Mated to a Bear (Legends of Black Salmon Falls Book 3)

by Lauren Lively

  “Though, in all honesty,” I said, “I suppose I should not call myself a prince any longer. I gave up my throne when I left Optorio after my father died. I left rule of my home world to my brother.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I had no interest in ruling,” I said. “My interest is in exploration and discovery. That's where my true passion is.”

  Paige shook her head and focused her eyes on me again, her gaze intense. I had to admit that being under such scrutiny was a little unnerving – yet another new experience for me. I was used to people deferring in my presence. Some of them even looked away. It was rare that someone was willing to look me in the eye for an extended period of time. Rarer still was the person who looked like they were dissecting me with their gaze.

  “Okay, we'll get back to all that in a minute,” she said. “Who were those two men? And why did you kill them?”

  “Assassins,” I said. “They were sent by my brother.”

  “If you gave up your throne to him, why would he send assassins?” she asked. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

  I looked out at the sea and watched the waves crashing upon the shore. It was so beautiful, and in many ways, so similar to the shoreline on Optorio. Yet, in many other ways, it was completely alien to me.

  “Because as long as I live, I am a threat to his crown,” I said. “The rightful claim to the throne is mine, and he knows this. The only way he can be the rightful king is if I am dead.”

  “So they were here to kill you?” she asked. “And you had to kill them, otherwise you'd be dead. Right?”

  I nodded. “That is correct.”

  She pointed to their ship, which was still in the sand. “And that – that's a UFO or something?”

  I cocked my head. “I am not sure what a UFO is. That is their transport. It is a Vanjar class–”

  “A UFO is human parlance for unidentified flying object,” Anjol interrupted. “It is what the humans commonly believe alien beings use to visit their planet.”

  “But I'm not an alien being,” I said, kicking myself for speaking aloud once again.

  Paige looked at me blankly. “Your organic computer friend again?”

  I cleared my throat. “Anjol, yes.”

  “Technically speaking,” Anjol went on, “you are not of this world, which does in fact, make you an alien being here.”

  “You are not being very helpful,” I remembered to think, rather than say this time.

  “So, you're an alien prince,” Paige said after a long moment. “And you're being chased across the galaxy by assassins sent by a brother who wants to kill you.”

  I nodded. “It's a bit of a simplistic interpretation,” I said. “But fairly apt, yes.”

  She looked at the bodies of the two assassins and seemed to be struggling with the reality of it all. She shook her head and muttered something to herself, low enough that I could not hear. After a long moment, she looked back at me, and I saw that she'd come to a decision in her own mind.

  “I have to go,” she said simply. “I – I just can't be here. And we need to call the police about this.”

  “I ask that you do not involve your authorities, Paige.”

  “There are two dead bodies on the beach, Baz,” she said, her voice rising. “The police are going to get involved one way or another. As a former lawyer, I can tell you that it's best to get out in front of something like this.”

  I shook my head. “There won't be any bodies,” I said. “I will take care of this.”

  She looked at me, and I could see the anger growing in her eyes. “What, so now you're going to tamper with a crime scene? Do you even know–”

  I held up my hand. “Paige, your authorities will not know what to do or make of any of this,” I said. “They have neither the understanding, nor the technological equipment to make sense of this situation.”

  My words seemed to stump her, and though she opened her mouth to argue further, she closed it again without speaking.

  “I do not mean to denigrate your people,” I said. “I am merely trying to impress upon you just how delicate this situation is, and how much unrest it could cause if what happened here and who and what these two men are were known.”

  She stared off into the distance for a long moment without speaking. She seemed to be having a conversation with herself in her own mind, or, judging by the expression upon her face, a debate.

  Finally, she turned to me, most of the anger that had been in her face diffused. “What will you do with them?”

  “I will dispose of them,” I said. “The details need not concern you.”

  She nodded slightly but said nothing for another long moment. I could feel her slipping away from me. Paige was constructing a wall and was intentionally putting distance between us. I could see it in her face and feel it in the energy that radiated from her.

  I watched as Paige got to her feet and felt a keen sense of loss already. It was a strange, foreign feeling and one I was having trouble reconciling within my own mind. She looked down at me, and I saw an expression on her face that I couldn't put a name to. Perhaps the best way to describe it was – haunted. Perhaps it was sorrow. I couldn't say for sure.

  “I need some space,” she finally said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I need some time to myself. Away from you.”

  “Paige, I–”

  She held up a hand and cut me off. “No, Baz. Don't,” she said. “I can't be around you right now. Honestly, I don't know if I can be around you ever again.”

  She gave me one last look before turning and walking away from me. There was a sudden, lancing pain in my heart. It was foolish. I barely knew this woman – this human woman. I hadn't come to this planet looking for a mate. I hadn't come to this planet by design at all. But in the brief time I'd been there, I'd found something I hadn't anticipated in Paige. And now that I knew I was on the verge of losing her, the pain inside of me was deep and abiding.

