Shifting Truths (Sanmere Shifters Book 4) Read online

  Bastian held Rachel against his chest as they both panted for air. After a moment, she shifted in his arms, rolling to face him. She smiled up at him and kissed him gently on the mouth.

  “Do you have time for breakfast before you have to leave?” Rachel asked.

  Bastian wanted to say yes. He wanted to spend the morning with Rachel, but he knew that the longer he stayed here, the harder it would be to walk away from her and he felt himself shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry. I’d love to have breakfast with you, but I really do have to go,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Rachel asked him with a flirty smile. “Because just to be clear, I wasn’t talking about food.”

  Bastian moaned at her words. Rachel’s smile widened and she put her hands on Bastian’s shoulders and pushed him onto his back. She straddled him and leaned forward, kissing him hard on the mouth. His hands came up almost of their own accord and ran down Rachel’s back and then up her sides.

  She reached behind her and grabbed his cock, her expert hand working it once more. Bastian felt his cock harden at her touch and although he knew he should put a stop to this and get out of Rachel’s place, he couldn’t do it.

  Rachel worked his cock to the point where he was almost climaxing and then she stopped moving her hand, clutching the base of his cock. She moved her mouth from his, straightening up. She came up onto her knees and pushed his cock beneath herself and then she lowered herself onto his hardness. Her movement was slow and delicious and Bastian felt every inch of himself being sucked into Rachel’s warm depths.

  When he was all of the way inside of her, Rachel held herself still. She looked down at Bastian and he felt her pussy tighten and relax, tighten and relax as she clenched her muscles around him, making him gasp. She grinned and then she began to move up and down on him. Now that she had finished teasing him, she didn’t waste any time. Her movements were fast and desperate, like she needed the release as much as he did.

  As Rachel moved, she grabbed Bastian’s hand and pressed his fingers against her clit. He massaged it in time with her thrusts and within seconds, Rachel was calling out his name. The feeling of Rachel’s juices coating him pushed Bastian over the edge and his own climax slammed through his body. His cock went wild and his muscles clenched as pleasure consumed him.

  He felt his face contorting as the ecstasy became almost agonizing in its intensity and then he was floating down, sated and happy. Rachel collapsed onto his chest and he held her tightly, not wanting to ever let her go but knowing that he had to.

  * * *

  Bastian sipped his scotch and looked out of the window of the plane. He saw the white, fluffy clouds floating by, but he didn’t really register them. In his mind’s eye, he saw Rachel. He felt as though he could still taste her on his tongue.

  Since the moment he had left her house this morning, he had felt a deep-seated urge to turn around and go back. He felt a connection with Rachel, something deep down inside of himself that he had never felt before and couldn’t explain. He knew it could never work, though, and he pushed his feelings aside, telling himself he was making this into something bigger than it was.

  Rachel was gorgeous, there was no denying that, and the sex had been mind-blowing, but that was all it was. All it could ever be. The connection Bastian felt had to just be in his imagination. His bear stirred, trying to tell him otherwise, but Bastian pushed it down and ignored it.

  Rachel wasn’t meant to be his mate. He had never believed in all of that “love at first sight” stuff. She was just a one-night stand, and Bastian told himself that within a couple of days, he would have forgotten all about her. Now all he had to do was find a way to make himself believe that.

  5

  One Month Later

  Rachel wiped the back of her hand over her sweaty forehead and took a moment to compose herself. She pushed herself up off the floor of the toilet cubicle and reached out and flushed the toilet. She could feel worry stirring within herself. She had been sick every morning for a week, and she knew that as a bear, that should be impossible. How could she have gotten sick?

  She unlocked the cubicle door and stepped out of it. She moved to the sinks and washed her hands and splashed water on her face. She examined herself in the mirror. She frowned at her breasts—they looked bigger than usual and they were extremely tender. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away.

  God, what’s the matter with me? she thought to herself. Why am I always so weepy lately? I’ve only been sick and I’m out here acting like I’m going to die.

  The door to the toilets opened and Melanie came in. She frowned when she saw Rachel.

  “It finally got you, huh?” she said.

  “What?” Rachel asked.

  “Working here. The germs. You look terrible,” she said.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Rachel said. “But I don’t think I’ve picked up a bug. I think it must have been something I ate.”

  “Well, let’s just err on the side of caution,” Melanie said, giving her a wide berth as she made her way toward the cubicles.

  Rachel laughed and shook her head. She left the toilets feeling much better. She had only said the thing about it being something she ate to appease Melanie and stop her inevitable panic at the thought of working next to someone sick, but now she began to think she could be onto something. She couldn’t catch any diseases, but surely even bears got upset stomachs from time to time.

  Even as she tried to convince herself that was true, a little voice in the back of her head whispered to her, telling her that wasn’t it and she knew it.

  I can’t be pregnant. It’s impossible, Rachel thought, answering the little voice in her head that had been getting louder and louder over the last week.

