Grizzly Lover: Purely Paranormal Pleasures Read online

  Grizzly Lover

  C.D. Gorri

  Grizzly Lover

  Purely Paranormal Pleasures

  by C.D. Gorri

  Edited by T.P. BookNookNuts

  Formatted by Amanda Kimberley MysticWorldsInkPublicationsandDesign

  Copyright 2020 C.D. Gorri

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either part of the author’s imagination and/or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights are reserved. No part of this book is to be reproduced, scanned, downloaded, printed, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of any materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  To all of you who leave reviews, thank you so much for telling others about your experience with reading my books. It is very much appreciated. Xoxo,

  C.D.

  Contents

  Hello Readers!

  Tagline:

  About Grizzly Lover

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Before You Go

  About the Author

  A note for my readers:

  Connect with C.D. Gorri

  Other Titles by C.D. Gorri

  More from my fellow Purely Paranormal Pleasures Authors…

  Books by Amanda Kimberley

  Books by P. Mattern

  P.S.

  If You Liked Grizzly Lover You Might Like…

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Hello Readers!

  Thank you for purchasing this Purely Paranormal Pleasures tale! Can a bad-tempered Bear learn to forgive? I hope you enjoy Teresa’s and Oliver’s tale.

  Purely Paranormal Pleasures will transport you into the realm of sensuous, spellbinding Alphas and their captivating mates. There are no rules.... Only pure pleasure.

  These tales are delivered up by 3 master MAVENS of paranormal P. Mattern, C.D. Gorri, and Amanda Kimberley.

  Happy reading!

  Xoxo,

  C.D. Gorri

  Tagline:

  Teresa broke Oliver’s heart once before, but now she needs his help. Can her Grizzly lover put the past behind them?

  About Grizzly Lover

  Oliver Pax is one of the most prolific composers of all time. He is the award-winning writer of such Broadway hits as The Beast of Brooklyn Heights and its upcoming conclusion Where Beauty Lives. A loner known for his grumpy and secretive nature, the reclusive Grizzly Bear Shifter is in for the shock of his life when a blast from his past washes up on his doorstep after a terrible accident.

  Teresa Witherspoon has been on the run for the past two years. She’s traveled across the country and back again fearing the day her father and his henchmen find her and her son. Caring for Thomas has kept her going this far, but when an accident leaves her hospitalized, she has no choice but to call the one person she swore to stay away from.

  Will the Grizzly Bear Shifter she’d once loved help her in her time of need?

  Prologue

  “Resa,” Oliver fisted the note he’d found tucked under the secondhand keyboard he’d just finished paying off.

  The instrument sat against one wall of the cramped room, right beside the only window in the small Brooklyn Heights apartment he’d been renting the past six months since he came to the city.

  For a Grizzly Bear Shifter used to the wilds of the woods as his backyard, it was quite the change, but he just had to try to see if he could make a go of his music. Oliver had always been gifted with a good ear, but even as a cub, his mother had encouraged him to go and seek his destiny.

  Brooklyn Heights was as close to Manhattan as he could afford with his meager savings, but what did money matter anyway? Especially when there was music to be written. The window faced the south brick wall of another small apartment complex identical to his.

  It didn’t matter what it looked like outside, as long as he was able to breathe some fresh air. At least on the fifth floor, it was somewhat fresher than the heavily congested streets below.

  She was gone. His mind registered that fact as he took in the empty room. She’d left.

  “No,” he growled, and aimed his fist at the tiled counter top, cracking a few of the old ceramic squares in the process. Mrs. Goldstein, the landlady, would be pissed when she saw that.

  Oliver’s Bear roared inside of him and his heart contracted painfully in his chest. It was worse than being sucker punched by Thor his idiot cousin, who was as big and strong as his namesake. Why would Teresa say such cruel things? He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t fathom his sweet Resa saying such foul callous words about their relationship. He read the hated missive one more time.

  Oliver,

  It was fun while it lasted, but even you can’t be so naïve as to think I could find true love with a nobody. I just wanted to get back at my father. Don’t bother looking for me or calling, I will have already changed my number.

  Teresa

  Yes, it was her handwriting. He closed his eyes on the wave of anguish that washed over him. Gasping, he sunk to his knees while the beast inside of him roared and stomped his massive claws in fury.

  Mate, his Bear cried out, but Oliver refused to answer his other half.

  How could she just leave him like this? He’d been so sure of her, of them. He was positive that she loved him too. Being with her was everything to him. She was his fated mate. It was the first time he had ever tasted happiness. A taste that was bitter now that he knew it was all one-sided.

  The first time he’d seen the golden-haired beauty, Oliver’s Grizzly Bear had stood up and taken notice. The second he’d breathed in her peaches and cream scent, his animal had roared one single word in his mind’s eye that would change Oliver’s life forever.