  As the son of a king and the next in line for the throne, I'd never wanted for female companionship. I'd had women quite literally throwing themselves at me. But most of them had never interested me. I'd never had a sustained relationship with a woman back on Optorio, mostly because I realized most of the women I'd been with weren't with me because they liked me as a man. They were with me because they liked me as the next king. It was the crown and not the man they were attracted to and wanted to be with.

  To say I'd found that off-putting would be putting it mildly.

  But Paige was different. In the brief time I'd known her, I'd come to realize that she was what I wanted in a mate. Intelligent. Independent. Unafraid to challenge me. She treated me as her equal, not as somebody to put on a pedestal or as someone who could benefit her. She saw me as just a man – nothing more and nothing less – and that was exactly what I wanted in a mate.

  But as I watched her walk away, getting smaller in the distance, I knew it wasn't going to be.

  “Don't let it trouble you. You weren't here to find a mate anyway,” Anjol said. “Your priority should be to fix the ship and move on – your original plan, yes?”

  I ignored him, but Anjol was right, of course. I hadn't come here to find a mate. I did not know if I had room in my life for a mate, truth be told. But that didn't make the pain in my heart any less significant.

  I stood up and walked over to the bodies of my two would-be assassins. Though saddened by the need to take their lives, I knew I'd had no choice. I knelt between them, bowed my head, and said a few words of sorrow and atonement. Standing up again, I removed two small capsules from my belt and placed one on each body. Pressing a button my wristlet, the two capsules made a soft popping sound as they exploded. The liquid that poured out of the capsules began to immediately disintegrate the bodies.

  I stood and watched as the fluid work quickly. It wasn't long before both bodies had been dissolved. Other than the shallow depressions in the sand where they'd laid, they were gone, almost as if they'd
never been. I turned and placed three more capsules on their ship. As I walked away, I touched the button my wristlet again, detonating the capsules and erasing all traces that the assassins had ever been there to begin with. Though I wondered how long I'd be waiting until more arrived to try and finish the job.

  With Paige gone, I was left to walk back to the hotel where I'd taken a room. It wasn't a long walk, but the pleasantness of the day that I had been enjoying had been ruined by everything that had happened.

  Chapter Three: Paige

  It had been a little more than a day since I'd left Baz standing on the beach, and I still wasn't any closer to understanding everything that had happened. On one level, I understood that the two men had showed up intent on killing him. That much had been clear. I understood that he had acted in self-defense in killing them. Hell, I'd even helped him with that.

  But that's where my understanding stopped and my confusion – not to mention my fear – began.

  I'd always been a rational, logical person. It was in my DNA. Even as a child, I'd eschewed the fantastical and had focused on the facts and on the things I knew to be true, or at least the things I could prove were true. Things like Bigfoot or UFOs never interested me, simply because they could not be proven to be true. I'd honestly never given them much thought because they were too fantastical to be believed.

  But Baz had challenged my reality. In fact, he hadn't just challenged it, he'd shattered it. I'd watched him kill two men – and the craziest thing was, that wasn't even the thing that had rattled me the most.

  What rattled me the most was the fact that the two men he'd killed had emerged from what I could only assume was a spaceship of some sort. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen and was nothing like the typical flying saucer type thing you typically saw on those cheesy alien shows on the History Channel.

  “Earth to Paige,” Josie said, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “You with me, girl?”

  I shook my head and tried to clear my thoughts. The last thing I needed to be thinking about right then and there were alien assassins. I had work to do and needed to focus on that. I looked around the club and saw the staff bustling about, getting ready for another night of music.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said and gave her a smile. “What's up?”

  Josie looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “You okay tonight, Paige?”

  I nodded. “Of course,” I lied. “I'm fine. Just a little distracted. No big deal.”

  Josie looked at me a moment longer, and I cringed inwardly. She knew me better than anyone and always knew when I wasn't being honest. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn't believe me, but she seemed willing to let it go for now. But knowing her as I did, it was only a matter of time before she came back and tried to force me to talk.

  “I was just asking how your date with Baz went,” she said and smiled.

  Oh yeah, it was a great date – if by great, you mean a date filled with UFOs and alien assassins. It was great if you watched the man you were interested in kill two strangers, self-defense or not, I thought to myself. Though, I was smart enough to keep that to myself and not give voice to those thoughts.

  I shrugged. “It was okay, I guess.”

  She looked at me. “Just okay?” she said. “You guess?”

  I gave her a laugh I hoped didn't sound as forced as it was. “Yeah,” I said. “It was fine. It was good.”

  “He seemed like an interesting guy,” she continued. “Absolutely gorgeous, but way the hell awkward.”

  I laughed. “He is interesting. And he's a very different guy in a setting that isn't so public. He's a little more reserved in social settings.”

  Josie laughed. “It's hard to believe that somebody so gorgeous, who obviously has his pick of the women, could be socially awkward.”

  I shrugged. “Being beautiful doesn't necessarily mean you're not shy,” I said and grinned at her. “Not all of us can be like you, Jo – a knockout and great in social settings.”

