“Having a witch as an ally would not be a terrible thing,” Abigail told him, “and your animal seems to hold some measure of interest in this woman.”
Pack loyalty was imbedded within each of them, and although Kevin knew they were holding something back, his trust in them had him stepping back.
Watching Samuel and Abigail showcase their true strength was an amazing sight. The two individuals glowed with pure power, and Kevin’s eyes were fixated on them as they each put a hand on the unconscious figure on the bed. The power that flowed through them was enough to make Kevin grit his teeth as he struggled to breathe. It was extraordinary just how much power the two of them housed inside their bodies.
Seconds or minutes – Kevin did not notice the flow of time. The blinding light receded slowly until Abigail withdrew her hand and stood up straight. “That should do it.”
Samuel nodded, and Kevin noticed that he looked a bit tired. “There is nothing left inside her that should hamper the healing process now.”
They walked out, and Kevin slumped into a chair.
He stared at the closed door and tried to wrap his head around what was going on. He brought an unknown woman into their den. He did not even know her name, and yet his beast was so possessive about her like she was his toy and his alone.
Right now, his bear was curious and wanted to sniff her and lick her clean. However, after the events of the day, Kevin realized that he was completely drained. He put his arms on the bed and settled his head on them.
He would just close his eyes for a few minutes to relax.
When Kevin awoke a few hours later, his brown eyes met the crystal blue eyes of his ward who stared back at him. Her hand glowed, and Kevin blinked. His bear stretched lazily inside of him.
“Who are you?”
“Kevin,” he said. Her scent was devoid of pain. “How are you feeling?”
The woman looked confused at the question, and then pulled up her shirt, her eyes moving over the smooth skin on her stomach. Kevin’s eyes widened, and he leaped forward, ignoring her startled cry, and ran his fingers over the place where the wound had been.
It was as if nothing had happened.
The skin was not even raised.
Without the presence of the’ ‘dark magic,’ the girl had healed within a few hours.
Chapter 5
Nina eyed the brown-eyed shifter from halfway across the room. The place where he had brushed his fingers still tingled. The shock of the skin contact had almost been electric, and that made Nina wary.
Totters stretched his wings and settled comfortably on the pillow where her head had been.
“He protected you.”
“He’s a man,” Nina argued back.
Witches were predominantly women. The few males that were born with these powers could not handle them and did not survive their childhood. Being surrounded by women from such a young age, and especially power-hungry women, Nina had been witness to their depraved acts.
Nina had grown up seeing men used by the witches. There was no kindness, no respect in those acts – just a show of power, where the female dominated the male, and it had scared Nina when she had been a young girl. Those men had been just as cruel as the women that kept them. They weren’t past tasting new blood, and the few times that men had tried to approach her, she had been able to sense the greed in them – the desire to break her – and for a young girl who was about to bloom into herself, it had been a scarring experience.
Although those eyes that stared at her from across the room seemed familiar, Nina could not help the tremor of fear that ran through her. The few times the men had tried to touch her, she had felt repulsed, and their injuries had been unexplainable. However, this man was different.
“You were badly injured just a few hours ago. I do not suggest jumping out of bed – witch or no witch.”
“He knows what I am?” Nina asked her familiar.
“He rescued you from the hunters. And he was kind to me.”
Totters did not tell her how the shifter knew him, but Nina’s tense form relaxed when she heard that this man had treated her familiar with kindness.
The door opened, and Nina turned around, her hands glowing. The woman who walked in had brown hair with grey streaks in them. Her sharp, brown eyes flared in surprise when they landed on Nina. “Should you be out of bed?”
The young witch studied her. The woman looked harmless. As she set the tray she had been carrying on the table, her eyes flickered down to where the wound had been, and she sucked in her breath.
Nina looked at the two shifters in the room, and when she saw that their stances were relaxed, her muscles loosened. They did not seem to want to hurt her. “Where am I?”
Kevin’s bear was moving around, agitated. The human part of him was having difficulty controlling it. When he answered, his voice had a little bit of the animal inside of it. “You’re in Shadow Claw territory.” He stalked her, his bear uneasy for reasons that he could not understand. All he knew was that even Abigail’s presence was seen as a threat by his animal. “What I want to know is, why is a witch so far from her settlement?”
Nina took a step back as the shifter walked toward her. In all the years she had lived at the compound, not once had she ever felt this way. There was a strange fire in her lower abdomen as he came closer. The intense look in the shifter’s eyes had her trying to breathe past this burning sensation she was feeling.
The woman who had entered left the room quietly. Nina did not notice.
The male shifter was all she could see. His presence loomed over her, and her body tingled in anticipation. In anticipation of what?
The black T-shirt that he wore did nothing to hide his lean, muscled form. His chiseled jaw was tight, and Nina had the urge to stroke it. The gleam in his eyes was unnerving, and she felt like prey. His movements were slow, and Nina could not understand why her mouth was dry. When she had woken up, he had been kind – careful even – to calm her down, but the minute the female shifter had shown up, he had become aggressive.
