CHRIS

by Becca Fanning

  CHRIS

  MC Bear Mates VI

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2017 by Becca Fanning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  “Fuck me, already.”

  Ava Marie Donner glowered at the rider beside her.

  “Why should I?” she retorted, eying the cub up and down. “You feel like losing your balls to my daddy’s claws?”

  The dick, a new prospect by the name of Edison, just grinned in response. “I’d run the risk.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re not my mate.”

  “And you’re staying pure for him?” Edison demanded, his grin turning lewd.

  “It’s none of your business if I am or not,” she retorted snidely. “Whatever the hell I am doing, it won’t be with you.”

  “Ain’t I strong enough for you, princess?” Edison growled, kicking the hog’s stand down.

  “No,” she told him bluntly. “I’m the Clan Leader’s cub... what do you think?”

  Edison’s cheeks, still round with youth, turned ruddy with the humiliation he felt at her words. “I could take your daddy.”

  The statement had her barking out a laugh. “You could, huh? I’ll tell him the next time he’s looking for someone to spar with. Or, do you think you could Challenge him now? Maybe take him on for Prez?”

  The red that had so swiftly appeared drained into a pasty white that had her lips twitching with a derisive amusement.

  It was unusual to have one of The Nomads MC actually approach her. Sure, they looked often but they never touched. They usually valued their lives more than that. Her daddy was the biggest, baddest bear in the MC. Still in his prime, he’d survived three Challenges alone last year, so Edison’s posturing was ridiculous to the extreme. There wasn’t the slightest chance that he’d win.

  Striding away from the bikes she’d been eying with envy, she headed from the bike shed where Edison had caught her and back to the clubhouse.

  Mischa, the mate of the club’s VP, Kiko, appeared out of nowhere. Her Slavic accent was still present even though she’d been in the States for over twenty-five years now as she murmured, “Do you wish me to talk to Kiko about him?”

  Ava shot Mischa a look. “I can handle him.”

  “Why waste energy on it?” A very Slavic shrug came next. “He’s hardly prospect material if he’s coming onto the Prez’s only child. Moron,” she finished with a sniff. “Let Kiko sort the wheat from the chaff.”

  “He could be good for the club He’s just thinking with his dick.”

  “When don’t they?” Mischa retorted with a grimace. “Still, he’s more of an idiot than most.”

  Ava couldn’t argue with that. “No. I’ll see how I get on, then I’ll talk to Kiko. If he doesn’t lay off, I know what to do. Don’t worry.”

  “Good.”

  The satisfaction in her tone had Ava smirking, but the smirk died a quick death as she grunted, “There’d be no wheat to sort if Kiko got rid of all the prospects who pester me.”

  Mischa grimaced. “True, but they just gawp. He approached you. The boy’s an idiot,” she declared. “For the moment, he deserves to keep his balls—as you so rightly said, Mars will take them from him for pestering you.”

  She laughed at the memory. “Did you see his face?”

  Mischa grinned. “I did. From bright red to pale white. You handled yourself well, babushka.”

  Ava dipped her head for a moment, then shot Mischa a grateful smile. “Thank you for not wading in.”

  Mischa’s grimace was rueful. “It was hard not to, but I heard your argument with your mother the other night. How could I intervene when it causes you such upset when she does?”

  “I know she means well, but...”

  “She’s your mama, babushka. She’ll always try to watch over you.”

  “In human years, I’m an adult now. I shouldn’t even be living here. I should be living on my own.”

  Mischa snorted. “Tell that to your papa.”

  Ava sighed, but it wasn’t an overly irritated one. She’d long since come to terms with the fact life would be easier if she stayed at the clubhouse until her mate Claimed her.

  Whenever he decided to get around to it.

  Damn him.

  God, she longed for a house of her own. A place that her parents didn’t see as an extension of their own den.

  What was it about mothers anyway?

  No matter where you hid the vibrators, they seem to have some kind of weird ability to find them.

  Grimacing at the memory of her mother’s face when she’d come across Ava’s favorite vibrating butt plug, she confessed to Mischa, “They’re driving me crazy at the moment.” Though, she wasn’t sure why her father had given her permission to go through her room. The lock on the door was supposed to keep the Clan out, including her mother. Yet, she found a way in anyways.

  “It’s all the new prospects sniffing around you. They’re just concerned, that’s all.” She placed her hands together like she was praying and mumbled, “Thank the Goddess I was gifted boy children, not girls.”

  Ava chuckled. “Thanks!”

  Mischa shook her head, eyes twinkling. “You know what I mean. Boys are hard enough, but girls? You and Jessie drive half the men insane with your hormones.”

  Ain’t that the truth.

  Before Mars, her father, had met her mother, Annette, the MC hadn’t had a mate bond in the Clan house. They’d never experienced the weirdness of having unmated adult females in the den. It was discomforting to the extreme to know that the entire clubhouse was aware of her cycle. They had more fights and Challenges around those times of the month. It was a blessing that such close living had synced up the daughters’ cycles so it only happened once a month. Jesus, if it happened twice? Ava wasn’t sure the men would have survived it.

