Crush on the Alpha Bear

by Emilia Hartley

  There was only one reason for what she was feeling right then. She had suspected, but now she knew. The bond between them was alive and singing. Gareth was her mate.

  She pushed herself up onto shaky arms. This was not over, she thought. She summoned the beast inside of her for help, for the power to still her shaking arms. The beast surged forward, too happy to oblige. She felt her eyes swirl between brown and gold.

  Gareth’s eyes darkened as he watched her crawl toward him. She gripped the waistband of his jeans and used her new strength to tear the button from the fabric. The bulge beneath the fabric was huge, bigger than any she’d ever seen before.

  “You did not finish,” Rhiannon and her beast growled. She shoved his jeans past his hips. The length of him burst free of the fabric’s constraints. He was thick in her hand as she rubbed back and forth. His eyes rolled back and his hands moved to push her back.

  “Before we do this,” Gareth struggled to say as he closed his eyes. “I need to know who is asking for this. Am I talking to Rhiannon or her beast?”

  “Both,” they responded.

  His eyes opened. “Good.”

  He shrugged off his jeans to better lean over her body. She spread her legs wide, wrapping them around him so that she could pull him as deep as she wanted. All of him belonged inside of her. She needed it. He needed it.

  His tip rubbed her pussy, making small circles. She’d forgotten how small her entrance was. She gritted her teeth and pressed forward, easing him inside. She could hear his breathing quicken.

  “Deeper,” she told him.

  “I’ll hurt you,” he said, his voice breathy.

  “Do it.” To push the matter, she reached and gripped his buttocks to pull him deeper inside of her. A small whimper escaped her, but he was halfway in.

  His hands gently stroked her body and her breasts, he eased back and forth to gently open her wider before plunging deep. Once he was hilt deep Rhiannon gasped. He seemed to fill every available inch of space inside of her. She felt nothing but him in that blissful moment.

  Once he was fully inside of her he began to thrust. Waves of pleasure crashed over both of them in quick succession. They moaned their pleasure to the wilderness around them. She locked her ankles behind his back to keep him close to her, to keep him inside of her. She couldn’t get enough of the sensation of him. He invaded every dark space inside of her and cast a fiery glow of pleasure.

  He fought her grip, pulling out to rub the head of his cock in small circles around her opening. She growled and reached for him. He laughed and thrust himself home. She cried out, arching her back.

  Once more he pulled out and thrust hard. She could feel the pressure of another orgasm building inside of her. She teetered on the edge, fighting the urge to fall head first. She reached out and gripped his hips and pulled him as deep as she could manage. Unable to contain it anymore, she fell over that edge.

  Her climax burst through her body. She clenched around him. He growled in satisfaction and slammed harder over and over again, sending tiny shocks through her. She writhed beneath him while his breathing came faster.

  Finally, his head fell back and he roared into the clearing. She felt him spill his seed inside of her. She didn’t worry about it. She was barren, unable to carry children. The doctor had informed her of this at a young age.

  Her mate collapsed on top of her, sated and happy. She ran her fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his sweat covered forehead. How could she tell her mate that she wouldn’t be able to give him children? It was something she’d come to terms with a long time ago. Her old life didn’t seem fit for children anyway. Now… now that she knew what she was, knew that this man was her soul mate, circumstances changed. It wasn’t right that the option to raise children had been ripped away from him.

  She didn’t say anything just then. It didn’t feel right. It, most likely, would have spoiled the moment.

  ***

  Gareth watched her reach for her clothing, thin layers of black that slipped over her skin like the scales her dragon bore. Being with her had been like nothing he’d ever known before. Every time he’d prowled through the city on rutting night, a part of him had hoped that the woman that took him home would be the one. He hoped that he would miraculously find his mate among the thousands of human women prowling the city.

