A moment later, Alex’s gaze took in the sight of Daphne. She stood, her face blank with shock, her eyes wide. He could see the tell-tale signs on her of stress and strain, dark circles under her eyes, her disheveled clothes and hair, the tightness around her lips. “Please just talk to me for a few minutes, Daphne. I know you probably need more time, but I really want to work this out.” Daphne glanced at the flowers in his hand and her lips curved in a slightly confused smile.
“Laurel flowers?” she said, glancing from the bouquet to his face. Alex shrugged.
“I thought they’d be appropriate, considering your name.” Daphne chuckled slightly, biting her bottom lip.
In spite of how obviously upset she still was, the scent of her as she shifted in front of him, coming to Alex’s nose, sent a jolt of desire through him. He wanted to protect her, he wanted to have her in his arms once more, he wanted to mark her as indisputably his. But he swallowed against the dryness in his throat, pushing down the animal instinct that rose up inside of him. He had to appeal to his human care for her and he had to appeal to her as a human, not as a bear.
“I guess I was kind of hoping you would come to me,” Daphne said, opening the door wider to let him in. Alex offered the bouquet and Daphne took it, crossing to the kitchen to retrieve a vase. “I should apologize for… well, I won’t say overreacting, because I didn’t, but for not even talking to you since.”
“I wish I could give you more time…” Alex shook his head, casting the reasoning aside. “But I had to talk to you. I had to make sure you understood that I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Daphne was quiet as she filled a vase with water and put the flowers in.
“Your mom called me yesterday,” she said finally, turning to face him. Daphne smiled faintly. “And Regina called me today.” Alex sighed, chuckling shortly.
“You have to believe me when I tell you I didn’t ask them to call.”
Daphne’s smile grew. “I know. They both asked how I was doing, and neither of them tried to give me any kind of justification for what you did. They just invited me out for lunch.” Daphne pressed her lips together. “I guess whether or not I’m your mate, I’m still kind of, at least a little bit, an insider.” Alex nodded. Daphne moved to the dining room table and sat down.
“I wanted to apologize. I should have told you the moment I knew that I’d marked you as my own. I didn’t want to pressure you into a commitment but I shouldn’t have withheld that information.” Daphne nodded.
“I’m glad you can at least understand why I was upset.” She took a deep breath. Underneath the scent of her—the smell that drove Alex into a state of desire and need—he could detect stress pheromones, ketones. She hadn’t been taking care of herself in the days since she’d left. Alex hoped against hope that she would at least let him take care of her, let him feed her a good meal. Daphne sighed. “I have to admit, even as pissed off as I was… no matter how upset you made me, I do actually love you.”
Alex smiled slowly. “That’s good to hear,” he said. “I thought—I’d hoped—that I could make things right by asking you outright: do you want to be my mate, Daphne?”
Daphne pressed her lips together. “That’s… it’s a really serious commitment, right?” Alex nodded. “I guess I can’t really ask ‘are you sure you want this’ because apparently you’ve already decided.” Alex laughed. “I do want to be your mate. God help me.”
“Hey, I’m an excellent catch by any standard,” Alex replied, pretending to be offended. “I wanted to ask you outright because I realized that part of how I hurt you wasn’t just not telling you, it was that you couldn’t give your consent, the way it happened before.”
Daphne smiled again. “You are a pretty insightful guy.” She reached out and touched his hand. “I’m not, I won’t lie to you. I’m not 100%. I mean I know I want to be yours but I’m still dealing with some stuff.” Daphne took a deep breath and exhaled. “How much will the shifter community really accept me?”
Alex squeezed her hand. “Regina and my mother love you. I love you. There are some assholes in the community too, but that’s anywhere you go.” Alex brought Daphne’s hand up to his lips and kissed her palm lightly. “I’m glad you’re at least mostly okay with this. I have something else to tell you.”
Daphne groaned. “You know, you should probably just tell me everything that is going to affect me from now on just, right away. None of this hiding or waiting for the right moment business.”
Alex nodded, smiling ruefully. “I just wanted you to make up your mind without this weighing on you. You and I need to go before the elders tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Daphne frowned.
“Yes.” Alex explained what Ben had told him. “If the elders call Eric, he can’t refuse the summons. He will have to face their judgment immediately.”
“That’s good,” Daphne said. She hesitated a moment and then smiled. “So you wanted me to decide to be your mate without thinking of the fact that if I didn’t, my life might be ruined.”
Alex shrugged. “Well, I don’t know that they wouldn’t condemn Eric on just my word but I wanted you to decide one way or another just based on us. Not on anything else.” He leaned in and kissed her on the lips lightly.
“Okay. In this one instance, I can be okay with you keeping something from me but everything else, right away.”
“Agreed.”
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Daphne gripped Alex’s arm more tightly than she wanted to as her nerves wound tighter and tighter. “Take a deep breath, Daphne,” Alex murmured in her ear as they approached the clearing in the forest where the were-bears were gathering. “You’re my mate. No one is going to hurt you.”
“You know,” she whispered back, “I probably wouldn’t have thought of the possibility of anyone hurting me if you hadn’t mentioned it.” Alex kissed her cheek and Daphne could tell by the feeling of his breath on her skin that he was taking in her scent at the same time.
