Betray The Bear (3 page)

Use
? What a strange word to apply to what he did with her. She enjoyed sex with him too. But something was changing inside of her. She frowned at her reflection. Was sex enough to satisfy her for the entirety of her life?

It has to be
, the shade of her mother whispered.

She took a deep breath and expelled it from her lungs.
Draping her hands on her slim hips, she turned from side to side. She was twenty-five but looked much younger with the lack of hair on her lady parts. Or maybe it was her face. Eyes too wide and innocent looking, nose too petite. She even had freckles across her cheeks, though Nathan preferred she cover them with make-up, which she did. Today, she must’ve wiped the foundation from her cheeks as she worked the gardens in the relentless sunlight.

“You’re beautiful,”
Nathan said in a low voice from the top of the stairway. She searched his reflected face in the mirror but he was serious and calm as he admired her backside. “Get on my bed.”

His command sent a thrill through her. She’d always been attracted to dominant males who knew what they wanted.

“On your knees,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. His hooded eyes followed her journey to the bed, and a wicked smile crooked his lips as she settled onto her knees on top of the plush, king-sized mattress.

He pulled off his shirt and shucked his jeans, then took himself in hand and pulled a long stroke against his erection. “Now, touch yourself.”

Spreading her knees wider, she trailed her fingertips down her stomach and cupped her sex. With a deep, teasing breath, she slid her finger inside of her and arched her neck back. His breath hitched as she eased out and pressed in again.

A minute passed and still, he didn’t touch her. She was going to come soon and he usually didn’t like her finishing without him, but he wasn’t stopping her either. She closed her eyes and moaned as her hands shook against their duty.

“Stop,” he said, just as she was about to tip over the edge.

She froze, irritated that she was so close and controlled by his frivolous wants. Stalking to the bed, his approach was slow and deliberate, like a predator on t
he hunt. His shaft looked stone hard and an angry red. She drew her gaze up his body to the scars Joanna’s new mate had inflicted during battle.

“Don’t look at that,” he
demanded in a harsh voice.

Sliding out of herself, she averted her gaze. His long fingers were painful as he jerked her chin to meet his
eyes.

“What’s wrong with you today?” he asked low.

“Nothing.” She bit her tongue against the urge to walk out.

“You know better than to look at the scars, yet here you are, defying my orders.”

“I don’t remember there being orders in our bedroom before this,” she observed boldly. Her cheeks heated, and she bit her bottom lip as anger bloomed in his face.

“Our bedroom, Anya? No, love. This is my bedroom
, and you’ll do best to remember that. Turn around. Get on your hands and knees.”

She frowned but did as she was told. He knew she didn’t like it from behind. He was never careful with the angle of his shaft
, and he was too rough. She could never come like this. Apparently he wasn’t concerned with that anymore. His strong hands grasped her backside and her back flexed instinctively.

“No more defiance, mate,” he growled, then thrust into her, hard.

She gasped at the unexpected pain that warred with pleasure and clenched the bed sheets in her fists as he pounded into her again and again. His pace was too fast, frantic almost, and she screwed up her face to still the urge to plead with him to slow down. She grunted at the discomfort, but he was almost finished. Wildly, he bucked against her until the sound of his flesh slapping hers filled the room like rhythmic drumming.

“Joanna,” he whispered.

Offended, Anya cast a glance over her shoulder, and he was staring with such intensity at the bench seat he’d made Joanna sit on more than a month ago. He had spilled into Anya then while staring at Joanna’s naked body, and he was doing it again without the woman even being here. Asshole.

She lurched forward to escape him, angry that he’d disrespect her so epically, but he gripped her hips and slammed against her one last time, freezing in place as he
shot warm wetness into her.

She felt empty. Like a hollow vessel for him to fill at his whim.
Her heart broke a little more.

Pulling out of her, he pushed her forward and she landed with an
oof
on her stomach. He curled around her like he usually did, but it lacked affection this time. He didn’t feel much for her either. Or if he did, he was still angry about her defying him, and her punishment was aloofness.

It had been like this since Merit had come to the Long Claws.
“I hate Merit.”

“Are you jealous, love?” he asked against her hair.

Love. There was that word again. “Do you love me?” she asked. She’d never wondered it out loud to him before.

“Do you love me?” he countered. It wasn’t lost on her that he avoided answering. His evasive tactics were answer enough.

“Yes.” At least, she thought she did before Joanna. Maybe he wouldn’t hear the lie in her voice. Or perhaps he wouldn’t care.

“Merit will be around for a long time. Best you get used to her, Anya.”

Minutes drifted by and she thought he would fall asleep as he often did after pumping his seed into a woman. His voice surprised her when he said, “I chose you today because I need to talk to you about something. I have a job for you, one where you could serve me and the Long Claws in an honorable way.”

“A job?”
Her heart quickened with the possibility of leaving the gardens. Maybe he’d changed his mind about letting her do pipe work. Then she would be able to travel the mountains with a pipe crew. She’d escape life here for a few hours a day, and relieve the stifling fog that had taken over her life lately.

“I need Joanna back.”

Frowning at the unexpected turn in their conversation, she asked, “Did Joanna agree to come back home?”

“Doesn’t matter. Her mate has to die for what he did to me.
I’d planned to finish him at the meeting with Joanna, but Riker accompanied her instead. That coward, Brody, never even bothered to show up.”

Okay. She was
confused. Joanna had left with this man, Brody, on purpose, and she didn’t seem the type to come running back to Nathan. If he killed her mate, how would that get Nathan what he wanted? “Does she love him?”

“What is with your
obsession with love today? Don’t mention the word to me again or I’ll punish you.” His voice was quiet and dangerous, and she swallowed hard.

