by Roxie Noir
When she was close to him, Nathan felt almost high. She smelled wonderful, a combination of flowers and lemon, plus another, dizzying aroma underneath it all. Her scent.
As she bent over the table, just a little, Nathan suddenly noticed her body. She was tall, though not as tall as him, with a generous bosom, a little waist, and ample hips. Her ass alone was incredible, and Nathan had to force himself not to reach out and squeeze it — or, worse, to press her against the table, lift her skirt, and just take her right there in front of everyone.
Deep inside, his bear roared and he had to force it down.
She stood up again and gave him a withering glare, then snatched the rest of the tart from his hand, brushing her fingers against his for half a second.
Nathan felt like a bolt of electricity had gone through him.
“This is for after the ceremony,” she said, as though she were scolding a child.
Then she turned and walked back into the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Nathan called to the now-closed door. It was all he could think to say.
He almost felt as if he’d had the air knocked from him, but she hadn’t done anything but look annoyed and take away his treat. It was just her, the way she smelled, dear God, the way she looked. Nathan stood rooted to that spot for a few more moments, trying to process what had just happened.
I saw a goddess, he thought.
Then he thought, Is this how people feel when they meet their mates?
That gave him the kick he needed to move again.
Of course she wasn’t his mate. He didn’t have a mate, and he never would. That was ludicrous.
She was just some really hot lady who smelled really good was all.
It’s been over a week, Nathan thought, finally turning around and heading into the main part of the room. I’ll head down to Seward tonight and get some cruise ship tail. That should fix me right up.
Even as he smiled at the thought, there was a tiny itch of doubt, deep down inside.
2
Leah
Leah shut the door to the kitchen and then stood right inside it, holding half a tart in her hand. She’d just snatched it from some stranger who’d had the nerve to try to eat it before her betrothal ceremony.
What an asshole, she thought to herself, but the thought didn’t have any teeth.
Instead, when she’d first seen him, she’d felt a sudden shock, and for a split second, she thought she knew him already, that maybe he was some long-lost relative or Yukon clan member that she hadn’t seen since she was a girl.
Then, a moment later, once she’d given him a good, long look up and down, she realized she didn’t know him at all — it was a different kind of recognition that she’d felt.
It was the kind of recognition that people in fairy tales and legends felt. Soul recognition, like two halves of the same spirit coming back together.
In the stories, it was how people knew when they’d met their mate.
Leah shook her head and lifted the half-finished tart to her lips.
Betrothal jitters, she told herself firmly. Ian’s your mate. Of course Ian’s your mate. Daddy wouldn’t mislead you.
Still, for another moment, she thought of the mystery man’s huge frame, his muscles bulging against his dress shirt that he obviously wasn’t used to wearing.
He’d look much better in nothing at all, she half-thought to herself, something warm and molten beginning to pool between her legs.
Stop it, she thought, and lifted the half-finished tart to her lips and took a bite. For a split second, her tongue felt the ridges that his teeth had left in the chocolate, skipping over them, and she thought of him kissing her, his tongue invading her mouth and wrestling with hers...
Then Leah shook her head, hard, and proceeded into the kitchen, giving everything one final glance before she went to get changed. The desserts were all out, the cake finished, and her two sisters were finishing pouring sparkling apple juice into about two hundred champagne flutes for the end of the ceremony.
“Go!” shouted Rebecca, her next-oldest sister.
“Don’t be such a control freak,” agreed Abigail, lovingly.
“I’m not a control freak, I just want to make sure you’re doing it right,” Leah said, peeking over their shoulders.
“We can pour apple juice,” said Emily, her youngest sister, who was only twenty. “Go get betrothed already.”
“You deserve this,” confirmed Rebecca.
“Okay, okay,” said Leah.
One last peek, and she was out, rushing to the tiny back room she’d put aside to get changed in.
It wasn’t like this was her wedding or anything, except, well, it kind of was. For as long as anyone could remember, the Whitehorse clan had celebrated betrothals about a week before they’d celebrated weddings, in the interest of giving the two engaged people time to get to know each other at least a little before mating for life.
Yukon City was so small that nearly everyone Leah had ever known was family, so they had a long tradition of arranged marriages with the other bear clans in the north.
