Redeem The Bear (13 page)

He was all right, and here with her, and all of the horrible things she’d imagined were happening to him dissipated into a fog of relief.

“Mine,” she whispered against his neck, and he squeezed her until her
tender back screamed from the treatment. She didn’t care though. She wanted to feel him.

Her eyes burned with tears and she buried her face against his neck, burrowing into him as he lifted her feet of
f the ground.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as he set her down.

Easing back, he wiped a pair of tears away from her cheeks and shook his head like a part of him had thought he would never see her again. His dark eyebrows were knitted as if he were in pain. “Corin, I want you to meet my council.” Turning her, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest.

Six Long C
laws intermingled with Chase, Juan, Brody and Cameron.

“Nice to meet you,” she breathed, wholly intimidated by the sheer size of the strangers. They were probably all grizzly bears.

One by one they approached and offered their names, then shook her hand. When the last, the woman who had smiled at her, introduced herself as Bethany Miller, Corin said, “I thought the Long Claw alphas didn’t have councils.”

The woman nodded. “Brooks is trying to bring about a more promising future for our clan.”

“But on the phone, I heard fighting.”

Bethany
smiled sadly at Brooks over her shoulder. “The fighting ended yesterday. Your clan took out the last of the resistance early this morning.”

“Mace?” Corin’s voice came out a squeak. Last she’d heard, Chase and the oth
ers had gone after him, but she had spent most of the night imagining Brooks’ second sneaking into her window and snapping her neck in her sleep. She shouldn’t be, but she was glad the boys found him, and even gladder he was dead.

“We’re here to sign a permanent alliance with Bear Valley,” Brooks whispered against her ear.

Her stomach danced and pooled with warmth that spread to her limbs at his nearness. He gripped her shoulders as her knees grew weak, like he had known she would go down like a felled log without his support.

Turning her head, she whispered, “How long are you here for?”

His eyes darkened and he glanced up. “Riker, will you excuse me? Now that the papers are signed, I have something I need to take care of.”

A slow, knowing smile spread across Riker’s chiseled jaw. “We’ll show your new council to their sleep
ing quarters. If you find yourself so disposed, I’d like to invite you for dinner here at six. Corin, you’re invited to join us as well.”

An invite to a fancy alpha party with all of the big
shifters of Bear Valley and the Long Claws? Hell yes, she was coming.

Hannah stood with her hands clasped in front of her mouth like she was hiding a
balmy grin as Brooks steered Corin out the front door.

His hand brushed the small of her back and she repressed a shudder
under his seductive touch.

“I was worried about you,” she admitted.
“I was on my way up here to ask Riker if there was anything I could do to help you.” Sliding her hands around his waist, she snuggled against his side, but he winced.

“How far away is your place?” he asked, sounding distracted.

“Half a mile. Are you okay? You smell like blood.”

“Fine. I just need to sit down for a little while.”

He walked with perfect posture, and not so much as a limp, but a muscle twitched in his jaw, and he was clenching his teeth.

Baffled, she waved at Shane as he passed on his way h
ome after working at the barns.

Brooks didn’t look hurt
at all, but he smelled off. She had scented it when she’d hugged him in Riker’s house. No amount of cologne could cover the smell of blood. Not when it was this thick.

Easing away from him so she
wouldn’t hurt him more, she slipped her hand in his like when they were children and asked, “Will you talk to me now?”

He cast her a dark warning glance
and grabbed a black duffle bag out of the front seat of a black SUV, then slung it over his shoulder.

“Brooks, please let me in. Tell me what has been going on so I don’t have to
fabricate all of these horrible things in my mind. My imaginings are always worse than the truth.”

He ran a quick hand over the designer scruff on his jaw. “Take me to your
place and I’ll talk on the way.” His look was so far away as he walked beside her, and he seemed to struggle to find words. Finally, he said, “The day I stopped the battle, it wasn’t easy. I saw you—your bear—and I remembered you. Not everything, just enough that the past and present clashed and made me feel unsteady. It was hard to stay in the moment when I looked at you. A cream colored black bear.” He huffed a quiet laugh. “How could I not remember you?”

“I was fighting
confused, blinded by worry for you, and I saw Riker through the masses, fighting for his life, for his people. He had been right to try and stop the war. I was wrong. I changed into my human skin, and yelled for my people to stop, but they couldn’t hear me. Or maybe they couldn’t understand me in the throes of bloodlust, I don’t know. Every time a bear got too close, I changed back and fought, and when I had a moment again, I tried to stop it. I kept yelling for Riker to stop his people, every chance I got to turn human, and he seemed to understand. We changed back and forth, man and beast, trying to survive the thick of it long enough to stop the slaughter. Eventually others tried to help, and just when we were making progress, I saw you streak toward the woods after Merit. I couldn’t get to you fast enough. My people still needed me and there were so many still fighting, and I couldn’t get through them.”

He released her hand and locked his fingers behind his head. “You were hurt and I was
losing you, and dammit, Corin, it felt like I was losing myself too. My people were pissed. No. That’s a colossal understatement. They were ready to skin me alive, and I could either put my head down and barrel through it, or give in and let them have Bear Valley. Fuck.” He flung his hands away and stopped. Facing her, he said, “I killed my own people, Corin. You should know what kind of man I am. I killed my own.” His eyes were tortured and filled with unchecked grief.

She placed the palm of her hand against his chest and he winced and angled his shoulder away.

“How many?”

