Chapter 24

Willow stepped gingerly over the funny welcome mat into Bruin’s home, looking around curiously. Bruin had shifted- she’d learned that was the word for what he did when he changed from a human to a bear, or back- then led her inside. She’d turned her back when he did both, so she’d only seen a bit of the back side of him naked. That broad expanse of back and masculine ass had made her eager for more, though. She played with her new perception of him as a man who could change into a massive bear, and thought she was ok with it. It was even a bit sexy. Sexier every time she thought of it.

He’d gone down a short hallway and disappeared into a room.

When she looked around inside, the first thing she saw was a telescope pointed out a sliding glass door at the back of the house. She walked over to it, then pressed her body against the door, gazing in the direction the telescope was pointed at. It was dark, almost midnight she thought, and she couldn’t see anything but the lights of the city beyond, but she knew in the morning she would see the bluff, and her beehives. It made her smile to know he’d been watching her from afar. It made her feel safe, like he’d always been protecting her.

She turned slowly, taking in Bruin’s house, the pictures on the wall, and the neat-as-a-pin kitchen. Would she still be here in the morning to look back out this door? She decided right then that she would be. She nodded to herself. If he would have her, she would be.

She strolled to the far wall as Bruin came back in the room, dressed again. She wanted to point to the pictures and ask, “Are any of these guys the BOGI?” She’d seen the word, just that way in Bruin’s mind, but she wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Someone who was close to him. Someone he hadn’t met but would look up to when he knew who it was. She recognized Conri on the wall, and noted the resemblance in the other three men that told her they were also brothers to Bruin and Conri.

Before she could say a word, Bruin came up behind her, wrapping her body into his with his long arms. She didn’t need to be an empath to feel the relief rolling off his body in waves. There was a desperation to him, too, though, like he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing, but he also couldn’t help himself. She turned in his arms, wanting to reassure him. They weren’t doing anything they shouldn’t be. In fact, if she had read his thoughts correctly, they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, and the sooner they ended up sleeping together, the better for the fight against the demon. Cane. Kane. Something.

She had babies to make, and the fact that she’d been told so her entire life made it easier to accept. So it was with a bear, and not an angel- so what? She was still in it to win it and do her part.

Willow stood on tiptoes and cupped Bruin’s cheek. “Kiss me,” she whispered to him. He did, catching her lips with his, pulling her to him with a thick purr that vibrated his chest against hers. Hot, thick longing shot through her, making her ache for him. How lucky was she that her… mate, Bruin would have said, so mate it was, how lucky was she that her mate was a man she would have picked for herself if given the chance. At that moment, she believed it all, wanted it all, gave herself over to her destiny. Surrendered.

She curled her fingers around the back of Bruin’s neck, urging him to her. She played with his mouth, using her own tongue and lips to tease him to what she hoped was a foregone conclusion. He held her close, and he kissed her and kissed her and so thoroughly kissed her that she again felt like she had in the place called Helltopia, just before he’d set her off like a firecracker: hot, wet, and primed to explode with just a touch.

“Your bedroom, Bruin, I want to go to it.”

He picked her up smoothly, wrapping her thighs around his middle and supporting her under her ass as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him. He moved with her, smoothly, surely, then his body dropped slightly as he made his way down stairs. She held on to him as he took her to where he would take her.

Down into cool stillness, then to the left, then placing her gently on her feet next to a pristine bed. She couldn’t see much about the room because it was dark, but enough moonlight flooded in the basement window to tell her it was a bedroom with no pictures on the wall and carpet under her feet. She pulled Bruin back down to her, then edged both of them onto the bed, sweet anticipation making her pant.

Bam! The bed collapsed on its supports and crashed to the floor. Willow threw her arms out in shock, staring at Bruin in the bit of moonlight on his face. He looked as freaked as she felt.

She giggled. “We broke your bed.”

He shook his head. “Not my bed.”

She giggled harder. “Is this your room?”

He nodded.

She peered at him, then sat up. “Do you sleep on the floor or something?”

Bruin licked his lips and looked toward the closet door, then back at her, indecision in his being. Then he strode to the door and opened it, showing her the unbelievably soft looking bed beyond.

It must have held a hundred blankets piled on top of each other and twice as many pillows. They were stuffed in there and smashed flat from being slept on. The closet was a decent-sized walk-in. Big enough for several people to stand in, and the size of it made the bed look cozy, but grand.

She walked to it, touching the top blanket tentatively. You sleep in here?”

Bruin nodded. “It feels right.”

Willow looked at him sharply, realizing for the first time how much the man-Bruin acted on the bear-Bruin’s instincts. Everything had to feel right for him.

He shrugged and leaned against the door, pulling her close to him and speaking softly. “After my nan died, and my ma, my little brothers wouldn’t sleep for days. They would only cry, and if they drifted off for a few minutes, they would startle awake at the end of the sleep cycle, crying for Ma, for milk, for hugs. Dad was a complete mess, as were all our uncles. We were left to fend for ourselves, forgotten in the grief and outrage of a species. The males of the family were particularly hard on me-” he glanced at her, deep in her eyes, asking if she understood why that was and she nodded. She’d picked enough of it out of his mind to know he’d been blamed for something he couldn’t have done, but that it didn’t matter. If enough people thought that about you for long enough, and if you were just a little cub when it started, you forgot to believe in yourself, you remembered what the others remembered, even if it hadn’t happened that way.