“Everything will be okay.”
A group of people stood apart from everyone else and Daphne realized that they must be the elders. Most of them didn’t look particularly old, some of them barely looked to be old enough for retirement but she told herself that were-bears probably had different ways of counting status, she’d have to ask Alex later.
“Alexander Oberon, you have brought serious accusations,” a woman at the center of the group said. “Who is the human with you?” Daphne wanted to roll her eyes. Alex and she had made love the night before, she knew she was marked with his scent, even if she couldn’t smell it herself. Alex gave her a nudge and Daphne stepped forward slightly. He had prepared her for this moment.
“I am his mate,” she said, speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear. There was a faint murmur in the crowd and the older woman who apparently spoke for the elders nodded once.
“Eric Neems.”
Daphne saw the man stand up from the gathered crowd. She hadn’t seen him in his human form but somehow he looked exactly the way she would have expected, and a wave of revulsion washed through her. This was the man who was planning on ruining her reputation for good, who had already done harm to her reputation by smearing her name in the tabloids, by getting her fired from her job. “You’re accused of attempting to harm another shifter outside of the rules of our kind. Alexander Oberon claims that you are sabotaging himself and his mate, instead of challenging him to battle; in fact, that you and he already battled and you still haven’t withdrawn. How do you plead?” Daphne felt her stomach roiling, it was like a regular trial and not at all like one at the same time. She had no idea how things would go.
“Alex has no proof that I am behind any of the recent misfortunes that he’s suffered,” Eric said with a shrug. “As to his assertion that we battled, what proof does he have of that? I reject all of the charges.” Daphne glanced at Alex; he didn’t seem fazed. “Alex is trying to take it out on me like he always has, trying to blame me for his lack of success.” Eric shrugged a
gain. “If he can’t furnish proof, then he should be shunned.” Eric looked at Daphne and Alex, a few feet away, and flashed them a grin.
“Alexander, do you have proof of your allegations?” Alex nodded.
“I have witnesses to both points. Benjamin Norton and my mate, Daphne, will testify.” The woman nodded. Daphne watched as one of the men in the group came forward. The others shifted slightly, looking uncomfortable but Daphne couldn’t imagine why.
“Thank you for seeing me elders,” Benjamin said. He bowed slightly to the set-apart group and flourished a thick folder. “At Alex’s request, I’ve been following Eric’s movements and I can prove with these documents that he was the cause of Daphne being fired. He emailed her supervisor inflammatory pictures of her and Alexander together. He also sent information and pictures of them to several tabloids.” He extended the folder to the elders.
“If Daphne was fired because her relationship with Alex was against her company’s policies, then that’s hardly a charge against Eric,” one of the other elders said. “Even if he provided the information, anyone could have and the result would have been the same.”
“But the tabloids are a different matter,” another of the elders said. “Bringing increased media scrutiny on one of us brings us all closer to being revealed.”
“He didn’t hint at the possibility of Alexander’s true nature; it’s sabotage, and if he has a grievance against Alexander he should settle it in combat but it’s not a danger to the rest of us.” The elders discussed the issue back and forth, some siding with Eric, others with Alex. Daphne’s stomach began to twist and roil inside of her. She thought the spokeswoman for the elders was becoming annoyed, too.
“Let’s move to the second part of the claim. Alexander claims that he and Eric did attempt to settle their issues in combat, that he was the victor but that Eric continues, in spite of this being against the rules of our people.” The woman turned to face the three of them. “What is your evidence?”
Alex spoke up. “My mate witnessed the battle between Eric and myself,” he said. He pushed Daphne slightly forward. “She was not aware that she was going to see the battle. Eric contacted her anonymously. Because of him, she learned of my true nature before she had agreed to become my mate. If Daphne were not genuinely attached to me, he could have revealed us all.” The elders’ eyes all widened.
“This is a very serious accusation.” The spokeswoman looked at Daphne. “Tell us the story.”
Daphne took a deep breath, knowing that all of the shifters surrounding her could smell her fear, her anxiety. She hoped they interpreted it the right way. She told the story of the email she had received, of the instructions of where to go.
“I had no idea of what I was going to see,” she said, looking around at the suddenly rapt audience. “I didn’t even know that were-bears existed.” Daphne shrugged. “When I got to where the stranger told me to meet him, I saw two bears fighting: a grizzly bear and a black bear.” Daphne glanced from Alex to Eric, who was looking paler and more concerned with every passing moment. “I saw the grizzly bear injured, I saw him throw the other bear—I couldn’t say how far. Out of the range of view. He had pinned down the other bear a few times; he was definitely the winner. And then I saw the bear transform back into Alex, injured on the ground.”
“If this is true, Eric Neems should be condemned to death,” one of the elders said. “If Daphne didn’t know of our kind until she was forced to watch this battle…” He shook his head, looking at the other elders.
“How do we even know this battle took place? We have her word against Eric’s.”
Benjamin came forward. “I have the documentation of Eric’s emails and text messages to Daphne requesting that she meet him at a specific place and time. I can prove they came from Eric.”
