“You’d fire him?!” Chet’s stomach clenched. Could this nightmare really include that, too? Did he just get Pete fired?
“Of course not! But he doesn’t know that, and even if I told him, he probably wouldn’t believe me.”
He raked a hand through his dark hair, hair that had become thicker since he started yelling at Chet. He had to be really upset for his bear to come so close to the surface, especially at his advanced age.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Max, but you don’t understand. Crystal’s my mate.”
“WRONG!” His uncle’s shout roared through the house, shaking the photos hanging on the wall. He grew about three inches and loomed over Chet, who cowered back into the corner of the sofa. He’d never had an adult bear down on him like that and it shook him to the core.
Uncle Max took a deep shuddering breath and somehow got control of his beast. “Chet, it’s impossible for weres and humans to mate. Trust me, it’s been attempted and it always — always — ends in heartbreak. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll be the exception. You’re a smart kid, so don’t be stupid now.”
“But—“
“No buts! Humans are genetically inferior to weres. It’s a proven fact. We do not, under any circumstances, want to dilute our bloodline like that, do we? That’s, of course, assuming, any child born of such an unnatural union survived to adulthood, which is extremely unlikely.”
Chet had heard the stories before, stories of mutant babies and human women torn apart during the birthing process. He felt nauseous at the thought of that happening to Crystal. Uncle Max settled on the couch next to him, one big hand resting on the back of Chet’s neck. Anyone who walked in would think his uncle was comforting his dear nephew, but Chet could feel the fury pulsing under his uncle’s hand. That hand was there to show him who was boss.
“So,” Chet started, his voice cracking as he tried to get the words out. This wasn’t turning out at all like he expected. He thought he’d have to take some shit when he told his family, but this… He cleared his throat and tried again. “So, in the course of history, there’s never been one successful human-were mating? Like, ever?”
He could only focus on the tips of his loafers as he waited for the answer. Uncle Max’s hand tightened slightly but let up so fast Chet wondered if he’d imagined it.
“No.”
Chet’s heart sank. The last thing he wanted to do was put Crystal’s life at risk. Then an idea popped into his head that gave him so much hope he couldn’t hide it and he felt the hand tighten again in response.
“We could just adopt, or not have kids at all! Right? I mean, why wouldn’t that work?”
Uncle Max sighed again. It was a sound so forlorn that it nearly broke Chet’s heart that he was the cause.
“You think that’s fair to the girl? You would let your selfishness take priority over her desire to have her own children?” He barked out a humorless laugh. “And you sit there pretending to love her. Shame on you!”
Chet was so confused. He did love Crystal! She was his mate, he felt it in his bones. He was old enough to know the signs: the instant attraction, the nearly uncontrollable inner beast, the simple-yet-powerful understanding that this person completed you in a way no other could. He felt all those things when he was with her.
Didn’t he?
“But…” he whispered, nearly beaten.
His uncle, sensing his hesitation, played his final card. “And don’t forget, Chet, taking a human mate would get you cast out of the clan. You would be shunned.”
“What?! I thought you couldn’t get banished if you were a juvenile, if you hadn’t been initiated yet. Besides, I thought that was only for really heinous stuff.” He couldn’t believe his ears. How could his clan kick him out for simply taking his fated mate? That didn’t make sense at all!
His uncle shook his head sadly. “Don’t you see, Chet. To us, taking a human mate is a heinous crime against the clan, regardless of your age. For all the reasons I just told you. The reason you never knew before is because humans and weres never mate!” His hand tightened with each of his last words until it was actually painful, and his voice grew deeper and louder until it reverberated through Chet’s entire body.
Anger boiled up within him at the injustice of it all. “Fine!” he shouted, jumping up from the sofa and flinging off his uncle’s hand. “I’ll just live the rest of my life knowing my fated mate is out there but I can’t be with her because my family says so!”
