Aurora inspected the body. “Too bad you can’t tell your friends you planned it this way,” she responded in a lighter tone.
He grinned at her. “Maybe I just will,” he said jauntily.
Her face broke into a glorious smile. “I’ll bet you will,” she added with a laugh.
“You said you wanted to follow him, not scare the crap out of him. That was some roar you just pulled out of your hat,” he remarked admiringly.
Aurora’s cheeks turned pink. “Don’t tell anybody. I have a reputation to uphold around here,” she stage whispered.
“It was spectacular. Any Bruin would be proud of a roar like that,” he continued in the same tone.
“Is that what you like in a woman?” Aurora asked seriously.
“That’s what I like in you.” He held out his hand to her. “Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
Aurora reached out and took Austin’s hand. She looked up at him and asked, “What about him?”
“He deserves to rot out here.” Austin stated with finality. “Leave him as a marker so the others can find the start of the trap line.”
Austin and Aurora set off down the hill, hand in hand. The sun slanted through the trees and warmed the woods. The comforting smell of leaves and earth rose from underfoot to fill the world with quiet contentment.
Austin tugged Aurora’s hand. “Come with me to the road. I want to see how bad my truck is and what it’s gonna take to fix it.”
“Can’t you do that later?” Aurora replied on a sigh.
“Do you have somewhere else to be?” He asked with raised brows.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she stared at something over his shoulder. When he followed her gaze, he saw Brody and Aiken coming up the hill towards them. Neither of them let go of the other’s hand. Brody looked down at how their hands were locked together and jerked his chin at Austin. “What’s going on?”
“Bain’s dead.” Austin replied succinctly.
“Where is he?” Brody asked, just as concisely.
Austin nodded toward the ridge. “Up there. You can’t miss him,” he responded evenly.
“What happened?” Brody shot another staccato question at his brother.
“He tripped and fell. He got his head caught in his own trap,” Austin boiled the whole story down to two statements.
Aiken’s eyes widened. “Did he now?” He said in wonder.
Austin propped his rifle on his shoulder. “It’s a crying shame, if you ask me. We tried to help him, but it was too late. The jaws must have broken his neck.”
“So what was he doing on the ridge?” Brody asked.
“His trap line crosses the meeting points of all our territories. He planned to do as much damage as he could to all our tribes. If you go up there and find him, you can follow his scent – and ours – and find all the rest of his traps. We should send representatives from all the other tribes up here to mark the trap line so no one gets hurt.” Austin spoke seriously and responsibly.
Brody eyed Austin. “Did you follow him and mark them yourself?” He asked, wondering at this new attitude.
“Actually it was Aurora’s idea, but yeah, we did it together.” Austin answered honestly and openly.
“Well, good job, both of you.” Brody replied, nodding his head at both of them.
Aiken turned to go back, but Austin called after him. “Hey! Aren’t you going to go up and see if Bain’s really dead? I thought you were set on tasting his blood for yourself.”
“I don’t need to see his dead corpus now that he’s dead,” Brody turned and spoke seriously. “I don’t want to taste his stinking blood, especially when he died falling into his own trap. He was a no-account loser, and I’m glad he’s dead, but I’ve got a sick wife at home and a baby on the way. If I don’t have to go out hunting him myself, he can rot where he is,” he said with finality.
Brody moved forward. “I’ll go have a look and mark the trap line so I can tell the rest of our tribe.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Austin asked.
Brody nodded toward Aurora’s hand clasped in Austin’s grip. “It looks to me like you have better things to do right now.”
Chapter 10
Austin and Aurora stood still until the sounds of footsteps faded away in both directions. Austin looked down at Aurora’s shining face. “I guess that’s just about it then,” Austin stated, gazing into Aurora’s eyes.
“What do we do now?” She asked in a breathy voice.
He pulled her forward by the hand. “Follow me,” he said with purpose.
He pulled her into a run. Aurora’s feet barely touched the ground. They covered miles in minutes until Austin drew up short on a hill overlooking Bruins’ Peak.
One twitch of her nose told Aurora where she was. Farrell territory laid spread out at her feet. She could make out the smoke rising from Cunningham Homestead to the south. Austin walked the rest of the way down the other side of the hill to a thick stand of larches guarding a sheer granite cliff.
She didn’t have to ask where he was going. She already knew. He led her around the larches to a burrow under the cliff. He ducked into the hole and crawled through a tunnel to a cavern hidden inside the cliff.
A hole in the ceiling let in a shaft of light. Aurora couldn’t believe her eyes. A four-poster bed stood in one corner, and a stone fireplace dominated one wall. Even a bookcase covered another wall with an armchair sitting next to it. A book lay open on the table that was positioned at its side.
Aurora stared at everything in amazement. If she hadn’t just walked through a sold granite wall, she could believe she was in somebody’s house. An old carpet covered the swept dirt floor, and a clean plate, cup and saucer sat upside down on the stone mantel over the fireplace.
This was no Bruin’s den – at least not one Aurora knew anything about. This was a real house built into the side of the mountain. She faced Austin with new-found awe. He couldn’t have built this place for her. He must have been working on it for years; maybe even his whole life.
