Bear to Love: Kodiak Den #3 (Alaskan Den Men Book 8)

by Amy Lamont

  Before I could second-guess myself, I pressed the call button and held my breath as the phone rang twice.

  “Macy.” Gage’s terse voice came through my phone.

  “Gage, thank goodness you answered. I’m stranded. I was headed up to the old hunting lodge off Route 231 and my truck just...I don’t know. Started bucking a little and making all these weird noises and then just died right in the middle of the road. I need some help up here.”

  Silence met my rambling for several long seconds before Gage responded. “Hang on.”

  “Gage?” I asked, but he was gone.

  “You’ve got Kaden,” my brother said a few seconds later.

  I blew out a sigh and rolled my eyes up to the ceiling of my truck. Couldn’t I get even a tiny break? “Put Gage back on, Kaden.”

  “Macy? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Just give Gage back the phone.”

  “Is something wrong? Why do you need to speak to—?”

  I took a page out of Alyssa’s book and dug deep for my inner drill sergeant. “Put Gage on the phone now, Kaden. I’ll explain later.”

  “Fine. But don’t think I’ll forget that you owe me an explanation,” he grumbled before I heard him shuffling the phone back to Gage. At least I hoped he was giving it back.

  “Macy?”

  Relief washed through me at the sound of Gage’s voice.

  “Gage, I called you because I wanted to talk to you.” I used my best pesky little sister voice. “Kaden is just going to call Jake to come out and get me. Can’t you come look under the hood? If it’s nothing major, you could probably fix it without me having to go through the bother and expense of having it towed and repaired. Please.”

  Again silence.

  “With sugar on top,” I wheedled.

  A few more beats and then, “Where are you?”

  Score! I ignored his flat tone as elation poured through me.

  I gave him directions and sat back and waited. If they were at the Ursus offices it could take a good fifteen or twenty minutes before he made it up here. I spent the time coming up with a plan of attack for when he arrived.

  Of course, those plans were immediately cancelled the second he pulled up. And that’s because he wasn’t alone. I watched the shiny SUV pull up behind my battered truck. Gage jumped down from the passenger side and Nash followed from the driver’s side.

  Why hadn’t it occurred to me they’d be together? I shook my head and sighed. Strike two, universe.

  I watched in the rearview mirror as they walked toward the truck. My eyes locked on Nash and I could feel my bear stir. I drank in the sight of him like a man drank in water after a month in the desert.

  “Down girl,” I whispered to myself.

  I took a deep breath and pushed open the door, hopping down to the gravel road. “Hi, guys. Thanks for coming to help me.”

  I got chin lifts from both, but not a single word. Gage brushed right past me as he made his way over to pop the hood of the truck. Nash paused beside me and I realized as I looked up at him that he wasn’t wearing his blank face. His gaze wandered over me from head to toe, and I got the sense he was as eager for the sight of me as I was for him. His eyes met mine and a searing heat burned into me, a heat unlike anything I’d experienced before.

  “Macy.” My name came from him on a growl. Even as his eyes devoured me, his voice was laced with regret. The sound squeezed at my heart and I suddenly found myself fighting the urge to shift. Never before had I wanted to let my bear out to have free rein the way I did right now.

  Before I could respond to his look or his tone, or even form a thought, he moved past me to stand by Gage. His actions spoke louder than any words could. He might be feeling some of the same things I was, but right now Gage would win every time.

  I tried not to sink into a puddle of self-pity. Mating among werebears was pretty cut and dried. Our bears recognized each other on a primal, visceral level. Courtships didn’t usually last long. And I was lucky to live in a den where I was surrounded by examples of happily ever afters.

  Getting my own happily ever after had been something I’d looked forward to since I was old enough to understand the way shifters claimed their mates. I’d dreamed of having a possessive, protective werebear to have my back.

  But none of my denmates had ever had to deal with what was happening between Nash and Gage. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d be the first shifter ever to be rejected by her mate.