Kevin felt his animal strain against his skin. He did not even know her name. She was still caked in dirt. But those big, blue eyes were wide. Gone was the fear. Instead, it was replaced with a different kind of wariness. He wanted to sip her, see what she tasted like. She took a step back, and his beast prowled, readying itself for the chase. However, she was not running away.
He loomed over her until he had her backed against the wall, cutting off all escape. His chest pushed into hers, and he could feel that she was not wearing a bra under that torn shirt. His eyes went to her pulse, which was fast. One hand travelled up her arm to the back of her neck, which he gripped in a firm hold.
Kevin’s head lowered, and he trailed his nose along her jaw and down her neck, taking in her scent. He could feel himself harden and felt dazed. From the back of his mind, his voice of reason was hushed as he followed his instincts. Placing a soft bite on the woman’s collar bone, he felt her arms fall limply by her sides and her head fall back in submission as she bared her neck to him.
He had a feeling she did not even know what she was doing.
His claws unsheathed. They ripped through her shirt as his mouth hovered over hers teasingly. There was nothing even faintly humorous about the situation. Their breaths were unsteady, and their bodies reacted to this sizzling chemistry.
Kevin kissed her softly, his lips sipping from hers. Then, he dove in, and her mouth fell open under his gentle assault. He explored her mouth and sucked her tongue, making her moan.
Maybe it was the cry, or maybe it was the cold wind on Nina’s nipples, that had them both snapping out of it. They stared at each other, their eyes wide, and Nina pushed at him, a burst of power propelling him backwards.
Kevin whirled around so as not to lose his balance and then rubbed the back of his neck and stared at her. “What was that?”
He liked her husky voice, he realized. It made his cock more uncomfortable, but Nina did not
seem to realize his predicament. She seemed furious. “You attacked me!”
That took Kevin aback. “Attacked you? You were right there with me, you crazy witch.”
That just seemed to offend her more, and she threw a burst of magic toward him, making him duck, and a lamp splintered into a million pieces behind him. “I am not crazy! And my name…” The chair behind him blew apart as she shouted out, “…is Nina!”
The bulb flickered, and Kevin growled in annoyance.
“I have never seen you lose control like this, master.”
Nina struggled with herself, but this confusion inside of her was making her panic. She had never let a man near her! This one slipped right past her defenses, and she had let him.
His growl echoed within the room, and Nina glared back. Totters was right. She had always held the leash that she kept around her emotions in an iron fist. She blinked.
It felt good.
Letting out her anger felt so right.
The little giggle that escaped her had the shifter staring at her as if she really was crazy. He took a step back, and just then, the door barged open and in rushed some of his packmates. Immediately, without thinking, he shifted and moved toward Nina protectively. The sudden fear in her scent riled up the bear even more, and he stood in front of her, facing his packmates, his teeth bared in a snarl.
Mine. He told them.
He did not know why, but he felt the weight of the bird as it flew over and settled on his back. His growl grew in magnitude until he felt something pull at his fur. Turning his head around, he saw Nina’s pale face and her hands clenched in his fur.
“Move over! Out of the way!” came a familiar growl. “Honestly, what good will all of you do standing here, gaping like a bunch of blithering idiots. Go back to what you were doing. I saw that, Simon!”
Heather pushed her way into the room, followed closely by Abigail who seemed a little frazzled. They stared at the broken furniture, and Heather clucked her tongue. “And just who is going to pay for all this?” She pointed a finger at the snarling Kevin, and snapped, “This is coming out of your funds, boy. And watch your tone.”
The bear heard the reprimand and stopped growling. However, he did not move from his position in front of Nina. The young witch’s legs wobbled, and for a few seconds she felt that she was way in over her head.
“Totters, what is going on?” she asked weakly. One minute the male shifter had been trying to seduce her, and now he was protecting her, even after she had nearly blown him up.
“I do not know. He doesn’t seem to want to share you.”
“Share me?”
Nina had no idea what that even meant.
“Kevin, you let go of that poor child. She needs to take a bath. And she needs to be fed.” Heather was scolding the bear now, who became defensive and huffed at her.
Heather glared at him. “Watch your language. You’re still not too old for me to wash your mouth with soap.”
A snicker from the corridor outside had Heather narrowing her eyes, as she called out, “Luke, that had better not be you.”
A shuffle of feet, and then there was silence.
The elders were the older matrons of the pack. They could be quite terrifying, and Kevin knew for a fact, that even his alpha was not spared from their wrath. In times when the pack hierarchy was to be enforced, they listened to Luke, but otherwise, they would walk all over the bad-tempered bear alpha.
Nina watched the two women who stood in front of the massive bear that could probably have killed them both in one glancing blow. The man may have sparked a wide range of emotions within her, which she could not identify, but the bear made her feel safe and protected.
When was the last time she had sought protection from anybody?
The bear was grunting and making noises at the woman who was telling him off, not prepared to let anyone get close to her. When Nina’s stomach growled, everybody fell silent, and the blood rushed to the young witch’s cheeks.
The older woman’s tone quickly changed from disapproving to kind, and she held out a hand. “Come on, child. We’ll clean you up and feed you.”
