Growl (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 0) Read online

  Hi, my name is Becca Fanning and I write about big Alpha Male Bear Shifters and the BBWs they Claim! GROWL is a prequel story to MARS, the first of my MC Bear Mates novels. It’s just to give you a taste of what I have in store for you. I hope you like it!

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  GROWL

  MC Bear Mates 0.5

  by

  Becca Fanning

  Chapter One

  Mars Donner was sick of fate making his decisions for him.

  Going along for the ride was what he did best, but recently, fate had been making some fucked up decisions on his behalf, and it was getting old. Real old.

  His bear did a shuffle under his skin, reminding him that both halves of his nature felt his irritation. When man and beast were in accord, it did not bode well—not for Mars, the guys around him, or the world in general.

  Most of the time they weren’t in accord, and the world went merrily on its way, not knowing that a major disaster had been averted.

  But this wasn’t one of those occasions.

  Christ, he needed to shift. Either that or he needed to fuck.

  “Huh,” he grumbled to himself. “Maybe I need to do both.”

  “You talking to yourself again, Red?”

  Mars flipped the MC’s second lieutenant, Jimmy ‘Mundo’ Aston, the bird. “Fuck you,” he compounded the insult with a verbal one. Mars liked to cover all his bases.

  “What’s got your goat?” he snickered. “Or what hasn’t?”

  “Nothing.”

  “As effusive as ever.” Mundo rolled his eyes, grabbed a chair at the table Mars was sitting at, spun it around, and took a seat. Perching his chin on the top of the backrest, he grumbled, “Why so glum, Red?”

  “You know I hate it when you call me Red.”

  “So? You think I like being called Mundo?”

  “I’m not a planet.”

  “I’m not Spanish.”

  They shared a look and then immediately burst out laughing. “Fuck off,” Mars repeated, this time a little less angrily.

  “Nah. I’m quite happy where I am. What’s going on?”

  Mars looked at his friend and sighed. “That’s just it. I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dunno. Things are just…” He scraped a hand over the back of his neck. “Shit’s just getting on top of me.”

  Mundo grimaced. “It’s been a stressful couple of weeks.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “No guessing about it. The new Prez is a piece of shit, business around here is getting funky… I don’t like it either. In fact, my Bear’s getting pissed too.”

  Mars blinked. That Mundo felt the same lightened his concern a little while also exacerbating it. It was always good to realize you weren’t on your own, but at the same time, shit got real when more than one person was starting to feel on edge. The Nomads were more than just an MC, they were a Shifter Clan. Their Prez was more than just a title, he was a spiritual leader, and Jackson, their current Prez, was not living up to his predecessor’s standard. Hell, he wasn’t even close to hitting Cub’s knees in worthiness.

  “Cub was a good Prez,” Mundo continued on, blithely unaware he’d just added to Mars’s unease while simultaneously taking some of it away. “But Jackson ain’t worth shit.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  “I pity you being second-in-command, having to deal with his whiny ass all the goddamn time.” Mundo stared at him a second, apparently weighing his words. Mundo rarely did that, so Mars knew to prepare himself for anything. “Why didn’t you try for Prez? You’d have been great.”

  Mars shook his head. “Naw, being in charge isn’t my bat.”

  “I don’t think it ever really is until you’re thrown in at the deep end, and you mark my words, Red, it’s coming. Be prepared to take over this shit. No way we’re alone in feeling like this. I’ve seen the discontent in other guys around here. We’re doing shit we’ve no business messing with.”

  “We always skate close to the law,” Mars protested, but it was a half-assed attempt at defending a man he didn’t like.

  “Yeah, but the stuff Jackson wants us to get involved in is nasty business. There’s shitty work, and then there’s this. I don’t like it.”

  “Me neither.” He’d already pulled rank to ‘uninvolve’ himself from the last run. Whether he could do that again, he wasn’t altogether certain. Plus, it fucking sucked… A man shouldn’t pull out of something and expect guys beneath him to hop to it. If he wasn’t willing to do it, he shouldn’t make his subordinates do it.

  Maybe that lack of respect for his brothers was what was getting under his skin lately.

  “Trafficking ain’t what we do, Red,” Mundo whispered, his tone low. “We need to pull out before we get too involved in this shit.”

