by Roxie Noir
He wasn’t even clear on what it meant. Some kind of trial marriage, before the real marriage? Brock had said that it had originated because the Yukon clan had so many arranged marriages. If a marriage really, really wasn’t going to work, the couple had a week to figure it out before being fully and irrevocably mated.
But Brock had also said that, in practice, no one ever really got out of a betrothal. In practice, it was nearly as strong as mating, and undoing it simply wasn’t done.
Trying to keep a watchful eye on the rednecks, Nathan sat at the table in the front. The man to his left was wearing khakis and a polo shirt — clearly his nicest outfit — but he was missing one front tooth. The man across the table from him was watching the ceremony while picking his teeth with a fingernail.
No social graces at all, these backwoods bears, he thought. We might be rough, but we can act right in public.
As if on cue, the teeth-picking shifter across the table from Nathan ripped an incredibly loud fart, and Nathan had to stifle his laughter.
Then, two men walked forward and a hush fell over the crowd. One was a man with gray hair and a long matching beard, who Nathan figured must be Jonah Whitehorse, the alpha of the Yukon clan. Jonah was a man with a certain reputation. It was said that he kept his clan on an even tighter leash than Brock did. After all, Brock didn’t control who married who in the North Star clan. For the most part, with exceptions, everyone could mate with whoever they wanted.
The other man was Ian Homer, the groom-to-be.
The tooth-picking shifter elbowed the guy next to him in the ribs, and both of them quieted down and started looking attentive.
When the man in front had everyone’s undivided attention, he began speaking.
“Today,” he boomed, his voice a deep baritone, “We are here to witness the betrothal and lifelong mated marriage of Leah Whitehorse to Ian Homer.”
Polite applause from most of the audience, excited whoops from the rednecks near Nathan. The back of his neck prickled with irritation, his bear grumbling deep inside.
Save it for the woods, you hicks, he thought.
“While a betrothal is not binding, it is a promise before the clan and before God himself,” he went on. Nathan’s eyebrows went up. The North Star clan wasn’t big on this god stuff, but he’d heard that Yukon was.
“Ian,” he boomed, half-turning to the man standing behind him.
Ian was a tall, still-solid man in his fifties. He had a solemn face, the kind that looked like it didn’t know how to smile, let alone laugh. Nathan didn’t know him well. Though he’d been in the pack for a long time, he’d been closer with Roy, the former alpha who Brock had usurped, and hadn’t really made the transition to the new leadership.
Jonah Whitehorse nodded. “Brother Ian,” he said.
Ian nodded back. “Brother Jonah,” he said.
Nathan wondered if they’d rehearsed. He must have. After all, this had never been done in his clan before.
“Today, you promise to marry my daughter, Leah Whitehorse, and mate with her for all of her days.”
“I do so promise,” Ian said, his hands solemnly clasped in front of him.
“Until your death or hers,” Jonah said.
“Until my death or hers,” Ian repeated.
Jonah took a long moment to look out over the audience. The two clans were both silent, but Nathan could sense that they were different silences: his clan was slightly confused, but mostly respectful, while the Yukon clan was in downright awe.
“Leah,” Jonah intoned, his voice echoing through the hall.
A door in the side of the room opened, and Leah Whitehorse came out.
It was her.
Nathan suddenly felt like he was made of stone. He was completely helpless to do anything but watch her cross the room to stand at Ian’s side.
For one brief moment, she looked back at him, and their eyes locked. He had the same strange feeling he’d had before when she yanked the tart out of his mouth — like deja vu, but more intense. Like he’d already known her his whole life.
She stood next to Ian, and Ian nodded once at her and reached for her hand. She took it, blushing, and looked out over the audience, but she didn’t look at Nathan again.
All of Nathan’s senses went on high alert, and finally, he felt like he could move. From where he was sitting, he could hear her breathing, he could sense the heat rolling off of her body. He thought he could even hear her heartbeat, the quick thump-thump-thump in her chest.
He closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head a bit, and licked his lips, trying to feel more like himself and less like he’d been transported to another plane.
“I know it, man,” the guy next to him murmured, the one with a polo shirt and bad teeth. “I’d put a dozen cubs in her myself.”
He grinned and scratched his balls, and Nathan saw pure red.
His bear roared, and he broke into a sweat with the effort of keeping the shift away and staying human. Maybe these assholes didn’t see anything wrong with acting like animals and slavering over Leah, but he’d be more than happy to teach them how to behave.
He forced himself to ignore the man and watch the ceremony happening ten feet in front of him. If he shifted and tore this jerk apart, he would be coming down to his level, and that was not what Brock had wanted him here for. He was supposed to be making sure that everyone kept order, not causing trouble.
Their ceremony went by, but Nathan was barely listening. All his senses seemed completely filled with her, her scent, her heartbeat, her incredible body, hidden but not well enough beneath that blue dress.
It looked flimsy enough, he thought. He could tear it off of her easily, in just one motion, and then she’d be naked and he could just take her right there, in front of everyone, without giving a damn what anyone saw.
His bear growled, and he realized he was half-erect. Nathan moved in his chair and forced himself to look at Ian, who was decidedly un-sexy.