  At the thought, tears came hot and heavy behind my eyes. I could feel them pushing, thick and prickly, clogging my throat. I moved my gaze to the two men. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, leaning over the exposed engine of my truck.

  I pulled in a deep, slow breath through my nose, as I reminded myself this wasn’t about me. Two men I cared for deeply needed my help.

  I fought back my tears and when I felt like I could, at the very least, fake a happy tone, I moved forward. I stepped up to Gage’s side, leaning into him as I peeked into the engine.

  “What’s the diagnosis?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t look good.” Gage pulled up a hose and poked at something underneath.

  I wrinkled my nose. My knowledge of engines could fill a thimble. I leaned in closer to Gage. “Think you can fix it?”

  “Maybe.”

  I looked up at him, but my gaze immediately collided with Nash’s. His dark eyes narrowed, but I didn’t see any of the jealousy I’d expect to see from a werebear when his mate got too close to another male.

  Maybe I’d misread the situation. Or maybe the mating call was all on my side. I’d never heard of such a thing, but I’d never seen two unmated males act like Nash and Gage did with each other, either.

  Only one way to find out—help Nash and Gage with whatever issues drove them together. My path was clear.

  I loved Nash and Gage. They’d been part of my life forever. I’d already felt a strong compulsion to help them. And now there was a chance Nash was my intended mate. Until he could separate himself from Gage, there was a strong possibility I’d be pretty miserable.

  I squared my shoulders. Any doubts I’d entertained about butting out and letting Kaden and the guys help them through things left me in an instant. I knew in that moment that the only way the three of us could ever be really happy was for me to keep working on getting them to open up and deal with whatever was tormenting them.

  Determination settled in and my bear settled down for the first time in days, content in the knowledge we would find a way to fix all this.

  I turned and took a step away from the truck, trying to come up with my next step. Nash jogged to his vehicle to grab a toolbox and I tracked his every movement. When he started to make his way back, I glanced at Gage to find he had his eyes pinned to Nash, too.

  I’d thought Nash’s reaction to being without Gage the other day was pretty extreme. But seeing the way Gage kept his eyes on Nash, the way his throat moved as he swallowed hard, the way his shoulders lost a little tension with each step Nash took closer to him, it struck me that Gage might need Nash more.

  I pressed my lips together even as my heart constricted at the thought of the mental scars their service to our country left on two of my favorite shifters. Time to put some plans in motion to help them heal.

  And suddenly I thought of the perfect way to ease Gage into separating from Nash.

  Chapter 4

  Gage

  “Nash, this could take awhile. And I haven’t had a chance to eat yet today. Would you mind running down the hill and grabbing some lunch for us?”

  I came up so fast at Macy’s question, I almost slammed my head into the hood of the truck. I turned to look at Nash who stood up from his spot examining the engine more slowly than I did. I didn’t miss the way his eyes darted to mine before he looked over to where Macy sat in the grass by the side of the road.

  She had her long, tan legs bent, an arm wrapped around them. Her other hand sifted through the grass beside her. Her head t
ilted to the side and she stared up at Nash from underneath her lashes, a slow smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

  Shit. There was no chance that girl wasn’t going to get her way. She had us all wrapped around her tiny, little finger since she was a kid.

  These days, the dark, wild hair and her almost golden eyes were the only things left that resembled that kid. She’d grown up, and her coltish limbs and chubby cheeks firmed and rounded in all the right places. Now she had soft curves and legs that went on for days.

  If she were hard to say no to when she was a pesky eleven-year-old, the woman she’d become would be impossible to turn down.

  Fuck. What kind of man had I become that I almost resented that fact? That I didn’t want to be left alone with a beautiful woman if it meant my closest friend had to leave my side?

  I narrowed my eyes and shifted my gaze to Nash. The grim set of his mouth told me all I needed to know. He was as eager to do her bidding as I was to have him do it. As in, not at all.

