by Kim Fox
He just stood there staring with his mouth falling open. His body looked frozen and the whites of his eyes turned black as they were locked on her.
A warmness flooded through her despite the cold rain. What is happening?
After a moment, he shook his head and the darkness of his eyes dissolved back to their normal whites. His shoulders dropped and he stared at her in shock.
“You guys are so weird,” she said as she threw her bag into the car. “Don’t call me.”
Ava climbed into the car as Julius just stood there with bulging eyes watching her. She yanked the gear shift into drive and barreled out of the ranch without looking back.
“ALEXANDER!” Julius screamed as he stormed back into the house. His hands were squeezed into fists and the tendons in his neck were so tight that they felt like they were going to snap.
Hannibal and Khan ran out from the kitchen with worried looks on their faces. “What’s wrong?” Hannibal asked.
“ALEXANDER!” Julius screamed again. “Get the fuck down here!”
His large brother appeared at the top of the stairs. “Us Vega brothers don’t belong with mates,” he said. “They’re nothing but trouble. They’re all sweet at first but one day they’ll change. They’ll change and slowly destroy you. Just look what Dad’s mate did to him. It had to be done, Julius. For your own good.”
“Come outside and I’ll show you what has to be done!” he turned and stormed out of the house into the biting rain. He ripped off his shirt and urged his bear forward as the cold rain stung his back.
His grizzly bear was pacing inside of him, snarling and raging to get out and confront the dead man who took away his mate.
“Julius,” Hannibal said, bursting out of the door first. “What happened?”
Julius could barely say it. He felt like he was going to throw up. “She left.”
Khan walked out next followed by Alexander. Julius glared at him with a clenched jaw. His nostrils flared as his body tensed. “Because of him!”
“What did you say?” Hannibal asked.
It didn’t matter. Whatever he told her was a lie. The truth was Julius did want to marry her. When he asked her to marry him last night he was asking her because he wanted to, not because of some stupid deed. The ranch meant nothing to him now if he didn’t have Ava to share it with.
“I told her that he was pretending that she was his mate,” Alexander said.
“SHE IS MY MATE!” Julius screamed into the fierce wind. “I just bonded to her!” His head dropped. “As she was leaving,” he whispered. How could this be true? How could this have gotten so fucked up?
He raised his chin and glared at his older brother standing before him. It was because of him. And now Julius would make him pay.
COME! He let his inner grizzly surge forward without even bothering to take off the rest of his clothes. His jeans shredded to pieces as an angry roaring bear exploded from his body.
“Ah shit,” Hannibal said, rubbing the back of his neck.
Julius’ grizzly bear charged forward at Alexander. Khan and Hannibal dove out of the way as Alexander’s polar bear ripped out of his body.
Alexander phased just in time to have a furious grizzly collide into him. Thunder cracked overhead as the two bears snapped, scratched and bit each other.
Julius was seeing red. He urged his bear to draw blood. He was fighting with everything that he had. Alexander and his polar bear had separated him from his mate and now he was going to pay, or Julius was going to die trying.
The polar bear was a much larger bear and usually always dominated Julius’ grizzly in fights but today was different. The grizzly was possessed with rage and was burning with the need for vengeance.
He stomped on the white bear’s ribs and grabbed a chunk of his shoulder, biting down and making the polar bear cry out in pain.
His mate Ava was gone, probably for good, and he was taking all of his frustration, anger and despair out on his brother. And why not? He was the one who caused it all in the first place.
“That’s enough, Julius!” Hannibal called out from the sidelines.
Julius didn’t stop. He bit and brought down his thunderous paws onto the polar bear as the wind picked up and the hard rain lashed into them.
Alexander’s bear whined and dropped onto his back. He showed his neck in a sign of submission. Julius had won but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to kill his brother for what he had done.
His bear opened his powerful jaws and grabbed a hold of the defeated bear’s neck. He could have chomped down and drew his blood, ended his life, but that wouldn’t have brought Ava back.
He released his brother and the grizzly bear stumbled back on trembling legs. Julius phased back to his human form and dropped down to his knees.
She’s gone.
His brothers just watched as he knelt in the mud and let out a heartbreaking wail. Julius was glad that the rain was there to hide the tears streaming down his cheeks.
ten
Ava stepped back into her tiny apartment and sighed. I can’t believe I’m back here. For some reason, it didn’t feel like home anymore.
Her heart was still somewhere else. Across state lines by the Absaroka white-capped mountains.
She walked to her bedroom feeling broken inside. She had dated guys before and had been dumped a few times but nothing had ever felt like this. She had never been so heartbroken before.
But she had never put herself out there quite like this before either. Julius had asked her to marry him and she had said yes. Could you be any stupider? What would make you think that you could get a guy like him? Why would he even be remotely interested in you?
He was pantie searing hot and lived in a paradise. And she was just an unemployed failure.
