Taken by the Buck Read online

  Table of Contents

  Taken by the Buck (Colorado Shifters, #2)

  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

  Epilogue—Late May

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  Copyright © 2014, 2017 Kristen Strassel All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to [email protected]

  Strassel, Kristen. Taken by the Buck (A Colorado Shifter Romance - Book Two)

  Cover design by Sotia Lazu

  Photography: couple © Andrey Kiselev - Fotolia.com deer © veneratio - Fotolia.com

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  Taken by the Buck

  Chloe wants to believe in fairy tales....

  The does in the herd have shunned The Mate, thinking of it as little more than an arranged marriage. But Chloe thinks the idea of being fated to someone forever is romantic. So excited about The Mate, Chloe can’t wait until the night of the ceremony, and heads out in the forest in search of her mate.

  Cane’s tired of running....

  Everything in his life has ended badly, and there was only one place left that felt like the right place to go: his family’s cabin outside of Colorado Springs. Cane had been dreaming of the forest, and something much more primal that was begging to be let out.

  When Cane aims his rifle at a doe in the forest, he has no idea she’s exactly what he’s been looking for.

  Chapter One

  “THERE,” MY GRANDMA said as she pulled the pink ribbon into a bow around my neck. “Whoever your mate is will know they’ve been given a gift.”

  “Are you sure about that bow?” Daphne, my best friend, didn’t share my excitement about The Mate. She’d always made fun of me, saying I made it sound like a fairy tale. It was our fate in the herd, and I wanted to think positive. She always sounded like a doomsday prepper. “What if the squirrels laugh at you?”

  “They’ll know it’s Chloe.” Grandma scratched behind my ear, sticking up for me, as always. Both Daphne and I had shifted to our doe form within a week of one another. We shifted any year we went into heat, and shifted back to human once we found our mate. Grandma winked at Daphne. “They should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

  “I’m not high maintenance,” I protested. They both eyed me, doing a lousy job of suppressing giggles. “I like pretty things.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Daphne said, she’d do anything to skip over this whole thing and shift back to human. Not me. I’d been waiting for this ever since I was a little girl. I was so jealous she’d shifted early, at eighteen. I had to wait until I turned twenty-one. Sometimes being average was annoying. “We’re fated to our mate. They have to take you as is with a strict no return policy.”

  “That’s a good thing for you.” I nudged her shoulder. “Are you going to tell your mate what you think about him when you find him?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve already found him, he’s Farting Freddy from The Roadhouse.” Poor Freddy was an accountant in town who came into the restaurant we worked in every day, and as advertised, he had a digestive problem. While I dreamed of my prince charming, Daphne insisted she was doomed to one of the most tragic bachelors in town. He’d never mated, and I wondered if he’d ever shifted.

  “He’s a nice guy.” I felt the need to defend him. “And if you encouraged him to change his diet...”

  “I’ve tried!” Daphne shook out her coat. She did that every time she got frustrated. A week as a doe and I was already picking up on her deer mannerisms. “Every time I wait on him, I suggest he get anything but the broccoli sauté, but he always orders it anyway.”

  “It’s going to work out,” I cut her rant off. Now that we were about to mate, I had to stay optimistic. Even though I was much more enthusiastic than Daphne, I was still scared. Our lives were never going to be the same. “It has to.”

  Daphne stepped closer to me, resting her head on my shoulder. “No matter who we wind up with, we’ll always have each other.”

  The Mate always took place on Halloween night. It was the peak of deer mating season, and our herd’s tradition. But I couldn’t wait until Friday to go out in the forest. If I spent the rest of the week hanging around in my grandma’s yard, eating apples, I was going to drive everyone crazy, including myself. Once Daphne went home, I decided to go explore.

  Dead leaves crunched under my hooves as I pranced through the forest. I’d played in the woods all my life, and I thought I’d had a pretty good handle on all the paths, the peaks, and cliffs. But everything was different with my doe senses. More intense. I stopped every so often to sniff, hoping it would give me some clues. Deer left scent with their hooves, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to be looking for. Daphne was the only other deer I’d been near, we were the only two does to shift this season, and she still smelled like her human perfume.

  We’d had some bad storms last winter, and fallen trees blocked some of the well-worn paths. Soon I found myself in the thickening brush. Nothing looked familiar anymore, with everything in transition this time of year, and I wasn’t sure how to get home.

  My ears dropped when I heard human voices. I tucked my tail, like Grandma told me to do if I ever found myself in danger. I wished I’d paid more attention to anything else she’d had to say about being hunted. I brushed it off, refusing to think anything bad would actually happen. My mom hadn’t come back after the second time she shifted, and Grandma was scared that I’d suffer the same fate. I think that’s why I’d been so optimistic about this. I wanted to believe that everything worked out for my mom, therefore, everything would work out for me.

  I tried to retrace my steps, but the light had changed and everything looked different from minutes before. The voices came closer, and I quickened my pace, jumping over stumps instead of side-stepping them. I was probably drawing more attention to myself, but if I stayed there, they’d catch me for sure.

