He pulled her to him and kissed her. As awkward as it was, it was that much and more soft and romantic. Ian could touch her, even wrap his arms around her, and she knew he loved her. When he picked her up from the couch and put her on his lap, she squeaked in delight.
“You are much too far away from me. I like it when you’re so close, and I can smell you.” He sniffed at her neck, just under her ears, and she felt a warm shiver go through her body. “I can smell how aroused you are too. Such a sweet, aromatic smell.”
“The kids are in the house.” He told her they’d gone out about an hour ago. They were at Demi’s home. “How do you know they didn’t get kidnapped along the way? Josh might— Oh yes, that feels wonderful. Why are they there?”
“Demi is filling out the paperwork for them to go to school this fall. Also, she’s making sure the work permit is filled out for Jilly to work. I think Cybill is there because Mom is baking something for dinner.” He looked at her, his brow cocked up on one side of his face. “I think we covered that the kids are out of the house, my dear. Is there anything I can do to assure you we’re going to be all right if you start screaming your head off when you come?”
“Nope. I think you’ve covered it very well.” Lucy giggled. “We’re starting this married life out all ass backwards, don’t you think? You’re a father of two teenagers, with a wife who is afraid of her own shadow that you’ve never seen naked. Pretty screwed up if you ask me.”
“I’m not asking you.” He stood up with her in his arms, making her squeak again. “Now. I’m going to set you down on your feet. You run up the stairs while I lock up the house. Go.”
Taking off for the stairs, she was at the top of them when she heard the lock engage on the front door. Ian told her to go once again, and she rushed to the bedroom. While she didn’t have anything sexy to wear to bed on their sort of wedding night, Lucy figured he’d not care if she was naked. So that was what she did. Stripping down to her warm skin, she stood there by the bed, waiting for him to come up the stairs to join her.
Unsure of how to stand without looking foolish, Lucy changed her stance three times before she thought she’d just wing it. When the door opened up, she stood there, holding her breath until she saw him.
“You’re beautiful.” Her face heated up to the point where she had to put her cooler hands on her cheeks. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I sent you up here. Something like you’d be hiding in the bathroom. Or in the closet. But this? This is perfect. You’re perfect.”
“I feel silly.” He asked her why. “You’re completely dressed, and I’m not. I have no idea what I thought you’d be doing when you got here, but not that...you know what? Thank you. I’m so happy you find me beautiful.”
He moved into the room—glided was a better word for it. He took his shirt up and over his head, and she could see his chest was covered in dark hair. Fur, she supposed it should be called. Each step Ian took toward her, he’d take something else off. A shoe, then his other one. His belt went the way of his shirt. Even as he stood in front of her with only his boxers on, she thought him the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen.
“May I touch you?” He growled, and her pussy pulsated with heat. “You keep that up, my beautiful bruin, and I’ll come without you even touching me.”
“Bruin is brown.” She looked at his face and noticed he was having a hard time speaking. “Bruin is the word for a brown bear. I’m a black bear. I have no idea why I’m telling you that. It’s all I can do just to stand here and breathe. Touch me wherever you want. If you come before me, then I’ll make you come again and again.”
Lucy touched her fingers to his shoulders. They were tight with muscles. Running her fingers down the large vein along the outside of his arm, she loved how his breathing changed. How he was no longer just breathing in and out, but panting. As soon as she touched her fingers to his nipple, which was as hard as hers were, she leaned into him and licked the tiny morsel, then bit down.
“Holy Christ.”
She didn’t stop or slow after he held onto the wall behind her. His arms up and over her head gave her just enough room to do as she pleased, which was to please him as much as she possibly could before he snapped.
Touching him in different places brought sounds from him that she was sure were only for her to hear. Touching his navel brought a moan when she licked the indentation. Nipping at his elbow made him cry out. Every place was a new sound, and every new sound made her so wet she was sure she was making Ian wilder for her.
