Return To The Bear (12 page)

Joanna sat at the kitchen table watching the rain shake the fern leaves outside the window. Jenny and Hannah sat quietly on either side of her, sipping hot tea. The delicate cup was warm against her chilled palms, and her hair still hung in damp tendrils down her back.

Her new friends didn’t talk but they didn’t need to. She liked that they sensed what she
wanted and right now, she was lost to her churning thoughts. How was she supposed to feel about all of this?

“Where did Daria take them?” Hannah asked quietly.

“I don’t know. She just said I couldn’t be around Brody right now. And Chase looked so bad…”

“They’ll be okay,” Jenny cooed. “Dominant bears do this kind of stuff all the time. It’s just how they’re wired.”

“Yeah, you should’ve seen Jenny and Riker go at it over me,” Hannah said. “I thought they’d kill each other, but it’s just the way some of them deal with stress.”

The front door opened and Brody stepped through, shaking out his hair like a wet dog. His boots made sloshing sounds as he walked into the kitchen. “Hannah, Jenny,” he said in a
soft greeting. He didn’t lift his gaze past the table legs and the girls stood and showed themselves out.

“We need to talk,
” he said in a strained voice. Every line of his body was rigid and she stood to brace herself against the anger she read on his face.

“We needed to talk this morning
, but you refused.”

“I came to apologize,” he growled. “I came to find you and you were locked up with Chase. What, you couldn’t wait a half an hour after I piss
ed you off to find someone new?”

Fury rocked her like lightning. “
I didn’t find anyone new, Brody. I was upset about you, and crying my eyeballs out and Chase hugged me because I was destroyed after our fight this morning. It wasn’t some tryst or whatever you think it was. For God’s sake, Brody, Riker was standing right there. Do you really think your best friend would be chilling there like nothing was happening if I was betraying you like that?”

His face faltered and he had the good sense to at least look away. “I could’ve killed him.”

“No shit.”

“Joanna, I’m sorry…” Whatever he was going to say next was going to
hurt and she shrank away from it.

In a rush, she implored,
“Don’t. Please don’t.”

“I can’t do this anymore.” He reached for her wrist and placed a soggy folded piece of paper against the palm of her hand.

Unfolding it gingerly so it wouldn’t tear, she read the rain smeared blue ink.

Terry Davis

Brenner Young

Violet Harris

Steven Manchester

“Do you recognize their names?” Brody asked
, his eyes locked with the toes of her sneakers.

Shocked, she nodded. They were the names of Blood Den members
she’d thought were dead.

“I called and had someone track them down when you first told me you wanted me to claim you in exchange for Hannah. They’re alive. Your place is with your clan.”

“No,” she said slowly, “my place is with you now. This is my clan. Bear Valley is my clan.” Damn her voice as it shook.

“I can’t have you here, Jo. Can’t you see what this is doing to me?”

“No, I can’t see anything, Brody. You don’t let me. I don’t understand any of this because you won’t tell me what’s happening to you. What am I doing wrong?”

Brody turned for the hallway and made his way to the bedroom. Joanna followed him and watched in horror as he began packing her clothes into a green duffle bag.

“What are you doing?” She rushed to the bed and took a handful of clothes out and he grabbed her shoulders.

“Stop it, Jo. I know where the survivors of Blood Den are and I’m taking you back to your people. Today. Right now.”

“But we’re mated.”

“You know this mating was never real—”

“Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say that to me, Brody Bannister.” The tears wouldn’t stop but so what if he saw how badly he was hurting her. He should. “This was real to me. And even if it wasn’t real to you, keep it to yourself and let me hold onto the last nice things I think about you. I love you,” she said in a trembling whisper. “I know you don’t feel the same, but you should know how I feel because someday, you’re going to look back on this moment and realize your mistake. You had it all and you threw me away. People search their entire lives for a partner to love them like I do you, and you’re running away. And for what? So you can keep your secrets? So you can go back to being alone, curling around your dreams until you turn to stone and don’t feel anything anymore?” Her voice hitched. “You’re a coward, and I’ll never forgive you for this.” She turned and stumbled down the hall, then out the door. She slammed it as hard as she could.

She wanted to change and run. Hide where he couldn’t find her to take her away from this place she’d grown to love. She’d known happiness here and it had been so long
since she’d been comfortable anywhere. Hannah and Jenny, Riker, Chase, Cameron, Blaine, all of the bears of the valley who’d accepted her and taken her in as one of their own.

And Brody. She’d never see him again.

A wail escaped her lips as she stumbled her way through the rain to the pond behind the house. She sank to her knees in the mud and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook with her crying, but she didn’t care. Her heart was breaking and she could no more hold back her weeping than hold the storm clouds at bay.

“Do you really love me?” Brody asked from behind.

She didn’t look back at him when she said, “Of course I do. If you can’t feel it you’re already too far gone.”

“Don’t say that. It sounds like you’ve already given up on me.” He sank to his knees in the cattails beside her. Rain ran down his face and when he looked at her, his eyes were tortured. “I love you too, Jo. Can’t you see I’m doing this because I love you?”

