by Anna Lowe
But then Janna — who he could just about kiss sometimes — brought Sarah a little teddy bear and a ridiculously furry toy wolf. Janna and Jessica kicked him out of the room and talked to Sarah for hours. About girl stuff, he supposed, though he never figured there’d be so much to cover. The room was quiet for a while, then peals of laughter bounced through the walls, interspersed with naughty giggles.
Simon walked by with a faraway look that said his mind was communicating with his mate, and he moaned. “Jesus, I thought only guys talked about that stuff.” Simon rapped sharply on the door. “Jess! No need to share every detail, right?”
“Every detail of what?” Soren asked.
Simon rolled his eyes. “They’re telling Sarah about mating bites.” He thumped Soren on the chest. “I’m out of here.”
Cole followed him with an apologetic look, wincing at whatever thought Janna had shot into his mind. “Do you have to share everything, honey?”
Soren stared at the door for a while, caught somewhere between arousal and despair. Shifter pairs shared mating bites to seal their bond, and it was said to be an incredible high, especially when coupled with the peak of sex. He’d dreamed of biting Sarah in a thousand dusky fantasies. But shifters grew up with those stories and knew there was no danger, only a rush. How would Sarah feel about the idea?
He paced the hallway like a goddamn expectant father outside a delivery room while the women chatted for hours. When the door finally opened, he jumped away and stood in guilty silence.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” Janna scolded.
Jessica burst into giggles. “How long have you been waiting around here, bear?”
He craned his neck and saw Sarah behind them, hiding a smile as the other two cackled away. At him. Him, the alpha of this clan!
The crazy thing was, he laughed too. Out of sheer relief, because it didn’t look like Sarah was packing her bags or edging out the door.
Then he coughed and glared out of the principle of the thing to shoo the two she-wolves away. He stepped into the room, shut the door, and walked to Sarah, who was sitting on the bed with the stuffed animals. He sat down beside her, leaving her a little space.
“Um… You okay with all this bear stuff?” he tried after a pause.
She smiled and pulled him closer. “You know I have a thing for bears.”
And damned if her voice wasn’t husky, her eyes bright.
As much as he gulped, the lump sitting in his throat refused to go down.
“I wanted to tell you so many times,” he said. “I hated keeping it from you. But…but…” He shook his head at all those years full of buts, ashamed of each and every one.
Sarah pulled him closer, and they sat there, forehead to forehead, letting another minute tick quietly by.
“I’m good with bears.” Sarah nodded. “If you’re good with…” Her hand slipped to her stomach, and she drew away from him.
He pulled her right back. It was time he tore down the brick wall standing between them, once and for all.
“How could I not be good with something that’s part of you?”
She squeezed her lips together, and he could see the doubt in her mind, hear the unspoken words. But this baby isn’t yours.
He took a deep breath and slowly, carefully, put his hand on her belly. “Todd would have taken care of my child like it was his own. I’ll take care of his the same way.”
When Sarah glanced up at him looking sadder than ever, he shook his head firmly and went on. “Not because I have to. Because I want to. Because it’s yours. Because this baby is clan.”
She looked so desperately hopeful, yet still so scared, so he plunged on.
“Because the baby is my…my…” He searched for the word.
Mine? his bear suggested.
He pictured Sarah standing on the bar with the shotgun, surrounded by rogues, and had to fight away a flood of rage and fear that threatened to wash over him all over again. He’d fought for the baby as much as he fought for Sarah. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing either of them.
“Mine,” he said firmly. “The baby is mine.”
Sarah’s fingers tightened over his.
“I mean, I want the baby to be mine. It feels like mine.” God, was he even getting it all out right? “I’ll make it mine, if you’ll let me. I mean…”
And thank God Sarah put a finger over his lips then, because he was stuck, damn it. Again.
“Soren.”
He looked at her. Christ, now he was the desperately hopeful one.
She nodded. “I want the baby to be yours.”
“You do?” His heart thumped a little faster as his bear started bouncing inside.
Mine!
Another nod. “Just like I want to be yours. Like I want you to be mine.”
“I already am yours.” She was his one, his only. Always had been, always would be.
She drew a finger down his cheek and smiled. Almost a little sultry, that grin. And just like that, his inner thermometer flipped right over to hot.
“I mean, all the way yours, my love.”
He blinked at her. “All the way? As in…”
She rounded her hands over his shoulders and pulled him close.
“All the way,” she whispered in his ear.
The scent of her arousal filled his nose. Filled the whole room, and his swooped in right on its heels. He was hard already. Hungry. So, so ready to claim his mate.
“All the way, as in…” he murmured, pushing her back to the mattress. God, seeing her look up at him that way…
“As in, a mating bite,” she said at last, nibbling his ear. “Jess and Janna said it was pretty amazing.”
He snorted. “Only pretty amazing?”
She laughed, and the last bit of tension slipped off his shoulders.
“I’ll show you amazing,” he said, claiming her lips with his.
Then it was his turn to stay locked up in that room with Sarah for hours, and it wasn’t to talk, except maybe with actions and deeds. Like long, lingering kisses to her belly and her breasts. Like peeling off her clothes, one layer at a time, and nuzzling her all over, marking her as his.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured in her ear. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back, and when his lips closed over her nipple—
“Oh!” she cried, and her whole body rose.
