Hearten (Bayou Bear Chronicles)

by Lila Felix

  “See? I’m of the opposite school. I think we should live our freakin’ lives. Down with the stinky bears!” She shouted her rebel yell into the other room. I assumed there were several schools of thought on how Rev and I should proceed.

  There was a desperate need for a change of subject.

  “What are you going to name the cub?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Or maybe I do know and I’m not going to tell you. I may be willing to tell you in exchange for information on your mating gift. Other than that, my lips are sealed.”

  I shrugged like I didn’t care. I did care. It was driving me nuts not to know. “Oh well.”

  Her eyes zeroed in on me. “I could command you to tell me.”

  I loved being friends with the Alpha female. I, other than Hawke, was the only one who could call her on her bullshit without punishment—to a point.

  “You go ahead, big girl. Come on—put it on me.”

  “What is going on in here?” Hawke’s voice broke our stare and threw us into a fit of laughter.

  Echo whined. “She won’t tell me what her mating gift is and I told her what mine was. Make her tell me, Alpha.” She stomped her foot at the end for extra tantrumness.

  I looked up to see what Rev thought about this conversation—thinking for sure that he’d exonerate me for speaking to the Coeur so candidly.

  Our brown eyes met. The only thing I saw was adoration.

  Hawke cleared his throat, “Let’s go home, mate. You’re getting tired. I can feel it.”

  “Ugh, one little twinge of sleepiness and he’s done. That’s why the Creator made sure they couldn’t feel the pains of childbirth. Know why?”

  I laughed at her candidness. “My mom says it’s because they’re big babies. They may be Alphas in the home, but they get sick and it’s like having another cub.”

  Hawke grew serious. “Come on Rev, you’re gonna let her talk about us like that?”

  “I can’t argue, Alpha. You know I only speak the truth and, well, she’s right.”

  “I bet Tarrow would’ve taken up for me.” Hawke joked.

  “Well, he does have that one talent.” Rev shot straight but it made the rest of us crack up. Eventually our laughter died down and Echo let out a yawn.

  “Let’s go, my heart.” Hawke extended his hand to Echo. She stood, no longer arguing, and they left.

  Taking the cups to the sink, I chanced a glance at Rev again. He was still staring at me and though it had comforted me before—it was now unnerving.

  “What’s your deal?” I asked him.

  “It’s only been a week. And half of that time I thought you were going to leave me. How did you almost finish your mating gift?”

  Scoffing, I turned to the sink and quickly rinsed the cups. “If I tell you that, you’ll know what it is.”

  “How long will you make me wait to finish the mating rights?”

  “Make you wait? I think I’ve made you wait long enough. I’m ready anytime. You pick.”

  A shot of hysterical anxiety went through him.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  He pushed off the wall. “I need some time.”

  “Ouch. You know how to hurt a girl. Do you make all the girls wait?”

  I didn’t turn to see what his reaction would be to that. Before I knew what was happening, two hands grasped my waist and without any sign of exertion, turned me and sat my rump on the dining room table.

  “Look at me, female.”

  I didn’t want to. Mostly I didn’t like being manhandled and I really wanted to be mad about it. But I wasn’t. I really wasn’t.

  Who am I kidding?

  I kind of liked being manhandled.

  I raised my eyes to meet his slowly.

  “I need time to make sure that my mating gift is ready as well. I also need to check with the Alpha about timing and some other things. I have a request of you.”

  “What?”

  “From now on, joking or not, please do not make references to other females in my life. There has been no one before you and there will be none. You are the reason my heart beats the way it does. I didn’t know I was capable of loving someone the way they deserved to be loved. But I can love you—I knew it the first time I saw you across that room.”

  I kicked my legs. “That was before I acted like a turd bucket.”

  “That’s true. Nothing I can’t handle. Now, I’m going to take care of some things. Don’t you have writing to do? Women to be wooed? Men to be, how do you put it, swoony?”