She dropped onto her bed, stuffed her face in her pillow and cried. You have ten minutes to feel sorry for yourself. Then you get up and get moving.
When her ten minutes was up she rolled off her wet pillow and sat down at her computer. She turned it on and took a deep breath as it loaded. A picture of her and Karl sitting at the sushi restaurant that they loved popped on the screen. I wonder if Julius likes sushi.
She bit her tongue when she caught herself thinking of him. There was going to be a lot of that in the next few days. She’d just have to power through it. That’s what Ava did. She was a survivor, a warrior. She would get through this.
But first things, first.
“Alright, jobs,” she muttered as she googled some job openings in her area. She cringed as the slim pickings popped up. She was either overqualified or way under-qualified for all of them and to be worse the pay listed for both was much lower than she had gotten paid at Ackerman Industries.
She poked her back tooth with her tongue. All of this happened because of that damn root canal. She chuckled and then started laughing hard. Her life ruined over a tooth. “That’s Ava in a nutshell,” she whispered to herself.
She was determined to get back on her feet. She still dreamed of escaping her cramped apartment and going to live with Julius on his ranch but that wasn’t an option anymore.
She’d have to make her own way, without him.
First things first.
Ava clicked on a posting for a quality inspector at a manufacturing plant.
She needed a job.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Hannibal asked with his head in his hands.
The four Vega brothers were sitting around the kitchen table staring at each other. Alexander had his arms crossed over his massive chest. A fresh pink wound was sliced down his forearm. Julius couldn’t help but smile every time he glanced at it. I hope that shit stings. Asshole.
“It’s not a good idea to take mates,” Alexander said with his chin in the air. His eyes were narrowed and confrontational. Stubborn fuck.
“We know that,” Khan snapped. “But it’s also not a good idea to live on the fucking streets now is it?”
“We don’t have to live on the streets,” Alex
ander said.
“Then where are we going to live when we lose the ranch?” Khan asked, tapping the table with his finger.
Alexander just gave him a glassy stare. “I’m going back to the army.”
Hannibal dropped his head into his hands while Khan sighed with exaggeration.
“You don’t care about anybody but yourself,” Julius said. “You don’t care that all three of us went through hell during that time.”
“I was a resource in the Special Shifter Forces,” Alexander explained. “I felt comfortable going in enemy lines. I don’t feel comfortable here. I don’t belong here.”
“You felt comfortable?” Julius snapped. “You got shot a dozen times a fucking day! How was that comfortable?”
“I was important in the army,” he said, standing up and towering over the table. “And I’m going back.”
“Good!” Julius called out as Alexander stormed out of the room. “I hope you get shot in the dick!”
Julius sighed. Alexander wasn’t always such an asshole. Once upon a time, he was fun and cool. Julius often wondered what happened to him to make him change so drastically.
Khan was grinding his teeth. “We’re going to lose the family ranch. Four generations and of course we’re the ones to fuck it up.”
“Sounds about right,” Julius said. But he didn’t care about the ranch anymore. It was the last thing on his mind. He only cared about the monumental task of getting his mate back.
“We still have a year to work on him,” Hannibal said. Julius’ youngest brother was always looking for the solutions. It never helped to dwell on the problems, he would say. “But right now one of us has to find a mate and get married by the end of the month.”
“I’m out,” Julius said and he meant it. Now that he bonded with Ava he wasn’t about to even so much as look at another girl.
“That’s fair,” Hannibal said. He looked at Khan. “Draw matches?”
Khan grimaced and then turned to Julius. “You’re just going to give up on Ava?” he asked.
Julius would never give up on her. He just had no idea what to do. He was always good at making women pissed at him but he was never good at making them forgive him after. He never had to, he would always just move onto a new one.
“You can drive to Seattle,” Hannibal said. “Try talking to her.”
Khan shook his massive head. “What you should do is kidnap her, throw her in your trunk and bring her back here. We’ll tie her up and bring her to the chapel to-”
“Please stop talking,” Julius said, rubbing his temples. He had a raging headache and his idiot brother was just making it worse.
Hannibal nodded. “Go talk to her.”
I should give her a few days to cool down. But even being away from her for a few days sounded like torture.
“Alright,” he said, swallowing hard. “It can’t hurt. Can it?”
eleven
Julius had wandered around the ranch for the past four days like a zombie. There was a constant hollowness in his chest and he had aches and pains all over his body that were never there before.
His eyes were red and scratchy. He couldn’t sleep at night despite being fatigued all day. And that was just him. His bear was doing even worse. It was torture for his bear to be away from his mate like this. He groaned and whined all day, and he tried to surge forward every time that Alexander was in the room with him.
Julius walked into the garage and sighed when he saw the motorcycle laid out in pieces on the floor. He smiled weakly as he remembered how skilled and proficient Ava was at working with the old parts.
He sat down on the floor and picked up where she left off. He squirted some foaming cleaner onto a rag and got to work scrubbing the rusted metal.
It was lonely work. He missed Ava. He missed his dad.
