Untamed Mate: A Shifting Destinies Bear Shifter Romance (Shifters of Bear's Den Book 6)

by Cecilia Lane

  Mara sighed and shoved on the weak protests from her inner lioness. The soft growls and barely there scratches were all the communication they had with the damn collar on her neck. At that moment, and nearly every morning for a year, the punishment felt like a blessing. She was starved for touch; she didn’t need her inner beast stoking her denied needs any further.

  Mara shook her head and rolled to sit on the edge of her cot. She reached her arms over her head and stretched, then twisted and turned to work out the kinks down her back. Her captors now were better than the ones before, but a prison cot still wasn’t a comfortable night’s sleep.

  She spread out on the floor and let the hard surface straighten out the stiff spots she couldn’t reach in her stretch. She focused her eyes on the little red dot of the camera in the corner, lifted her legs off the ground, and started her crunches.

  She’d grown softer in her year of captivity. Some curves wouldn’t ever go away, but her stomach was rounder and her arms weren’t as firm. Her brother would have poked at her and urged her back into the ring with a challenging grin daring her to give up.

  Mara faltered as a wave of grief shivered through her. Thoughts of Matthew sank her mood faster than anything else. He was the start of where her life went wrong. Not that he caused the downward spiral. That was all on her. But he was the original point, and he paid a heavy price for her interference.

  Working out served to pass the time, but there was more to it than that. She was a fighter. Always had been. Her father took part in illegal ring fights, and her brother followed in his steps. She learned from an early age that if she wanted their attention, she had to get in the ring with them.

  She had to be ready to fight for Matthew’s memory the moment she was released.

  With a growl, she picked up where she stopped. If she pushed herself hard enough, she could dull her painful memories and burn off some of her restless energy before breakfast. She made the same bargain every morning.

  She missed Matthew, and Kate, the woman who loved him more than life itself and gave him two wonderful cubs. Joy and Jack were on her list, too. Their smiles and growth spurts and accomplishments were happening without her.

  And Hudson. He was never far from her thoughts. He stayed her execution with a handful of words.

  “She’s my mate.”

  Mara bared her teeth and fought through the burning of her muscles.

  She deserved her punishment. That was never something she contested. She set fires to buildings inside Bearden to draw attention to herself. Walking into the police station and telling them flat out that she was there to lure innocent shifters into the arms of hunters wasn’t an option. The moment her tracker gave off a bad signal, Kate and the kids would have been killed. She learned that lesson with Matthew.

  No, she tried to get creative with solving her problems. Not that it worked. Arson charges were the reasons why she called a cell underneath Bearden Town Hall her home. Everything else was considered acting under duress.

  Under duress. Because that sounded better than trading away other lives to keep her and her family breathing.

  That was the pity of shifter society. Most crimes were give and get. If she stole, the punishment would come out of her hide. Small town crimes of getting too drunk or spray painting dicks on a neighbor’s fence were handled with an overnight stay in the drunk tank.

  She was different. She acted under duress. No one would kill her because a man claiming to be her mate bargained away that ending. So she was next door neighbors to a trio of sleeping protectors that weren’t even doing their jobs anymore. The Broken had their heyday with creating a barrier around the town, but now they were just silent companions without a use.

  Sometimes Mara wanted to scream and scream and scream. Would anyone even notice? The Broken wouldn’t even flinch if she yelled until her throat was raw.

  She had nothing but time on her hands. She didn’t hurtle from one disaster to another, had no need to be on high alert, and she still couldn’t settle. Maybe it was the new cage she was trapped in. Maybe it was the man that made her sit up and pay attention.

  Her door banged with a double-tapped knock, then swung open. Mara jerked herself out of her degrading thoughts. She flashed a smile to Mack and took the tray of breakfast from his hands. He was good to her. Polite. Always a kind word. He didn’t deserve her sour mood.

  “Thanks,” she muttered and took her seat at her tiny table. “Library open today?”

