by J. K Harper
Cortez roared in fury, the sound of his bear bellowing out of his mouth. He put more than his back into it, he put every last remaining ounce of his strength into hefting the cut beam that might as well be an entire tree.
Hey, they were bear shifters. They could wrangle entire trees when they really wanted to. Like right now. Quentin grinned to himself, though he didn't let it show on his face. Yeah, kicking his youngest brother around a bit had always been the way to get more out of him. It had been that way since they all had been cubs, and probably would be that way the rest of their lives.
"Orgh—ugh—aaaaargh!" Quentin's grunts and groans joined Cortez's as they wrestled the enormous beam up the stairs and managed to lug it through the double front doors of the main building on the property. A wild party last week had resulted in cracking one of the ponderosa beams in the huge dining room. Quentin had been less than thrilled. Okay, he'd been pissed as hell. He'd grumped about it to every single bear and half the humans in town. He, of course, hadn't been around for the party, having gone to Denver for a quick supply run. No, his youngest brother had gotten some stupid wild hair up his butt and invited the entire search and rescue crew he worked on, plus about ten extra people per crew member, up for the party. Apparently, it had been a raging success.
Quentin wondered if his brother still thought as highly of his antics now that he had to help Quentin repair the damage.
The beam thunked on the floor with a resounding boom after the brothers had maneuvered it to the middle of the room and set it down as carefully as they could. Which meant to say they dropped it. Wiping sweat from his brow and muttering darkly about the idiocy of letting heavy bear shifters swing from a wooden beam while they were drinking, Quentin sat down on the beam to catch his breath. Cortez flopped down beside him, gasping in his own breath with exaggerated drama.
Quentin narrowed his eyes at his brother. "We've still got a lot to do today, replacing the broken one up there." He jabbed an accusing finger at the cracked beam overhead. Their parents, who had run the Silvertip Lodge resort since shortly after they had first been mated many years ago, were in the middle of a year-long, worldwide tour. Quentin, responsible elder of the brothers not to mention already manager of the lodge, had been left in charge during their absence.
Well, damn him for being responsible. Even though he was the oldest of all the hellion Walker siblings, he never quite appreciated how hard it was to wrangle his brothers until their parents had blithely taken off on a long-delayed sightseeing tour of the countries they'd always wanted to visit but never had been able to due to the endless responsibilities of running a small guest resort that was open year-round. Quentin had been the property manager ever since he'd come into his maturity. Yet all that experience hadn't quite prepared him for the dubious honor of riding roughshod over his siblings. They were all grown ass men, for crying out loud. But they acted like damn spoiled babies every time he asked for a little bit of help.
Scrubbing a hand over his eyes, he enjoyed the sharp breeze coming in through the open door. Moving the beam from the yard had been a lot of work, and he and Cortez were both dripping with the sweat equity to prove it. The change of season finally seemed to be spanning over the mountain, a little later this year than usual. Fall was Quentin's favorite season. Something about the crisp air, the changing color guard that swept through all the trees on the mountain, the new life that tickled through the town down in the valley as everyone seemed to emerge from the lazy days of summer into the renewed pace of fall life always made him feel alive.
He was a bear in the mountains, and his life was perfect.
Well. Almost perfect.
After another few moments of catching their breaths, Cortez finally grunted, "How much longer till they get back from that crazy vacation of theirs?"
"Seven months, three weeks, two days, and a handful of hours." Despite himself, Quentin's voice was grim.
Another beat. Then Cortez started laughing. Shaking his head, between increasingly mirthful sputters, he said, "You know they did this to you on purpose, big brother. They wanted to teach you what it's like to have cubs of your own."
"Full grown cubs, and you sure as hell aren't mine,” Quentin retorted, but he couldn't help the grin sliding over his own face. “Though you darn well better listen to every word I say, you scalawag." That had been a favorite word of their mother's for all of them as they grew up. It was still apt.
