Very Bearly Mated by Rebel Carter

Chapter 10

Rest was good. Rest was amazing. It was even better when done beside one’s fated mate, which meant the sleep Rosie enjoyed beside Eric was some of the best sleep of her life. But all good things come to an end and Rosie’s top-notch 10/10 sleep was ruined by a crash and a bang.

A very loud crash and a bang that set Eric off and running before she’d even registered what was going on. Her eyes shot open and she sat up when she heard the telltale sound of Eric’s feet hitting the floorboards, the bedroom door slamming shut behind him.

“Oh no,” she whispered. The scent of magic was in the air which meant two things:

1. Witches were attacking them.
2. Witches had shot a fireball at her cabin.

Rosie swore and threw back her covers. If those damn witches managed to break through her wards to get this close and use a fireball on her cabin they had to be powerful.

“If they set my house on fire…”

“Show yourself!” Eric bellowed. That made Rosie go still. What the hell did Eric mean ‘show yourself?’ Was her mate trying to take them on? A shifter against a witch was one thing but a shifter against Luna knew how many witches—and witches that had made it through her wards and didn’t have a single qualm about setting them on fire—was not good.

“Oh no, no, no,” she leapt from the bed and yanked on a robe on her way to the door. “Eric, get back here!” she screamed. What the hell was going on out there? Who, or what, would be flinging fireballs at her house? And of all the nights, the very first night she had Eric over? The night they mated. She grabbed the door and yanked on it but it didn’t budge.

There was a low murmur from outside the house, not loud enough that she could make a single word out but loud enough Rosie knew Eric wasn’t alone. Again she twisted the door handle and growled when it didn't open. Was it enchanted? How had they gotten inside of her house?

“Eric!” she screamed, banging on her bedroom door.

“The witch and this house are under my protection!”

Rosie turned the knob again and stopped when she saw it was locked. No enchantment was keeping her locked in the bedroom, just a run of the mill door lock. Eric must have locked it on his way out. As if that would keep the witches at bay. Even still, the gesture touched her. Her mate was doing his best to keep her safe, one locked door at a time, even when there were fireballs involved.

“Right,” she whispered, unlocking it and running out of her room so fast she slid across the hardwood.

“Eric? Where are you?” She turned in a circle and then heard the screen door to her porch slam shut and winced. “Where did you go? You crazy bear!”

Hell. He’d gone outside. Outside where the banging thing was. She turned towards the door and yelped when she saw a flash of light through the windows. Someone was casting on her mate.

“Oh, hell no. I don’t even do that.” Rosie inhaled deeply, pulling magic in from the air around her, from the floorboards, the walls, all of it. She drew on the power the house was imbued with and felt her magic spark and flair around her. It wasn’t as brilliant as the Fey Queen’s, but it was formidable. A bear’s roar erupted from the night and she knew Eric had shifted. Not quite how she had wanted to meet his shifter form, but it would have to do. Rosie threw a hand out, flinging both the door to her cabin and porch open, and stormed out into the night. Whatever was out here, banging her damn door, casting magic at her mate, and generally fucking up the small amount of sleep she’d been enjoying, was really and truly fucked.

And even if Rosie hadn’t been pissed off by the aforementioned three things, the scene that greeted her when she set foot outside the cabin would have done it. Her house was sporting two black marks on the side of it, evidence of the fireballs that had been flung at it, but had been held back from further damage by her wards. The rose bushes she loved so much and had planted only a month before were ripped out of the ground and thrown around her yard. And there was the ripped screen of her porch, the thing had been reduced to shreds from a spell that must have been cast. She turned her head seeing Eric was in his bear form, locked in a standoff with a caster. They were circling each other warily, Eric snapping at them with his maw before swiping out a paw and nearly hitting them. He was doing well and she felt pride well up in her, but then a spell hit him square in the ribs and he fell to the side with a pained roar.

