Woodcutter Werebear (Saw Bears Book 2) (9 page)

Her chest heaved as she stared at the unassuming gift sitting on the seat beside them. With trembling fingers, she lifted it to her lap, then opened it slowly.

Tears stung her eyes as she pulled out the delicate gold chain with the songbird charm. It was no bigger than her pinky nail. Her people exchanged trinkets at a ceremony that bound them as mates. If she accepted this gift, and if she gave him one in return, he would be hers, and she his.

“Do you know how big this is? Or is this just a gift because you want to take me on a date?”

“I bought it the day after you sang with Denison and you won your spot on the crew. I’ve kept it all this time because I don’t want this life for you. I want a better mate for you, one who won’t hurt you. One you won’t grow to resent. I was trying to figure out how to make you happiest—to let you go or draw you closer.” He drew his sad gaze to hers and lowered his voice. “But then you said you missed me touching you, and I can’t go back anymore. You’re mine.”

Skyler cupped the necklace in her palm. “Kellen, I don’t want to make you sad.” Her heart felt like it was overflowing and breaking all at once. “Why don’t you think you would make a good mate?”

“If I tell you, you’ll run away from me.”

“I won’t. You have to trust that I care about you enough to listen and try to understand where you come from.”

He stared out the window for a long time, then turned on the truck and scooted her into the passenger’s seat.

Geez, why couldn’t he just talk to her? He shut down like this every time, leaking out the smallest amount of information possible, which only served to drive her insane with the twenty new questions that arose. And pushing him for more didn’t help. If he didn’t want to talk about something, he just slammed down a wall she was helpless to break through. She wanted him, all of him, but perhaps Kellen wasn’t capable of sharing himself wholly with someone else. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he knew he was unable to let people in, and he didn’t want to hurt her with it. That was the only thing that made sense from the bits and pieces she’d scrapped together from him and Denison.

She placed the necklace back in the box and put it back in the glove compartment, confused as to why he’d given it to her if he had no intention of actually allowing her into his life. And not just the life he had now. Kellen was different. He spoke different, acted different, seemed governed by different rules. Even Tagan made allowances for him that the others in his crew weren’t afforded.

Kellen drove her back to the trailer park in silence, his eyes hard on the muddy road in front of them.

She felt duped. Her heart had fallen for someone incapable of returning the depth of her feeling. And sadly, she’d still accept him if he was serious with the necklace. Pathetic.

With her hard hat in hand, she shook out her damp hair and prepared for him to drop her off in front of 1010. Instead, he pulled his truck to a stop in front of 1015, his trailer. She hadn’t ever been allowed in there, and from what she’d seen over the past week and a half, no one else ventured in there either. While the shifters in this crew openly walked into each other’s trailers—sometimes without knocking as she’d learned when Brighton barged in on her in the shower and snatched a bottle of low dose pain killers from the medicine cabinet before he waved and let himself out—no one ever did that with Kellen’s home. He seemed to be very private about his living space, a fact that only made her more curious about her elusive bear.

The crew were out and about, battening down the hatches. They were stacking the plastic furniture around the fire pit, then dragging them to Bruiser’s trailer.

She thought Kellen meant to help them, but he cut the engine, jogged around the front of the truck, and opened Skyler’s door. With a frustrated sounding grunt and a muttered, “Aw, fuck it,” he scooped her up, ran through the torrential downpour, and climbed his porch stairs.

His shoulders heaved in an explosive sigh as he settled her on her feet, just outside the front door.

“Swear you’ll try and understand?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said in the easiest promise she’d ever made.

He opened the door and pulled her in by the hand. It was unnaturally dark, and she had difficulty shimmying out of her sopping wet jacket. He didn’t seem to have the same problem by the sound of fabric rustling against her senses. She waited for him to flip on the light switch, and when he didn’t, she asked, “Can we turn on a light?” Her night vision was impeccable, but there was so little illumination to work with, it was hard to see even the couches that were situated just a few feet in front of her.

“Skyler, there aren’t any lights. I took them all out when I moved in here. If I need light during the day, I open one of the windows I’ve boarded up.”

She didn’t understand. “So, you live in the dark? Like a bat?”

“No, I live in the dark like a bear. This isn’t a trailer to me. It’s my den. My bear requires it, or I won’t have any control.”

“Control over your animal?”

“Yes.”

His hand was still strong and warm, all wrapped around hers, and she squeezed. “Who else has seen your den?”

“Tagan. He knows how I have to live from when he and his mom took me in.”

“Tagan…and me?” It was heartbreaking that he had to live in the dark because of his inner animal, but he was sharing something huge with her. Something that scared him and made him hide from other people. He was letting her in.

“The others probably know, but it’s something I don’t share. My bear, he doesn’t like others in his territory.”

“But he’s okay with me in here?”

“My bear chose you before I even knew you. You’ll always be safe in here with him. With me.”

“Will you show me around?”

“Sure. Wait here.” His hand disappeared and, moments later, a thin stream of gray light appeared from behind a piece of plywood Kellen scooted off a window. The living room and kitchen were the mirror opposite of 1010 with the kitchen on the right-hand side. A gray couch and love seat sat in front of a mahogany stand with a flat screen television. The coffee table and end tables matched, and a painting of the processor Brighton operated hung on the wall. It was done in thick, dark paints with neon green and blue highlights, and in the background, the sky was littered with stars. A hurried but skilled brush had created the landscape, but the processor was detailed down to the last screw.

“Brooke paints,” Kellen murmured.

Skyler had only ever seen the pictures of Brooke’s attacker. She sometimes studied them when she was alone in 1010 and organized them into piles. They were mesmerizing, but this? This was incredible. Brooke had captured the mountain and the job site in a way Skyler never would’ve thought possible. She stepped around the couch and looked at it closer. “It’s stunning.”

