Very Bearly Mated by Rebel Carter

Chapter 11

“You’ve got a lot of nerve using your magic on us, little girl.”

Rosie swallowed hard and met the stare she had never quite managed to stand strong under. Her mother’s brown eyes flashed angrily. Rosie might have wavered, but this involved Eric. She did not put her mate at risk. Her family had used their magic on him, and that had her standing firm in front of all three of the Oliveres women.

“You used your magic on my mate. I think that more than earned what happened to you three,” she replied and looked around, taking in the sight of her sister and aunt. Her aunt was dripping wet courtesy of her landing in the nearby lake and the older woman glared at her.

“What the hell was that? You sent me into that lake. There’s something old down there, Rosa.”

“I know, and I was honestly hoping it took care of you,” Rosie tossed back.

“We’re your family. What the hell?” That was from her sister, Petra. Rosie rolled her eyes at her sister, fully prepared to tell her to shut it when Eric spoke.

“If you’re her family then why did you show up here using your magic on her?” Eric asked. He was clothed now, well mostly. Petra’s eyes had strayed far too much for Rosie’s liking and it had taken a curt order from her to “get some clothes on or I’m going to knock Petra out” for Eric to vanish back into the cabin and get his clothes back on. Rosie glanced back at him. He had his jeans on, shirt unbuttoned and she frowned, wishing her family hadn’t ruined their first night together. The things she still wanted to do to him...but here they were in the middle of the night and locked in a standoff with people she hadn’t seen for over a decade.

“We have our reasons, bear.”

“Cut it out, Andrea.”

Andrea scoffed. “I think you mean, Mama, Rosa.”

“My name,” she gritted out, “is Rosie.”

“Typical,” Petra added, making the blood and magic in Rosie bubble together dangerously. She raised her hand, blue beginning to spark around her fingers and the other three women went on high alert. Eric reached out, closing a hand around hers and brought it to her side.

“Not here, petal.”

Petra’s eyebrows shot up. “Petal? He calls you petal?” She laughed, but Rosie didn’t feel an ounce of the embarrassment she supposed her sister’s remarks were meant to get out of her.

“He does. Now get back to these reasons,” she said, looking back at her mother. Eric being here with her, hands on her skin where he still gripped her, the heat of his body against her back, was grounding. If she had him, she could handle this. Her family didn’t stand a chance. “Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been tracking me for years. Why are you here now? And what’s with using magic on me? Eric’s right, if you wanted peace then you should have announced yourselves that way.”

Andrea crossed her arms and looked at Rosie’s aunt with a smirk. “Should we tell her, Lila.”

“Why not? The brat hasn’t made it easy on us with all the moving around she does every few months.”

Eric’s fingers flexed on her hand and Rosie willed him to understand. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t leaving him. That was before. Oak Fast was home for as long as they chose, because wherever her mate was, well that was home for her.

“Get to it,” Rosie ordered and her mother looked back at her with an annoyed toss of her head. “I’m tired and it’s late. You’ve got five minutes before I throwing you out on your asses.”

“Fine, you want to know why we’re here? We need you. There’s big magic, old magic and we need you for it.”

Eric’s other hand came up to rest on her shoulder and he gave her a reassuring squeeze. “That still doesn’t explain why you used magic on your own daughter if you needed her. That’s not what family does.” His words hit Rosie square in the chest, the truth of them sinking into her skin as surely as any summer rain. She took in a shaky breath against the welling of emotion that had her eyes watering and pricking with unshed tears.

She blinked quickly, chasing away the tears though she knew her mother saw them. The two women hadn’t broken their stares from one another, not even with Eric joining them. The hand on hers squeezed tightly and she turned her hand, palm up to his, intertwining their fingers together.

Luna, how had she made it through without this bear? How had she ever turned her nose up at the dependable and steadfast nature of a bear? This was what she had always wanted.

Her mother didn’t look at him but answered all the same. “We heard she was being held here against her will by a shifter,” her eyes went to him then, “that would be you.” There was venom in her mother’s tone. The way she stretched and held the pronoun until it sounded like an insult was almost impressive.

Almost.

Rosie gave a bitter laugh, and leaned back into Eric’s touch. “You can’t be serious. He’s my mate. No one is holding me anywhere except for you.”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “We are your family. We are not doing anything wrong here.”

“You want me for big old magic, which means you came here wanting something,” Rosie said and held up a finger, “and in doing so, you hurled fireballs at my cabin. That’s my house! What if I had been hurt?”

Her mother was silent and Rosie knew it wasn’t because her mother didn’t have an answer for her, but that the answer would most likely turn Rosie off from doing whatever it was these three women needed from her. It was all the same really though, whether her mother spoke it or not. Rosie knew what the answer was.

She didn’t care if Rosie got hurt.

She never had.

“Get off my property,” Rosie told them, finally breaking her staring contest with her mother to look at her sister and aunt, or rather Petra and Lila. These women were not her family, they were simply women she had once known. The three of them were as they probably should have always been to her: Andrea, Petra, and Lila.

