position at the next alpha challenge and is trying to learn the ins and outs of the colony. So she sits through boring meetings all day.”
    Joanna laughed. “They’re only boring to you and Jenny. I find them fascinating. Anya, I bet you would too. Things are run so differently here than under Nathan.”
    “I’ve noticed.” In fact, she could hardly find any similarities and it was disconcerting. If the Long Claws knew there was a different, more peaceful and efficient way to run things, would they follow their blood thirsty leader so blindly?
    “I heard that you aren’t Nathan’s only mate,” Hannah said low.
    So she and Joanna must have been gossiping. Anya inhaled the fresh mountain air, and plucked a blade of long stem grass from the field they were walking through.
    “I’m not the only one, but I was the first.”
    “Did you know there would be others when you had the ceremony?”
    Ceremony? There hadn’t been one. “No, I thought I was it. I felt pretty duped when he brought Greta and April in. And now he has Merit too.”
    Hannah’s delicate eyebrows flew upward. “What?”
    Crap, she’d forgotten about how much Merit had hurt Hannah. “Oh, yeah. Um, Chase told me some of what Merit did to you. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.”
    An uncomfortable silence blanketed them, and in an effort to save the conversation, Anya admitted, “Greta and I used to call her an evil shrew when no one else was around. I told Nathan I didn’t like Merit before he threw me out.”
    “She is a terrible, horrible person,” Hannah whispered in a haunted voice. “Evil shrew is a fitting name.”
    “She and Nathan deserve each other then.” Anya didn’t know why she said that, only that it felt right , and wasn’t just some ploy to get these women to trust her. Both manipulative and cruel when they felt like it, Nathan and Merit really did match each other well.
    At the end