It seemed like before he blinked, the ceremony was ending. Jonah said something in his deep, solemn voice — Nathan was barely listening — and then he watched Ian put a white ring on Leah’s left ring finger.
Then he leaned toward her, as if to kiss her.
Nathan couldn’t watch, so he squeezed his eyes shut and thought desperately of anything else as the room burst into applause. Everyone lifted their wine glasses at once, and Nathan followed suit, clinking his against the others at the table.
Then he took a sip, and nearly spit it out. He’d been expecting champagne, not the sickly-sweet apple cider. He frowned and put it back on the table, not bothering to finish the stuff.
The redneck to his right nudged him in the ribs.
“I got you covered, man,” he said, and pulled a flask from his jacket pocket, pouring a healthy dose of white alcohol into his glass and then into Nathan’s.
Nathan sniffed. It smelled like pure raw grain alcohol, a very high proof. Moonshine, probably. He took a sip of his drink and his suspicions were confirmed — hooch, for sure, and not high quality, either.
He put the glass back down, forcing himself not to drink it, even though he wanted to. If he drank it, maybe if he had three more, he could get rid of this awful feeling he had, the feeling that he wanted to go over and rip Ian’s head off, then grab Leah and have his way with her.
During the dinner, Nathan mostly used the correct fork — Violet had given him a tutorial on silverware before the event — and Ian and Leah made their way around the dozen-plus tables, arm in arm. Nathan did his best not to look at them and mostly succeeded.
The rednecks at his table finished off the flask of moonshine and produced at least three more. At some point, Nathan lost count, but it took a lot to get a male shifter drunk, and they were definitely getting drunk.
When dessert came around, suddenly, Nathan felt Leah behind him. His head buzzed, and all he could smell was her, her wonderful scent, smelling like citrus and flowers and pure, raw desire.
&
nbsp; “I’m starving!” she said brightly, sitting down one seat away from him. There was another woman between her and Nathan, and when he looked at them together, he realized they must be sisters.
“Hope they saved some for us,” said Ian. Nathan could tell that he was trying to sound lighthearted, but it wasn’t working for him. Everything he said came out sounding deadly serious.
Nathan just concentrated on his cheesecake, briefly wondering what had happened to the table full of other goodies.
“You take that back,” the teeth-picking redneck suddenly shouted.
Nathan jerked his head up quickly. He hadn’t been paying much attention, but both of the redneck relations were totally trashed.
“I say what I want!” roared the other guy.
“Take it back or I’ll knock your shitty teeth right out your pansy-ass mouth,” the first guy shouted. He stood so fast that his chair went over backwards.
Then the other guy was also standing, leaning over the table, face bright red. Nathan could tell he was moments away from a shift, right there in the middle of this classy hall.
“You just try!” he shouted.
Nathan shifted. Years of practice meant that he shifted faster than most everyone else — after all, as the clan’s main enforcer, being a grizzly almost instantly was valuable.
That meant that he had claws and teeth and fur before either other man even had a snout, and in full bear-form, he picked up the redneck with the bad teeth and tossed him fifteen feet, not even looking where he landed before turning on the other man, roaring in his face. He stepped on the table with a front paw, teeth still bared, and the table snapped completely in half as the man shouted at him, struggling to shift faster, fur popping out of his rigid muscles as Nathan watched.
I can’t let them hurt her, was his only thought, the sole thing filling his brain, to the exclusion of everything else.
With one enormous paw, he pushed the other guy backwards, knocking him head over heels and into another table full of people.
Behind him, the rest of the celebrants had retreated backward.
Nathan looked at them quickly, making sure that Leah was okay. Logically, he knew that a couple drunk shifters weren’t a big deal, and it was almost certainly nothing she hadn’t seen before, but his animal was furious, set to protect her at all costs.
She was fine, using one arm to block her sister. Next to her, Ian clutched at her upper arm, his fingers squeezing her beneath her dress so hard it looked almost painful.
Nathan turned and growled, his bear taking over for a moment.
Don’t you dare hurt her, he thought. If you hurt her I’ll fuck you up so good they’ll never even find—
A gun went off, and everyone screamed.
Nathan whirled as everyone began running for the door, only to see one of the two fighting men waving a gun in the air, a small hole in the ceiling above him. He looked as surprised as everyone else, staring up at the hole like it had appeared there by magic.
In two steps, Nathan was on him. Still half-bear but human enough to have fingers, the other guy pointed the gun at him but he was too slow. Nathan reached out and knocked it from his hands, claws raking across his arm as he did.
The man’s mouth dropped open, like he was surprised that this grizzly bear was disarming him.
“STOP!” boomed a voice at the front of the room, and everyone turned to look.
It was Jonah Whitehorse, looking ferocious and commanding, and most of all, angry. Even Nathan could almost feel the man’s glare on his skin, icy and metallic.
Everyone stopped. The people running for the door stopped, the people who’d hit the floor stopped screaming, the rednecks stopped trying to shift and quietly, meekly, went back to human.
Nathan snorted, fighting to bring his grizzly temper back under control.
