by Lynn Lorenz
There wasn’t a reason any longer and it was gone. She was back where she was supposed to be. She tipped her head to him and turned to enter the alcove.
“I’ve missed you.” The admission seemed torn from him.
Her heart clenched in her chest. “I know,” she said and went to take a bath.
Chapter 3
He’d marked her earlier. As he’d pounded into her flesh, his claws had unsheathed and the bear had marked her. The pinprick marks were clear on her hips and backside. She’d heal, but might carry the marks forever. Once the Reckoning was completed, she’d be able to take his beast on with no problems but right now, her flesh would be marred. She was still … breakable.
He moved through the cave, grateful he’d prepared it as he had. He’d been up here since the moment she’d walked out of his life. Bears hibernated in winter and the season in the Canadian Rockies could be long and brutal. He’d had his brother, Rory, keep tabs on her but he only reported periodically. Tyee had waited through the long, dark nights for word and he’d mourned her loss. He’d always hoped she’d return to him, that she’d make the decision to be his. So he’d had the cave updated with amenities, stove, refrigerator, lights and a generator to run it all. He’d re-directed the warm spring because he knew she liked her warm baths. It had never been used though he’d made sure it still worked. He was a bear. He could piss and shit in the woods and bathe in the lake. She was human, and therefore needed the creature comforts.
He fixed bacon, toasted bread and sliced tomatoes and lettuce. He made their sandwiches and was pouring coffee when she walked in, towel-drying her hair and wearing one of his T-shirts. Her legs were bare, but it was warm in the cave so he didn’t worry. He took a deep breath and sipped his coffee. He’d despaired, but the Reckoning had led her back to him and he prayed he didn’t fuck it up this time.
Her eyes lit on the sandwiches. “He can cook,” she said and then giggled as she sat down at the small table.
He placed chips and a coke before her and she snatched up the can, popped the tab and sucked the liquid down. She inhaled a sandwich, glanced at him and he gave her his. Silence stretched between them but it was comfortable. She ate, he drank coffee and the world was good.
Bears didn’t purr but his sure as hell did. Contentment spread through him and he thought if this wasn’t the Reckoning it was still pretty fucking awesome.
“So, Chief, whatcha been doing while I’ve been gone?” She wiped her mouth on her napkin and leaned back in her chair.
His white T-shirt was little cover. Her dusky nipples puckered and his mouth watered.
“Hey, Chief!” She snapped her fingers, pointed to her face and said, “Up here.”
He shook his head. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “What?”
“I know you’ve missed my body, but my brain needs some conversation. What. Have. You. Been. Doing. While. I’ve. Been. Gone?” She snickered as he glowered at her.
“Myself,” he answered blandly and she threw back her head and laughed until tears leaked from her eyes.
She dabbed at the corners of her eyes and looked at him, a smile lighting her face. This was what he’d always wanted, her happy.
“I’m not happy yet, Chief,” she said and then confusion masked her face.
His heart leapt in his chest. No way had she just done what he thought she’d done. That would mean … he shut off the thought before it germinated.
“You will be.” Emphatic, convinced, he prayed their journey would lead them to forever.
She grimaced. “Anyway, besides yourself, what have you been doing?”
“You really want to make small talk? There are other things we could discuss.”
“Oh, I’m sure, but let’s start off small and work our way up, shall we?”
He grimaced, his brows lowered and his bear rumbled in his chest. “I’ve been up here since the day you left.” He dropped that in her lap and waited to see where she went with it.
Her mouth dropped open. “The entire year?”
Tyee sipped his coffee, let the burn ease down his throat. “Yep.”
“Anybody ever told you you’re not a big talker?” she grunted and played with her napkin, unwrapping it and rewrapping it over and over.
“You just did.”
“You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?” Frustration marred her face, clouded her eyes. His heart ached, but the ball was in her court. He’d fucked it all up and it was her one and only opportunity to fix what he’d jacked up.
“You have questions. I have answers. Let’s just get to it, shall we?” He saluted her with his cup and got up to refill the mug. “Want some?” he asked.
“I don’t drink coffee. Got some hot chocolate?” she asked and the hopeful note in her voice had him smiling. He knew his woman.
“Yep.” He stayed where he was, drinking his coffee.
“You gonna make it?” Frustration was in her tone now.
“Nope.”
“I could kick you in the ass right now,” she muttered angrily. “All right, fine! Let’s just get it over with.”
He got in her face then. Her eyes went wide. He forgot sometimes how quickly he could move. “It will never be over with, Lily. Ever.”
“Back off, Chief,” she warned him and he took her warning, backing up and sitting down on the other side of the table, grabbing up his coffee before he grabbed her.
Her next words were a benediction to his lacerated soul. “Spill it. Tell me about the Reckoning.”
He took a deep breath. It was never easy to impart the knowledge of what made you weak. And the fact was, the Reckoning weakened him. Until their bond was solidified, he was only half the man and animal he’d been created to be.