Nina eyed the outstretched hand warily. However, she had her magic, she told herself. She was not weak. She could protect herself if she got in danger. She ran a hand over the bear’s back and whispered a soft ‘thank you’ as she stepped toward the woman who introduced herself. “I’m Heather. That is Abigail and,” she threw a scowl over her shoulder at the grumbling animal, “that is Kevin.”
Nina suddenly felt shy at the warmth that exuded from Heather. She let herself be led out of the room. Meeting the eyes of the bear that had been her fierce protector for a few minutes, she told herself that she was imagining the mournful look in his eyes.
“Shift, Kevin.”
Abigail’s voice was quiet, and sensing how serious she sounded, Kevin closed his eyes and called upon the change that would reveal his human form. However, nothing happened. When he opened his eyes, he felt a confused whine escape his lips.
This was not like him.
Sometimes, cubs had a hard time shifting, but Kevin had always been a very serious child growing up. Aside from his mischievous streak where he would wreak havoc with his friends, his sense of responsibility had always been his strength. He had been born with a quiet confidence, which he wore like a second skin, and that confidence had allowed him to shift with ease when he had been two years old.
Never once in his life had he ever been unable to shift.
It was unheard of for adults to be unable to call upon their human form.
He tried again, but it did not work.
Panic filled his mind until he felt Abigail’s calming hand on his head. Her voice was infused with power as she spoke. “Shift.”
Kevin waited, but nothing happened.
The elder pursed her lips and studied him. Sighing, she ran a hand over her face. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Kevin huffed, and Abigail shook her head. Heather was the only one with the ability to understand a shifted bear while she was in human form.
She walked over to the pieces of chair that lay strewn across the floor and made a face as she picked them up and tossed them into the bin.
“Shifters sometimes have the ability to share their life force.” She gave a sharp look to the subdued bear over her shoulder and walked over to the bed to sit down. Pursing her lips again, she spoke slowly, each word chosen with great care. “The fact that the witch healed so quickly from such a wound is because you gave her some of your life essence. The last time such a thing has been recorded was…well it was a very long time ago, and the circumstances were different.”
The bear padded over to her, and Abigail ran a comforting hand over the confused animal. No matter how old these children got, they always came to her for comfort and guidance. That was the way it always had been. It did not matter how senior a lieutenant was, or how high up in the hierarchy an alpha was, they would always turn to the pack elders for affection and love.
“You’re going to be fine,” Abigail told him. “From what I guess, you’ve been sharing your life essence for quite a few days now. Those bouts of weakness that you have been feeling were because of this. I will ask Samuel to look into this. But, for a day or so, your body needs to recover from the shock of losing so much power. Do not be a baby,” she scolded him when the bear whimpered, not knowing what to do. “This way, you can take that break Luke has been telling you to take.”
The common room was not as full as Kevin might have expected. A few people were milling about – mostly some juveniles and a few cubs who were dozing off on the sofas while their mothers sat around, relaxing and talking to each other. Thus, nobody really looked surprised to see a shifted Kevin walk into the room.
One of the mothers, Crystal, motioned to Kevin and put a finger on her lips, pointing at the cub sprawled over her lap, sleeping, asking him not to make any loud sounds. Kevin huffed softly and walked over to where Nina
sat at the table.
She looked at him and, sitting on a high stool, their faces were level. Now that Kevin took a closer look at her with her all cleaned up, he realized she looked like a little pixie. Her face was small and her complexion fair. Combined those with those big, blue eyes, and she looked completely childlike and innocent. Not at all the face of someone who had just destroyed half the furniture in his room.
Her hair was short, and it looked like fuzz. Kevin ran a tongue over it, making Nina squeal and push at him. She glared at him, and the bear decided that making her angry did not sound like a very appealing idea. He sat down and put his head in her lap, ignoring the soft gasp she made. Her scent was soft and soothing right now, and he closed his eyes, ready to take a nap.
The stiffness eased from Nina’s shoulder as she realized that the bear had decided to nap on her. His eyes closed, and his nose poked her stomach. However, he seemed very comfortable, and Nina decided to let sleeping dogs lie. He seemed to be far too interested in her. And the bear seemed safer than the human male whose eyes burned with a fierce emotion when they looked at her.
She reached for the sandwich and ate it slowly with both hands. She had not eaten a proper meal in over a week, and her eyes burned with unshed tears as she tried to stop herself from inhaling the food. The bear must have sensed her distress because he made a rumbling sound. Nina did not know why he was choosing to protect her or remain in such close proximity to her, but his concern made her feel better. It felt nice to be looked after and cared for.
She put one of her hands in her lap as she leaned forward to take a spoonful of the soup. The rough tongue that licked her hand made her freeze. She looked down to see the bear – no, Kevin – lick her hand. Not knowing what to do, Nina stared at him. All those sharp teeth near her hand had her heart thumping against her chest, but he did not do anything. He licked the crumbs off her hand in a contented manner, and then with one final lick, he burrowed his face in her lap and dozed off.
Desired by Alpha Bear Page 4