Who on Bruins’ Peak would believe Austin Farrell could be capable of building a place like this? He must be the only Bruin alive who kept a den like this. She kicked herself. She had no den at all. She had never worked this hard on anything in her life, much less something no one would ever find out about. She must be the only living soul he had ever brought here. She was certain of it.
Austin set his rifle in the corner and came to her side. He laid his hand on her shoulder. Raging fire shot through her being. This was the moment that all their previous attentions led. This was the moment they became mated for life.
She faced him with her face bright and open. His eyes glowed down at her. The rabid wild passion of their previous meeting faded in the absolute certainty that nothing could stop the inevitable. No one would accidentally disturb them here. They wouldn’t claw each other to bruised pulp on the dirty ground.
A clean quilt covered the bed, and a pile of spotless pillows towered at its head. Something caught Aurora’s eye, and she walked over to the bed to get a closer look. Every stitch of the quilt puckered at the corners where the needle punctured the fabric.
She ran her hand over a pillowcase. Its crisp surface resisted her touch. “Have you ever actually slept in this bed?”
He watched her from across the room, but made no move to join her. “I’ve been saving it for you.”
“And this quilt? Where did you get it?”
She didn’t really have to ask. She already knew the answer. “I made it.”
Aurora stared at the perfect star pattern. Rows of dark blue diamond fabric stood out clearly and symmetrically against the flower printed squares. “Where did you learn to do this?”
“I read some of my Ma’s books, but I never worked on it at home. I only worked on it here. I’ve been getting this place ready for the woman who would be my mate.”
“How long did that take?”
“I did most
of the work when I was young. I guess I started it when I was about eight. I haven’t done anything for a while, though. I sort of gave up on finding a mate, but I still kept the place nice. I don’t know why. It’s just something I’ve always done.”
Aurora gave the bed one more glance. She hadn’t seen such a nice bed in years, and to think Austin Farrell kept this place a secret almost all his life. She came back to him, but neither one of them made any move to touch or kiss.
So this was her future. She would sleep in that bed. In all likelihood, her children would be conceived in it. Was she ready for that? That didn’t matter now. It would happen, one way or the other, whether she was ready for it or not. Austin was a lot better prepared for it than she was. He knew from his earliest childhood he would find a mate, and he had planned accordingly.
Aurora never gave her future mate a second thought. Somehow she convinced herself she could avoid all that. She convinced herself she could live her life alone like a regular human woman. If she wanted to keep her independence, she would.
Things didn’t work that way on Bruins’ Peak. Bruins mated. They raised their cubs. They lived in their tribes, interconnected through their relatives and other Bruins. No one could get away. Why would she want to? Why would she want to live her life alone when she could live it fully, surrounded by love and admiration? Why would she want to live her life alone when she could be the shining pinnacle of Austin Farrell’s adoration, when she could be the one person in the world around whom his life revolved?
He turned away and knelt in front of the fireplace. He propped a bunch of kindling in the hearth and lit a blaze. He took the plate and cup down from the mantel and set them on the table. He took a box from the shelf and set out a piece of bread and a slice of cheese.
“It’s not much, but I can get more.”
“Did you bring all that here just for me? When did you do that?”
He gazed down at the table. “Do you want to know something funny? When I was really little, maybe four or five years old, I used to have a dream that I walked in here, built a fire, and set that food out on the table just the way I did now. I used to dream I brought you here and went through all those movements. In my dream, I couldn’t see who the person was. It was just a sort of grey shape out of the corner of my eye, but the movements were always the same. I had that dream for years, and every time I came here, I went through the same movements. Isn’t that weird?”
She stared up at him. “Not weird,” she murmured swiftly, gazing into his eyes.
“I used to feel like I was falling down a deep hole and couldn’t stop myself. At the bottom of the hole was this room with the grey shape in it, but I could never get there. I used to get so upset I couldn’t get there. When I got to be a teenager, I sort of gave up on the whole thing. I stopped working on this place. I just made sure to keep it clean and stocked with firewood and some food, just in case, but I didn’t get upset about finding the grey shape anymore. I got interested in other girls, even chasing after human ones. I know it’s stupid. I guess that’s why I went a little bit wild these last few years.”
“You’re not wild now. You weren’t wild when I met you outside the Beater,” Aurora stated confidently.
“Brody did that,” Austin responded with pride for his brother. “He made sure I did my work and made myself useful to my tribe. He wouldn’t let me fall through the cracks, even when he didn’t know what was wrong with me. He did more for me than my own father did.”
She didn’t need to hear any more. She’d seen enough. This place stood for itself, for all Austin’s thought and care he had put into finding his mate and making a place for her. Now he’d found her, and the dream was complete. She went to him, and they faced each other as if for the first time. They were mates.
Austin’s eyes followed the contours of her face, but he didn’t see her. He saw only his dream coming true. The dream didn’t cover this next part, where she placed her hands on his hips and moved closer to him. The dream didn’t include the part where his presence enveloped her with its all-consuming intensity.
