Chapter Three

 

The trailer park was too quiet.

Ash scanned the clearing, listening. There was no throaty rumble of the logging equipment up the mountain, no scent of the exhaust from the processor, no country music blaring from Rhett’s jobsite. The birds who were stubborn enough to try to wait out winter in these mountains were even silent.

“Something’s off,” Juno said softly from where she stood next to her car with an armload of letters.

The chills up Ash’s spine agreed with Juno’s observation. “Is it Vyr?” Ash whispered.

“No. We would smell his smoke, and it would be raining ashes.”

The clouds above them were dark, but snow wasn’t even falling right now to have them guess at ashes.

These were the Red Dragon’s Mountains, and Grim had told her Vyr came back from time to time to scorch the earth and eat the ashes around the border of his territory, but this deafening silence wasn’t the dragon’s doing. He wasn’t quiet. They would’ve seen fire by now.

“I’m going to check if Remi is in the brewery.” Okay, it wasn’t really a brewery that the boys had behind the trailers. More like a shed, but the best damn beer brewed on this side of the country was made right there. Rhett had named it Pen15 Juice, a fact that always made Ash laugh when she thought about it, but not right now. Not when her arm hairs were standing straight up under her jacket and she felt lightning was about to strike.

Inside of her, the bear squirmed in discomfort.

“Remi?” Juno called as they made their way around the trailers toward the shed.

“Are you being a beer wench?” Ash asked, her voice echoing through the silent mountains.

“Ash! Juno!” Remi screamed from the woods. “Help!”

“Oh, my God,” Juno murmured, right before she threw the letters up in the air and Changed into her massive grizzly bear.

As the holiday cards rained down like snow on Ash, she gave her own bear her body. Remi was in trouble!

Adrenaline dumping into her bloodstream, Ash landed on all four paws and dug into the snowy earth with her long, curved claws as she bolted after Juno. All she could see from behind Juno was flying snow and bear-butt.

“Ash!” Remi screamed again.

Shoot, shoot, shoot! Maybe the Tarian Pride was here to finish Grim off! Or maybe the council of lion shifters was rebuilding and trying to recruit him! The woods were sailing by now, and it was all she could do to keep up with Juno. Remi’s pleading cries for help were rattling around in her head right along with her theories on what the heck could be wrong.

Maybe she’d fallen and broken an ankle, or perhaps one of the boys hurt themselves on one of the dangerous logging machines! Or an avalanche! Or, or, or—

Juno skidded to a stop in the snow so fast Ash ran right into her and they tumbled end over end until they landed at Kamp’s feet. Remi’s mate was leaned up against a giant pine tree, arms crossed, twig hanging loosely from his lips, glaring at two brawling lions and one pissed-off she-grizzly trying to stop the fight.

Grim, her scarred-up, fearsome, hellraiser of a mate looked to be successfully murdering Rhett right now. There on the ground was the Christmas hat Ash had given Grim, and the three-way fight between Remi-the-griz and the two lions was so shockingly violent Ash stood up slowly with her big bear mouth hanging open.

What the fuck? she tried to say out loud, but it came out as grrrrrr. Then she snuffled at the end. It sounded like a bear-sneeze. Very un-intimidating.

This was fight number four, and it was only Tuesday, the second day of the week. She knew because she was very good at counting and two was a very easy number to count to.

The Reaper was on a fighting spree.

If she wasn’t fourteen percent worried about Grim’s teeth on Rhett’s throat, she would’ve taken a moment to admire his lithe agility and ability to murder, but as it stood, Rhett was in trouble.

Juno apparently figured that out at the same time Ash did, and they both bolted for the fight.

