by Dani Wyatt
“You gonna be okay?”
I nod. “Sure.”
I’m not sure it’s the truth, but I hope for the best.
“We should get going. I need to meet Aiken in like, half an hour. He’ll rip the town apart if I’m not home when he gets there.” She chuckles, then pushes to her feet, swaying a little before grabbing her purse and the empty flask.
It turns out that Aiken, her boyfriend, is a wolf shifter. And she is too.
I stare up at the pretty blonde and wonder what it must be like to have that animal constantly inside of you. She explained about the Badlands, the torn-up clothing, how around here being a shifter is a yawn for most of the residents, even the non-shifter ones, and my brain is still racing to catch up.
I get up, following her to the door, the keys to my new business venture still clutched in my hand. Once outside, I lock up and fumble in my purse for the VW keys.
“You okay to drive?” she asks, turning and taking a few steps backwards.
“Yeah. I think I’ll go back to the bar for a burger before I head home. Raspberry virgin Lemonade and greasy food should fix me right up.”
We say our goodbyes and I stare up at the sky, already getting dimpled with stars. There are so many stars here. The fall air has turned cooler but it’s crisp and fresh and I take a deep breath until my lungs hurt, trying to center myself and process everything I’ve been told.
Ragnar…my mind churns with all the dish Josephine served me about him.
He’s thirty-five years old and his only family left is his grandmother. Gran, as he calls her, according to Josephine. He works construction and does all sorts of handyman and trades work, but lives in an enormous house he built himself back in the woods on the land his family has had for over a century.
I turn toward the bar, but suddenly my hunger isn’t for a burger. The tension I’ve had down low in my belly since I saw Ragnar that first day tightens into a prussic knot and I’m frozen on the sidewalk, unsure if I should go forward or back.
When I asked Josephine why she thought Ragnar acted the way he did around me, she said she couldn’t be sure, but there’s been tragedy in his past and maybe that has something to do with it. She also said, if I’m his mate, sooner or later he’ll come around. He’ll have no choice. The pull will be too strong.
My heart sings at that thought, then I remember the next thing she said.
If I’m not his mate, I should stay far away, because getting attached to a shifter when you’re not mated has heartbreak carved hard into that stone.
How would I know which is which? Josephine couldn’t say. Which is more than a little frustrating.
Ragnar.
His name makes me wet.
God, I need to get a grip.
The street is quiet, but when I hear the sound of a car door slam shut, a bolt of fear races through me, remembering why I moved so far away in the first place.
Ragnar, opening the shop, this place…they’ve all distracted me and given me a false sense of safety that could be dangerous.
I spin around in the direction of the sound, bracing for the sight of the one person I never want to see again, but instead it’s him.
Ragnar.
Stomping toward me like a…bear to his prey.
His shoulders are wider than most doorways and I’m sure he bumps his head constantly because the world just isn’t built for a man his size. Except, maybe here in the Badlands.
My legs feel like Jello as he comes closer. The darkening sky doesn’t hide the massive hard-on he’s sporting and it takes all of my functioning power to not stare directly at the sex torpedo stretching his jeans to their breaking point.
“What are you doing out here on the street? Alone?” he seethes through clenched teeth. His eyes are angry, darting around like we’re being stalked by some otherworldly, dangerous force.
“Uhhhhh…standing?” I answer, swallowing the drool that’s pooling in my mouth as the biceps on his arms flex under his shirt and his chest seems to grow like the Hulk is about to appear.
He makes this grunting sound as he steps into my space, leaving only a few inches between us. It’s taking tremendous effort to keep from panting like a bitch in heat. His masculine, outdoorsy scent fills my nose, and I swear it has a direct connection to my clit.
“You shouldn’t be standing here alone,” he snorts, and I can almost see the grizzly part of him in his mannerisms.
He’s changed his clothes and the plaid flannel of his shirt he’s wearing now is unbuttoned enough for me to see the dark hair that must cover his massive chest, and I fight the urge to reach out and drag my fingertips across the hard muscle.
I wonder about his grizzly bear. About how it all works outside of the broad strokes Josephine painted for me, but there’s something else I want to know and I’m just buzzed enough to ask.
“So, listen.” I poke a finger into his pectoral muscle and wince a bit when there is no give at all. It’s like concrete, and I decide poking a grizzly bear may not be the best idea. Pulling my hand back with a wary look at his dark eyes, “Why do you act like you want to protect me one second, like you might even like me, then the next second it’s like I’m infected with the plague and you can’t get away fast enough? It’s making me dizzy. And a little pissed off, to be honest.”
A snarl curls his magnificent, sexy lips, and both fear and desire clutch at me as I wait for an answer, sure whatever he says is not going to go my way.
“Because…” His face turns fierce, like whatever he’s trying to say is painful. “You’re everything I don’t want. And everything I need.”
I step back, watching him close his eyes as his hands turn to fists.
“Are you trying to scare me?” The whiskey asks before I can stop myself. “Because, I’m done being scared of guys.”
Fire flashes in his dark eyes as he opens his mouth to say something, but all I hear is my pulse racing in my ears and the crickets in the distance.
