Simon fell onto the couch with a sigh. He wanted a beer. Hell, he wanted to get blind stinking drunk, but that was never a good idea for a shifter. And besides, if he wanted to wipe out his brain function, all he had to do was go grizzly. In fact, that’s exactly what he’d done ten months ago, and where had that gotten him? Ten months older and now without the skills needed to survive in Detroit.
He spent a few minutes with his eyes closed, remembering the bliss of wandering the UP as a bear. For ten months he’d slept, ate, and searched for a mate. No other thoughts on his mind, no other complications in his life.
He longed for that simplicity again, even though part of him sneered at the sheer uselessness of it. The world didn’t need more bears shagging in the woods. It needed smart men who could control a fracturing group of grizzly-shifters. But hell, it was hard, dangerous work, and he feared he wasn’t up to the task. He wasn’t leaving. Not by any stretch of the imagination, but the task ahead was daunting. And though he felt like he’d found his purpose in life—leading the Griz—that didn’t mean he’d be any good at it.
He heard Alyssa come in, and he kept his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. He’d felt her reaction when he’d said she wasn’t his mate. He’d known she was hurt and confused by everything that was happening, and he felt an ache deep inside at that. It was one of the reasons he was waxing nostalgic about being a bear. Grizzlies didn’t worry about other people’s feelings. They didn’t think ahead about how dangerous marrying a shifter would be for a woman. They simply mounted when the female was willing and wandered off when they weren’t.
“Quit the bullshit,” Alyssa said. “I know you’re awake.”
He slowly opened his eyes.
“Look,” she continued, “I’m not going to jump you. I just want to talk.”
He arched a brow. Jumping would be okay with him.
“And I know how those words strike horror in men, but I mean it. Things have gone really fast lately, and it’s hard for me to keep up. I just want, you know, clarification on some things.”
He didn’t respond. She was running this show and so he waited until she found her way to saying whatever was on her mind.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked.
He sighed. Women could be so damned illogical. “You haven’t asked a question yet.”
She blew out a breath. “Right.” Her tone conceded his point, but she was clearly frustrated. “Look, are you one of those one-night stand guys? I didn’t think you were, but if you are, then it’s okay. You’ve had me. We both enjoyed it. I just need to know that we’re done. We can move on.”
His head was lying backward against the couch, but at her words he lifted it off the cushions to stare at her. He looked at her fierce stance with her hands on her hips and her chin lifted. He saw the sweet shape of her breasts and the flare of her hips. Her wonderful nutty scent filled his nostrils and the sound of her tight breaths reminded him of other sounds she made, other times when her legs had been wrapped around his hips as she climbed to orgasm. These were constants whenever he looked at her and even when his eyes were closed, he remembered them. He relived them. He loved them.
Damn it, how could she not know that?
But obviously, she didn’t, so he spread his legs, making the bulge in his crotch obvious. And in case she was missing it, he gestured. “Alyssa, I want you. I’ll always want you.”
She jolted at that, and her gaze dropped to where he was now throbbing with want. And then her hands slid off her hips and but her chin didn’t lower. If anything, it tipped up a notch.
“So we’re just fuck buddies? I don’t do that, you know. Not even for you.” Her voice trembled with the words, but he couldn’t tell if it was the force of her conviction or because she wondered how he’d react.
“Do you know what it’s like being married to a shifter? The animal comes out sometimes at night. We don’t control it. It just happens, and suddenly you’re in bed with a grizzly bear.” Her eyes widened at that, but honestly forced him to admit the truth. “It’s rare, but among strong shifters like me, it happens.”
He leaned forward onto his knees, the weight of what he was saying feeling like it was pushing down between his shoulder blades. But he kept his head raised so he could look her in the eye. “I’m now alpha to a group of crazy urban bear-shifters. What the hell kind of nutcase chooses to be a bear in the city? They have to blow off steam, so they get into a war with the wolves because the dogs have to blow off steam, too. And why not run drugs or guns, too? It’s dangerous and we can scare the shit out of normals by going all big and bad.” He shook his head. “It’s suicide driven by shifter madness and I’m in charge of them now. And I’ll stay there until someone is bigger and badder, and he kills me.”
She dropped to her knees before him. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Of course, that’s how it happens! That’s how shifters work.”