“Native Americans of all tribes have a variation of the Reckoning. It is the search for the one who completes your heart and it is the force that completes the binding of your souls.” He peered at her, saw her face was intent, and his heart turned over. He was going to have a fucking heart attack before this was all over. The damn organ was getting too much use. He sighed and continued. “Each male has a mate and the Reckoning is the process that leads them to the one who completes them. The process is different for each couple. The path to your mate is given to the male, maybe through dreams or visions. However it is imparted, it is the male’s responsibility to fulfill it exactly. We are shown the path and once we meet our mates, we are bonded instantly. Through the Reckoning we cement the females to us through the path shown us in our dreams or visions.”
“You said the males are bonded instantly? What about the females?” she asked, head tipped to the side, teeth worrying her lower lip.
“I figured you’d key on that,” he said wryly. “The females are all susceptible to the males, but ultimately, the bonding can only be completed through the female’s decision to accept her mate.”
“So, you’re saying it’s up to me whether we bond?” Disbelief was rife in her tone. It set his teeth on edge. His bear grumbled. Loudly.
“No, I’m saying the males bond instantly. It is our job to make sure our females are wooed and accept us, solidifying the bond.”
“So you will forever be bound to me, but if I don’t accept this Reckoning, I can be free of you?” She shook her head, emotions flashing across her face so fast he couldn’t keep up. Did that fact make her happy? His bear growled. She looked over at him and said, “Oh, shut it, bear. I don’t have time for the macho, he-man shit. Just answer the question.”
“Yes, damn it. You can be free. I never will.”
“Uh, Chief? Your claws are out.” Her sardonic reply brought his gaze to the wood beneath his hands.
He’d gouged long furrows into the maple wood table.
“Yeah, that’s probably how I’d feel about it, too,” she mused and looked up at the ceiling. She brought her gaze back to his and that same damn organ he thought would expire from overuse, kicked over once again. “So how did you know I was your, what d
id you call it, mate?”
“I knew the instant I saw you. It was proven when I took your scent into my body. Everything clicked. My dreams became truth and the path I’d been shown was clear before me.” He got up from the table, unable to take the proximity to her, needing to put distance between them. He was weak. All he wanted to do was bury his dick inside her pussy and ride them both through the bonding.
But he wasn’t in control. She was and it ate at him.
“What was your path?”
There it was. The one question he could not answer.
She sensed his reticence and pounced on it. She was strong, his mate, ferocious. “What was your path, bear?”
“I can’t share that with you.”
“What the hell fuck do you mean you can’t share that with me?” she demanded.
Rage simmered in side him. Impotence filtered through him. He was the Chief of his clan, the leader of his tribe. He was the strongest member of Chinook, hell, all of the North American tribes, and he couldn’t force the tiny beautiful woman facing him to do what he wanted.
He turned, anger and fear congealing into a snarl that shook the cave around them. “I can’t share that with you because it has to be your path, too. You have to realize how to walk it and choose me. I can’t choose for both of us.”
*
Her mouth dropped open as pain rushed through her. That was it. That was why he’d forced her to leave.
“You made love to me too soon, didn’t you?” His shoulders stiffened and she knew she’d hit the mark on the head. “You didn’t follow the path and so it was hidden to me. You bastard! I’ve hurt more the past year thinking you didn’t want me than I’ve ever thought a person could hurt. How could you do that to me?”
He turned to her, hazel eyes mysteriously bright, body rigid as he fought for control. She admired his restraint but at the moment she wanted to pummel his ass. “I wish I was a bear because I’d kick your fucking ass to hell and back. I can’t believe you! All of this could have been avoided and you got greedy,” she snorted.
“Yes.” One word. It took her anger and crushed it. The man before her had suffered, too. It was written in the lines on his face. She wanted to soothe him but pride held her back. He’d told her he didn’t want her. That she was white and therefore not good enough for a Chinook Chief. No matter that his own dad had been white—she, Lily Baskins, wasn’t good enough for him. How those words had ripped apart her dreams, broken her soul until she’d been left in pieces.
“You took me that first night and I thought the words you whispered were true. I thought the pull between us was something so powerful it couldn’t possibly be a lie.” She saw him in a new light now. He wasn’t just the strongest man she’d ever known, he was the most vulnerable. To her. She was his downfall. Lightning rippled along her nerves and she shook at the knowledge. “You lied to me, though, didn’t you, Tyee?”
He shuddered and looked at her, his face torn, his eyes reflecting pain.
“I’ve never lied to you, Lily. But neither did I tell you the entire truth,” he said in a low voice.
“I accepted all parts of you, Chief. I didn’t blink an eye when you shifted in front me, showed me who you really were. I never once denied your right to my body and my heart. But you did. You denied me what was mine by right and then you made me fight to get it back? How fucking dare you! You son of a bitch, I’ve needed you, every damn piece of me has needed you and I’ve fucking cried myself to sleep for a year.” Tears poured down her cheeks, her throat clogging with them. She let them go, unheeded. There was healing in the purging sometimes.
“I needed you, too, goddamn it. That’s why I took you, why I didn’t listen when the Reckoning demanded something different than what my body clamored for. You want the truth?” he moved to her then, got in her face, his breath fanning the hair around her face.
