The Bear Essentials (Siren Publishing: The Stormy Glenn ManLove Collection)

  The Bear Essentials

  Bear shifter Rob Colton is excited about the future, and after graduating, he is ready to start the next phase of his life. He never expects that life to include a frightened young man that darts out in front of his truck. But one whiff of Casey's sweet smell and Rob knows his future is going to be brighter than ever. He has found his true mate.

  Orphaned at an early age, Casey Newton has bounced from foster home to foster home, never quite finding a place to call his own. When a big, burly man decides Casey is his true mate, the cold and lonely world Casey grew up in begins to change. For once in his life, someone wants him.

  But wanting someone and keeping them safe are two very different things. When the man that has terrorized Casey for most of his life comes after him again, can Casey trust Rob to protect him or will he be tossed away like he has every other time in his life? And will the bond between mates be strong enough to withstand the threat of losing everything they hold dear?

  Genre: Alternative (M/M, Gay), Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifter

  Length: 32,782 words

  THE BEAR ESSENTIALS

  Stormy Glenn

  THE STORMY GLENN

  MANLOVE COLLECTION

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Everlasting Classic ManLove

  THE BEAR ESSENTIALS

  Copyright © 2015 by Stormy Glenn

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-906-3

  First E-book Publication: October 2015

  Cover design by Jess Buffett

  All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of The Bear Essentials by Stormy Glenn from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Stormy Glenn’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Stormy Glenn’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to the real Rob Colton, who has brought me so much reading pleasure with his stories.

  THE BEAR ESSENTIALS

  STORMY GLENN

  Copyright © 2015

  Chapter One

  He had done it. He had graduated from college without failing a single class. Rob Colton was so excited he almost bounced to his truck, except he didn’t bounce. Ever. It would mess with his hard-earned alphaness. Still, once he was inside his truck and long gone from the campus parking lot, he couldn’t help shouting out his excitement.

  He had graduated!

  Long days attending class combined with even longer nights sitting at the dining room table studying had given him a 3.0 GPA. It wasn’t spectacular and it wouldn’t get him a top-of-the-line job, but he wouldn’t be flipping burgers either.

  God, he hoped he wouldn’t be flipping burgers. He’d rather eat mud. Burnt meat made his inner bear want to puke. Whoever invented flame broiled should be shot. Give him a nice juicy steak passed briefly over the top of an open flame and he was pretty damn happy. Better yet, give him some fresh salmon. Salmon burgers were good, too.

  Rob grinned when he heard his best friend’s unique ringtone blare on his phone. He tapped his Bluetooth earpiece, connecting him to the call. “Yo, dude, we did it.”

  “Right?” Billy Ray Jenson replied.

  “I can’t believe it’s finally over.”

  “Yeah, man, school sucked.”

  Rob couldn’t agree more.

  “We still meeting out by the river tonight?” He couldn’t wait to celebrate.

  He had wanted to drop out of school when he turned eighteen and go to work full-time in his father’s construction company. His parents made him stay in school, and now he was glad they did, but the last few months had been the hardest.

  Unlike the rest of the known universe, shifters had to attend an additional year of school. Most humans assumed it was some sort of advanced high school courses offered by invitation only, and maybe that was true to some extent. The courses they took taught them about their bear history. It taught them how to control their beasts when they were faced with violence or situations that forced their bear to the surface.

  It taught them how to be better bears.

  “You know it.”

  “You and Jed grab the beer,” Rob said. “I’ll bring some steaks.”

  “Cool.”

  Billy Ray was a man of few words, at least few comprehensible words.

  “I need to swing by the house and grab a few things. Then I’ll head out to the river.” And he wanted to talk to his parents now that he had finished school. He wanted to go to work for his father full-time. He had been dreaming of working side by side with his dad since he was seven years old and picked up his first hammer.

  “See you out there.” Rob chuckled as he disconnected the call. He was still reeling from the fact that he had finally graduated. It felt like he had been attending school forever and he had finally been set free. His bear wanted to roar.

  “Holy fucking shit!” Rob slammed on the brakes, his eyes rounding as his truck slid to a stop mere inches from the small figure racing across the road in front of him.

  Wide eyes the color of the warm caramel and edged with kohl peered up at him over the hood of the truck, big fat tears dripping from them down pale white cheeks. Time seemed to stand still as Rob sank into those
big liquid eyes, drowning in them.