  He and I knew what was going on between us wasn’t normal. Not like we talked it out. But hell, it was hard to miss the fact that we both went a little crazy when we were out of each other’s sight.

  And we both knew why. The FUBARed mission that left all the men we’d been sent out with dead. All except the two of us. We’d been sent ahead of our unit to scout things out. We’d returned to find the remnants of our buddies. Nothing I’d experienced before in all my years in the military prepared me for what had been done to those men.

  The only break I got from the walking nightmare was the relief that came knowing Nash had been with me, watching my back. I hadn’t left him behind to suffer the fate the rest of our unit endured.

  The sense of relief did nothing to help the feelings of guilt that plagued us. We had to live with the knowledge that our shifter abilities might have helped save at least a few of those men.

  The guilt, the horror, and the relief formed a greasy ball of anxiety that lived inside me, as much a part of me as my bear. The only time I felt halfway normal was when I had Nash by my side, a constant reminder that he’d made it out alive.

  But I’d come to rely on him to an unhealthy degree. The same way he’d come to rely on me.

  Which brought us to here and now, and me with my blood frozen in my veins at the thought of Nash fulfilling a pretty woman’s simple request. I fought for breath as I waited for Nash’s response.

  “Why don’t we see if Gage gets your truck going? Then we’ll follow you down the mountain and take you to lunch.”

  Thank God. Nash made it all sound so reasonable. We both knew it was far from that, but for some reason we both seemed dedicated to maintaining at least the illusion of normalcy.

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye and turned to look back at Macy. She stood slowly and brushed a hand over her curvy ass, cleaning grass from the back of her tiny denim shorts, before moving closer to us. My bear pushed his way forward and I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from offering to do that job for her.

  Geez. I needed to get a grip. Wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t get my head on straight if Kaden ever found out the thoughts I’d had about his little sister. He’d solve my problem by knocking it clean off my shoulders.

  “I still have to get up to the lodge and look for that dog. Please.” She looked up at Nash and, I swear, she batted her eyelashes at him. “I’m starving, Nash.”

  I waited for Nash to throw another roadblock in her way. Instead a low growl came from deep in his chest. Startled, I swung my head around.

  Nash stared down at Macy with an intensity I didn’t understand. His jaw locked and his posture went rigid.

  “Please, Nash,” she asked softly, giving him her flirty head tilt again.

  My heart started beating erratically in my chest. I held my breath as I waited to hear Nash’s response.

  “Fine,” he finally bit out.

  “Thank you!” Macy jumped in her spot, bringing my gaze to her full breasts as they bounced beneath her black V-neck shirt. The sight was almost enough to forget my desire to keep Nash by my side at all times. Almost.

  I shot a look at Nash and he looked back at me, his face grim as Macy rattled off an order.

  “I won’t be long.” Nash squeezed my shoulder as he walked past me on the way to his truck. It was all I could do not to throw myself at his feet and beg him to take me along.

  Macy and I stood side-by-side in the middle of the road, watching as Nash executed a three-point turn. He hit the gas so hard as he pulled away, gravel spit up from underneath his tires. All I could do was stare after him as dread filled my chest.

  I turned and made my way back to the truck, my movements choppy and disjointed, like I was walking through a pool of water. I picked up a wrench and stared down into the engine. A wave of hot nausea churned in my stomach, and suddenly my vision was filled with images of that day—blood and flesh and bits of gore, bodies torn to shreds, faces almost unrecognizable.

  Except now, with Nash not within my line of sight as proof he’d made it out with me, the faces became easy to identify. All of them were Nash. I could see him in the face of the soldier with half his head gone. It was Nash’s vacant eyes that stared back at me from the lump of flesh that was once a soldier. I gripped the edge of the truck and I could feel the trembling start to move through me.

  That wasn’t the only thing moving through me. My bear stirred at the same time. I could feel him begin raging, the adrenaline spiking through me, pushing him to look for a place to take out all the fear and anger and helplessness, thirsting for the blood of an enemy thousands of miles away from here.