  “Obviously,” she giggled. “They did sort of break the mold after me, didn't they?”

  “Obviously,” I said and smiled.

  If there was one person I could tell about all of this, it was Josie. She might not understand, but she'd listen. She'd try to counsel me as best as she could. Which, given the fact that I was talking about a space alien, I wasn't sure how good her best was going to be. It was all sort of uncharted territory.

  But I knew what I'd seen and knew what I'd experienced. However, I was still having trouble wrapping my mind around it all. It didn't seem real. Surreal perhaps, but definitely not reality based. UFOs and aliens weren't something I'd ever given conscious thought to. If I had thought about it, I probably would have scoffed at the idea.

  I knew I could talk to Josie and spill my guts, but I also knew I couldn't. The last thing I needed at the moment was for my best friend to think I'd lost my marbles. If I told her my story, I couldn't blame her if she thought I'd lost it, but that wasn't what I wanted.

  Besides, what was I going to say? “Oh yeah, the guy I was into turned out to be an alien prince from another planet. And by the way, he killed two guys who tried to assassinate him down on the beach. Cool story, right?”

  No, this was something I had to deal with on my own.

  “Hey, did you hear that some meteor or something crashed on the beach yesterday?” Josie asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  Or at least, she thought she was changing the subject. Little did she know, that meteor wasn't a meteor at all, but was something else I couldn't – or rather, wouldn't – talk about. I merely shook my head.

  “No, I didn't hear about it,” I lied, and immediately felt bad about doing so to my best friend.

  “Yeah, I guess it hit near Hadley's Cove,” she said.

  I immediately thought about Baz and the bodies. Surely, if two bodies had been found, it would have been big news around town, right?

  “Did they find anything?” I asked almost hesitantly. “Like the meteor or whatever it was?”

  Josie shook her head. “Nah, I don't think so,” she said. “Heard a couple of geeks saying it probably disintegrated on impact or something. Whatever. It put a little jolt of excitement into this town for a day or so, though.”

  “Yeah well, something has to,” I said, a nervous laugh escaping me.

  “Anyway, I should probably go check in with Jerome backstage and see if he needs anything before he goes on.”

  I nodded absently. “Yeah, probably a good idea.”

  Josie stood there and looked at me for a long moment. “You okay, hon?”

  Her voice snapped me out of my head and I looked over at her, giving a faint smile. “Yeah, I'm fine,” I lied. “Just tired, I guess. Haven't been sleeping all that well lately.”

  Josie arched and eyebrow at me, and I saw that familiar suggestive smile touch her lips. “Oh really now?” she said. “Would it by chance have anything to do with a certain tall, pale stranger?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, of course. We've been banging like rabbits every night since I met him.”

  “Believe me, hon,” she said. “I wish you were. You need to get laid more than any woman I've ever known. Possibly more than any woman in the history of the world.”

  I shook my head as a small flash of irritation shot through me. Josie meant well and always had my best interests at heart. She just didn't quite understand that when it came to love and relationships, my experience was radically different than hers and not quite so wonderful. I was slower and more cautious than she was, and my view of love and relationships was quite a bit more complicated than hers.

  “Hey, listen,” I said. “You think you can handle things here? I'm thinking about going out of town for a couple of days. Would you mind holding down the fort?”

  Josie looked at me, and her grin widened. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “No,” I said. “I am not going out of town with Baz. I just need to take care of a few thin
gs.”

  She looked disappointed, but nodded. “Yeah, of course. I can handle things here.”

  I reached out and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Thanks, Jo,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  “No problem,” she said. “Where are you headed? If you don't mind me asking.”

  I gave her a small grin. I had no idea where I was going at the moment. I hadn't realized I was going to take off for a few days until I'd spoken the words aloud. The idea had just popped into my head and then had come flying out of my mouth with no conscious thought or decision.

  But the instant I said it, it felt right. It felt like something I needed to do. I needed to get out of Sapphire Bay for a few days to clear my head, to sort through things, and try to accept this new reality I'd been exposed to, or find the lie behind it all. Either way, I couldn't do any of those things if I stayed in town. I needed a break.

  But I couldn't tell Josie that I had no destination in mind. I couldn't tell her that I just needed to split for a while. That would put her on instant alert that something was going on with me, and then she'd hector and badger me until I gave it up. And I wasn't ready to give it up just yet. I couldn't. So as much as it bothered me to do it, I had to lie to her again.

  “Yeah, I have to head down to Big Sur,” I said.

  She immediately looked sorry for asking. “Everything okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, everything's fine,” I said. “Just a little family deal. No biggie.”

  She squeezed my hand and gave me a gentle smile. “No sweat, Paige,” she said. “You just go do what you have to do, and I'll look after things here.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.”

  Chapter Four

  Of all the places I could have gone, I made the trip down to Big Sur. It was only an hour and a half away from Sapphire Bay, but it somehow still felt like another world. The house had been in our family for a long time. It belonged to my grandfather, and my parents used it as a summer home, or just when they wanted to get away for a long weekend.