Unleashed By her Bear by Felicity Heaton
Chapter 17
“It isn’t going to take Carrigan—” Rune cut himself off and pivoted to face the open door behind him as the scent of glacier-lilies hit him.
Callie came barrelling into the cabin, her eyes wild and a desperate look on her face, her fear hitting him hard.
Adrenaline shot through his veins and he was at her side in an instant, clutching her arms and searching her wide amber eyes.
“What’s wrong? Is it Carrigan?” The thought that the male might have already reached the pack and found her shook him to his core, had his bear side restless and groaning, angry that he hadn’t been there to protect her.
She breathed hard, shook her head, swallowed and looked as if she was struggling. Her hand came to rest against his chest, the soft warmth of her touch soothing him, and her too judging by how the crazed edge to her eyes faded and she began to relax.
“I just…” Her eyes darted between his, her hand trembling against his chest with the nerves he could feel in her. She flicked a glance at Rourke where he stood in the middle of the kitchen off to Rune’s left and then her eyes locked with his again. Her nerves increased. “I… ah… I just thought I should be here too.”
She was lying.
Rune could read in her eyes and in the way her fingers subtly moved against his chest, stroking him through his fleece, what she didn’t want to say in front of Rourke.
She had been worried about him and had come running to him.
She had needed to see him.
He wasn’t sure how to process that, or the way she made him feel, how tied in knots he was whenever he was around her, hoping for the first time in a long time for something.
Something he wasn’t sure he deserved.
He was no gentle male. He was no Rourke, who had proven himself to be a decent kind of wolf in the short time they had been talking, discussing Callie and what her life here would be like, and the Carrigan problem.
Rune didn’t know how to be like him, didn’t know how to take care of a female. He barely knew how to take care of himself, and he even managed to screw that up sometimes.
He wasn’t a good male, but the way Callie looked at him, her eyes soft with affection, with hope, with something a foolish part of him dared to believe might be the first seeds of love, made him want to be a better one. She made him want to put in the effort to learn, to adapt, and to overcome his past.
Because he was falling for her.
And he was falling hard and fast.
Every instinct he possessed roared at him that she was the one for him—the only one.
His true mate.
Her gaze darted downwards as he shifted his right hand to the curve of her waist, as he slipped his arm around her and turned so he was beside her and they were both facing Rourke. Her eyes leaped back up to meet his, the nerves in them fading, together with the fear that had laced her scent. Something akin to relief replaced them and the tension visibly drained from her.
“Make that coffee for three.” Rune managed to smile at Rourke, making a valiant effort to be polite, something which was growing increasingly difficult again now that Callie was here.
The same primal instincts that told him Callie was something special to him, something once in a lifetime, also told him that Rourke and every unmated male in the vicinity were going to try to steal her from him.
Rourke proved how astute, and polite, he was by shrugging and keeping his eyes away from Callie as he went back to fixing them all coffee. Rune had the feeling he and Callie weren’t the first fated but unmated couple to roll into his territory. Rourke handled it like a seasoned professional, didn’t look at Callie once as he handed both her and Rune a mug of steaming coffee.
“You want milk?” Rourke set a small carton of it down on the counter near Callie. “Help yourself.”
She smiled but Rourke didn’t see it because he was already moving deeper into the cabin, towards an L-shaped couch that sat against the wall that divided the room into two down the middle, separating a small dining area from the living area. Rune waited while Callie made her coffee as pale as the milk she was pouring into it. He arched an eyebrow at her when she looked at him.
“What?” She scowled, but there was no malice behind it, only embarrassment she didn’t need to feel.
“Just filing away that you really like milk in your coffee.” He cracked a grin at her.
An alluring blush climbed her cheeks and she fidgeted with her mug, her eyes on the pale off-cream coffee. “I got really into lattes back at Revelstoke. There’s a nice coffee shop there and I love to—Well, I guess… I loved to go there.”
Her mood faltered, the light that had been filling her eyes winking out of existence.
Rune brushed his hand up and down her side, unsure what to say to comfort her and make her see that life here could be just as good as the one she had been torn away from, maybe even better. Probably because he didn’t want her thinking about how great her life could be in this place. He didn’t want her to stay here, so far away from him.
He wanted her as close to him as he could get her.
He felt Rourke’s gaze on him, leashed the urge to growl at the male for making him feel rushed, and turned with Callie. “Let’s get this talk over with. You look tired. Gods knows I’ve not let you get much sleep in the last twenty-four hours.”
Rourke cocked a white eyebrow at that.
Rune glared at him, daring the male to even suggest he had been talking about keeping Callie up all night with sex. His mind took a wicked turn regardless, filled him with a hunger to do just that, to indulge her every whim, to pleasure her until he was the only male she would ever want and make her fall for him too.
Callie reached the couch before him and thankfully chose to sit at the end of it furthest from Rourke, allowing Rune to sit between them. He sank into the seat beside her and she angled her body towards him, tucking one leg up onto the couch as she nestled against his side. He looked at her as she told Rourke the same thing she had told him, adding a few more details that had him wanting to hunt down the alpha of her old pack and kill him too.
He must have looked ready to commit bloody murder when he looked at Rourke, because the white-haired wolf held his hands up.