Rosie raised her hand and let loose the magic she had pulled up. The caster was flung back with a howl of pain and without missing a beat Rosie hit the witch Eric had been fending off square in the chest with an arc of lightning. They fell back instantly, and without a sound. Lucky for them her spell was only meant to stun, not kill. She wanted answers, even though she was ready to strike down any magic user that so much as looked at her mate wrong. She saw a third caster advance and raised a hand blowing in their direction, a gale of wind instantly lifted them and threw them back, so far back she knew they were going to land in the lake.

Good riddance. Let the magic there deal with them.

A quick scan of the yard told her there were no more attackers and she hurried towards Eric’s side where he still lay.

“Eric!” Rosie threw herself down on the ground beside him and reached for him. She wasn’t sure what to do, she’d never been this close to a bear let alone an injured one. Eric tried to get to his feet, but when he faltered she stopped him, making as soothing of a sound as she could, which was hard given her hands were shaking and she felt sick just from the thought he was hurt. She winced when she saw the dark blood matting his fur. She had to stop this. She could fix this.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” She put her hands in his soft fur, and breathed in deeply. “Shhhh, shhh, I’ve got you.” Rosie closed her eyes and leaned forward, all of her thoughts focused on healing, on mending the torn flesh. There would be no more blood or pain. He would be good as new. He would. She would make sure of it. “I’ve got you.”

A second passed with Rosie pouring her magic into Eric. She could feel it flowing faster and faster the longer she touched him. No doubt aided by their bond mark, but still he did not heal and she felt a whisper of worry.

Why wasn’t it working? Weren’t shifters supposed to heal fast when they were around their mates? With her magic he should be fine, but nothing had happened so far and Eric lay where she’d found him, bleeding out onto her yard.

“Come back to me. Come back to me right this instance, Eric Waites, or so help me not even the Fey Queen will be able to save you from me,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “You come back to me.” Her last word was punctuated by an outpouring of magic that left her shaking from the effort. How many more times would she have to do that before it worked? Rosie didn’t breathe while a second passed and then another ticked by, and another, and then finally, blessedly, she felt the spell take root. The fur beneath her hands melted into flesh and she was practically shaking with relief when she opened her eyes and saw Eric lying beneath her. He was whole and perfect, no wounds to be found, but more than that he was naked.

Naked and smiling up at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching up to touch her cheek. Rosie flinched at the spark that jumped from his thumb to her cheek. It was the same silvery and purple light that was shimmering beneath her palms where she was touching his chest.

“Me? You’re the one that was bleeding out in my yard.”

“I would have been fine, petal. Shifters heal fast.”

She frowned down at him. “Not that fast, Eric.”

He huffed out a laugh and touched his palm to her cheek, cupping her face. “You’re powerful.”

“I know.”

“Didn’t know how I’d feel about that, but now that I’ve seen it…”

She felt her chest go tight. “Now that you’ve seen it, what–?”

He sat up, his eyes on hers, and even though she heard one of the witches she’d stunned earlier start to get up, she didn’t look away from him. “I like it. I like it a whole lot. I’m proud of you.”

She swallowed past the lump that had started to grow in her throat and relaxed, but only just. They were still surrounded by attackers, after all but the weight that had been pressing down on her since she’d found out she was mated to Eric lifted slightly. There was far more to go but this was something. It was a whole hell of a lot of something.

“Really?”

He nodded at her. “Yeah.”

She smiled at him. “That makes me happy,” she said, and then raised a hand, blasting the witch struggling to their knees nearby back down on the ground. She might have hit them again but then she heard her name yelled in a voice she would recognize anywhere.

“Rosa Bethany Oliveres, stop! It’s us!”

Her full name. That could only mean one thing.

“Mom?” Rosie gasped, whirling around to look at the witches. Sure enough, there, getting up from the ground with a bloody lip and as mean a look as Rosie had ever known, was her mother.

Andrea Oliveres.