Kamp still looked uninterested in being a hero, so okay, it was lady-beast time. Girl power, lady prowess, woman speed, and— Oh, God, Grim was scary when he slapped a claw out like that. He probably wouldn’t hurt her, though, being his mate and all, so she spun away from the claws of destruction and then barreled right into him with her round, furry rump. He fell hard

On his back, Grim sank his front paws into her neck and shoulders before he even looked at her, and as she stood over him, staring into his empty yellow eyes, she regretted, with such clarity, exactly five things she’d done today. One, she’d smeared moisturizer on her toothbrush instead of toothpaste. Two, she brushed her teeth for a good four seconds before she realized it was coconut-flavored and slimy, not minty and crisp. Three, her socks didn’t match because she’d forgotten to put her laundry in the dryer last night, and one of them was an ankle sock that kept slipping down to the arch of her foot. That was the big reason she’d been distracted in the interview. Four, she’d agreed to help find a baby donkey, but it wasn’t baby donkey season right now and she had concerns about finding baby livestock in the dead of winter and would probably let Juno down. And five, her biggest regret, attacking the danged Reaper, thinking he wouldn’t hurt her. His claws were sharp!

She’d already had a weird day and he was making it worse.

Kisses not claws—that’s what mates deserved.

So…

She bit him.

Because good men should hear compliments when they did something right, but they also should get their asses handed to ’em when they messed up.

And he was messin’ up!

She sank her teeth right into his shoulder, swearing up and down in her mind that she would set the mountains on fire before she gave the Reaper a coupon book for blow jobs.

He extracted his claws, so she let him go as a reward for stopping the hurt. He bellowed a forest-shaking roar and buckled in on himself, thrashing in the snow. And then his lion imploded into a hunky, tattooed, mohawked man-form that was super cute, but also super in trouble.

When she sucked her bear in tight, she yelped at the pain of the quick Change. While she sat there on her knees in the snow, huffing and hurting, she mindlessly yelled, “You’re ruining Christmas!”

“What?” Grim groaned, holding his bleeding shoulder.

“It’s three days before the best day of the year, and you’re fighting with Rhett. Again!”

“Because he’s fucking with me,” Grim snarled, his bright yellow eyes on Rhett-the-hissing-lion.

When Rhett charged, Ash yelled as loud as she could, holding her hand up to stop him but, luckily, Remi-the-bear neatly swatted his legs out from under him and he smashed onto the snowy ground, chin first.

“How is he messing with you?” Ash asked, baffled about what could possibly have caused her mate to once again fight his own dang Crew.

Grim stood up and dusted snow off his dick. Snow. Off his giant, swinging, perfect dick. Focus.

He jammed a finger at Rhett and announced, “He got off his rig and made his way a damn mile to drop a fuckin’ Santa hat on my jobsite.”

Ash frowned and pointed at the red hat sitting in the snow. “That one?”

“Yep! And he gave me a Goddamn pebble that won’t stop talking to me. I’m not sleeping well because I can’t shut off the fucking Reaper. I just want to stay steady, but I can’t if my own damn Crew is making me feel crazy!”

“You are crazy,” Rhett gritted out after he Changed back into his naked man form. He already had one helluva black eye. Eek. They must’ve had a fist fight before they turned lion and tried to kill each other. Men. “I didn’t walk a mile in the snow to drop a stupid hat off to you, you dunce!”

Grim tried to charge, but Ash restrained him by the shoulders. “Call me a dunce again,” he challenged Rhett.”

“Dunce.”

Grim yelled a bellowing noise that echoed across the mountains. But thank the Lord, Kamp finally moved his ass off the tree to help because Ash couldn’t have held Grim back for long, and Remi and Juno were still bears.

“I gave you the Santa hat this morning,” Ash said. “Remember?”

A deep frown drew Grim’s dark eyebrows down low. As he stared at her with such confusion swimming in those striking gold eyes, she softened her tone. “Well, don’t ya? I bought it in town yesterday on sale, half off. I got two of them, one for me, too, and asked you to take a selfie this morning in front of ten-ten to send to my dad. Which you did.”

Grim huffed a shocked-sounding breath and staggered back a step. “I did?”

“Crazy.”