  Then the man blinked, his dark thick eyelashes sweeping over his tearstained cheeks as he huddled further into his dark-gray hoodie. He turned and started across the road again, the moment broken.

  Rob stared after the lone figure, stunned by the overpowering emotions suddenly running rampant through him. He didn’t understand why his stomach clenched at the sight of those tears or why his dick became so hard he could have punched a hole through a steel plate at those big caramel eyes.

  But he was going to find out.

  Rob growled as he drove his truck to the side of the road and turned the engine off. He jumped out of the truck and raced after the little man, catching sight of him hurrying down a dirt path on the side of the road that led into the woods.

  He quickly caught up with his prey, barely panting from exertion. He grabbed the guy’s arm, his eyebrows shooting up when the he instantly dropped to the ground and curled into himself.

  “Please, don’t hurt me,” the man whimpered as he covered his head with his arms.

  Rob growled, his gaze snapping back and forth as he scanned his immediate surroundings for signs of danger. Spotting nothing out of place, Rob lifted his nose and drew in a lungful of air. He smelled the forest—trees and dirt and the slightly musty smell of dead leaves.

  And apples…cinnamon and apples.

  Rob frowned in confusion. If he didn’t know better, he’d think someone was out in the middle of the woods baking an apple pie. God, he loved apple pie. It was without a doubt his favorite desert next to honey.

  Nothing tasted better than honey.

  Dismissing his wild thoughts, Rob turned his attention back to the man cowering on the ground at his feet. A deep mind-numbing rage began to take hold of him when he noticed the bruises showing up through the rips in the man’s hoodie. There was even a trickle of blood at the corner of the man’s mouth, no doubt due from the cut on his fat lip.

  Someone had worked this poor guy over, and hard.

  Rob squatted down next to the smaller man. Jeez, he had to outweigh him by at least a hundred pounds, if not more. The little thing was all skin and bones.

  And bruises, there were a shitload of bruises.

  “What happened, cub?” Rob spoke in his gentlest voice, which wasn’t easy when his usual tone was deep and rough. It matched his looks. He was big and fierce and made like a brick shit house. And for once in his life, he wished he wasn’t so intimidating.

  The poor thing was going to shake apart.

  “Sshhh, it’s okay.” Rob tried to sooth the man by rubbing his back. “You’re safe now. No one is going to hurt you.”

  When a little of the tension eased in the man’s body, Rob lifted him up into a sitting position, surprised by how easily he could move the guy. He had lifted heavier bags of cement.

  Big light brown eyes peeked up at Rob through a fall of honey-blond hair. Rob reached down and gingerly touched the man’s swollen bottom lip, grimacing at the wince of pain that crossed the guy’s face.

  “What happened to you, cub?”

  “They took my bike.” The words were whispered in the sweetest voice Rob had ever heard. It wrapped around him like a blanket of tranquility he hadn't felt in all his years. If he had been a cat, he would have purred.

  He wasn’t a cat.

  “Who took your bike, cub?”

  “Casey,” the man said as his eyes flickered up for a moment before darting away. “My name is Casey Newton, not cub.”

  Rob chuckled at the small flicker of defiance he could see in those warm caramel-brown eyes. He knew who Casey was. While they didn’t run in the same circles, Rob had seen the man around town. He might not have known his name until now, but he knew who Casey was.

  “I like cub.”

  And he liked this particular cub. The draw to cradle Casey in his arms and hold him close, protecting him from all the evils in the world, was riding him hard. Rob had felt the same way each time one of his siblings came into the world, just never to this magnitude.

  He’d kill a rock for his mate…

  Fuck.

  Rob dropped back onto his butt on the ground as he stared at Casey’s shaking form… His mate. How in the hell had that happened? Mating with a human was against clan law. It wasn’t allowed—ever—and Rob had never heard of a bear mating with anyone except another bear.

  And yet, he still knew deep down in his soul that Casey was his mate. The knowledge that he was sitting there staring down at his true mate rocked Rob to his soul. While everyone knew they had a true mate out there somewhere, most found someone they were compatible with and imprinted on them because true mates were so very rare.

  Rob wanted to gather Casey in his arms and keep him away from the rest of the world. Casey was sweet and gentle. Rob could see it in his eyes. He needed to be protected. He needed a buffer between him and danger.

