Ripe for the Alpha (The Ridge Brothers Bear Shifters Book 4) Read online

  Ripe for the Alpha

  The Ridge Brothers Bear Shifters #4

  Olivia T. Turner

  Copyright© 2019 by Olivia T. Turner.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including emailing, photocopying, printing, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. For permission requests, email [email protected]

  Please respect the author’s hard work and purchase a copy. Thanks!

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, companies, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contains explicit love scenes and adult language.

  18+

  www.OliviaTTurner.com

  Edited by Karen Collins Editing

  Cover Design by Olivia T. Turner

  Contents

  Copyright

  About Ripe for the Alpha

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Become Obsessed with OTT

  Don’t be shy. Come Follow Me…

  Audiobooks

  For my husband,

  You know me like nobody else does.

  I’m so so sorry.

  #TooLateWe’reMarried #NoTakesieBacksies #ITriedToWarnYou

  About Ripe for the Alpha

  I’m in desperate need of a savior.

  Kidnapped. Tied to a bed. Out of options. Out of luck.

  Until the Sheriff comes roaring in and busts the place up.

  He’s just the man I was waiting for.

  I’ve always loved older men.

  I’ve always loved a man in uniform.

  With the Sheriff, I don’t stand a chance.

  He has me on board before he even says one word.

  He’s a protective polar bear shifter named Austin Peters, and once he gets his hands on me, he refuses to let me go.

  And I can tell by the possessive look in his icy blue eyes that he’s going to keep me.

  He keeps saying I’m his territory. That my body is his to claim.

  He says I’m his mate and that he waited fifty-two years to have me…

  …and now, he’s done waiting.

  Well, so am I.

  Chapter One

  Austin

  Her scent is filling my nose and lighting my body on fire as I speed down the quiet mountain road. I look over at her pink sweater on the passenger seat and inhale deep.

  She’s my mate. I’m sure of that.

  I squeeze the steering wheel as my chest tightens. Her scent leaves a burning trail as it sears its way down my throat and into my heaving lungs.

  It’s like breathing in smoke and fire and embers all at the same time. And it feels so good.

  My inner polar bear is pacing around inside, huffing and growling with impatience. He wants my mate in my arms with our mark on her neck.

  I want the same thing.

  But I still haven’t seen her. She’s still missing.

  I’m the Sheriff of Blackcloud Point and recently found out that a sweet young girl named Ellie Kerr had gone missing from the town over. I received a package with the details and it included a pink sweater that belonged to her. When I opened the sealed bag, her sugary scent hit me like a tsunami of emotion.

  My possessive polar bear recognized her as our mate immediately and demanded that I go find her.

  I was thinking the same thing. There was nothing I needed or wanted more in that moment than to find her and protect her. My mate is in danger and I’m not by her side to protect her, which is a bear shifter’s primary function.

  It’s been killing me. Eating at me. She needs me and I’m not there.

  I spent the last three days trying to find her. No sleep, no food, no nothing. All I’ve been doing is working as fast and as hard as I can. I chased down and roughed up every two-bit thug and criminal I could find to get some information.

  Witnesses said that she was taken by four men on motorcycles. Four large men.

  I think I know who they are.

  The Copeland lion shifters. They better pray that it’s a case of mistaken identity, because I’ll kill every single one of them.

  The badge on my chest won’t stop me. This isn’t about the law. This is about vengeance.

  They messed with my mate. They took her. They laid their filthy paws on her innocent young skin. They’ll all die for that.

  I’m gritting my teeth as my foot holds the pedal against the floor. The lights are swirling over my head and the siren is ringing in my ears as I swerve around blind turns and race up and down the windy mountain road.

  Finally, this morning I got a tip of their whereabouts. They weren’t on their dead brother Killian’s ranch. That’s the first place I looked.

  This morning I was roughing up a bartender in a shitty bar outside of town who likes to sell drugs to his customers. I didn’t care about the drugs. I just wanted to know what he heard about Ellie.

  At first, he wasn’t talking, but when I pulled out my polar bear and fit his head in my bear’s mouth, he opened up real good. The words couldn’t come out fast enough.

  He told me that the four remaining Copeland lion shifters were holed up in an old shack about forty minutes from Blackcloud Point with the girl. They were holding her for ransom from her rich parents. They wanted a cool five million dollars.

  I got the directions and left immediately.

  I’m about four minutes from breaking in there and taking what’s mine.

  She hasn’t met me yet, but she belongs to me.

  It’s preordained. By the Universe, by God, by fate. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

  My bear has preordained it and there’s no stopping that furious white bear.

  As the four dead lion shifters are about to find out…

  I barely throw the car into park before I’m jumping out of it and racing toward the dilapidated shack.

