House of Bears
THE BEARS OF OREGON BOOK 2
SAMANTHA SNOW & AMY STAR
Copyright © 2020 BY SAMANTHA SNOW & AMY STAR
All rights reserved.
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About This Book
Unrest continues in Silver Spruce, especially once Trevor’s sister, Elise, helps Holly and Loch escape from the silver mines.
Once free, Holly brings Loch to the house, where she must adjust to meeting and courting a mysterious fourth bear…
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE—Holly
Are you there? Holly whispered to her own mind. She heard nothing in return. She hadn’t received an answer for days now. At least, Holly thought it had been days. Maybe it had been weeks or worse, only hours. There was no natural light leaking into the cavern in which her cell was built. There was no way to determine the passing of time.
Only her own thoughts echoed in her mind.
“You have that look on your face again,” Loch said from the cell next to her. For the hundredth time, Holly wished for a dividing panel between the two cells. Loch’s one delight was annoying the hell out of her. It wasn’t like they had anything else to do.
“You should focus on something other than my face,” Holly replied without looking his direction. She’d didn’t want to look at him. He was the only person she’d had regular contact with since she was kidnapped in the woods. Loch might have had something to do with it. He swore he didn’t, more times than she could count, but he had said the opposite to the two men who kidnapped her.
He was all she had in there, and she had no idea whether she could trust him or not.
“I’d love to. Unfortunately, I don’t have a voice in my head to chat with. It must be a nice pastime.”
Holly didn’t say anything. She focused on a pebble just outside of her cell.
“What? No banter today? Come on, it’s the only form of entertainment we have in here.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Holly.” Loch scooted closer until the bars between them forced him to stop. “I know being imprisoned doesn’t inspire much other than despair and contempt for the world, but I’m bored. I hate being bored.”
Holly narrowed her eyes. “Somehow, I don’t feel sorry for you. It may or may not be your fault that I’m in here in the first place. Since I still don’t know anything about you, I’m going to assume you’ve had something to do with this.”
“Innocent until proven guilty means nothing to you?”
“Not where you’re concerned,” Holly snapped.
“Wow. The voice in your head must really be pissing you off today. You’re in quite the mood.”
She went quiet, pressing her lips together. When she was brought to the caverns, which belonged to one of Silver Spruce’s three abandoned silver mines, she heard the voice of the mythical Maiden, the one she now believed herself to be a reincarnation of. She still wasn’t clear on how she could hear the voice of the very being she was meant to be. The Maiden didn’t like to answer questions. She—or it, perhaps—only gave sparse, cryptic advice and more attitude than Holly knew what to do with.
“You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?” His voice was low. Now it was he who didn’t want to look at her.
“Who?”
“You know who I’m talking about.” A low snarl threaded through his words, serving as a reminder to the beast that lurked beneath his skin, not that Holly needed reminding. Loch was one of many Silver Spruce residents that possessed the ability to shift into a bear.
Even now, though she’d seen it with her own eyes on multiple occasions, Holly had a hard time wrapping her head around it. She’d only seen Loch as a bear once. As a bear, his coat was as dark and shiny as his black hair.
“I wasn’t thinking about them,” she mumbled, “but if I were, could you blame me? They’re our only shot at a rescue.”
“Then, we’re going to die here.”
“What do you have against Johnny, Keller, and Garret anyway?”
When Holly arrived in the town of Silver Spruce, Oregon, to sell the house she’d inherited from her Grandmother Pearl, Pearl had conveniently forgotten to mention the three, ruggedly handsome men who lived there. Pearl had also left out the part about bear shifters and the Prophecy of the Maiden, which Holly now found herself at the center of.
Johnny, Keller, and Garret were shifters, just like Loch.
“The real question is, what do they have against me?” he said bitterly.
“You were the one who showed Fang and his sidekick,” Holly evoked the name of her captor, “where I live!”
“They would’ve found you anyway.”
“That’s your reason for helping them?”
“If we go down this road, we’re just going to keep having the same conversation we’ve been having.”
Holly snapped her head around, finally looking at him. “That wouldn’t be the case if you just told me what you’re playing at.”
He smiled. Impish