“Do you know how to give it?” she tossed at him, regretted it instantly but unwilling to apologize at this point.
His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. “You get that one. I deserve it. But be careful, naika, you can push me too far.”
“And remember, Chief, you’ve already pushed me, over the fucking cliff in fact,” she shouted in his face.
“I loved you from the moment I saw you, the moment I drew your scent into my body. Nothing and nobody had ever been all mine. You were created for me. The Great Spirit made you just for me. Forgive me the temptation to make you mine was more than I could control. I’m an animal but it was the man who succumbed to the need, Lily. In the end, I was more human than animal.”
She gaped at him, unable to get past his first sentence. She stared into his face and felt something click in her soul.
“Say it again,” she whispered, fear riding her hard.
He ran a hand through his hair and cursed. “Say what?”
“Tell me you love me, damn it.”
He looked at her like she’d gone crazy. “How could you not know how much I love you?”
“You sent me away, Tyee. Told me I wasn’t good enough for you. What would you think?”
Agony was a tattoo on his face. His tone, when he spoke was carefully modulated but thick with emotion and pain—good God, the pain between them. “I would have thought the same, naika. But the truth remains that I’ve loved you from the first second I laid eyes on you. Everything in me shifted and I imprinted instantly. Once I fucked up the Reckoning I knew I’d have to let you go so you could make the decision to return to me. The Reckoning is very much to be honored and will not be denied. Mates are forever. It ensures this.”
“Fuck the Reckoning. All I ever needed was for you to tell me you loved me.”
Bitterness settled in her chest, heavy and pressing.
“Do not say that. The bonding is a precious thing. It led me to you. It was me that fucked up. Tell me, Lily, have you dreamed?”
She stiffened. The dream kept her from resting. Had pushed her past all limits of endurance. Blessing and curse, it had showed her what she needed to do but refused to decipher it for her. “Yeah, Chief. I’ve dreamed.”
“Did the dream lead you here?” He was inches from her, his heat soothing but entirely too close. Cinnamon and honey sparked her need, made her lick her lips.
The admission was torn from her, her control on a slippery slope. “Yes.”
“It can only be the Reckoning. How could you curse the very thing that led you back to me?” His voice was full of tortured hope.
“You mean the very thing that pushed me away to begin with? Tell me, Chief, how the hell can I trust that this path you speak of won’t deviate again? Force me back out into a cold spring night, make me leave what I cherish the most in the world? How can I trust your Reckoning?” She was back to yelling. She closed her eyes to settle down and opened them to his face in hers.
“I can never take it back, naika. I can’t undo what’s been done, but I can promise you that I’ll never leave you. I am yours. Whether you are mine or not, I am yours. Forever,” he said and then he took her mouth in a voracious kiss.
She reached up, grabbed his shoulders for purchase, needing the contact with his skin, needing his heat to warm the cold places in her soul.
He moved her through the cavernous room until she felt the bed at her back. He leaned down and picked her up, tossing her on the bed as he ripped off his pajama bottoms. He was on her fast. She didn’t have time to protest, not that she would have with his heat doing things to her body that took her mind.
He took her mouth as he came down over her, sucked her bottom lip between his and rimmed her mouth, diving in and possessing her with ease. His flavor exploded on her tongue and she drank from him greedily. Soft mewling sounds pulled from her throat. She didn’t care.
She needed him and he was here. Her hands fisted in his hair, refused to let him pull away. He growled low in his throat and she returned it, unsure where the ability came from.
He became even more voracious, lips moving to her n
eck where he nipped and laved, suckled and soothed. He bit her collar bone, eased the sting with a hot open-mouth kiss that sent shivers through her body.
He moved down her body, ripping his shirt from her, pushing the offending material aside. He kissed her breasts, tongued them as he rolled her nipples between his fingers, kneaded the globes and plumped them for his mouth. She writhed beneath him, desperate to feel his flesh seated within hers. She reached for his cock between them, felt the softness of satin over steel and stroked. He gasped and moaned. She continued even as she used his distraction to flip him on his back.
She was over him, her lips the aggressor now. Something inside of her demanded she take him, make him hers and she couldn’t deny the pull and need. She kissed his jaw, licked his neck.
“I’m going to take you, Tyee Clarke,” she whispered in his ear before she tugged on his earlobe, biting softly then moving down his neck.
She nipped his flesh, using her tongue to ease the sting. She suckled at his nipples and he grunted, his hips rising to her fist as she continued to pump his cock, up and down, slowly.
“You can try,” he taunted her.
She bit down on his nipple and he groaned, the sound music in her ears. This man needed her as much as she needed him.
She rose up, let go of his cock and straddled his hips, her core, hot and wet hovered over the top of his shaft. She moved her hips, teasing him with her flesh but also teasing herself. His hands rose to cup her breasts, thumbs moving over her nipples before he plucked at them. She moaned but leaned down to him.
“I’m going to make you mine, Chief. Are you ready?”
She lifted up, the light in his eyes urging her on. He took his cock in his hand and held it up for her. She lowered herself onto him, savoring the feel of him invading her body. Unused tissues protested but her body knew what it needed, providing lubrication to make the way easier.
