Bear His Mark

by Reina Torres

  “Yeah, well,” he felt oddly comfortable talking with her, “you and Cage showed me what I was missing in my life.”

  She blushed at his words.

  “You never seem to have much trouble attracting the ladies.”

  Okay, that particular topic, not so much.

  “There’s never a shortage of women coming to the fights, but none of them were right. None of them fit us.”

  “And she does?”

  He nodded. Absolutely certain.

  “Hollis is it for us. I don’t know how Gerri Wilder finds just the right person, but when I got the call from her, I knew it.”

  Maggie looked a little concerned. “Just because this woman says that she’s perfect-”

  “Baby,” Cage leaned closer and nuzzled her cheek, drinking in her scent, “you know it doesn’t work that way.”

  Maggie’s eyes lit up and flashed with frustration. “I know, I know… really, I do. But, Conor’s one of your men-”

  “One of our men, baby.”

  Conor couldn’t help but feel the warmth that passed between the mated pair.

  “Yes,” she agreed, a little breathless, “ours. And that’s why I worry.”

  “Yeah,” Conor’s throat tightened, “well, she’s not sure she wants to stay with me.”

  That got everyone’s attention. Before Conor realized it, most of the men at the gym had gathered around. He could feel their concern and it helped a little to know they felt for him.

  “She’s worried that one day I’ll decide that she’ll disappoint me. That I’ll regret our mate bond after I mark her. She’s trying to decide if she wants to stay or leave.”

  “Excuse me?” Maggie’s temper rose again. “How could she think that? She’s a shifter, right?” She turned to her mate. “I thought you said she was a shifter.”

  Cage actually seemed to wince at his mate’s pointed question and turned to Conor. “That’s what you said, right?”

  “Gerri said she came from the Black Hills Bear Clan, but it turns out that she’s not a shifter.” He shook his head, trying to find the right explanation. “Her whole family are shifters, but she’s never been able to.”

  Heads nodded in the assembled group, most of them understood what that meant.

  Maggie didn’t. “And so… what does that mean?”

  He sighed. “It means that she’s got a lot of crazy thoughts in her head. She has doubts about herself more than I think she has doubts about me. About disappointing me.”

  Cage cleared his throat. “I bet she’s heard a lot of crap all her life. That clan is pretty insular.”

  Another shifter spoke up. “A lion from my pride went there to see if he could track down an old friend and said they’re pretty… rustic.”

  When Maggie didn’t seem to understand, he tried again. “They’re like hillbilly bears. They’re probably a few decades behind the rest of us and happy about it. I doubt they made it easy for her, especially if she’s got a long family history of shifters. Like some kind of deformity.”

  Conor felt his bear rise up in rage, but he almost didn’t try to soothe it. Hearing more about Hollis’ clan made it a little easier to understand her feelings but it also made him angry… for her.

  “Huh,” Maggie’s expression was a thoughtful one, “I can see where she’s coming from.”

  Cage tucked her closer against him. “What do you mean?”

  She looked up at her mate with a smile. “Down, boy. Don’t get your tail in a twist. I’m just saying I get it. Growing up in the military, my dad was Uber-soldier! Always respected. Always deferred to. And then he got the assignment to work with you and your men. How amazing was that? Shapeshifters in a military unit and my dad was in charge. Everywhere around me were these amazing, over-powered people and I was so… ordinary.

  “And if she’s been bullied, even unintentionally, by her people? She’s got to have issues with self-worth. That’s why I got in so much trouble with I was younger. But, where I went and caused trouble to be noticed, I bet she tried to be really good to the point where she was almost invisible.”

  “But she’s my mate,” Conor shot back. “I would do whatever it took to make her happy.”

  A strange shadow seemed to pass over Maggie’s features. “And I think that scares her. She might wonder if she’ll become an obligation to you. Like you’ll decide she’s more work than what she’s worth. And that you’d regret having her in your life.”

