Stolen By Her Bear by Felicity Heaton
Chapter 19
Saint was undone.
He couldn’t move, could only stare after Holly as Ivy pulled her into the crowd, as his beautiful blushing female kept glancing his way, a flicker of nerves in her grey-green eyes. He couldn’t think straight, could only repeat one thing in his head, over and over again, trying to make it sink in. Unable to believe it.
Holly was a virgin.
Untouched by any male.
A virgin.
Knox waggled a bottle of beer in his face. “You look like you need this.”
Saint shook himself and grabbed the bottle, lifted it to his lips and drank it down in one go.
Beside him, Knox chuckled. “I admit, she does look stunning in that little number.”
Saint growled at him, flashing fangs as an urge to rip his head off shot through him. Around them, several cougars fell silent and backed away. Knox held his hands up beside his head, his own bottle of beer dangling from the fingers of his right hand.
“Fair enough. I won’t compliment her again.” Knox was quick to back off a step when Saint growled again, just the thought of Knox looking at her enough to have him wanting to throttle the male, and then lash out at every unmated cougar in the area.
Knox went to the buckets and grabbed him another beer, looked at it and then grabbed a second. He came back to Saint and held both out to him.
“Not sure it’ll help my mood,” Saint grumbled but took the beers anyway, exchanging his empty one for them. He swigged the first one as Knox disposed of their empties and came back to him.
“You want to talk?” Knox shrugged when Saint growled low at him again. “Or not. We could just stand here drinking beer. Although, I’m feeling like the local freak a little.”
Saint didn’t like the way the cougars kept stopping to stare at them either.
“You think Lowe is all right?” Knox’s tone gained a worried note as he stared into the tent. He took a long pull on his beer and sighed, his blue gaze shifting to his right, towards the Ridge. “Not sure what the deal is with this human.”
Saint wasn’t either, but he was determined to find out. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I wanted to have a word with him before we came here, but your brother was… confrontational.”
Something he usually left to Knox.
Knox took another long drink of his beer, his dark blond eyebrows meeting hard as he glared into the marquee. He was worried about Lowe, and so was Saint. Although he had the feeling he knew why the male had turned so territorial around the human.
It was the same reason he was feeling extremely territorial himself as Holly did the rounds in the marquee, smiling at everyone she spoke to, glancing at him from time to time. A virgin. He blew out his breath, sucked one down and held it as he tried to calm his bear instincts. Keeping them in check had been difficult enough before, but now it was impossible. Every instinct he possessed roared at him to go to her, to shield her from the gaze of every male, whether they were mated or unmated. A black need to lash out at them curled through him, had his hands tightening around the bottles he held.
They were suddenly gone, startling him back to Knox.
Knox frowned at him as he clutched his own beer and both of Saint’s bottles. “You look ready to crush these, and I’m done doctoring your ass. I’ll give them back if you swear you’re not going to take out your aggression on perfectly innocent and good beer.”
Saint huffed and snatched the one he had been drinking, lifted it to his lips and drained it. He sighed. “I can’t help it. Look at her. She’s beautiful… lights up that whole damned room.”
Lit up his whole damned world.
Knox chuckled and shook his head. “Never thought I’d see you lovesick… and here we are. Got the feeling you’re not the only lovesick bear at the Ridge either. Gods help me… I don’t want to be next. Maybe Rune and Maverick can come back and throw themselves under the love-bus for me? Spare me the horror of settling down?”
Saint chuckled now. “The likelihood of either of them settling down is slim to none. I’m not sure they could handle a mate.”
He sobered as he thought about that, went back to a night two decades ago, when he had raided the underground arena run by human hunters, one that catered to their twisted desires to watch shifters like Rune and Maverick trying to kill each other every night. Archangel were sick enough with their false noble cause to deal with only the dangerous non-humans, a lie used to cover the countless raids they carried out on peaceful shifters like his pride.
Like the one that had taken his parents from him.
