“It was bare skin to bare skin with Major,” was all she said, as she turned around to face the doctor.
Toni nodded at that, shoved a hand into her pocket and grabbed something she soon tossed to Pip. It was sanitizer gel.
“Put some of that on while I remove the bandages. It’s his throat that’s the worst. It’s pretty gruesome, Pip. I have to warn you.”
“You didn’t warn me,” Troy grumbled, then grinned when his brothers chuckled.
Pip appreciated his attempt at levity and shot him a shaky smile which he returned with a wink.
As she spread the cooling gel over her hand, she watched, appalled, as the bandages were pulled away after being squirted with salt water. The rawness of the wounds was unimaginable.
Pip didn’t know if she’d ever seen anything like it before, and she sure as shit hoped to never see the like again.
Only trouble was, there were tons of burns to be healed among the brothers. She’d better get used to the sight if she intended on being useful around here.
With a grimace, she reached forward when Toni stepped back, the blood-soaked bandages in her hand. They dripped, so loaded with his lifeblood were they, and Pip’s stomach churned at the sight.
Panic flooded her the second her palm connected with Troy’s throat, but it was founded in fear that it wouldn’t work, that her grand plans that had overtaken her mind in the moments it had taken for her to come to terms with what this gift could mean would all be for naught.
Before she could dwell on that though, the sensation of the flesh beneath her fingers hit her. It was wet. Squelchy. It felt rough and ragged yet so smooth and slick and shiny.
And then, it started.
The heat.
Excitement churned inside her. This was how it had started with Major.
The heat.
She let out a whimper as it began to grow, swelling and mushrooming until her palms began to tingle. Until those tingles ran along the length of her fingers, until the tips started to feel like they could glow like a lighter with the heat that was starting to emanate from her.
She winced when the heat transformed into something else. Before, she’d been too shocked to register it. But now, aware of what was happening, she realized that it was the connection, the magnetic effect that bound her to whoever the hell she was healing.
Troy’s fingers over hers suddenly felt heavy. Like lead. It doubled up the power of the connection, and the heat in her hands was no longer manageable. If anything, it started to swell and burn hotter and faster than anything she’d seen, even more so than the fire she’d seen downstairs.
She felt like she’d dipped her hand in the deep fat fryer at the diner, like her skin was bubbling and charring.
A scream escaped her, and she heard mumblings, rumblings around her. She felt someone grab her hand, but the agony that caused was worse than the scorching, searing heat currently uniting her to Troy.
The scream she let out must have been warning enough. The person backed off, but they put that same hand on her shoulder. And like that, something changed.
Where once she’d only been able to focus on the fire in her palms and fingertips, on trying not to let it overtake her, to let it drown her in the sheer agony of it, suddenly, there was a cooling balm seeping through her limbs.
It moved sluggishly at first then gained speed, as though she’d stuck the battered stick shift of her shitty truck into neutral and was waiting for momentum to gather as she went downhill. It slipped down through her blood with the sinuous slickness of a snake, but with it, the heat dissipated.
As it approached her hand, the burning began to disappear.
She hadn’t really realized that her eyes were closed until now. Maybe she’d done it out of self-preservation when the fire in her palm had really taken hold, or maybe she’d done it in distaste when her fingers had connected with the ragged burns on Troy’s throat.
Either way, they flashed open now, but what she saw wasn’t Troy on the bed watching her heal him.
It was light.
Her hand glowed ruby red. Darker purple hues, where the intensity of the heat was insane, had settled at her fingertips.
But the cooling balm from her shoulder was somehow changing the heat in her hand. It wasn’t weakening it. It was making it disperse.
Her healing power was aimed at the location of the burn, just Troy’s throat, but with this strange cooling sensation flushing through her veins at the same time now and same pace as the roaring burn, the glow seemed to spread. It started to overtake Troy’s head, slowly sliding down his chest, taking in all of his torso, and only stopping when it hit his hips.
She knew when to let go this time, knew when the connection would drop because that was when he was fully healed.
The coolness from the hand on her shoulder disappeared as did the burn.
She came back to Earth with a bang, with a deep rasping breath that shook her chest with the power of it and sounded like she’d been smoking eighty a day since she was thirteen. She coughed… once, twice… hacking up her guts until she fell forward, dropping to her knees with the power of the cough.
She pressed her hands to the floor, relieved to feel the heat had gone, then shook her head, dazed disbelief cascading through her at what she’d just experienced.
She noticed nothing else though, nothing but internal thoughts and feelings, worries and desires. She was a healer. The thought reigned triumphant in her mind. She was more than just a dishwasher or domestic lackey.
She had reason, purpose.
Once that thought had settled, it was like her mind had needed her to believe it before she could come back to herself. With the belief firmly fixed into place, her senses came back online.
She realized someone was beside her, and they were stroking the curve of her back. She was no longer on her hands and knees but curled into someone’s lap.
Her nose started to work, and she recognized the delicious scent that belonged to her mate.