She moved onto the kitchen with its whitewashed cabinets and quaint wooden cutouts. A countertop separated it from the living room. The sink was empty, and clean dishes were stacked on a drying rack. A small, two-seat table sat against the wall with a stack of outdoor magazines as the centerpiece. His furnishings weren’t what she’d expected. They were sparse and minimal but of fine quality. Everything seemed to be in its place, as if his bear couldn’t tolerate clutter.

Kellen watched her with an unfathomable expression as she moved around his space. His dark eyes never left her as she smiled and moved to his bedroom. Like the rest of the den, it was neat and orderly. His bed was made, the navy comforter wrinkle free, as if it was ready for a catalogue picture. A cup of water sat on the nightstand, and she brushed her finger down the cool glass before she turned.

Steeling herself, she squinted at his dark silhouette across the room and asked, “Kellen, why do you have to live in the dark?”

Kellen hesitated, lingering at the door. The dark stole his facial expressions, so she couldn’t tell if he was shutting down on her again or not. After a pregnant pause, he approached slowly and lay on his bed.

“Come here.”

“My clothes are wet. Will your bear get angry if I mess up your bed?” She didn’t understand the dynamics, nor had she realized how much his animal ruled his life. Her animal side wasn’t like that—a separate personality. Her inner animal was just an extension of herself.

“I don’t care about the bed. I want it to smell like you, anyway. Maybe then I can sleep better.”

She lowered herself to the mattress and laid her head on his chest. “Would you sleep better if I slept beside you?”

His heart went to pounding like a base drum against her ear, and she smiled. Hide his feelings all he wanted, but he couldn’t put a poker face on his heartbeat.

“Yes. I didn’t think you would want to sleep in a place like this. You are light and happy, and this place is dark.”

“This place is a part of you, and I want to be with you. Besides, I don’t need light when I sleep.”

Voice deep and sure, he said, “Then yes. And I live in a den because growing up, I didn’t feel safe.”

“Your dad?” She’d pieced together that his father had been bad news.

Kellen sniffed. “My dad wanted his cub to be the toughest bear that ever was. He thought letting me sleep in beds would make me soft and weak, so he raised me like the animal inside of me—like a bear. I slept in the woods—no tent, no mattress, separated from my family, no matter if it rained or snowed—until the old bastard died when I was ten.”

“Oh, my gosh,” she said on a sad sigh. “Where was your mother?”

“He was beating on her. She didn’t have any say in how I was raised. Eventually, she left.”

Skyler clutched his shirt and squeezed her eyes closed against the image of Kellen sleeping all alone, cold and afraid out in the woods, every single night. “Were you angry when she left?”

“Yeah. I didn’t blame her for leaving, though. I was mad she didn’t take me with her. She was living out on a mountainside in a broken down bus they’d converted to a home. Who could blame her for moving on from that? My uncle would come visit every few months, bring us food and try to talk my dad out of his paranoia. Dad thought humans would find us out, so I didn’t see or talk to anyone outside of my family until he died and I wandered into the nearest town. I didn’t know how to talk to anyone. Still don’t. It makes me…feel different, like an outsider. People don’t understand me, and I don’t understand them.”

Everything made sense now. Every single thing she’d been confused about clicked quietly into place. His hatred for men who hurt women, his need to lift her up and make her strong. The way he talked and how he discussed shifter matters within earshot of humans. How he watched others as if he was studying them, how he kept his past hidden. No wonder he’d locked these secrets away. She would’ve done the same thing to protect herself.

“Were you happy when you went to live with Tagan? Were you able to be a child?”

Kellen huffed a humorless laugh. “Poor Meredith didn’t know what to do with me for the first two years. I was much worse off than I am now, I can tell you that. But yeah, I was happy. I am happy, but some of the stuff I went through is just part of me now. I won’t be rehabilitated. I’m just…me.”

“Kellen?” she asked, hugging his waist and snuggling against his side. “How do bears claim a mate?”

He froze under her touch, every muscle rigid. “The males bite the females during sex, hard enough to leave a scar. We mark our mates. I wouldn’t be any good at being a mate, though. We would have to be something different. Something less.”

“Disagree. I think you would make a wonderful mate. Who told you that? Who said you would be bad at it?”

“My mother.” His voice dipped to a ragged-sounding whisper. “She would cry and say I looked just like my father. That I’d grow up to be just like him, a monster.”

Skyler hunched in on herself at the pain in those words. What a terrible set of parents he’d had. What a terrible life they’d provided for him. Even if his mom was hurt by her mate, she shouldn’t have taken it out on her child.

“Kellen, I want you.” Her voice trembled, and she dashed her hand across her damp lashes. “I want you because I know the truth. I know you would be a wonderful mate. You are nothing like your father, do you understand? You brought me here to save me. You’ve lifted me up at every opportunity. I’m stronger because of you. You gave me the necklace because you pick me, right?”

In the dark, she could barely see him, but she could feel him nod his head, hear the whisper of his hair against the comforter.

“Well, I pick you back. Fuck what your mother said. I know you. I
see
you. Your heart is too big to ever hurt me. I love the life you’ve given me, and I love the way you treat me. I love your den. I love…I love you, Kellen. Everything about you. None of this scares me off. It only makes me feel closer to you.”

Kellen’s breath hitched, and he pressed his forefinger and thumb against his eyes.

She pulled him up and straddled him, tugged his shirt over his head, then tossed it to the floor. When her own shirt and bra joined the pile, she hugged him up tight until there was no end to her and no beginning to him. Her chilled skin warmed against his, and when his shoulders stopped shaking, she eased back and cupped his cheeks.

“You’re mine, Kellen Cade Brown. I don’t care what anyone else says. Our relationship is different because we’re different, and that’s okay with me.”