  My inner polar bear is snarling and surging forward, trying to get out. I flex my body and push him back down with a low grunt. He’ll get a taste of lion flesh before this is finished, but I want to land the first blow. I want to feel bones breaking and necks snapping under my big hands first.

  Her scent is all over this place and it nearly knocks me to my knees as I sprint toward the front door. I’m in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by old trees and high mountains. I would have missed it if it wasn’t for the four motorcycles parked beside the shack.

  The door opens as I arrive at the steps. It’s Jace. He jerks his head back as his eyes widen with panic when he sees me.

  He quickly slams the door closed in my face, but a thick piece of wood isn’t going to stop me from claiming what’s mine and killing the men who took her from me.

  I immediately squeeze my hand into a fist and punch right through the door with a grunt. With my hand inside, I grab him, wrapping my strong fingers around his neck. I feel his hands clawing at my wrist, trying to loosen the intense grip I have on his throat, but I’m not letting go.

  Kill him, my bear urges. I nod in agreement. That’s exactly what he deserves.

  With a fierce grunt, I yank my hand back out, bringing Jace with me. The old wooden door explodes into pieces as I rip him through it.

  He’s hurt and bleedin
g from his mouth as he looks up at me with fading eyes. His skin starts to turn blue, but it makes me squeeze even harder.

  “Where is she?” I hiss as I lean down into his face.

  He slowly raises a heavy arm and points into the shack.

  “She’s mine,” I growl as I turn him around. I grab his thick body in my hands and snap his neck.

  He falls to the ground, dead.

  With my heart pounding and my eyes seeing nothing but red, I storm into the shack. Two of the lion shifters, Alex and Iker, are staring at me in shock.

  I lift my nose and inhale deep. Her scent fills me up. She’s so close. It’s so intense that it makes my hands shake. My hands never shake.

  “What did you do?” Iker asks in a trembling voice as he looks past me to the broken door and his dead friend.

  I did what I had to do. I let these guys off the hook too many times. But stealing a young girl… Stealing my girl… They’re not walking away from that.

  I move fast. They don’t put up much of a fight or maybe we’re just completely outmatched. It is only two of them against one of me.

  Alex lands a hard roundhouse on my chin as I charge in on them, but I don’t even feel it. So much adrenaline is surging through my veins that I could shake off an eighteen-wheeler truck slamming into my chest.

  I crack Iker in the jaw with a hard punch and then grab Alex. He tries to release his lion, but I snap his neck while he’s mid-phase. I drop his body to the floor and he looks like a monster with his face all distorted and fur covering his skin in patches. His hands are half-swollen into paws, but still looking grotesquely human.

  “Did you touch her?” I growl as I lean over Iker. He’s on his knees, looking helpless and pathetic as he holds his broken jaw.

  “Who?! The girl?” he grunts without moving his lips.

  “Ellie,” I say and my whole body shivers. Every time her name is on my lips, my whole body reacts. “Where is she?”

  He looks past me to a closed door and lifts his shaking finger. My heart starts racing. She’s right there. Behind that door.

  I don’t know how to handle that. I’ve been waiting for my mate for fifty-two years and I’m minutes from laying my eyes on her. Minutes from touching her sweet soft skin. Minutes from claiming her ripe young pussy.

  But first, I have to deal with the men who took her.

  “Did. You. Touch. Her?” I say very slowly.

  His eyes widen and his jaw starts to tremble as he looks up at me. “Nobody touched her. Not like that.”

  My bear lets out a thunderous roar that I can feel vibrating through my chest. Iker’s eyes drop to it.

  “We didn’t!” he yells. “Do you know her or something?”

  “She’s my mate,” I hiss in a low voice.

  Now his face really drops. “Shit,” he curses under his breath.

  “Shit is right,” I say as I roll my shoulders back. “You don’t fuck with a polar bear shifter’s mate.”

  “I didn’t mea—”

  He doesn’t even get to finish his last words. I grab his neck and snap it.

  I’m staring into his golden eyes and watching them fade, loving every second of it.

  When he’s dead, I drop him to the floor and stand up. I turn and face the door, and my stomach quivers. Now I’m nervous. The bad guys are all dead, but now I’m feeling anxiety.

  I’ve been waiting fifty-two years for this moment. Of course I’m nervous. I don’t want to fuck it up.

  A lion’s roar hits my ears and the nerves sink away. My adrenaline spikes back up as I turn to the smashed front door.

  The bad guys aren’t all dead. There’s one left. Knox.

  I was so caught up with Ellie’s scent and knowing she’s here that I forgot to count the dead bodies.

  And there’s one missing.

  Blood pounds in my ears as I storm over to the entrance. I step over Jace’s dead body on the porch and walk outside. There’s a full-grown lion pacing on the grass. His long golden mane is waving in the wind and he’s got a long string of drool hanging from his snarling teeth.