  Mack matched her smile with a twitch of his own. He ducked his eyes and pointed to a couple of books next to her. “Finished those already? I can send Hank or Cullins for the next ones.”

  “Please. Anything to keep me from counting the tiles,” she said around a mouthful of food.

  “Sure thing. You want to shift or shower first?”

  Mara’s smile slipped. She stared down at her tray, brought to her by a guard, through a locked door. Shift or shower. Those were the limits of her freedom. No matter how nice the guards were, they still held her captive.

  “Shower. I don’t want to miss Kate and the kids.” Visiting hours opened soon after breakfast. Kate was rarely late.

  Every day was a repeat of the last.

  “When you’re ready.” Mack nodded and took a step through the door frame.

  Mara had hardly settled back in her cell when Mack knocked twice, then swung open the door. “Visitors,” he announced. “Let’s check the security.”

  Mara planted her hands on the table and waited for Mack to step closer. She tilted her head to the side and his fingers brushed against the silver collar around her neck. He conducted the same assessment anytime she left the cell. Still locked, still attached, still silver. Her lioness was trapped deep within her mind and she had to reach to sift her fingers through imagined fur, but she wouldn’t stick claws in anyone if she tried to escape.

  Mack moved back into the hallway and watched her rise and take her place in front of him before giving the order to walk. She took the same path down the hall and ignored the same curious glances shot from new arrivals on the science team. He gave her the same command to turn and enter the visitor’s room set aside for the few people that came to speak with her.

  Inside, Kate bounced Jack on her knee while Joy pouted and stared into a corner. Her sister-in-law wore the look of a frazzled mother.

  “Hi,” Mara greeted. She slid into a seat across from Kate and smiled broadly at her niece and nephew.

  Joy had filled out in the last year. Her cheeks weren’t sunken and her eyes were bright. Jack, too, had grown. He still looked smaller than he should for having spent most of his first few years in a cage, but Kate never expressed concern. Both were spitting images of Matthew.

  She would do anything for the family. She had done everything for them. Mara brushed aside the faces that welled up in her memory.

  “Morning,” Kate said, pulling a crayon from Jack’s mouth. She rolled them closer to Joy and handed the squirming toddler to his sister. “Why don’t you help him color. I want to talk to Aunt Mara.”

  Joy made a face, but complied with the request. Kate watched them for a long moment before turning to Mara. “We won’t be able to stay long. I need to cover at the coffee shop today.”

  “More hours are good,” she said in a neutral tone.

  Kate nodded and toyed with her hands. Her thumb and forefinger rubbed at the empty spot where her wedding ring once rested. That’d been lost long ago when one hunter felt he needed to be paid when Matthew lost him a sizeable bet in the ring. “Jacob invited us all to dinner tonight.”

  “And?” Mara swallowed.

  The man was like her, from what Hudson told her. Jacob was forced to work for hunters. The ones he tracked down didn’t always end up in ring fights like her victims. Jacob’s captors were of the more dangerous, scientific and military variety.

  His existence outside of a prison cell was held up time and again that she’d done no wrong. It was always accompanied by words
like forced and duress and no fault. Jacob and everyone around him may have found their peace with his crimes, but she wasn’t him, and her fault ran deeper than just what she’d done while someone yanked on her leash.

  She started Matthew down the path that saw him dead. If she hadn’t been so insistent, she’d never have needed to hand over seven innocent lives to keep air in her lungs. She’d never had fired at a fae and burned her tent to the ground. Mara deserved her punishment.

  Kate stayed quiet.

  “Kate, I’m not going to be upset if you move on.” Three years was a long time to grieve.

  A blush crept over Kate’s cheeks and she flicked her eyes up, then back down. “He was your brother.”

  “And your mate. And he’s gone.” Mara shrugged and looked away to hide her welling tears.

  Her fault. Kate lost her mate and she lost her brother because she couldn’t keep her ideas to herself. Big plans, owning their own ring, promoting their own fighters, that was what she talked Matthew into. They attracted the wrong notice because she wanted more.

