by T. S. Joyce
Her opinion of herself was none of his damned business and contrary to what Chase seemed to believe, he didn’t actually know everything. “Oh, because you’ve actually seen Nathan.”
He rushed her and slammed his hand against the wall beside her face. “I’ve gone to battle with him, woman. I watched Brody beat the shit out of your precious alpha, the one who is supposed to be the strongest alpha in all of Long Claw history. I watched him run away as his troops died for him.”
That was news. His account didn’t match Nathan’s battle story at all. “Well, what kind of coward would sneak onto our land and attack us without warning?”
He huffed a laugh and gave a careful-now look as he backed away from her and crossed his arms. “We attacked because Nathan was harboring and abusing our alpha’s mate. You met her tonight. The one who defended you? She spent three days locked in a cabin, mishandled by one of your people, while your mate tried to figure out how to use her in his war. Joanna saved her, but just barely. Your mate isn’t a man, Anya. He’s a monster. Best you don’t defend monsters to me.”
Horrified, her mouth hung open and twin angry tears streamed down her cheeks. “It isn’t true. Take it back.”
“I have no reason to lie. Ask Hannah tomorrow if you don’t believe me.”
He disappeared into a room down the hall and she sat heavily onto the wooden bench, the stew in her clenched hand nearly forgotten.
Nathan told her Bear Valley had attacked him unprovoked. That they were evil and that’s why he was training his bears for war. He said Bear Valley needed to be snuffed out because they had no moral fiber anymore and were tainting their kind. Nathan’s scars, ones that she had pitied and nursed, weren’t because of something bad done to him. If what Chase said was true, they were from his own horrible decisions.
She felt sick and set the stew beside her with a clunk.
If what Chase said was true, what else had Nathan lied about?
Chapter Four
Chase’s house was all beiges, wood floors, and sparse furniture. He seemed to like simple and clean, or maybe his life required less housework, Anya didn’t know. She didn’t really know anything about him, other than he was very handsome in the light of the bedroom as he helped her put fresh sheets on the guest bed.
She’d expected him to dump the armload of linens onto the springy mattress and leave in a huff, but instead, he nodded his chin to the other side of the bed and together, they adorned the bed in silence.
The man was intimidating, seeming to take up much more space than he actually did. What was his role in this community? He was having dinner with Riker, so he must be important, but he had rinsed her dishes and lugged her suitcase to her room unbidden like some middle-of-the-clan member.
He didn’t act right. None of them did.
Straightening, he nodded toward the hallway. “Bathroom is that way. I have work early, so you’ll need wake up at six.”
The room didn’t have an alarm clock, but she didn’t want to bother him anymore. He looked tired and withdrawn.
“See you in the morning,” he said quietly, then walked out the door.
“Chase?”
He peeked his head around the corner. “Yeah?”
“Why do you live in a house with two bedrooms?”
His gaze dropped to her sneakers, and when he met her eyes again, his face had closed off. “I’m a light sleeper. If you try to leave this house in the night, I’ll hear you.”
With that he left, and the hallway light flickered off. She peeked her head out just as he disappeared into a bedroom at the end of the hallway. Only the bathroom separated them.
She was sleeping in the same house with a man who wasn’t Nathan. Okay, so she’d never actually lived with Nathan, or even slept overnight at his place for that matter. He didn’t like being touched in his sleep so she wasn’t allowed, and she lived with his other mates in a house near his. This was new and scary territory, and the most unsettling thing about it was the zing of adventure that had trilled up her spine as her fear faded away. Oh, Chase would probably maim her when he found out his suspicions about her were warranted, but he wasn’t a cruel man.
A cruel man wouldn’t help her put sheets on the bed.
Since she was going to be here indefinitely, she unpacked her suitcase into a small chest of drawers and lined her sneakers and flip flops against the wall near the door. After stowing her suitcase in the closet, she shut the door and shimmied into her pink and black flannel pajama shorts and a dark T-shirt. With her toiletry bag in hand, she padded down the hall to the bathroom, turned on the light and screamed.