“Not all alpha wolves are like that.” Rourke’s strange eyes—dark brown around the outside but green nearest his pupils—held a look that told Rune he didn’t like how some alphas treated the females in their pack either. “Everyone is equal here, free to do whatever work pleases them, to train with the combat instructors and live the life they were born to. Hell, my second in command is female. You should probably meet her, Callie.”
Rune barely bit back the growl that rumbled up his throat as the wolf leaned forwards to get a better look at her and dared to speak her name.
“Maybe in the morning.” Rourke flicked him a look, one that said he had noticed how agitated he was. “It must have been a long journey for you both. I presume you’re staying the night?”
Rune growled, “I’m staying until Carrigan is dealt with.”
He wasn’t sure what came after that.
Callie’s gaze drilled into the side of his face and he looked at her, right into her eyes. That look was in them again—the one that made him want to stay.
The one that made him want a lot of things.
Like keeping her by his side, in his arms.
Like kissing her again.
“We should find you a place to bunk.” Rourke sounded as if he wanted to get them out of his cabin before they started making out, was hurrying them along now, eager to get rid of them.
“He can stay with me.” Those words leaving Callie’s lips sent shock rolling through Rune.
Before he could convince himself she really had said them, she stood, stealing her delicious warmth from his side.
He glanced at Rourke. The male gave him a look, and Rune wasn’t sure whether it was telling him to get going before she changed her mind or whether he didn’t approve of the two of them sharing a cabin.
So he growled at him, baring his teeth for good measure.
Callie held her hand out to him and he took it, a jolt running up his arm as they made contact. When he stood, she didn’t relinquish his hand. She kept hold of it as she led him outside. Rune shifted his hand in hers, interlinking their fingers, and marvelled at how soft her hand was against his and how she let him hold it like this.
He liked it.
He liked how comfortable he felt as they walked together, following the winding lamp-lit path through the woods, between small cabins that were dotted among the trees. All around him people talked in low voices and some laughed. The place had a nice vibe to it, one that felt far more social than Black Ridge, but that was understandable given how many people lived here, and how few people lived at his pride.
Black Ridge was quieter. Peaceful. But it had its rowdy times, more often recently since Saint had mated with the little cougar female, Holly. Now the barbecues had grown more frequent and the cougar pride came to them too. Every one of them felt like a gathering, a chance for people to talk about what they had been up to, discuss things about the valley they had noticed, or exchange news they had heard in town. It was beginning to feel more like this wolf pack did.
And Rune had found he liked it.
Being around other shifter breeds felt comfortable. It felt right. He knew why. The compound. He had always been around a mixture of shifter species there. Bears. Felines. Wolves. He had spent decades of his life in a strange sort of pride, and now his own pride was becoming like it. Black Ridge was no longer just bears. It was bears, cougars, and mortals.
Rune glanced at Callie.
He wanted to add a wolf to their ragtag pride.
In the distance, a loud cheer went up, and his senses locked onto that direction as he smelled humans. Rourke and his wolves had a thriving business here. Rune had noticed that a number of humans were moving around in an area downstream, one that looked as if it was beyond a tall wooden fence with a gate.
The White Wolf Lodge.
There were at least a dozen luxury cabins around three hundred feet away from the other side of that wall—a business run for unsuspecting humans who didn’t know their hosts were wolf shifters.
Rourke had been right to build a high fence between the place where his wolves lived and his business, stopping the humans from realising what the staff who helped run the lodges were. Personally, Rune would have placed the lodges even further away from the fence than they already were. Hell, he wouldn’t be risking everyone by running a business catering to humans in the first place.
Callie stepped up onto the deck of a small cabin and Rune stared at it, feeling uneasy. He didn’t like that this was her home now. He didn’t want her settling in here and thinking of this place as her new pack. He wanted to take her back to Black Ridge.
Needed to keep her close to him.
“What’s on your mind?” Callie moved back to him when he didn’t follow her up onto the deck and smoothed the pad of her thumb between his pinched eyebrows as she sighed. “You have that thinking look on your face again.”
He muttered, “Do you like it here?”
She shrugged.
“It’s too early to tell. I’m not sure though.” She tilted her head back, her voice softening and growing distant as she stared at the trees that sheltered the cabins. “It seems so dark and closed in, and I can’t see the mountains.”
She dropped her head and smiled at him, hitting him hard in the chest with it.
“I think your valley is more beautiful.”
He thought she was beautiful.
An urge to tell her that she didn’t have to live here swept through him, the strength of it stunning him.
Did he really want her to live with him?
Rune stared at her and it hit him that he did. He needed this female far more than he had suspected, didn’t want to be apart from her for even a second. For the first time in a long time, he felt as if he was mending, as if his future was brighter than his past, and he knew it was because of her.
“Rune?” she whispered, a little frown creasing her brow. “What’s—”
He grabbed her and tugged her to him, cutting her off with a kiss. She instantly melted into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her, and gods he liked how she did that. He loved how fierce and demanding she was, and how she didn’t shy away from his kiss. She tried to dominate him instead, rousing his passion and a need to battle her for control.
Rune seized hold of her waist, stepped up onto the deck and walked her backwards as he kissed her harder, as need rolled through him, cranking him tight inside with every step closer they came to the door of her cabin.
A wolf howled.
He tensed.
Callie broke away from him, her eyes wide, her fear drumming in his veins too.
Rune growled.
“Carrigan.”
