Clawed (Black Mountain Bears Book 1) (11 page)

Emma took a deep breath and let it out slowly, digging deep for the courage to do what she knew she had to do. It had been hard enough having to give them up the first time, for the sake of their race, and for her cousins’ lives.

With a nod, she released them and wiped fiercely at her eyes. August rubbed her back, the gentle caress a small comfort. She sagged against his chest and pulled Julian down with her. They lay with arms and legs entwined. Emma had been so close to sleep a little while earlier, but now it was the furthest thing from her mind.

Soon, Julian’s light caressing of her abdomen gradually shifted and he traced a line up her sternum and around the swell of one breast. August slid his palm down her side and up over the round curve of her hip before venturing over her thigh. He wrapped his fingers around her leg, the span of his hand so vast it actually made her feel small for once. Those fingertips made her feel even more amazing, especially as they moved again, teasing up her inner thigh.

“I guess we’d better make the most of our time, then,” August rumbled.

Emma nodded and tilted her head back, accepting his mouth and savoring the thrust of his tongue between her lips just as his fingers slid between her folds. Another hand followed, Julian adding his own fingers to the mix while his mouth worked its way from her collarbone down the center of her chest and trailed a hot tongue across her skin to find her nipple.

They laid her down and continued to make slow, glorious love to her as the sun rose on the most bittersweet day of Emma’s life.

Chapter Nine

T
he entire walk back to the lodge shortly after dawn, Emma’s mind churned. Mostly with constantly rejected excuses to keep her mates with her, but the tiniest, most prominent part focused on her cousins and her newfound power. The power itself was still nebulous, but she could feel it inside her, a comfortable heat in her belly, just beneath her breastbone.

There was another glow inside her, too—the warm, heavy sensation in her lower abdomen of the power that signaled the presence of the baby she and her mates had conceived together.

Julian and August walked beside her, hands gripping hers. They stayed silent, the sounds of early morning a soft soundtrack accompanying their walk through the woods.

Emma was pretty sure their thoughts mirrored her own.

“I need a name,” she blurted.

Both men jerked their heads to look at her, surprised by her sudden outburst.

“For the baby,” she said. “If it’s a girl, I want to name her after my mother. But I don’t have any good boy names in mind.”

“Gunnar,” Julian said, without missing a beat.

Emma smiled. “Settled,” she said. “If he comes out with white hair, you guys might not be happy, though.”

August’s steps faltered and Emma immediately regretted her words. They wouldn’t even be here when their child was born.

“I didn’t mean . . . ” she began, and stopped when August squeezed her hand. He halted and pulled her around to face him.

“We understand the sacrifice you’re making. The one we’re all making. We also know what your mother did for us all. She wouldn’t be near death right now if she hadn’t done it. It won’t be easy for any of us for a long time.”

“I just don’t understand what the threat is. I’ll do anything to keep us all safe, but what about everyone else?”

“Humans are not at risk from this threat, Princess. Only our kind,” Julian said.

“The enemy . . . ” August began, his throat constricting for a second before he continued. “They’re called the Ultiori. They capture our people. They experiment on us, drain our blood, infuse themselves with it to gain our powers. They can, for a time, but it doesn’t last. I think they want more. And I think they’ve found a way to make it permanent.”

“This is what my mother’s hiding from me?” Emma asked.

August nodded. “She’s still the queen. She loves you, so she didn’t burden you with this so soon after having you back.”

“But she’s dying, and I’m her heir. I should
know
these things.”

“It’s been two days, Princess. Give her a break,” Julian said.

“Do you know how long she has left?” Emma asked. Her fists clenched at her sides as she waited for the answer. God, if her mother died . . .

“No . . . I think she still has enough power to choose the time of her death,” August said.

“We can do that?”

“We could die right now, if we had a purpose we believed in and an appropriate receptacle for our energy. Whatever we left behind would be given to our offspring.”

Emma’s heart stopped. Her mother could . . . die . . . to give her all her remaining power? Oh, God, or Gaia, or whomever, she hoped her mother didn’t intend to do that.

