by P. Jameson
Theron, the second born of the Ursa Gemini twins, has found a home with the Ouachita clan of big cat shifters, and he’s determined to leave behind a life of ridicule that has followed him since his days as a young cub in the brutal Deadclaw bear clan. His past has haunted him long enough. There’s someone who can heal him now. A female who could be his. A brave Sorcera of light magic who looks at him with soft eyes, like he’s worth something. He knows Mirena the Bravest could put the broken pieces of his heart back together. But first, he has to figure out how to keep her.
Mirena is the next Sorcera in line to endure a brutal power exchange between light and dark magic. She’s doomed to become a dark Magei in her twenty-fifth year if she doesn’t find something to anchor her to the light before the autumnal equinox. If that happens, she’ll never have the one thing she’s longed for her entire life: a family of her own. But the big, burly bear shifter says he has a plan, and her heart is telling her to trust him.
Brave Bear Mated
By P. Jameson
Brave Bear Mated
Copyright © 2016 by P. Jameson
First electronic publication: September 2016
United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, redistributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any database, without prior written permission from the author, with the exception of brief quotations contained in critical reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this work may be scanned, uploaded, or otherwise distributed via the internet or any other means, including electronic or print without the author’s written permission.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
P. Jameson
www.pjamesonauthorbooks.com
Other books by P. Jameson
Ouachita Mountain Shifters
A Mate’s Wish (Holiday Prequel)
Deliciously Mated (Book 1)
Ouachita Mated (Book 2)
Merrily Mated (Book 3)
Secretly Mated (Book 4)
Shadow Mated (Book 5)
Brother Bear Mated (Book 6)
Brave Bear Mated (Book 7)
Dirt Track Dogs
Racing the Alpha (Book 1)
Racing the Beast (Book 2)
Racing Home (Book 3)
Racing Hard (Book 4)
Racing Destiny (Book 5)
Home for the Holidays (Book 6)
Dirt Track Dogs: The Second Lap
Dirty Looks (Book 1)
Ozark Mountain Shifters
A Mate’s Denial (Book 1)
A Mate’s Sacrifice (Book 2)
A Mate’s Revenge (Book 3)
A Mate’s Submission (Book 4)
Sci-fi Fantasy Romance
Starwalker (Amazon)
Chapter One
Years ago…
“It won’t always be like this. It won’t always be bad.”
Theron, one half of the Ursa Gemini twins of the Deadclaw bear clan stared across the damp darkness at his other half, Thames. He didn’t believe a word of his brother’s statement, but still, his heart soared with hope. Hope could be a damned wicked seductress if you let it, tempting and plying you into expecting things to change.
“How do you figure?” Theron asked, looking around them. At their reality.
Reality was the only thing that could bitch-slap Hope into her rightful place.
And reality was, they lived at the edge of their clan’s community behind a dumpster that they’d draped a tarp over for nights like this when the precipitation was heaviest. They each had a small area to sleep on, built up with leaves and random scraps they’d found around the mountain village.
A discarded sweatshirt.
A baby blanket someone had dropped in the mud.
Some carpet scraps.
They used whatever they could find and tried to ignore the smell, deciding it was better than the cold ground. Besides, if they used trash, things nobody else wanted, they wouldn’t have to fight for it or be punished.
The Mother Bear and her people were most brutal when rules were broken.
“How do I figure? Well, I think things are only allowed to get so bad before they have to get better,” Thames said quietly, his eyes looking away to focus on his hands. He rubbed his thumb against his palm over and over like he was trying to smudge away his own handprint.
But his logical explanation did the worst thing: it made the hope in Theron’s chest grow bigger at the idea. Maybe it was some unspoken law of nature. Maybe it was true, that things could only go down so far before they bounced back up.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Theron argued, but he could hear the treacherous hope in his own voice.
He wanted to kill it. Be done with useless wishes. But hope kept coming back, again and again, bringing disappointment on its heels. He’d never learn, would he?
Thames shook his head, still rubbing at his hand. “No. I don’t. But it makes sense don’t it? Things can’t keep getting worse. There has to be a stopping point. A time when they’re at their worst, and then what comes after that?”
Death, Theron thought. But that was actually better, wasn’t it? Maybe that’s what Theron meant. Maybe they were just waiting for the sweet relief of death.
Like mama and pop.
They were taken from them when they were only nine years of age. Killed by the Mother Bear for bearing twins that she didn’t approve of. He and Thames used to cry for them, but now they were just damn happy their parents weren’t around to see this. The rejection and social torture the gemini were forced to endure. The resentment and brutal life they lived due to being labeled the Ursa Inferior. The bears outcasted.
Mama and pop were spared by their death. Maybe one day the same thing would happen for Theron and Thames.