  “The hell I would!”

  The roar would have sent most humans running for cover or curling up in a ball and crying, but not Maggie Gamble. The mate to a jaguar shifter and stepmother to a lioness? Ha! Maggie just gave him a knowing look that said, ‘back off the bullshit,’ and Conor forced himself to take a step away.

  “Sorry.”

  She smiled and gave him a wink. “I’ve heard worse at home, believe me. But really, Conor. You’re a great guy and super competent at everything you do. She can’t shift. The very essence of what she was born to be isn’t there. The fact that she even came here looking for her mate is huge!

  “Now, you stay here and work off some of this,” she waved her hands in a vague ‘whatever’ gesture and continued on, “and I’ll call the girls. We’ll see what we can do to get her head out of her rear, okay?”

  At the mention of Hollis’ backside, his bear growled in his throat. They were both deliriously attached to her curvy ass.

  Before he answered, a voice piped up from the rowing machine along the wall. “Let the women get her drunk. They can’t do any worse than the mess you’ve made of things.”

  Conor tried to turn, but Cage was there, restraining him with one hand. “The girls aren’t going to get her drunk, just have some fun and talk.” Then he turned toward the wall and let out a deep throated growl at him. “Hey, Dog.”

  The shifter in question was Dominic Vestri, a wolf shifter who seemed to define the ‘lone wolf’ lifestyle, even though rumor had it that he had a family somewhere.

  Most shifters respected him for his skill and savagery in his fighting style, but those shifters also didn’t have much use for him as a friend or even as an acquaintance, and this was just one of those moments.

  But Cage’s comment had gotten under the wolf’s fur. Dom’s hackles rose and his upper lip curled to display his elongated canines under his mustache. “Got your yarn ball in a twist, kitty?”

  A loud jaguar hiss set everyone on edge. “Keep it up, Dom, and I’ll put you on a leash. Don’t make this any harder than it already is for Conor.”

  Dom blew out a breath. “If he’s this bad now, imagine when she’s got his mark, she’ll have his balls in a glass on her nightstand like dentures.”

  It wasn’t Cage who responded to the taunt, it was Conor. “You piece of shit.”

  Everyone dove for Conor and Dom, prepared to separate the two, except for Cage who put himself squarely between his mate and the rest of the room.

  When the bear and the wolf were restrained, Maggie pressed a kiss on her mate’s cheek and sighed. “I’m going to go make my calls and break the news to Boz that he’s manning the grill today. And then I’m going to see what I can do to untangle this mess.”

  “And tonight.”

  Cage backed Maggie through the open double doors.

  Conor could hear everything beyond their voices, he knew by the sounds coming from the hall, exactly what they were doing. Anyone who was a shifter in the gym could.

  Cage pressed his mate against the wall, the sounds painting a picture of their bodies sliding against each other. “Tonight, I’m going to show you how really... really thankful I am for your help.”

  Her breathy giggle made Cage groan. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

  Cage’s growl muffled her laugh until he spoke. “You’ve done plenty, baby, and I’m going to do a few things to you, too.”

  When all was said and done, no one had to order Dom to leave the gym, the wolf growled one last ear-splitting curse-filled tira
de and then he left on his own.

  After that, the others made it their mission to put Conor through his paces. He needed to get rid of all his frustrations while Maggie and the girls gave Hollis some time to figure things out.

  #

  When Hollis woke up, she knew that Conor had gone to the gym. He’d already told her about his schedule and after the night before, they’d both agreed that she could use some time alone to think.

  Willa, Boone, and their boys knew that she was there alone and had already extended an invitation for her to call or just come over when she wanted to. So, she’d showered and dressed for a visit, but even after she was ready, she hesitated. Even with their generous invitation to look forward to, Hollis couldn’t escape the feeling that she should call her father.

  He wasn’t the most cuddly of people.

  Ever.

