by T. S. Joyce
“You got a broken marriage with Adam, and now you’ll have a broken pairing—”
“Don’t you even finish that sentence.”
“I hibernate, Lena!”
“What?”
Jenner let off a long, shaky breath, and now the emotion in his eyes mirrored hers. “In a couple months, I’ll go to sleep, and I won’t wake up until April.”
Lena gritted her teeth and shook her head slowly back in forth in denial. “No.”
Jenner’s eyebrow’s lifted slightly. “Yes. Every year it happens. There’s no way to stop it. I’ve fucking tried! I can’t stay awake. Every winter, I pick a different den somewhere around here and hope hunters don’t stumble onto it while I’m asleep. That’s the reality of this life.”
“But…your brother is married.”
“Yeah, and Elyse is different. She’s tough as leather and a homesteader, born and raised in Alaska and more adept at dealing with her mate sleeping half the fucking year. And it’s hard on her, Lena. She’s scarred now from protecting Ian last winter. Do you want Elyse’s life? Really? When you imagine giving up your career for a man, do you imagine spending six snowy months trapped in a small house fighting cabin fever all alone? I don’t want that for you. Can’t you see?” Moisture rimmed his eyes, and through gritted teeth, he said, “I want better. I want you happy, and what I am will steal your happiness. I can’t do it.” Jenner stood and strode off toward the cabin. “I won’t.”
A sob left her lips as she watched him go. Hibernation? What a mess of a life. Half of his time was spent completely unconscious, and suddenly it made perfect sense why he wasn’t married with kids already. Because before, it didn’t. It didn’t make a damned lick of sense why he’d chosen her to give his attention to, but here was the rub. She could fuck him for a few days, but Jenner, in reality, was untouchable. She hadn’t really ever stood a chance at keeping him because his secrets were too big, and too dark.
She doubled over the pain in her middle. How could something hurt so badly? She’d been right to avoid attachment to people all this time because this was agony.
“Lena?” Dalton said in a soft voice. “Are you okay?”
Tears streaming, she looked up at the dark-haired man who stood near her with worry in his charcoal black eyes. Behind him, Chance stood, holding the reins of two horses, shifting his weight from side to side, clearly uncomfortable with the tsunami of emotion washing through Lena right now.
Jenner had timed it just perfectly, hadn’t he? Break her heart right before the Dawsons showed up. Right before the long ride to the lodge so she could wrap her head around the fact that the man she adored wouldn’t be in her life any longer. Just like Adam all over again.
“I should’ve listened to you,” she said, clutching her stomach.
“Shhh,” Dalton said, gripping her shoulder.
“Ow,” she gasped, jerking out from under his hand.
Dalton’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled her forward, yanking the neck of her shirt back to expose the bandage. “Please tell me that’s not what it looks like,” he growled out. He rounded on Jenner, who was packing the saddle bags of a black horse. “Please fucking tell me you didn’t claim her!” His voice snapped with fury, and a long, low snarl sounded from Chance.
Jenner ignored them both.
“Did you tell her what it means?”
“He did, and you don’t have to worry. All of the secrets here will go with me to my grave. And relax, Dalton,” she said, standing. She hoisted herself over the saddle of a bay. “Jenner’s bite is just a bite and nothing more. It didn’t stick.” She nudged her horse and guided him toward the trail they had come in on.
Hoofbeats sounded moments later, and Dalton pulled up beside her. “That’s not how it works, Lena. If his bear chose you, you’re it for always.”
“Yeah, well, he’s decided I don’t belong out here.”
“You don’t! God dammit, Jenner,” Dalton yelled, twisting in the saddle to where Chance and Jenner followed on their own mounts.
Jenner’s eyes were now the color of midnight, though, and a long snarl rattled from his chest. His horse skittered to the side and blasted a snort. “Careful, dog. This doesn’t concern you.”
Dalton huffed a disgusted sound and kicked his horse into a trot.