“I got an idea,” Thames said, settling onto his side on his makeshift sleeping area. The rain dripped in through a tiny hole in the tarp and he shifted backward to avoid the water. “Why don’t we think of our future mates. That helped last time, didn’t it?”
Theron blew out a slow breath. Helped? If by making his heart grow soft for a female he hadn’t even met yet was helping, then yeah.
“It’s useless,” he grumbled. “What female would ever choose us?”
The mating ritual for bear shifters began when an unclaimed female found a male she deemed worthy enough to take a risk for. When she made her claim on him public, it was the male’s job to prove his worth by caring for her needs and seeing her happy. Eventually, the process would end in a physical claiming. A forever promise to remain faithful.
Theron picked at a loose fiber of carpet, thinking. He couldn’t imagine what it must feel like for someone to love you that much. For someone to have that much faith in you, that they’d stick around forever.
For all of your days.
If you looked over in the morning, they’d be there. When you went to bed at night, they were there. Accepting you, even with all your flaws.
He eyed Thames.
His brother was that for him.
But a mate would be different. A mate would give you a family of your own. One you could love and hold and teach. All the things Theron had missed out on over the years.
Thames was quiet when he answered. “I’d like to think I’ll get a chance to prove myself worthy someday. If a female took a chance on me, I’d give it my best shot, wouldn’t you?”
He would. If a female put her faith in him, he’d try so damn hard for he
r. No matter what she looked like or where she came from. Theron would do his utmost to love her like she deserved.
He cleared his throat, trying to dissolve the lump that formed there. He didn’t want to be thinking about this shit, but he managed a small nod. He wouldn’t lie to his brother.
“Nobody would try harder than we would,” Thames said firmly. “Because the things we have to offer aren’t to be seen on the outside, Theo.”
“What do we have to offer?” Theron was baffled since they had nothing. Zilch.
Thames swallowed hard. “We have our hearts. Our hearts are strong. We’ve lived through the worst heartaches and survived, so I know they’re strong. We will love harder because we had no love. We’ll work harder because it’s all we know. We’ll have a family and we’ll hold on to them so hard, because there was no one to hold us. Wait and see, brother. Wait and see.”
Theron wanted so badly to believe it. Even though he was barely seventeen, his bear desperately wanted someone like that. Maybe because the animal believed in what Thames said. Maybe the fool thing thought having a female to love would change the way things were. The way things hurt. Maybe he believed finding the female meant to love him would take all the bad things away like magic.
But Theron couldn’t let himself fall for that dream. Because if he woke up and reality swooped in, it would destroy him.
“So, what do you think yours will be like, Theo?” Thames asked. His voice had taken on that wistful edge. This was his drug. The thing that dulled the pain of living. “I think mine will be smart. I’ll have to be alert and learn as much as I can before we meet so she doesn’t think I’m stupid. I want her to be able to talk about smart things with me, and I’ll understand them.”
Theron stared at Thames, his heart lurching for his brother and all the fucking hope in his eyes. He needed this. Needed it to make it through until morning. No matter the tough act he put on, or the optimistic words he spoke, Thames was barely holding on and there was nothing Theron could do.
Except this.
If Thames needed to pretend they’d someday find happily ever after, Theron could play along. He could do that for his brother.
“I…” He cleared his throat roughly. “I think mine will be strong. I think she’ll be brave, but also a little afraid, and maybe I’ll help her be braver or… something.” This wasn’t going well. Maybe he should’ve stuck with looks. “Blond maybe, with pearly blue eyes. I… I really don’t know.”
Thames pressed his lips together, mind working at something. “We will need a cave. It’s never too early to start preparing. We could look tomorrow after the Mother Bear does our readings.”
Theron’s stomach turned at the reminder of what tomorrow was. Reading Day. They were due to receive their prophecy. The one the Mother Bear—the clan’s leader—gave each young to usher in adulthood.
The one that told of their future mate.
But Theron had his reservations. If the cruel female was willing to curse them as children and execute their parents, what would she do to them now, as adults?
Thames continued plotting about the cave. “I heard some young talking about a small one over on the north rim.”
“We’ll never find one not already occupied. And even if we do, any clan member could toss us from it if they wanted it for themselves.”
As outcasts, they weren’t allowed to own anything. If someone wanted their ratty beds of discarded things, they could take them and be within rights.
“That’s true,” Thames murmured, his mind still working. “I wonder if we can complete the mating ritual without a cave to bring our mates to.”
“Perhaps.” Theron tried to make his voice sound hopeful instead of dead. For Thames. “If we can find a place secure enough.” Not their makeshift tent behind a dumpster. “And if the female could find it in her heart to understand our complications.”
Thames deflated at that part, because he knew what Theron knew. No female wanted a male who couldn’t provide a home for her. Even if one chose him, she would quickly see he couldn’t care for her. Not being an Ursa Inferior.