  Now the voices were coming from everywhere. I wanted to cry out, but it would alert them to their target. They were most likely hunters. Woodland Park crawled with orange coats, crushed beer cans, and hunting racks this time of year. There was no other reason for grown men to be out in the woods. Well, no other good reason.

  “Shoot!” They yelled to each other. “You’ve got her. Train the sight on her and pull the damn trigger!”

  “No!” I cried out, but without any other deer around, it sounded like a bleat. Only yards away, the telltale orange jackets circled me. I charged, praying none of them were a good enough shot to hit a moving target.

  No such luck.

  The sting in my flank only irritated me at first, it didn’t even hurt. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, and I kept running. My vision blurred to autumn death and orange as I began staggering toward the hunters. They yelled to each other, but I didn’t understand the words anymore. My thoughts faded as I hit the ground hard, but I didn’t even feel it. I was so tired. Maybe everything would make more sense when I woke up.

  Chapter Two

/>   I WOKE UP WITH A ZIPPER pressed against my cheek. My eyes struggled to open, almost like someone had glued them shut. I rubbed my fingers against my cheeks, and gasped, holding in a scream.

  I’d shifted back to human. Holy crap. Did I find my mate? Where was he?

  Where was I? My head spun as I crawled up the pillow. The room smelled very male, like cologne, and something else earthy. My senses hadn’t shifted back to human yet. The difference between the two threatened to make me sick. Wiping the sleep crumbs from my eyes, I realized I was definitely in a room that a guy was at least responsible for decorating. Or more like not decorating. A woman would never throw this stuff together and forget about it like this. At some point in the night, I’d kicked off a blue and green plaid comforter, but a brown blanket was still wrapped around my legs. And the jacket. Orange. Hunter’s Orange. I shuddered from a chill. What was this doing on me?

  Fuzzy images of the night before played in my brain, but not clear enough to piece it all together. I tore the jacket off of me, but pulled it back up on my shoulders once I realized it was all I had on. Besides the ribbon, that was still there.

  Scrambling off the bed and falling against the dresser, I leaned forward to look at myself in the dusty mirror. This room definitely belonged to a man. Covering my palm with the jacket, I wiped a spot clean so I could really see myself.

  It wasn’t pretty. My curly brown hair was filthy and smashed against my head. Dirt streaked my face. I began raking my fingers, nails rimmed with black, through my hair to at least try to get it to lay flat. Better, but not great.

  The ribbon had few smudges of dirt, but the bow was still perfect and hopeful. I touched it, wishing it was a portal back to when I was still a doe, and there were still possibilities other than....this.

  The jacket hadn’t been zipped, and I opened it carefully to access the damage, if any, from shifting back to human, and whatever happened after that. My muscles were so sore, but everything was intact. Besides being dirty and sticky from shifting, I only had a few scrapes on my shins. One spot on my butt throbbed. Turning to lift the jacket, I saw the wound from the arrow, scabby and pink in a sea of yellow and purple bruises.

  I rubbed it gently and winced at the sting. Even though I was by myself in the seemingly forgotten room, I knew I wasn’t alone. Music came from behind the closed door. A melody would get going from an acoustic guitar, then stop abruptly, over and over again. Zipping the jacket, I pressed my ear against the door to see if I could hear anything else, but all I picked up was the drone of the TV.

  I did the scary thing. I opened the door.

  One man sat on a worn plaid couch, feet up on the coffee table, guitar on his lap. He didn’t notice me right away, lost in his music, frustrated that the next part of his song wasn’t coming easily. When he reached the end, he’d squeeze his eyes closed and shake his head, strumming harder, like force alone would bring the right notes to his fingers.

  Shivering under the coat that possibly belonged to this guy, I hugged the too-long sleeves to my stomach and leaned against the door frame, watching him. He looked familiar, but at the same time, like no one I knew. Dark hair fell in waves to his shoulders and disappeared into the collar of a hoodie. A few days’ worth of stubble covered his face, like he’d finally decided to commit to the beard. His skin was tawny, my grandma might have called him swarthy, but that wasn’t the right word. He wasn’t my type at all, but he fascinated me. Danger pricked my skin, and I ignored it. This man may have shot me with an arrow, but there was no evidence of him doing anything else to me. I’d never been with a man before, but I would think, or at least I would hope that I would know if something had happened to me. My blood ran cold at the possibility.

  “Hey.” My voice was weak from shifting and my throat felt rough. He jumped, brown eyes snapping open and blinking rapidly like he was having a hard time believing what he saw. Once he decided he trusted his eyes, he set the guitar beside him on the cushion and approached me slowly, like he was as unsure about me as I was about him.

  “Hey,” he repeated, his voice soft. I shied away from him, hiding my face in his jacket. I had no idea where I was, and my legs shook too hard to even try to run. Like I'd even know where to go. He stopped close to me, the heat of his body warmed my legs—and that scent—the one from the sheets that I couldn’t place, was everywhere. “How are you feeling?”

