“Now,” Marcus said while he stood. “You have your answer.” When Bo pushed to his feet, Marcus pointed a finger at his chest. “We will support you, grizzly. But stay away from my pack.”
Bo nodded and squeezed my hand hard enough to break bone. I winced and he immediately let up.
“Go,” Marcus said with a flick of his hand.
It took a moment for me to realize that he was speaking to us. Not really liking coyote skin-walkers so much, I dragged Bo back to my Jeep. None of the coyotes followed, but I could feel them watching. Like spears in my back, I knew if I turned around I would see four hundred and twenty-four eyes glaring at us.
“I’m sorry about that,” Bo grumbled once he got dressed and started the car. “I really am.”
“For what?” I asked. “I didn’t expect them to be a part of the big reveal.”
“You didn’t?” Bo sounded surprised.
“No. It wouldn’t benefit them.” He turned around and started to drive away before I continued. “They thrive when lost in the shadows. It’s how they survive.” Just like the witches, I added in my head. “But they’ll be loyal to those of us who are different. They won’t make it any worse.”
Bo huffed and rubbed his forehead. “Sure they won’t,” he groaned.
“Hey, you were only in a shit storm because of where you put your dick.”
His surprised face snapped in my direction. “Kenzie!”
I giggled and grabbed his hand. “Remember when I said we might have to have the conversation about all of your exes one day?”
“Yes,” he drawled out.
“Yeah, I don’t want to do that anymore.”
With a laugh, he kissed the top of my head and turned back onto the main road. “Fine with me, my tiny witch. Fine with me.”
The next evening, Kenzie and I sat in my family’s house in the sunken grand room where we often gathered for clan meetings. Only this time, there weren’t just grizzlies in the space and I felt a little suffocated by the looks I was getting.
“You slept with the alpha’s daughter?” Brandt, my oldest brother and my alpha, wasn’t amused. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he asked, then quickly turned to his mate, Emma. “Sorry.”
She covered her mouth and tried to hide her snicker with a cough. “Not a problem, love,” she said while rubbing her pregnant belly.
“Bro, is that seriously all you heard out of this whole story?” I asked him. Kenzie sat next to me but kept her distance. Little did she know that everyone in this room could smell that we were mated. But she wanted to tell Major on her own and I respected that request. I just wished I could touch her right now because I felt like I was on the witness stand being grilled by the prosecution team.
“So the coyotes want to remain hidden?” Scarlett asked. She stood next to Brennan, their shoulders touching. As an alpha female in her wolf pack, she was quite a match for my other brother.
“Yes!” I said in exhaustion. “And thank you for actually listening.”
Scarlett smiled and nodded her head while Brandt huffed his rejection of my statement. “I heard you, brother, but I got a little stuck on the fact that the coyotes took you captive.”
“For like five minutes.” I rolled my eyes then sank into the couch when Brandt gave me a glare and forced his alpha vibes into the air.
“So what will the ISC say about this?” Brennan asked Major.
The tiger tore his scowl away from me and looked at my brother. “What can they say? Like Kenzie said, I don’t think they expected them to go along with the plan anyway.”
“Then why send these two?” Derrick asked, jerking his thumb toward me.
“Well, they thought if anyone would have a shot at convincing them, it would be Kenzie.” Major waved his hand at her from across the room and she gave him a slight smirk.
“Because she’s a witch?” Brandt asked.
I didn’t like his tone. “And that’s a problem?” I accused. Kenzie had relayed that little secret during our recap. There really wasn’t a way to leave it out, especially when she needed to explain what a skin-walker was. Everyone in the room had promised to keep that to themselves after tonight, and Kenzie had said she trusted them enough to share her information.
“No, that’s not a problem,” Brandt growled. “Stop being so defensive.”
“He can’t help it,” Emma said with a chuckle.
“He’s protecting his…ow!” Derrick shouted when I elbowed him in the side.
With narrowed eyes, I warned him against talking about Kenzie being my mate. Apparently, Scarlett didn’t get the message though.
“He’s mated to her,” she said to Brandt matter-of-factly. “That’s why he’s taking offense.” Scarlett, in her business voice, had just made all eyes in the room go from glaring at me to staring at Kenzie in surprise.
“You did, didn’t you?” Major growled.
I leaned forward and reached for Kenzie’s hand but thankfully Major stayed on his side of the room. No need to have a brawl in here right now.
“I wanted to tell you later,” Kenzie whispered to him. And although the tension in the room was enough to make all of our hair stand on end, she couldn’t hide her growing smile.
“Is this for real?” Brennan asked.
“Can’t you smell it?” Emma answered quickly. She jumped to her feet, holding her stomach. Even though she was only a few months along, she was pregnant with twins and had a rather large bump to show for it. She reached for Kenzie and pulled her up off the couch. “Congratulations. You have managed to catch the most uncatchable bear in Alaska.”
Kenzie returned her hug with a little laugh. “Thank you?”
“You have done the unimaginable,” Derrick added. Major just kept glowering at me from across the room.
“Is this for real?” Brennan asked again.
I shook my head and gave him a look. “Yes. Is that so unbelievable?”