Lena followed, urging her horse faster. The quicker they made it back to the lodge, the quicker she could escape the anguish of being too close, yet too far away from Jenner.
Chapter Thirteen
“You okay?” Dalton asked for the billionth time since they’d left the cabin.
Chance and Jenner were far behind, lagging and talking too low for her to hear.
“I’m fine.”
“I can see in the dark really well, so we don’t have to stop until we get to the lodge.”
“Dalton? Why do you care so much about what is going on with Jenner and me?”
He looked at her for a long time, his face cast in blue light from the moon above. “Because I hurt a girl once trying to settle down. I don’t want that for you.”
“So, it’s not because you like me?”
“I like you fine, but not in the way you think. I mean, sure, I like giving Jenner shit, but a wise wolf knows better than to mess with a bear’s claim.”
“But you tried to stop the bond from happening.”
“Yeah well, I’ve seen the aftermath, and it ain’t pretty. Not on the woman, and not on the animal. Jenner and I stay at each other’s throats, but we’ve known each other a long time. He’s one of my best friends.”
“You don’t hibernate though, do you? Not like the bear shifters?”
Dalton shook his head but wouldn’t meet her gaze anymore.
“So then as far as shifters go, you got lucky.”
“Mmm. Depends on how you look at it. Some wolf packs go crazy. The McCalls have to be put down one by one.”
“Who does that?”
Dalton jerked his head toward Jenner, who was barely visible so far behind them. “The Silver brothers are the enforcers around here. If a shifter steps out of line, Jenner and his brothers fix the problem.”
“What? Why them? That doesn’t seem fair. I mean, they have enough shit going on without policing everyone.”
“Not everyone. Just the ones who threaten to expose us or who hurt humans. And just in Alaska. The Silvers can handle it, and most of the time, just their presence here keeps the rest of us in line.”
“Oh.” She relaxed into the gentle rocking gait of her horse. There was so much more to Jenner than she’d known. She couldn’t have ever guessed how complicated his life was, and now his story about his mom made more sense. He didn’t want her weighed down with his shifter shit for the rest of her life. Still, she wasn’t his mother and she deserved to make an educated decision for her own life, not be booted out of his without her consent. “So the McCalls all go crazy?”
“Every one of them. Those boys have poison in their blood. They have a long history as man-eaters. Not like the Dawson pack. Your mate helps keep humans safe from the McCalls.”
“My mate,” she murmured. Too bad that word didn’t mean more to Jenner.
“I can’t have daughters,” Dalton admitted low. “I mean I can, but they die when they’re born. Bears just don’t have female offspring. All of their babies live. My woman lost a daughter, and we never recovered. I’ll never try again. Hurting a mate, for a shifter, it’s the worst feeling in the world. I can see you’re pissed at Jenner, but he has his reasons for doing what he’s doing. He’s feeling this, too, even if he doesn’t act like it.”
“Oh no, Dalton. I’m so sorry about your daughter.”
He twitched his head. “Bears are unlucky with their hibernation, wolves are unlucky with breeding. We get the animals and the power that comes along with them, but we sacrifice other things. We don’t settle down easily, you understand? It’s not because we don’t want to. It’s because we don’t want to hurt the women we fall for.”
> “But shouldn’t it be up to your mates to decide whether they can handle this life?”
Dalton shrugged one shoulder up to his ear. “I don’t know. Before I bonded to my woman, I would’ve said yes, but looking back now, I should’ve stopped what was happening between us from the start.”
Lena’s heart sank at how jaded Dalton’s experiences had made him. And she didn’t blame him. Losing a child and then separating from a mate were life experiences so unimaginably painful, how could they not change a person’s outlook on life?
“I lost my first mate,” she said with a sympathetic look. “I totally understand how it changes you.”
Dalton looked up at the moon. “We make one hell of a pack out here,” he murmured. “All broken.”
