by Lila Felix
My voice rose. “Damn it. I don’t care what you think you should and shouldn’t say. Tell me now!”
“Your mother asked Ms. Beaumont to put a safety spell on her before they left. Your father refused the magic. The alpha queen is on her way back to the castle.”
I wanted to shift into my animal right that second and chase down my mother en route to make sure she arrived safely.
All I could think about was my mother and her safety. Every thought was trained on her.
For my father, I was numb. For all the things I now knew about him. For all the things I knew about him since birth. In all the ways he’d betrayed our people and his own son.
The only tears I would shed would be for the father I’d never had.
“What is your name?” I pointed the question to the servant, who was now shaking.
“Tobias,” he answered.
“Tobias, from this moment forward, until I tell you not to, you need to give me updated information about my mother’s safety. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, Alpha.” The servant ticked his head to the left, baring his neck to me in submission and then left.
Alpha. He called me Alpha.
“Atlas,” I whispered, climbing back into the bed. Her eyes were open, but she hadn’t moved. “Did you hear that? My father is gone.”
“You are alpha. And I’m the . . . and your mother. Your cousin.” With incomplete sentences, she’d said so much. My body was icy and solid like it was made from frozen metal. Other than the worry over my mother, my mind was blank, and the absence of sympathy shook me.
“I am the alpha now. There is no other choice. I won’t accept any other fate. We have to go see to my mother. Let’s get dressed.”
Atlas pulled the sheet off of her body and rolled out of bed. We were both exhausted from the night before, but there was no time for sleep.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t quite the morning I’d imagined.” I pulled her to me after opening the robe to welcome her into my warmth.
“Fate doesn’t care what you imagined, Harrison. It simply knows what it wants out of you.”
Chapter 21
Atlas
We dressed and went down to the main hall to wait for Divine to arrive home safely. From the gossip of the servants, who were now not too scared to speak to us, we heard that Emilian died on impact when the plane crashed. Divine, kept safe by an enchantment that was done at the same time as my tattoo, was without a scratch. She was safe but very much shaken.
“Alpha, she’s here. Coming up the drive, and so is Dolrich,” Tobias whispered to us. Regardless of the circumstances, the death of the alpha was felt in the servants’ hearts. Their faces and tears said it all.
“Thank you.” Harrison had scarcely let go of me during the entire morning. When I wasn’t under the protection of his arm, we were tethered by our hands. He said nothing in regard to his father, but I felt the unrest in his heart over the issue. There was fear in his scent—a slip of unknowing in his voice when he spoke to me.
Divine came in, tired and in mourning for her husband, but physically fine. We stayed in her room for the day and most of the night, simply to be there in case she needed anything or just someone to talk to. Harrison had intercepted most of the alpha’s advisors, who were already attempting to pressure Divine into choosing this kind of service or that kind of coffin.
“He won’t be buried,” Divine said in a faraway voice in the middle of the night.
“Mother, tell me what you would have me do, and I will do it.” My mate was desperate to make Divine as comfortable as possible.
“He wanted to be cremated—scattered to the wind on the peaks of the mountains behind the castle. Not be buried beside his mate. No place for me to visit in his absence.”
“If that’s what you want, that’s what we will do.” Harrison took her hand.
With no warning, Divine got up from her bed and faced us. She grabbed my hand in one of hers and Harrison’s in the other. “Promise me that you will do better. Unite our kingdom and bring together our people. There was nothing I could do to help under your father, but you two have a new start. Bring about change. Love each other. And never allow this castle to come between the bond that seals you. This bond will make sure you succeed. Promise me.”
Harrison promised. Shortly afterward, she requested time alone, and we granted her request without hesitation.
We walked out of Divine’s room hand in hand. As the doors closed behind us, a gathering of the castle’s servants and staff stood before us.
“Alpha. Queen.” Each bowed after baring their necks to my mate, the new alpha, and me, the cinnamon bear that was now their queen.
“Not quite.” Dolrich spoke above the rest.
Chapter 22
Harrison
“Dolrich, I see you made it out unharmed.” Then my cousin, whom I’d known all my life, changed before me, not into a bear, but into something far more sinister. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, and the expression on his face morphed into that of a stranger.
“You think that was by accident? Please. You’ve always been a bit of a dunce, even when we were kids. But I’m not.”
Atlas lunged a little at the man that dared to insult me in my own home, but I stepped in front of her. If Dolrich caught hell from anyone, it was going to be me.
Stepping forward, I pulled all the bravery I could into my voice. “Dolrich, I know you and my father were involved in some kind of arrangement, but with his death, the position of alpha falls to me, his son. Unless you have something in writing with his alpha seal, there is nothing that would name you alpha.”
A grin, menacing and vile, took shape while he laughed. “That is, unless there is a challenge.”
Gasps broke out from the crowd around us. I didn’t want a challenge with Dolrich. No matter what, he was my family, and a challenge would mean that one of us would never leave the battlefield.
“There will be no challenge. How did you survive this tragedy with my mother while my father died?”