Cortez was probably right. Their mother and father had often bemoaned the fact that almost none of their sons was yet mated, let alone anywhere near to producing cubs of their own for their doting grandparents to dandle on their knees and teach how to search for berries and honey in the woods. In fact, during a family dinner the night before they left, their mother had severely mandated an order to the five Walker sons. "Every single one of you had better be mated and about ready to have a cub show up from that union by the time your father and I get back. Or else," she ended threateningly at the shocked silence and dropped mouths that greeted her statement.
She'd been joking, of course. Well, probably only half joking. Maybe only a quarter joking? Riley, of course, got a pass. He did have cubs, and he wasn't in the market for a mate ever again. That subject was closed. Everyone else, though, got a very stern look from the most ferocious mama bear any of them had ever met.
Now, Quentin shrugged. To be honest, he agreed with her. He wanted nothing more than to be mated. Maybe not cubs, not quite yet. First, he just needed his mate to acknowledge that she actually was his mate. If he couldn't get Abby to understand how serious he was about that, he wasn't sure what to do next.
As if he could hear Quentin's thoughts, Cortez stopped laughing. He gave his brother a fairly compassionate look. "What's your plan for her, anyway?"
Quentin narrowed his eyes at his brother and snapped, "Plan for who?”
“Abby, of course. You need to get her here somehow. I figured you had some sort of plan to make her understand.” Cortez shrugged. The fact that Abby was Quentin's mate was plain as day to all the bear shifters around here. His brothers really liked her anyway. They'd each privately told him that she was cool, and could hold her own in a rough and tumble bear clan.
Glaring at his brother, Quentin felt his bear grumping around inside him again. “What, I'm supposed to become some sort of cave bear and just drag her off to my den without more than an if you please?"
Cortez shook his head, answering in a fairly serious tone. "No, she'd probably just rip out your innards with her super sharp lady wolf claws. Wolves are fast, you know. You wouldn't be able to stop her in time.”
“Hmph,” Quentin muttered.
“Oh, come on, man.” Cortez reached out for a brotherly punch on the shoulder that nearly drove Quentin off the beam. “You're driving the rest of us crazy. You've been a total asshole. Seriously, you need to chill out. And there's only one solution for that."
Caught up short, Quentin stared his brother for a long moment as his brain scrambled around trying to figure out how to answer that. Finally, he said in a low, dangerously soft rumble, "Asshole? Really? First of all, Cortez, you're the reason we're in here replacing this damn beam.” He slapped the offending beam with his hand. “Better not ever bring that dumbass party boy crew of yours up here again. Swinging from the rafters," he muttered, shaking his head. Like frat boys or something. As Cortez drew breath to speak, Quentin shook his head and held up a hand. "No, hang on a second. Next, I want to know what the hell you mean. Some sort of asshole? What the hell does Abby have to do with me being an asshole?"
This time, it was Cortez's turn to stare at Quentin, brows furrowed in surprise. “Because she's your mate, and you won't get her to come over here,” he said. “You're pissed off about it. Thus, you act like an asshole. Asshole,” he added in a companionable tone.
Quentin ground his teeth. “There's a plan,” he said tightly, lying through his teeth. He had no idea what to do. “I'm not an idiot.”
"Fine," Corte
z said, quirking one eyebrow as he shook his head at his brother. "So you do have a grand scheme to get Abby over here for good so you can be happy, your bear stops being a grumpy old fart, and we can maybe survive the rest of the next seven months and three weeks and whatever days and hours that you're in charge till mom and dad get back?"
Clenching his jaw, Quentin got up and went over to the large east-facing window, where he shoved his fists onto his hips and glared out at the best view on the entire property. Well, he liked to think his own cabin had the very best view. But of course they never said that to guests. His bear rumbled about his mind, alternately irritated at Cortez, at inter-species shifter politics, but mostly frustrated at not being able to just charge across the mountain to grab his mate and bring her back here to his den, safe and sound where she belonged.
Quentin liked to think of himself as a gentleman, even if he was a big bear. If Abby had plans for her own life, in her own pack, he couldn't just stomp over there and demand she change everything for him. Even if that was the only thing he wanted to do.
