by Nova Carlyle
Bryce only nodded. It meant he’d have to stay the hell away or risk becoming a casualty. Ty Abrams and his enforcer Van were exactly what so many young bears in the Agency strived to be—powerful and deadly.
“The shades won’t be enough to protect you,” Nico added and his mouth quirked. “Or the squirrel.”
She bristled immediately and Bryce raised his hand to sooth her fur back down. “I understand.”
“You and I are good, right?” Nico asked.
“Yeah.” He dipped his chin, ignoring the thrill Clementine’s irate growl gave him.
The bear shifter turn back towards the car and the quiet street.
“You’re nicer than me, Bryce.” Rae yanked her ponytail tighter. “The Agency might just be one bear shorter tomorrow and you’re going to have to be the one to explain to Director Miguel why.”
Clementine scampered down his back. In the very edges of his peripheral vision, he caught sight of her shift back into the dewy softness of her human skin. He snapped his gaze to the ceiling so fast pain screamed up his neck.
“I’m clothed again,” she murmured. Her smaller hand pushed into his, gripping it tightly. She may as well have been holding onto his beating heart. “Rae? Before you go, I wanted to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being Bryce’s friend.”
Rae’s startled expression met Bryce’s, but a slow grin changed her face. “I guess we are friends.”
He cleared his throat. There was madness in the air tonight. His mate and a friend and a full moon hanging over them all. It was almost too bizarre to believe.
“You coming, pussy cat?” Nico called from the car, jingling the keys from a bent finger.
Rae screeched and leaped off the porch, scrambling past a Thai laden, wide eyed kid. The sound of Rae’s fury didn’t seem to faze him, he was locked on Clementine. She met him at the threshold, took his bags and all but ran back into the house. The delivery driver tipped to the side, looking around Bryce to watch her go.
“Kid, you’re not getting a tip if you don’t stop staring.”
“But—isn’t that—I mean, she looks just like—”
Bryce dug out a crisp hundred dollar bill and dangled it in front of his face. “She’s not. Take your tip and get out of here.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. And just as his car left the curb, another pulled up. Bryce paid for the twenty pounds of Italian desserts Clementine ordered and brought it inside.
Everything was quiet, but the spice of Thai and Clementine’s heavenly scent was easy enough to follow. He crossed through the vast, echoing living room, but no longer felt the brush of cold that used to haunt this room and every other empty one in the house. With Clementine here, even the shadows felt warmer.
He felt warmer.
And maybe even happy for the first time in his life. Clementine was stubborn and hardheaded. Others might call them flaws. Bryce knew they were blessings. Gifts to him. Because if Clementine wanted him? Then nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to deter her.
Just the thought of all that fierce loyalty and protectiveness being his and his alone settled a tight band around his chest. It was so new, so unlike anything he’d ever experienced before that being even just a room away from her now was too much. He hurried his steps, knowing for the first time in his life a child’s anticipation of Christmas morning.
The bare bulb overhead was off. Only the little bedside lamp glowed in the corner. The one chair he used to watch TV was pushed up under the windows and the comforter of his bed had been pulled off and spread out on the floor. Clementine sat there, crying so softly that he almost didn’t hear it over the crinkle of the bag and styrofoam in his hand.
The sound gutted him, stripping all the joy he’d only just discovered. It could only mean one thing.
She realized what he had been trying to tell her all along. And being his mate wasn’t going to be enough to make this work. He wasn’t going to be enough.
The dessert bag slipped out of his lifeless fingers, plopping next to the pile of Thai. He squatted down on the edge of the blanket, his hands dangling uselessly between his thighs.
“Clementine,” he whispered through an aching throat. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. He wasn’t going to be okay. Black crept at the edges of his consciousness, reminding him of the barren life he’d lived before today. Before she’d made him dream of being worth something to someone.
He sat down weakly at her side before he collapsed and braced his arms heavily over his knees. “You’ll find someone else.” His voice hurt his already raw throat. “I’m not going to force you to stay or try to hold you back. I didn’t claim you sixteen years ago and I won’t now.”
She sniffed and pressed a thick wad of paper napkin under her eye. The neck of her shirt slipped and exposed one creamy shoulder. “You knew then?”
“The moment you stepped on the beach.”
She twisted towards him. He studied a puckered spot on the comforter.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“What could I have said?”
She tucked her chin and attempted to mimic his deep voice. “Hi, I’m Bryce and you’re really pretty. Let’s go to a movie.”
“I couldn’t have said that.”
“Why not?”
“For the same reason you’re crying right now. Because I don’t have a place in your world.”
She sniffed again and after a quiet moment she asked softly, “Bryce? Would you explain to me exactly why you think I’m crying?”
He clenched his fingers, remembering the feel of her soft hand in his. “Because the other shifters can’t stand me and I’ll only darken your life.”
“You think I’m crying because of pressure you’ve put on your own shoulders to mold to an expectation you hold for yourself based on some misguided idea of what I would want from my mate?”
“Uh.” It took him a second to fumble through what she said. “Yes.”