  Instead of a human mate, he managed to find a dragon woman working for the enemy. He couldn’t understand why she made the first move, though. She was still adjusting to the new life that was thrust upon her, still trying to come to terms with the realization that she was not fully human. Gareth wondered if he had mistakenly taken advantage of her confusion. Guilt slammed him in the heart.

  Fully clothed, she reached for the basket of food, her motions languid. She pulled a piece of cured meat from its package and rolled it before taking a big bite.

  “You did most of the work,” she acknowledged. “Why don’t you come eat with me?”

  Gareth hesitated. “Later on, will you regret what we have done here? Will you regret laying with me?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him as though he was being funny. He wasn’t. He fell headfirst into her, but it was a foolish action that could cause her to resent him later. He couldn’t afford that to hang between them.

  “Answer me,” he begged, refusing to move from where he stood.

  Rhiannon sighed. She took another bite from her piece of cured meat, her cheeks growing red. “I know what we are.” Her voice was a mere whisper, but he heard it.

  Shaky knees brought him closer to her before they dropped him to the ground.

  Her dark eyes rose to meet his. “I kissed you because I needed to know why I felt this way about you. I slept with you because I realized that you’re my mate. I feel… I feel good. I don’t think I could use the word love just yet, but I feel hopeful for my future for the first time in weeks. In time, I think that maybe I could fall in love with you. I already feel a strong amount of like.” A wry smile curved the corner of her mouth. “I must admit that I was charmed by the dangerous man who chose to camp on my deck to protest Wilson’s plan.”

  Gareth felt such relief that he couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward, capturing her face between his hands, and locked lips with her. She tasted of meat and it made him laugh.

  “Now, eat you fool.” She shoved food into his lips.

  He eagerly nibbled the offering of meat and cheese.

  Chapter Ten

  When they returned to his home, tired and bearing more than a few twigs and leaves on their person, they were confused to find several dragons and some of their mates waiting for them. Drystan stood beside Maggie by the front door. A few paces away, Wesley hugged Dakota close to his chest. A dark look haunted the young human’s eyes. Liana, a young female dragon more closely related to Maggie, leaned against his house with one booted foot against the siding and her arms crossed over her chest. Despite her defensiveness, she had a look on her face that seemed tired and defeated. Her brother, Rhys, was nowhere to be found.

  “What is it?” Gareth asked. His heart was in his throat, nearly blocking all of the words in him.

  Drystan swallowed hard as though he had the same feeling. “The building that GOE used to frame Rhiannon was destroyed today. It was made to look like a dragon attack after all. The government is deciding on what course of action to pursue next.”

  “I should be there,” Maggie growled beside him. Her arms were crossed over her chest. It was mind boggling to know that she’d been born into an era that belittled women, that treated them like property. She was fierce and a sharp cutting activist for her family.

  Drystan shook his head. “I’m not willing to take that chance, my love. There is a full blown witch hunt going on.”

  “It was only a building,” Rhiannon said, stepping forward. She was right, but Gareth had a feeling that there was more to this story.

  “No,” Dakota hissed. “It wasn’t. There were five human casualties.”r />
  Gareth reached out and set a soft hand on his mate’s trembling shoulder. Wilson and her old partner had finished what they planned on doing a week ago and it worked. With human deaths blamed squarely on the dragons in Snowdonia, a war would begin. The war that Wilson and the white dragon so badly wanted.

  He could see, now, that Wesley’s arms were holding his trembling mate upright. She was not scared. It was anger that he saw on her face. And, it was pointed directly at his mate. He tried to put his body between the two women.

  “This is not the fault of anyone here on the Territory. We should not be looking at each other with hatred right now. We should be looking outward to figure out how to stop this.”

  Drystan nodded. Gareth watched Dakota squeeze her eyes shut and suck in a haggard breath. He understood her hatred. Rhiannon had been the one to shoot Dakota, after all. But, a lot had changed since then. Truth had come to light, revealing who each of them really are.

  Mates. They are both family.

  Gareth pulled his mate closer to him, but Rhiannon ducked his grip. She paced back and forth, chewing her thumbnail. Her eyes never left the ground.

