MC Bear My Baby (Beartooth Brotherhood MC) (13 page)

T
ate knew
no amount of oxygen in his lungs was going to make this fight any easier. He’d seen the security camera footage and knew damn well what he was up against, reading their size difference. He’d have to be all heart if he wanted to beat Jett into the ground. Not as if he didn’t have the motivation.

“Shit, did that really come out of your own head, dork?” He quietly chastised himself, straightened his shoulders.

Crap.

I’m toast if I don’t even believe I can beat the bastard.

He shoved open the huge industrial door that led into the warehouse. “I believe you were looking for me?”

Tate strolled through the entrance with his eyes pinned on Molly, who had her hand resting on her stomach. That Jett fucker was kneeling beside her, caressing her hair. Oh no, he didn’t need to be the man’s size. He would kill the douchebag for touching her, plain and simple. That truth stung so hard that when he glanced down, hands had shifted to claws and were digging into his leather pants, ripping them to shreds. Fuck, what was the point in stopping now? They were going to get this wild party started anyway, right?

“Let’s do this shit,” his last syllable came out in a quake of sound as he fully shifted over to his bear form. He embraced the dizziness, ridiculous pain, and mind-numbing pleasure of accepting his true nature. He’d always been more beast than man, no point in pretending otherwise.

“Excuse me, baby. I think I have a fight to win in your honor.” Jett leaned over and kissed Molly’s cheek.

It was not even a second that went by after Jett stood up and took a step away from Molly, that Tate was charging the son of a bitch head on without warning. Tate was in his bear form, but that motherfucker was still human. Jett didn’t say anything about fighting fair, now did he? The man had been stalking his woman, and in the last twenty-four hours had blown up his bike, knocked out Axe with God knows what kind of drugs to the system, kidnapped Molly, and then he’d gone and topped off that whole shit show by laying a hand on her to lovingly caress her baby bump? Fuck fair right up the ass.

Tate hit Jett, who had shifted to his animal by the time they were sprawled out on the floor. This was going to be a grappling match of epic proportions. Fur practically flew as both bears fought dirty. Tate got a good claw shot to the eye right as Jett locked his teeth around Tate’s forearm. He grunted with a small whine, agony only furthering his reasoning for beating the other shifter into the ground, judgment day style. Tate swiped his other paw under his enemy’s jaw and Jett barely relinquished his hold, only giving Tate enough space to rip into Jett’s arm, tearing a mess of skin in the process until Jett dug his claws into Tate’s gut. For a blinding second of pure pain, he wished he could swear instead of making primal bear grunts.

They struggled on the floor while Tate fought to keep the upper hand. If he let Jett roll him onto his back, well fuck, there’d be no coming back from that. He hit every available avenue of painful real estate on the other bear’s body. Each blow made him chuff a little bit harder. He was burning from the inside out. Every second was pure hell to stay on top of Jett as his bantam-sized grizzly bear body lunged, ripped, and tore unforgivingly and without mercy. Tate couldn’t even pretend to be in the same weight class as this fucking beast. But what he lacked in size he made up for with pure, unadulterated rage.

He growled in Jett’s face and a shower of bear drool rained down on his opponent, and he took a small chunk out of Jett’s nose, just for spite. If Jett survived this fight, it would grow back.
If he survived.
The other bear roared in agony, drowning out the swift beat of Tate’s heart. That must have hurt his pride real good. It made Tate show all of his teeth in a feral bear grin as he went back to undercutting his opponent, bit by fucking bit.

Despite the blood in his eyes, Tate fought.

He had something to fight for—family.

“Hold up, bro! I got your back, hang in there! To the left! He’s gonna go left!” Axe called out from across the warehouse. “Watch out—”

Too late.

Tate ducked left and Jett went right, charging his full fucking over-one-hundred-pound weight difference into the blow as Tate got knocked to his back. He was as good as a turtle now. There wasn’t time to counteract the other bear’s wrath as the slick motherfucker went on all fours above Tate.