Her hands flitted all over him, not quite focused on one thing. Which only wound him up tighter, those fleeting little touches to his shoulders, his rear, his chest. When she closed her fist around his hard, aching cock, he groaned.
Make her ours! his bear roared inside.
God, he was so, so close to coming. So, so close to biting. To making her his forever. But he wasn’t going to rush this even if it killed him.
The hand that had been kneading her breast slid over her belly and past her mound. Familiar ground, but still, it felt like their first time.
My beautiful, beautiful mate, his bear chanted as he ran a finger through her folds.
“Soren,” she moaned, writhing under him.
God, she was amazing. She’d faced down the Blue Bloods like a warrior, but now she was all woman again.
All mine. Mine!
His cock ached when he touched her inside, impatient to slide into that tight, hot sheath.
Take her! Make her mine!
“Soren,” she panted, throwing her head back. He looked up at all that white, unblemished skin, and his heart rate jumped.
Bite her. Take her. Make her mine.
How he’d resisted the urge so many times in the past, he didn’t know. His canines extended, and he couldn’t hold them back. Didn’t want to hold them back.
“Do it,” she cried. “Bite me. Make me yours.”
He ducked his head against her chest and panted there for a second or two. “Mating is forever, Sarah. And it would make you a bear, too,” he managed to rasp out between heavy breaths. Did she understand that? Was she sure?
“I always wanted forever,” Sarah said. “I always wanted you.”
Every muscle in his body screamed for him to bite. This was the moment. No more waiting. No more hoping. No more wishing.
He climbed back up her body and all but smothered her in a kiss, and she arched against him, begging for more.
“Sarah,” he growled, assuring himself this was real and not another dream.
So, so real, his bear howled. And better than any goddamn dream.
“Soren,” she groaned, pushing her hips against his.
Make her ours now!
He kissed her throat a dozen times as he turned her as gently as his half-crazed bear could be convinced to do and pulled her onto all fours. When she arched her back and raised her head, her hair cascaded to one side, exposing her neck.
There, his bear cried, honing in on the smooth flesh. Right there.
He kneeled behind her, running his hands over her rear. Sliding into place.
“Soren,” she mumbled.
He plunged in, and her voice rose to a cry of delight.
“God, yes. Yes…”
Her hips jammed against his, and she might as well have yelled, Deeper! Faster!
Mate! My mate!
He thrust in and out until her cries steadied out and they both fell into a rhythm, rocking at exactly the same time.
“Yes…”
He leaned forward and let his teeth scrape her neck.
“Bite me,” she breathed.
He pushed her hair aside and licked her skin, almost exploding at the barrage of sensations. The tight squeeze of her inner muscles against his cock. The hot slide as he thrust in and out. The soft weight of her breast in his hand, and the scent of her, most intense right there at her neck.
She called to him with her body, her voice, and her mind. Take me, my love.
He pulled his lips back, settled his mouth over her neck, and let his teeth break the skin. As slowly and carefully as he could while still pounding into her from behind, because he couldn’t stop that any more than he could stop breathing or reveling in the pleasure-pain.
There was no cry of horror, no gushing blood. Nothing but Sarah’s deep moan of pleasure and a steady pulse under his teeth. Her life force, calling to him.
Destiny, his bear said. Destiny wants this.
He couldn’t doubt it, because her flesh parted as if it had been waiting for his bite for all these years. Years!
He bit deeper, keeping his lips sealed over her skin.
His hips pumped harder and harder, and every muscle in him tensed as he exploded inside her.
Mate! My mate!
It was a high like he’d never experienced or even imagined. A connection that went beyond the points of his teeth and his pulsing cock to reach deep, deep into his soul.
“Sarah.” He held her tight against his body as she shuddered and cried.
Release. Sweet, sweet release. The invisible weight that had been pressing down on his soul for so long he’d stopped noticing it lifted and fluttered away like an oversated bird of prey. Everything fluttered away. The room, the light, and the sounds of the street below. Everything but the feel of Sarah connected to him.
She murmured his name again and again, then shook with a second aftershock. He held on to the mating bite all through it and the next, then slowly, slowly released her when she went limp under him.
They collapsed on their sides, squeezed together as tightly as exhausted limbs allowed, and he kissed her neck a dozen times as she all but purred under his touch.
“So, so good,” she mumbled in a daze.
So, so mine, he wanted to say.
So say it, his bear prodded him. She is.
He closed his eyes and relished that feeling, that truth. It was in the tingle on his skin, and the glow around their bodies. Finally — finally! — Sarah was his. He was hers. Forever.
He smoothed a hand over her cheek and curled closer.
“Mine,” he whispered. “My beautiful mate.”
When she sighed and turned to peek at him over her shoulder, he just about melted at the love in her eyes.
“What are you looking at?” she murmured. Her eyes were glowing, her pulse skipping under his hand.
“You,” he whispered. “You.”
Epilogue
Four months later…
Sarah yawned and cracked an eye open. What was that humming sound?