She shook her head. “I was talking with Ryan some. You know, Detective Kennedy. He was explaining things about shifters and stuff. There are a couple million of you in the US alone. You have families and clans. All walks of life, too, like doctors and lawyers. You can’t just be killing each other willy-nilly without the rest of us knowing. I don’t believe it.”
He nodded. “When there are places to run. When we can let loose on the animal side.”
She gripped his thighs and he felt his groin pulse at the feel. She was so close, he could have her flipped over, stripped, and then be inside her before she would think to cry out.
“You’re the most controlled person I’ve ever known. Even when you’re wild, when you can’t even talk, you never hurt me. You were more considerate than any lover I’ve ever had.”
His nostrils flared at the idea that she’d ever had someone other than him, but he ruthlessly strangled the thought. It was uncivilized, and he was being civil right now. Which is why he didn’t throw her down on the floor and eat her until she came all over his tongue.
“My mother left us because my father went grizzly and ripped apart the living room. He was horny and trying to mount her.” He closed his eyes as he remembered. Simon had come home in the middle of it all and was able to tackle his father, though doing it as a scrawny teenager wasn’t going to save anyone. So he went grizzly, too, and when it was done, half the house was destroyed. “She took my sister with her, and I’ve never seen either of them again.”
“My God.”
“We already knew I was a shifter. That’s why she left me behind.” He shrugged. “I don’t blame her. Life with two grizzlies in the house was horrible. And dangerous.” That’s when he’d first started thinking about the military.
“Bullshit,” she snapped. “Any woman who leaves her kid like that is wrong. Just…wrong.”
She didn’t get it. “She was terrified for her life. With good reason.”
Alyssa nodded slowly. “Maybe. But even if that’s true, you’re not your father. That’s not who you are.”
“No. I’m in a more dangerous situation.” He gestured over her shoulder at the outside window. “Joey’s going to attack me soon. I give it a few days at most.”
“What?” The word was sharp and loud.
“I may not be able to read words, but faces are becoming clearer by the second. He thinks I’m an illiterate hick. He’s waiting for the right time to kill me, take over, and run the drugs himself.” Simon snorted. “He has an undergraduate degree in business. He thinks that’s all he needs to run an urban grizzly clan.” The boy’s idiocy would get him killed, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be collateral damage. He couldn’t save Vic. Vic was a hybrid and therefore in the thick of this. But Alyssa didn’t have to be. She was as vanilla as Betty Crocker.
“So you’ll take care of Joey,” she said.
He touched her cheek, loving the feel of every part of her skin. The feel, the color, the hills and valleys, and even the flaws. Because they were all her. “There’s always a Joey. Always a Nanook.”
“And you’ll always be Simon.” She pressed her hand to the back of his. Her words were gentle and there was such faith in her eyes that it cut at him. His mother had once looked at him that way. And then she’d grabbed his sister and taken off.
“You don’t know the monster I can become.”
She snorted. “You mean like ripping apart a grolar in front of me? Or shooting a drug dealer twice in the heart? Or how about when you spread me open on the bed and went in without a condom? Tell me, Simon, are you ever going to be worse than that?”
“My father was.”
“I’m not in a relationship with your father.” He felt the tension in her words. The implied question: Were they in a relationship?
“I don’t want that life for you,” he said, and he struggled to keep his tone level. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me. Or of the life I will lead as the Griz alpha.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I don’t remember giving you control over my life or my choices. You’re not my alpha.”
He looked at her and saw that she meant every word. She wanted to be with him. She trusted and believed in him despite everything she’d seen, everything he’d done. That simple faith cracked open every wall he’d erected in his life. Every barrier he put between himself and the rest of the world tumbled down. And all he was left with was a yearning that screamed through his body, that hollowed out his belly and ached in his throat.
He wanted her faith. He wanted her love. And he needed it with a hunger that didn’t understand boundaries or her choices. It was the kind of need that destroyed a living room. Or a family.
And so he brought out his last argument. The last barrier to a life she would end up hating.
“Have you thought about children?” he asked. “Shifter kids are hard to raise. They’re impulsive and wild, and that’s even if they don’t shift. If they do, well, many don’t survive the first change. There are instinctive needs and they hit at random when the hormones start flowing.”
“I live in gang territory in Detroit. Kids are always in danger. And dangerous to others.”
“How many friends have you lost?”
Her gaze skittered away. “Too many.”
“You want to risk that with your own kids?” He dropped his forehead to hers. “A shifter adolescent in gang territory Detroit. The complications of that are astronomical.” He shuddered at the very thought.
