~

 

Bowie needed to talk to Dane. His bear was trudging towards Dane and Rayner when he’d heard his name on Dane’s lips.

He was glad that those two weren’t doing what came naturally to mates, because that would have been … awkward, but he had to wonder what the hell he’d done now to piss off his alpha.

“Geez, Dane, ten years ago Bowie would have been an adolescent, I probably could have taken his head off back then,” Rayner tossed back and piqued Bowie’s interest even more.

“Look, I’ll admit that Bowie wasn’t the same person back then, but still, Colt is one bad news bear,” Dane growled.

Bowie stopped in his tracks, cocked his head to the left, and listened hard. Colt, there was a damn blast from the past that he hadn’t revisited in a while.

While it was true that he sometimes remembered the events of that night so long ago – sometimes they even woke him from his dreams — it wasn’t something that Bowie wanted to dwell on. He’d done a lot of that over the years and it had screwed with his head.

Why were they talking about it now? He knew that Dane had always put that night down to the moment that he had become a screw-up.

His brother was probably right.

“Well, Bowie can just stay out of this one,” Rayner said, and he could hear the hesitation in her voice.

“That’s not the point,” Dane shot back.

“The point is Bute wants Colt, and that will end the debt,” Rayner tossed back.

Bowie got it now. He understood what it was that they were talking about. It had nothing to do with him — it was one of Rayner’s jobs.

Bowie’s beast grumbled. His bear would love another try at Colt.

Maybe this was his chance to put his past behind him. If not, then maybe this was the answer that he needed to his mating problems.

If Colt could still better him, then he could just as easily kill him.

Bowie shifted into his human form and stalked toward the clearing where Dane and Rayner were still arguing. Rayner did a double take on the bare-ass naked shifter as he walked towards them.

Bowie was built like a brick outhouse, even the man’s muscles had muscles. His biceps were locked up hard, as she flicked her eyes down to take in his fisted hands at his sides, and tried not to look anywhere else.

“We should do this,” Bowie growled.

“Bowie…” Rayner started, but the man cut her off.

“I’m good. This is good. I need this,” Bowie said.

The man looked slightly strained, slightly crazed, and slightly desperate all mixed into one. Rayner didn’t think that was a good look for him. It certainly didn’t bode well for him going after Colt.

“Maybe you’re right…” Rayner tossed out to Dane.

“No,” Bowie snapped. “I need this.” He repeated.

“It’s not a damn good idea,” Dane growled.

“I need this,” Bowie said again, getting more agitated each time he had to repeat himself.

“We’ll talk about it,” Dane said.

“We just did — we’ll do it,” Bowie growled back.

 

~

~

~

 

Bowie walked the long way around the edge of the cabins so that he didn’t have to get too close to Mitzi’s. He liked her scent, but it was also a temptation that he was trying to fight against.

There was a war raging within him and he knew that it was one that he needed to win. His beast wasn’t making it easy.

His bear clawed inside of him to be set free, but trying to help Rayner to train herself to keep her bear under wraps had also helped him with his own beast. He slapped that cage door shut on his monster.

Bowie wasn’t about to let his beast out now. He had too much to lose. That damn bear would make a beeline straight for Mitzi, and he couldn’t let that happen.

Bowie wanted nothing more than to bring the female into his arms, feel her body against his, and take her scent at the source. It had gotten so bad that at night he laid awake just thinking about it, and thinking got him hot under the collar, and that only served to hyper his bear once more.

Sleeping had become less of a routine and more of a snatched occurrence where and when he could. His dreams were full of Mitzi and he couldn’t get away from her in his waking hours either. In truth, he didn’t want to.

Bowie wasn’t dead yet, and while he was alive it was his job to take care if her and Joshua. He had to keep them from harm, and with Tank away, he was all she had.

He resented her brother on so many damn levels that it wasn’t close to being funny. The man would always be around to protect Mitzi and Joshua, and he hated him for that honour.

Bowie knew that he didn’t have much longer. The mating pull was starting to worm its way into his body, his mind, and into his very soul. Then there was his beast, and the damn crazy-bear wanted its mate.

