by Lila Felix
“Yeah?” Harrison lifted his cell to his ear. I hadn’t even heard a ring.
“Good. Thank you, Ric.”
“Ric?” I asked in total confusion. There had to be another Ric.
“Yeah, that Ric. My father keeps enemies. I keep friends. Sorry, I forgot the hand thing.” He took my hand and squeezed. “This garden is always safe if you need to come out and scream or tell me something or you know, drag your mate out here to make out.” He laughed and shrugged. Not even sorry for tempting me.
All of a sudden, I was in some kind of bear soap opera.
“So I can trust Ric, too? If I needed something?”
His expression grew serious. “If you need anything or find yourself in a situation out in the Falls, you can go to any member of the Court of the Sun and the Moon. They are all allies, so to speak. As my mate, you will be protected.”
“And as the future queen?”
“Maybe it’s time for you to show me your ink.” He was changing the subject. Fine with me. I didn’t really want to talk about being the queen anyway.
“Oh. Here.” I pulled at the collared button-down shirt, one of many that my mother insisted I bring. She mistook a castle for a preppy private school.
“It’s a bear, no, it’s two bears. One looks like mine.”
I shrugged. “They might as well know who I belong . . . who my mate is.”
He moved in closer. I could feel the rhythm of his breaths against my neck. “I thought it would look different to me than it does to everyone else.”
My blush rose to my cheeks, putting the red roses around me to shame. “Um, if the mating is ever completed, it will change to something else that only you can see.”
Harrison’s eyes grew to large circles. “Oh, that must’ve been what took so long. Addie must’ve used a good bit of magic.”
“She did. She had some predictions about us.”
“Oh?” He cleared his throat. “What were they? We are safe here.” He must’ve seen my apprehension.
“That we would change this clan. Actually, she said we would change the future of all bears. There was more, but it was . . .”
“Was what?” He took another step toward me. His warm hand brushed mine, sending tingles down my spine and making my stomach pull tight. The scent of my mate overwhelmed me when he got this close. It was all I could do not to pretend this was all real and let myself fall for him.
“Nothing. Just that we would have a lot of children.” The words spilled from my mouth faster and sloppier than I’d ever spoken before.
He said nothing, so I stole a glance at him, still standing too close.
He winked at me. “Sounds like fun. Let me know when you want to get started on that.” With a kiss to my new tattoo, he left me there, panting.
Chapter 12
Harrison
“Are you coming with me? I thought you wanted to see the falls. We might not have another chance.”
“Where are we going?”
I looked over my shoulder. With arms crossed over her chest, she pretended to want to defy me—not to follow me.
“The falls. Isn’t that where you wanted to go? You know, our kind say that a couple who visits the falls together will never be parted in this life. They will fall in love if they aren’t already. Get it? Fall at the falls?” I sounded like an idiot again.
“Wow. That was horrible. You get girls with those lines?”
It didn’t matter how awful the joke was, it got her feet moving toward me. I held out my hand for her, not to signal anything, just to be able to touch her again.
Her soft fingers laced through mine.
“Looks like I got one girl with that line.”
“Maybe.”
We walked to the edge of the gardens, where an unassuming shed stood.
“Um, Harrison? This is creepy.”
“It’s our transportation.”
A scoffing sound came from my mate.
“It’s a motorcycle. Calm down. I told you, when my father is gone, we are free.”
Somewhere in the conversation, she’d let go of my hand. But she took it again before she spoke. “Don’t you think we should all be free even when your father is here? You are the future heir to the throne, Harrison, and even you feel imprisoned. Imagine how my people feel. Yes, they smile when they bring our tea. Yes, they are polite when they come to collect the laundry. But they are not free—just like you and me right now. What if your father decides to turn the plane around and come back? Will you pale and have to bring us home to pretend to play chess?”
The world stopped turning for me.
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do until I become alpha, if I become alpha.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Shit. I had to tell Atlas about my plans soon. She could be an ally for me.
Some servants had come out to prune the roses at the most inopportune time. Even in my garden, there were spies that pretended to be gardeners. They’d never come out when I was there before. By the coal color of their hair and the same colored eyes, I knew they were black bears, not cinnamon like the other servants. They weren’t gardeners at all.
“Now this place isn’t safe. Let’s go take a drive. Come on.”
I unlocked the padlock on the door and jumped onto the motorcycle, kicking up the stand with my heel.
“What?” I asked. She was still in the doorway, not looking pleased.
“That’s dangerous.”
Taking Atlas to a secluded place while she was so damned tempting—that was dangerous. “It’s fine. I ride it all the time. Trust me?”
Chapter 13
Atlas
Truth be told, I hadn’t quite arrived at the word trust when it came to Harrison. Lust? Yes. Attraction? Yes. Respect? Yes. Trust?
“Almost.” Honesty was the best policy, right?
For a moment, I thought maybe I’d hurt him. My chest throbbed with a huffing sound I didn’t recognize as my own.