He laughed, and the booming sound reverberated against the marble floors and walls of my father’s wing of the castle.
“See?” He addressed the servants. “He is the stupidest son of an alpha there ever was. I’ve taken over his father’s favor, taken over this kingdom, and then killed his father. Yet he stands there like a fool asking why and how? I killed him! The same spell that protects this palace was put on me, while your mother was protected by one of those people on the Court.” He spat the word Court, sounding like the twin of my late father. “The cinnamon bears were going to kill him anyway. They were the pilots flying the plane. I simply joined in on the fun.”
“What?” Atlas stepped forward, her words holding a desperation I recognized well.
“Oh yes, the princess thought she had stepped in and gotten her neck bitten and just like that,” he snapped his fingers, “every bit of hate harbored by those lesser bears would be solved. You were wrong, little cinnamon bear. Your kind were quietly waiting in the wings to kill him anyway, marriage or not. Your kind have always been lesser in this kingdom and always will be. But don’t worry, when I send all the lessers to the encampment, I won’t separate you from your dear mate. You two make an incredibly vapid pair.”
Enough was enough. This man was no family of mine, just like my dead father was no family of mine. He wouldn’t stand there and admit to helping murder the alpha and imprisoning an entire race of bears without consequences. I was born to be the alpha of this kingdom of black bears and cinnamon bears alike—to realign our races as one species united.
Even if it meant killing Dolrich.
“Are you with me?” I turned to Atlas.
Her eyes bored into mine as she tried to figure out my plan.
“I’m with you.”
“Dolrich, I challenge you for the position of alpha. I won’t stand for any upheaval in the ranks, including yours. Whoever is still standing after the challenge becomes alpha. That
way, when my people look to me, they will know I hold the position without opposition.”
“What?” Atlas whimpered.
“It has to be done. We will never rest with him alive, and this kingdom will never be at peace until we have an alpha who is ready to take some action.”
“This should be fun,” Dolrich answered, with a confidence that I despised.
“I’m with you,” my mate, now holding my hand, repeated.
Chapter 23
Atlas
I expected the challenge to take place in a week or so. Instead, my mate announced that the challenge would take place only two hours later. Two fucking hours later.
He dragged me to our wing of the castle to await the fight. Dolrich would wait his turn outside the castle. Served him right. Even as a cousin, he didn’t deserve to stay in our home a second longer. As the door shut behind us, palpable fear settled in the pit of my stomach. The fear I’d barely contained on the night of our mating was child’s play next to this terror. Harrison sat on the window seat where we had marked each other.
“You can’t do this, Harrison. All you have to do is have Dolrich tried by the Bear High Council in Alaska for murder or accessory to murder. He won’t become alpha that way. Your mother is in her room grieving. Don’t make her grieve a son and a husband on the same day. Don’t make me a widow.”
Before I muttered another word, Harrison’s hands were on my shoulders, and the focused, stern look on his face frightened me. “I am the alpha. I won’t lose. I’ve been losing all my life. Hiding in this castle. Taking whatever was given to me without question. My life and yours and the future of our kingdom rides on this fight. I won’t lose. You hear me?”
His eyes grew darker as he spoke to me, bearing down on my own. Hearing the hard decision in his voice, I knew there was nothing I could do. Finally, this mate of mine who had stood in the shadows all of his life, some of his own making and some put over him, was now becoming what he was born to be.
It was about fucking time.
Despite the fight, watching this evolution was only making me fall in love further.
I put my hands on either side of his face and leaned in so that our noses touched. “I believe in you, Harrison. You are the true alpha of this kingdom, and alphas don’t lose a fight.”
“That’s my girl.” The pride came off him in waves, along with a tinge of fear and trepidation. Fear was inevitable. It would strengthen him in battle.
We stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed like hours, though I knew it was only minutes. “Harrison, let’s not waste this time.”
The last word barely escaped my mouth before his lips crashed down on mine with a force that bordered on dangerous. His words conveyed bravery, but his kiss said this may be our last.
Our clothes were scattered around the room in a matter of seconds, and all else was forgotten, or at least, shoved to the backs of our minds. The air around us crackled with a new power. Our bond now emitted the power of an alpha couple. His inner strength entangled with mine as we deepened our bond in that span of time between our past and our future.
Afterward, we lay together in silence, constantly touching and reaffirming all the things we had yet to say.
Chest to chest, we contented ourselves with simply being close.
“It’s time for me to go,” Harrison groaned before placing a kiss on the tip of my nose.
“I know.”
He moved to get out of the bed, but I stopped him with my hand gripping his arm. “You fight like hell, Harrison. You kill that bastard for trying to take away what is yours by right. He’ll kill me if he becomes alpha, and if he gets the chance, your mother too. Don’t let him take away my family.”
That was the first time I’d called my new mate my family.
“He won’t take anything away from me.” I let him leave, but instead of walking away to get dressed, he turned to me. “You know I love you, right? I know you meant to leave me just like I meant to let you go, but fate had other plans. I’m fucking in love with you, Atlas Xavier.”