Once more, his lips part, silence hanging where words should be.
But what happens next leaves me gape-mouthed and grasping for a shred of reality, because suddenly, what I’m seeing can’t be real.
Chapter 5
Ragnar
I’ve lost control.
Never once, not even when my bear and I were going through adolescence, pushing through our rebellious stage, has he ever taken over without my consent.
He’s strong, grumpy like me, but obedient. And unless someone was in clear danger, he always preferred to observe from inside, coming out only when I felt we needed a release. A run. A fight. A hunt.
But, I was always the one that decided.
Something’s changed.
As I stood there trying to find the words to answer Wynter’s question, he snapped and drooled in a near rage, growling at me to take her right there on the street. Or he would. My finger twitched as his claws started to break through my skin, even as I futilely tried to talk him down.
It didn’t work.
With the last seconds of my control, I spin away from Wynter, launching forward at a run as I feel my body heat spike, knowing there is no turning back. My blood sears in my veins. My jaw bones pop as I feel my canines pushing through my gums.
I hear Wynter’s stifled scream as my muscles bulge, the fabric of my shirt tearing, then my boots pop off as claws rip through the leather, my feet replaced by paws twice as big as a human skull.
The ache and sharp sensations of my bones and skin turning from man to beast are painful, but over the years the sensation has morphed. I don’t suffer, but I do feel everything.
Thinking of Wynter watching, there’s a moment in mid-shift that I wonder what would happen if we got caught somehow between human and grizzly. What a monster I would be.
What a monster I am. A dangerous monster. Like my father.
Fuck.
I’m on all fours, chuffing and snorting at a run, and all I can do now is watch from inside. My grizzly is too stro
ng. He’s never done this before and I’m at a loss as to how to rein him in.
We’re down the block, away from the buildings of Main Street, when he stops, drops his head and looks behind him, and when we see her, I know nothing will ever be the same.
Mate.
Mate.
Mate.
He swings his head low, back and forth, back and forth, the obsession growing with each second.
She’s ours.
Ours.
Ours.
I’m no longer sure which thoughts are mine and which are the bear’s.
Get her. We must get her. I’m done waiting. Why are we waiting?
My bear has lost his fucking mind and we’re at odds for the first time in our lives.
Leave her, I order, but a pained roar is his reply. His feet stay firmly planted on the ground as I do my best to reason with him, still able to see Wynter staring, her hands now clasped over her mouth in horror.
She thinks I’m a monster too.
You’re scaring the shit out of her. Go, run, run until you can’t anymore. Just leave her. If we hurt her, I’ll kill us both.
I twist and scream from inside and the last thing I hear before my bear relents and runs forward, is Wynter crying. Even from this far away, I can smell her tears, and I know she’s my mate.
My worst fears have come true.
It took close to four hours to bring my bear under control. After we turned from Wynter on the street, he bolted. Straight up the mountain and down the other side. It was fucking freezing up there. My bear didn’t care, but now, sitting on a bar stool at the breakfast bar I built for my grandmother a few years ago, I’m still chilled to the bone.
I stare out into her backyard, at the lawn leading to the tree line that runs ten square acres between her house and mine. I’ve not slept at all, but if I missed our usual Sunday morning breakfast I’d be getting grilled under white lights by her and that’s the last thing I need right now.
She’s still getting dressed, so I push off the counter and swing open the refrigerator, nearly tearing the door off as I reach in to grab at the food inside.
A green pepper is first and its fate is sealed as my fingers close around it, popping it like a soap bubble as pepper juice and seeds spray into my palm.
At my feet, my grandmother’s sibling dachshunds jump to see what’s dropped, then look up at me with disgust.
“What?” I grit out. “Dogs don’t like green pepper?” They wag their tails and sit, waiting to see if any other manna from heaven may fall their way.
My gran spoils them about as much as I spoil her, but they make her smile and I’d pay a king’s ransom for that. Instead, I just paid the adoption fee at the shelter.
I reach for the package of bacon and toss it across the counter, only I fling it so hard, it barely grazes the granite surface and ends up cracking a pane of glass in the window over the sink.
Fuck.
I grunt as I think about that shithead Robert touching Wynter.
Sleep has been impossible enough since I first saw her, but last night after I got my psychotic bear under control, all he kept roaring about was killing that damn realtor for touching what is ours. I’m lucky I’m not sitting in a cell at the county jail on a murder charge.
I spent the few hours I had in bed jerking off remembering the light touch of her fingers on my hand.
The switch has flipped with him and I’m not sure what to do. I’m battling the demons of my past along with this hairy obsessed animal and there’s only so much I can take.
I grab an onion and a potato out of the basket on the counter and do my best to set them down on the cutting board like a civilized human, but when I pull my hand back they are both as flat as pancakes.
I growl, a deep possessive pain wrapping around my chest as I reach for the carton of eggs, but before I can get them in my grip, a voice from behind stalls my motion.
“You’re going to break them all before you can make my omelet.” I turn to see a soft smile on Gran’s face, then her hand reaches out to tug gently at my wrist. “Maybe it’s my turn to cook today. Sit.” She nods at the counter stool and I grunt but acquiesce, knowing if I don’t calm the fuck down, it won’t just be all the eggs that are cracked.
