Burden (22 page)

I woke, but
barely. My eyes were still sealed shut, but I knew she was with me. I could smell Echo, it wasn’t a specific smell, but it was her. Her hand was holding mine and from the beat of our hearts, I could tell she was asleep. I laid there with my eyes closed while she slept. I could feel the mix-up of emotions she felt even as she slept. I tested the wound to see if I was still sore and found there was no pain at all.

She healed me.

Is it true?

Is she already trained?

Maybe I’m just dead.

“Hawke, I know you’re awake,” she said to me. I opened my eyes and met hers
, and a jolt hit us both. It was a reminder from the Creator that no matter how hard I tried, what He’d put together, even the Alpha couldn’t destroy. I’d never been so thankful
not
to be the most powerful.

“
You’re here,” I said, opening my eyes.

“I am, despite your big Alpha commands.”

“How?”

“There’s a voice I know that’s infinitely louder than yours and demands to be heard. Our Creator overrules even you, Alpha.”

I curled one strand of her hair behind her ear, “I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful for a voice greater than mine. But you called me Alpha. I thought we’d agreed on you calling me anything but Alpha in private.”

“Don’t push me away again,” she tried to contain her cry, but I heard the slip of her voice and
the emotion whoosh through her head.

I looked away from her. Making her leave seemed like such a mistake now. I’d wasted time we could’ve been together. I’d risked our bond being broken when I was sure th
ere could’ve been another way—but I had been so adamant against her ever being in the place of my mother, and looking at me like she looked at my father. But here I was, struck with the stupidity and arrogance of my act. How could I ever think that my voice, my command could overrule what the Creator had put together? How could I attempt to think my plan was better than His?

“
I will never push you away again if you can ever forgive me.”

“
You are forgiven, Hawke.”

The sound of my name on her lips made me whole again.
I looked over to her and again was struck with how this creature I’d been angry at for making me drive all the way to South Dakota to save was now saving me. She was more beautiful than I remembered. My dreams and memory replays hadn’t done her or me justice.

I grabbed her by the arms and tumbled her on top of me. I needed to feel her skin, unify us once again physically, remind myself of how she tasted like life itself.
She moaned against me and her hands grasped the hair at the back of my head.

“Mmm, Hawke, what is this?” She played with the ends of my very long beard.

“It didn’t seem right, I felt like a different person, so I could find no reason to keep up the appearance of who I used to be.”

“Come on,” she tugged at my hand and led me towards the bathroom.

“Sit,” she commanded

I took a seat on the closed toilet and waited to see what she had in store. She opened my medicine cabinet and pulled out a pair of scissors. Then she sighed, “I learned so much about who I am and where I came from. I can’t wait to tell you.”

“I want to hear everything.”

I held onto her hips as she sat facing me on my lap. She’d gained some weight while she was gone with her mother and it had gone to all the right places. Her hips were fuller, more defined, and they fit perfectly in my hands. She clipped and snipped at my beard, every once in a while smiling at me. This was where she belonged, with me, being the other half of my being, taking care of the things I refused to even care about—like my beard. She was my perfect Alpha female and I’d been a fool to send her away.

“Do you still love me?”

She huffed out a laugh,
“As if I could ever stop loving you.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I did,” she scooted her hips closer and kissed me enough to make me question whether or not I was alive again. “I love you, Hawke Turnclaw. Now,” she snipped off one last piece, “Get dressed. Our mating ceremony is waiting for us.”

She didn’t just say what I thought she did.

“What? You just got back.”

“
So…what? You wanted to wait six more months? I got all Alpha Female on them and they’re rustling up a last minute ceremony right now. It’s the full moon today. I think we’ve been through enough. I need to be sealed to you in every way possible.”

I loved it when she got all serious Alpha female on me,
“I missed you every second.”

“Prove it,” she
smiled at me, pulling back and giving me a playful smack. “Get up and meet me outside.

Was she kidding? Nope, there was no joking feeling in her head.

I looked out the back window as she left our room, it was
our
room again, and saw the whole clan scrambling with candles and they were all dressed in their Sunday best. I rushed to the shower. I had a second chance at a mate to share my life with.

I wouldn’t be separated from
her again—ever.

While Hawke was
resting, Rev had told me all about his findings regarding the money stolen from our clan. She thought she was so stealth, putting it under the name E. Clovis. But that was just Chloe S. for Smith, all jumbled up. She’d been sleeping with the Alpha of the LaFourche clan since I came into the picture and had somehow convinced him to put all the money he’d been stealing from Hawke into her name. And that’s how Rev caught them. We didn’t ask for the reasoning or the whys, but I thought it was retribution for what Hawke’s grandfather did so long ago. We would find out one day, but today, I needed to remove a clan member.

The bitch’s head was mine.

“Chloe, how nice of you to come to the mating ceremony after what you’ve done.”

The entire clan’s ears perked up at my words.

She cocked her fists on top of her perky little hips and glared at me.

“I don’t know what you mean.
”

“I mean after you conspired with people to steal money from our clan and sleep with the Lafourche Alpha.”

She shot me an incredulous look, “Ridiculous.”

“Really? Why have you been absent lately? The Betas say that as soon as I left the clan, so did you—right into the arms of a male who isn’t your mate.”

“I—I…” she stuttered.

