Marrying The Bear (Gray Bears 1) (6 page)

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

“Hey! Big brother!”

“Over here, big guy!
We're back!”

“Jackson! Oh, you've
grown up quite a bit, eh?”

Tristan's face split in a
grin. As soon as he walked into Broomstick Inn with his crew, his
two city-dwelling brothers hollered and waved at him from the
reception counter.

Tristan grabbed Aidan in a
headlock and rubbed his knuckles into his brother's shaggy blond
hair. Then he put his arms around Mason's broad chest and lifted his
little brother right off the floor.

His brothers grumbled, “Hey,
we're not five anymore!”

But they were grinning when
they came to tackle him together. Their youngest brother, Jackson,
jumped on the three of them and whooped. Together, the four of them
made a towering, boisterous mountain of beefy man-meat.

“Did you miss us?”

“Did we miss
something?” Aidan asked, staring Tristan straight in the eye.
“What have you been keeping from us?”

Tristan put his hands up. “I
never keep anything from you guys.”

“Are you sure?”
Mason said slyly, peering at him.

“What are you guys
talking about?” Jackson demanded.

Aidan flung his arm around
Jackson's shoulder and tsked loudly. “Ah, baby brother, don't
you smell something on Tristan?”

“Tristan?”
Jackson frowned as he came to sniff at Tristan. “What? A new
cologne? A new woman?” His eyes widened suddenly as Tristan
swatted him away. “A new woman, that's it! I didn't notice it
before, but now that you mention it, I can smell her on him. Her
scent is very subtle though, almost as if...” Jackson took a
few more whiffs. “...her scent is fused with Tristan's. Their
scents are all mixed up, mingled together. That's why I didn't smell
her on him at first. Strange.”

Mason came to throw his arm
around Jackson as well. “Not strange at all. That is the
scent of a mate, Jackson. Your mate's scent will mingle with yours
once you're mated. She won't just smell like a female you've been
with. Her scent will be a part of you.”

Three pairs of intense green
eyes zeroed in on Tristan, like laser beams. His younger brothers
closed in on him as his crew watched in amusement. He shot his merry
men a glance, but it was clear from their gleeful chuckles that none
of them would be coming to his aid. They were having too much fun at
their boss's expense.

“When were you going to
tell us, Tristan?”

“Were you going to tell
us at all?”

“Or did you intend to
hide her from us?”

“There's no way you can
hide her. Your mate is right here in the inn!”

Tristan threw up his hands.
“Alisa just arrived at Shadow Point. And I just got mated last
night!”

There was a moment of utter
silence. Then his men and his brothers cheered and crowded round.
They thumped him on the back and shouted, “Congrats, man!”

“Come on, let's go meet
our lady boss!”

“You said her name is
Alisa? All right! Yo, Alisa!”

“Hello, Mrs Boss!
We're here for lunch!”

Before Tristan could stop
them, his men stampeded through the dining hall and invaded the
kitchen, cheerfully yelling Alisa's name.

Tristan stared at his
brothers and gulped. “Alisa doesn't know.”

“Huh?”

“She's human. She
doesn't know that I marked and claimed her as mine. She thought...”

His brothers' brows shot up
at the same time and their eyes swiveled in the direction of the
kitchen. “You might want to get in there,” Aidan
muttered.

Tristan took a sharp breath
and rushed into the kitchen, elbowing his men out of his way. He had
to rescue Alisa from their exuberant, zealous clutches.

It took him a moment to
realize that his men weren't doing any clutching or crowding or
crowing. They were actually shuffling their feet and standing in a
quiet orderly queue. And they were all hanging their heads and
looking shame-faced.

Alisa was glaring at the lot
of them with her oven-gloved hands firmly planted on her hips.

“No shoving and
shouting in the kitchen. If you want your lasagne, you'll have to
wait in line. There are customers outside who are waiting to be
served,” Alisa said in a stern, disapproving voice. She looked
like a head mistress admonishing a bunch of misbehaving schoolboys as
she picked up a rolling pin and rapped the counter. “I know
you are Tristan's crew. I can read,” she snapped, eyeing the
words 'Gray's Domain' on the left side of their construction vests.
“But you don't get preferential treatment. Go out and wait for
your food. Out!” She pointed with her big red oven glove.

“Yes, Boss,” they
mumbled and trudged out obediently.

Alisa watched them go and
caught sight at Tristan at the door. She glared at him and kicked up
her chin. “Out!” she ordered “All of you includes
you! There are hungry customers out there. You'll get your food.
Now out!”

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Tristan came out to the
dining hall and was met with looks of awe and admiration from his
men. “Wow, lady boss is The Boss!” someone said.

Gramma and Ne-ma was
sniggering as they poured coffee and tea for the other customers.
“Now you boys just sit down and behave yourselves,” they
told the men. “Don't make Alisa angry. She's got a lot on her
plate today.”

“And she's got a lot of
fire in her belly!” There were a few appreciative whistles.

Aidan, Mason and Jackson
tiptoed to the kitchen door and poked their heads in. They retreated
in a hurry and came to sit down with the crew.

“I think she saw us,”
Jackson whispered.

“She gave you the evil
eye,” Mason said.

“No, she gave
you
the evil eye,” Aidan countered.

As Ne-ma walked past, Tristan
saw her give Gramma a discreet low five.

“Worked perfectly,”
Gramma chuckled to Ne-ma.

Tristan went up to them and
demanded, “What worked perfectly?”

The two women straightened up
and stared at him with identical blank expressions. “Nothing,”
they said together.

He narrowed his eyes at them.
“You worked a spell.”

“What spell?”
Gramma said.

“How the hell should I
know what spell?” Tristan exploded.

