Southern Shifters: Bearly Dreaming (Kindle Worlds Novella) (4 page)

After an hour of trying again and again to memorize the entire alphabet, I slammed the book closed, tossed my glasses on the arm of the chair, and released a throaty growl. My bear wanted to be let loose, making his need to be free known with his mental noises. He wanted to run, to search the woods for the scent of our new friend and track her pretty ass down. Sadly, that wasn’t going to happen.

Needing a good run and a little time with someone who may be able to help me figure this crap out, I stripped down and packed a bag with my dictionary and the clothes I’d been wearing. Naked and ready, I stepped outside. The temperature was dropping fast in the region, but it was still quite comfortable for a man like me. Any humans in a climate like this would be bundled up in down coats and layers, protecting themselves from the elements. Luckily, my polar bear side kept me toasty warm through even the harshest of winters. Speaking of, my bear thundered through my head, practically ready to burst through my skin. It was time to run.

I tossed my bag off the porch and shifted on the fly, landing on four paws in the snow. I shook out my long, white fur, grabbed the bag with my teeth, and headed for town. Hopefully, I’d find a few answers there.

Audrey didn’t seem surprised to see me when I came racing into the library. In fact, she looked pretty darn smug.

“Am I missing something?” I asked, tossing my bag to the floor. I’d shifted behind the building and thrown my clothes back on before coming inside. I couldn’t go walking around naked in front of my brother’s mate. One, I thought of her as my sister, so that’d be weird. Two, my brother was a possessive son of a bitch. He’d rip my dick off.

That smile of hers turned wickedly sarcastic. “Not really. Just won a bet, that’s all.”

“What kind of bet?”

“The kind where your brother said it’d take you two days to come back for my help and I said less than twenty-four hours. I win.” She stood up and headed for the coffee machine. “What is it today?”

“I need to learn sign language.”

“Yeah, that’s why you have the book.”

“I know, but…” I huffed, scratching at my beard. Pictures of Nyla ran through my head, upsetting my bear, making him whine and chuff inside of me in a way he never had before. He was almost desperate and crazed over our little visitor. Fuck, what was it with this girl? I’d never felt so obsessed about someone, so positively out of control.

“Tell me,” she said softly as she handed me a cup of coffee. “All joking aside, you know I’ll help if I can.”

“Can you get that Internet hooked up?”

She blinked. I hated computers, hated the Internet even more. I’d made my opinions on both known many times, usually loudly. But desperate times called for desperate measures. “Yeah, sure. What are we looking for?”

“Videos. I need to see someone else make these letters and things.” I shifted my weight and shrugged. “I don’t know if I’m getting them right.”

She steeled me with her gaze, investigating, searching for something. “You really feel a connection to this woman.”

I shrugged again, but it felt wrong. Dismissive in a way. So instead I stood tall, looked her dead in the eye and said, “Her name is Nyla, and she’s all I can think about. I need to be able to talk to her.”

Her smile turned soft and sweet, as if she was proud of me for some reason. “Then let’s find some videos.”

Hours later, my attention span died a hard-fought battle against the machine Audrey had sat me in front of. Ready to make the run home again, I double-checked a few phrases I’d picked up, making sure I had all the motions as accurate as I could make them. Audrey had been babbling behind me while she straightened the shelves for at least an hour. I’m sure she was talking to me, but I hadn’t been paying her a lick of attention.

Until she started talking about dreamwalkers.

“What was that?” I asked, watching a particular video one last time but trying to listen to her as well.

“I said—” she huffed and smacked her feather duster against a shelf “—there are lots of legends about why people would dreamwalk.”

“They had reasons?”

“Oh, sure. For some, it was a way to manipulate the enemy.”

I hummed, letting her prattle on but barely listening as I watched a man sign a hymn I’d always liked. My bear twitched, though, when the tension in the room skyrocketed, the feeling of being watched making me spin around.

Audrey stood across the room, staring at me with wide eyes. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“That’s why she comes to you. That’s why you can’t stop thinking about her.” She walked toward me slowly, as if I was a dangerous animal…which I was, but not right then, and never to her. So her reluctance was completely unnerving.

“What are you doing?”

She froze. “I don’t want you to freak out like Whit did.”

