by Mina Carter
She paused, eyes dark, sudden need and wariness written on her face. He smiled as he caught the little glance to the side of his neck and sat up abruptly with her in his lap.
His hand slid into her hair, cupping the back of her neck as he pulled her closer. “Bite me, Lilly. Like you need to. Claim me as your mate.”
He shuddered at the thought of carrying her mark, the bite scar that marked a bearsmate. He’d only ever seen them on women before, but he didn’t care. He wanted hers. Wanted everyone to know she was his.
“Only if you bite me as well,” she whispered, and he read the answering need to belong in her eyes. He didn’t have the same equipment as she did, but he nodded anyway, a plan forming in his mind.
He rocked his hips, upping the pace, and she gasped, holding him close. Her lips whispered over his skin, where his neck met his shoulder and then, just as she came, she struck.
Morgan growled, the feel of her fangs in him calling his climax, dragging it from him even as his lips murmured a small spell and he bit down. She lifted her head and screamed as she came, clenching down hard around him as he emptied his seed deep into her silken depths.
The pleasure seemed to go on forever, locking them together, his arms wrapped around her curvy body. Eventually though, Morgan found he could move, and he fell backward onto the bed, taking her with him to sprawl over his broad chest.
“You bit me,” she murmured happily, lifting a hand to the side of her neck. He looked down. There, written in the shimmering blue of his magic, was a bite-mark. A claiming mark. He rumbled in satisfaction, knowing he had a matching mark on his own neck, and his hand tightened in her hair.
"Now everyone knows you’re mine and I’m yours. I love you, Lilly. I always will."
She grumbled in the back of her throat, the nearest thing a bear came to a purr.
“I love you too, even if you are a dickhead warlock.”
He laughed. “Yeah, but I’m your dickhead warlock, and don’t you forget it.”
With a grin, he started to move again, eliciting a gasp from his new mate. She lifted her head and looked at him.
“Already?”
He grinned. “Always. All night, every night. I’ve got something to prove, you know.”
She bit her lip, already moving with him.
“What’s that?”
He reached up to brush his lips over hers. A promise.
“That I’m the only man you’ll ever need for the rest of your life.”
Epilogue
“So none of you will step into the pit?”
Dean Sterling’s deep voice was filled with both his bear and a carefully controlled fury that would ensure anyone with half a brain knew not to cross him. In front of him stood Anderson, Harrison, and what remained of their little rebel group.
Only now, without the backing of their magical friends, they weren’t half so brave. Instead, they stood huddled together, their clothes ripped and bloody from the final battle with Dean and the enforcers, or where they’d been hauled from their homes to face justice. They looked so scared and dejected that Bennett almost felt sorry for them.
Almost.
His bear growled within him and the newly-confirmed enforcer’s jaw tightened as fury welled up from the depths of his soul. He felt no pity for them. None at all. These assholes had tried to destroy the clan he loved and tried to kill his friends. They tried to use him as a weapon to kill the woman he’d thought he loved.
His gaze slid sideways to where Lilly, the clan head enforcer, stood just behind Dean. Beside her, on the side nearest to Bennett, was Morgan, her warlock lover, his expression as grim and forbidding as Dean and Lilly’s. A small smile curved Bennett’s lips as he spotted the new mating marks they both carried. At least, despite all of this, they’d found their way to each other.
Morgan caught Bennett looking and winked. Just a flicker of his eyelid but it was enough. After he’d lifted the spell on Bennett that had made him think he was madly in love with Lilly, and that everyone was conspiring to keep her away from him, they’d reached an unspoken understanding. He’d been spelled and couldn’t help it, and no one would mention it again. Something that he would be forever grateful to the big warlock for.
“No?” Dean growled. “Why does that not surprise me? Fucking cowards, the lot of you. As prime of the Beauty Clan, I hereby exile you from our fellowship. You will gain no hospitality or friendship here either now or ever in the future. I banish you to wander the lands from this day forth. Be warned... other clans have been informed of your transgressions and have stated they will offer you no sanctuary. Jones?”
Morgan stepped forward, raising hands suddenly sheathed in blue fire. The small gaggle of bears in front of him shrieked and covered their faces as tendrils lashed out to lick each of them on the forehead. When they dropped their hands, each of them bore a blue mark on their foreheads. A moon with a line through it... banishment marks. Some clans tattooed it, some branded it with silver. The Beauty Clan did it with magic. A mark that could never be removed, that was always there for anyone with non-human blood to see.
“But where will we go?” Anderson asked, confusion in his eyes. “We have families... jobs...”
“Not my issue,” Dean bit out. “Your families will be offered the chance to stay or they may leave with you. Your jobs? Well, I suggest you all get to writing resignation letters, because if any of you are still in town at sundown, then we’ll call The Hunt.”
Anderson staggered back, fear stark on his face. The Hunt was a clan’s final solution. Rather than facing the prime one on one in the pit, they would be hunted by the entire clan. A clan that would show them no mercy, not after they’d tried to destroy it.
Harrison was the first to break, a sob escaping him as he stumbled backward and then ran as though all the hounds of hell were on his heels. With panicked cries, the others followed him, leaving the clan to watch them race away through the woods.
