Shifters' Storm Read Free

battle.
    This didn’t happen in the natural world. An elk, which at his core was a prey animal even though a bull could be five feet high at the shoulder, attacked only to save his life or that of another of his kind. He’d charge another male elk to claim a cow in estrus but not a grizzly.
    Again she nearly screamed. Then, chiding herself for almost playing the feminine card, she scurried backward. This was between two wilderness lords. Her only role was as audience.
    Instead of charging the again upright bear, however, the elk plodded toward the carcass. His laborious movements were familiar.
    “Songan,” she whispered.

Chapter Two
    Rage and confusion ran through the nine-hundred-pound elk. He might not know the name of the large, rich brown animal he’d nearly attacked, but something imbedded deep inside him told him the creature was unlike any he’d ever seen. Too big. Too intelligent. Dangerous and a threat.
    A threat to what, the bull pondered. He lost the question when the slight, two-legged creature made a noise. He didn’t understand the sound coming from the pale throat. At the same time, it was familiar. Keeping his head high and antlers angled toward the great beast, he tried to make sense of the two-legged one’s smell, but other scents overran it. The fanged and clawed bear stank of challenge and might. In contrast, the wind-borne aroma that had brought him here spoke of surrender. Death. Gore.
    Trying to comprehend took so much effort. The death stench warned that the same thing might happen to him, but how could he decide whether to flee or fight when he didn’t know what had stopped the fallen elk’s heart?
    His blood ran hot with the sexual need that had driven him for days and distracted him from the question he dimly perceived to be vital. As the sun was rising this morning, he’d stepped into the middle of his harem, not to lead them to the nearby creek but because two cows were licking their sides and sex. They’d briefly tried to evade him, then stopped and set their wide-spread rear legs.
    Bugling, he’d approached from behind, reared, planted his front legs along the first one’s sides and curled his buttocks inward. His long, heavy cock first stabbed between the cow’s rear legs and then rammed into the dripping, soft opening. Once, twice, three times he’d thrust deep. As the cow started to collapse, he’d backed away from her and headed toward the second one.
    Mating twice had only fed his need to keep spilling himself until he was too spent to stand. Nostrils quivering, he’d been looking for another receptive cow when something beyond the drive to impregnate gripped him. Reluctantly turning his back on his harem, he’d let a sharp distant blast lead him to this meadow.
    The retort hadn’t been repeated, but deep inside resided the understanding that he was more than four legs, a heavy rack and hungry cock. That other thing needed answers.
    His compulsion to learn the truth had was still so powerful he dismissed both the great newcomer and the two-legged creature.
    Not wanting to do what he had to, he approached the dead elk. This one’s antlers were half the size of his. That and the narrow chest and slender neck told him this male hadn’t yet seen its second winter. Dark blood had pooled around a ragged hole behind his shoulder, but although he couldn’t quite make sense of that, Songan had no trouble determining what else had been done to the young male. The sex organs had been removed.
    Rage as powerful as any rut urge engulfed him. Whirling, he again faced the oversize creature he now recognized as a bear but with a coloring he’d never seen. He couldn’t save the young elk, but he could avenge—
    Pawing the ground so dirt and grass flew about, he lowered his head. The strange bear hoisted himself onto his hindquarters and swung his front legs up and out. Deadly claws raked the air. A sound like thunder burst from the gaping mouth.
    The two-legged creature gasped.