  But, he was her father and she’d left without a word to him. It wasn’t like her to do anything like that and she knew that she should just call and let him know that she was all right.

  It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was better than a lot of other scenarios.

  Picking up Conor’s phone she dialed her father’s number and wasn’t surprised when he picked up before the third ring. He rarely left his office during the day, making sure that his people knew where to reach him when they needed him.

  “Kent.”

  “Hi, dad.”

  She heard the heavy scrape of wood against stone and then her father bellowed into the phone. “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m fine, dad.”

  “That,” he reminded her, “is not an answer to my question!”

  “I found a mate.” Well, that was certainly jumping into the deep end of the pool. Oh, yeah. And she couldn’t swim. “And I'm here with him.”

  “Put him on the phone!”

  “Umm,” she looked around the room and winced, “he’s not exactly here at the moment.”

  “He marked you and left you alone?”

  She shook her head and then remembered that he couldn’t see her. “No, no. He hasn’t marked me yet, I got nervous.”

  Silence poured through the phone line, thick and heavy.

  “Dad?”

  “You left your home. You left your clan. And you left the valley.” Several heavy breaths reached her ears. “And now that you’re... there with your mate,” he bit out the word with a clash of his teeth, “you’re nervous?”

  Hollis squeezed her eyes tight and tried to gather her thoughts. Something she probably should have done before dialing the phone, “It’s not his fault, dad. I was so happy and then he was talking about our future and then I thought of cubs and you remember what the healer said.” She had to swallow to drown out the words that always played through her thoughts when she mentioned that horrible day. “I want to be a good mate to him, dad. I want to give him a happy life... and a family.” She felt her breaths getting shorter and shorter. “I just don’t want to fail him when it comes to having a cub.”

  She left it at that, going silent in hopes that her father would sense her worry and try to give her some advice. He was forever giving advice to others in their clan.

  “If it wasn’t for the fact that I stood there beside your mother as she bore down and brought you into this world, I would have thought that someone stole my child away and replaced it with this pink, wrinkled, human.

  “Over the years, I’ve cursed myself and asked, what did I do that made the spirits give me a human girl as my only child?”

  If it wasn’t for the fact that she had called him, Hollis would have worried that she’d somehow called the wrong number. And yet, she heard the harsh tone of his voice and knew without a doubt that the words being spoken were definitely from her father’s mouth.

  “Now, I’m only too happy to have a girl as my child.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she felt a grateful sob rose in her throat. “Dad, you have no idea how happy-”

  “Because if I’d had a son as useless as you, I would have to kill myself to avoid the shame of having everyone know that you were my child. How could you do this to me?”

  “I thought,” she gasped in a breath, “you wanted me to find a mate, dad.”

  “Well?” His question ended with a harsh laugh. “You say you did and then you say you didn’t even let him mark you. I’m surprised he didn’t turn you away for being stupid as well as useless.”

  “Dad, please, let me explain. I-”

  “No, Hollis. Don’t say another thing.” Something glass broke on the other end of the call. “I’ve found you a mate. One who isn’t going to put up with your nonsense. You’re going to come back home and you’re going to be his mate and someday if you don’t shame him the way you shamed me, he might actually let you out in public.”

  “But, Dad, I’ve already found my mate.”

  “No doubt he’s trying to find a way to get rid of you as we speak. After all, he’s not even there with you, is he?”

  She couldn’t very well argue with the first part of his statement, especially when the second half was blatantly true.

  “Dad, I-”

  “Dad, I,” he mocked her words, “I’m on my way home to the valley now. And when I get there, I’m going to be a good little girl and then maybe you won’t be mad at me for the rest of my life.”

  The call ended with a definitive click.

  The urge to throw Conor’s phone across the room was a bone-deep impulse, but she got herself under control and set the handset back in place.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to kick something. She wanted to do exactly what Conor was doing. Letting go of all the stress that she’d brought into his life.