  “You’re the swooniest of all.”

  Do you, Turd Bucket, agree to mate with this male, Savage, Swooniest Beta in the land?

  Seriously, those would be the vows for me right that minute.

  “Only because I can’t help myself around you.”

  “Okay, I’m going to write.”

  The grin on his face grew and I knew there would be a small delay.

  His lips being the delay.

  I couldn’t believe I had once fought this—days ago, I had fought this. But now, studying him so closely, our hearts thundering together—there was no other place I wanted to be. My feet ran a path up and down his calves, hoping it would have the desired effect.

  “On second thought, I need some more inspiration.”

  “More inspiration, huh? What have you been using for inspiration all this time, female?”

  One of his eyebrows lifted with the question.

  “My imagination, mate.”

  He growled. “Imagination, huh? And who starred in these daydreams of yours?”

  “A faceless male. But I knew as soon as I saw you on the Alpha’s porch when Hawke summoned you that it was you. You put a face to my dreams.”

  “Good answer.” He placed a loving kiss on my forehead and moved to leave, but I grabbed his arm.

  “That’s it?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Might do you good to be made to wait once in a while. Just think about the night after our mating ceremony. See what your beautiful imagination does with that.”

  Rev

  Rushing back to my cabin, I had only one thing on my mind. My mate was crafting some kind of mating gift for me.

  I had to give her something of me—but the only thing I owned was my cabin.

  The cabin I had been raised in by a single father who could barely keep me in my human form.

  It was all I had—but she could have it all.

  Approaching the house of the Alpha, I grew nervous. It wasn’t really protocol to visit his house uninvited, but it wasn’t the first time I’d done it.

  He could just throw me out if he didn’t like it—I had to speak to him.

  Except he didn’t have to, because as I approached the front door, he came out.

  “Forgive me, Alpha. I needed to speak to you.”

  “It’s fine, Rev. You no longer need an invitation. I was just coming out to check around the house. A feeling grows in my gut. Something is coming, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

  “Nothing will happen to her, Alpha. We won’t let it.”

  He nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t quite sure.

  “Come, Rev. Let’s talk about something else.”

  The steps leading up to his house creaked in rebellion as we both took a seat on the top step.

  “I need to speak to you about the mating ceremony.”

  He nodded.

  “Martha gave me the go ahead to plan it whenever I want to. But I need to finish her mating gift as soon as possible without her knowing and without interrupting the security of the Coeur.”

  Hawke looked to the moon. He often did that when he couldn’t find the words.

  “There is no point in protecting our clan if we don’t continue the traditions of them. My mate was completely right earlier when she said we should continue as if there is no threat. Let’s plan your mating ceremony for one week from Saturday. Does that give you enough time to finish your gift?”

  “Y
es. It does. It’s just a matter of—changing some things around.”

  He nodded, but I felt like our conversation was just beginning.

  “I feel like I’m not living, Rev. I feel like I just survive from crisis to crisis, barely avoiding catastrophe. We can’t live like this with a baby on the way. I can’t have my family constantly in danger.”

  Sometimes with Hawke, I didn’t know if he was asking for my advice or simply looking for someone who used their ears more than their mouths.

  That was me—what the Alpha needed kept a secret went into my ears.

  “Alpha…” I began.

  “Don’t you call the Coeur Echo in times like this? Please, call me Hawke. I—I need a friend right now. I need someone on my side here. Flint is busy with his babies, and rightfully so. I can’t talk to Tarrow. He’s…”

  “Weird.” I answered for him.

  “He is,” he said, laughing. “But I have a feeling we will need him one day. He’s a smart kid.”

  It had taken me a full month of Echo berating me before I could call her Echo and not Coeur. Calling the Alpha, Hawke would be twice as hard.