Family no more.

Not when the family she had chosen, the one that had chosen her right back was holding her hand and had taken a fireball to the chest trying to protect her.

“We are not-” Andrea began, but Rosie raised her hand, a swirl of blue circling her fingertips and palm, and the words stopped instantly. She clapped a hand to her throat, eyes bulging when she realized she couldn’t speak.

“What did you just do to her?” Petra gasped, rushing forward to grab her mother’s arm. She glared at Rosie. “We came here to offer you a chance to make a power grab with us and this is what you do to mama?”

“She’s not my mother. Not anymore,” Rosie replied and nodded at the trio, “None of you are my family, and I said get off my land.” She pointed a finger at Petra. “Or don’t and see what I take from you next.”

Petra’s eyes blazed while Andrea continued to try and speak. She thought Petra might try and challenge her, a dumb move considering Rosie had always been more powerful, but Lila darted forward grabbing the other two women’s arms and dragged them back.

“Keep your mouth shut and get moving. She’s serious,” Lila hissed, already looking for an escape route. “I told you we shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”

“This isn’t over, Rosa,” Petra threatened with a lift of her chin, but she fell into step with Lila as they dragged away the panicking witch between them who was struggling to stay where she was, mouth twisted in a silent scream at Rosie.

“It is,” Rosie replied, and she gave a flick of her fingers. A portal opening behind the three women, the bright flash of it startling them to a sudden stop. But it didn’t matter if they weren’t moving anymore because another sweep of Rosie’s hand had them pitching head first into the bright swirl of light.

“You absolute pu–” Petra’s scream was cut off when the portal closed behind them with a snap and a pop. The smell of bitter arcane energy lingered in the air and Rosie took in a sniff with a wrinkled nose. She’d never liked the way teleportation magic’s smelled. It was always so bitter and burned.

“What the hell did you just do?” Eric asked.

“Took out the trash.”

“But they didn’t even stand a chance when you did that. Did you just,” he moved, turning her to face him and pointed at his throat, “take your mother’s voice?”

“She’s not my mom,” Rosie replied, but then nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “I’ve always been either more powerful or nearly just,” she said and continued on, “I think knowing they had hurt you pushed me past the nearly just to completely overpowering them. I-I, and I’d do it again if I was offered the chance.” She reached up and cupped his face. “I’m so sorry, Eric.”

His eyebrows shot up. “What are you sorry for? This isn’t your fault, petal. Not a fucking bit of it.”

“But–”

“But what?” he asked, thumbs smoothing across her skin in a featherlight touch. “There’s no but. You got dealt a shitty hand with your family, because petal, those women are nothing like you.” His words made her mouth snap shut and she sucked in a deep breath, the tears she had nearly shed coming back with a vengeance when her mate continued speaking. “You don’t control the people you’re born to, petal and I’m so damn sorry it was them. I wish you’d grown up in a place like this. Like Oak Fast.”

Oh Luna her heart wouldn’t be able to take what he was about to say. A tear slid down her cheek. Eric’s fingers wiped it away and the big shifter went right on speaking. “I’d give anything for you to have grown up with a family like mine. With people that have your back, with love–the love you deserve. I wish you had had that.”

A sob escaped Rosie’s mouth, the sound of it making her wince. But it was hard to not cry when Eric was speaking to her like this. He saw her as she was, the lonely and frightened girl she’d been in the family she had. Why she had left as soon as she was able and never looked back, bouncing from place to place in search of the place that felt right.

But Rosie had been on the endless search for magic, for an adventure that would fix the emptiness she felt. She had never anticipated it would be a shifter, her mate, her fated mate, that would be the end to her constant searching.

It wasn’t magic or a new place, but Eric that she needed.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

Eric kissed her and shook his head. “It’s not but it will be, petal. It’s going to be okay because you have that now. You have me. You have my clan, my home. It’s all yours.” He paused and drew back to look at her. “That is, if you want it. Do you want that from me?”

A surprised laugh escaped her lips and she threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. “Why would you ask me that? Of course I want that.”

“Because I want this to be your choice. I want this to be fair, with none of your choice taken away. It's why I had you sign that contract. We both needed it to bring us where we needed to be.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “That contract doesn’t let me lie. How’s that fair?”

“Rosie…”

She grinned and kissed his mouth. “I know, I know. I had to give you a chance. Let you break past all the walls I had.”

His eyes went to the spot the portal had been. “Considering I just met your family...I get why you had them in the first place. You had to survive.”

“But I don’t need that with you.”

“Of course not. I would never hurt you. Not intentionally. Anything I do is because I’m an idiot.”

She kissed him again. “At least you come by it honestly.”

Eric’s arms circled her waist and he lifted her up, hitching her legs around his hips. “Honest is the only way I know how to be with you.” Rosie leaned forward, resting her forehead against his shoulder, a smile curving her lips. This was right. It felt so right. Eric walked them back into her cabin and when the door shut behind them, Rosie knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was precisely where she belonged.