  Mars agreed, and therein lay the rub. He wasn’t the Prez. He couldn’t change club law or challenge Jackson. Jackson was their leader, and that went far deeper than it would in an ordinary MC. Their bears had given a blood oath to the Prez, and as men they had sworn fealty to him. Combining the two made mutiny impossible.

  If he broke the blood oath, mutinied, and won, none of his brethren would respect him or his leadership.

  If he didn’t break the blood oath, let Jackson carry on digging their grave, then none of his brethren would respect him.

  It was shit all round.

  “You’re right, Mundo. I won’t lie. I don’t like this crap any more than you do.”

  Mundo looked at him a second and then glanced around the bar. There were a couple of guys seated at the counter, with one of the prospects serving drinks. Indy was new. Only last week, he’d been promoted from hang-around to prospect, and one of his shitty duties was cleaning up and serving in this shithole. Not that it was now, but later on, when the drinking got real, cleanup duty was a bitch.

  The pool table had a dozen one-percenters—aka his brothers—hanging around it, while Kiko and Bad shot frames. From the money loading the corner of the table, a lot was hanging on winning the game.

  Mars and Mundo were at the back of the room at one of the two dozen tables that were clustered there. Mostly poker went down here, but sometimes conversation got real too. In between these tables and the bar, there were sofas sprawled about. Some of the club bunnies were there, bitching, laughing—one was even doing her nails. They knew not to mess around when a game of pool was going down.

  Except Missy, who kept sending hot looks to Indy behind the bar, and Jenna, who kept on doing weird shit with her legs, usually in time to Kiko making a bad shot. He cocked a brow at that and hollered, “Jenna.”

  She jumped literally a couple of inches from her seat, and she spun round to face him. He had that effect on most of the bunnies because they knew he wouldn’t tolerate their bullshit. There was no wheedling their way out of trouble with Mars. If they fucked up, they paid the consequences, and no amount of tears, threats, or offers of a BJ would save their asses. “What are you doing?”

  “N-Nothing,” she squeaked.

  He rolled his eyes at the squeak. Unlike a small handful of his brothers, he never laid a hand on a woman, be she a club whore or baby mama material. Most bears respected women, but the problem was, respect for a woman and respect for a mate were two different things entirely. Some guys, knowing the club whores weren’t mates to any of the current members, treated them
like shit. Mars wasn’t like that. Most of them were beneath his attention, but they still reacted like he was some kind of fucking ogre.

  That’s what came with being six-seven in socks.

  Some women wanted to fuck him, liking his size, wanting to ‘tame’ him.

  Some women wanted to run and never look back.

  “Bullshit,” he retorted, watching as Jenna flinched. “Stop pulling that shit on Kiko.”

  “I’m not doing nothing,” she spat with a little more sass, apparently gaining confidence now the rest of the room’s attention was aimed their way.

  The double negative had him flinching. Christ, that was the trouble with club bunnies. Most of them couldn’t even speak fucking English properly. How hard was it to say I’m not doing ‘anything?’ He was too old to be led around by his cock. Gone were the days when a hot pussy could make his tongue hang out, and no longer could any of the bitches control him through sex. That was another reason why they didn’t like him. He was one of the oldest here and one of the most difficult to predict and control.

  “I say it again, bullshit. You spread your legs any wider, I’m gonna start thinking you’re doing yoga or some shit. Now, get the fuck outta here before I get mad.”

  She swallowed, and he knew she wanted to spit something back at him. Instead, she pursed her lips, tensed her jaw so much the skin turned white around them, got to her feet, and stalked out. Never missing an opportunity for attention, she shook her hips and swayed her ass for all it was worth on her way out.

  Mars rolled his eyes and called out, “Get on with the game.”

  His brothers nodded at him, obviously curious at what he’d just done, but they turned their attention back to the table.

  “I swear you have eyes in the back of your head,” Mundo remarked.

  “Naw, you were looking around to see if anyone was listening, and I joined in.”

  “Shit, yeah, I was.” He did another quick check and then pushed his hand into his cut and retrieved something. He placed it on the table and slid it across to Mars. “It didn’t feel right going so far ahead with this without consulting you. I’ll leave it and the decision with you.”

  Mars looked down at the business card and frowned. Annette Vogel, Investigative Reporter. “You want to get the press involved?”

  Mundo grimaced. “No, but if we get some light shone on this shit Jackson will either have to back off, or if he doesn’t, it will be a perfect opportunity for you to challenge him.”