  Mate.

  Following his heart, he’d approached the soft spoken, elegantly dressed Teresa Witherspoon after spying her at the park day after day. She’d sit on one of the cleaner benches and read from a book of seventeenth century cavalier poets.

  “You like Lovelace? Looking at you I pictured a Donne fan,” Oliver said when he’d finally found the nerve to approach her.

  “Spiritualist poetry doesn’t appeal as much to me I guess. I like Lovelace and Suckling. They’re fun and witty.”

  “But they’re just trying to get in a girl’s pants with their poetry. You approve?” he grinned.

  “It’s not so much the seduction that appeals to me, it’s the living in the moment. Carpe diem and all that,” she shrugged.

  There was something so tragically sad about her that his heart had squeezed in his chest with longing. He’d wanted to make her smile. Heck, he even pretended to stumble in the grass, laid himself flat just to get her to walk over and touch him. And she had, put her soft, long hands right on him to see if he was alright. He’d stolen a kiss and had never looked back. Until now. The dream was over. She’d left him.

  Oliver’s Bear roared in his grief. That last night they were together, he’d told her the truth about what he was. The
fact that there were more things in the world than she had ever imagined.

  Oliver Pax had committed a most grievous sin against his Clan. He’d confessed to a normal, a human woman, that he was a Grizzly Bear Shifter.

  It was allowed under certain circumstances, like when the woman in question was your fated mate. He’d thought she’d taken it well, after all, they’d made wild, passionate love immediately after. Hell, he’d been so caught up in the moment, he’d marked her with his bite, tying himself to her irrevocably, but now she was gone.

  What would become of him? Would he go mad like so many other Shifters who’d lost their mates? He had heard the stories. The tales of broken matings and rogue Shifters who needed to be put down.

  Oliver tipped the bottle of whiskey back emptying its fiery contents down his throat. Then he threw the hated thing across the room. Something about the muted violence of the act satisfied his animal’s need for savagery. The Bear inside of him wanted to tear the whole world down, but maybe work would be a better outlet, he thought.

  Oliver sat down at his banged up keyboard and began to play. He poured out his bruised heart. Wrote lyrics and tied them together with a fairy tale as old as they come. The Beast of Brooklyn Heights was born that day. And the rest, as they say, was history.

  Chapter One

  A couple of years later…

  Cameras flashed as reporters shoved their equipment in his face despite the pouring rain. Oliver Pax did his best to get through them as he attempted to leave the Madoc Grand Theatre. The beast in him wanted to snarl and snap his teeth, but these were normals and he had to keep the secret of the supernatural world.

  It was his duty, and he’d already transgressed on that once before. No, he pushed the thought of her out of his mind. She would not haunt him here. Not tonight.

  The buzzards seemed immune to the thunderstorm that was brewing around them, but not Oliver. The scent of ozone had the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. It was bound to be a nasty one.

  He blinked under the bright marquee and grinned despite himself. Chance Madoc had bought and refurbished the old rundown eyesore of a theatre and had turned it into something grand and useful. It was, Oliver had to admit, an amazing old place. The acoustics were simply sublime.

  Of course, he’d come straight to Oliver asking him to allow the “golden boy of Broadway” first dibs on producing his latest at the new site. Surviving On Breadcrumbs, was a smash hit.

  Oliver’s newest musical was a retelling of the classic fairytale featuring Hansel and Gretel. In this version, the infamous twins were actually a pair of bounty hunters looking for witches and supernatural creatures in order to hunt them down and kill them. The pair meets out death and violence wherever they go, until Gretel falls in love with a Werewolf, and has a consequential change of heart.

  It was a silly thing really, a secret hidden wish of his own, but Oliver would never reveal something so personal. So, he covered it up, with dark humor, and an appropriate amount of blood and gore. Add to it a fantastic musical score that he was told would translate well to film, and bam, a hit was born.

  Or so his agent had said once the deal from Hollywood came in just that morning to the little man’s unending delight. Whatever. Money, fame, they did not matter. His work was an outlet for his pain and sorrow. Feelings that could lead to much worse if his Bear ever tipped the scales from barely hanging on to his sanity to going rogue.

  Oliver worked night and day to make sure that never happened. It was the only way to appease the beast, and to keep his fragile hold on his stability. Thunder cracked and a flash of lightning brightened the crowded walkway that led to the theatre doors. He ignored the gasp of the crowd and stood still like a deer in headlights. For one solitary moment, Oliver thought he’d seen a ghost.

  “Smile Pax, you’ve got another hit on your hand,” Chance Madoc slapped him on the back jovially, jogging him from his fancy.

  Good thing too, he supposed. Visions like that were dangerous to his health, and to others. Chance nodded at the paparazzi who were trying desperately to get Oliver’s attention at that very same moment.