“I want to know why you’re throwing me away.”

“I’m not.
” His voice sounded strangled. “I’m setting you free.”

“You owe me, Brody. Make me understand so I won’t break when you take me from my home.”

He slammed his fists against his knees and shook his head slowly. His gaze looked a million miles away. “My father killed my mother.” He squeezed his eyes closed and flattened his palms against his thighs. “He killed her because she was unfaithful. She was a Long Claw and didn’t understand, or didn’t feel the same about him, and he killed her.” He dragged his eyes to her and they were so sad she couldn’t breathe under the weight of them. “I was there. My clan sentenced my father to death and I stood witness for that too. And when my family was gone, my clan didn’t know what to do with my anger, so they trained me in combat and sent me to Bear Valley to fight the wars.”

“Oh
my gosh.” She wanted to cry for all he must have lost. She wanted to ask if he’d talked to anyone about what he’d been through, but she already knew the answer. His nightmares wouldn’t control him so fully if he hadn’t hidden that poison within himself. “The dreams?”

He nodded, misery written in every facet of his face. “I’m the same, Jo. My bear is so possessive and hard to control
and he got worse with every battle I fought. When I saw Chase today, touching you…I knew I hurt you this morning and you were pulling away and when I came to the clearing, I could see right through your clothes and he was holding you. It should’ve been me comforting you and I wanted to kill him. I almost did.”

Everything made so much sense now. Why he hadn’t wanted a mate. He hadn’t wanted someone to witness the torment he went through at night. He didn’t want to share this part of himself with her or anyone else. The hot and cold beh
avior as he must’ve waffled between keeping and letting her go. The torment at imagining his own behavior mirroring that of his father’s.

“If I would’ve seen you with another woman, out in the rain em
bracing, I would’ve reacted too,” she admitted. “Anyone would. That’s part of love. But you didn’t go after me. You’re not your father. You’d never hurt me. And I’m not Long Claw. Can’t you see you’re it for me? You’re all I want and I agonize when you shut me out. Please don’t make me beg you to keep me.”

“No, I’m begging you to keep me.” He
reached for her, pulled her against his chest and held on so tightly, rocking as the rain poured over them. “I couldn’t even finish packing your bag. Not having you here is unimaginable. You don’t know how to help with the dreams and I don’t know how to fix them, but I swear I’ll try harder than what I have been. I’ll tell you about every one. I’ll tell you anything, just ask. You can have all of me too.” He eased back, searching her eyes as he smoothed her matted hair from her face. His voice dipped to a whisper, barely audible over the rain. “Train me.”

She laughed thickly and cried as he kissed her.
Easing back, she murmured, “Say it again.”

He smiled against her lips and rested his forehead against hers. “I love you.”

Her heart pounded so hard and her skin warmed where he touched her despite the cold rain. “Give me your vow that you’ll never separate from me or push me away. Swear you’ll let me share your struggles.”

His eyes searched hers and he looked at her with such wonder. “You
really want that?”

“I want all of you, Brody. I have from the moment I saw you.
Swear.”

He dragged her ont
o his lap and buried his face against her neck. He embraced her so tightly, vanquishing the space between them like he never wanted to let her go. She could never be close enough to him.

He rocked slowly and seemed content to stay locked together like this forever. Kissing her once, he leaned forward and whispered against her ear, “I swear.”

Brody had been too hard on himself all these years. He’d assumed he wasn’t worthy of being trusted with a mate because of his father, but that wasn’t fair. Joanna had been right when she said he was nothing like his father. From his memories of the abusive shifter, he couldn’t find a single similarity between them. Paranoia had kept him from allowing anyone to get too close to him and it had hurt him, poisoned him. The dreams he’d kept hidden for so long had been a product of that.

Now, Joanna woke with him
in the night and he told her every dream down to the minutest detail that he could remember—and surprisingly, it helped. Last night, for the first time in years, he hadn’t dreamt at all.

Nathan
had survived his injuries and had contacted Riker about Joanna’s whereabouts. Someday, Brody would have to fight him again to keep his mate safe—to keep Bear Valley safe. War with the Long Claws was eminent but tonight that didn’t matter. Tonight he would claim his Joanna in front of the people who mattered most.

She thanked him often for giving her a home, but she
had it wrong. It was Joanna who had showed him how to love and receive love. She had opened him up until even his bear had settled, and he would spend every day of his life keeping her happy. Joanna didn’t know it, but she’d made Bear Valley his home where he’d failed to connect with it before.

B
reath stilled in his lungs as she walked into the clearing, dressed in white and flanked by Hannah and Jenny. Riker nudged him in the arm but Brody couldn’t take his gaze from his mate. As hundreds of lantern lights illuminated the night, the crowd blurred away as she lifted her gaze to his.

She was alive, warm
and safe, and her lips curved up in a smile just for him. A single crystalline tear of joy slipped to her cheek as she mouthed,
I love you
.

And nothing else mattered.

Bear Valley Shifters Series

The Witness and the Bear (Book 1)

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Devoted to the Bear (Book 2)

Available Now

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