  “Hawke,” I choked out. “It’s my opinion that if you want to stop living from crisis to crisis, as you said, then you need to begin to lead more—offensively. You have the love and respect of this clan, but you are not only the Alpha of this clan, you are the Alpha over all bears. There should be zero rumblings of dissension in the ranks. There should only be obedience. I’m not saying rule them through fear, but you should make an example of Horace, or his son, whoever is orchestrating these threats. I believe you made a mistake allowing those bears to go free last time.”

  I shrunk back after speaking the words not knowing if I’d gone too far with the last bit. I was known for telling the straight truth, but maybe this was one of those times were my barbarianism had shone through a little too vividly.

  He set his gaze on the moon again, yet said nothing.

  Tarrow came around the corner just as I opened my mouth to retract my previous speech. “Alpha, there is a Grizzly near your cabin a ways out. We caught his scent and ran him off. We think he was trying to get in—scenting the Coeur or something.”

  The Alpha jumped up and went inside, commanding the rest of us to head toward the cabin. Except me, he demanded I stay in the house with him. However, I couldn’t let my mate be exposed.

  “Martha,” I called her.

  “Hi, you coming home?”

  The first time she asks me if I’m coming home and I have to tell her no.

  “No. Actually, I need you to come to Hawke’s. There’s a Grizzly close and I have to stay here. I want you with me.”

  She sighed. “I’m on my way. I will bring my laptop.”

  “Good. And please hurry. It’s all I can do not to run over there and throw you over my shoulder myself, but the Alpha commanded me to stay here.”

  She giggled. “Okay. Two minutes.”

  I couldn’t help myself, I stood, one foot on the porch and one foot inside so that technically, I was not being disobedient, but the stance afforded me the view, I needed. As soon as Martha exited the house, I had her zoned in until she reached me.

  “You’re such a child. One foot in and one foot out. Really?”

  “A child? A child doesn’t need to see his female so badly that he’d stay on the edge of going against the Alpha’s orders to do so. Besides, you didn’t think I was a child last night.”

  She pushed me back inside and shut the door behind her.

  “By the way, we should try that throw me over your shoulder maneuver later.”

  I opened my mouth to answer her, but instead was interrupted by Echo, coming down the stairs.

  “Yes, later, please. We didn’t get to make-out in front of you. You don’t get to make-out in front of us.”

  Martha turned on me. “You stopped them from making out? Shame on you.”

  Chuckling, I responded. “I didn’t stop the making out. I just cleared my throat and they stopped.”

  “Well, “Martha approached Echo and rubbed her tiny baby bump. “You didn’t’ do enough throat clearing.”

  I reddened at my mate’s reference.

  “Oh, look at him, blushing. How sweet. Don’t worry Rev, soon enough your mate will have one of these too. I refuse for our children not to be friends.”

  Overcome with the desire for that very thing to occur, I shifted uncomfortably in place.

  “Come sit with me while I work.”

  I looked back up to see only Martha in the room. Who knew how long I’d been wigged out.

  “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “That’s the last time I want to hear you say that, Rev. I got over myself, now you need to get over yourself.”

  We sat there for hours and though I was more than pleased to be with my mate, I felt useless against our threat.

  “Eeew, you’re making me sick to my stomach.”

  “How?” I looked down at myself to inspect what was gross about me.

  “Your stress. It’s making me sick. You can’t do that.” She slammed her laptop shut and put it beside her on the coffee table.

  “I’m sorry. What can I do?”

  “First, stop freaking out. You won’t be any good to any of us wacked out like that. Tell me a story.”

  I cut her the most incredulous look I could muster. “A story? And you call me a child?”

  “Come on. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t grab my Kindle. Tell me a story.”

  Pulling her under my arm, I remembered that first night after the mate claim. We’d been so nervous.

  It was only a week or so ago.

  It seemed like ages.

  “Do you know how the first teddy bear came into being?”

  She looked up at me with her long, dark lashes blinking. “Tell me.”