“Nine
, just at my hand. And I wasn’t the only one fighting to kill.”

Nausea bubbled up the back of her throat.
She didn’t even want to know the final head count of how many had been killed. “Why?”

“Because if they lived, they would kill me and anyone who supported me, and then they’d take Bear Valley. They’d take you.”

“Was Mace one of them?”

“He led them, yes.”

“And him coming for me, that was his last move?”

Anger flashed across
Brooks’ eyes, and he focused his gaze somewhere above her shoulder. “He was desperate. He got what he deserved at the hands of your clan.”

Inhaling deeply, she cupped his cheek with her palm and brought his eyes back to her. “You’re changing.”

The sound of his whiskers scratching accompanied the rough texture against her palm, and she smiled at the contrast of the cold, empty man she’d first met at camp, and the reachable man who leaned into her touch now.

“
In a good way or a bad way?” he asked, his expression raw and vulnerable.

“In the best of ways,” she said, her breath hitching. “Don’t let the souls of a battle you couldn’t avoid rest too heavy on your soul, Brooks. They would’ve killed you and any good you had done their clan if you didn’t defend yourself.
You’re changing in a good way, and you’re changing the Long Claws for the better too. Everyone spoke of how Nathan was supposed to make history for his clan. It was you who was fated to ally the clans. Only an ancient bear with a heart as strong as yours could bring peace to the Long Claws.”

His
fingers slid up the length of her arm and rested on her hand, pressing it to his cheek. “I’m no good for you now, but someday I will be,” he promised in a low voice. His eyes were so steady, so serious, and she believed him.

“Tell me how you came to be with the Long Claws, Brooks. Tell me once and I’ll never ask again. Best you get it out of you and share it with someone who will u
nderstand. With someone who was there when you were taken, who knows the sacrifice you made.”

“Corin, please…” His face crumpled in on itself like he was utterly lost and couldn’t go on.

She hugged him so tightly, burying her face against his shoulder. “I won’t even look at you. Just tell me once. I love you, and whatever you have to say won’t change the way I feel. I promise.”

Breath ragged, he slid his hands slowly around her
back and pulled her closer. “I don’t remember being hurt, or waking up or anything like that. It’s just bits and pieces before Magdalena. I didn’t have any memories, and she told me I was hers. I thought it must be true because she acted so natural, like I’d just hit my head or something and it pushed my childhood memories away. She was older and strict. She taught me how to hate, and then she taught me to feel nothing at all. She loved me until I wanted to die, so inside, I did.”

A tear slid down Corin’s cheek and made a dark spot against the navy stretch T-shirt pulled taut against Brooks’ chest. “Did she hurt you?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes and hated the
question that tumbled from her mouth. “Did she touch you?”

He sighed, long and unsteady. “Yes. She was a Long Claw. She had been trained to take what she wanted, and she
had a taste for young boys.”

“Where is she now?” Because if that bitch was alive, Corin was going to kill her
slowly.

“
She died in a battle against Blood Den. You smell angry, and you’re shaking. Speak.”

“You were supposed to grow into a man beside me. I was supposed to be your first and only, and you were taken from me the day I lost everything.” A sob escaped her lips and she shook her head to ward off the tears that were threatening to spill and never stop tumbling down her
face. “And I was taken away from you. Were you even allowed to be a child, Brooks? Were there any happy moments in your life after you awoke a Long Claw.”

He didn’t answer, but his silence spoke volumes on how dark his life had been. No. He was trying and couldn’t even conjure one good memory that outweighed the bad. No wonder he
was so empty when she’d first seen him again. Over the course of a decade, he’d been stripped to nothing but vengeance and darkness.

“It doesn’t matter what
they made you do, Brooks. You are already good enough for me. You are worthy of love, and you are redeemable. Magdalena doesn’t have you anymore. I do, and I promise my love will be the gentle kind you deserve.”

A helpless noise wrenched from him and he eased back only far enough for his lips to
collide with hers. Gripping his shirt, she grazed her teeth over his bottom lip. Fuck the old Long Claws with their heartless hooks in his soul, and Magdalena with her toxic love that ruined the boy she knew. Corin would be patient and would never give up on him. She would fill his life so deeply with love that someday, he would learn to feel again.

Today, he was incapable of loving her completely, but someday, somehow, she would give him the tools
he needed to find happiness again.

Nervous flutters lobbed around inside Corin’s stomach as she led Brooks up the dirt path to her house. This was the first time
he would see how she lived, and a huge part of her wanted him to approve of her tiny cottage—of her tiny life.

Intimidating to the core, t
he alpha of the Long Claws probably lived in a large house among his people. But she had to serve tables for a living and her home wasn’t much more than an efficient one room shelter. She loved it, and she hoped he would too.

Shooting one last glance over her shoulder at his stoic expression, she pushed the door open and watched his face. He took in the scuffed
wood floors, and the sunny wildflowers on the small dining table. He took in the matching daffodil colored curtains, and the brightly painted walls.

The smile started slow on his lips, and as he looked around, it grew deeper. Her breath caught as the dimple she had thought she’d never see again
notched his left cheek.

“You always liked purple. I remember,” he
said in a deliciously deep baritone voice.

She couldn’t take her eye
s from his beautiful smile. His unexpected grin filled her with such a feeling of home, and she pressed her thumb against the mark, the last needed proof that Brooks had been the boy she loved. Now, he was the man who held her heart.

“You like it?” she asked as shyness forced a blushing heat up her neck and into her cheeks.