  Kate reached forward and squeezed her hand. The faint touch was gone before Mack could remind them of the rules about no contact. “I still hurt, too.” She cleared her throat. “Jacob lost his mate, you know. We have that in common.”

  “Good.” Mara grimaced. “I mean, not good he lost her. Good you have someone to talk to.” She waved a hand to clear away her cloudy words. “You know what I mean. Is he nice?”

  More red colored Kate’s cheeks. “He is. Quiet. Comfortable. He’s good with the kids, too.”

  “Can we go now?” Joy whined.

  Kate inhaled and focused on her daughter. “Joy, we’ve talked about interrupting others when they’re talking. And don’t you want to tell Aunt Mara about how well you’re doing in school?”

  “I don’t like it down here! It’s creepy!” Joy made a face.

  “Joy, stop,” Kate said in a tired voice.

  “The halls are too quiet and I don’t like seeing Aunt Mara collared like an animal!” Joy threw her hands in the air. “It’s unfair I have to come every day when I want to go to the park with my friends!”

  Jack picked up on a single word. “Park, park, park,” he chanted with a laugh.

  Mara touched the ring of silver around her neck.

  “That’s enough, missy,” Kate growled. “You apologize right now, or there will be no park for a week.”

  “It’s fine,” Mara interjected. “I understand. You don’t need to come see me every day. It’s a hassle you don’t need.”

  Kate had been good to her. Far too good. She didn’t deserve the daily visits or to hear what was going on in anyone’s life. The kids didn’t need to see her as caged up as before. It probably confused them now that they were outside and free to run in the grass without the threat of someone hurting them.

  She didn’t want to use them as a crutch for her own selfish well-being.

  “It’s okay,” Mara insisted at Kate’s narrowed eyes. The other woman’s nostrils flared, no doubt catching every scent that wafted off her.

  “Mara—”

  “Mack!” Mara rose to her feet before Kate could say anything else. “Time to go.”

  She made it to the door before whirling around to give Kate final words. “Don’t come back, Kate. You go on that date. You smile and laugh and live. It’s what he’d have wanted. It’s what I want.”

  Mara slipped out of the room as fast as she could manage without posing a threat to the guard trailing after her. She didn’t want Kate to see or smell the pain she locked tightly away.

  Her days were the same, but life still rushed by for everyone outside her cell.

  Chapter 3

  Hudson paused at the bottom of the steps and waved to the family exiting Town Hall. “Morning, Kate.”

  He’d driven through the night without stopping and barely paused at his home for a quick shower before heading into town. His bear couldn’t stand being apart from Mara. He couldn’t, either. He typically jogged over to visit during his lunch break, but he needed to make up for the time he missed while hunting down leads.

  “Thank the Broken you’re back!” Kate exclaimed when she recognized who called out to her. Relief flooded her features and her scent.

  Hudson’s bear rolled through him and set every muscle on edge. He glanced around, looking for the next fight. No one on the steps in front of the building paid them any mind or tried to flee a threat inside Town Hall.

  He relaxed a bit as Kate and her children skipped down the rest of the steps to stop in front of him. Hudson squatted down and handed Jack a toy car pulled from one of his pockets. For Joy, he tucked a flower plucked from a planter behind her ear. She grinned and clasped her hands behind her back as a blush spread over her cheeks.

  He turned his head up and arched an eyebrow at Kate. “How is she today?”

  Kate didn’t answer right away. Instead, she turned to Joy. “Honey, take your brother across the street to the park while I talk to Hudson.”

  Joy looked from her mother to Hudson, then to Jack. She latched hands with the boy and wiggled her fingers. “Bye, Hudson,” she giggled.

  “Stay in sight, please,” Kate called after them. She watched as they waited to cross the two-lane street to the town square. Once they were out of earshot, she spoke again. “You spoil them, you know.”