Her eyes began to function, and she saw she was in Major’s lap, opposite Troy’s bed. Troy, who was no longer laying back, agony making his burned face appear all the more pained. He was sitting up against the side of the bed where she’d been moments before, and he was healed—utterly, miraculously healed.
The raw, gaping wound was no more. The blood was still there, staining his flesh, but the cuts and tears where the burn had eaten into his skin had gone like they’d never been there in the first place.
She blinked at him and whispered, “It worked, didn’t it?”
Troy’s grin widened. “Thank you, darlin’. It sure as hell did.”
She shared a dopey smile with him then turned to look up at her mate with dazed eyes. “You touched my shoulder, didn’t you?”
It had to have been him. Only he’d have reacted that way at the sight of her in such agony, and only he would have tried to maintain a contact that would bind them regardless of what she was doing.
A sheepish cast to his features was her first clue that she was bang on target. The second was a quick nod.
“You helped me heal him.”
At that, she suddenly realized the roar of sound going down around her. Where there had only been a handful of people before, now the room was overflowing. There were brothers and their mates, and they were talking, all their attention fixed firmly on her.
“News spread,” Troy said sheepishly.
Mars shook his head. “It was the energy. It called to us all. You wouldn’t have known, Troy, not when you were the intended target of it. But I felt it.”
Choruses of, “me, too,” “It was fucking insane,” and “I had to come. Couldn’t help it,” suddenly echoed around the room.
Then, a single voice pierced it all—Annette’s. “What the hell’s going on?”
She elbowed her way into the hordes, not stopping until she could crouch down in front of Pip. “Are you okay?” she demanded, reaching for her hand, and squeezing Pip’s fingers.
She’d kind of expected them to be sore after what they’d been through, but they weren’t. She’d also expected to be tired, but she wasn’t. She was dazed, yeah, but that was to be expected. Surprise alone would do that to a woman.
Instead, she could feel energy bubbling up inside her. It spilled forth, rolling over the edges of her being. Annette gasped and she realized it was being cast onto her.
The heat started, but as she was seated in Major’s lap, the burn wasn’t there. It was like sitting in the perfect temperature bath water. The only difference was, she knew she was healing Annette somehow.
She stared at the Prez’s mate, tilting her head to the side, this way and that, as she tried to figure out what was going on with the other woman.
The heat wasn’t as powerful as it had been with Troy, but she knew it wasn’t solely because of Major. There was a difference in the healing energy she was using. She didn’t really know how she knew that, only that she did.
She blinked at Annette, then murmured, “You’re carrying twins. One is causing the other to be underdeveloped.”
A gasp shot around the room.
“What?” Mars bellowed, suddenly appearing from the center of the maelstrom.
Pip blinked up at him. “I can feel it. The child isn’t in danger,” she murmured softly, and she knew she wasn’t really on this plane anymore. She was in a half-world—both feet on Earth and her head somewhere else—somewhere that told her one of the twins was taking all his mother’s nutrients for himself.
She guessed that wasn’t unusual. Annette would be carrying Bear Shifters after all. In animal gestations, there was usually a runt in multiple litters.
“Twins?” Annette gasped.
Pip smiled. “Yeah. Twins. The runt is struggling. Surviving, just. She needs me,” she finished softly. She pulled her fingers from Annette’s, surprised when that magnetic binding didn’t keep them connected, then she realized it was because the child wasn’t in danger.
Still, she reached forward and rested a hand on Annette’s flat belly. There, the connection started. It flared to life, roaring from her in a great wave that had laughter bubbling from her at the baby’s eagerness, at the wonder it felt at finally being nourished in the way it needed to be.
Somehow, the baby needed more than Troy had. When the bond finally broke, she felt woozy and slumped into Major’s hold.
“That’s enough for tonight,” he told her softly, but it was hard enough for the rest of the room to hear the menace in his tone and to know not to push him.
She smiled up at him. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Chapter 8
“You mean to tell me it was…?” Major couldn’t get the name out. He just couldn’t.
What the fuck was happening?
Was he on a parallel universe or something?
Sure, he’d been with Juanita a while, but he’d never made any promises. He’d made certain he hadn’t, because his Bear had been so fucking uncertain that she was his mate.
Still, for the CCTV footage to have captured her on the back of a bike, a bottle in one hand, a rag sticking out the spout, and a lighter in the other… It meant something deeper was going on, didn’t it?
Mars stared at him, gaze penetrating before he said, “That’s her, isn’t it?”
Major nodded. “Yeah. It’s her. How did you know to come to me?”
A grimace crossed the Prez’s jaw. “Instinct. A solitary female with a Molotov cocktail in hand? Yeah, it screams pissed off woman seeking revenge on her lover.” He jerked a shoulder. “But like I said, it was a hunch. I brought it to you before the council to get confirmation first.”
“What are we going to do?”
Mars rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I’m not sure.”
Aghast, Major gawked at the Prez. “What the hell? You always know what to do.”
“Not in this instance.” He let out a heavy breath and took a seat at the council table. His seat was bigger than the rest, a little more throne-like but without the ostentatiousness.
Not that Mars needed a fancy-schmancy chair to look like the leader he was. It oozed from every pore and loaded each word he uttered.