  Luckily for Casey, Rob was big enough to be that buffer, and he’d start with getting the man’s bike back for him. “Who took your bike, Casey?” Because Rob was going to kill them for hurting his cub.

  “Ray—” Casey’s audible swallow was so filled with fear that it shook his small thin frame. “Raymond.”

  Rob barely held back his growl of disgust. “Raymond Barker?”

  Casey’s honey-blond hair flopped on his forehead as he nodded enthusiastically.

  “Oh, cub.” Casey had tangled with one of the premier assholes in the entire town. Raymond Barker was the son of the current alpha and fully expected to be the next alpha when his father stepped down. He often acted as if he already had the position.

  He thought he was big and bad.

  He was just bad.

  Casey’s lips trembled as he rubbed the tip of his finger over the swollen bloody cut on the corner of his bottom lip. “He hit me.” Casey’s lips thinned as he glanced away, sniffling. “He’s always hitting me.”

  Rob’s growl rumbled low in his chest. There was no way he could have kept it suppressed after hearing that Casey was getting knocked around on a normal basis. That would no longer be allowed.

  “He ripped my hoodie,” Casey whispered as he plucked at one of the tears on the gray material.

  Over Casey’s whimpered protests, Rob grabbed the edges of the man's ripped hoodie and pulled it up over his head. He grabbed his own hoodie and whipped off before pulling it down over Casey’s head.

  “This should keep you warm.” The dark-blue fabric swam on Casey’s slim form. Casey could probably tuck his knees up to his chest and the sweatshirt would cover all of him. But it also smelled like Rob, and knowing his mate was covered by his scent made his bear very happy.

  “Did Raymond give you those bruises?” He hadn’t missed the bruises coloring Casey’s skin from his side to his belly button. They looked a couple of days old so he didn’t think they came from today’s altercation with Raymond, which meant the idiot had gone after Casey in the past.

  “He likes to pick on me.”

  Rob could barely keep his growl to himself as he lifted Casey into his arms and then stood, starting toward his truck. He was going to feed Raymond his teeth.

  “What are you doing?” Casey’s voice was pure panic.

  Rob sent Casey a smile of reassurance. “We’re going to go get your bike back.”

  “No!” Casey started to struggle, wiggling in Rob’s arms. It was all Rob could do to hold on to the thrashing man, especially once he reached his truck and needed one hand to open the door before setting Casey down on the seat.

  “Enough, cub.” His voice, while gentle, brooked no defiance.

  Casey froze. Rob wasn’t even sure he was even breathing. He reached out to stroke the side of his face, gritting his teeth when Casey reared back from him as if he thought he was going to be hit.

  Rob slowly cupped both sides of Casey’s face and tilted it up toward his. “I will never hurt you, Casey, nor will I allow anyone else hurt you ever again.” He knew his voice was sincere so he was confused w
hen Casey frowned. “What is it, cub?”

  “Why?”

  That one was easy.

  “Because you’re mine.”

  Chapter Two

  He had fallen down the freaking rabbit hole. That was the only explanation as to why he was sitting in some giant monster truck with a man built like a tank, and on his way to retrieve his stolen bike from a man that made it part of his weekly schedule to beat the crap out of him.

  Casey shot Rob a glance out of the corner of his eye, swallowing hard when he saw the muscles in the man’s arm bulge. Jeez, what did the man eat? Boulders? He was huge. His arms were as big around as Casey’s thighs. He probably drove the large macho truck because it was the only thing that would fit him.

  “I really don’t need my bike.”

  Much.

  “We’re getting your bike back, cub.” The sheer force behind Rob’s words sent a shiver down Casey’s spine. This was not a man to be messed with. “It’s time that Raymond learned he can’t pick on you anymore.”

  “But—” Casey pressed his lips together and glanced away when Rob shot him a look.

  “It’s not up for debate.”

  Casey couldn’t help but wonder if Rob had a screw loose. No one went up against Raymond Barker willingly. The man had ruled the campus since day one. Raymond made sure everyone knew who he was and those who didn’t acknowledge him as big man on campus were made to regret that decision.

  That was kind of where Casey was at the moment. By state rules, he had till the end of summer after he graduated from high school to move out of his foster home. He had been working every available shift he could get at the bakery in order to save up. And he wouldn’t be able to afford his own apartment for a couple of more months. Casey knew he had to suffer through, even if life sucked, and it did.