“Yes,” Brennan, Brandt, and Derrick all said together.
“You guys are assholes,” I mumbled and Kenzie slapped my shoulder.
“Bo has changed my life,” she said to the room. “I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather be mated to.”
Everyone went silent until Brandt spoke. “Well, then. Congratulations and welcome to the family.”
My heart swelled with how happy Kenzie looked in this moment of acceptance. It’d pained me to know how isolated she’d kept herself for so many years. As she got a hug or a kiss from each member of my clan, her happiness filled me up. I was whole now. For the first time ever, I understood what my brothers had said about feeling complete. Kenzie was my mate and I would do everything in my power to protect her forever.
Major was the last to stand and everyone focused on him. “I will talk to the ISC tomorrow and let you know what will happen next.” Turning to Brennan, he said, “Thank you for allowing me to spend some more time in your cabin.” After my brother tilted his chin, Major spun on his heels and looked at me. “I would like a word, please.” His eyes were orange, a sure sign that the tiger has almost taken control.
Derrick and Emma made a noise like I was getting in trouble in school while the rest of the group made facial expressions showing the exact same thing.
“Like I said, you are all assholes,” I mumbled.
“Nice to meet all of you,” Kenzie added, a little more politely.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Emma shouted out behind us as we followed Major through the front door.
He didn’t stop until he reached the area where we parked the cars. Then he snapped his head around and slammed his finger against my chest. “I told you not to touch her!”
“No you didn’t!” I shouted back. “You told me not to let anything happen to her!”
“And you think mating with her doesn’t fall under that category?”
“You know I can’t control that—”
“Bull shit!” the tiger yelled, spit flying from his mouth. The air roiled with his impe
nding change, his finger dug into my skin. The bear wanted a fight too.
“Major!” Kenzie stepped between us. “Please don’t do this. I love him, Major. I really do.”
Major stopped shaking long enough to take a breath and drop his hand. “Seriously, Kenzie? Him?”
“Hey!” I shouted but Kenzie wrapped her arm around my back.
“Yes, Major. Him.” She looked up at me with those blue eyes, freckles, and whitest smile. “It would seem that once witches find their soulmate, they know it instantly too.”
“But what about Evan? Wasn’t he your soulmate? Didn’t you tell me as much?”
I wanted to punch him in the face for bringing up a dead boyfriend. Especially a dead boyfriend from seven years ago.
Kenzie dropped her head. “Yes, I thought so at the time. But it never would have worked for us.”
“Why?” Major asked softly.
“Because when I told him what I was, he freaked out and lost control of the car,” she confessed. “I don’t know if he ever would have accepted me.”
“Yes he would have, he just never had the chance.”
“You didn’t see his face, Major. His reaction.” Kenzie sucked in a breath and looked up at me for a moment. “It wouldn’t have worked.”
“But I saw you after the accident. You were devastated.”
“Yeah, for a life that was lost. He didn’t deserve to die because I was a witch.”
Major stepped forward and grabbed Kenzie’s face in his hands. I growled at him but he didn’t care. “He didn’t die because you were a witch, Kenzie.”
She didn’t reply.
Major sighed and kissed her forehead. “Is this really what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
Kenzie giggled. “Yes, Major. I want to be with Bo.”
He stepped back and smiled at her. “Okay then. But may I have a word with Bo before you leave?”
“Are you going to be nice?”
“Of course,” he groaned.
Kenzie jumped forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Be good. And since I’ll be staying here for a while, let’s have dinner sometime.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said as she walked away toward my convertible. Major’s smile quickly faded when she stepped out of earshot. “She’s a human,” he growled.
“She’s a witch,” I clarified.
With eyes still on her, he clenched his fists at his side. “She’s still a human that will not live as long as you.” Turning that orange glare on me, he added, “If you live your full life.”
“What are you trying to say, Major?” I sighed, tired of everyone giving me a hard time and ready to show Kenzie my surprise.
“Don’t even think about turning her.”
I jerked back in surprise. “I would never—”
He held up a hand and cut me off. “You’d be surprised at what lengths you will go to for your mate in a time of need.”
Taken aback again, I tried to process what he’d just said. “First of all, most humans don’t survive a bite. I know that and I won’t risk her life. And second, why are you speaking like you’ve gone through this yourself?” Major was an enigma to me. And to learn that he may have had a human mate that he may have tried to turn…that would be an astounding piece of information to have.
“My sins are mine alone to live with,” he replied. “But if you harm Kenzie in any way, know that I will hunt you down and rip every last vein out of your body.”
“Fine,” I said. “If anything happened to her, I wouldn’t want to live anyway.”
Major glared at me for several seconds before breaking into an unamused chuckle. “Do you always have to be so dramatic?”
I let out a breath and held out my hand. When he accepted it, we shook. “I won’t let anything happen to her,” I promised.
“You better not.”
“So, just ignore what you’re about to see.” With a wink, I dashed over to the car and gave Kenzie a giant hug. She smelled so good that I wanted to take her right there, but I had something I needed to do first. “Okay, close your eyes, tiny witch.”
