It was a story I never thought much about before. But tonight, as I lay there in bear form, it echoed in my mind.
Protect. Guard. Watch.
That was my role, my responsibility. My bear grumbled inside me, heavy with pride and conviction. She was safe in our nest, between me and Ash. Nothing would get past us.
But Ash's Ayaska ancestors would have been ashamed of me. Because I failed.
I woke with a sharp grunt, the scent of her faint but fading. My heart dropped into my paws as I scrambled to all fours, the weight of dread crashing into me like a landslide.
Noelle’s place in her nest was empty beside Ash.
My bear roared inside me, anguish clawing at my chest as I sniffed the air, desperate for a stronger trace of her scent. No one had come in to disturb the den I'd made, but I'd failed tokeep our mate from slipping out. And back to the life she'd been headed to before she crashed into ours.
“Ash, wake now!”I growled into his head, my bear voice thick and guttural with panic.“Our mate is gone. She ran from us!”
mak
. . .
It had beenone wretched hell of a night.
I’d tried to leave. Put as much distance as I could between that sweet little Fresh Bite and me.
That distance turned out to be less than a few kilometers, though. Just far enough not to feel my maul—or the Fresh Bite who was refusing to take us on as mates—through Cody.
One moment, I was storming away, and the next, I was waking up.
Shivering and naked.
In a goddamned tree.
With perfect sights on the den I’d tried to leave behind.
I cursed when I saw the shredded clothes and work boots lying on the ground beneath the thick tree branch where I'd apparently spent the night.
Goddamn black bear.The Ayaska called it Two Spirit. It meant I could shift between the two kinds of bears I’d inherited from my parents. Or, in my case, it meant my polar always bullied its way to the surface—larger, meaner, too damn wild to let anything else through.
Until now.
I hadn’t seen my black bear in years. But it had decided to come out.
For her. The beautiful Fresh Bite who believed she was as broken as I felt. The one my bears couldn't help falling in love with from the moment they saw her—even though my human knew I wasn’t worthy of claiming her.
The memory of trying to tell my mother how unworthy I was floated back to me like smoke from an old fire—still lingering in the air long after the flames had died.
“I want you to take over as the heart of the tribe,” she’d said, her voice thin and fragile as I sat by her deathbed.
She’d been bitten by a rattlesnake, goddamn it. Poison was the only thing in nature that could kill us, even in bear form. Can’t heal what’s already in the blood.
Ash’s father, Tarak, conducted the Ayaska death rituals, filling the room with sage and sweetgrass smoke that swirled around us like spirits being summoned home. His low, rhythmic chant wove through the air as he placed painted stones in a circle around my mother’s bed, marking her transition to the Great Bear Forest.
“Not your brother.You,” my mother had said, her hand gripping mine with the strength of her conviction.
“Ursa, no!” I tried to convince her to give the job to my brother instead. “He’s the sheriff. He can handle the town. And he’s not the spawn of some drunk polar bear bastard.”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” she said firmly, her voice cutting through the smoke and chanting like a ritual blade.
She didn’t understand. She’d always been my fiercest defender, treating me no differently than my brother or sister, even though they’d been sired by decent males. But… “My father broke your maul. What do you think I’ll do to your tribe? My brother is more worthy. He’s been expecting this his whole life.”