Bowie couldn’t let that happen. He’d screwed up his own life with his out if control beast and there was no way in hell that he would screw up Mitzi’s or Joshua’s.

Joshua wouldn’t be thankful to have him as a father and he certainly couldn’t teach him what he’d need to know to control his beast. That was best left to his brothers.

Hell, even Rayner had more of a handle on her bear than he did, and then there was Tank – he didn’t much like the guy, but he was a good brother to Mitzi and a damn good uncle to the boy.

He hunched his shoulders forward as he rounded the corner of the cabin, and there she was, his mate, coming in the other direction and almost running into him.

Bowie’s brain seemed to short circuit and he went to reach out to her, but when she pulled back, his brain kicked his ass into gear, and he thrust his hands into the front pockets of his jeans so that he wouldn’t be tempted to do that again.

“I was looking for you,” Mitzi said, all bright eyes and with a pretty smile on her lips that made him ache for her.

“Why?” He scowled, wondering what possible reason she could have for singling him out. His heart soared, his pulse rate climbed, and he imagined getting lost in her eyes.

“The hot water in the cabin isn’t working and I was wondering if you knew how to fix it.” Mitzi offered him a small apologetic shrug.

“Sure,” Bowie said.

He was disappointed, but on some level he was grateful that there hadn’t been anything more. That would have been … awkward.

He wanted to tell her to get Dane or Roland to look at it, just so that he didn’t have to spend more time in her company than he needed to, but he knew that his beast wasn’t going to let him walk away from her when she’d asked for his help.

She was his mate and it was written in his DNA to take care if her any way that he could.

“I wanted to jump in the shower while Joshua was sleeping, but…”

Mitzi stopped talking at the rumble of a growl that came from Bowie, and when she cocked her head to one side, he snapped off that damn growl.

The thought of seeing her naked in the shower filled him with so much desire that his rock hard length physically ached with need and tried busting out of his jeans to get to her. Need led to doing, and with the mating pull ticking inside of him like a damn time bomb, Bowie didn’t know how much longer he could stay away from her.

She was like a craving, an addiction, and he was getting weaker in his fight against it.

Mitzi was grateful that she’d finally gotten a rise out of the big shifter, apart from the obvious one that created a bulge in his pants. From the moment that she’d scented him she’d known that he was her mate, and her bear had been scratching within her to do something about it ever since, but what?

Either than man had no sense of smell, or he hadn’t sniff anywhere near her yet. She’d started to wonder if it was her.

What bear shifter didn’t want his mate? Maybe one that was disgusted by her.

That thought hurt. That feeling of being unlovable had clawed away in her very soul just as much as her bear clawed inside.

She didn’t know if he found her physically repulsive, or if it was the fact that she had Joshua. Some men just couldn’t handle the reality of another man’s child, but that didn’t normally apply to bear shifters.

Bowie had given up his cabin for her, and she’d thought that was a good sign, now she wasn’t so sure. She’d been there for days, and apart from watching her like a damn hawk from beneath his dark thick lashes, the man had kept his distance and hadn’t said more than a few grunted words to her in passing – usually as he hightailed it away from her.

She’d been lying awake at night just thinking on it, and imagining him being there and having his strong arms around her. It didn’t help that the whole cabin scented of him, and she’d wished more than a million times that Tank was there to take her away from her mate who didn’t want her.

She’s come to the conclusion that Bowie didn’t even think enough of her to give her any reason why he was denying her as his mate. That was okay too. She got it, she was damaged goods in his eyes, but it still hurt like hell.

“Now?” Mitzi asked when the man didn’t move a muscle to go anywhere. Damn, but he looked trapped, caged, and his eyes were boring into her like he could read her deepest, darkest thoughts. Like that wasn’t unnerving.

“Sure,” he grunted.

Bowie was trying his damnedest to get a handle on his bear, on himself, and trying not to yank her towards him and bury his face against her hair, take her scent, and then bury his cock so deep that all of his damn Christmases came at once.

She was his mate, his damn mate, how could he not claim her?