“I won’t mention it again,” she promised. “The job?”

“You’re leaving here, Anya, for a month at least.”

Dread slammed into her and her heart drummed against her sternum. Leave here?
This was home, the only one she had ever known. She wasn’t equipped for the outside world and even if she was, she’d heard horrible stories about bear shifters on the outskirts of clans. Such a doomed feeling washed over her, she sat straight up and turned to see if he was serious, handling her fate so carelessly. “Why? Where will I go?” The panic in her voice wasn’t pretty, but hang it all. Her mate was throwing her away.

“You and Joanna bonded, and she’ll be your ticket into Bear Valley.”

“Bear Valley?” she whispered, horrified. Nathan had told her awful things about the shifters there. They beat their mates, took them as they pleased. She was first mate to the alpha of the Long Claw Clan. She was respected here. There, she’d be used or brutalized, or worse. “You can’t mean it, Nathan.”

He propped up on his elbow and his eyes were hard and cold, like shards of glass. “I won’t keep a mate who is useless to me. We’ve been paired for two years, and still you haven’t given me a cub. What use is a sterile mate to a man in my position? Because I care for you, I’m giving you a chance to prove your worth to me. If you succeed, I will consider keeping you.”

Consider keeping—he’d lost his damned mind! A pairing didn’t work like that. Did it? He’d told the clan she was his mate, wasn’t that all she needed to keep her place here?

Until you’re of no use to me…
She’d heard him say something similar the night he’d tried to announce his mating to Joanna. Was that how it worked with him? Mates were expendable? Interchangeable and unimportant, to be switched out as needed?

“Greta and April haven’t given you cubs either. Why not one of them?” she asked in desperation.

“You have a full year on them, Anya. You haven’t even gone into heat in the last year and a half. Spy on Bear Valley, get me the ammunition I need to drag that traitorous clan through fields of its own blood, and you’ll remain mated to me.”

“I can’t do this,” she whispered as a tear slipped down her cheek.

“You will, or I’ll kill you, Anya.” The way he said it was so nonchalant, like he was telling her what kind of tea he liked.

“You can’
t mean this, Nathan.” The sting of his betrayal was too much. Her chest felt like some great weight had sat upon her. She couldn’t draw a breath.

His eyes narrowed to angry slits.
“I can, and I do.”

“Again,” Chase
Hale called after two snarling black bears separated from a vicious volley of slaps.

“You don’t think they’ve got this?” Brody asked. He sat at the edge of the wooden table he’d dragged out to the training arena
, and kicked at a stone with the toe of his boot.

Chase shook his head. Brody was losing his edge. Joanna was softening him somehow. It was a sad thing to happen to a dominant fighter like Brody, but his friend didn’t seem
to see the problem with it.

“Do you? You trust Joanna to be ready if you go easy on her?”

Brody watched his mate fight with stormy eyes. “You’re right.”

Riker, Bear Valley’s alpha, leaned his chin onto his arms over the fence. “If Nathan is going to attack, he sure is taking his sweet
-ass time about it.”

“Impatient for battle?” Chase asked, studying the lineup of trainees he had for the rest of the day on his clipboard.

“Yes.” He inhaled deeply. “And no. It feels like I have so much more to lose than the other battles now. We’ve been in peace-time for so long.”

“That and you have H
annah now,” Chase muttered. Women made dominant bear shifters weak. If these two knuckle-heads beside him couldn’t see that, they were blind.

“I think she’s pregnant,” Riker said, though when Chase turned a
shocked gaze to his alpha, it looked like he hadn’t meant to say the words out loud.

“Are you serious, man?” Brody asked.

“Shit,” Riker muttered. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s just a hunch.”

“Why do you think she’s pregnant?” Chase asked carefully.

“She smells different.” Riker cleared his throat. “And she tastes different.”

Chase arched his eyebrows, suddenly more intrigued. “Tastes different, how?”

“You know how, you pervy bastard.”

“Does she think she is?” Brody asked.

“She hasn’t acted like she does.”

Brody cocked his head. “Well, why don’t you enlighten her then?”

“Because what if I’m wrong? She’d be devastated. She wants a baby so bad. I can’t just tease her with something like that.”

“Again,” Chase called out as Joanna and
Brad separated, panting. “I don’t understand. She’s human. Isn’t it supposed to be next to impossible for us to breed with humans?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I was looking for it to happen so soon, if ever. I know she wants one, but I was prepared to forego fatherhood if it meant I got Hannah. And Jesus, it took Jenny and Blaine years to get pregnant. This just isn’t something I considered.”

“So, you don’t want a baby?” Chase understood that. Pairing with a mate was scary enough, but if he had a child with one, he would be tethered to her fate even tighter.

“Of course I want a baby. I want a little girl who looks like Hannah. But I swear to God
, if you repeat any of this I’ll skin you both.”

Riker could do it too. Chase ha
d been to battle with his alpha many times. The man hid a bloodthirsty beast inside of him.

Brody narrowed his eyes
speculatively at his mate. “Jo is going to freak out.”

“Oh, no. You
’re not even allowed to tell Joanna,” Riker said. “That’s an order.”

“Why not?”

“Because she and Hannah are close, and she’ll tell her. No. It stays between us until I know for sure.” Riker sauntered off and said over his shoulder, “I mean it.”

“Congratulations!” Brody called.

Riker didn’t turn around and Chase couldn’t be sure from behind, but the alpha’s cheeks swelled like he was smiling. Riker used to never smile. Congratulations? Brody had lost his damned mind. Their battle-hardened alpha was already balking against a war with the Long Claws because Hannah made him softer. Having a child would turn him into a marshmallow.