“Whit? What are you talking about?”

“Weren’t you listening to me?”

“No, not really.”

She glared. “You know, if I had a nickel—”

“Audrey,” I interrupted. “Scold me later. Why do you think Nyla’s dreamwalking to me?”

She dropped the glare and inched closer. When she spoke, her voice came out soft and quiet, as if cooing to a wild animal, which again, sort of true but unnecessary.

“Could she be your mate?”

Every molecule of oxygen in the room disappeared in a single gust, leaving me breathless and dizzy. Mate? The thought had crossed my mind, especially after my chat with Whit, but I’d dismissed the idea quickly each time. How could she be my mate? We’d never met, not really, and the legends stated you had to smell and see your mate to feel that connection.

My bear grumbled, sniffing, reminding me of the light scent of lavender he picked up through my dreams. Subtle, something my human side had dismissed, and yet the scent called to us. It was the first thing I noticed every morning when I woke up horny as fuck and craving her touch. It was with me at night, before I went to bed, when I worked my cock to images of her in my space, doing everyday sort of things, simply existing in my world with me. I hadn’t been paying enough attention to put the pieces together, but the scent of lavender made me hard, made me lust for someone I’d never touched. Because it was my mate’s scent.

“Holy shit.”

“You’d better sit down.” Audrey directed me to a chair, being gentle and quiet. “I don’t want to meet your mate for the first time and have to explain how I let you fall on your face while you were so dazed about—you know—realizing she was your mate.”

Mate, the word thrown about casually and yet so meaningful all of a sudden. Every second I’d spent thinking about Nyla—the way her picture in my mind made me need her, the way my bear and I had been longing for her without my knowing it—came crashing down at once. I’d met my mate and not realized it. I hadn’t thought the woman in my dreams could be more than that, something not quite real, something tormenting me. And she
was
tormenting me, in the best way possible. As my mate.

Hearing the word from Audrey had suddenly made the dream of a mate something real, though. Mate. My mate. Nyla was
my
mate. My bear made his agreement known, grumbling in my mind. Yes, mate. Absolutely. And he wanted to find her, to claim her, to rut her into the dirt of his beloved forest and make sure every male knew she was taken. He wanted her immediately. And I couldn’t argue with him.

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

Audrey bit her lip. “You okay?”

I swallowed hard, unable to say the words spinning through my head.
Nyla
…was my
mate
. Everything suddenly made sense—the dreams, the desire, the distraction from anything but her, the constant arousal, the jacking off like a goddamned teenager every day. I was longing for my mate.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I agree. It’s kind of holy shit-like when it happens.”

My stomach clenched, thoughts of mates and bears and my life in the wild swirling together. “I have to tell her about me.”

Audrey nodded. “Absolutely, about you and this place and your bear. You need to tell her everything.”

I licked my lips, heart pounding, mouth dry. “What if…what if she won’t believe me? What if she won’t accept me because she thinks I’m a regular human?”

The look on Audrey’s face could have been the visual representation of the word duh. “Kian, the woman can stroll into your dreams and interact with you. I’m pretty sure you’ve both got a few skeletons in your closets.”

“Yeah, right. Dreamwalking.” I went to stand but sat back down, unsure. Not knowing where to go or what was next. We knew so little about each other, and yet we had a connection that could be permanent if we let it. The idea of reaching her, telling her about me, learning about her, and convincing her to accept our bond was daunting. With a capital fucking D.

“What should I do?”

Audrey shrugged, grinning, obviously excited. “Find her.”

“Fuck. Right. I need to find her.” I jumped to my feet, my chair slamming to the ground behind me in my haste. “Sorry, I have to—”

“Go,” she yelled, laughing as she tossed me my bag. “Go find your mate.”

I grinned over my shoulder before blasting through the door. Mate…I had a mate! My bear chuffed, demanding I shift, needing to run. He’d found his mate, too, and he was going to do everything in his power to claim her and bring her back to his den. And that started right fucking now.

At the end of what felt like one of the longest days of my life, I slid into a tub filled with lavender water, trying to soothe my frazzled nerves. I’d been alternating between intense emotions since I woke up, fighting to find a balance as I’d gone about the mundane chores the clan had assigned me while avoiding their watchful eyes. Sadly, that balance hadn’t happened.