But he was wrong. They weren’t broken. Broken was what happened when they went through something hard and stopped living. Broken was what happened when a person started running and never looked back. She’d done that. She’d been broken, and she saw nothing but strong men here. Their experiences made them tougher, and they were each still trying, even if they’d given up on mates.
This was the first moment in years that she didn’t feel broken.
And as soon as she got to the lodge, she was going to upload her pictures, send them off to Bucks and Backwoods before her deadline, then ask for Tobias to be her bush pilot out of here because it was unacceptable to break all over again.
She’d finally begun to find herself and Jenner had been pivotal in starting the changes in her. She understood his desire for her to live a better life than he thought he could provide, and she loved him even more for it. That was his sacrifice, but now it was her turn.
Lena wasn’t ready to give up on this, even if he was.
The beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind, but she needed a Silver brother to help carry it out. Tobias didn’t know it yet, but he was about to pay Jenner back for shredding him up all those years ago.
Tobias was about to save them both.
****
Jenner leaned against the kitchen island and stared suspiciously at Lena, who was sitting at the dining table, typing away on her laptop. Was she smiling? This was not how he’d imagined their last morning together. He’d prepared himself for more death-glares and tears, but from the looks of it, Lena was just going to ignore him completely until she left this place in an hour.
And he wasn’t the only one who noticed because Dalton and Chance both kept shooting Lena worried looks from the couch where they were talking with their new clients.
Sure, women were confusing as shit, but Jenner was being gutted every minute that drew them closer to goodbye, and Lena had just literally laughed out loud at something she read on her glowing computer screen.
She took another bite of the apology sandwich he’d made her and clicked away on her little laptop mouse. Out of sheer curiosity, he ambled around the other side of the dining table like he was going to join the others, but sat on the back of the couch and looked at what she was doing on her computer instead. She was attaching the pictures to an email from the looks of it.
“You aren’t sending pictures of me, are you?”
Lena cast him an angry glare over her shoulder. There it was. “Those are just for me.”
Jenner licked his bottom lip and gripped the edge of the leather couch he was resting against. “Do you want to talk in private? About anything? I mean, before you leave do you want to…I don’t know…yell at me?”
“Nope.”
The pain in his chest intensified, and he stifled a growl because the trio of mid-thirties men on a bachelor party adventure were close enough to hear. And he’d be damned if he outed his beastly nature to humans twice in one week.
Lena’s hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, and the lighter auburn ends curled under, showing off that long, pretty neck of hers, but also the top edge of the bandage that sat right under the neck of her shirt.
She was his. His, and he was about to let her go. Fuck, he hated this stupid urge to be a decent person. He hated feeling trapped. Wanting her to stay more than anything, but needing to push her to leave and find someone normal. A regular human guy who could be there for her always, not just during the warm season. Who would encourage her drive to be the best in her industry. Who could give her little babies, not cubs, who would grow up to go to college and marry normal women and give Lena normal grandchildren. And he could picture it all. Her hair streaked with silver, glasses on her nose, with a huge family gathered around her for holidays while he would still be here, sleeping through. But as much as he told himself he wanted that for her, he hated the thought of her making a family with anyone else. Of her spending the holidays with another family. And how fucking selfish, right? He hadn’t been awake for a Christmas since he was fifteen, but he begrudged her having that with people she could actually celebrate with?
Pushing off the couch, he strode from the cabin and off the porch, then across the massive yard to the deck overlooking the river. He couldn’t be in there while she looked so unaffected by all this. He was burning inside, and she couldn’t look more relaxed to be leaving him. And yeah, this was his fault—his choice. She’d cried so hard when he’d told her she needed to go and that it wouldn’t work out between them, so by God, he thought it would’ve been harder for her to separate.
He’d been her first.
He’d given her his mark, but maybe that didn’t mean as much to her. Maybe humans didn’t feel bonds like shifters did. He didn’t know. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, he hated what he was because Bear had cost him Lena.