He nodded back, then kept talking. “Sometimes they would come and snatch me away from Conri and the little ones who we were comforting as best we could. It didn’t matter what time of the day or night it was, they would snatch me into another room and shake me and demand to know how I knew what I did, threaten to skin me if I didn’t tell them why I hadn’t tried harder to make them see.” He shuddered and she hugged him, trying to lend that young him strength. He cleared his throat. “It was hard on me, but harder on the little cubs, and it got to the point where none of us were sleeping at all. Until Conri got the idea to move all our mattresses into the smallest bedroom, all the blankets and pillows, too. When it was done, the entire floor was mattresses and we all burrowed in that one big bed with all the blankets and pillows in the house. The little ones finally slept.”

Willow ran one hand over Bruin’s back. “They both died on the same day,” she said softly.

His voice was choked with emotion. “They all did. Every single one of them. Aunts, nans, moms, sisters, cousins, nieces. I don’t know how we lived through it.”

Willow hugged him tighter, mentally pulling at the grief entwined in his thought-form. She could help with strong emotions, get them moving out of a person, pain too, sometimes. The only trick was not catching them inside her, but instead funneling them somewhere. Somewhere else.

It seemed to help. He quieted, and so did his thought-form. But the BOGI was still there, flashing at the forefront of his mind like a slick neon sign. He would tell her when he was ready.

She held him tightly, her need momentarily cooled by his thick emotions. Distraction was what he needed right now. “Do you want to hear what the angel, my father, told my mom?”

Bruin tightened his hold on her, but didn’t speak. She closed her eyes and recalled the angel’s speech, then repeated it out loud.

“Our daughter will be a queen among the barren. She will save them with her touch, her love, and her special connection with the barren who will lead them. She will save, he will lead, and all will be right in the end. This I foresee.”

Bruin grasped her upper arms so tightly it hurt and she cried out. He let go immediately, shaking his hands and apologizing. He touched her again, more gently.

She said it again, softly, then shook her head. “It’s not barren, is it?”

“Bearen,” Bruin said, his voice far away. “B-e-a-r-e-n.”

She frowned. “Why does that make you so sad?”

“Because,” he said. “It means you don’t belong to me. There is a great leader who will soon be revealed to the bearen. He’s known only as the Bear of Great Insight and because of him, we are all restored.” He rubbed the back of his left shoulder absently while he spoke. “You’re his, Willow.”

Willow poked him. “If I’m anyone’s, I’m yours.”

He shook his head sadly, a thought-form of remorse twisting around his shoulders.

Willow grabbed his chin, unable to stomach his thoughts or his feelings. “Stop it,” she hissed at him. “I’m going to lay this out for you plainly, Bruin. I’m in, I’m all in on this demon-fighting, baby-making stuff. But I get to decide who I belong to, and it is not some guy I’ve never met. Right now, I’m yours, all yours.” Too late, she realized her mistake. Those two words, right now. Because that could change, couldn’t it.

He was shaking his head, but his voice was still hopeful. “Rogue thinks I’m the BOGI.”

That changed everything. Willow didn’t know what Rogue’s reasons were for thinking that, but she knew Rogue was clever as hell and wouldn’t lie to someone to make them feel good. If Rogue thought that, it was probably true.

She let go of Bruin’s face. “You should listen to Rogue.”

Something in the situation made him purr, rumbling his chest. Her lips and clit swelled immediately because when the purring came, that meant the kissing was coming, and the kissing…

He kissed her hard, taking her mouth savagely, and she could taste his sudden hope, and just how far he would fall if it turned out not to be true. He wanted it so bad and this was the first time he’d allowed himself to hope.

She let him back her up against the blankets of his bed-den, and press her into them, taking her mouth with absolute abandon. Staking his claim in a feral way that left her breathless and panting with need.

He pulled at the ends of her hair that he’d so patiently tucked under and around a lifetime ago. “I want your hair down,” he purred into her mouth. “I want to touch it.”

She couldn’t say no to that. Couldn’t deny him anything. She pulled at it, releasing every hair, then shaking it out and looking at him. He cupped her head with both hands, pulling her to him, hard, then plunged both hands into her hair, running it between his fingers, making masculine sounds of pleasure that twisted her completely.

She moved against him hard, wanting so much more than this, but also wanting exactly this again. She opened her legs, hoping he would take the time to search under her skirts, but also wanting him to stay exactly where he was and also almost crying when he did. She pulled one of his hands from her hair and guided it where she wanted it. To her breast. To one of her tiny breasts that barely filled out a normal palm. Would he even be interested?

His hand trembled, then pressed against her. He ran one thumb over her hard nipple and it sharpened. She cried out with the pleasure of his touch. Eagerly, he explored while she reached a tentative hand to the front of his body, wanting to feel what she hadn’t yet…

But he got between them, he reached down, and- Yes! She felt fabric slip-sliding along her body. She almost cried out when his palm cupped her sex through her panties, one finger searching, probing, then sliding. The pleasure was intense and single-minded, and she could think of nothing else as he fed her another orgasm, this one stronger than the one she’d had hours before.

She cried out, dropping against the bed and bucking into his hand until it was over. He pressed against her one last time, then pulled away, smoothing her skirts and kissing her cheekbones, until she was able to open her eyes.

“Why is this bed so high?” she asked, sublime contentment winding into her voice.

He grasped her hands and pulled her to a standing position, one in which he would have to bend to kiss her. “I never knew until this moment,” he said, grasping her hips and lifting her easily, then setting her on the pile of blankets and pillows, which brought her face exactly in line with his.

He kissed her, once, twice, three times, but sweetly. She pulled him close and tried to recapture the fervor they’d had just a moment before, but he stayed chaste.

“Bruin, aren’t we going to…”

He nodded. “But not yet. When the time is right.”

“When will that be?”

He didn’t hesitate. “When you love me back.”

And in that moment, she did, maybe more than just a little.

But still, she couldn’t help but wonder if he still thought he was just a placeholder, someone to keep her warm and safe until the BOGI showed up.