Quentin took a measured inhale, held it, exhaled. He did it five or six times. Finally, he replied to his brother's question when he figured he could talk without his bear growling through his words. "Fine. There is no real plan. I'm just pissed because there's this thing going on this weekend. Tonight, actually,” he admitted, looking back at his brother.
Cortez raised his eyebrows, gesturing for him to go on.
Reluctantly, feeling his ire heat up even more, Quentin went on. “So her pack has this thing. They do these pack runs all the time, right? They go out, run around under the moon. You know. It's a wolf thing."
Cortez grunted from where he had stayed seated on the beam. Now he was peering up at the cracked beam overhead, critically and maybe just a bit sheepishly. He saw Quentin looking at him and waved a hand in his direction. "Go on, go on. Running. Full moon. I'm listening."
Quentin looked back out at the fiery race of color zigging and zagging all over the mountains. Despite his inner agitation, he felt slightly soothed by the sight, as always. "This weekend is a big one. It's the hunter's moon tonight. Happens every October. Each wolf pack in the country goes out for a full moon run. Some packs do it just by themselves, but others invite wolf shifters from all over the place to come join in. Kind of like a pack gathering sort of thing." Quentin shrugged. "Abby's pack is a big deal. They have a huge run for this full moon every year. Wolves come from all over the place to run with them."
"Mm-hmm," Cortez said. His boots thumped as he walked the floor across what sounded like the length of the overhead beam.
"So they run," Quentin went on, "and they hunt deer and stuff, just hang out and have fun. Wolves running in the moonlight. And," he hesitated. "And sometimes they meet their mate during the hunter's moon. They go hunting for a mate. Hunter's moon."
"Okay, cool, yeah," Cortez's voice came from the far end of the hall. "Sounds like you have a plan after all. You can go over there, run with them, and officially mate with Abby. Boom and done, right?"
Quentin managed to talk around the sudden tic in his cheek. "Not quite. It's a wolf mating thing. Meaning they might find their destined wolf mate at these things a lot of the time. Abby is at just the right age when a lot of them apparently meet. Magical mating hunter's moon, blah blah blah."
This time, dead silence greeted his words. Quentin turned around to see his brother standing stock still at the other end of the room, staring back at him. By his posture, Cortez was completely focused on what Quentin had just said.
"A wolf mating thing," Cortez slowly echoed. He cocked his head to the side. "A wolf mating thing." This time, his voice somewhat mocked the words.
A glare began to bracket Quentin's face again. “Yeah. So?”
"Are you serious?” Now, Cortez's voice was incredulous. It was also a bit challenging. “It's a wolf mating run, and you're gonna let Abby run in the middle of it with a bunch of male wolves who are looking for their mates? Abby, the woman you keep telling us is your mate? The woman we all know is your mate?"
“She doesn't want me there. It's a wolf pack thing.”
Cortez shook his head, a small curl on his lip saying what he really thought about that. “Where the hell are your balls, man? You're letting her get away.”
Quentin roared as his fury rampaged through him. His bear side suddenly threatened to burst out of his every pore. "Hell, no, I'm not!”
“Yeah!” Cortez egged on.
“You're right.” Quentin slammed one fist into the palm of his other hand as sudden clarity bloomed. “I can't let her be there without me. So I'm gonna show up, too. Show up for that hunter's moon mating thing, because Abby damn well is my mate."
Cortez strode across the room until he was close enough that Quentin could see the shining of his eyes that meant his own bear was close to the surface as well. "Let me get this straight, insane big brother of mine. You plan to go over there tonight, to a huge wolf shifter gathering thing, that's one of their big deal things that they do, and just walk in there, a lone bear shifter, and what? Grab your wolf shifter mate out from under their noses? There's no way they'll let you get away with that." The challenge still rose in his voice, though. He was totally encouraging his brother to do just that.
Quentin glared. "I don't really think they're that bloodthirsty. Besides, look at me. I'm a fuckin' grizzly bear. A grizzly bear! Wolves might mess with me, but they can't take me down."
Sharply, Cortez said, "Yeah, they can. If there's like a couple hundred of them."