  It’s also impossible for you to get sick, yet here we are, the voice whispered back.

  Rachel sighed and shook her head, but the voice wouldn’t be silenced. Not this time. Rachel knew what she had to do to silence the voice once and for all. She needed to pick up a pregnancy test on the way home from work and do it tonight. And once she saw it was negative, she could shut that voice up. She had been telling herself that almost every day, but she had resisted the urge to follow through with it. She was afraid that the voice would somehow be right and she would be wrong.

  She shook her head again and told herself she had to do it. What was her other option? Wait for eight more months and see if a baby appeared? That thought scared her way more than just doing a test, and she vowed that today would be the day she did the test and put her mind at ease.

  * * *

  Rachel sat on the closed lid of the toilet, timing the three minutes it took for the test to work. She already knew what it would say. Positive. Just like the last one. But she had to be sure. She had to know that the first test wasn’t just some fluke. The alarm on her cell phone blared out, telling her that the three minutes were up. She silenced the alarm and with a shaking hand, she reached for the test on the edge of the sink. She picked it up and closed her eyes for a second, gathering her courage. She opened her eyes and her breath left her in a rush. Positive.

  There was no denying it now. Rachel was pregnant. Tears filled her eyes and she let them come, sobbing quietly as they flowed down her cheeks. There was a time when a positive pregnancy test would have filled her with joy, but not now. Not now that she was a bear. And she knew what this meant. It meant that Bastian must be a bear too.

  She felt her insides turn cold as fear gripped her. What was she supposed to do now? She knew enough about bears to know that they were monsters. How could she have a baby with one? Despite her fear, Rachel already knew that she couldn’t have an abortion. As much as this pregnancy terrified her, beneath the fear was a strong feeling of maternal love. Almost without knowing she was going to do it, Rachel rubbed her hands over her belly, smiling through her tears.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” she whispered to the baby. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” />
  Her sobs began to trail off and she stood up and washed her face. Maybe all bears weren’t monsters. She was a bear and she wasn’t a monster. She had never hurt anyone and she had never felt the urge to do it. She let her mind go to Bastian. He had been funny, sweet, and kind. He had made love to her with such passion, but she also remembered the moment when he had penetrated her the morning after their first time together. She had been sore and she’d gasped when he’d entered her. And he had stopped moving until she had begged him not to stop. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

  The more she thought about it, the more certain she became that Bastian was nothing like Lewis. Maybe he, too, had been turned into a bear against his will.

  She went downstairs and sat down in the living room to think about this. Of course, she could have the baby and make no attempt to let Bastian know he was a father. It wasn’t like there was any chance of her running into him again, and if she did, she could just tell him the baby wasn’t his. He would have no reason to doubt her word. He didn’t know she was a bear, and like her, he would think that the chances of them having a baby together were zero.

  As much as she felt like that would be the safest option, Rachel didn’t think she could do it. The thought of depriving Bastian of the chance to know his child, and depriving her child of the chance to know his or her father, didn’t sit right with Rachel. She knew she had to at least try to find Bastian.

  The morning he had left for the airport, they had agreed not to exchange contact numbers. They both knew that what they had couldn’t last any longer than that one night, and what was the point of dragging it out with the occasional text or call? Rachel didn’t even know Bastian’s last name and he didn’t know hers. It had felt like a good idea at the time, a way to ensure it didn’t get messy. Now she regretted not getting at least his full name. If she had that, she could maybe track him down.

  She thought for a moment longer and then she remembered the moment she had first seen Bastian. He had been coming out of a house opposite the diner she was in. She knew which house it was. It was the one with the yellow front door. Rachel’s attention had been focused on Bastian from the second she had laid eyes on him, but now that she thought about it, she knew she had seen a flash of that yellow door behind him.

  She stood up, pulled her jacket on, and grabbed her handbag, leaving her house before she could talk herself out of this.

  Rachel walked down the street quickly, not giving herself a chance to change her mind. She marched up to the yellow door and knocked on it. It was only after she had knocked that she realized she had no idea what to say. Would the person who lived here also be a bear? Should she tell them she was a bear? She didn’t know and it was too late to formulate a plan. The door was already opening.

  A man peered out at her with a questioning look on his face and Rachel knew she had to say something.

  “Hi,” she said with what she hoped was a normal-looking smile. “This might sound a little weird, but I need Bastian’s contact number.”

  The man frowned at her.

  “And how do you know Bastian?” he asked.

  “We’re old friends,” Rachel lied.

  “If that is true, then why don’t you have his number yourself?” the man asked.

  “I lost it,” Rachel said.

  “Right,” the man said, the doubt in his voice evident. “I’m sorry, lady, but I’m not in the habit of handing out other people’s cell phone numbers to strangers.”

  Rachel felt her hope slipping away, but then she had an idea.

  “I understand,” she said. “But it’s really important that I speak to him. If I give you my cell phone number, will you call Bastian and have him call me?”