The last words came out as a whiny sneer. They didn’t help him sound like an adult who could make sound decisions, but he was powerless to stop them. His beast was agitated, pacing inside him, urging him to do whatever it took to claim Crystal as his own. But there was more than just animal lust at stake here. There was so much he’d never considered.
He needed to get out of there, if not the house, at least the room. There had to be a way around this, but he couldn’t think of one. He needed to think in solitude.
Turning on his heel, he stormed out of the family room without another word. It was unfortunate the family room didn’t have a door he could slam. He’d just have to make do with his bedroom door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
For the sixth night in a row, Chet left the dinner table as soon as was polite and went to his room to endlessly chuck a tennis ball against the wall and think about Crystal and her final words to him. Thump-thud! Tension in the house was thick, but starting to ease.
Uncle Max was still angry that Chet had been dating a human right under his nose. At the office, Uncle Max kept him in sight at all times, even going so far as to follow him to the restroom. Chet had spotted Crystal’s grandfather once, across the cafeteria, and he was sure Pete had seen him, but the old man had spun around and hobbled off on his crutches in the other direction. Even if he hadn’t, Uncle Max was there to usher him back to the office.
Aunt Clea had been righteously pissed off at him for leaving Sandy alone, which was a joke, considering how often the brat must have snuck out before he even arrived on-island. But his aunt calmed down enough to realize that the other night wasn’t the first time Sandy had hung out with those human girls.
Sandy was pissed off at everyone, though Chet wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve her wrath. Whatever. If it hadn’t been for her little outburst, he wouldn’t be sitting in his room nursing a broken heart.
And Chet…Chet was angry at the world. Bitterness had crept into his heart because he couldn’t be with the one he loved. It wasn’t fair, dammit! They were so perfect together and now everything was ruined. Even his bear was curled up in a corner of his soul, pouting and refusing to budge. He knew, he just knew he’d never be happy without her. He’d end up some cranky old fart who chased kids off his lawn with a broom.
A soft tap sounded on his door as he threw the ball and he knew instantly it was Sandy by the scent of her sickly sweet Love’s Baby Soft perfume. She was grounded for about a hundred years, and that included not being able to spend time with Chet. He’d been deemed a ‘bad influence’ by Aunt Clea.
“Come in,” he said quietly so her parents wouldn’t hear.
She didn’t waste time popping into the room and closing the door with barely a click. “Hey, cuz,” she whispered, tiptoeing over to sit next to him, pulling her knees up to her chest. “How they hangin’?”
Chet rolled his eyes and continued smacking the ball against the wall, picturing Sandy’s face on the receiving end. Thump-thud!
“What do you want?”
“Listen Chet, I’m really sorry I messed up everything for you,” she murmured, keeping her voice low. “And I’m sorry for acting like a bitch all week. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She was sincere, there was no doubt about that, but he was still pissed off.
“What the hell happened, anyway? How could you spazz out like that?”
She shrugged defensively, looking away. Then she took a deep sigh and tried to explain. “You know Amber was, like, my B.F.F., right?
She was my only human friend who totally knew all about us and was chill about it. The other night, this boy—“
“Oh, God,” Chet moaned. “This was all over a boy?!” Thump-thud!
“Bag your face, buttwad!” she hissed. He had to chuckle, his first since the other night.
“Anyway…this boy, Sloan, came over to our table and started flirting with me. I’d seen him in town a few times and thought he was pretty cute, so I flirted back. Amber never told me she had the hots for him?!”
“Uh oh.”
“Right? She got mad and told Sloan that I was a freak of nature. I thought she was my best friend! My stupid bear jumped out to defend me, and it only made things worse.”
“No shit, Sherlock. You’re old enough to control your beast by now, Sandy. You should know better.”
”Don’t talk to me about knowing better, Mr. I’ll-Date-A-Human. You know how anti-human our clan is.”
He certainly couldn’t deny that. “So why do you hang out with them? Why not stick with weres your own age, like everyone else?”