  Moving the jacket away from my eyes enough to see concern on his face, I relaxed, sort of. He so wasn’t my type, but he was handsome, and he didn’t seem psycho. Even if he’d shot me in the butt last night and brought me back to this place. “Sore,” I offered. “And filthy.”

  His eyes were familiar, too. Big, like maybe he was a buck. This would all be so much easier if this guy was my mate.

  “I bet. Listen, I’m sorry about last night,” he said. I shrunk away from him again, and he stopped, puzzled. He raised his hand, but he didn’t touch me. “I thought I saw something else.”

  “A deer,” I whispered. “You saw a deer.”

  That wide-eyed look was back, and he swallowed hard. “Yeah.” He raked the hand he’d raised through his hair. “How’d you know that?”

  “Because that’s what I was.” I stood straighter, biting my lip. My captor—after all, he admitted to shooting me—opened his mouth in disbelief and looked down at the floor. I’d managed to freak him out more than he was freaking me out. Great.

  “Did you smoke last night?” he asked with a furrowed brow. “Because the stuff around here, it’s no joke.” He laughed, trying to lighten the moment. It didn’t work. I pulled the jacket back to below my eyes, which I narrowed at him. “But you think you were actually...a deer?”

  At first I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “Smoked? Like weed?” I asked. He nodded. “No! I don’t do that crap. It’s gross.” I started to back away from him, but realized I was back in his bedroom. With no way out. I sat down hard on the foot of the bed and buried my head in my hands. “You shouldn’t mess with that stuff.”

  “Take it up with the government, sweetheart.” One arm up on the doorframe, he smirked at me. “I’m not the one who thought I was a deer.”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart!” I wanted to rip his stupid jacket off of me, and run as far from here as possible. Only problem was that left me wearing only a ribbon, and I had no idea where here was.

  “I don’t know your name.” A slow smile spread across his face. It was maddening, but my heart thumped in my chest. Something about this guy was getting under my skin. He’d shot me, which pretty much guaranteed he wasn’t my mate. I needed to shake it, fast.

  “It’s Chloe.” I braced myself as he came over and sat next to me. He was close, but he didn’t touch me. I felt small beside him, but he was so normal, in a New York Giants sweatshirt, jeans, and socks. I was the freak in a hunting jacket and a pink frigging ribbon. “Who are you?”

  He laughed at how rude that sounded. “I’m Cane.” The smirk didn’t go away. “I’d shake your hand, or something, but under the circumstances, it doesn’t seem quite right, you know?”

  “I do.” Finally I smiled, and it felt right. “Can you tell me what happened last night, Cane?” His name sounded made up, but it seemed to fit him. Knowing it made him less threatening.

  Cane exhaled, rubbing his beard. I wondered how it felt against his fingers. Soft, or scratchy...I had to stop thinking about touching him. “I moved back from New York. I grew up here, and my buddies are all still in the area. They love hunting, but I’m not in to it. Actually, I think it’s pretty gross. But I’ve been dying to get out of this stupid cabin, so I agreed to go. I didn’t want to kill anything, or anyone.” He looked at me apologetically. “So I had tranquilizer darts in my gun. You were the only one I could get.”

  My heart sank, I’d been caught by a stoned, reluctant hunter. “But how did I wind up like this?”

  “I ran over to pull the dart out, like I said, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Then I saw that,” he
motioned to the ribbon on my neck, “and I knew that someone cared about you.” I might have imagined the break in his voice, but maybe there was a piece of Cane that cared about me, too.

  No. I couldn’t let my guard down.

  I touched the ribbon, unshed tears burning in my eyes. I remembered the words my grandma said as she tied it around my neck. Whoever your mate is will know they’ve been given a gift. Last night, it possibly saved my life.

  Cane continued. “I ran my hand over your coat before I pulled the arrow out. I had to see if it was as soft as it looked.” Like I’d been thinking about his beard. His cheeks reddened. “And you started to turn into a woman under my touch. It freaked me out, Chloe, and I thought it wasn’t real. I didn’t want to call any attention to you, to the guys, because you didn’t have anything on. And I thought I was tripping. So I covered you with my jacket, and told the guys I wanted to call it a night.”

  “And then you brought me back here?”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He still looked like he wanted to touch me, but I was glad he didn’t. “What can I do for you? You must have a home. Somebody’s got to be looking for you.”

  I twisted my hands in my lap. He already thought I was crazy. “Not really.” The alarm returned to his face. Never did I think I’d be the one scaring some random guy. “There’s a herd of shifters that live in Woodland Park. Weredeer. I know, it sounds crazy if you’ve never heard of it before, but you saw it with your own eyes last night.” I had to work up the courage to continue. “The year we’re ready to mate, we shift to our deer form. The ritual is to go into the forest to find our mates.”

  “Okay.” Cane’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “Then someone is definitely looking for you. Tell me where you want to go, Chloe. I’ll drop you off. No questions asked. This can be over as fast as it began.”

  My heart tugged at his words. Something was telling me I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Was it some sort of deer sense? No, it was those eyes and that beard. “I’m supposed to still be a doe.” Now I was even starting to feel crazy. “I only shift for my mate.”