“Shut up, Rhett!” Grim and Kamp both yelled at the same time.

“Is no one gonna tackle the fact that our Alpha has a talking pebble in his pocket?” Rhett yelled.

Grim’s cheeks were red, from pain or exertion maybe, but Ash was real good at reading him, and she thought it was maybe from something else. Shame.

“I just…” he said, letting the words trail off. “I just wanted to…” His face twisted with anger. “Why are you still here?” he asked to no one in particular, and then he turned and strode into the woods without looking back. At the edge of the tree line, he shoved his feet into a pair of toppled work boots. Then he stooped and picked up a pair of discarded jeans on his way into the forest.

Ash was trying to remain serious and focused, but Grim was the hottest man she’d ever seen, and he was naked and had shoulders as wide as the broadside of a barn, tattoos on his back, and muscles everywhere. Every. Where. And an ass you could bounce a quarter off of. She didn’t really understand that saying, but lots of people in Damon’s Mountains had said it about the males with the muscle butts.

Compliments usually fixed things, so she called out, “Your bottom looks very nice. Very firm. I’m sorry I bit you! Kind of…” She checked, and he hadn’t even punctured her skin with his claws. He was upset with himself and confused, and she had a feeling the second lion in her mate, the Reaper, was playing mind games.

She mourned the loss of her shredded clothes for just a moment before she grabbed her wool-lined boots, pulled them onto her feet fast, and jogged through the crunching snow after him.

If he wanted to, Grim could disappear like a ghost, but he’d left tracks in the snow, deep ones like he was moving fast. The wind was strong and cold, and her skin was half-frozen, so it felt like an eternity before she finally saw him. Grim sat on a felled log, his jeans on but unbuttoned, his head in his hands, him rubbing his hair back and forth slowly like he did when he had a headache.

“You thinking?” she asked, closing the distance between then.

His shoulders lifted and fell with his sigh. “Trying to remember.” He forced a tired smile. “I don’t like Christmas much.”

“You don’t? Or the Reaper doesn’t?”

Grim leaned forward and captured her hand with his, pulled her between his legs and rested his head against her breasts and neck. “You are the cleverest person I’ve ever met.”

“Me? Have you been drinking?”

Grim chuckled warmly, and the sound thawed her skin. There was her man.

“I guess the Reaper doesn’t like it much.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wasn’t allowed to celebrate it after he was born. The council thought holiday sentiment would make me too soft. The Reaper feels the same.”

Ash cradled his head and ran her nails through his hair. “Oh, Grim, I’m sorry.” She hated what the council had done to him. Alienated him, made rules that he couldn’t have a mate, took his childhood friend, Ronin, away from him, ruined the holidays… They stripped him of joyful moments so he would be molded into the killer the Tarian Pride needed.

The council was all dead now, but that didn’t stop her from wishing them back to life so she could maul them all over again. And that was saying something because she was a submissive bear, not a war bear.

“I really love you, you know?” she murmured, scratching his head over and over. “And I really understand you. You’re doing good.”

Grim huffed a breath and hugged her closer, hiding his eyes from her. “I think you’re just supportive. I don’t know why, but to you, I can do no wrong. I wanted to bring you back here, put you in 1010, take you on dates and make your heart fall for this place. For me. I wanted to be a better Alpha so I could give you a Crew you’ll always be safe in. I wanted to hit logging numbers so Vyr will keep paying us. I wanted to give you a good life.”

“And you are.”

“No, I’m not. It’s not good enough. I’m here, disrupting work, fighting the Crew instead of leading them, going crazier—”

“You aren’t—”

“I am and you know it, Ash.” He softened his voice and repeated, “I am.”

“Enough,” she murmured, cupping his cheeks and lifting those blazing yellow eyes to her. Those were the Reaper’s eyes, but Grim sounded like Grim. That said one thing to her. The Reaper was compromising, even if Grim didn’t see it that way. “Grim, you push people away. You learned to do that from your time with the Tarian Pride. Anyone you paid attention to got ripped away from you, so this is how you were built. The people you care about the most, you keep your distance so you can keep them.”