His bear marching through his mind in renewed rage, Quentin roared even more loudly as his thoughts filled with images of a hundred young, mate-hungry male wolf shifters eyeballing Abby like she was some sort of prize. "A hundred male wolves? All there for this mating run thing, the same thing Abby is going to be at?"
"Oh, yeah!" Cortez said, pumping his fist in the air like some enraged Spartan warrior of old or something. "And they're all gonna take a look at that Abby of yours, decide she'd be the perfect mate for them, then snatch her out from under your nose instead! You can't let that happen."
"Hell, no, I can't!" Quentin roared back, feeling the bear hairs bristle out of his human skin as his equally enraged bear thundered and walked around just beneath the surface. "That's my mate we're talking about!"
"Your mate!" Cortez agreed, glaring with nearly as much fury as Quentin.
Then, "Shit," Quentin muttered. "How could I let her go back there by herself? Probably a ton of wolves already in town, ready to start sniffing out their new mates."
Cortez nodded. "Damn right there are," he agreed. "If I were you, I'd get my ass over there right now. For all you know, she's already been sizing one up, and that's why she's been reluctant to come live over here with you."
At that, Quentin saw nothing but dark, angry red. This time, though, it was at his own brother's words. "She'd never do that to me." His voice was so dangerously still, so dangerously quiet, that Cortez froze right where he was.
Then, to Quentin's surprise, instead of looking nervous as Quentin advanced on his brother, Cortez smiled instead. "Course she wouldn't," he said, so easily that Quentin paused mid stride. "She's your mate, man. She's been brought up to believe that she can only mate with another wolf. But look here. I don't know a lot about women—"
Quentin snorted at that. Cortez was a renowned ladies man. He might not know much about mates, but he sure knew a lot about women.
"—but I can tell you this much. She may not think she's waiting for you to come get her." Cortez's voice was suddenly serious. "But she is. Trust me. You show up there, do whatever the hell it is you need to do during that run thing, and let her know that you can handle not only it, but also what she needs."
A sharp wind swirled into the room through the still open front doors as Quentin stared at his brother. "And what exactly is it that she needs?"
Cortez leaned a little bit closer, as if he was about to share the deepest secrets
of the universe. "What she needs,” he said in a low tone, "is for you to show up, be there, and let her know you're never gonna walk away from her again."
Quentin growled. "I'm not the one walking away from her. She doesn't want me to follow her."
Cortez rolled his eyes and flung up his hands in seeming despair. Then he advanced on his brother and shoved a strong finger into Quentin's chest. "Listen to me. Yeah, you have been the one walking away from her. You haven't shown her that you mean business about being her mate. That you take it more seriously than anything else in the world. I'm not talking about showing her who's boss, hell no. Now, that would be some stupid cave bear shit. No," Cortez went on, settling back on his heels as he placed his own fists on his hips, pinning his brother with a glare, "I'm talking about you not being afraid to show up in front of her entire pack, and however many other packs are there, and not letting her run by herself. I'm talking about you showing that wolf shifter mate of yours that you sure as hell are her mate."
Quentin stared at Cortez for a long moment as his mind tripped over itself at the simplicity of what his brother said as well as the stupidity of Quentin's own thought process for the past several months. Damn. Well, he sure as hell was acting like some big, stupid, lumbering bear, wasn't he?
Not anymore, he wasn't. Turning for the door, Quentin abruptly sprinted for it, his steps shaking the floor.
"Hey!" Cortez called after him. "Where are you going? What about the beam?"
Quentin shook his head, still running. "You're right," he flung back over his shoulder. "Get some of those lazy ass search and rescue crew mates of yours up here to help you fix this. I," he thumped himself hard on the chest as he burst out the open doorway and took the stairs four at a time down to the parking area, "need to go get my mate before it's too late."
Drifting behind him as he ran like a crazy guy for his truck, Quentin thought he heard his brother mutter, "Finally. But you'd better come back in one piece after tangling with a wolf shifter pack. And you need to bring your mate back here with you!" Cortez called out more loudly.