“I fucking love you too, Harrison Xavier, alpha of the Black Bears.”
We both laughed before we dressed, stealing glances at each other with each stitch of clothing.
Dolrich and Harrison met on the front lawn in front of the castle and then proceeded to the fields in the back, beyond the gardens. This would be a battle to the death. Challenges for the position of alpha came with no rules. There would only be one victor. One hole would be dug for the defeated.
I barely contained my shiver as I watched Oscar begin the battle with some kind of muttered words, said too softly for even my shifter ears to hear.
Harrison gave me one look and a wink before I heard the first shattering of bones. They both shifted into their animal counterparts at once. It was the fastest shift I’d ever seen in my life. Most of our kind took their time in shifting, to manage the pain and allow their bears to take over their consciousness.
With the anger like a thick blanket over us all, their shift was fueled in a matter of seconds.
Harrison’s bear took a minute to find his comfort zone. His sheer size made my chest constrict. Other than a few males in my old clan, I’d never seen a black bear reach almost seven feet in height when shifted. One of his rounded ears, tipped with cinnamon, twitched, ready for action. A roar boomed through the open space, filling my ears and causing me to shiver. He swayed from foot to foot, getting used to the shift.
And while he did, Dolrich made his first strike, right at Harrison’s belly.
I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth to quell the scream. I was beat by another hand, a hand that smelled familiar. “Don’t scream, my dear. He will become distracted by your fear. If you can, propel all your bravery and love to him. Your connection is strong. My son will be able to hear you—to feel your strength build on his.” Divine spoke to me with her face close to my ear and her other arm wrapped around my body. That arm was the only thing keeping me upright as Dolrich continued to blast Harrison with blow after blow.
Closing my eyes, I pictured my energy, all the power and courage I could muster, being a strong gust of wind that flowed to Harrison in the air with the force of a winter storm.
“There you go, dear. It’s working. See your mate. He is strong because of you.”
Divine held me tighter around my waist, murmuring comforting words as Harrison began to fight back. He slashed at Dolrich’s chest and abdomen, making contact time after time.
The pair went at each other like bears in the wild over a female, except this was no mating war. This was war for a kingdom.
I thought Harrison was winning, and he was, until Dolrich bent and tore three shreds into Harrison’s thigh, causing him to falter and crash to the ground at Dolrich’s feet. Dolrich took advantage of the position and punched Harrison on his skull with a force that I swore shook the ground below us.
“He needs to hear you now, Atlas. Scream his name. Make him remember why he fights. Yes, he wants to be alpha, but the needs of his mate will come before it all.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The shaking had taken over my body. Behind me, Divine sweetly cheered me on until sweetness, she realized, wasn’t quite working. “Now, Atlas. Don’t you let my son die!”
Her scream somehow became my own as I used my every capability to cry to my mate, to let him know that I loved him, to know that he could not lose, to let him know that he wasn’t alone.
“There. Look. His eyes have opened. He sees you.”
Across the field, Harrison was alert and had lunged forward, taking a gaping bite out of Dolrich’s leg. With his cousin now seriously wounded and bleeding, my mate, the alpha, went in for the kill. His movements were pointed and stealthy again. His blows, each and every one, were sharp and targeted at his prey.
And with one final swipe of Harrison’s bear claws at Dolrich’s throat, it all was over.
Harrison took one look at me before passing out and shif
ting back to human.
Before I could reach him, he was taken into the castle. Oscar and Thad cleaned his wounds and had him resting in the bed while I watched on, silently praying and not so silently weeping.
“He is going to be fine. His wounds will heal soon. He is a strong shifter. We have a powerful alpha. Is there anything else you need, Alpha Queen?”
The only thing I needed was for Harrison to wake up.
Epilogue
Harrison
Ten months later
Even with the drive that Atlas and I had for changing the kingdom, the evolution of people’s thinking came slowly.
We had completed some immediate tasks that couldn’t be left for later.
The Terrace was renovated and given to Oscar and his mate as one apartment for the couple. The rest of the servants were moved to other housing in Havenwood Falls until we could find a more permanent solution.
My father’s harem was dissolved and relocated to Texas, per my queen’s request.
The land in Nebraska, bought for the sole purpose of containing the cinnamon bears, was sold back to the grizzlies.
But not everyone was pleased about what we were doing. The more conservative black bears didn’t take well to the integration of cinnamon bears into the fold.
They were less than joyful when Atlas and I announced that she was pregnant with not one, but three bears that I hoped looked like her and possessed her fire to help others.
“I can’t breathe,” Atlas huffed, coming into my office. I’d been in there all day for most of the ten months, trying to figure out how to reform my father’s stupid ways of running the kingdom.
I jumped from the chair. “Let’s go to the hospital.”
Her eyebrows bunched. She looked at me as though I was growing another head. “Going to the hospital isn’t going to change the fact that I have three cubs that think my lungs are a trampoline. They still need time to cook.”