The emotion fell from his face so fast his ears moved slightly. He looked utterly stunned. “Say that again.”

Ash inhaled deeply and stroked his dark beard. “The people you care about the most, you keep your distance from. Because you want to keep us.”

Grim turned his head toward the woods fast, but she’d already seen it—the moisture that had built in his eyes. The emotion there. She was breaking him again. Breaking him so she could help him put himself back together.

Sometimes breaking a man was necessary.

“How do I fix that?” he asked, his voice scratchy and deep, thick with pain, the heart kind. She was the only one who could read him like a book, no one else.

“You figure out you’re safe with us,” she whispered, and then she kissed the top of his head. “And then you own your faults, apologize when you’re wrong, reward us for sticking around.”

“How?”

“By letting us in. Let your Crew know you. The real you. That’s the best Christmas present you could give any of us, Grim. You.”

His sigh tapered into a growl, but there was a smile in his voice when he uttered, “All I wanted to do was come here and find a Crew who would put me down, and you’re ruining all my plans.”

She snickered. “Good. I want to bone you for a hundred years. Sorry, mister, but you’re going to have to stick around. You have shit to accomplish.”

“You’re shivering.”

“Well, I’m naked and it’s freezing out here.”

“But you’re a bear.”

“Still cold! I was all warm and bundled up in a nice jacket and my favorite skinny jeans that only make me muffin top a little, and you made me rip them up Changing into a bear.”

“You didn’t have to Change,” he pointed out, folding her suddenly into his arms and lifting her like she weighed no more than a holiday ornament. “You could’ve just let me kill Rhett.”

“Does the pebble he gave you really talk?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his bare shoulders.

“You’re so fucking cute wearing nothing but snow boots.”

“No changing subjects on me.”

Grim let off a little growl as he made his way into the woods in the direction of the trailer park. He was getting stompier in the snow as they went along, but she needed to know the level of his crazy so she could accept it all.

“Its name is Rebble the Pebble and it shit-talks to me in Rhett’s voice. Currently he’s singing Christmas songs, but during the choruses, he sings in fart sounds.”

Ash snorted. She didn’t mean to! But she couldn’t help it. It was kind of funny. “Well, why do you keep carrying it around?”

Grim shrugged his massive shoulders. “I dunno. Sometimes it says funny stuff. And every once in a while it’s nice to hear funny stuff instead of the Reaper just repeating the words, ‘Kill them’ every thirty seconds.”

“Reaper!”

Grim snapped those bright yellow eyes right to her, and his pupils pinpointed. “Yes?”

“Stop trying to kill your friends.”

“Reaper doesn’t have friends.”

“False. You have friends and a girlfriend.”

“Mate,” he corrected.

“Not yet,” she said, lifting her chin primly.

Grim narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I have zero claiming marks. Only you have one. You’re my mate, but I’m still just a girlfriend.”

For a moment, his face looked totally feral. Like there was only wild, injured, furious animal there and no man at all. But the twisted snarl faded away in a second, and Grim’s eyes faded to a soft brown. “How did your interview go?”

Ash scrunched up her face and hugged his shoulders tighter as he ducked them under a low-hanging branch. “I didn’t get the job.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I messed up all my words, and she had to keep asking me to repeat myself. She asked me three times what I meant by my answers, and then I got so nervous I mostly thought about my messed-up sock and just looked down at my hands and stopped answering her questions altogether. She told me, ‘It was nice to meet you. Good luck with your job-hunt’ right before I left.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I can’t do good at interviews with strangers. I don’t understand them.”

“But you understand me, and Remi and Juno. Even Rhett and Kamp, and they are both idiots.”

“Yeah, but I’m comfortable with the Crew. My thoughts get all jumbled up when I talk to other people. It’s always been like that.”