“I don’t understand,” Major admitted, following his leader’s suit and sitting down.
“You wouldn’t because I don’t either.” He rocked back in his seat but kept his gaze trained on the scratched veneer covering the table. Once, his gaze snatched up to meet Major’s, but other than that, he kept his attention fixed on the table.
“Things are changing around here. I’ve got propositions coming from left, right, and center, and I don’t know which path to take. Now you’re a mated male, you’ll know exactly what my dilemma is. A couple of days ago, you might not have, but now you do.”
Major frowned, considered his Prez and his friend’s words, then slowly nodded. “I think I know what you mean.”
Mars grunted. “The mates are the future of the MC. More than that, they’re the future of the Clan. Without them, it’s obvious, we don’t reproduce. I have to keep them safe.”
“But the men who don’t have mates won’t necessarily like the routes you have to go down to keep them protected.”
Mars clenched his jaw. “Exactly.”
“If we go to war,” Major carried on, “then we’re putting the females in harm’s way. If we don’t go to war, we’re putting the females in harm’s way by not doing anything about the threats surrounding us.”
“Martinez’s cartel isn’t going to forgive us for releasing their shipment of women.”
Mars’ predecessor had started human trafficking with a human cartel. When Mars had taken over, he’d reneged on that contract and had rescued the women the MC had been contracted to transport to their end destinations.
Mischa, Kiko’s mate, was one of those women. The MC had sheltered the other women in the shipment for as long as they’d needed. There were even a couple still hanging around, but most had run off, intent on finding their own way in this crazy new country that was the good, old US of A.
“I think asking him for forgiveness is definitely not the way forward,” Major teased, grinning a little when Mars’ lips twitched.
It wasn’t a joking moment, but Jesus, Mars had some major decisions to be making. And, to top it all off, Pip had just declared to the cartel that the Prez’s mate was carrying.
Twins, no less.
Twins, when multiple births were extremely rare in Bear Clans.
The man’s head had to be about ready to cave in.
With a grunt, Major said, “What else is bothering you?”
“I have money to spend on legitimizing the MC. But again, the non-mated males aren’t going to be content with that.”
“Maybe you should worry about what’s good for the MC, not those individuals who don’t have a mate yet. Their time will come. In the interim, you and the Council have to protect the foundation of our society. Without the Clan, we’re nothing. We’re refugees. Shielding that comes above everything else. Even boredom.”
Mars shook his head. “You know a lot of the guys like being outlaws.”
“Of course. But they’ll just have to get used to being boring stiffs.”
“You’re taking a hard-line approach to this. Legitimizing the MC isn’t going to make our problems with the cartel and those South American gangs go away,” Mars warned.
“I never thought it would. I just think it’s the smart step. Because of the old Prez’s fascination with all things fucked up, it’s led us into a battle that we don’t particularly want to fight.” He blew out a breath and stated, “Look. I’m among the guys more than you are, more than any of the council really. I heal them, after all. I hear shit. I know shit I probably shouldn’t, or at any rate, shit that you’d like to know.” When Mars cocked a brow, his interest plain to see, Major just snorted. “No way. Knowing these particular secrets and keeping it that way makes sure I have their trust. Look, I know that a lot of the guys don’t like t
he idea of becoming just a legitimate business, but I’d say the majority do want it. The ones who don’t are old. They’re tired and bored, and let’s face it, lonely. They want their mates. They want a future. They want what we have.”
“What are you saying?” Mars asked, a frown furrowing his brow.
“I’m saying, don’t pitch the idea of going legit as a sensible precaution for the MC and Clan’s future. Sell it as a means of integrating into the human society and allowing our brothers to mingle with women who could potentially be their mates.”
Mars eyes lit up. “That doesn’t help with the cartel and the gangs.”
“One step at a time.” Major held up a hand to forestall the Prez. “Juanita was acting alone last night, wasn’t she? There’s no other footage showing anyone else about, am I right?”
“Yeah. She came alone and left alone. Unless they were waiting out of sight in the camera’s range, I can pretty much state she came by herself with no back up.”
Major sighed. “Yeah, so I’ll go and talk to her. Explain. Maybe make it better and stop her from sabotaging the MC. But aside from that, the only way to get them off our backs without going to war—”
A knock sounded on the council door. They both jerked in their seats.
“Wait a minute,” Mars roared, then finally, he leaned forward and demanded, “How? How, Major?”
His smile was slow. “We find a bigger enemy. One who’ll eat them for breakfast without us having to do a damn thing.”
Mars frowned. “Who?”
Major winked. “The IRS.”
He’d never thought he’d be standing here, in plain sight, in the light, and without the intention of having his dick sucked off or eating Juanita’s pussy.
He knocked on the door, and when she didn’t answer he did it twice more until he heard footsteps inside the hall.
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Ostras! What’s the hurry?”
He knew she was making haste because she didn’t even take the time to look through the peephole. If she had, he doubted she’d have opened the door. As it was, the look of astonishment, then fear, that overtook her features was priceless.
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