1
TOLIN
The first thing I hear is the crunch of tires on gravel. The second is my brother’s voice, far too cheerful for the cold mountain morning.
“Tolin! Open up!”
I don’t move from the kitchen table. I’ve been staring at the same glass of water for an hour. My bear stirs beneath my skin, alert but not alarmed. Ronan. Of course it’s Ronan. He’s the only one who bothers making the five-mile trek up to my cabin anymore.
The door swings open without permission. My brother fills the frame, all seven feet of him, snow dusting the shoulders of his heavy coat. Behind him, I catch a glimpse of silver hair and delicate shoulders.
I groan.
“You brought Mother.”
Ronan steps inside, making room for the small human woman who raised two bear shifters with nothing but sharp wit and an iron will. Lenora surveys my cabin the way a general surveys a battlefield. Her nose wrinkles.
I shove back from the table, the chair legs scraping against the floor. The cabin is a disaster. Dishes piled in the sink. Laundry draped over every surface. Dust on the mantle thick enough to write my name in. This is not how I wanted her to see my home.
Ronan shuts the door behind them, a satisfied smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. I want to put my fist through it.
“You are a fucking asshole for this,” I say to him, keeping my voice low.
“Tolin.” Mother’s voice freezes me mid-sentence. “Watch your mouth.”
She’s already past me, pushing through the mess straight to the kitchen. Of course. The kitchen where dishes have been piling up for three days in murky water and I haven’t taken out the trash in over a week.
“Mother, wait.” I follow her, my bear rumbling with embarrassment. “Let me clean up first.”
She’s already rolling up her sleeves, turning on the faucet. She sticks her hand under the stream, adjusting the temperature. “If I waited for you to clean up, I’d be waiting until the next hibernation season.”
I reach past her to turn off the water, my hand dwarfing hers on the handle. “I can handle my own dishes.”
She looks up at me with those brown eyes that have never missed a single thing in her sixty-two years of living. “Clearly you cannot.” She gently but firmly moves my hand away and turns the water back on. “I called the cleaning service for you. Three times. They sent three different workers. All three quit within a day.”
I glance at Ronan, who’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching me like I’m the evening’sentertainment. My scar throbs. The three jagged lines across my right cheek, put there by his claws when I challenged him for Alpha and lost. Some days I forget they’re there. Today is not one of those days.
“They quit because they couldn’t do the job properly,” I say.
“They quit because you were cruel to them.” Mother scrubs harder at the pot. “Don’t lie to your mother, Tolin. You have never been good at it.”
The truth sits heavy in my gut. She’s right. I ran them off on purpose. A man who scrubbed too loud. A woman who hummed while she worked. Another man who had the audacity to try to make conversation. I didn’t want any of them here, invading my space, witnessing the mess I’ve made of my life.
“A cluttered home is a cluttered mind.” Mother rinses the pot and sets it on the drying rack. She raised two rowdy bear cubs in a one-bedroom cabin after our father died—she’s seen mess before. “You think any woman wants to live like this?”
“Good thing I don’t have a mate, then.”
She pauses. Sets down the dish she was holding. Turns to face me fully. Behind me, I feel Ronan straighten, the air in the cabin shifting with sudden tension.
“You will,” she says simply. “Fate delivers to those who deserve it. And when she comes, what will she find? A home that looks like its owner has given up on living?”
I don’t answer. My bear paces inside me, restless and agitated. He doesn’t like Mother being disappointed in us. Neither do I, if I’m being honest.
“Get cleaning supplies,” she says to Ronan. “They’re in my bag in the truck. And you.” She points at me. “Start onthe laundry. We’re not leaving until this place looks like a home instead of a cave.”
I open my mouth to argue, but one look from her shuts me down. Some instincts run deeper than the bear. The instinct to obey your mother is one of them.
We clean for two hours. Mother handles the kitchen. Ronan dusts and wipes down surfaces. I gather laundry. Nobody talks much. Ronan grunts when he moves furniture. Dishes clang in the sink. That’s about it.