“Well, that means it wasn’t the job for you. You’ll find another—”

“I wanted to buy your grandma a plane ticket here,” she blurted out.

Grim stopped right at the edge of the clearing of the trailer park. “What?”

“For Christmas. For your present. I wanted to bring her here so you didn’t have to spend a single Christmas away from her.”

“But…I always had to spend them away from her. The council gave me jobs on Christmas.”

“To keep you tough, they separated you from her. But you aren’t in the Tarian Pride anymore. There is no council.” She wiggled out of his arms and hugged him up tight, way up on her tiptoes because Grim was a giant. “Year one out of the Tarian Pride, and shits-a-changin’. I wanted to help it turn around even more, but I don’t have much room on my credit card, and I don’t feel comfortable charging to it when I don’t have a job. And now I don’t know what to do for you, and I’m going to mess up your first Christmas outside of the Pride.”

Grim pressed his lips against hers. He held there for a two-count before he softened his mouth and moved against hers. His tongue brushed her lips, and she opened for him, excitement building in her middle. She would never, ever get tired of kissing this man.

He ran his fingers through her hair, then held her face inches from his. “Just the fact you thought about giving me a good first Christmas and bringing my grandma here is the best present in the world. You really love me, don’t you?”

Ash nodded. “Always. Silly man, don’t you see? I gave my whole heart to you.” She shrugged up her shoulders because she was a shrugger and smiled with her head canted to the side. “I’m here.”

His smile stretched slowly across his face and lit up his brown eyes. “And I’m here.”

Then his eyes changed to yellow. “Me, too,” he said in a demon’s voice.

His eyes changed to the green of his nice lion. “Me three.”

Grim growled long and low and then gritted his teeth before he said, “Rebble says ‘Me four.’”

Ash cracked up. “I like your kind of crazy.”

“Dear God, woman, you are the only one in the world who would ever say that.”

Another Ash-shrug. “Maybe no one else could handle it, but you’re easy to me. We just fit.”

“Mmmm,” he rumbled, leading her by the hand toward the trailer at the very far end of the park. 1010. “Or maybe you were just built to accept a man like me.” He tossed her a quick grin. “Or maybe you just have terrible taste in men.”

She smacked his arm, and he laughed.

“Rebble says he agrees. Terrible taste.”

“Well, I secured an Alpha of a Crew and a trailer park, so who is the real winner?”

Grim snorted as they climbed the stairs of 1010. “Still not you.” He squeezed her hand and turned to her right before she reached for the door handle. “Ash?”

“Yes?” she asked, confused at how serious he’d suddenly become.

“I heard you earlier.”

“Well…good, because I’m very loud when I talk.”

“No, no, I don’t mean that. I mean…I paid attention when you told me I need to let the Crew in. I’ll do better.”

She smiled and leaned up, kissed his lips. “I know,” she whispered as she eased away and rested her forehead onto his. “Someday you will be a great Alpha, Grim. You just have some work to do to get there, but I know you can do it. You and the Reaper both. And Rebble. You have people now. Not just a council controlling you. I mean, you have a support system. And I’ll be here the whole way, cheering you on and keeping you on track.”

“Vyr told me once to create a team of people who care enough to stop me when I go off the rails.”

“Vyr is off the rails,” she pointed out, visions of him burning Tarian Pride Crew territory still fresh in her mind. “But he was right about that.”

“Today, you stopped me when I went after Rhett. You even bit me to bring me back, and when you did that, Vyr’s words were loud in my head. So…I guess what I’m saying is…thank you. For stopping me.”

“Babe, I’m like the Guardian of the Reaper.”

Grim chuckled. “Okay that’s a cool-ass nickname, but you shouldn’t have to take that job on. I have to get better at this.”

“Okay!” She was motivated now. She was going to help him and be his biggest cheerleader. “Step one—stop trying to kill everyone.”

“And step two?”

She grinned so big, her cheeks hurt. “Believe in Christmas.”