  He shrugged. “They had a rough time of it for a while. They deserve to be kids.” He glanced from the running pair down to the woman standing next to him. “Unless you don’t want me to, of course. You get the final call.”

  A shadow passed over Kate’s face. “It’s fine. They’re fine. Mostly. Joy still has nightmares and acts out, like today. But Jack doesn’t seem phased one bit.”

  Kate and the kids were the reason Mara let the hunters direct her actions. She lost her brother, but she never gave up trying to keep the others safe. Hudson hated to think what would have happened had she not gone to bat for them. The threats Mara shared were enough to set his blood boiling.

  “What happened today?”

  “She’s not doing well.” Kate still stared at the kids. “Joy pitched a fit about seeing her caged up. Mara said she didn’t want me visiting.”

  “You know she doesn’t mean that. You’re helping keep her sane in there.”

  “I don’t know that, though. What if we’re too much of a reminder?”

  Kate’s shoulders slumped. Hudson draped an arm over her and squeezed her into a side hug. The entire family had gone through so much, and the pains were still sharp even after a year. Mara was his, and that meant Kate and the children were under his protection, too. He wished he knew what else he could do besides pretending the entire situation was normal.

  Fur brushed against his mind and frustration filled his soul. He wasn’t sure where his ended and his bear’s began.

  “Give it a day or two,” he said. “She’ll change her mind.”

  “She gets worse the longer you’re gone.” Kate pulled away. Her scent tinged with resignation. “I know you’re doing important work on these trips you take. But at what price? She spirals and pushes us away. Has there been much good, or would it be better to let someone else take over?”

  It was Hudson’s turn to grow uncomfortable under the questioning. He could point to the three shifters pulled from hunter camps as doing good, or removing the threat of the hunters themselves. But bad people were determined to do bad acts, so he couldn’t say there was an overall gain. And with Mara’s information leading to dead ends, his trips were less and less productive.

  She was his mate, and he claimed the right to fight for her. If he stepped aside, who would pick up the slack? He didn’t trust anyone to run the operation.

  Kate took his silence as an answer. She stepped toward the children, then turned back. “She needs you more than she needs me. Think about it, at least.”

  “I will,” he promised the empty air around him. He watched her cross the street and swing Jack onto h
er hip and ruffle Joy’s hair before they set off for the rest of their day.

  His bear pushed at his mind and Hudson automatically shoved the beast back. He knew what the creature wanted: Mara. But she had her sentence to serve, and he had her handlers to find. The best Hudson could offer were visits with the woman.

  With a growl itching the back of his throat, Hudson jogged up the last steps and entered the building that served as a hub for the Bearden community.

  The noise of his phone ringing bounced off the walls of the stairwell. He paused before he pushed through to the lowest level of the building. Axel again. Hudson rejected the call and shoved the device back into his pocket.

  Twice in less than half a day. Whatever the man wanted, he was determined to get in contact. Hudson made a note to check back with him if he was so insistent on talking. He’d need a bottle of liquor to get through the call, he predicted. Not ideal before he saw Mara or stepped into the firehouse.

  He tipped his fingers in a salute to the guards on duty. Mack and Cullins were the old dogs of the police force, and Hudson thought they were happy to have something close to a desk job to keep them occupied. They rarely complained when they took his name on the visitor’s log. As expected, Cullins led him to the room set aside for talking with Mara while Mack went to fetch her. She was their only prisoner to mind and they had a routine down pat.

  The wait gave him a moment to collect his thoughts and brush Axel completely out of the picture. Kate had the kids to consider. If they weren’t doing well with visiting Mara, then that was a strike against coming back. But Mara needed contact. The outside world didn’t just stop while she served her arson sentence.

  Maybe it was time to give up tracking down hunters. He could be there for Mara every day. Kate could help Joy adjust without painful reminders. His bear wouldn’t complain all the damn time about being separated by miles or state lines.

  Hudson twisted in his seat at the sound of approaching steps. Then she stood in the doorway and his heart thumped in his chest.