  My inner bear lunges to the surface. He’s begging to get out. He wants him. He wants to make him pay for touching our mate.

  I got three. It’s only fair that I let him have one.

  I quickly slip off my shoes and I’m trying to unbutton my shirt when he breaks through.

  “Mmppfh,” I grunt as my body swells up. Bones snap and then painfully realign into a larger, more powerful skeleton. My skin tears as the muscles underneath balloon to four times their size. It reconnects and sprouts long white fur as my teeth burn and ache as long incisors and canines replace my flat human teeth.

  It all happens in an instant. My furious polar bear explodes out of me and lets out a deafening killer roar as the lion shrinks back in front of him.

  Knox’s lion tries to put up a fight, but there’s nothing on the planet that can stop an enraged polar bear shifter fighting for his mate. Nothing.

  The last lion falls as easily as the others.

  My bear shakes its huge head as the taste of copper fills its mouth. When my bear is sure the large cat is dead, he lets go of his neck and Knox falls to the ground.

  There’s nothing stopping me from getting to her now.

  My bear doesn’t want to let me back out. He wants to handle the girl himself.

  It will be better if she sees me. You’ll frighten her.

  He grunts angrily.

  Your mouth and neck are full of blood. You look like a monster.

  Still, he doesn’t want to get pulled to the sidelines. I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to leave when we’re so close either.

  Please. You want to keep her, right? It will be better this way.

  He finally reluctantly agrees and I pull him back in.

  I put my shredded Sheriff uniform back on as best I can and walk back inside with my heart pounding like a jackhammer.

  It’s time.

  Chapter Two

  Ellie

  I’m frantically trying to untie the big knot around my wrist, but it’s so tight and won’t budge. Something is happening right outside the door. There’s yelling, fighting, shaking—it sounds like the whole house is going to come crashing down.

  I don’t want to think that help has finally come because I don’t want to get my hopes up. It might just be more criminals who might not want me alive when they eventually break the door down.

  I shove all of that out of my head and focus on the tight knot as I try to claw it open it, but I can’t. It feels like cement. My right hand is tied to the bed and if I can just get it loose, I can climb out the window and…

  And what, Ellie? I’m in the middle of nowhere. Even if I can escape, where can I go? These shifters with their incredible sense of smell will sniff me out in minutes, if not seconds.

  But it sounds like there’s a war going on outside and I have to do something.

  The crashing and slamming suddenly stops and I stare at the closed door with my heart pounding.

  I hear the heavy sound of footsteps approaching on the old creaky hardwood floors as I stare at the peeling gray paint.

  The footsteps stop right in front of my door and my stomach hardens as I drop my eyes to the door handle and wait.

  There’s someone there. Someone big.

  As I wait for the door to open, the pain in my chest and the hardness in my stomach just slides away and is replaced by a calmness. A comforting warmth that’s almost pleasant.

  I lean forward, inexplicably wanting the door to open. I hold my breath as I wait.

  But suddenly, the footsteps take off running in the other direction and the deep roar of a lion and a bear fighting thunders through the room.

  The tiny hairs on my arm and the back of my neck raise as the fear and uncertainty crawl back into my skin with their long cold fingers. The warmth is gone. There’s no more comfort.

  I’m back in the dark, dank room with no hope of escape.

&nbs
p; I’ve been here for the past four days, but it’s felt like four years.

  It was a Tuesday afternoon when they took me.

  I was walking home from my part-time job at the mall when four bikers rode up the street. Immediately I knew something was wrong. I had a horrible uneasy feeling as I looked over my shoulder at the approaching men. They were shifters. I knew that right away. No human could be that big.

  The one with the scar on his cheek stopped his bike in front of me while the other three circled on their motorcycles. I practically threw my purse at him, but they wanted more than that.

  He took out my wallet and smiled when he read my driver’s license. “Ellie Kerr,” he said with a grin on his face.

  I slid my house key into my fist and squeezed it. It wasn’t going to stop him, but it was all I could do.

  “There’s money in my purse,” I said with my pulse racing. “Take it and go. Please.”

  He laughed as he looked inside. “Is there five million?” With his head shaking, he pulled out the twenty-three dollars I had inside. “You’re worth more to us than this.”

  Minutes later, I had my hands tied together and was rocketing down the road on his motorcycle. My back was pressed to his chest with his big arms caging me in as his vile breath washed down on the top of my head.

  I looked at every person in every car, pleading to them with my eyes, but none of them even turned my way. People tend to look straight ahead when there are four scary-looking bikers beside their car.

  The men took me straight to this shack in the mountains and I haven’t left since. They’ve leered at me, but they haven’t touched me. Yet. I guess that’s only a matter of time.