Ne-ma and Gramma stole
glances at each other and began to giggle. “You mated her. We
heard you last night. And well, you know there is no mating spell,”
Ne-ma said smugly.

Tristan scowled and scrubbed
a hand down his face. It seemed everyone in this goddamn town knew
he had mated Alisa. His private life was not private. At least not
in this town where people could see, scent and scry information that
was hidden from ordinary human senses.

But what Ne-ma said was true.
No spell in the universe could prevent a shifter from claiming his
true mate. And there was no spell that could compel a shifter to
take a mate against his will. There was no magic involved in mating.
Just pure instinct, need and want.

“There, there.”
Gramma and Ne-ma patted his rigid shoulders. “All's well, is
it not?”

Tristan growled as they
hurried to the kitchen, whispering and giggling like two schoolgirls.

Gramma and Ne-ma was always
up to something, but this time, they were way more secretive than
usual. Whatever they were doing or plotting had something to do with
him...and his brothers. And Alisa.

Tristan pivoted to face his
siblings, who were talking furiously among themselves and sneaking
him cheeky, furtive glances. Ha! They might be laughing at him now,
but they wouldn't find it funny at all when it happened to them. It
was just a matter of time. Tristan smirked at his gossipy, clueless
brothers. They wouldn't even know what hit them.

They stopped talking when
Alisa appeared with a tray and started serving the men generous
helpings of mouth-watering lasagne.

Gramma and Ne-ma helped but
Tristan could tell they were more interested in watching Alisa than
serving their customers. The two elderly ladies' faces were glowing
with sheer happiness and delight and there was a definite twinkle in
their eye.

Something clicked in his mind
and he started.

A wish.

A spell.

Alisa's wish had triggered
something. He didn't know what and neither did she.

Tristan sat down with his
younger brothers, and watched them stare at Alisa with adoring,
puppy-dog eyes. They loved her as a big sister already and despite
their ribbing, it was obvious that they were all so happy for him.

His family loved his mate,
and his crew liked and respected her tremendously.

Could it be...a love spell?

Tristan's face and heart
twisted painfully.

Tristan shoveled the lasagne
into his mouth, chewed and swallowed without tasting anything.

Gramma and Ne-ma may have
meant well, but love spells always backfired. Always, without fail.

They couldn't have worked a
love spell.

“They wouldn't,”
he muttered and stared down at his empty plate.

Tristan pushed away from the
table and accosted Ne-ma in the hallway.

“Ne-ma, I know you and
Gramma worked some sort of magic. I can't figure out what. Just—”
He took a painful breath and said, “Just tell me it's not a
love spell.”

Ne-ma saw the stark fear in
his eyes. He feared for Alisa.

“Oh Tristan,”
Ne-ma said, putting her hand on his cheek. “Your Gramma and I
will never do that to you and yours. We worked a love spell once as
teenagers on a classmate. She was mean to your Gramma and I got mad
so I made your Gramma help me cast the love spell. It was a mean
trick, and we regretted it. We managed to make things right in the
end, but love spells are nasty!” Ne-ma shuddered.

Tristan blew out a breath of
relief. “Okay. So Alisa won't suffer any nasty effects.”

“Not from our spell.”

Tristan's frown returned.
“Did you make her...”

“We didn't make her do
anything. Free will, Tristan. Everything she does is of her own
free will.”

Ne-ma patted his chest and
ambled off. “And we never could make you do anything you
didn't want to do, Tristan. Even as a boy you were your own man.”

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Alisa dried her hands and
stepped back from the gleaming kitchen counter. She had finished
washing, cleaning and scrubbing everything. The kitchen had a fresh,
citrus smell and she smiled proudly.

Everything was in order and
ready for tomorrow. It had been a good day, more than good really.
It had been a busy, crazy and completely fulfilling day. She had
never felt happier. Here, in the kitchen of Broomstick Inn, she had
finally found her place, her calling. She could experiment with all
the new, exciting recipes that had been floating around in her head.
She loved to see people enjoying her cooking, and Tristan's brothers
and work crew had all asked for seconds and thirds.

They were good guys. They
just needed a woman to keep them in line.

Alisa shook her head with an
amazed laugh. She didn't know what possessed her to yell her head
off at the whole bunch of big, tough, muscly men. All she knew was
that when she saw them tromping all over her nice, neat kitchen with
their muddy boots and making a hell of a racket, she had lost her
head and her temper. Well, Tristan had Gray's Domain, but this was
her domain! How would he like it if she flounced over to his
construction site and messed things up? She was sure he wouldn't
like it at all. So he should understand her reaction.

To be fair to Tristan, he had
given his men a dressing-down and told them to stay out of Alisa's
kitchen. He was real sweet and supportive, and before he left, he
had given her a quick kiss on the lips. He had kissed her in front
of everyone, but it didn't matter. Everyone seemed to know that they
had slept together, and that she was Tristan's...what? Girlfriend?
Sex partner?
Mate?

She'd heard his
brothers mention that word a couple of times. Alisa chewed her lip.
Being a mate sounded like a big thing, and from what she gathered
from the boys' conversations and from the mind-blowing, toe-curling
sex she had with Tristan, it wasn't a bad thing at all. In fact, it
was like the best thing ever!

Alisa poked her head out of
the kitchen. The dining hall was empty. Gramma and Ne-ma had told
her that they were going to pay a short visit to their friend,
Rosalina, and assured her that they would be back soon. Tristan had
taken his brothers out for drinks. She was sure the boys had plenty
to talk about. Aidan and Mason must be telling them about all their
adventures in the big city.

Alisa rubbed her arms and
yawned. It had been a long day and she was exhausted. She would
just take out the trash and then get herself to bed. She already had
the next day's menu all planned out and she was going to bake
something real special for the Breakfast Treat.