“You, sir, have a very inaccurate picture of your self-worth and I think we both know you owe that to the pack of mongrels that left you to live on the streets. That was their fucking loss—”
“Clementine—”
“If another wolf were my mate and showed up to protect me today, do you think he’d have thought to maneuver me into leaving the mansion without a fight? Or would he have just manhandled me into doing what he needed me to do in order to be safe?”
“Ah.” He scratched the back of his neck, trying to imagine any of the other wolves in his shoes, but he only saw red at the thought of them anywhere near his mate.
“Exactly. They’d have slung me over their shoulders like a sack of potatoes with a vagina. And how do you suppose I would’ve reacted?”
He knew the answer to that. “Very, very poorly.”
“Would another wolf have let me fight for him while trying to escape a rabid horde of tree rats?”
“Maybe?” But probably not. Other wolves would’ve done everything to protect her and keep her safe, even if that meant risking Clementine’s ire to quickly remove her from a dangerous situation.
“Only if they couldn’t stop me. Most would’ve warned me to be careful of my face—my body—those things that society values me for.”
Oh, shit. He hadn’t even thought of that. What kind of mate was he?
“But you?” she continued. “You needed me. You didn’t care about me potentially getting scarred because I’m more to you than just a pretty face.”
“Oh.” His mouth closed. And opened again because he was still struggling to take this all in. It was like a rich meal—he wanted to devour the whole thing, but needed to do it in slow sessions, making room inside of himself for more of the strength Clementine was feeding him. “So the thing—the thing with the other shifters and me? That really doesn’t bother you?”
“Oh, it bothers me alright. There will be blood the next time that happens, and you can’t stop me.” She vibra
ted with the force of her righteousness and Bryce pulled a hand behind his neck, rubbing at the heat of sweet relief spilling through his body.
“I can.” His voice croaked, but he forged on, hoping to bring back her smile. “I can stop you.”
Her mouth quirked and then she broke out in a laugh. “Right. You shouldn’t.”
He grinned, but the lingering tears still shining in her eyes made him hesitate. When she wiped them again he moved just a little closer to her. Her distress had his wolf twisted into knots and every instinct inside of him screamed to end it immediately. “Are you crying about breaking up with Grant?”
“God, no.”
His brow furrowed and he studied her. “Are you upset because he tried to kill you on Valentine’s Day?”
She shook her head, wry humor touched her lush mouth and her overbite made it lopsided. “But way to make a girl feel better.”
His eyes darted towards the big bins stacked in the open space under his nightstand. Clementine had most commonly been featured on women oriented magazines, ones that boasted the best relationship advice, or to have the best kept secrets of sex every month just worded in different ways each time. He’d read them all, mostly out of boredom and curiosity at how the world he didn’t belong in worked. It had never occurred to him that the information he’d stored from those would come in handy.
But Bryce knew exactly what Clementine needed right now. She needed him to listen. According to all the data those magazines presented, women needed a safe place to vent their emotions. And he desperately wanted to be that place for her. He’d be anything for Clementine, but mostly, he just wanted to be what she needed.
“Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you? I’d listen, if you like.”
“Who said anything’s bothering me?”
“Well.” He ran his hand under his eyelid, mimicking where a portion of her mascara had started to pool. “I couldn’t help but notice you’re crying.”
“It’s the beer!” She waved the bottle still stuck to her finger hazardously through the air, her voice ending in an outraged wail. “It makes me weepy!”
He drew back. “Seriously?”
Clementine nodded and tugged her finger out, tipping back the last of the beer. It clinked against the wood floor when she set it aside. “As serious as a heart attack.”
“Sambuca makes you cuddly, beer makes you weepy, and I am terrified to hell to ask what tequila does to you.”
“Drank it twice. Arrested both times.”
He glanced at her knuckles. “Bar fights?”
“Streaking.”
He barked out a deep laugh, conscious of the way Clementine brightened at the sound. She leaned close, eyes big and round as she batted them his way.
“Will you pretty please go get me another beer?”
“No. Absolutely not. The tears have to stop. No more beer, no more tears.”
“They’re not tear-tears! Just a by—hiccup—product of fermented malt and hops.”
“I don’t care if they’re tear-tears or not. You’re not going to even taste all this food you ordered at this rate.” He stood. “You get water. And only water.”
“Killjoy.”
“Because sobbing over your dinner is such joy. Tough luck, pretty girl.” He left her sitting there with her arms crossed and her lower lip jutted in a playful pout. Stashing the Sambuca firmly back in the freezer, he filled a giant glass with ice water and brought it back to her.
She still hadn’t bothered to change into the clothes Rae brought. His shirt rode up the back of her thighs, exposing them at dangerous levels as she leaned over the food, opening containers and putting silverware in each one.
Christ, he was so fucking hungry and it had nothing to do with takeout. It was torture watching her naked legs move on the comforter he slept under every night, but Bryce couldn’t remember a time when pain had felt so damn good.
Even if it was just ‘maybe he could be enough for her’, for the moment, that was enough for him. If time could just stop—if the world could hold back spinning just long enough that he could spend eternity on this threshold where the possibility of ‘maybe’ loomed like the promise of Eden, he’d die a happy man.