  The man seemed to relax a little and he nodded his head.

  “Yeah, sure, I can do that,” he said.

  Rachel dug in her handbag and found her little notebook and a pen. She scribbled her name and her number on a sheet of paper and tore it out and gave it to the man. He glanced at it and then tucked it into his shirt pocket.

  “Thanks,” Rachel said.

  She turned to walk away and the man started to close the door. Suddenly, doubt filled Rachel and she began to question whether the man really would pass on the message. She thought for a second, and then she spoke up.

  “Please don’t forget. I couldn’t bear it if Bastian didn’t get my message,” she said.

  She put enough emphasis on the word bear to make the man pause. He pulled the door back open and looked at her, his eyes narrowed. She gave a barely perceptible nod of her head, hoping that if the man was a bear as she suspected he might be, he would get the message, and that if she was wrong and he wasn’t, he would barely notice the nod.

  “You really do know Bastian, don’t you?” the man said.

  Rachel felt relieved, knowing he had understood what she was telling him.

  “Yes. I really do,” she smiled. “You will make sure he gets the message, won’t you?”

  “I will,” the man said. “But you have to understand that as the alpha of the district, he’s a busy man so it might take a while for him to call you.”

  “I can wait,” Rachel smiled, using the smile to hide the horror that now filled her. “Thanks again.”

  She turned and walked away, forcing herself to walk at a normal pace until she heard the door close behind her. The second the door closed, Rachel began to run. She didn’t stop running until she was back inside of her house with the door closed and locked behind her.

  She knew then that she had been wrong about Bastian. He hadn’t been turned into a bear against his will. And he wasn’t a nice guy. He was a monster, just like she had first thought upon learning he was a bear. She still remembered what Lewis had told her. That the alpha bear of the district was the one who had ordered him to find women and turn them into bears so they could be used as breeding machines to help populate his pack. There was no way in hell Rachel was going to hang around here and wait for Bastian to call. There was no way he was going to take her baby away from her if it turned out to be a girl, and use her to populate his pack.

  Rachel lurched up the stairs, fear flooding through her. Thank God I found out the truth about Bastian before I told him I was pregnant, she thought to herself. She was so glad she had risked giving the man a hint about her being a bear. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have found out that Bastian was the one behind her abduction until it was too late.

  She grabbed a suitcase and began piling her clothes into it. She threw in her make-up and rushed to the bathroom to collect her toothbrush and toiletries. She was packed within half an hour. There was a lot she would need to leave behind, but she could live with that. She had the essentials and she had enough money saved up to replace the things she left behind.

  Her house was a rental and her payments were up to date. When her landlord discovered she was gone, he would be pissed off, but she left had paid a deposit and last month’s rent in advance when she moved in. Rachel hoped that would be enough to appease him a little bit. She didn’t like the idea of leaving him in the lurch, but she wasn’t willing to hang around here and just wait for Bastian to show up. He knew exactly where she lived.

  Dammit, Rachel. Why did you have to bring him here? Why didn’t you insist on going to a hotel or something? Or better yet, why didn’t you just leave him in that damned diner?

  None of those questions were helping and Rachel knew it. She took a deep breath to calm herself down. She knew her savings would only last a couple of months and she would need money to leave the state and find a new apartment. Money for medical bills for the birth of her baby. She had to be sensible about this.

  She took another deep breath and then she picked up her suitcase and made her way downstairs as a plan started to form in her mind. Leaving her suitcase in the hallway beside the front door, she moved through to the living room and sat down. She pulled her cell phone out of her handbag and scrolled through her contacts list until she found Dr. Gordon. She
hit call.

  “Dr. Gordon,” the doctor said as he took her call.

  “Hi. It’s Rachel from reception,” Rachel said. “I’m sorry to disturb you out of office hours, but it’s pretty important.”

  “Is everything okay, Rachel?” Dr. Gordon asked.

  Rachel was relieved to hear the concern in his voice rather than anger.

  “Not really,” she admitted. “I have a violent ex-boyfriend who I ran from a year or so back. He’s tracked me down and I have to leave. I know it’s short notice and I understand if you can’t help, but is there any chance I could transfer to another medical center in another state? Any state.”

  “Rachel, you should go to the police. They can keep you safe,” Dr. Gordon said.

  “No,” Rachel said quickly. “I tried that before and it made everything worse. I have to leave, Doctor Gordon. With or without your help.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Gordon said. “You know what’s best for yourself. Give me five minutes to make a few calls and I’ll get back to you, okay?”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said, horrified to find herself on the verge of tears.

  She ended the call quickly before Dr. Gordon sensed the tears in her voice. The last thing she needed was him deciding to play the hero and sending the police around or something.

  Rachel jumped up, too full of nervous energy to remain still. She paced the living room floor while she waited for Dr. Gordon to call her back. Come on, come on, she thought to herself as she imagined the man from the house with the yellow door calling Bastian and giving him her number.