Lena would be it for him. For the rest of his life, he would never want another. His bear had chosen, and now she was an hour away from leaving, and she seemed completely at ease.
“Fuck!” he yelled, chucking a heavy tree branch into the woods.
He was burning alive and she was fine. Smiling. Beautiful, perfect, strong, too good for him, and a panicked part of him wanted to beg her to stay. He wanted to beg her to feel something for him and not flip that switch so easily. Was he really so easy to forget?
He paced in front of the deck, running his hands roughly over his hair.
Lennard had told him “good job.” He’d said Lena had filled out a survey first thing this morning and given Jenner all five stars. Called him an “attentive and professional guide,” and she would recommend him to anyone. Her answers had been emotionless.
She wasn’t fighting this at all, and that fact was relentlessly slicing up his insides until he wanted to Change just to escape these roiling human sentiments.
The scent of dominant grizzly hit his nose an instant before he turned around to find Tobias standing there. A mass of emotions washed over him. His bear wanted to kill him, but the human side of Jenner was relieved to see Tobias after all this time. He hadn’t laid eyes on him since Ian and Elyse’s wedding at the beginning of the warm season. And dammit, right now, he needed something. Someone. He needed his brother to tell him it would be okay.
“What have you done?” Tobias asked softly.
“I claimed her.” Jenner swallowed and linked his hands behind his head. He nearly choked on the poisonous words as he admitted again, “I claimed her.”
He thought Tobias would be pissed. He thought he would want to fight him, bleed him, because that’s what Tobias did. His bear was a brawler, but instead, pity and understanding slashed through his brother’s green eyes. “You can’t keep her, can you?”
Jenner’s chin trembled, and he swallowed his emotion down, dragged his gaze to the river so his brother wouldn’t see how weak he was. “I can’t keep her. She’s not even having a hard time leaving me. I picked someone who doesn’t feel the same. And it’s good, you know? It’s good for her to leave but fuck it all, I thought it would be harder on her.”
“Like it is on you?”
Jenner nodded and swallowed over and over to keep from retching.
“You marked her?”
; “I couldn’t help it.”
“Shit.”
Jenner let off an angry laugh. “Yeah.”
Tobias approached and pulled him into a rough hug, shocking Jenner to complete stillness. “I’m sorry brother. I don’t envy the hurt you’ll feel when she’s gone.” Tobias clapped him so hard on the back, Jenner’s bones rattled, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Jenner gave him a quick hug back before Tobias disengaged. Both of their bears were snarling and enraged, and the pungent stink of dominance was a heavy fog between them, but as Tobias strode for the lodge, Jenner realized this was the first time his brother had embraced him since they were kids. Since before they turned into bears for the first time. Since that first hibernation when Tobias’s bear had tried his damndest to kill him.
So there was the silver lining. He would lose his heart when Lena left. He would lose an important piece of himself, but because of his pain, he’d had this profound moment with Tobias. At least there was that.
Jenner took a long, steadying breath, then walked back to the lodge where Lena was saying goodbye to everyone on the front porch. He rested one boot on the bottom stair and waited for her to finish hugging the Dawsons. With a sympathetic look, Tobias strode past him, loaded down with Lena’s belongings, and headed for the runway. Dalton and Chance pulled Lennard inside, leaving him and Lena alone.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking on the apology.
“Shhh,” she said, cupping his cheek.
He leaned into her touch and scraped his three day scruff against her soft palm, reveling in the last touch he would ever have from her.
“Everything will be okay. You’ll be okay,” she murmured.
The morning sunlight landed in her soft brown eyes, making them look devastatingly beautiful. He couldn’t do this. He had to do this. He wanted to roar and claw and keep her here, but he couldn’t hurt her life like that.
“Say it before I go,” she murmured.
Oh, he knew what she meant. Say the three words he hadn’t yet, but that she had gifted him time and time again. “Why?”