She let her eyes roam sleepily, bringing the room into focus. The pale pink light of dawn filtered through the curtains hung over the arched windows, lighting up the bookshelves along one wall. Real bookshelves, because they’d finally turned the bare walls of her room into a homey space. Soren’s room had become their own private living room, and the third room in their corner of the meandering apartment over the saloon was the nursery, though they hadn’t gotten around to moving the crib yet. It was still in their bedroom, near the crescent moon night-light glowing faintly in a corner of the room. That was the corner where the hum came from, along with the faint creak of a rocking chair.
A little gurgle sounded, and the hum broke off.
“Shh,” Soren whispered to the bundle snuggled close to his chest. “Mommy’s sleeping.”
She hid her smile and watched as he nuzzled the baby with his nose. Soren barely fit into the chair, and the baby seemed too tiny for his massive hands, yet he looked so comfortable, so at home. So at peace.
“We gotta let Mommy sleep. Daddy’s got you,” he murmured and started humming again.
The deep, quiet bass carried through the room, and she nearly hummed back. Soren’s hum didn’t just soothe the baby — it soothed her, too. She went warm all over, and sleepy, too.
It was Monday, thank goodness, a day off for both the saloon and the café. A slow day for everyone in her little pack.
Pack, clan; whatever. Jess and Janna liked to call their budding little group a pack, while Simon and Soren insisted on calling it a clan. Cole was carefully neutral about it all, using both terms interchangeably. And Sarah — well, she just called it home. A home free from fear and anxiety now that the Blue Bloods were gone. Really gone. It was a home full of boundless love for the baby — not just her love, but Soren’s, too. Soren’s and everyone’s, in fact. If she didn’t watch it, the baby would grow up spoiled rotten.
“My little teddy bear,” Jess would call him when she and Janna argued over who got to babysit when.
“My little teddy,” Janna would shoot back.
“My little Teddy,” Soren would growl, staking his claim. Then he’d hold the baby close and whisper to him. “My little Teddy.”
A whisper. A promise. A bright future. Sarah sighed, just thinking about it.
Soren had been all for naming the baby Todd, but she had insisted on taking one step away from that name to Ted, who went by Teddy for now. The important thing, she figured, was to be honest with the child about who he was and how he came to be, not to burden him with the past.
But all that explaining would come later, as the baby grew up. Now, all that mattered was making him feel loved. That, and getting sleep, because the little guy was a champion milk guzzler, and he’d been up twice in the night already. Just trying to keep up with him wore her out.
Soren caught her yawning and shot her a smile.
Morning, he said, sending the words right into her mind.
That was one of the many advantages of being a shifter — she and Soren could communicate without disturbing the baby. And that was just for starters. She’d only shifted into bear form a few times so far, and as awkward as she felt coordinating four feet, Soren looked at her like she was the most beautiful creature that had ever been placed on the earth.
The way he was looking at her now, even though her hair was a tangled mess and her face wrinkled with pillow lines.
Morning, she called back. Her heart swelled in her chest, just from looking at him. Her man. Her baby. Her family, safe and secure.
Mine, mine, mine, sai
d the voice she’d come to recognize as her inner bear’s. It was exactly like her voice, just an octave deeper, and nowhere near as jarring as it had been at first. The bear was part of her now. In a way, it always had been.
Every person has an animal inside, Soren had explained to her, early on. Being a shifter just brings it out.
Which made sense. On that awful night of the Blue Blood attack, she’d called forth an inner fury and courage she didn’t even know she possessed.
Of course, thinking like a bear and actually turning into one were two very different things, and she’d nearly panicked the first time she tried shifting forms. Did she really want to feel her teeth rip through her gums or see her hands turn into paws? On the other hand, part of her was eager to shift, too — the animal part, she supposed. But it was too risky to shift until after the baby was born, so she’d had an excuse to put off trying for a while.
“Ready?” Soren had asked her, the first time he’d taken her up into the national forest to shift after the baby was born.
Ready, her bear had growled, and she’d nearly jumped out of her skin, hearing its voice boom through her mind. So, so ready.
Jessica and Janna had been thrilled to babysit for a few hours, so she was out of excuses, and the inner itch had grown to a point that was impossible to ignore. So she took a deep breath and nodded.
“Tell me what to do.”
“Um…” Soren seemed stuck on that for a while. As a born shifter, he’d never had to think about shifting. “Think furry thoughts?”
Which got her absolutely nowhere, of course. But then Soren flooded her mind with a dozen images. Scents and sounds, too, like the sweet nectar of wildflowers, the delicious crackle honeycomb made when you bit it into chunks. The blissful sensation of grass tickling her belly when she was bent over on all fours, and—
Holy crap, she’d blurted, seconds later. I’m a bear.
She really was a bear. She’d done it.
World’s most beautiful bear, Soren said, looking about as proud as he did when he held the baby.
He made her shift back and forth between human and bear forms. With his coaching, shifting had been much easier than she expected. Thrilling, even, to be that in tune with nature and to possess such power. They’d taken off on a long stroll through the mountains, side by side, and she felt drunk on the impressions flooding her keen bear senses.