  “You’re thinking,” Maggie realized.

  Rhiannon’s head shot up, their eyes meeting. “I won’t let this happen. It’s my fault for being such an idiot in the first place. I should have known that I was different when I was stronger than some of the men in my training class. I should have known that Wilson would betray me because I wasn’t human. This war is my fault and I’m going to find a way to stop it.”

  His mate bushed past everyone standing outside his home and disappeared past the door. Before he could follow, Drystan turned his cold eyes upon him. Gareth stood, rooted to the spot while he waited for his leader to warn him of her possible duplicity.

  Instead, Drystan’s words surprised him. “She is a fine dragon and a strong mate. Don’t hold that one too close you or she’ll revolt.”

  He watched Drystan’s eyes fall on his own mate. Maggie raised one eyebrow even though her lips pressed into a hidden smile.

  “Your home is now the site of our impromptu council. Cameron and Rhys are on their way with food so that no one is likely to kill each other while we discuss what we plan on doing. It will be a necessity when Owain arrives.”

  Gareth nodded. He would do whatever his leader told him. They would follow Drystan into hell. It was evident in the eyes of everyone present.

  The dragons entered his home. Drystan and his son went directly toward his kitchen table. Wesley sank into a wooden chair. Gareth could hear the chair groan beneath his cousin’s heavy weight. Gareth’s mother had been Drystan’s sister, a fierce dragon the color of pale ash until she died in the Occurrence. It was her death that drove Drystan to put Elgar on house arrest. It was Drystan that stopped Gareth from hunting down the old dragon and ripping him limb from limb.

  Gareth pulled out a chair beside his cousin and spun it around to sit on the edge of the seat. His eyes followed Wesley’s mate as she meandered around his home. Every now and then, her eyes would return to Rhiannon. He was worried that Dakota was finally fed up with GOE and would take it out on his mate. He didn’t know what kind of gifts Dakota had been given by her mate bond.

  His eyes flicked over to his own mate. She sat on the edge of the couch, her head in her hands. It broke his heart to see her this way. She was bearing the full weight of guilt for something that another person did.

  Gareth was about to stand and move to Rhiannon’s side when his door burst open. Another wide shouldered dragon entered the house, bearing heavy canvas bags on his shoulders and arms. A wide pan of something that smelled of tomato sauce was cradled between his hands. The dragon behind him was loaded with bottles of soda and bags that smelled heavily of tea and coffee.

  “It’s been a while, Cameron,” Wesley said to his food-bearing cousin.

  Gareth often forgot that Cameron wasn’t an essential part of the other dragons’ lives. The younger dragon came and went so frequently in his life that he stopped locking his front door. The young dragon found ways into his home whether he liked it or not. He couldn’t be mad at his younger brother. Not for long, at least.

  Gareth kicked his chair away and went over to relieve his brother of the bags that weighed him down. Not that it hindered the young dragon. It was probably nothing compared to the limits of their strength. It was just bulky.

  Cameron’s eyes immediately fell on Rhiannon. “Hey, I know you.”

  Her head shot up, eyes completely gold. Her lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl.

  “Well, can’t say I saw that coming,” Cameron commented before laying the sheet pan on the table. “Last I remember you worked for the shitty Guardian sect here in Wales.”

  Drystan was the one to speak next. “Do you happen to remember Jacob and Annie?”

  Cameron’s attention was pulled from Rhiannon, lifting a weight from Gareth’s chest. The urge to stand between his brother and his mate was overwhelming.

  “Barely,” Cameron confessed. “Brainy fellow, right?”

  Drystan laughed, but he nodded. “Yes, that would be Jacob. I have reasons to believe that their daughter didn’t die like GOE tried to tell us.”

  Liana narrowed her eyes at Rhiannon. “I don’t remember her.”

  “You weren’t even born yet,” Rhys reminded his younger sibling.