Taken the parents of so many of his kind over the years.
The fact that there was also a faction within the hunter organisation that were running secret arenas made Saint want to return to his days of uncovering the locations of those disgusting places and taking part in raids on them.
Freeing the shifters they had forced to fight in the cages.
“You look ready to crush that bottle again.” Knox didn’t take it from him though. “Thinking about Rune and Mav?”
Saint nodded. “I’m worried about them. I know they both prefer to be in the city during winter, but…”
“I’ll call Maverick. Let him know we’re awake.” Knox placed a gentle hand on Saint’s left shoulder. “I’m sure they’re fine. They always are.”
Saint nodded, tried to make himself believe that. He always worried when the two of them left Black Ridge, fear that they would end up captured and put through that brutal torture at the hands of humans again lingering at the back of his mind.
“Watch your cougar. It’ll take your mind off it.” Knox tipped the neck of his beer towards the tent.
It would take his mind off it, but it wouldn’t improve his mood. It took a sharp nosedive the instant he looked for her and found her dancing with Rath. The male was happily mated. He told himself that a thousand times as she smiled and talked to Rath. As he smiled at her and laughed. It didn’t dull the edge of Saint’s need to murder the male for touching what was his.
“I think I need a little air.” Saint offered a tight smile to Knox when he looked as if he wanted to go with him, patted his shoulder and nodded.
Thankfully, Knox didn’t follow him as he turned away from the marquee, heading for the bucket of beers. He set his third empty down in another bucket someone had placed beside the ones filled with beer and bottles of wine, and grabbed another beer. He carried it with him as he drifted past the grill and food, following the torchlit path to the firepit. The few cougars sitting there just glanced at him rather than stared, didn’t stop talking.
Saint swigged his beer as he headed for the torches that formed a ring around the firepit, moved between two and stopped with them a few feet behind him. Before him, darkness stretched, but the moon was bright enough to cast highlights on the pristine snow that covered the rest of the wide clearing that reached down to the frozen river. It threaded the forest on the other side with silver and brightened the white caps of the mountains.
The murmur of conversation filled the silence, and he smiled as he heard Knox charming a group of female cougars. For a male determined not to settle down, he wasn’t exactly avoiding female company.
Awareness of everyone fell away as Saint lifted his head and stared at the inky sky, watching faint aurora chasing across it. His breath misted in front of his face, the air growing colder as night closed in. He took a pull on his beer, savoured it this time, thought about how surrendering to the winter sleep meant he missed this sight. It was stunning. This far south, the aurora were weak, but with his heightened vision, he could see them clearly. He lost himself in their beautiful dance.
He tensed as a gentle hand came to rest between his shoulder blades, her palm searing him.
“It’s cold,” Holly murmured, her soft voice like music to his ears, seemingly making the aurora all the more beautiful. Or maybe it was the thought of sharing it with her that made it more bewitching. “Too cold to be out without a coat.”
He slid a look at her as she stepped around him on his left side and groaned as he found her wearing his one again.
She smiled, her grey-green eyes sparkling with it. “Shame yours is taken.”
Saint turned towards her, the aurora forgotten as she bewitched him instead. He moved his bottle and clutched the neck with two of his fingers against his palm, lifted his hands and tugged his coat closed over her. Held on to it as he gazed down at her, into her eyes.
“You took more than my coat,” he murmured, warmth spilling through him, a trickle of nerves mingled in with it.
A blush darkened her cheeks and he lifted his left hand to cup her face and feel it.
His eyes leaped between hers as he thought about how they had come to be here, in this moment, and how grateful he was that it had happened. Grateful, but ashamed.
“I’m sorry for what I did… for everything.” He smoothed his palm over her cheek, bathed in her soft look as she angled her head up, not a trace of anger or regret in her eyes. “I wish we’d met under better circumstances.”
Holly sidled closer to him and pressed one hand to his chest, seared him with that touch, branding his heart with her name.