  Mischa tucked her arm into Ava’s. “Do you want some borscht? It’s ready.”

  “Only if we have sour cream.”

  Mischa snorted. “When don’t we have sour cream when I’m making borscht?”

  The bizarre purple soup was a staple of the clubhouse. In fact, the whole Clan ate Slavic meals at least four times a week as Mischa oversaw the kitchens.

  For a woman whose parents were American, she knew more about Ukrainian fare than some fourth-generation Ukrainian immigrants!

  “A big bowl,” Ava said with a pout. “I only got a small bowl last time.”

  “You were lucky to get that.” Mischa kissed her cheek. “I saved you the bowl.”

  “I know. Thank you, Mischa.” She nuzzled her temple against the other woman, finding and giving comfort with the small gesture. “You’re the best.”

  As they walked down the hall toward the kitchens, Ava wondered why it was that her closest friend in the den was her mother’s age.

  Jessie on the other hand was a pain in the butt. Two years younger than Ava and born to a Council member, she’d always been a nuisance, and the boys born to her father’s other Council members were equally as irritating.

  Jaden and Kon, Mundo and Christie’s twins, were the eldest and the least annoying. As the three eldest, they’d always been the closest, but since they�
��d turned prospect, she barely saw them as they went off and worked on MC business.

  As her father was approaching his third century, he was, quite frankly, a chauvinist. She knew the man had been around when corsets were considered the height of fashion and people spoke about the Civil War as in the recent past, but did he have to be such a jerk about it?

  Though Ava wanted nothing more than to be a prospect, to do what Jaden and Kon did, what Gin and Cal would do next year, she couldn’t.

  Instead of riding the hogs she loved, she had to ride a desk. It didn’t help she had her mother’s head for admin work. It didn’t help that she could manage the clubhouse with her eyes closed, and that she surpassed her mother’s skill with that task. Admin simply wasn’t what she wanted, though.

  She huffed a sigh when Mischa toddled off to the hob. Watching as she grabbed a bowl and ladled off a huge portion which she anointed with a swirl of sour cream, Ava smiled as she placed it on the counter before her. Taking a seat behind it, she murmured, “Thanks, Mischa.”

  She got a wink in response. “I saw your gloomy face this morning and knew it would cheer you up.”

  “Was it that obvious?” she teased, spooning up some of the beetroot soup and sipping at it.

  “Not to most, but you know I can always sense your moods.”

  Strange that Mischa could and her own mother couldn’t. Glumly, she grumbled, “I wish you couldn’t. I wouldn’t wish my moods on anyone.”

  “We both know why,” came the knowing retort from Mischa.

  “What can I do?” she asked after another mouthful of soup. “I can’t make him Claim me.”

  “I don’t understand how he’s held off for so long,” Mischa countered, shaking her head as she leaned over the counter. “I mean, Kiko waited a Godawful amount of time for me, but Chris is being ridiculous now.”

  “He says he’d be a pervert to Claim me at my age.”

  Mischa grumbled, “Men and their pride.”

  “The bitch of it is, my dad would probably agree.”

  “Waiting is doing neither of you any good,” Mischa argued. She stood upright and headed for the fridge. Grabbing two bottles of water, she passed one to Ava before opening her own. “Did you see him last cycle?”

  Her and Jessie’s periods were officially known as ‘the cycle’. She’d ceased being mortified by such a collective awareness of her menstrual rhythm. There was only so many times a woman could blush at the irreparable.

  “Yeah. He was bad, wasn’t he?” She grimaced at the memory of him almost getting into a fight with one of the older prospects who he’d caught flirting with Ava. He’d punched his fist into the wall and Pip, Major’s mate and the Clan’s healer, had had to heal him.

  She’d watched her mate have his bones magically reset and hadn’t been able to approach him. Not to convince him the flirting had been one-sided as his glowers had made her surmise, nor to simply hold his other hand as Major’s mate, another of her father’s Council, healed him.

  Mischa scoffed. “Bad? Understatement, babushka. He can’t take much more, surely?”

  “I don’t know what he can take, frankly. He stopped talking to me a long time ago.” She firmed her jaw at that, but emotion overwhelmed her and her spoon clattered against the bowl as she dropped it. It took her a few deep breaths to get herself in line again.

  “That might be for the best,” Mischa told her softly. “If he’s not willing to Claim you yet, then staying out of your way keeps the peace.” She took a sip of water. “I don’t understand how your father doesn’t know Chris is your mate. How he hasn’t seen is beyond me.”

  “Chris is good at hiding it. And he’s made me hide it for so long, I am too.”

  “It’s not fair on either of you.”

  “What can I do? I can’t make him Claim me.” If she had that ability, she’d have been his since her eighteenth birthday.

  Clan lore was ridiculous in that it said children only matured after forty years. Even at fifty, they were still considered cubs, just more mature than the youngest kits in the Clan. Yet, they sent their kids off to human schools. The disparity between maturity was insurmountable. To be raised among kids who were considered adult at eighteen and who left home shortly after, while the cubs had no choice but to return to the den to be swaddled...it was, quite frankly, unbearable.