Now, at least, it was Leah’s turn, and god knew she’d waited for long enough: two of her younger sisters, Rebecca and Abigail, were already married. It had been hard to watch them make good matches long before her father had even tried with her, even though he constantly assured her that he was looking for someone for her to marry.
She’d always wondered if it was the way she looked. Her sisters weren’t skinny, but she had a good fifty pounds on them, a body that never seemed to follow her orders. When she was eleven, her breasts had grown four cup sizes in a month, and she still had stretch marks across her hips and thighs. It didn’t seem to matter that she had an hourglass figure — bear men just weren’t interested in bigger girls like her.
Now she was thirty-two, and until her father matched her with Ian, she’d been afraid of being alone forever.
Quickly, she shimmied out of her dress, hung it on a hanger, and then donned a three-quarter-sleeve blue dress. Her mother had made it, and it was simple but flattering, hugging her in exactly all the right places, covering her elbows and knees, as was proper.
There was a knock on the door.
“Leah, it’s me,” said her mother’s voice.
She opened the door and her mother walked in, a solid woman in her fifties, eyes still bright and one streak of gray hair on each temple.
“Turn around,” her mother said.
Leah obeyed, and her mother zipped the dress up, then spun her daughter back around.
“Perfect,” her mother said, and for just a moment, her face softened. “I’m so proud of you,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Leah, slightly puzzled. She hadn’t really done anything.
“You hung in there, even when everyone else was getting married,” the other woman said, as though she could read Leah’s thoughts. “I know it was hard. You wanted to get your life started already, but I think we’ve made you a wonderful match, sweetie.”
Leah had one fleeting thought of the man who’d been eating the tart a few minutes earlier. The one who’d sent a shudder through her whole body when their fingers touched for a split second.
“I’m really happy, mom,” she said, making herself smile.
“You look beautiful,” her mother said, kissing her forehead.
Deep down, Leah felt another tiny twinge of doubt. If Ian was her mate, what had just happened to her?
She forced herself to brush her worries aside and stood up tall.
“Let’s go get me betrothed,” she said to her mom, who smiled.
In front of the Fjords Room, there was a very small stage. Leah peeked from a door, off to the side, her heart nearly beating out of her chest.
The thing was, technically, she’d never met Ian. They’d written a few letters, of course, and spoken on the phone, but they hadn’t met.
Then, just as the ceremony was about to start, a man with graying hair in a three-piece suit
walked to the front of the room and stood behind her father as he took his place at the podium.
The entire room hushed.
Leah thought that her heart might beat right out of her chest.
That was him! That was Ian, her mate.
She waited for the rush of recognition she’d felt earlier, with the mystery man, but it didn’t come. There was no sensation that she’d somehow known him all her life, or that she’d seen him once a long time ago and couldn’t remember his name.
There was nothing wrong with Ian. He was handsome enough, and he looked good enough in his suit. But she didn’t feel almost dizzy looking at him.
Suddenly, hands were pushing her forward, out the door, towards the podium and toward Ian. He offered a huge smile and held out both his hands.
As she walked, forcing herself to smile, Leah scanned the crowd quickly.
There he was. The mystery man.
Sitting at the table in the front — her table — between one of her sisters and a cousin, looking straight at her.
For just a second, their eyes locked, and Leah felt that strange sensation again, the feeling that she knew this man already, that she’d already known him for a long, long time.
Then her hands met Ian’s, and she tore her gaze away.
She looked up at her betrothed mate, smiling down at her, and her father began the rite.
You’re doing the right thing, Leah told herself. Just ignore that other guy, and you’ll be fine.
3
Nathan
Ever since she had gone back into the kitchen, leaving Nathan feel both breathless and tartless, he’d been trying to spot her again, but he wasn’t having any luck. Even though he’d stood around the kitchen door, trying to peek in every time it opened, he hadn’t had any luck.
Finally, he gave up on that venture, at least for now. The betrothal rite seemed to be starting, though, to be honest, Nathan wasn’t exactly sure what it entailed. No one had ever gotten betrothed in Fjords before, but apparently, it was the norm for the shifters from Yukon City.
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.