Chase was braced against the sink, brushing his teeth, but stood ramrod straight when the light flickered on.
“What are you doing brushing your teeth in the dark?” she asked, trying to convince her heart not to actually leap out of her throat and onto the tile floor.
He shifted his weight and crossed his free arm over his chest, but not before she saw the marks. Long jagged chunks had been taken from the flesh under one of his arms. Even though the edges had healed and looked to be more than a month old, the middle had no skin to cover it.
Horrified, she yanked his hand away and studied the injury. “Who did this to you?” she breathed.
He shrugged away and scowled at his reflection in the mirror, then spat foamy toothpaste into the sink and rinsed his mouth. “None of your business.”
She ran a fingertip along the outer edge of the angry injury and he jerked away.
“Just let me see it,” she implored as he backed away from her. His shoulders hit the wall, and as she reached for him, he grabbed her wrists. His eyes burned and she struggled to escape his grasp.
“Don’t,” he said in a pleading voice as he released her. The vulnerability there drew her up short and she backed away, then sat heavily on the edge of the bathtub. “Why were you in here with the light off, Chase?” she asked again.
Ignoring her, he washed his face, allowing her the opportunity to see the wound better. In fact, she could admire all of him easier.
Nudity was part of life as a shifter, and she saw naked people every day, but Chase had the type of physique that made her inner bear draw up and purse her lips. Thick muscle flexed with his movements, and his stomach was flat and tight as he leaned forward. His skin was smooth, but webbed with small scars that had silvered with age. Even the new injury made him more alluring somehow. Shadows delved into the indentations between his taut muscles, and a pair of sweat pants hung deliciously low around his hips. Even the way water dripped through his oversized hands made her thirsty.
He turned his head and narrowed his eyes. His delicate nostrils flared slightly, and he reached for a towel. Shit, she was staring.
“I can make a balm for that,” she said, pointing to the wound he still hadn’t looked at in the mirror. “It’ll still scar, but I can make it look better than it will if you just leave it alone.”
“We have a healer. She’s done all she can do for it.”
“Okay,” she said, standing. “I was just trying to help.”
“Well, I don’t need your help, spy. I need you to prove your worth or fuck up so you can get out of my house and go back to living in my own space without some stranger woman involving herself in business she has no right to.” He flung the towel at her and stormed out.
Oh, what a pushy bear he was. She wanted to follow him and dress him down for his ungratefulness in the face of her generous offer, but there was no use arguing with a dominant bull-headed shifter. Pushing a man like Chase would bring her nothing but pain.
And besides, what did she care if his wound healed marred. Scars like those were sexy and would probably have all the girls a-runnin’ to his bed. The thought made her brush her teeth a little harder, and when she spat, there was pink in the sink. His fault.
Why was he readying for bed with the lights off? Maybe it was because he thought she was already asleep and he didn’t want to bother her with the illumin
ation from the bathroom. More likely, it was because he was avoiding looking at himself in the mirror, the vain man. Nathan pulled that shit, but Chase was better than that. At least he should be.
Before she could change her mind, she stomped down the hall and threw open the door to his room. He sat on the edge of his bed in the glow of a single bedside lamp with his elbows on his knees and his hands over his face.
He looked…broken.
“Go away.” His voice sounded raw and strained.
She should leave. When a Long Claw male sounded like this, a wise woman left the situation. But something in the way he sat there tugged at her, opening her and deflating the anger from inside her like a balloon. She walked closer and knelt in front of him, sitting back on her heels. Reaching out, she touched his knee. “I don’t know you, Chase, but from what I’ve seen, you’re a confident man.” And confidence is the sexiest trait in a man, her inner bear pointed out. “You shouldn’t be worrying about what the scar looks like.”
He snorted and lifted eyes the color of warm caramel to hers. “I don’t care what it looks like, Anya. It feels like shit and looking at it makes it hurt even worse.”