She sped up, her bare feet hitting the worn dirt path harder, then broke into a run.

“Emma!” Julian called after her.

“I’ve fucked around my entire life! I’m not wasting this time.”

Her heart pounded with the exertion of her run, but she didn’t stop. Julian and August paced her and she was grateful that they simply ran beside her rather than making her stop.

In spite of the anguish, she felt amazing. She wasn’t a runner, but the idea sank into her brain like an instinct and she let it. She stripped bare, shifted, and ran.

She had no care for anything but the flex of her limbs and the sweet scent of the forest in her nostrils.

When she reached the lodge, she shifted back.

Julian and August were with her, smiling conspiratorially.

“You left your clothes about a mile back,” Julian said.

“How far are yours?” Emma asked.

“About as far,” August said. “You surprised us. But I never regret a chance to shift.”

She turned to look at the entrance to the lodge. There was no decision to make about whether she’d take that walk or not. They all knew it.

“This week is it for us,” she said. “I hate this.”

She hugged August, then turned to her other mate and took him into her arms. She lingered for a moment with Julian. “I wish we’d had more time,” she said, thinking about his kiss with Gunn. There had been so much love between them, but they’d easily let it go. How much time did anyone really have with the people they loved?

Then she left them standing in the entry to the lodge and walked resolutely into the throne room where her cousins still lay comatose.

She still had no idea how to use her powers. She stared down at Jasper’s silent body, pale and gaunt from two days of inertia.

“This is for you, Jas,” Emma murmured, pressing her hands against his chest.

She closed her eyes, summoning the glow of energy that rested deep inside her. It came rushing through her veins, her palms tingling as though she’d just pressed them simultaneously to a block of ice and a glowing ember. She opened her eyes with a gasp, in time to see the power flood into her cousin’s chest.

Jasper’s prone form jerked and made a sudden inhalation. He breathed for a few seconds, his eyes meeting hers.

“Emma? I had the weirdest dream.”

“It’s about to get weirder,” she said as she moved to Jade to repeat the process.

* * *

Emma padded wearily up the stairs, looking forward to several hours of nothing but sleep. She’d been given a room on the third floor of the lodge, overlooking the garden, but this would be the first time spending more than five minutes in it. When she’d arrived with Julian and August, she’d sent them up to wait for her.

Voices carried out onto the balcony outside her room, a ledge similar to the one outside her mother’s that overlooked the vast throne room below. They were raised in argument, two of the female voices the most vehement of them all.

“It was not your decision, Windchaser! She’s the princess of our race! Mating common guardians was not her fate.” Emma recognized her mother’s voice, fierce and loud, but quavering enough to signal to Emma how much she strained to push enough energy into it.

“I’d say that was
exactly
her fate, considering that’s what happened. You can’t argue with the outcome. And it worked! She has two mates who adore her, and an heir on the way. You know a Windchaser would never have been able to do so well for her, even the son of a clan leader.”

Autumn?
Emma slowed and paused outside the door, hesitating to venture further. When she peered into the sunlit room, she found it filled with people. Julian and August stood near the windows of the far side of the room, their heads bent as though looking out, though she was sure they were more absorbed with the events inside the room. On the bed sat Gunnar, his arms crossed as he regarded the confrontation between his friend and Emma’s mother.

Her father, aunt, and uncle stood behind her mother with troubled looks on their faces. Her dad looked like he really wanted to say something, but was waiting for the right moment. Emma knew that look—knew that feeling, too. It was precisely how she felt right now. She should step in, but needed to know more about what they were fighting about, aside from her rebellious mating.

“You don’t understand,” her mother said. “You’ve destroyed her life! I know what it’s like to have to live without my mate for better than two decades. I never wanted this for my daughter, yet you’ve come and condemned her to that fate without any regard to her feelings.”

Autumn’s jaw clenched, her hands forming fists at her sides. She took a deep breath and Emma could imagine steam flowing from her nostrils. When she spoke again, her voice was low and even, her head held high, and her gaze fixed on Emma’s mother.