“Stop apologising.” She brushed her fingers over his chest, idly stroking him. “I’ll never be sorry that we met. I’ll count my blessings every day.”
Gods, she killed him. His beautiful, incredible Holly. A weaker female might have hated him, might have turned her back on him, but not Holly. She was strong on the inside too, was able to see past his mistakes and forgive him, to embrace the future without getting hung up on the past. He didn’t deserve her.
He wanted to tell her that, but someone near the firepit muttered something about it being gone midnight.
Her gaze broke away from his, lifted to the stars that glittered above them, and she sighed.
“Christmas day.” Her eyes dropped to his, a twinkle in them that made him want to know what she was thinking. “If I was home right now, my brothers would be throwing presents at me.”
Her smile was stunning, hit him hard in the chest, knocking the wind from him.
“Brothers?” He frowned down at her, lifted his hand and tucked a rogue wave of black hair behind her ear, savouring the warmth of her skin beneath his fingers and how soft she was.
It hit him that there was so much he didn’t know about her, so much they still needed to learn about each other, but he didn’t feel panicked or unsure about what was happening between them, didn’t begin questioning it at all.
Because there was one thing he knew for certain.
He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
They had all the time in the world to get to know each other.
And in his heart he knew that the more he learned about her, the deeper his love for her would grow.
She brushed her hair behind her ear again, her fingers briefly touching his, and shrugged, almost dislodging his coat. He drew it back over her shoulders, gathered her into his arms and held her as she battled the nerves he could feel in her. Nerves that ran through him too. They weren’t about this conversation, or telling him about herself. They were about where they had left things the last time they had been like this.
She didn’t need to worry. He wasn’t going to make a fuss over what he had learned about her, and he wasn’t going to rush her into anything. The ball was in her court. They had all the time in the world after all.
And every moment with her was precious.
“I have three brothers. All older… all obnoxious.” She smiled and then grimaced, her tone shifting. “I don’t mean that. I love them. They just drive me crazy. They always spoil this time of year when I love it so much.”
“How do they spoil it?” Because Saint wanted to know how badly he needed to hurt her brothers to stop them from ruining a holiday that, while most shifters didn’t celebrate it, clearly meant a lot to her.
She gave a little shrug and refused to look at him, dropping her eyes to his chest and her fingers as she circled one of the buttons of his shirt. Her voice was quiet when she finally spoke.
“They bring up how I managed to go another year alone.”
Her pain flowed through him, and Saint decided that only death was a suitable punishment for how her brothers had treated her.
Because she was talking about them teasing her for not having a male.
Well, she had a male now. The one and only male she would ever have. And this male was going to make up for all the Christmas’s her brothers had ruined for her.
“Do you like presents?” He liked it when she relaxed against him, when the tension he could sense in her faded, replaced with relief.
It struck him that she had expected him to growl and be angry with her brothers, or maybe tease her himself about how she had never been with a male.
While he wanted to do the former, there was no way in hell he would ever do the latter. He could never hurt her, and teasing her about the years she had passed alone would hurt her. He was hardly one to talk either. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been with a female, felt sure it was long before Holly had matured. So long ago that as he thought about it, he started to get nervous too.
“I do love presents.” She leaned into him, pressing her chest to his stomach and tipping her head back, gazing up at him with a little smile that said she didn’t just love them—she really loved them. “It’s not all about the presents though. It’s the lights. The cold weather that makes you want to cuddle up indoors. It’s being with those you love.”
Her parents had named his fated female wisely.
He pressed closer to her, thoughts of cuddling up in the warmth with her chasing around his mind.
Together with being with the one he loved.
And he did love her.
“I could get you a present,” he said, liking the way her eyes twinkled at him now, lit up as she half-smiled. “Although, I might not be able to get it right away.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “There is something you could give me.”
He stared at her, eager to know what it was.
Her gaze fell to his lips.
“A kiss.”