“Is that you making that sound? Your bear?” I asked, rubbing my chest with my fist. I hadn’t meant to ask the question out loud. It was well known that bears made a similar sound while in the presence of their mate. Except, I hadn’t expected it with Harrison. He was still little more than a stranger to me in most ways.
“I think so. Must be a mates thing. Is it almost enough to get on and go with me?”
I thought about it for a second. More than trusting Harrison, I wanted to see Havenwood Falls, the place, not the town. I wanted to see what this mecca of sorts was about. Saundra had talked about it like unicorns and fairies lived there in their spare time.
In seconds, I was on the motorcycle, strapping on a helmet, rendering an answer unnecessary. Harrison reached behind him and circled my arms around his waist, patting my hands. I’d never been on a motorcycle. It seemed reckless.
Then again, everything in my life lately was reckless.
Beyond the grounds of the castle, my vision got blurry. Trees appeared and reappeared. We were passing the same landmarks over and over. My mate had successfully gotten us lost. I patted his stomach to get his attention, trying not to think about the vicinity of my hands.
“What?” he yelled.
“You’re lost. We are lost.”
He chuckled, and his stomach moved with it under my hands. “We’re not. Hang tight.”
Two more turns that almost made my breakfast come up, and suddenly it was as though a curtain was pulled, displaying a new scene. The smells of water and rock and fish permeated my nose. The sun was brighter. The grass was greener.
We came to a stop near a rock, and Harrison proceeded to hide his motorcycle behind it.
“See? Not lost.”
I got off the bike a little more violently than necessary, ripping the helmet off. “What was that? How did we get here?”
Harrison took the helmet from me. His short black hair was perfect after he took off his. I could only imagine what mine looked like. Frantically, I trie
d to finger-comb the knots out.
“It’s fine. It looks fine,” he said and then negated himself by moving strands this way and that.
“You didn’t answer me.”
“I’m not really sure. Maybe the protective magic around here was testing you. I have no idea. That magic is beyond my scope of knowledge.”
“But humans can come up here?”
“Yeah, of course. There are humans in Havenwood Falls—about half the population, actually. That’s the reason for the protective wards, especially the memory one.”
“Memory one?”
“Memory spell, to protect our secret. If residents are away from Havenwood Falls for a complete moon cycle, we lose our memory of ever being here. Visitors lose their memory of their time here after going some miles out of the town. Twenty-five, I think. You’ll forget this place when you’re gone.”
I flushed at his raw words.
“Harrison.” I called his name, mostly to make him stop. Hearing my own cutthroat plans to leave this person, who minute by minute was burrowing into my heart, felt like a betrayal.
“What? Isn’t that the truth? Or do you intend to really be mated to me and not just run after the ninety days are up and your bills are paid?”
Chapter 14
Harrison
My words came out harsher than I’d intended, but now was the time to be honest, while we could. Atlas looked like she couldn’t care less about what I was saying. Instead, she was digging in her jeans pockets, looking for the Creator knew what.
“I’m sorry what I’m saying is so boring to you. Something I can help you find?”
All movement stopped. “Found it!”
She pulled out a hair band from her tiny pocket and swirled and twirled her hair until it was a ridiculous mess on top of her head. There was no way she was getting any helmet on her head now.
Her brown eyes squinted at me. “It wasn’t boring. Stop being like that. Something you should know about me: I can’t focus with my hair all over the place. It drives me insane. Give me a second to gather my thoughts on all of this.”
“While you’re thinking, let’s go see the falls.”
I reached out to take her hand, but she moved it away from me. “I can’t think when you’re touching me. I need to think.”
My bear wanted to break free from his human chains and claim her for real right then and there. She couldn’t think while I was touching her?
Damn if that didn’t do it for me.
It took about ten more minutes through small climbs up rocks and turns through little caverns between hills to actually get to the waterfall. The sound of the water crashing into the pool beneath it boomed in my ears. Iridescent sprays of every blue and white in nature pummeled down and with the help of the sun, created rainbows all around us. There wouldn’t be many humans around here in the November weather. The leaves, long ago turned sunset and gold, had mostly fallen to the ground and left the trees bare. The falls were even more beautiful in the winter, with the snow blanketing the rocks, turning the waterfall into stalactites of ice.
“It’s stunning,” Atlas said, and then grabbed the sleeve of my shirt. Still not technically touching my skin.
“There’s a lot of stunning going on today.”
“Stop. That’s not helping the thinking.”
I chuckled, harder than I had in a while. “I didn’t know my mate required all this silence and not touching to think. Go on, then.”
I took a few steps along the edge of the pool and crouched down to look at the tiny fish that were found nowhere else in the world. They were conjured by magic and required no food. The perfect illusions for this place.