I’d started the day off in bliss, the night with Kian consuming my sleepy mind. But that quickly changed to fear as my memories spun out of control, growing darker due to the deterioration of my mind. The power surge brought on by my mating call was draining me, making me see things I shouldn’t, and bringing a false reality into my thoughts more and more often. Still easy enough to see through and combat, the visions caused an emotional shock that was hard to smooth out. And with the frequency of those dark moments ramping up, I knew they would only get worse.

But even that knowledge couldn’t fully dampen my excitement over the previous night. The smile on Kian’s face when he’d mouthed my name had played over and over, never giving me more than a few minutes break in between showings, fighting back when I saw a different outcome. When my mind showed him scowling, yelling, and turning away from me. That smile powered through the delusions, lighting up my mind and my heart with the truth. It was such a bright, happy smile. So filled with relief. I needed to see it again. Tonight. Now.

Of course, I’d wanted that all day. But before I reached out across the distance again, I needed something else. Because the lines of his body had also been on my mind. The scruff of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders, the curl of his hair—flashes of memories had taken me by surprise during the most tedious of tasks. Teasing me and making me crave him even as I tried to blend into the background, tried to keep the Council from figuring out I’d begun my mating call. After a day filled with thoughts of his body and mine together, unable to take care of the craving within me, I was left completely on edge. Wet and swollen for him. Hungry.

Leaning my head back on a towel, I let my hand wander down my body, under the warm water and the bubbles, thinking about Kian. Fantasizing about him. God, he was so big all over. His hands would be so much larger than mine, rougher. While my fingers felt good against my skin, his would feel amazing. Stronger, more forceful. I tweaked my nipple, dreaming of his teeth there, of how he’d suck and bite, how he’d tease me until I begged with my body for more of his.

Needing no real prep time, I dropped my other hand between my legs, spreading my knees wide, one foot on the rim of the tub. Opening myself as my fingers moved lower. Flicking my clit. Wishing for him, for us, for more. A tingle of magic danced down my spine, making me press harder, move faster, concentrate on the thoughts of him even more. I’d never been able to use the Tallan while awake, not once in all my years. But at that moment, as I stroked and pinched, as I plunged two fingers inside and tweaked a nipple again, I felt my power surge through me. Felt it and him in a way I never had before. Saw through his eyes.

Big hands, rough like I’d imagined, circled a wide dick. Gave a twist on every stroke as his hips thrust into his own fist. Gorgeous and sexy, the image burned straight through me. I mimicked his hand, twisting my fingers inside myself, matching him stroke for stroke. Feeling his pleasure like a blanket on top of mine. The scene grew stronger, the vision clearer. His hand moved faster, mine following his rhythm. I had no idea if he could sense what I did, if he was feeling my hand play with my pussy as my other one fondled my breast, but I hoped so. I hoped he felt it and loved it as much as I loved feeling and watching him. So I kept my eyes glued to the length of my body, to the way my breasts jiggled with every breath, the way my hand disappeared between my thighs. Concentrating on my pleasure, basking in his.

Together but not, we pulled and stroked and teased. Keeping pace, breathing in time. My legs fluttering as his clenched and flexed. My pleasure escalating because of his own. Until finally, finally, we both reached that same point of no return and came. Him coming all over his hand, me squeezing my knees together and pressing down on my clit through the orgasm. Making it last. Still wishing it was his hand on me and mine on him.

Swallowing hard, legs shaking with my release, I pushed my connection to Kian harder. Just a bit. A little mental bump. I had no idea if he felt it, but it comforted me knowing I tried. As I sighed and sank down deeper in the water, something pushed back, a tiny whisper between us just before the haze returned.

A confirmation that he’d been inside the connection, too.

The trip to reach the dark little cabin took less energy, the distance the same but the work to get there becoming easier. I was getting better at this; my Tallan growing stronger. Which was quite the double-edged sword. My mind had been playing tricks on me again, giving me glimpses of my mate turning away from me. Dropping the board he’d written on. Being disappointed in what I was lacking. The bath had helped, but the stress of my situation had come back quickly and with a vengeance. The only thing that would truly soothe my weary soul was Kian. Much more of him.