Is this what life is like without a mate? Julius had seen older bear shifters who had been separated from their mates for long periods of time. It wasn’t a pretty sight. They always dragged their feet and spoke with a sadness to their voice. It wasn’t something a bear shifter could ever get over.
And it’s not something that he ever wanted to get over.
How could he get over Ava? She was everything to him now. His father was right. He didn’t see it before but he saw it now. Ava was more than a fiancee, more than a girlfriend and more than just a woman.
Ava was him and he was her. They were made of the same substance, woven of the same matter. He completed her in a way that no one else could.
He saw all of that now but it was too late. He had fucked it all up.
Julius remembered his father’s encouraging voice. His father had always followed his heart and encouraged Julius to do the same. The boys had laughed at his father’s constant sacrifice and dedication to Julius’ horrible mother. But he understood it now.
He would never laugh at his father again. He saw now that he was wiser than Julius ever realized. Wiser than any of his sons had ever given him credit for.
He realized now why his father had done what he had done. Why he was forcing them to seek out their mates. He was helping them to see and to experience life on a new level, with new heights. Even though Julius was heartbroken he wouldn’t change his bonding experience to take away the pain. Those two days with Ava were the best of his life. They were worth a lifetime of pain and sorrow.
What would Dad say to me now?
He would have told me to follow my heart. To never stop.
Julius stood up and dusted off his clothes. His father was right about having a mate. He was probably right about this too.
“That’s it,” he said to himself, holding his head up high. “I’m driving to Seattle.”
twelve
Ava dumped her dinner in the garbage after barely taking a bite. Food had been so tasteless since she got back home from Montana four days ago. Everything tasted like cardboard and her stomach was usually too upset to eat anyway.
She slipped on her uniform for her new job and checked how she looked in the mirror. Her eyes looked tired with dark bags under them and her mouth had a constant down-turned position these days.
It was her first night on her new job; night shift at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop. “Good thing I paid for college,” she said to the sad looking reflection in the mirror.
But she didn’t really have a choice. She lived paycheck to paycheck and she had a fresh pile of unpaid bills on the kitchen counter, not to mention the rent that was due next week. She had to take what she could get and all that she could get right now was a job as a barista at Muggy’s Coffee.
“Just be happy you found something,” she told herself. She could have been out on the streets begging for change.
She smoothed out her uniform, headed to the door and turned the lights off in her messy apartment. Julius flashed into her mind. She wondered what he was doing at this moment. “Stop it,” she hissed at herself. “That guy is not worth thinking about.”
She was still deeply hurt and she knew that it would take her a long time to get over what he did to her.
“Let’s just go,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Smile.”
Ava put on a forced smile and opened the door.
And there he was. The man who had been haunting her thoughts and dreams, and keeping her up at night.
Julius stood in her doorway with sadness oozing out of those brilliant green eyes of his. He looked even worse than her.
She opened her mouth but couldn’t find her voice. She had no idea what to say anyway. Ava honestly didn’t think that she’d ever see him again. She thought that he would quickly move onto the next girl to fill her head with lies and convince her to marry him. He would even give her the same engagement ring that he tried to hook her in with.
“Ava,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you here?” she asked. “To rub it in a little bit more?”
He shook his head as his chin trembled. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”
“I have to go to work,” she said, feeling a tightness in her throat. She suddenly realized how she looked, wearing her unflattering coffee shop uniform.
“Can we step inside for a second?” he asked with desperation in his voice.
Ava closed the door behind her. Her apartment was too messy and she didn’t want him to see it like that. “What do you want?” she asked.
He swallowed hard and grimaced. He looked like he had true pain in his eyes but Ava wasn’t buying it. She knew that he was a good actor and he had fooled her once before. It wouldn’t happen again.
“I love you,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Ha!” she laughed. Was this guy serious?
“I have to go now,” she said, trying to step past him. “Thanks for the laugh.”
“Wait,” he said, his voice sounding panicked. “It’s true that I wanted to meet up with you to try and get a quick marriage to save my family ranch but that all changed when I met you. You’re amazing. You can restore an old motorcycle and make an old horse feel like a young stallion. You can drink me under the table and eat as many ribs as Khan. And you can make a bear shifter who was always so against marriage propose to you after only one day of being by your side.”
Ava dropped her eyes to the floor. His words seemed genuine and he seemed to be really hurting but she wasn’t going to let herself get hurt by him again. She couldn’t take another stab to her heart.
“Look, Ava,” he continued. “I don’t care about the ranch. I really don’t anymore. It’s nothing without you. I’d live in a cardboard box and be the happiest man on the planet if you were by my side. I want you. I need you.”
She sighed. She didn’t know what to believe. She knew what she wanted to believe but that probably wasn’t the smartest option.
“Just please give me another chance,” he said with his hand on his chest. “Forget the marriage. I’ll let the ranch go and you can see that my feelings are true. All I want is you.”