  “Gage.” A soft, sweet voice reached for me through the nightmare of my flashback. “Come back to me, Gage.”

  I jumped, fighting to focus on reality, the rational side of my brain having just enough of a hold to make me worry my bear would turn all the churning emotion on her.

  “Gage, honey, I promise you’re fine.”

  I needn’t have worried. That innocent, angelic voice drifting through my nightmare introduced just enough incongruence to my mind that I snapped out of it long enough to register Macy, and not some conjured enemy, standing by my side.

  Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, making me focus on its fullness. Her gentle smile made my heart ache.

  “You’re okay.” She reached out toward me.

  I tracked her movement with my eyes, but even seeing what she was about to do didn’t prepare me for the jolt of awareness that shot through me when her hand landed on my arm. My gaze shot back up to hers as electricity and heat zinged through me, starting from the spot where her hand rested and spreading into every part of me.

  Her expression told me she’d been caught off guard by the contact, too. Her amber eyes were wide, her lips parted.

  The look on her face, the heat of her touch, the way she looked in that tight T-shirt and short shorts, all of it made her unrelentingly tempting. And suddenly, for the first time since we walked into that horrific scene months ago, my bear’s fear, rage and confusion subsided.

  But he didn’t settle down and rest. This was something new, something I’d never experienced before.

  Macy’s hand stroked soothingly up and down my arm, even as she stared up at me in unblinking surprise. My bear pushed me to lean more firmly into her touch. She obliged, continuing to slide her warm hand over my skin.

  My eyes drifted closed, but they bolted open again when a realization hit me.

  Everything was quiet. My bear was calm and content, happy for her touch. The visions evaporated like smoke floating off into the atmosphere. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I stood firmly rooted in the present moment.

  I eased closer to Macy, my body instinctively seeking her warmth, more of her touch. She blinked up at me and shifted closer. We moved as though two strings pulled us together, and before I made the decision to do it, I pulled her to me, holding her close in the circle of my arms.

  He
r small hands slid up to rest on my chest. “You stopped shaking.”

  I drew my eyebrows together, uncertain of what she meant.

  She must have sensed my confusion because she explained, “Usually when Nash gets too far away, you get agitated, start shaking. You did it this time, but now…” her hands slid up to my shoulders, over my biceps, and back to my chest again, “no trembling.”

  No trembling. Her words played over and over again in my mind. I should have been embarrassed at being caught in my worst moments of weakness.

  But there was no judgment in Macy’s tone or in the eyes she turned up to me. If anything, her expression was one of confusion and wonder and…something else.

  No trembling. As I kept my gaze trained on her gorgeous upturned face, the truth of her words hit me. I wasn’t shaking. That greasy, wretched ball of fear and anxiety that had been living inside me for months was nowhere to be found in this moment. My bear’s constant primal reactions of dread and rage were gone, leaving only contentment and desire and…

  Holy shit. Possessiveness.

  Without thought, I clutched Macy closer. She obliged, moving her arms up and over my shoulders. I stared down into her eyes. Did she see the same wonder reflected in mine?

  Primitive, primal instincts took over. They weren’t products of fear or fury this time, but something deeper, though equally earthshattering. Only one simple thought formed in my primordial brain—mine.

  Holy. Fuck. Macy Black was my mate.

  Before I could deny it or give into it or reason with it, the sounds of tires crunching over gravel hit my ears.

  “Nash is coming,” Macy said, her eyebrows snapping together and a tumble of confusion flashing on her face.

  Nash. He hadn’t been gone long, but for the first time in months I’d been able to part from him without having a complete mental breakdown. Elation pumped through me and I grinned down at her.

  Apparently Macy Black wasn’t just my mate, she was a miracle worker. A living, breathing angel. My angel.

  “He’s going to need you, Gage.”

  I shook my head, her meaning not penetrating for long seconds. Then it seeped in and my grin faded. I turned my head to watch Nash speed over the hill, coming to a lurching stop just behind the truck.