  “Teddy Roosevelt and some people, I don’t remember who, were hunting and Teddy Roosevelt hadn’t shot anything. All of the people with him felt bad about it—he was the President of the United States, for crying out loud. Anyway, they trapped a black bear and tied it to a tree for him to shoot.”

  Martha plugged her ears and whisper-screamed. “I don’t want to hear about a black bear getting killed, Rev. Creator above!”

  I pulled her fingers from her ears, “Just listen. So, Teddy refused to kill the bear, calling the whole ordeal unsportsmanlike. The next day, the newspapers got wind of the story and one of the cartoonists drew a picture of the President, walking away from a guy pointing to a black bear that had been tied up.”

  “Ugh.” She grew frustrated. “Get to the teddy bears.”

  I rolled my eyes at my mate. “For a storyteller, you sure are impatient about hearing a story.”

  “Fine. Go on.”

  “So, some toy maker saw this drawing and decided to make his money off the scandal. He made the first stuffed bear and named it Teddy.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “I know. But it’s true.”

  “True stories are never fun. That’s why I have to dress them up a little. So, what happened to make us on full alert? Give me details”

  We spent the next couple of hours talking about everything under the sun—or the moon as was the case. The sun rose before we knew it. Hawke and Echo had gone to bed hours before, but we hadn’t budged. I chuckled to myself as I realized my folly from the night I’d met Martha. I’d assumed she would move to my schedule. I’d been such a bone-head. Already, I was having no trouble at all fitting into hers.

  The Alpha and the Coeur entered the room shortly after.

  “Tarrow and River are taking over this morning, Rev. You and your mate did us a great service last night. Go ahead and go home. Take your mate to get some sleep—or whatever you kids are calling it these days.”

  “Hawke!” Echo pulled her signature move, slapping Hawke on the arm. “Go on you two. This one is feisty in the mornings. There’s no telling what he will say next.”

  We took
our cue, grabbing Martha’s laptop and taking our leave. We got back to the house, and there were clothes everywhere.

  Men’s clothes.

  “What did you do?” I turned on her.

  “You said I could buy you clothes. I bought you clothes. It was fun. Especially these.” She paraded around the couch with a pair of maroon boxer shorts. “And these.” A blue pair. “And these. The package came last night late. One of the guards got it from the UPS man.”

  She held up a purple pair. Purple. Like one of the Pope’s people, purple.

  “You’re skidding on thin ice, female. I wear two colors, blue and brown. That’s it. I’m not Timber and you can’t bring to the store and buy me spider jammies.”

  She set the pair down, “Did you just say jammies?”

  “Stay on task, woman. I’m not wearing any of that.”

  Her whole face fell into a frown and I felt my posture slump with it.

  “You won’t wear any of the clothes I bought you?” Her chin quivered and I felt mine want to quiver to make her feel better.

  “Shit. Yes, I will wear them. But if you tell anyone I’m wearing purple underwear, I will burn it all.”

  A smile broke out faster than lightning. “Yay! I knew you would!”

  She was playing me. My female had just played me like I was the piano and she was Tchaikovsky.

  One quiver of her chin and suddenly I had agreed to run around in royal underwear.

  “You’re gonna pay for that. As soon as I take a shower and brush my teeth. You’re so gonna get it.”

  “Do you want some French toast?”

  “No. Yes. No. Yes. Good grief, what have you done to me?”

  “You’re being the best mate ever. Go take a shower and I will bring you a fresh towel and some clothes.”

  I grumbled and groaned all the way to the bathroom, through the lathering and washing, and even when she brought my towel in for me. When I got out of the shower, she was there, back turned, and her eyes.

  “You’ve seen this all before.”

  “Not all of it, mate.”

  “Okay.” I said, tucking one corner into the towel now wrapped around my waist. “You can look.”

  She turned, a full blush brightened her beautiful face. We’d been through so much in so little time that I didn’t know if I’d properly told her how beautiful she was to me.