  Still, it wasn’t fair for her to go and visit Willa and dump her problems on her brand-new friend who had done nothing but welcome her to the area and bring her an amazing gift.

  The doorbell rang and she stood completely still, hoping that they would think the house was empty and go away.

  Right.

  Someone just walked up to a shifter’s house and randomly rang the doorbell.

  When it rang again, she had to admit that it was for a reason. Leaving the room, she walked to the door and got up on her toes to look out onto the porch.

  Two of the Wayland bears were outside waving at her. So much for hiding.

  Opening the door, she gave the boys a feeble grin.

  “We’ve been sent to get you.”

  Well, that was interesting. “For?” And then her heart thudded to a stop in her chest. “Oh my- is she in labor?”

  Pushing past the boys she slammed the door behind her and started down the stairs. She was a step away from the road when the boys caught up with her and it gave her a bit of grim satisfaction that they seemed to work to match her stride. “How long has she been having contractions? Have you called Boone? Which one of you is driving us?”

  “Wait, wait.” Someone hooked her arm and brought her to a halt. Getting up in front of her he looked down with a lop-sided grin. “Relax, that’s not why she sent us for you.”

  With a big whoosh, all her take-charge rushed right out of her and she had to work to take in a breath.

  The one on her left gave her a pat on the back. “Take a breath or two.”

  Setting her hands on her thighs she bent over and let her head hang down far enough to get some blood flow all the way up to the top. “So, she’s okay?”

  “Yep.” A head popped into her vision on the right side. He had to slap a hand on his head to hold his knit cap in place. “She’s great, she just wanted us to come bring you over. She tried calling a few minutes before and the phone was busy.”

  Hollis pushed the thoughts of her call to her father back into her mind. Or out of it all together.

  “Okay. Thank goodness.”

  Slowly inching her hands up her thighs toward her hips, she found herself upright and walking between the two young shifters.

  By the time they walked through the gate t
hey saw a Mini-Cooper pull up in front of the Wayland house.

  Immediately, she felt both boys perk up and straighten their postures.

  “Uhh… is there something you boys would like to tell me?”

  She didn’t have to see them to know that the boys shared a look with each other over her head. The rush of their energy almost bowled her over.

  “Uh,” one of them started to speak and then it wasn’t necessary at all when the driver’s door opened and a young female stepped out of the car.

  Dressed like an updated version of Blondie from the 80s, the self-possessed young woman with her hair dyed a fierce shade of green, closed the door to the car with a bump of her hip and Hollis swore she could hear both of the boys beside her sigh in admiration.

  Taking pity on them she waved them on. “Go on, go and tell your mom that I’m here.”

  It was something to see. Both boys rushing, struggling to maintain an air of cool nonchalance and trying not to use too much of their preternatural speed.

  If it wasn’t for his innate ability to right himself in the middle of a stumble one of the boys would have ended up a welcome mat rather than competing with his bother to wish the young woman a, “What’s up?” in the way of a greeting.

  The woman getting out of the passenger side caught Hollis’ eye.

  “Hi.” She had a vague memory of her face, and knew it had to be from the fight. Where else would she have seen her? “I’m Hollis.” Pausing at the base of the stairs she held out her hand.

  The other woman took it and gave her hand a warm shake. She felt completely-

  “I’m human.”

  Hollis knew her mouth must have been hanging open when the other woman chuckled.

  “Sorry. You had that questioning look on your face and don’t worry. I’m Maggie Gamble, Cage’s mate. So far with me, Willa, and Paige, we’re all as human as they come.”

  Turning her head, Hollis saw the young woman who’d driven them giving Willa an embrace so gentle it almost looked like she didn’t touch the other woman.

  “But-”

  Maggie started up the steps, motioning for Hollis to join her. “That’s Francis, and yes, she’s a shifter. A lion like her father… her biological dad.”

  “Ah, good to know I didn’t lose my touch.”