  “I can’t challenge Jackson.”

  “Why not?”

  “I swore a blood oath.”

  “So? We all fucking did. Blood oaths don’t mean we have to stand back while a shitty leader drags the MC down into the dirt. Challenges aren’t illegal. They’re respected among the brothers. It’s the only right way to deal with this situation. That Jackson has brought us to this point at all says a lot… Neither of us once questioned Cub or his actions. Jackson just ain’t right as Club Prez.”

  Mars reached for the card and tapped it once against the table. “Who’s this Annette Vogel? How did you get her card?”

  “You know Cinda, my sis?” Mars nodded. “She works at The News World.”

  “How did I not know that?”

  “Because you never asked?” Mundo grunted. “Not like that shit matters. Not a one of us wanted her to go into journalism, but fucking she-bears, so used to being considered special, they do whatever the fuck they want.”

  Mars snorted because Mundo was right. She-bears were so rare, so infrequently born, they tended to wrap the rest of their clan, be it extended or nuclear, around their little finger.

  So, even though journalism was one of the worst career decisions for a shape-shifter, it came as no surprise Cinda was working in that job anyway.

  “Well, I’ve not heard any news about bear clans infiltrating the media, so she mustn't be doing too bad a job at keeping rumors about us on the down low.”

  Mundo made a disgusted noise. “Soon, she’ll have everyone believing that’s why she got into the biz—to protect us. Bullshit. She did it for herself.”

  Amused by Mundo’s complete and utter dislike for his sister, Mars tapped the card against the table again. “Why did you ask Cinda for the card?”

  “I didn’t. Not really. She was talking about this hot shit reporter who had just come back to the news office. Apparently, the top brass greeted her like she was fucking royalty. Cinda did a bit of digging—she always was a nosy bitch—and turns out she’s been on sabbatical. Spent two years in Afghanistan reporting on the shit that went down over there and got blasted by an IED but was lucky enough to come out of it relatively unscathed—apart from up here.” He tapped his forehead. “Cinda says she’s been on sick leave for PTSD, but now she’s back, and she’s looking for a new story.”

  “I can’t contact this Annette,” Mars remarked, glancing around the bar again. “I can’t be seen to be countermanding Jackson’s orders.”

  “No, I guess you can’t, but you can give me the go ahead to get in touch with her.” He pressed a hand above his heart. “I know you, Mars, you’d never put me in the shit about this. I have no problem contacting this reporter for the sake of the MC and on your behalf.”

  Mars fiddled with his bottom lip, twisting it here and there as he studied Annette Vogel’s name. “You know Vogel means bird in German?”

  Mundo squinted at him. “It does?” When Mars just nodded, he grumbled, “That matter?”

  “No.” Mars smiled a little. “Do it. Let me know what she needs to get the story started.”

  Well, whether he wanted to or not, he’d made a decision. Whether it was the right one or not, he’d find out when Jackson remained in the dark or decided to string him up by his balls.

  Talk about something to look forward to.

  Chapter Two

  Ten days later

  Annette Vogel stepped into her home office and groaned at the sight of her desk. It was a war zone. And considering she’d reported on some nasty battles over in the Middle Eastern Sandbox, that was saying something.

  Reports, files, documents… they were all there—all in various stacks, all printed out and highlighted with the pertinent facts relating to the editorial she was currently working on.

  The crazy thing was, she knew exactly where everything was. She knew she could find anything within a handful of seconds and be on her way. That was how she worked though—organized chaos. She wished it weren’t so because there was a clean freak deep inside her that was sobbing uncontrollably at the sight before her.

  She’d tried before to be neat, tried and ultimately failed. Nearing thirty-five, she figured she was pretty much set in her ways. The PTSD wasn’t helping much either. Change was slow in even the most copacetic of minds—and hers was anything but.

  The transition to real life was helped by her work, but it was a gateway, a path that enabled her to obsess over a certain topic rather than obsess over the real issues in her world.

  Heading over to her cellphone which was charging on the desk, she gave a little grunt at the sight of the missed calls. Her mother had called three times, her editor once, and more worryingly for her, her shrink had called six times.

  That last missed appointment was coming back to bite her on the ass.

  Christ, it wasn’t like she’d missed a bundle. She’d only missed one, and the way Dr. Harvey was acting it was like she’d never been to any sessions at all. Dr. Harvey had probably gotten her mother involved, hence the three calls.