“Oh.” A little piece of her was relieved that it wasn’t vanity causing his angst, but she didn’t like that he was hurting. Not at all. “Has your healer given you anything for the pain?”
“All my bear will tolerate is an herbal tea. He’s…”
“Pushy?”
The ghost of a smile crooked one side of his mouth. “That’s one word for him.”
From the way her gaze kept drifting to the crotch of his pants right at eye level, she’d go out on a limb and say her inner bear was currently turned on, the little minx. She tried to remind herself about Nathan, but horny inner bear didn’t care and Anya’s eyes dipped to his pants again. She could just make out a giant bulge, and she licked her lips once to wet them.
Hormones were turning her brain to mush, and he was watching her watch…his pants. Abruptly, she stood and asked, “Where’s the tea?”
“You don’t have to—”
“Tea,” she demanded impatiently. She needed to escape this room right now, and she wasn’t going to lie in bed all night wishing she would’ve made the damned pain-killer for him. Could he make it himself? Yes, but for whatever pig-headed reason, he wasn’t.
Leaning back on locked elbows that thrust his hips enticingly forward, he sighed, his abs flexing with the motion. “In the cabinet near the fridge.”
Ripping her gaze away from the mounds of abdominal muscles begging to be petted, suckled and licked, she fled the room and found the kitchen.
Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, she silently chanted.
Chase, Chase, Chase, inner horny bear answered.
What was wrong with her? One day away from the Long Claws and she’d turned into an argumentative, bold and shamelessly sassy woman, and now her panties were wet for another man? She’d lost her damned mind.
She poured water into a black tea kettle Chase kept on the stove, then turned the heat up. Sure, she liked sex and she liked it regularly, but that didn’t excuse her wanton thoughts. And sure, she hadn’t really been satisfied by Nathan in a while, and granted, he was trying his damndest to find an excuse to banish or murder her, but falling for the first man she met outside of the clan was amateur hour. And Chase wasn’t even all that nice. Good to look at? Hell yes. But he was moody, hot and cold on a constant loop, and every time she opened her mouth she pissed him off.
A little gasp escaped her. Maybe her heat was finally coming on. That would explain the hormone surge in the bathroom and the crotch gawking in his bedroom. That must be it.
She pouted out her lips. She should feel relieved, but now Nathan would have a chance to get her with cub. Then she would never be free of him. Her eyes flew wide at the thought. Was that the plan now? To escape him somehow? Everything seemed clearer, her future more open now that she was away from him. She revisited her earlier plan on fleeing. She could go to Alaska maybe. She had always wanted to go to Jamaica or England. She hadn’t been anywhere but wherever the Long Claws took over and settled.
“Stop it,” she muttered. Her place was with her alpha. She could almost hear her parents rolling over in their shallow graves as she entertained thoughts of abandoning her clan.
“Stop what?” Chase asked from behind.
The tea kettle whistled, and the chair he pulled out from under the oak dining table screeched across the wood floor. She hunched her shoulders against the noise.
“Nothing.” The lid made a popping sound as she pulled it from the square tin that held seven tiny homemade tea bags. She grabbed two and unfolded their strings, then poured hot water into a mug and dipped them.
When she set the mug in front of him, he grabbed her hand and leaned forward. His eyes burned into her, daring her to pull away. “Tell me you aren’t spying on us for Nathan.”
She stood frozen, afraid of telling him, afraid of not telling him, as confusion swirled round and round in her head. This was the moment she could end her ties with Nathan, denounce him and move on. But then he’d kill her. And there seemed to be an even worse option now. Worse, he’d hurt the people here. She didn’t understand their ways, but it didn’t mean they were worth annihilating.
“I swear,” she whispered.
She’d hate herself forever for siding with a monster.
She deserved Nathan.