Sandy studied the flaking polish on her nails for a moment before answering with a shrug. “They’re, like, the cool kids at school, you know? I mean, I know I don’t go to their school, but…I wanna be like them. I want to be…normal.”
“Aw, kiddo.” He wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “It’s no use chasing that dream, you know. You are who and what you are, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re not a freak, but you’ll never be totally human. You’ll always be different, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
She tilted her head to look up at him, an eyebrow raised questioningly. “Even when you fall for a human and are told you can’t be with them?”
Darkness swept over Chet again. He dropped his arm and recommenced the ball chucking. Thump-thud! Thump-thud! Thump—With preternatural speed, Sandy’s arm shot out, snatching away the ball mid-air with a grin. “It’s all bunk, you know.
“What is?” he asked as he tried to grab the ball back, but she held it out of reach.
“That B.S. about weres and humans not being able to mate. The mutant babies and stuff? All lies and I can prove it.”
It felt like a giant had punched him in the stomach. “H-How?”
“These,” she said, pulling a stack of envelopes from her pocket and tossing the bundle at Chet. Sorting through them quickly, he saw they were all addressed with the same handwriting, and all had a return address from the U.S.S.R.
“What are they?”
“Letters from my pen pal, Tatiana. She lives in this really tiny town in eastern Russia where humans and werebears not only mingle, but they mix, if you get my drift.”
Chet’s pulse quickened. “Really? Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. You can read them, if you want. She’s a half-breed herself. Mom’s were, Dad’s human. Almost everyone in the village has some were blood running through their veins, and everyone gets along just fine.”
Sandy thumped the tennis ball against the wall while he skimmed through several letters looking for confirmation. Sure enough, Tatiana wrote openly about their Siberian village where interspecies breeding was not only accepted but often encouraged. The more he read, the more excited he became.
“This is incredible,” he breathed, hardly able to contain himself. His bear was out of its hidey hole and prowling around, chuffing at him like it was saying ‘Told you so, moron.’
“Thought you’d find it interesting reading. I feel bad for not giving them to you sooner but, well, like I said, I was being a bitch. So the question is, what are you going to do about it?”
He saw himself running down the hallway, elbowing his aunt and uncle aside as he raced for the door. The moment he was outside, he’d shift and run straight for Crystal’s house. She’d run out, wrap him in a tight hug, climb on his back and they’d run off into the sunset together.
But then he remembered her expression after he shifted in front of her. And how she slipped out of his car and ran away from him as soon as she had the chance. But most of all, he remembered her hurtful words. Don’t ever touch me again, freak!
That was a pretty clear message to leave her alone. If she wanted to have any contact with him, she surely would have found some way of getting word to him. No, it was obvious she wanted nothing to do with a freak like him.
His upper lip pulled back in a cynical sneer. He’d just been telling Sandy not to think of herself as a freak, and here he was doing the same.
“I’m going to do exactly nothing about it.”
Sandy gaped at him, letting the ball bounce off her face on the return.
“You’re shitting me, right? How can you do nothing when your true love, your fated mate is out there waiting for you?!”
Chet heaved a mournful sigh as he jammed the letters back in their envelopes and handed back the bundle.
“That’s the thing. She’s not waiting for me. You didn’t see her face, Sandy. You didn’t hear what she said. You don’t know. If she hasn’t come around by now, I don’t know what else I can do to convince her. I can’t take a mate by force, you know, even if I wanted to!”
“But have you talked to her since the other night? She might just need a nudge in the right direction.”
“How am I supposed to do that? Uncle Max watches me constantly and it’s not like I can just call her up. Her grandparents don’t want us seeing each other either. And that’s all assuming she even wants to see me, which she obviously doesn’t. She knows my number, and she could always call at the office. Besides, my ceremony is tomorrow. I heard Aunt Clea making arrangements to ship me home to Malibu the next day. It’s over, Sandy.”
Sandy’s cheeks grew red with frustration. “How can you just give up on love, Chet? How can you give up on her?!”