  “You know I hate this circus,” he snarled at the half-Demon who was also one of his closest friends.

  Not that he had very many of those to boast about. Still, Chance was a fair man. He believed in Oliver when he was new and unknown. Hell, he’d given him a leg up and Oliver never forgot it. A couple of years might be a flash in the pan to most Shifters, but it was a long time in the fickle eyes of fame.

  “Why aren’t you waiting for your wife?” Oliver asked the man curtly.

  Leandra Katrell-Madoc was Chance’s mate and wife, not to mention the star of Oliver’s first mega hit, The Beast of Brooklyn Heights. She was a lovely woman, a supremely talented songstress, and besides that, Oliver liked her. She was spunky and more than fair.

  She didn’t complain the way most stars did about his notes or direction. Even when he’d asked her to play the Witch in this new show, as opposed to the younger starring role of Gretel. Yes, he liked her. Leandra had integrity. Something far too many people lacked in his not-so-humble opinion.

  “She’ll be along in a moment. So, where are you with, Where Beauty Lives? The pages are late, Pax, that’s not like you.”

  Oliver had been waiting for the question. Chance had been patient, but the half-Demon never failed to mention the fact that Oliver was late with his promised sequel to his retelling of the classic Beauty & the Beast story.

  He hadn’t meant for it to end so cruelly in The Beast of Brooklyn Heights, but his heart had been broken at the time. After reviewers and audiences, the world over had clamored for a sequel, Oliver had finally announced that it was in the works.

  That had been a year ago. He figured he owed it to them, and to his characters. They deserved better than how he’d left them. The problem was simple, Oliver was stuck.

  Writer’s block, that galling game-stopper, that vexatious variable, had hit him hard. Oliver was simply unable to find the perfect end for the tale. He growled softly, careful of the non-supernaturals, the normals in the crowd.

  He straightened his shoulders. He was no longer the sad young Bear, orphaned in his teens who’d remained solitary and penniless until he finally hit it big. But that was only after he’d arrived in the city to fulfill the destiny his mother had described to him when he was a young cub. After he’d met her and had his whole life turned upside down and inside out.

  Oliver had left a part of him behind in Brooklyn Heights. In the wake of the worst heartbreak of his life. Even worse than having to grow up far too soon. He’d spent most of his adult life alone. Away from the Clan of his birth, and with no family of his own. What did he have now?

  He had money. He had fame. And he clung to both desperately. Jaw clenched he straightened his shoulders. The tailored suit he wore was like armor to him. The absolute best money could buy, and he had tons of that these days. The vultures circling him could not harm him as long as he remained aloof and in control.

  Being a successful composer, playwright, and screenwriter had its perks. He’d worked feverishly the past couple of years and had sold more stories than he’d been expecting. Hollywood loved him and wanted his input on several of their fantasy fairytale retellings. He was Broadway’s baby as far as Chance was concerned, not that he enjoyed the moniker one bit.

  Still, it allowed him some freedom, he admitted. Oliver could now afford the finer things in life and that included his privacy. He could have anything money could buy.

  Unfortunately, it was true what they said. Money could not buy happiness. Neither his human side nor his beast would ever feel that again. The Bear inside him chuffed at the thought. But Oliver would not relent. He could make such a statement with absolute certainty these days.

  “You’ll have the pages, Chance. I just need some time. I’m going away to my cabin for a few weeks to finish it. Should be ready before the Easter holidays.”

  “Perfec
t. And I get it, Pax, sometimes a man needs a little quiet. Say, did you want to do a late dinner with Leandra and me?”

  “Uh, no, I-” Oliver was having a hard time concentrating on Chance’s words as reporters clamored for his attention.

  “Okay, people, enough,” Chance waved them away.

  “It’s fine,” he growled.

  A few of the crowd moved away from his snarling, but one form did not sway. Oliver blinked slowly. It couldn’t be, he shook his head. Great. He was hallucinating.

  The vultures were everywhere. Usually, he brought a woman with him to opening night as a sort of armor, but just lately his Grizzly was having a difficult time being around members of the opposite sex. His beast would tolerate no one getting close to him.

  The last time he went out with a woman, his date had mistaken gratitude for an invitation. Oliver had to work way too hard to stop the animal from rising within him and flinging the forward female away. It simply wasn’t worth the risk to himself or anyone else.

  He looked at the throng and frowned hard. Had his eyes deceived him again? He could have sworn he saw, but no, it was impossible. She couldn’t be there. That was twice now, he growled at himself.

  “Damn it, do these people have no regard at all for privacy?”

  “Come on Oliver, it’s part of the job. You know that. Just look at them for a sec and wave, let them get their picture and be done with it,” Chance nodded and smiled, and finally, Oliver turned his head to do the same.