“I’m not a fool, my lady. I know how much it means to every female of our race to not be parted from her mate. I
have
no mate yet. Neither does Gunnar. Which is why we want to offer to take the place of Emma’s mates as guardians. I grew up in the human world, so I’ll be comfortable there. And Gunnar has always wanted to learn about it.” She turned her head and squarely met Emma’s gaze. “And our friend would find the happiness she so deserves.”

Emma moved then, striding into the middle of them with determination.

“No, Autumn. You can’t do this. What about . . . ”

Autumn cut her off. “We’re doing it for you and your child, Emma. And our entire race. You need your mates nearby.”

Emma shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

August and Julian approached from the window. They both looked at Autumn as though they were about to drop to their knees and kiss her feet.

August looked at Emma, his expression grave. “It means we still have to leave before the New Year, but we can come back before the Sanctuary is closed to travelers, provided Autumn and Gunnar arrive to take our place beforehand.”

“We’ll only be gone a couple months, at the most. With any luck only a few weeks,” Julian said. “And they are Windchasers—they’ll be able to come and go, just not as frequently as the other Windchaser runners.”

Emma stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Autumn. “You are my absolute favorite person right now, do you know that?” Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks as she tightened her hold on the other woman.

Autumn laughed. “You deserve happiness. Besides, I can’t take all the credit. It was Gunn’s idea, but he needed a female voice to argue with your mother.”

In a low whisper, Emma said, “What about Jasper? He’s awake now.”

Autumn tensed and pulled away, casting her eyes at the floor for a second before meeting Emma’s again. Sadness dwelled deep in her brown-eyed depths. “We had to make a choice. I decided to follow your example, and I don’t regret it. Maybe he won’t remember, anyway. He was half-delirious during the trip to bring him and his sister here.”

“But you and Gunn deserve love, too,” Emma said.

“Your child deserves a safe, loving home to grow up in, and Gunn and I will have each other. The fact that Jasper and his sister are alive right now is enough for us. Be safe, Princess, and keep your child and our love safe, too.”

As Autumn and Gunnar left the room, Emma steeled herself to face her mother.

She’d expected anger, disappointment, but all that greeted her on the older woman’s face was a profound look of acceptance and understanding.

“This is truly what would make you happy?”

Emma sighed and sank back against the pair of solid bodies that came up behind her and slipped their arms around her waist.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that, but yes, Mama. This is what will make me happy, and I think we’ll all be better off for the choices made last night.”

Her mother took a deep breath and let out a tired sigh. “Very well. I am happy to see that you are a woman of conviction, and with friends like Autumn and Gunnar, and mates like Julian and August, you will make a very formidable Queen. I am proud of you.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

When the others left the room, she turned and pressed her face into one of the solid chests behind her. They held her close for a second, then she found herself hoisted effortlessly into August’s arms while Julian turned down the bed.

“How much time do we have again?” Emma asked.

“Eight days,” Julian said, climbing into the bed and sliding to the far side. August laid her on the comfortable mattress and slid in beside her, still naked from their run through the woods.

“We’d better make it last,” she said, reveling in their warmth on either side of her

“Trust me, Princess, we have no plans to let you leave this room until then.”

Want More?

The Hunt isn’t over, not by a long shot. The next book in Ophelia Bell’s Black Mountain Bears is
Bitten
. It’s the story of Jasper, Autumn, and Gunnar, and their journey to find happily ever after…

Jasper Stonetree used to think he knew what he wanted, but meeting the beautiful pair of ursa who just saved his life changes everything.

Autumn Sundance and Gunnar Windchaser have him twisted so tight he can’t think straight.

His entire life, Jasper’s cared more about his family. Romantic entanglements only lead to pain, after all. Yet after following his cousin into a fantasy realm he had never imagined—his birthplace, no less—he begins to see the truth of what he is.

He is an ursa male, and one of two chosen by a high-ranking female.

And that female is in trouble.

On the chase to save his female, Jasper is forced to make a choice. Leave behind his true family—his blood. Or take a step there will be no retreat from to save the woman he loves and hopefully forge a new family outside the ursa Sanctuary.

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