Five
Clementine accepted the water Bryce held out with a wistful sigh. It wasn’t her fault beer turned into a faucet. And it’s not like she was actually crying-crying. In fact, she was the opposite of sad. She and her squirrel had finally found their mate and he couldn’t have come at a better time because maybe—just maybe—she’d worried that she hadn’t made the right decision in shedding her old life. That doubt left a vulnerable chink in her new armor. But Bryce? He plugged that hole straight up and Clementine knew everything was finally as it was supposed to be.
So she wanted to celebrate and to drink. Getting drunk wasn’t an option, not with her shifter metabolism and only one lonely bottle of Sambuca so she’d have to settle for a happy buzz. But that might be for the best considering he wasn’t handling the whole “M” word thing very well. Stunning eyes he might have, but Bryce was seriously lacking in emotional expression. His mouth was stern, his frown was stern and his cheekbones could fell trees—she wanted to chew on them so badly—but not a single feature in his face did a whole lot to reveal what he was thinking.
Even right now, as he sat quietly dishing up two plates of food, Clementine couldn’t read him. It worried her. Mostly because he was so hesitant about the “M” word and that didn’t really make sense. He claimed he couldn’t have her based on how other predator shifters reacted to him, but she couldn’t swallow that explanation. He was her mate. He was hers and no one else’s and she wasn’t going to share and she sure as hell wasn’t going to give two flying fucks about what anyone else thought. So there had to be a different reason—something else holding him back.
A sick feeling made the back of her mouth water. Was she too much? Too much loud, too much wild, and a hinge unhinged? It wasn’t like Bryce had lived under a rock his whole life. He’d had to of heard of her and seen her before in her professional capacity whether that was a billboard or a magazine.
Her heart slowly sank, weighing heavily on the rich food in her system. But what if that’s what Bryce liked? Maybe he was attracted to her—but to the model she used to be
Was this free and wild version of her really that terrible that even a man she knew in her heart was her mate didn’t want her?
She could ask him. And then what? What if he said he wanted a demure, well-groomed she-squirrel who spoke French and was the darling of fashion designers worldwide?
Was she going to give herself up all over again? Even if it was for the boy she should have never lost in the first place?
Surely, as his mate, none of that would matter to Bryce. Right? He’d want the version of her that was the truest and the realest. She took another drink of water, trying to distract herself from her own doubts. Maybe she could drink enough that her heart would float on it instead of sinking down to the pit of her stomach where it was quickly headed.
Bryce handed her a full plate and offered her a small smile. She returned it and quietly toyed with her fork, staring around his small room. It was by far the most decorated room in his entire little bungalow. And that was still depressing considering the most he had was a bed, some bookshelves, an old box TV, and a single ancient chair that was likely very comfortable considering how worn in and shaped it was to accommodate his figure.
It all served to remind her that she and Bryce had such different experiences. His life certainly hadn’t been easy, so maybe his reluctance was real. It was so damn heartbreaking to think that he doubted his worthiness.
She needed to show him that they were perfect for each other. Just look at his music and book collection. She’d read and listened to them all herself. Some by choice, others because the ruling forces behind her modeling career had guided her towards ‘appropriate choices’. When you were the face of so many brands and the source of money for so
many people, everything you did came under suspect. She’d never been allowed to make her own choices without having them preapproved by her keepers.
But that nonsense was over now. And her choice was Bryce. And the evidence on the bookshelf, his taste in food, even his small movie collection spoke volumes to just how well matched they were, mates or not. He didn’t realize that yet. And it was going to be fun slowly coloring his world.
“I’m sorry there’s no table.” His rumbly voice drew her from her thoughts. He’d barely made a dent in his food and sat poking at it with his fork.
“It’s okay.”
Avoiding her eyes, he shook his head. “I feel like an animal eating off the floor with you.”
“Well. Technically. We are animals.”
It was supposed to make him smile. But his cheeks only hollowed more. “You’re a millionaire and a model.”
She stole a piece of his fried pork, spurring him to bring his plate closer to his chest and start eating himself. “It’s called a picnic. They’re actually considered very romantic by most society.”
“That’s if there’s grass and a big shady tree.”
“Pff, child’s play. This is so much more adult. Spicy Thai food. Creamy Italian desserts. The floor of a sexy man’s bedroom. There’s only one way this could be any better.” She bit her cheek, utterly amused by the way his brows pinched in deep thought.
Finally he gave a grunted response. “Candles?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Predictable.”
“Music?”
“A nice touch but not necessary.”
He was quiet another good minute and Clementine matched his every thoughtful bite. Finally he sighed and shook his head. “Okay, I give up. What could make this better?”
She leaned close and wiggled her eyebrows. “Sambuca.”
He laughed and quickly bit down on it. Planting a big palm against her face, he pushed her back to her side of the blanket. “No. No way. No how.”
“Awe, come on. What have you got against a snuggly squirrel? Afraid you’ll get fur in your cheesecake?”