“Enough.” She found herself against the wall behind her. Giggling when he stripped off his boxers, she reached out to wrap her hand around him. “No. You touch me, and I’m going to come all over you. I need to fill you. I have to mark you as mine. If I come right now, I’m not even sure I’ll remain upright, much less conscious. My turn to make you suffer, my heart. And suffer in the greatest way I know how.”
Chapter 7
Ian felt his bear run along his skin. Lifting Lucy up, so her mouth was in front of his, he kissed her as savagely as he felt. His inner beast was tearing at his soul to claim their mate. As soon as her feet touched the floor, he lifted her up against his body, and she wrapped her legs around him. Ian entered her hard and quick. While she was not a virgin, he knew he’d still hurt her.
“I’m so sorry.” Even as he said the words, he knew whatever was going on between him and his beast was far from over. Pulling back, trying to disengage himself from the beast, Ian felt the snarl of his anger as he told Lucy once again how very sorry he was.
“Please stop, Ian, it hurts so badly.”
Instead of slowing his beast took her harder, Ian’s body no longer his own. Nor could he hear her after a minute. All he could hear inside of his head was the roar of the bear. The triumphant sound of claiming his mate. Then his hands morphed into his other half.
Ian was no longer in control. No longer making love to his wife, but hurting her through the monster that was taking him. But still, he came. His body releasing into hers was more painful than he’d ever experienced. Ian wanted to stop, wanted to tend to his bride. He realized then that it wasn’t over just yet.
When she screamed, he looked down at her body and could see the claws of him ripe with her blood as they pierced her flesh. Wounds that were created when the claws from his bear slid through her body and touched his belly.
Blood slid down her body and onto the floor. He begged his bear to release her, telling him that he was killing their mate. All he did in reply was to dig deeper until Ian was sure she had been killed by him. Then she was lifted from his body to be held up by only the claws of his bear.
Laying her on the bed, Ian felt sick. When his bear left him, literally left his body to be on his own, Ian could only watch as he licked the wounds he’d made clean. Why he was bothering, Ian didn’t know. With her being only human, there wasn’t any way she could have survived this. And he knew he wouldn’t either. He knew as surely as he watched her, he’d join her in death.
Help me, young McCray. Shaking his head, he told his bear to leave him be. To let his mate be at peace. If you do not help me, I will have to wait another generation. I wish this to end now, young McCray. Help me save our mate.
Getting up, blinded by his tears, he rolled Lucy to her stomach so his bear could clean and close the wounds there. When there was little else they could do for her body, Bear lifted his mate up and held her as Ian stripped the sheets off the bed. The mattress was, he knew, ruined.
Once she was lying on clean linen, Ian took her hand into his. It was cold, deathly cold, and her pale skin was turning blue as he held her. Looking at Bear, not sure what else to call him, he asked him what he’d done.
I have saved us. Shaking his head, Ian told him he’d killed the only thing in the world that he’d ever love. Nay, young McCray. I have finally finished something that was started with the first
McCray. The very first bear-to-man shifter. You and this young maid were born to be the ones who will carry on and keep the history alive.
“She’s dead. You’ve killed her.” Bear took his other hand and laid it upon Lucy’s chest. It was the barest of beats, but her heart was beating quickly and ever so quietly. “I don’t understand. What did you do to her? She’ll hate me if she lives.”
She will live. As will you, my son. I have been awaiting a bride that would be strong enough to take the magic I have given her. Waiting, too, for you to be born to keep her safe. All is right in the world, Ian James McCray. You will see once she is awake. Ian asked what he’d done. It would be better to start at the beginning, don’t you think? To tell the story in a way that you will understand the urgency of what has happened here today. The reason there were times when you felt I was not a part of you. That you and I had separate paths in mind.
“You’re not a part of me now.” Bear nodded. He told him it was the way it had to be to save her. “You had to kill her to save her? That can’t be right. You know that, don’t you?”