“Kids are always hard. One way or another.” She lifted up until they were nose to nose. “If we get there—when we get there—we’ll have decisions to make. Maybe we go live in the UP.”
“I’m alpha of the Griz. It’s the purpose I’ve been searching for since I left the military. I’m here until I’m killed.”
If she paled at his words, he didn’t see it. But he heard her breath catch and her heartbeat sped up. But she kept her body still and her eyes steady. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Once things stabilize, you can go on vacations. Our kids can take weekends and run off their animal stuff. We can go to the UP and still manage things back here.”
She was seeing all the upsides. All the possibilities, and a logical man would acknowledge them. But even as he nodded, accepting her words, his mind replayed the day his mother had left. The fear in her eyes and the screams of his sister who didn’t want to go. His mother had been a strong woman, too. She’d loved his father and him, but the shifter life had driven her away to the point that she’d left the man she loved and her only son. She’d run away and he couldn’t blame her for it. It wasn’t her fault. It was the shifter’s fault, and he and his father both carried the gene.
“I’m afraid I will destroy you,” he whispered. “And that would destroy me.”
She cupped his cheeks in both her hands. She pulled his face up to hers and she pressed her lips to his. He clung to her then. Just his lips, but oh he reached for her with them, wanted to draw her close forever. But other than his mouth, he held himself back.
“Simon,” she whispered. “I don’t destroy so easily.”
True. It was one of the things he most loved about her. She was strong and determined. She ran a successful business in Detroit. And she’d whipped her brother into shape when he’d probably fought her the whole time. She was damned strong, but he couldn’t risk it. He wouldn’t risk her. She was too special to destroy.
“You’re locked in your head, Simon,” she said as she straddled his lap. “You’re seeing only the bad side.”
“Someone has to.”
“Okay. So you saw it. You told me. And your mother was a bitch. But I’m not going to let her weakness destroy us. I’m just not.”
He huffed out a breath. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Yeah, I do.” She pressed another kiss to his lips. “I’m asking for you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t, Alyssa. You don’t understand what it means.”
She must have understood the importance of what he said. She must have felt the tension in his body because she stilled. Then she straightened up until she could look directly into his eyes. “We don’t have to decide anything tonight. It’s late. We’re both tired. If all we do is a repeat of yesterday, a coming together—”
He gripped her arms and tried to hold her back. But he didn’t have the strength, so he tried to use words. “It’s not like last night. Then I needed you to bring me back. To show me…” Love. “Tenderness. Gentleness.”
“Yes,” she said. “And—”
“And I don’t need that now. I’m not in that place now.”
She smiled. “That’s good—”
“There’s a thing we do, Alyssa. There’s a thing shifters do sometimes.” He grimaced. He’d never understood it before, but now he felt it. To the depths of his bones, he knew exactly what was going on. And it terrified him.
“You mean besides going furry?”
He looked her in the eyes and said the words. “We lock on to a mate. It’s one-sided, Alyssa, but it’s all consuming. We lock on to a mate and we don’t let go.”
Her lips curved into a soft smile. “That sounds nice.”
“Really? You ready to commit to me for life, Alyssa? Because I’m already half locked on. If we do this now, if I put myself inside you again…” He thrust up against her groin for emphasis. “If I do that, I’ll lock in completely. I won’t let you go no matter what you want. You won’t have a say in the matter, and when it’s bad…” He swallowed, but forced himself to go on. “When it’s really bad, you won’t get a say in anything.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. He wanted to leave it alone. To let those words be enough. But she had to see where he could go.
“Think of the worst stalker tales you’ve ever heard of. Those were shifters.”
She jerked back from him, and his hands tightened instinctively, keeping her exactly where she was.
“That’s bullshit,” she rasped. “They can’t all have been crazy shifters.”
“True. But enough were. Enough that you need to think very carefully. Do you want to commit to me now? For life? If not, then you better leave right now.”
She blinked at him. “What are you saying?”
He huffed out a breath. “I’m half mated with you right now. It’s the grizzly half, but the human part isn’t far behind. It’s going to see you as mine no matter what you want, how you want it, or anything. You’ll be mine and I won’t give you up. Ever.”
Her eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed. She was thinking romantically, and yeah, that was definitely there. But there was a darker side. A stalker side.
“You have to be ready to take me forever right now. Or you need to give me distance and I’ll slow this down.” He took a breath and forced his hands to release her. “Decide.”