  “No shit,” Cameron breathed. He tossed another glance back at Rhiannon. She was leaning back on the couch, eyes closed as she tried to regain control of herself. “That’s Regina?”

  He watched Rhiannon scowl, not bothering to open her eyes. “That’s my given name?”

  Gareth laughed. “Yes. You were their little queen. Bossy little thing you were, too. Drystan was convinced that you were going to knock him off his seat of power someday.”

  Her eyes cracked open and fell upon Drystan. “No need to worry about that anymore. I can barely control myself let alone a family of dragons.”

  Drystan leaned forward, putting his hands flat on the table. “Let’s stop talking about the past and start talking about how we are going to put a stop to the immediate future.”

  ***

  Rhiannon leaned back into the plush couch. Inside of her, she felt the rage of her beast. It was consuming. The smell of burnt fabric tickled her nose. If they put an end to all of this, she would replace Gareth’s burnt couch with her own couch. If she lived through this.

  She could barely believe what Wilson had done. He made Everett kill five humans, even if it was an accident. The lives of those people now stained her old friend’s soul. She didn’t think she would ever get Everett back, but she mourned for him and the sin he now carried.

  Ten feet away from her, a table of dragons and Maggie argued about what their next move should be. Maggie was convinced that if she could just talk to them she could fix the entire situation. Drystan was not so convinced of his mate’s convictions and Rhiannon tended to agree with him. There was little to do now that could be done to save their face.

  That was until another face rolled through Rhiannon’s mind. Raphael had been present when Everett tried to frame her for the explosion. No doubt, he’d been there when Everett laid the explosives on the building once more. The white dragon had been whispering venomous crap into Wilson’s ear for some time now. He was a part of a lot of the dirty doings Wilson was taking part in.

  Rhiannon pushed herself up from the couch. Her beast still paced inside her mind, walking dizzying circles in her head. She swayed on her feet for a short moment before pressing forward. She managed to make it to the impromptu war table. Silence fell over the room as everyone looked up at her.

  “What we need to do is make a show of protecting this city,” she said.

  A man with a thick, white beard looked up at her with hard eyes. “And, just how do you think we could do that? The city is already convinced that we are the villains in this case.”

  “We name a new villain and move the blame off of the Sn
owdonia and the red dragons. As you already know, there is a white dragon working with my old boss. He’s slimy shit and everything that has happened is probably his doing. If we can show the people of the city that it isn’t their own dragons that are hurting them, then we can act as their defenders. It will change their view of us.”

  Drystan sighed heavily. “I really don’t want to make other dragons out to be the bad guy. We should be acting to preserve all of our kind.”

  “Fuck that,” a new voice proclaimed. Dakota appeared beside Rhiannon. “Raph is hell bent on destroying us so he can have Snowdonia for himself. He thinks that the red dragons stole his homeland from the white dragons. If that little shit wants to be the villain, then he and his get treated like the villain.”

  “Language,” Wesley hissed, his eyes motioning toward the white bearded dragon beside him.

  “Pshaw,” the old, white bearded dragon said. “The human is right. We cannot be concerned with the survival of the entire species if we’re all dead. Let the white dragons reap what they’re trying to sow.”

  Rhiannon’s knees shook beneath her, whether from the sex she’d had earlier or from the realization that her new world was falling apart again, she didn’t know. What she knew was that Gareth was there. He leaned forward and pulled her to him so that she sat on his knee. One, thick arm was wrapped around her middle to keep her from sliding to the floor.

  She pulled in a breath, afraid of the words that were about to fall from her own lips. Gareth’s grip on her tightened as though he knew what she was about to say.

  “I’m willing to play bait,” she blurted out.

  All eyes fell on her. She wriggled nervously in Gareth’s lap. His arm tightened around her, a response brought on by her own words. He wasn’t going to be happy with this plan. It might not matter in the long run. She couldn’t bear his children. If she couldn’t further the red dragon family, they might demand that Gareth marry another woman who could.