This? This was going to be bad, and would probably hurt like hell too.

Tate braced himself for impact.

It never came.

When he took a second to focus on the large lumbering body above him, the bear wasn’t falling toward him. He was listing to the side at a rapid rate. Because another bear was ripping into his shoulder, grappling onto his back like super glue.

Axe.

It had to be Axe.

Except that didn’t make sense, because how had he gotten free of the snow chains? Tate did a mental shrug, glad either way for the help. He threw himself back onto all fours and got himself back into the fight. No sooner had he started his offensive attack when there was a loud whistle through the warehouse. Tate went from lunging toward Jett’s throat to glancing over toward his president with a low growl. Fuck no, this fight was
not
stopping.

He went in for the finishing blow.

“No!” Silas roared. “Tate, if you rip his throat out, you’re going against the club regs. I’ll take your fucking patch myself.”

The need for blood down his throat beat into him like a second pulse. It was all he could taste, smell, or even think about despite his president’s wishes. Silas knew it too, crazy fucker. Bloodlust was a damn good motivator, and hard to shake mid-point. It wasn’t until he watched Jett’s gashes, cuts, and other nasties healing before his eyes before he shifted back into his human form, that Tate started to warm up to the idea of ending Jett right there and then.

Axe shifted back. Tate was the one left in his animal form. He continued to paw at the concrete, chuffing and pacing.

Silas gave him a sideways glance, narrowing his eyes. “I’m making the choice for you, buddy. No blood on your hands. Instead we’re exiling the motherfucker from membership with the Beartooth Brotherhood and any other charter that shares our enemies. Cole, strip him of his patch and fuck up his ink.”

“You got it, Si.” Cole stepped in from the direction of the warehouse entrance. He moved with Axe, both taking their time as they dragged off a wounded and slightly struggling Jett.

Buried beneath his rage, Tate felt as if he couldn’t clear his head, couldn’t think straight. He still wanted to bound out of the warehouse and rip the guy’s head clean off his neck.

“Tate? Are you in there?” Molly’s face registered in his vision as her hand came up to cup his bear muzzle, slick with cooling blood. “I need you to shift back for me, okay? It’s really important.”

The words were registering, but way too slowly. He couldn’t quite connect them, couldn’t keep up. He blinked and made sure she was okay. Something didn’t look right. His primal brain struggled to put the pieces together. There was something…something he should be…getting…

Fuck, she was using the wrong hand. Molly was petting him with her left hand. Her right arm hung lifelessly in a way that no healthy arm should hang—

In seconds he was forcing himself to heal the pain and numbness on his left side, from shoulder to hip bone, before transforming back to his human. Thank fuck bruises didn’t last long in their world. He healed in less than a minute. He realized that in one moment, ending Jett was his only goal, but then in the next, he saw the bigger picture. Molly was hurt. His seed might be hurt too. His son—who he’d sensed was a boy from the very beginning, but didn’t give voice to his gender because he didn’t know if Molly would keep the baby. Fuck, he still didn’t know. He couldn’t do anything for them now after expending all his energy on healing his own wounds. Silas and Cole, and maybe Dean if he was around, they would have to shift to bear form and heal her. They needed two or more bears in animal form to heal a human, more if their wounds were life-threatening. As a man, he could only fix up his human Molly as best as modern first aid and medicine would do, or as best as she could tell him, since she was the one on the nursing career track, not him.

Back in his human body, his first sensation was the cold concrete beneath him, followed by his racing, panicked heartbeat. An injured Molly was right by his side, stroking his back as he caught Silas saying something to Dean about getting him some clothes. It must have been the emergency stash they kept in the truck. He tried to form words, but his mouth was too dry. It all came out as useless cracks until she leaned down and looked at him with those eyes. He wanted to make her stop because of the flare of pain behind her eyes. When her lips brushed his, fuck if he wasn’t a goddamn goner.