I didn’t want her on our lands anymore. She wasn’t worthy of belonging to any clan, but especially Hawke’s. And I didn’t want to see the face of a traitor at the Alpha’s mating ceremony.

“Here’s what you’re going to do. I’m banishing you from this clan, which includes the LaFourche clan. Hawke will be taking over that clan as soon as our honeymoon is over. I don’t ever want to see your lying face around here again.”

“Only the Alpha can do that, not the Alpha female.”

Her sneering was enough to make me want to shift and slice her throat open.

“Then I banish you,” Hawke said behind me.
“I was going to do it sooner or later, I just didn’t want to do it while Echo was on the Lafourche lands in case he sought further retribution.”

Chloe
scoffed, but after growls arose from the clan.

“She was raised by grizzlies. She doesn’t deserve to be the Alpha female.”

Hawke stepped forward and got in her face, “She’s shown more respect and honor as a member of this clan than you have your entire life. She deserves to be the Alpha female over all other females bear and otherwise. You have no concept of loyalty and family. You are no longer welcome on our lands, which soon will include the Lafourche lands.”

She turned heel and shifted before everyone and before we knew it, she was gone.

“Are you ready,” I asked Hawke.

“Absolutely.”

The mating rights were read by Rev and affirmed by us. We decided to stay on clan lands for a while before retreating anywhere else. I just wanted to be home.

That night, I was a nervous wreck. I had no idea what to do, other than what I’d read in secondhand health books.

“What’s wrong, Echo,” Hawke asked, sitting on the bed and pulling me toward him. He was himself again, no more long beard, just a hint of scruff and his pants, riding way too low on the gorgeous V of his hips.

“It’s just, from what I’ve heard before, the—um—mating thing isn’t pleasant.”

Hawke broke out into a fit of laughter and reached for me to stand with him.

“What have you heard, Mate?”

“Screaming, things breaking, nothing that sounded like a good time.”

He laughed again before correcting himself.

“You know that swell you feel when we kiss,” he asked, trailing his hands upward from my hips to the top of my waist. His deep brown eyes reached into mine

“Yes,” I sighed.

“It’s like that, times a thousand. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

“So, you’ve never?”

He looked at me incredulously, “Of course not. I was meant to share this only with my mate. Only with you.”

I shook my head with eyes closed.
Before I opened my eyes, his mouth was devouring mine. His tongue danced with mine and a rumble came from my bear, reaching out to his. In that moment, in the moment I felt the real mating rights rise within us, my bear and I were one. There was no differentiating between us. We needed them to love us and seal us within their hearts. I broke free as we moved back to the bed.

“Those grizzlies were so screwed up.”

He chuckled and I gasped as he reached for the edges of my nightgown and pulled it over my head, “They really were. Let me show you how wrong you are. There’s more to an Alpha than just telling people what to do.”

Echo had fallen
asleep on the couch again. It was becoming a daily thing. Come to think of it, she’d also become extra—amorous—of late. I pulled her mating gift from our bed and brought it down to the living room. I couldn’t imagine a more heartfelt gift. I’d seen some of the mating gifts over the years, but this was indescribably perfect. She took something my mother had once hoarded for no reason and spun it into something we could cherish as a pair.

I covered her with it and she instinctively snuggled against the couch, burrowing further down in the blanket. She also wore my mating gift to her. I’d taken her collar and had a jewelry maker melt down some of the metal and turn it into a pendant of two bears, black bears, together. She never took it off. It reaffirmed her change from the grizzly’s slave to my queen.

I went into my office to check e-mails and wait for the Betas to file in. Before long they came in one by one and sat in their places. I heard Echo stir and after collecting herself, she came in and joined us.

Rev was particularly—serious—that day. And I knew why. He would have to attend the baby blessing with us that night. He still was not fond of crowds.

I wasn’t very excited about doing it either, but it was a tradition worth starting.

“Ok, is everyone ready?”

“Yes, Alpha,” they responded.

We got up as a group and Echo wiggled my hand and smiled at me. She could feel how nervous I was.

“Come on, it will be worth it.”

“Okay.”

We walked as a group to Flint’s home, Martha and Mildred were already waiting. Martha was in the corner of the living room, looking downward. But there was definitely something going on there. Echo had told me how attractive she found Rev and ever since we’d tried to get them together. But it was like trying to pair up two of the most stubborn mules that ever existed.

I said the words, written down by Rev for me. They called for the Creator’s protection and love for the child. It held their parents and the members of the clan responsible for more than just their presence, it demanded they treat the cubs as their own, helping to raise them to be the best creatures they could be. And it called for me and Echo to be a good example to them.

B and Flint cried and I wasn’t too proud to admit tears had welled in my eyes too. Everyone took turns holding the babies and we ate together, celebrating their birth and the beginning of a resurrected tradition.

“We have to get them to look at each other,” Echo prompted me.

“What do you want me to do, command them?”

“No, but there has to be something.”

She looked so desperate for her friend to be happy, so I decided to do something wild.

I suddenly shouted, “Oh my God, Rev is bleeding!”

Every eye landed on him, including Martha’s, which was convenient since he was already eye stalking her from across the room.

Echo smiled as everyone in the room watched them clasp their chests in knowing. I chuckled a little and Echo grinned from ear to ear at me.

I tipped my chin at my mate, “Nailed it.”