Gunnar

Adelaide may have told me not to follow, but like hell am I going to leave my girl out alone in the woods. I’m the least dangerous thing around here, even if she doesn’t know it. I get that she’s filled with righteous anger right now, and it is clouding her judgment. So, I let her run.

Ripping through another pair of jeans, I let my bear out, running after her, moving between the trees so she can’t see me. But I feel her, sense her every footstep, every ragged breath.

She yells at me to stop following her. She knows I am here, wild and untamed and hers, but I’m no fool, I will make sure she is somewhere safe before I walk away.

When she reaches the Red Barn, I pause in the tree line, my paws raking the soil, desperate for something to hold onto - wishing like hell it was her.

She turns her gaze toward the trees, her hand on her purse and I’m sure she is seconds away from texting her friends, telling them to meet her outside, to drive her home. But first, she scans the forest, looking for me. Knowing I am near.

“I’m not your mate, Gunnar Koleman,” she yells. Her words are sure but her voice trembles. “I’m not your anything.”

I watch her go and it kills me to let her walk away, but my blood is pounding through my veins and the last thing I need right now is for her to see me in a fury of anger.

Hours later, I retrieve the last pair of extra jeans from my pick-up, shove them on, then slide into the driver’s seat. It’s been a hell of a night and I hate the way it ended. But I won’t lose her. I’ve already promised myself that. I’ll do whatever it takes to win her trust.

I ball my hands into fists and slam them into the steering wheel. I hate what I did all those years ago, and how my past will never let me go.

As I drive home, I get a text from Weston, my twin brother.

Hey, your girl was here, upset. Just left with her friends. WTF?

I clench my jaw, shame washing over me. The idea that anyone might think I did something to hurt Adelaide slays me.

Fuck.

I call him, putting it on speakerphone as I wind my way home.

“Hey,” I say when he picks up. “It’s not what you think.”

“You sure about that?” he asks with a note of disapproval in his voice. “I was outside taking a piss when I saw her. She was in the parking lot, crying. Her friends came out, and they drove away right after. What the hell did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. Dammit.” I want to throw the phone out the goddamn window. “Look, where are you guys?”

“We’re still here. At the barn.”

“I need to talk. With all of you. Now.”

“Where?”

“My place.”

A few minutes later I pull up to my cabin. We all have our own places, all in the woods, and right now I’m glad for the privacy. My brothers aren’t going to be happy when they find out what Adelaide knows, and I wouldn’t put it past them to shift in a rage when I tell them about tonight.

I screwed up royally. But what the hell was I supposed to do? Let myself get mauled by a ravenous pack of wolves? Put Adelaide at risk? No fucking way.

I slam my truck door and stalk toward my cabin. It’s just a simple two bedroom, single floor building that looks more like a mountain cabin than a real home, but it’s more than enough space for me. Until Adelaide showed up last week, I doubted I’d ever have anyone to share it with.

Despite everything that happened tonight, my mind wanders to what she’d think about the place, the improvements I could make for her.

“Damn fool,” I mutter. “She’ll never be with you now.”

Inside, I turn on the lights and grab a beer from the fridge. A few minutes later I see the headlights from a truck, and soon enough my living room is filled with the Koleman brothers.

There’s Blaine, the oldest - and the biggest asshole. Then Weston, my twin, who wants to keep the peace and be the best single father he can. I’m proud of him. Unlike Blaine, he knows what matters most in this world - family.

Then there’s Bennett, my youngest brother, and what the girls would call the prettiest of us. He was voted fucking prom king in high school and that reputation has followed him everywhere he goes.

My only sister, Willow - Bennett’s twin, has been gone a year, but I would never have called her here for this. She’s hated everything bear since she was a teenager. Secretly I wonder if she isn’t jealous that she doesn’t carry the same genetic mutation as us. But it’s almost unheard of for a female to be a bear shifter.

“You going to tell us what the hell is going on?” Blaine asks.

Weston and Bennet grab themselves beers and find a seat, both looking at me with raised brows.

I pace the room, my bear just as unsettled as I am.

“So, did you sleep with her? The bookstore chick?” Bennett finally asks with a laugh.

“Shut up.” Blaine scowls, shaking his head.

“What? Maybe the sex was so bad he made her cry.”

I clench my fists into balls and Weston seems to notice my intensity, because he says calmly but firmly, “You’re not funny.”

Bennett smirks. “Tell me you weren’t thinking it too.”

Blaine snaps, “Let him talk.”

“Fine,” Bennett says, lifting his hands in defense. “So then why was she crying?”

I sigh and rake a hand through my hair. “Because I scared her.”

The room goes quiet.

“What do you mean, you scared her?” Weston asks, his voice a strange calm he does when he knows something is seriously wrong.

I wish for one second of my life I could feel that way. But then I remember I had - when Adelaide was in my arms.

“Gunnar?” Weston pushes. “Tell us what happened.”

I tell them everything. Well, almost everything. I leave out the intimate details of our night together. But I tell them about the wolves. About shifting in front of her. About her reaction.

“Shit.” Bennett stands and stalks toward the fridge, grabbing another beer.

Blaine’s curses are a lot more colorful. And Weston just stares at me like I’m still holding something back.

I am.

I haven’t told them the most important thing.

“She’s my mate.”

Weston spits out the mouthful of beer he’d just taken. But my two other brothers inhale sharply.

“You’re sure?” Weston asks.

“It’s not something that you can mistake.” I sit down heavily on the couch, tilting my head back and closing my eyes.

“Then I guess you got screwed twice tonight,” Bennett says chuckling at his joke.

“You think this is funny?” Blaine asks. “Mate or not, she could expose us all.”

“She won’t talk,” I mumble.

“You don’t know that.” My oldest brother takes up my place pacing the room. “She thinks you killed her grandfather—”

“I did.”

Weston shakes his head, and I know he still doesn’t believe it, despite the evidence. “Even if you did, the man killed Dad.”

“Another reason why a Koleman-Spencer mating is a bad fucking idea,” Blaine growls out, sounding more like an animal than a man.

“It’s not like I had a fucking choice.”

“You had a choice to stay away from her.”

“And never mate?” I stand, frustrated.

Blaine grumbles something incoherent under his breath.

“So, what do we do?” Bennett asks.

“Shit,” Weston says, staring down at his phone. “We aren’t doing anything right now. We’ve got a bigger problem. Rex Callister just texted me. Lloyd Battersby was mauled outside his cabin. Rex says it was a grizzly.”

A string of curses echoes around the room. Our cousin Rex is Bear Valley’s doctor, but he also shares the family genes, and being a Kodiak shifter, his senses would have picked up the foreign scent.

“And Lloyd?” The man, while a little quirky, was a like a second father to us after our own passed.

Weston shakes his head, his face twisting in pain.

Silence stretches between us for a long moment before Blaine finally takes charge.

“Let’s go.” He starts unbuttoning his shirt, and I can see the changes in his eyes as his bear fights to get out.

The Kodiaks have been fighting with the grizzlies for as long as any of us can remember.

“We can’t just go after it,” Weston says. “The treaty—”

“Screw the treaty. Whoever this fucker is, he came onto our land. We should have gone after him when Gunnar told us about the incident with the women when they first got here.”

“I agree.” I take off one of my boots, then the other. With the adrenaline from the wolf attack and the argument with Adelaide still racing through my veins, I’m itching for a fight.

Plus, the bastard needs to pay for what he did to Lloyd.