“You…okay?” he managed, clearing his throat as the rest of the world slowly came into focus again. “You look…like…shit.”

“I could ask you the same thing, you big shot hero wannabe. I’d say I appreciate being saved, but we both know I would have figured it out on my own if I had to, don’t you think?”

His laughter caught him by surprise, causing spasms through parts of his upper body that he thought were fine but clearly were weakened. She was probably right about figuring things out on her own. Man did that scare him to pieces, but that’s what he’d heard.
If a woman makes you a lot excited and a little scared, she’s the one.
That’s what his grandmother used to say. That’s when he knew there was no one else he’d rather carry his child than this petite fighter with a heart of fucking gold and the soul of a bear.

T
ate wrapped
a sling around Molly’s upper shoulder. The brothers had healed her injury and she was fully restored as though nothing had happened, but Molly still felt sore. That happened a lot with humans. Mind over matter. That psychological experience of a serious injury sometimes took hold and stayed with them for a while.

She swatted his hand away. “That hurts.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re a badass, okay chica? You took the injury, now you get to take the pain. Kind of the rules of the game. Besides, if you’d get some control over your mind you wouldn’t feel a thing. You’re healed, woman. Rise.” He chuckled and started cleaning up the supplies riddled around the bed from his first aid kit.

“You know, that’s a lot easier to say when you heal supernaturally in about two point five seconds.”

“It’s more like ten to twenty seconds.”

“Still. You only have to deal with pain for a little bit. I’m human, remember?”

“If you can’t handle this how are you going to handle popping a shifter kid out of your vag?” Tate swallowed and looked away, putting the first aid kit back in its place. That wasn’t supposed to fly out of his mouth. Not yet. Fuck, he had all the tact of a third grader. More like a preschooler.

“Um…” she hedged, shifting on the edge of his bed.

Now was the time. Time to man up. That really was his only option even if the idea made him want to chug a fifth of whiskey and then drown himself in the club’s hot tub. He was about to ask a very pivotal question when a quick punch to the emotional gut left him gasping for air.

What if she didn’t want to keep their baby?

His son?

He slowly sat down in a chair in the corner of the room and took in that perspective for a red hot minute.

Fuck, it was her choice, yes, but the idea of losing his firstborn twisted through his taut muscles in rivulets of rage, fear, and sadness that left him hollow. His mind was teeter-tottering, half in and half out. Why would she want to have his son? A half-human, half-bear hybrid? What human woman would willingly sign up for that task? Let alone carrying
his
child. He was such a useless, degenerate fuck-up, what would she be getting out of the deal? Having his kid would mean being shackled to him forever—he couldn’t blame Molly for considering the idea of avoiding that kind of future. She intimately knew his history of getting fucked up, busting skulls, fucking over women, and screwing up his life. He’d probably end up being the deadbeat dad to end all deadbeat dads.

“Fuck, this isn’t happening,” Tate whispered to himself crossing his arms and curling into the chair.

“What’s going on with you?” Molly asked without moving from her spot on his bed.

“Uh, nothing. I’m all right.”

He left it at that and hoped she took the hint.

“Tate…you can talk to me.”

Aw, shit. He hung his head at her pleading tone, knowing some air had to be cleared between them before they both suffocated. He so didn’t want to have this fucking conversation, but at the same time he needed to do it now. They couldn’t just keep tight lipped for the next nine or so months, right? He let out a long breath and rubbed his palms over the knees of his jeans, over and over, in a weird as shit circular motion that soothed his bear.

“Christ. Okay…uh, what I wanted to ask you was…are you uh, planning on keeping…it?”

He couldn’t give his son a gender, not out loud. Not if she didn’t want him. He didn’t plan on making her choice any harder or his pain any more fucking horrific by telling her she was carrying a boy. He would have even kept the news of a girl hidden. Molly had to remain unbiased, and do what was right for her own life. Even if doing what was right for her ripped out his soul and drove him insane in the process.