“Jedidiah and Carson, outside, now,” commanded Jonah, and just like that, both the men who’d been fighting headed for the front door, heads down, Carson bleeding heavily from his forearm. Nathan watched them go and then looked around, still in grizzly form.
Leah was fine, even though he could practically smell the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She looked more angry than frightened, even though Ian was still frowning and clutching her arm, his fingers digging into her sweet, supple flesh, hard enough to hurt...
Nathan’s vision turned red at the edges, and he could feel himself about to lose control.
Ian had a mate once. Her name had been Candace, and Nathan had heard her speak maybe twice. She seemed meek and constantly cowed by Ian, and had even shown up to things with bruises sometimes. Everyone knew that Ian was a worthless asshole, the kind of man who would hurt a woman if she so much as questioned him, but no one had ever done anything.
Then, finally, Candace had run off with a deep-sea fisherman. No one except Ian had been particularly sorry, and Nathan suspected that Ian just missed having someone to push around.
Nathan growled, a low rumble in his chest, and bared his teeth. He’d rip Ian apart if he so much as bruised Leah, and he’d be more than happy to do it.
“Nathan,” said Brock’s voice, behind him, bringing him back down to earth. Nathan turned and looked at his alpha, fury still pumping through his veins.
“Clothes are in the back,” Brock said, nodding toward the door. Nathan’s own clothes were in tatters. It happened when he shifted suddenly; even though he was big as a human, he was nowhere near grizzly-size.
Nathan stepped off the now-broken table and back to the floor, but he didn’t leave the room. Leah was still there, and he didn’t want to leave her, not without him there in a room full of humans who’d brought guns to a betrothal. Ian wasn’t going to protect her properly, even though his hand on her arm had slackened.
“Nathan?” she said, and he looked her straight into her eyes. He could feel something moving through him, a feeling so strong, like someone had grabbed his ribcage and yanked on it. A deep, ancient instinct whispered to him: protect her, take her.
He took a step forward, even his bear appreciating her perfect curves, thinking of how her soft flesh would yield under his, what she would sound like moaning his name.
“I’m fine,” she said. Next to her, Ian nodded, his jaw tightening, and Nathan realized that two hundred people were watching them.
He dipped his head at Brock, cast one last glance at Leah and Ian, then made for the door Brock had indicated. Better not to be stark naked in front of two hundred people, half of whom he’d never met before.
Chapter Four
Leah
Nathan, Leah thought, watching the bear lumber into a back room.
I wouldn’t mind seeing him shift back naked, though.
She felt herself turn bright red, from her toes to the roots of her hair, and cast her eyes down, looking at the destroyed table. The desserts she’d worked for days to bake were scattered around, but there were extras. Leah always made extra desserts, and it made her pretty popular wherever she went.
A hand patted her back lightly, between her shoulder blades, and she turned to her husband-to-be and made herself smile up at him.
“Are you all right?” he said, his face deadly serious.
“I’m fine,” she said, folding her hands in front of herself primly.
She felt anything but fine, though. It wasn’t about her stupid cousins who’d brought their homemade liquor to her nice party and then shot a hole in the ceiling. She’d been hoping that wouldn’t happen this time, but she certainly wasn’t surprised by it.
No, it was about Nathan, the man she’d said about three words to, and who’d shifted on a dime to put an end to the violence.
To protect her. Sure, he’d protected everyone when he got the gun out of Jedediah’s hand, but deep down, Leah knew that he did it for her, and she had no idea what to think.
Ian rubbed her arm, his touch only a little soothing. Somehow, he seemed far away.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re safe here.”
Not because of you, she thought involuntarily.
Leah looked up at him, at his salt-and-pepper hair and serious face.
This is my husband, she thought. He’s my mate. I can’t think thoughts like that.
I love him, she told herself, but even the thought rang a little hollow.
“I apologize for them,” said her father’s deep, booming voice behind her. “They’ll be dealt with.”
Leah turned to face him, and for a moment, she was taken aback at the rage simmering just below the surface of his face.
Jonah Whitehorse was angry as hell, and that was never good. Out of habit, she took a step back and looked down, tricks she’d learned long ago as a way to keep his anger from transferring to her. He’d never been physically abusive, but when he shouted, it felt like the whole house shook.
“It’s quite all right,” said Ian, standing a little stiffly in her father’s presence. She could almost feel his desire to run.
“Leah, it’s time to leave,” her father said. “Brock said that they would take care of everything else.”
Leah raised her eyebrows by a millimeter. Her cousins had shot a hole in the ceiling, and the other clan was doing the cleanup? Her father did have some kind of influence over other people.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told Ian, turning to face.
“Yes, tomorrow, dear,” Ian said, and then bent to kiss her lightly on the cheek, his lips cool and dry. Leah hoped desperately for that electric sizzle, that rush of heat, but nothing happened, just the feel of lips on her cheek and then nothing.
She followed her father out of the hall and into the van with her parents and younger siblings, wondering the whole way what was going on.
Something had happened with Nathan, and whatever it was, it wasn’t happening with Ian at all.
The whole way back to the farmhouse they were staying in for the week, Leah fretted and chewed on her lip.