“Sorry,” I manage. “I wanted to make your breakfast.”
“You make my breakfast more than you should. You treat me like a princess. It’s my turn today.” She takes the remaining ingredients out of the refrigerator and gives me a knowing look. “Anything you want to tell me?”
She knows me too well. I lean my elbows on the cool stone counter and press the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to push away the image of Wynter because she’s all I see. It feels like every cell in my body is going to go supernova and I can’t imagine living much longer like this.
I’d do anything for my grandmother.
After everything that happened with my parents, I was just ten years old, and if it wasn’t for her I know I wouldn’t be here now. She’s coming up on her seven-third birthday, but she reminds me of a brunette Helen Mirren, without the English accent. She’s fully capable of taking care of herself and her business, but to the extent she will let me, I take care of her.
“Just…stuff.” I lie to her, unsure how to tell her my bear and my cock are about to overrule any small shred of sanity I’m have left.
I don’t remember the last time I slept all night or ate a real meal. Well, no, that’s another lie. It was the night before I saw Wynter for the first time. Since then, as much as I’ve tried to tell myself it’s something else, it’s her. I’m lovesick.
For fuck sake.
“I know what I see.”
She’s dressed, as usual, with four-inch heels, perfect red lipstick and a dress that looks like she snatched it right off of June Cleaver.
She’s a pretty hot commodity here in the Badlands for the handful of single geriatric men that live close. It’s more often than not there’s a dozen roses or a box of chocolates on her kitchen counter when I come over and she’s more than generous with the details of her conquests, as much as I beg her not to share.
She points the knife my way and finishes, “And I know what I know.” Her voice turns harder on her final words. “You found your mate. You’ve been acting up for a month, but now, I can see it for sure.”
With that, my bear is back in full insanity. Roaring and agreeing. His obsession nearly impossible to fight.
“Gran.” I start, a pounding in my head and my cock making it hard to deny what she already knows. I can see it in her eyes. “It’s not so simple.”
“Really?” She puts a pan on the stove, glops a spoon full of butter inside, then turns back around, picking up the onion and holding it while pointing her index finger at me. “Who said simple was what it needed to be? I know your life hasn’t been what you would have wanted. I know you have your fears. I know…” Her eyes are intense but I also see her own sadness there. “She was my daughter. And I still believe it was an accident. Terrible, yes. But your father loved her. He would have never hurt her on purpose.”
“And yet.” I feel the cold wrap around me. “He she’s dead.”
She shakes her head, putting the onion down, and starts chopping away.
“You aren’t your father.” Chop, chop, chop. “You are your own man. You always have been. It’s time you trust yourself to know that.”
I start to respond, when there’s a knock on the front door.
“Oh!” Gran puts down her knife, wiping her hand on an embroidered white linen towel as the dogs go charging and barking toward the front of the house. “She’s early!”
I roll my eyes on a moan as Gran winks at me. “Who’s here early?” I seethe, in no mood for a social visit from one of her many gentleman callers.
“The photographer! I’m having Ron and Jeremy professionally photographed.” She gives me a wink, knowing every time I hear their names I cringe. She tried to tell me how seeing one of his movies back in t
he ‘80’s ‘awakened’ something inside of her.
She got to the awakened part of her story before I was out.
I am happy my gran enjoys her…self. But, naming her dogs after a porn star makes my head hurt.
My gaze follows her to the front door, but my grizzly nose is already locked onto the intoxicating scent.
This can’t be happening.
She’s here.
My cock strains against my zipper. My bear is on his hind feet, roaring at me.
Claim what’s ours! Claim her!
There’s a twisting in my gut as the door opens and I cast my eyes on her perfect pink cheeks. She smiles at Gran and my eyes linger on her every curve. Her white teeth flash behind plump lips and the air is suddenly hot, even as a chill runs from my toes to the top of my head.
She’s wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt and white stretchy sort of pants that hide nothing. I can practically see the slit of her pussy and I bare my teeth, digging my fingertips into the granite as I try desperately to stay in control.
There’s a loud snap, and I look down to see I’ve broken off a chunk of the stone countertop. I don’t care, I’ll get her a new counter top but Jesus what do I do now? Run, again?
No. My grizzly roars and I’m frozen where I sit.
Gran swings the screen door open and Wynter steps inside, and she’s such a perfect, true beauty, I can’t believe a surly monster like me could possibly be the right mate for her. Her face is fresh, her hair still damp like she’s just out of the shower.
Her eyes dart my way and I see the shock as I rise to my feet and my bear calms, rocking back and forth, making me feel dizzy. I watch Gran’s eyes as they meet mine, as if to say, sometimes we just need a little push.
How did she know?
I swallow hard. She’s so fucking young. Soft. Innocent.
Jesus, I hope she’s innocent, at least in the way I need. My inner bear starts to tense as thoughts of her being touched, kissed…fucked by anyone else...nearly push me into a murderous rage right here in my grandmother’s kitchen.
“Wynter…” Gran leads her down the hall until she’s standing only a few inches from my side. “This is my grandson, Ragnar.”