  “It’s such a shame he’s as old as he is,” Mischa complained. “There would be fewer issues if you two were closer in age.”

  At ninety, Chris wasn’t exactly old in terms the Clan was used to. But the age difference was a problem for him. Not for her. But she knew it would be an issue for her parents which was why she’d understood his desire to wait for her to mature.

  Mars was incredibly strong as a Clan leader. Few were stronger in the country, and though he didn’t rule the MC with an iron fist, he definitely was in command and no one could mistake it.

  Chris, thanks to his business acumen, was on the Council. The MC had many fingers in many pies; something her father had instigated before her birth. The Nomads were nationally renowned now. Not as a Clan, but as an MC. They had their own breweries with award-winning brands of beer and ales. They even had fucking merchandise.

  Chris, though a rider to his core, had gone back to college and had studied public relations to better serve his MC. As a result of his studies, the smallest of their divisions, a chain of garages, had expanded all over the state thanks to an advertising campaign that had gone viral.

  As a thank you, he was on the Council. In essence, that was great. Her father knew how damn clever her mate was. But that mate was in constant contact with said father and knew how protective he was of his daughter.

  She’d be lucky if she was still unclaimed when she hit forty.

  “Where’d you go?” Mischa asked, gently squeezing her arm.

  “Just thinking about things I can’t change,” she said glumly.

  “Maybe you should ask your dad about college again.”

  Ava blinked at her. “After the last time?” Mars wanted her where he knew she was. She’d tried, unsuccessfully, over the years to get him to agree but to no avail. And unless she wanted to leave the Clan, permanently; exile herself from all she knew and loved, her enormous extended family included, then she had no choice but to do as he wished.

  “Yeah. That last time was two years ago. You’re twenty-five now. Plus, I told you not to pitch for an out of state college again. Go to a local one so it will at least get you out of the clubhouse. That’s what you both need. Time apart.” She grimaced. “Well, that’s the last thing you need but circumstances being what they are, that’s what will do you good. Proximity isn’t going to help you.” She squeezed Ava’s arm again. “You need to do something, babushka. You’re miserable.”

  A shaky breath escaped her as she put the spoon back in the bowl. “I know.” What could she say? Mischa was one hundred percent right.

  “It would help if you could tell your parents...”

  “He made me swear not to.”

  “And yet I still don’t understand why.”

  She shrugged. “He said he didn’t want to be kicked out of the MC by the Prez for being mated to his daughter.”

  Mischa made a pshawing noise. “What a ridiculous reason.”

  “You said it yourself, Mischa. Men and their pride. They don’t make any sense whatsoever.”

  The sound of boots stomping down the hall echoed into the kitchen. Mischa’s smile was all the proof Ava needed to know it was her mate, Kiko, coming down the way.

  She dropped her head in politeness as the two greeted each other. Too used to the mated pairs in the den eating each other’s faces off after being reunited after even the shortest spaces of time, she didn’t even turn red at the noises Mischa made.

  Hell, she’d seen nearly all of the mated couples in various phases of in flagrante dilecto. On top of that, she’d seen the club bunnies at work. There was no getting embarrassed after seeing what they did to earn their s
pot in the MC and to keep the riders happy.

  A large hand clapped down on her back, and she turned at the signal that the smooching was over. “Hey Kiko,” she greeted with a faint smile.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” the VP asked, wrapping a beefy arm over her shoulder as his mate ladled him some soup. It was a portion that made Ava’s mighty bowl look small and she smiled a little at the size of it as it reminded her of Goldilocks and the three bears, especially when Mischa took a bowl for herself that was the smallest of the lot.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Kiko. Thanks for asking though. You okay?”

  He grunted. “Lies! But I’ll forgive you because you’re my favorite goddaughter.”

  She laughed. “I’m your only goddaughter.”

  “Good job. You cause enough trouble for two.” He winked at her to tell her he was teasing, then when she just smiled weakly at him, he frowned. Shooting his mate a look, Kiko murmured, “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Are you feeling ill? Your cycle was last week, wasn’t it?”

  Withholding a huff at his comment, she jerked a shoulder. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” Mischa inserted. “She wants to go to college.”

  Kiko groaned. “Oh Jesus, not that again.” He scrubbed a hand over his face but when he reached for his spoon, Mischa slapped it.

  “That’s not helpful, Kiko. We need helpful suggestions here.”

  He snorted. “You’re not the one who has to put up with Mars when he has his tantrums.”

  “I know, but you surely know of a way to help us?”

  “Why do you want to go to college, Ava?” he asked, his tone a little to desperate, but Ava knew it was because of the militant glowers in his mate’s eye. “You’re already the best administrator the Clan has. You don’t need a degree to tell you that.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t want to be an administrator.”

  When he went for a spoonful of borscht, Mischa slapped his hand again. He sighed. “It seems like I can’t eat until I help. So, what is it you want to study?”