It’s the least I can do.
My bear settles as I walk, focused now, channeling all his anguish into physical effort. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. The snow tries to drag me down, the wind tries to push me back, but I keep moving.
I think about her as I walk. Imani. My mate. The woman I’ve been waiting for my whole life without knowing it.
I think about the way she stood up to me that first day, defiance on her face, refusing to back down even when I was at my worst. I think about the dinner she made me, perfectly cooked, researched and prepared because she wanted to do her job well. I think about her on her hands and knees scrubbing my floors, her curves testing my control, her wild hair escaping its bun.
I think about the sound of her crying through the wall.
The weight of the car is nothing compared to that.
The clan’s territory appears through the snow like a ghost. Cabins scattered across the mountainside, smoke rising from chimneys, lights glowing in windows. Home. Or what used to be home, before I exiled myself.
Clan members stare as I walk through. I can feel their eyes on me, hear the whispers starting. Tolin’s back. The exiled brother, the scarred one, the grumpy bear who lives alone on the mountain. And he’s carrying a car on his back in the middle of a blizzard.
I ignore all of it. I have one destination in mind.
The mechanic’s shop is on the eastern edge of the territory, a large structure built into the hillside. I set the car down outside with a grunt of relief, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning.
Then I turn toward my mother’s cabin.
She opens the door before I reach the porch.
“Tolin.” Her voice carries that mix of warmth and worry I know so well. “What are you doing here? In this weather? Is something wrong?”
Everything. Everything is wrong.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
She takes one look at my face and steps asideto let me in.
The cabin is warm and bright, filled with the smells of her cooking and wood smoke. I stand in the middle of the living room, dripping melted snow onto her clean floors, and try to find the words.
“Tolin.” Mother sits in her favorite chair, watching me with those sharp eyes that have never missed anything. “Tell me.”
So I do.
I tell her everything. The cleaning lady from Shadow Suds. The way my bear reacted to her from the start, restless and agitated and drawn to her in ways I couldn’t explain. The cruelty I showed her, the words I used to push her away, the fight over the chair that spiraled into something ugly and unforgivable.
I tell her about the shower. About the steam clearing and her scent hitting me for the first time. Brown sugar and vanilla and shea butter and everything I’ve ever craved without knowing why.
“She’s my mate,” I say, and my voice cracks on the word. “She’s my fated mate, and I didn’t know. The cleaning solution she uses, it masked her scent. I couldn’t smell her. I treated her like garbage because I couldn’t smell the truth.”
Mother is quiet for a long moment.
“And when you realized?”
“I lost control.” The shame burns through me. “I tried to stop her from leaving. I broke her phone. I ripped the door off her car. I carried her back inside against her will.” I look down at my hands, the hands that did all those things. “She’s terrified of me. She thinks I’m insane. And I don’t blame her.”
“Tolin—“
“I don’t know what to do.” The words pour out of me, desperate and lost. “She’s locked in the guest room crying herself to sleep and I can’t fix it. I can’t make her understand. She hates me, Mother. My own mate hates me.”
The door opens behind me.
I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. I can feel his presence, the weight of his authority, the Alpha energy that fills every room he enters.
Ronan.