Thames’s throat bobbed with a weighty swallow. “Do you think the Mother Bear will go easy on us tomorrow?”
Theron laid out on his own lumpy, cobbled together mattress, flattened his hands over his chest, and stared at the water accumulating on the tarp above him.
“Anything’s possible. Right, Thames?” But he wasn’t convincing anybody that he believed it. His voice was too bright. Plastic and fake.
“Yeah,” his brother said dully. “Why not.”
They didn’t speak the rest of the night, but sometime before dawn the rain stopped and Theron found sleep.
***
Theron stood in the street, facing off with the guard who’d just sucker punched him. Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth and his bear wanted out to do damage. But these were the Mother Bear’s guards. Killing one of them was punishable by death, and he wouldn’t leave Thames alone in the world. Not yet.
If they were going to be relieved in death, it would happen at the same damn time so one of them wasn’t left to brave things alone.
Thames was at his back, duking it out with another guard.
The two burly grizzly shifters came out of nowhere, barking and tossing their weight around for no reason. It was nothing new to be suckered by one of the clan, but this time, it was worse. Because the gemini had spent the entire morning bathing at the creek and washing their tattered clothes, trying their damnedest to look presentable for their reading. Now the guards were messing all that up, and it pissed Theo off.
The snarling male lunged at him again, catching him in the gut and sending him to the ground.
Where the dirt was.
All the dirt he’d washed off.
Damn it.
Jumping back to his feet, he decked the guard and before the bear could recover from the punch, Theron jammed his hand hard against his throat. The guard sputtered for breath, grasping at his neck with desperate fingers, but Theron only wished he’d done it hard enough to do some long term damage.
Spinning, he watched Thames send his opponent spiraling backward, and as soon as they were free, they both ran. They went the backway around the village, heading in the direction of the Clan’s gathering grounds. Breath chugging and arms pumping to eke out more speed. Just in case they were followed.
When they reached the gathering grounds, they stopped just outside the entryway.
Thames bent in half, hands braced on his knees, gasping to catch his breath.
“You think anyone saw us?” Theron asked between drags of oxygen.
“No. But it won’t matter. If they tell her we started it, she’ll take their word over ours.”
Theron shook his head, his breath finally slowing. His adrenaline, not so much.
“She sent them.”
His brother shot him a surprised look, his face morphing into a frown. “Why would she? For what reason? We’ve been good.”
“That bitch doesn’t care how good we are, Thames.”
“Shhh,” Thames hissed, head swinging around to make sure no one was listening.
Theron tried to say the next part quietly.
“She sent them to keep us from the reading. Or to embarrass us. Or kill us,” he said, with a twist of his gut. “Something. She sent them, I know.”
Why else would the guards have been waiting for them next to the dumpster when they returned from the creek? No words, no warnings. Just fists flying before they even had time to realize what was happening. And it hadn’t stopped at one or two hits. That shit kept coming until they’d both been forced to fight back. Their bears wouldn’t let them be hurt without a fight.
Thames’s frown never left his face as he wiped at the blood running down his own cheek.
“Damn it,” he muttered, looking at the stain of red on his sleeve. “I really wanted to go before them clean just this once.”
Theron sighed. “I know, brot
her.”
Thames shrugged like it didn’t matter, but it did.
“Let’s go. Maybe she will give us the reading before they get here. Maybe it will be fast and we’ll be out of here before anyone knows what happened.”
Theron nodded and followed his brother through the entrance.
It was a gate twice their height, made of shaved logs that were honed to a point on the ends. The walls were cinder blocks and mud built up to sixteen feet. No one entered or left without the Mother Bear’s permission.
Theron and Thames went past the entry guards and were herded into the center of the grounds with three other young-turning-adults. Theron recognized them. Two were males who often tried to pick fights with him and Thames. They’d been the cause of many punishments. He despised them, and wished they weren’t part of his Reading Day.
Avoiding their stares, he settled on the remaining young. Ava was her name, and she’d never been mean to him or Thames. She wasn’t especially pretty. Short and stalky, with feet that were disproportionately big. A snarl of red curls topped her head, and she had more freckles than not, but if he was honest, he was sort of fond of them.
Theron jerked his gaze away when she caught him staring, and stood straighter next to his brother as the Mother Bear made her entrance.
The imposing alpha female was flanked by two guards, but none taller than her. She wore a long coat of beads and fur over her flowing blue dress, but in the outdoors, with the mud and scattered leaves blowing in the wind, she didn’t appear dressed up. Maybe it was partially because of her graying waist length hair that was artfully ratted instead of combed.
When her gaze landed on the gemini and her eyes flared in surprise, Theron knew his suspicion was right. She hadn’t expected them to show for the reading. Which meant she already knew they’d fought the guards. Which meant… this was going to become a public punishment.