I know she is bear, the same as you. Your children will be born as bears, full-blooded, that will breed bear cubs for as long as the world turns. It had to be done, or I would have had to wait another millennium, decades and decades of waiting to see if this mate would survive, unlike the others. You know what I say is true. You have uncles, back along your lines, that bore no children. Had no mate. It was because, sadly, their mates could not survive. They weren’t able to take the magic this one now holds. He asked him what sort of magic. “Ah, that is the most important question you could ask of me. The magic of all the bears. Magic that will save races of beings because of your and your mate’s flowing through them. There will be many born, Ian James, many offspring of the two of you, that will be stronger for it. They’ll be able to blend into towns. Become working men and women. But their bears will be forever stronger.
“Why? I mean, we’re a strong family now. We have never been ill or in trouble. We’ve been around for so long I can count back the generations for many years. Why do you think nearly killing Lucy would make us stronger?” The bear asked him if he could tell him the story now. “Yes. I need to know why we’ve made her suffer. Because you know as well as I do that she suffered greatly, that she might not ever forgive me for what I did to her today.”
She will not only forgive you, Ian James, but she will have knowledge to pass on from this transformation that even you won’t know. Bear sat on the floor, his body taking the shape of a man, much older than Ian thought his parents were. “I am the first of the shifters from bear to man. All the McCray lines are of my blood. They think—which is a good thing, I suppose—that they were born men that could shift to bear. But the opposite is true. We are and always will be the very first shifter bears. It was deemed so when the lady of the lands, the mother of earth, found me suffering a wound that was seeping the life from my body. She freed me then, healing my wound while she was there. Then she sat me down to speak to me. As a man, not a bear.”
“You said you were the first. Are you telling me you’ve been waiting for me to be born since there were bears on this earth?” Bear told him almost. “Then, you had parents. They were bears. How did you become McCray? I’m sorry. So many questions are racing in my mind that I feel overwhelmed by it.”
“As you should be. Yes, I had parents. They were bears too. A black bear and a brown one. I was born black. My siblings were born shades of brown. It mattered little what the color of our fur was. We were family.” He hummed a tune then, and Ian smiled. “There it is that wonderful smile of yours. Once I was freed, she changed me to man, so anyone coming upon us would think it a woman speaking to a man. There were few that wandered the earth then, but it was safer for us both. I told her, once I was healed by her touch that I would gladly do whatever she needed of me. Go wherever she needed me to go. I was her servant for my life.”
“I guess she took you up on your offer.” They both laughed, and he realized how warm Lucy’s hand was now, How her heartbeat was stronger, and he could hear it better. Kissing her wrist where her pulse beat best, he looked into her face and saw that she was awake. “I love you, Lucy. I’m so sorry.”
“You did nothing wrong, Ian. Not a thing.” She looked at the bear/man as he sat there by her bedside. “I’m to tell you from your own mate that you had better be bringing her home a treat when you leave this earth. She will not tolerate you coming home empty handed.”
Bear laughed, tears streaming down his weathered face. Kissing her other hand, he told Lucy he had just the gift for his lady. That he, too, was looking forward to leaving this earth. Ian asked him why he was to leave.
“I was only to wait for the strongest female to come to this family. You have found each other. And in that, my time here is finished. You will, the two of you, take over the duties I was asked to do for the mother of earth.” Ian asked if they were to wait on the next strongest female. “Nay, that was for me to do. What you are to do is to fill the earth with magic. Spread it from one end of this earth to the other. The world will honestly be a better, happier place now that the two of you have been found. In saying that, a man, an attorney of sorts, will come to see you. Paperwork, you understand. So that the two of you can get paid.”
“All right. But I don’t understand. I don’t have any magic. You said that Lucy does, but I’m just a shifter bear. Nothing more.” Bear told him he was always so much more than a bear. Even before he gave them the magic. “What sort of magic are you talking about? To me, I don’t feel any different than before.”