She met his gaze again, and the dream caught her in its undertow, too. An unstoppable vortex dragged her into it. Destiny brought her to this place. It guided Austin’s motions to light the fire and put the food on the table. Now it guided them together on a breakneck course to collide against each other.
Thunder crashed in her ears, and her pulse pounded in her veins. Her body vibrated with a steady rhythm that throbbed through her flesh. It caused her eyelids, her cheeks, her chest, her guts, and down thighs to shiver; and the energy from the shiver moved into the secret folds where her overwhelming desire slept beneath the surface.
Her flesh opened to him, and her intoxicating cocktail bubbled to sear her openings. Her entire being ached for him, wanting him to take her, making her his own. His hands burned on her, and his unstoppable dominance radiated power through her arms which drove her out of her mind.
Austin moved closer to her riding the same crashing waves, but he didn’t kiss or touch her. He guided her backward toward that bed. He stood her next to it and then he took one step back. His eyes drank her in. He could never get enough of her.
His hands took an eternity to rise to her shoulders. They trailed sparkles down her arms and back up to touch her face and hair. He lifted her shirt over her head and let it slip through his fingers to the floor. He stroked her arms and bare shoulders and admired the pearly skin under his hands.
He followed the satin bra straps indented into her shoulders. He touched the lacy lining around the cups and the hard wire under her pendulous globes. The color mounted to her cheeks when he grazed the taut nipples hidden inside.
He traced his fingertips over her belly to her navel. Her lips pouted open, and she gasped for every breath, but she didn’t move, desiring to not break the spell. He held her enthralled with his fiery gaze. She was his to command, to inspect and admire.
He found the button holding her pants together, and his expert fingers went to work. He released her from her confines, and her pants slid down her shapely thighs to slump at her feet. He went down on his knees to pull her boots and pants off. Then he sat back on his heels and surveyed her from below.
Her body seethed in agonized torment under his eyes. He scanned every inch of her. Her pale blue panties cut against her hips and around her gorgeous ass. He caressed her curves from her voluptuous pelvis to her narrow waist and back down to her thighs.
Every inch he covered sent Aurora spinning into clouds of ecstasy. Every part of her he looked at glowed shining gold. His love made her bright and new and pure. She would never worry about being good enough or beautiful enough when he looked at her like that.
He stood up and moved in to kiss her for the first time. Her head spun in delirious pleasure, and her heart pattered in excitement when he moved around behind her. He flicked her bra open with no manic fumbling. Was that part of his dream, too?
Her panties joined her other clothes on the floor. Austin’s hand guided him around her to the front where she could see him again, and when he went down on his knees in front of her this time, she stood bare and exposed to his gaze.
He saw everything. At the same time, he saw nothing but his love. He looked into her eyes and knew her beyond words. His hands traveling over her skin couldn’t tell him anything he hadn’t already learned from looking into her eyes.
Her body and soul cried out to receive him. Her thighs twitched under his touch, and her petals unfurled in delicious dewy folds. He drew her towards him and surrounded her naked self with his powerful arms. He hugged her against him and buried his face in her belly.
Aurora rocked back on her feet, and he supported her with his arms. His warmth infused her all over with a stronger fire than the one burning on the hearth. It melted all her reserve until nothing remained but bright smoldering fire. It shot lightning bolts of adrenaline into her chest to prick her nipples to hard points. It scorched down her thighs to bring
the gushing juices from her font.
Austin grasped her in his hands. He cupped her ass in two handfuls and pressed her flesh into his mouth. He kissed and sucked at her belly, into her navel; he moved on to her breasts, and then farther down to her secret garden.
His tongue delved between her nether lips and milked the nectar from her foaming fountain. His fingers stirred her spongy wetness to the heights of frenzy. She felt she wouldn’t be able to stand much more, when he suddenly picked her up and laid her on the bed.
The soft bedding swallowed her in a delicious cloud of lavender and fresh creamy cotton. This new pleasure enveloped her already ravaged senses in delectable bliss. He shucked off his own clothes. He stretched out next to her, and his skin took her the rest of the way to heaven. His tongue, his body, his fingers, his eyes and mouth – she didn’t know which pleasure she craved most.
He found her deepest caverns with all of that and more. He drove her to the limit of consciousness. Was this what meeting a guy in the alley behind the Beater brought her? She quivered from head to foot in decadent delight. He moved in on her with his rock hard tool to bring her to dizzying completion in him.
Chapter 11
“But I don’t want to go back,” Aurora stated, almost whining.
“I don’t want to go back, either, but we have to,” Austen cajoled calmly.
“Why do we have to?” Aurora asked pleadingly.
“You know why just as well as I do. We have to get permission from our parents – or at least from our Alphas. That’s the way it works. You know that.” Austin’s reasoned reply was as calm as he could manage.
“We don’t need permission from anybody. We’re mated. Nothing can break that bond now.” Aurora’s staunch reply showed how much she had changed in such a short time.
“I know, but we have to go through the motions. We have to follow the traditions of our people. We would be cast out if we didn’t.” Austin, uncharacteristically, stated logically to his mate.
Bruins' Peak Bears Box Set (Volume I) Page 37