Chapter Five
The work day had drawn to a close and Anya was exhausted. Who would’ve ever in a million years thought cattle took so much effort? She’d always imagined cows were just released into a field to munch on grass, but that wasn’t even close. The head of the cattle barns, Shane, had ordered them to round up the calves and yearlings to work. Which sounded simple enough, but she’d never ridden a four-wheeler before and ‘working’ them meant wrestling them to the ground and castrating the little bulls, then driving the rest into shoots to deworm and dehorn the ones that needed such attentions. She was filthy and her clothes were stiff from the sweat she’d perspired today. And the smell that clung to her skin was definitely bovine in nature.
“Hannah?” Anya asked. “Would it be against the rules for me to visit your healer?”
“I guess I could take you by Daria’s house right now. Are you hurt?”
“No, not me. Well, I do have some questions I couldn’t ask the Long Claw healer on account of Nathan finding out everything that went on there. But also, I need a few ingredients for a balm for an injury Chase sustained. If she doesn’t have them, maybe she could point me in the right direction on where to get them.”
“Oh,” Hannah said with a frown.
Anya was still desperately trying to wrap her head around the fact that Hannah was human, and the only mate of the alpha of Bear Valley, but she had been really nice and patient with her all day. Anya liked her. It was easy to see why she and Joanna and Riker’s sister, Jenny, were so close.
A little pang of sadness washed through her when she thought about not being here to build a bond with them. She might’ve liked life here if she’d come to Bear Valley under different circumstances.
“There’s Jo,” Hannah said, waving to the woman jogging toward them.
With the rhythm of Joanna’s gait, her dark hair swung from side to side. She squeezed Anya’s shoulder and fell in step beside them.
“How were the meetings?” Hannah asked.
“Good. The budget was approved to order twenty more solar panels and we’ll be building three new houses beginning next week. Cameron has been on a tear with the finances.”
Hannah turned to Anya and explained, “Jo is thinking about applying for a council member position at the next alpha challenge and is trying to learn the ins and outs of the colony. So she sits through boring meetings all day.”
Joanna laughed. “They’re only boring to you and Jenny. I find them fascinating. Anya, I bet you would too. Things are run so differently here than under Nathan.”
&n
bsp; “I’ve noticed.” In fact, she could hardly find any similarities and it was disconcerting. If the Long Claws knew there was a different, more peaceful and efficient way to run things, would they follow their blood thirsty leader so blindly?
“I heard that you aren’t Nathan’s only mate,” Hannah said low.
So she and Joanna must have been gossiping. Anya inhaled the fresh mountain air, and plucked a blade of long stem grass from the field they were walking through.
“I’m not the only one, but I was the first.”
“Did you know there would be others when you had the ceremony?”
Ceremony? There hadn’t been one. “No, I thought I was it. I felt pretty duped when he brought Greta and April in. And now he has Merit too.”
Hannah’s delicate eyebrows flew upward. “What?”
Crap, she’d forgotten about how much Merit had hurt Hannah. “Oh, yeah. Um, Chase told me some of what Merit did to you. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.”
An uncomfortable silence blanketed them, and in an effort to save the conversation, Anya admitted, “Greta and I used to call her an evil shrew when no one else was around. I told Nathan I didn’t like Merit before he threw me out.”
“She is a terrible, horrible person,” Hannah whispered in a haunted voice. “Evil shrew is a fitting name.”
“She and Nathan deserve each other then.” Anya didn’t know why she said that, only that it felt right, and wasn’t just some ploy to get these women to trust her. Both manipulative and cruel when they felt like it, Nathan and Merit really did match each other well.
At the end of the week, she was supposed to meet Nathan on the edge of Bear Valley territory with information about this clan, and she’d gathered exactly nothing she could use against them. And the biggest part of her was glad she hadn’t. Maybe she could just make stuff up.
“Here’s Daria’s house,” Hannah said, interrupting her troubled reverie. “We’ll wait out here, and then take you to Chase.”
Just the mention of his name sent a trill of anticipation down her spine. Her stomach clenched and warmth spread through her middle as she imagined, for the tenth time today, his flexed body as he had washed his face last night.