“You are. We both are.” Lucy stood up and stretched. Her skin was alive with something, it seemed. It was then he realized it was her bear. It moved along her skin in not just black fur, but all the colors a bear of their kind could be. “The magic we have will now help species we are losing by disease and manmade things. Help the ones that are already here and keep the future species healthy. Not just bears, but all animals. With our magic, we can help with not just the livelihood of bears, but the life of the earth for having more of them. More bears mean there will be more plants grown because of their droppings. Other species of animals will survive because they can prey on them to survive. This would include man too. We’re to help with groves of plants for the different breeds of our kind. Our magic is vast, Ian. It’s there for us to use for every animal and human.”
Ian was beginning to understand. Not only that, but information, long thick volumes of it, seemed to be filling his mind. Needs were listed for them to take care of. What they could do for the future as well as the animals that were now suffering. Lucy was doing that. He didn’t know why he knew it was from her, but he knew it to be true.
Laying his head back on the wall, he felt it filling him. Information he would never have known about animals long dead. The reason some of the animals they were to care for were suffering—the immediate and the future things, the magic they could use to help with these projects. The need to get started on them energized him, making him want to get started as soon as he could arrange it.
“I must go.” Ian shook his head, asking him why he’d leave him without a bear. “Nay, I have only shared the space in you with your own bear. He has been dormant these past years, learning all I could teach him with the hope that someday the two of us would no longer have to share you. You can feel him, Ian James. I’m sure you can.”
He could. The bear was there as before, but different. Stronger too. Standing up when Lucy did, he felt the weight of his duty hit him hard. What if he couldn’t do what was needed of him? The pop to the back of his head was a reminder that he had a partner in this, and she wasn’t someone to mess with. They would do whatever was needed. Of that, he knew he didn’t have to doubt.
Pulling Lucy to him, he kissed her on the mouth, then held her close to him as they said their goodbyes. Bear shifted to a bear again just as two male bears an
d a female joined him in the room.
“My mate and wife, Honey.” Lucy hugged her, then he did as well. “Your uncles, Ian. James McCray, the first male who lost his mate to the magic. And this is Ian McCray, another uncle that lost his mate. They have come to thank you, both of you, for being the ones to carry on. They told me several decades ago that it would be you. Even before you were born, they told me it would be Ian James who bore the magic. It only took a small hint to your mother to have her name you as such. I hope you know how much was riding on your being born and having a strong mate. As it is, it will be difficult to live out eternity with these two since they were right.”
“Thank you for having such confidence in me.” They told him it was his mate that they knew would bring it to the earth. “Yes, well, had I known, I would have told you that with Lucy, there is nothing she couldn’t do.”
The four bears hugged them again, then one by one, they faded out. The last to leave them was Honey. Lucy asked her what her mate’s name had been. At her laughter, Ian knew that it was going to be epic.
“He is Holland McCray. We called him Hollie.” Honey looked at him. “You’re a good man, Ian James. I know you’ll be good at this task set before you.” She looked at Lucy. “The child you carry now, my dear, will be the first in the family to be born with all the magic you now have. Also, please tread carefully around Joshua Jackson. He will try and harm those that you love.”
She faded away soon after speaking. It occurred to him what she’d said to Lucy about a child, but it seemed to take Lucy a few seconds longer. When she screamed and hugged him, Ian thought he could take on the world and win. He was going to work hard so as not to fail any of the ones he was set to help. And especially not his own family.
~*~
Josh woke, startling himself as to where he was and how he’d gotten there. As soon as he opened his mouth to yell for help, everything came rushing back to him. Lying back on the bed, he was careful as he touched his face to see how badly he was damaged. Of course, all he figured out was that his face was completely covered. Even one of his eyes was covered in some kind of soft material. Finding the little button he knew would get him some help, the person on the other end of the thing asked him if he needed anything.
Ian: McCray Bruin Bear Shifter Romance Page 9