“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” he roared at full volume. He couldn’t take it anymore. Did she not understand that he’d considered every angle of this situation? Did she think he wanted to give up? Didn’t she get it that it killed him inside to realize they could never be together?
“Maybe your Russian friend can be with whatever guy she wants, but we don’t live in the Soviet Union, if you hadn’t noticed. Let’s pretend for a minute that Crystal did want to be with me — and that’s a big if. What then? We skip town and run away together? Cut off our families entirely? Never be initiated into the clan? Become exiles? Does that sound like a fun life to you, Sandy?”
“But you’d have each other, Chet. Don’t you see? You can endure anything life throws at you when you’ve found your fated mate. It’s the power of love!”
Chet rolled his eyes. “This isn’t a pop song, Sandy. This is real life. As much as it kills me to admit it, your dad was right. It would be unfair of me to ask Crystal to give up her life like that. You have no idea how much she loves her grandparents. I couldn’t ask her to turn her back on them. I wouldn’t let her.”
“But you’re fated—“
“I know that, but she’s human. They don’t feel it the way we do. She has no clue how rare our connection is.”
The sound of footsteps padding down the hall caught their attention. Placing a finger to his lips, he pushed Sandy into his closet, faintly amused that he kept his smelly socks and dirty underwear piled up in there. “Grody,” she whispered as he eased the door closed and snatched up his tennis ball.
As his bedroom door was thrown open, he started throwing the ball at the wall again, his mask of depression not that difficult to put on. Thump-thud! Thump-thud! Thump-thud!
His uncle stood in the doorway, looking around the room. “Who were you yelling at, Chet?”
Chet humphed in response. “The universe.” His voice was a cold, deflated monotone.
Thump-thud! Thump-thud!
Uncle Max blew out a lungful of air and pinched the bridge of his nose, no doubt exhausted by Chet’s broken heart. Sorrrr-yyyy! Chet thought sourly.
Thump-thud!
&n
bsp; “Could you stop with that already? It’s driving your aunt crazy.”
Thump-thud! On the return, Chet palmed the ball and traced its white outline, intent on not looking at his uncle.
“You ready for the big day tomorrow? You’ll finally be a full-blood member of the Skookum Clan. Exciting stuff!”
Chet tried for a smile but even he could feel how weak it was. “Sure.”
Uncle Max sighed again and shook his head as he turned to leave. “Well, try to get some sleep, okay?”
“Sure.”
His closet door eased open and Sandy’s green eyes peeked out. Tiptoeing to the door, she pressed her ear to it, listening for her dad. Once she was certain he was gone, she half-opened the door before turning back to Chet. “It doesn’t have to end like this, you know.”
He’d run out of energy to get angry or upset or sad. His emotional gas tank was on empty and there was no fill-up station in sight. He couldn’t even muster the strength to point, he just said, “Out.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Now Sandra Jean Pearce, don’t you so much as think about getting out of this car, do you understand me, young lady?”
“Got it, Mom. Geez!” Sandy crossed her arms with a huff and slumped back into the passenger seat of her mom’s Caddy, glaring out the window at the liquor store.
“I’m serious. I’ll be back in five minutes. If I even suspect you got out, I’ll tack on another month.”
“I told you I got it!” She used the special high-pitch screech reserved for really special occasions, like when her parents were being total nimrods. Only teenage girls could access that particular frequency and no parent was immune to it. Especially werebears, with their extra-sensitive hearing. The trick was not to overuse it or it lost its power.
“Okay, okay,” her mom said as she scrambled out of the car and slammed the door. Sandy smiled to herself at her mother’s discomfort.
But the smile faded quickly. This whole Chet and Crystal thing really had her buggin’. It was all her fault they weren’t together right now doing the nasty and making lots of cute little cubs for her to dress up. She had to fix it but couldn’t figure out how.
Bearly Hanging On (A Werebear Shifter BBW Romance) (Laid Bear Book 3) Page 8