My shoes came off next, and I rolled up the legs of my pants, sat down, and put my feet in the water like I used to when I was a kid. It was frigid, but with our higher shifter temperature, that didn’t detract me from wanting to get in. Dolrich used to climb to the top and jump from the top of the falls, disturbing everything and everyone below.
I was content simply to be there.
“I did intend to mate you and leave.” It was less of a statement and more of a truth blurt. As though she had to get it out of her system before there was time to think about it again.
“You did or you do?”
“What about you? Do you intend to become the next alpha or just sit around while your cousin quietly takes over? It doesn’t automatically go to the heir, you know. He can choose someone else—someone who is taking diplomatic trips with him and basically being his shadow.”
“How did you know? What do you know?”
Atlas’s eyes rolled almost all the way to the back of her head. “I’m the only cinnamon bear to come to the castle not as a servant. You think my kin don’t speak to me?”
I looked back at the water, trying to think of the few times that she’d been alone in the castle. There hadn’t been very many, that I knew of.
“Who?”
She shot me a look that said please.
“So you can’t trust me.”
My skin tingled with needing her to be near for this conversation. It was probably the mating mark, but my will, when it came to my mate, was shredding by the second.
“I can trust you, Harrison. I can’t trust the alpha. The more information you know, the more you can’t claim ignorance to.”
She shucked her shoes and mimicked my action, rolling her pants up and sitting next to me. I held my breath while she did until she threaded her fingers in my hand, still lazily laying on my thigh, desperate for her touch.
“The less I know, the less I’m responsible for.”
“Yes. Do you know where the servants live? Someplace called the Terrace?”
I knew roundabout where it was, but had never been there. “I think I know where it is.”
“Oscar invited me there. Wants me to see how they live. He wouldn’t tell me any more than that.”
The growl that ripped from my throat couldn’t be stopped. Another male inviting my mate to his home wasn’t something that was done, especially to the Xaviers.
My snob was showing.
“You did not just growl at me.”
“No, I didn’t. I actually growled at the thought of you being in another male’s den.”
She seemed shaken. “Oh . . . does this help?” A silky-skinned hand ran under the back of my shirt and across my back a few times. I closed my eyes, reveling in the warmth and utter comfort it gave me.
“You calmed him—us—me and my bear.”
“My mom used to do that to my dad, before he died.”
I nodded. Touch was a big deal to bear shifters. This was more.
“That means something, doesn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. She knew it. Our inner animals were only calmed by our true mates.
It changed everything.
“If I’m not alpha, will you leave me?”
Chapter 15
Atlas
This was the last thing I wanted. I remembered just days ago, looking at the damned blindfold and thinking that one day I would regret this.
Now I was thinking that what I once thought was a mistake might be the best thing I’d ever done.
“I had a normal life,” I said, not so subtly avoiding his question.
“Tell me about your normal life.”
“I had just finished nursing school. I’d been hired by the best hospital in the state. I’d secured my own apartment nearby. Plans were in place. I had plans.”
I should’ve said plans more times. I didn’t think he quite got the point.
“Had you dated? Did you have a boyfriend?”
He really had no clue about me, which was not really a surprise, seeing as how he didn’t even know the state of his servants’ living conditions or what they were going through on a daily basis.
“I was dating a guy. But it was nothing serious. Did you know it was Oscar who knocked on my door that night and presented the alpha right there in my new apartment filled with boxes and all m
y unpacked things? I didn’t even have a place for him to sit. I hadn’t bought furniture yet.”
“It was Oscar? Why didn’t he say anything the other night? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because he’s scared, Harrison. No matter how friendly and buddy-buddy he is with you, he’s still just a lesser servant trying like hell to keep his job.”
Out of nowhere, Harrison reached around my body and pulled me by the waist, securing me under his arm. His body was warm, almost warmer than the sun that beat down on us and the waterfall.
“I don’t know how to fix all this. You were supposed to be the fix. That’s what I was told. Marry you and the feud with the cinnamons was over. Done and done.”
At least he called us cinnamons and not lessers. The man was learning.
“I’m just a Band-Aid to the problem, Harrison. I will appease them for a while, but it won’t last, especially if . . .”
“If you don’t stay.”
“If I don’t stay as future queen.”
We were at an impasse that I never saw coming. To tell the truth, my own words had shocked me. I could only help my people by staying here and serving, and yet, my new mate, who was supposed to be the future alpha to put me in a position to actually change things, didn’t want to be the alpha.
But he wanted me. The want was there in the way my heart beat around him. The way his touch made me breathless.
The way I imagined us completing the mating.
“I think we need a swim to clear our minds.” Plus, I wanted to get a good look at my mate.
“You know,” he used his teasing voice. I had learned to recognize it. “I didn’t bring my shorts. What a shame.”
“Good thing we’re mated and all alone up here. What are the chances we’ll get caught?”
He shrugged, looking around like he planned on getting caught right that minute. “Slim to none. There’s not a lot of people who come up here. And if they do, we will scent them before they arrive.”