Beside her, Alex stepped forward. “I can prove that we fought.” He unbuttoned his dress shirt and slipped it over his shoulders. Daphne’s gaze moved directly to the scar from the still-healing wound that Eric had left behind. “This is the wound that Daphne treated for me. It’s obviously from a bear, and a black bear at that.” The elders came closer to examine the wound, and Daphne wondered just how it was that they would be able to tell where it had come from. It wasn’t her business, she told herself firmly, just as long as no one argued the point.
“We must discuss this,” the spokeswoman said. She and the other elders gathered in a tight knot and the rest of the audience watching the trial, along with Eric, Ben, Alex, and Daphne, stood in silence, tension mounting in the air. Daphne couldn’t hear what they were saying but the discussion looked intense, heated even.
She knew that in spite of the evidence, there were some people on the council who had apparently decided to side with Eric, which seemed ridiculous to her. If Eric was putting their kind as a whole in danger—and she hadn’t realized it, but in revealing Alex’s true nature to her, he had taken that risk—then he had to be punished for that, even more than for sabotaging her and Alex’s lives. For her personally, the sabotage was the worse crime, but she could understand for the shifters it would be a much bigger deal that he had revealed their existence to an outsider.
After several long moments, the elders came forward again and Daphne felt her heart beating faster. They had obviously come to a decision but was it the right one? The spokeswoman looked out over the crowd of people gathered and turned her gaze onto Eric with a hard expression on her face that Daphne was able to read at once.
“Eric Neems, you violated the laws of our people by not addressing your grievances with Alexander Oberon in combat amongst our kind. You sabotaged another shifter and his mate even after you battled with him and did not win. Most of all, you revealed our existence to a non-shifter. For that, you must pay the ultimate penalty.” The woman looked out over the crowd. “Ursula, John, Kincaid, you will take him back to our meeting house and he will be executed on the full moon.” Daphne shivered. She hadn’t expected something so dire but then, she told herself firmly, she and Alex could never guarantee they would be done with Eric’s meddling for good short of him being put to death.
As she and Alex walked away from the clearing, arm in arm, Daphne shivered again. She was entering a culture she hadn’t had any idea of until only a short time before. There were undoubtedly rules and laws and punishments that were completely foreign to her.
“How will they do it?” Daphne asked. She knew it was a morbid question, but she couldn’t help herself. Alex led her to their car at the edge of the forest reserve, letting her in before he got in himself.
“It’s very quick, and very humane,” he told her. “It has to be done on the full moon as a law, all executions are.”
“It…how are they going to get away with executing him?”
Alex pressed his lips together. “Eric Neems will disappear. He doesn’t have family, and even if he did, once the elders have passed judgment, they have to simply accept that they have to stick with the story of disappearance. He will be executed in his bear form. He’ll be a dead black bear if he’s ever found.”
Daphne shuddered. “I think, maybe, you should give me a bigger picture of what I’m in for, joining your community.”
Alex nodded. “There’s a lot for you to know but executions are really, really rare.” He kissed her forehead. “You don’t have to see it. Neither of us does. But Eric will be gone for the rest of our lives.”
*
Alex woke up slowly, aware of the presence of Daphne in the bed next to him, her warm, spicy scent filled his nose, the weight of her pressed into him slightly. She was fast asleep, curled up the way he had seen her dozens of times before. He smiled to himself, looking down at her, careful not to disturb her. He had decided to go on a vacation. As CEO of Oberon Industrial, his vacation wasn’t a complete disconnect from the company but he knew that he and Daphne both needed the time to be together, alone.
She had been learning more and more about the world he inhabited: the rules and laws, the pun
ishments, the way things were among shifters in general and were-bears, in particular. He knew she was still struggling with some of the information he gave her, she would never be fully okay with the fact that were-bears could be executed outside of the normal Federal justice system, and without the same kind of strictures that the justice system included. But Alex knew that she wouldn’t come up against that disquieting fact very often.
“What am I going to have to do as your mate?” Daphne had asked him the night before, when they had arrived on the island.
He had rented it for two weeks. He and Daphne were the sole guests, though there was staff ready to fulfill any and all of their requirements for the time they were there. Food, activities, anything they wanted was up to the island’s employees to fulfill.
“What do you mean?” Alex had asked her.
He watched Daphne slipping out of her clothes and into a bathing suit. He had told her that there was no point in worrying about looking nice, that there was no point even in being modest. The only other people on the island with them were employees and they were shifters of varying types. Daphne and he could spend their entire vacation walking around naked and no one would think anything of it. But he accepted that she was still a human and that she had been raised with regular human modesty and body taboos instead of the much freer attitude that shifters adopted.
“I mean… oh, come on, Alex. What do I have to do socially, and all that.” Alex had pulled her into his arms, stalling Daphne before she put on her bathing suit to go down to the beach only a few feet away from their cabin.
“You’ll be at my side for meetings with the elders and the different members of the community,” he explained, kissing her lightly on the lips. “Other than that, nothing really changes.” He had let his hands wander over the curves of her body. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to just go skinny dipping? I’m going to.”
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