“Make sure to send out enforcers to ensure they’re not on clan land by nightfall,” Dean rumbled, turning toward Lilly.
She nodded, about to speak, but Bennett stepped forward.
“With all due respect, Prime. I’ll do that. Lilly and Morgan... probably want some time to themselves?” He suggested, motioning toward their new mating marks.
Dean’s gaze swept over him, then to the couple and back again, and nodded. “Good suggestion. You do that.”
Bennett breathed a sigh of relief. After everything, after nearly becoming part of the plot against his clan—he’d be paying back that debt for months, years... hell, probably the rest of his life.
“Thank you,” Lilly smiled, her hand brushing against his arm as the clan dispersed to head back to the lodge. He paused, surprised by the contact, but his bear rumbled in happiness. It liked Lilly. Not in a sexual way, they’d already established that his feelings for her were driven by the spell he’d been under, and besides, his bear had made it very clear that she was not their mate.
“You’re more than welcome.” She smiled up at Morgan as he pulled her into his arms.
“No worries. Enjoy your... honeymoon?” He couldn’t think of anything else to call it, but they didn’t take offence at his stumble. Lilly giggled and nestled against Morgan, who grinned.
“Thanks man, appreciate it.”
“Isn’t this nice?”
The sardonic drawl made them look up. Bennett blinked. In the middle of the path in front of them stood a tall man who looked so like Morgan they had to be related.
The temperature in the air dropped to glacial, the warlock’s expression setting into hard lines.
“What do you want, Dad?”
Bennett felt more than heard the clan’s collective intake of breath. Since the fight with Anderson’s lot yesterday, it had gone around the clan like wildfire that Morgan wasn’t just any oathbreaker. He was a noble, a lord... but he’d walked away from it all.
And this was his father, Lord Evarmendes of the Passenfal coven, t
he oldest and most illustrious coven in the country.
And, from the expression on his face, he was a prick. No wonder Morgan had run away to join the army. Bennett didn’t blame him. He’d met a few nobles, and they were all assholes. Like serious assholes.
Evarmendes sniffed, looking at the bears like they were something unpleasant that had crawled out from under a rock.
“For chaos’ sake, put the animal down, Arran, and come home where you belong.”
It was the wrong thing to say, every single bear in the group giving voice to a growl. It was low level, just on the edge of human and witch hearing but threatening nonetheless.
Morgan’s expression didn’t change. Instead, he pulled Lilly closer, his hand covering hers in the center of his broad chest.
“I am home.”
Evarmendes scoffed. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You’ve had your fun, now it’s time to come home and take your rightful place as my heir.” He raked Lilly with a contemptuous look. “And marry a woman befitting your bloodlines.”
The chill intensified, and Bennett realized it was rising from Morgan himself. The warlock’s voice was as deep as any bear’s and rang with power.
“I’m only going to say this once more. I am home. I’m not leaving. I’ve made my choice. My life is here.” He looked down at the beautiful woman in his arms. “With Lilly.”
“You... you’re serious.” Realization dawned on Lord Evarmendes face, utter shock in his eyes. Then his face twisted in anger. “You do this, and you’re dead to me, just like your faithless bitch of a mother. I’ll bet she’s here as well, isn’t she? I’ll make you both regret this!”
“Just try it, asshole.” It wasn’t Morgan who spoke, but Dean. His bear filled his voice, his claws already dropped to tip his fingers. “And lord or not, you won’t leave this place alive.”
Evarmendes snorted. “You can’t stand against my magic, bear.”
Bennett stepped forward, dropping claw, as behind him, the rest of the pack did the same. Morgan smiled.
“One bear, and you might have a chance, Dad. But this lot are ready to call for The Hunt, and not even you can survive all of them, can you?”
Evarmendes looked around them, fear spiking in his eyes as he opened and closed his mouth like a guppy on speed.
Morgan laughed. “Fuck off, dad, and never bother us again. Because if you do, I won’t stop this lot from tearing you limb from limb.”
Evarmendes didn’t reply or swear everlasting pain or revenge or any other such crap. Instead, he clicked his fingers and disappeared.
“Well...” Morgan said aloud. “Hopefully that’s the end of that. Now, Lilly and I have a mating to celebrate. Anyone up for a drink in the Beast bar?”
“First round is on me!” Ash, the lone werepanther in the group, shouted above the chorus of approval and the clan swarmed down the wooded hillside toward the lodge and their vehicles, eager to get to the celebration.
Bennett tagged along slowly behind, smiling to himself at the sight of Lilly and Morgan, arms around each other.
Someday, his bear promised. Our female is coming, I can feel it. She’ll be here soon.
He nodded.
He hoped his bear was right.
Thank you so much for reading WARLOCK AND THE BEAR!
I hope you loved reading Morgan and Lilly’s story as much as I loved writing it!
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If you liked the Banford and Beauty Bears, you’ll LOVE the Project Rebellion series!
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A hospital manager with a heart of gold meets a soldier with a dark secret…
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Read PERFECT MATE now!
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About the Author
Mina Carter is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of romance in many genres. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and a bossy cat.
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