“Why?”
“Just do it!”
She complied and I pulled a bandana from my back pocket. Wrapping it lightly around her head, making sure she couldn’t see, I ignored her questions. “I have a surprise for you,” I finally said.
“And is the blindfold a part of it or are you just getting kinky?”
My pants bulged with her suggestion and I had to shift my hips to make it a little more comfortable. “It’s a part of the surprise,” I said, then bent forward and whispered in her ear. “But we can keep the blindfold for later.”
The scent of her arousal almost knocked me to my knees, and I needed to get her out of here before Major stared a hole into my back. I helped her into the car and jogged around to the driver’s side. “You ready?’ I asked with a grin.
She felt across the console until she grabbed my hand. “I’m ready.”
I waved at Major as I sped out of the driveway, Kenzie squealing beside me, happier than I could have ever imagined.
“Where are we going?” I asked. The ground still bumped beneath the tires even though I’d heard us slow down a couple of minutes ago. I reached for the blindfold, but Bo gently knocked my hand away.
“Don’t peek!”
“Okay, okay.”
The car finally came to a stop and I heard Bo’s nervousness in his voice. “If you don’t like it, we can find something else.”
“Bo, I don’t even know what the surprise is yet.”
“I know. But I’m just saying.”
“Bo, stop.”
“Okay.” He got out of his side and opened my door a second later. So quick and powerful, my grizzly. I shivered with the idea that he was all mine. “Just hold still a sec.”
Bo swept me up into his arms and lifted me from the car with ease. I let out a little squeal of delight. “Can I see it yet?”
“Hold your horses, little witch.”
My feet hit the ground softly and he used my shoulders to turn me toward something. I smelled pine and water and fresh dirt. It was a combination of smells that reminded me of my early childhood. I felt his hands on the back of my head untying my blindfold.
“You ready?” he whispered into my ear.
If I hadn’t been so excited about my surprise, I would have melted at his touch. “Yes!”
He dropped the bandana and revealed the thing that he’d been working on all morning. I stood in front of a house. No, a log cabin nestled into the pines but not too far from a similar cabin an acre away. A log fence surrounded the property and a cobblestone path lead the way into the cutest house I’d ever laid eyes on. It reminded me of a cottage tucked away into the wilderness. Only this one wasn’t as secluded as Calvin’s den even though it backed up to the forest and a ton of open space.
“What is it?” I asked with a breath.
“It’s our home,” he said. “If you like it.”
Spinning on my heels, I looked up at my wonderful mate. “Our home?”
“Yes,” he smiled.
“Like just for the two of us?”
This time he laughed and flashed me his dimples. “Yes.”
I jumped up into his arms and let him spin me around as he continued to chuckle. “Oh Bo, this is perfect.”
“But you haven’t seen the inside yet—”
“I don’t care. It’s perfect.”
“But—”
“Stop saying “but”,” I whispered against his ear. And when I kissed his neck he melted underneath my skin. “Wait, is this what you were working on all morning?”
“Yep.”
I pressed my lips against his. “My sneaky grizzly.” Turning in his arms, I peered back over my shoulder at the house. “How did you do this?”
“Well, see that house behind me?”
I looked across th
e small paved road at another log house that sat back under the trees and nodded.
“Derrick lives there.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and he told me about this place and…I bought it.”
“What? That quickly?”
He nodded and pushed his face against my neck. “Yep. It just seemed so perfect for you…in the woods but not too far from other people and we’re only a ten-minute drive to Homer.”
“Can you be any more perfect?” I asked.
“Probably not,” he joked and smothered my laughter with a kiss.
Wiggling out of his arms, I turned to run up the path. “I want to see inside,” I said. But I didn’t hear Bo following me. So I spun around and almost fell over when I saw what he was doing.
Sitting on one knee, Bo held out a little black box with a sparkling turquoise and diamond ring inside. Although smiling, he looked nervous with his scrunched up face and raised brows. My heart melted at the sight.
“I know this is fast but I can’t imagine my life without you,” he started. “And your eyes remind me of turquoise so I hope you don’t mind something a little untraditional.”
“Bo,” I whispered as the tears began to flow.
“Kenzie Parker, you are already my mate but will you please be my wife?”
Cue the sobs.
I jumped into his arms, almost knocking him over with my petite body. He laughed underneath me as we fell to the ground, me smothering him in kisses and him waiting for an answer.
“Kenzie?” he asked. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” I said around my kisses. “Oh my god, Bo. I can’t believe this is all happening. I’m so happy.”
His dimples took my breath away and the joy on his face etched its way into my heart. Never again would I want to see him sad or worried or upset. I promised myself I would do everything I could to keep him feeling like this every day of our lives together.
Our lives together.
Holding out my left hand, I removed Evan’s promise ring and started to put it in my pocket. But Bo stopped me.
“You can wear that if you want,” he said softly.
God, how I loved this man. “It’s okay, Bo. It’s time.” I put the ring in my back pocket, saying a silent goodbye to my old life. It was time to start new. It was time to start that with Bo.
Catching the Bear: BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (The Callaghan Clan Book 3) Page 10