I rose to my feet, unable to care that I was basically dripping come everywhere, and looked around for him.
But to my shock, he stood just beyond the barrier of my nest.
Out of reach.
“Not done yet, baby?” he asked.
Though his knowing expression told me he already knew the answer to that question.
“No,” I replied, nonetheless.
“Come back to my nest,” I commanded in a voice that sounded like those weird space witches in theDunemovies. “I want you next.”
“I ain’t Koda. You can have me whenever, however you want,” Hawk answered smoothly.
But his harsh expression didn’t match his offer. “But your bear’s tired of this. Tired of waiting.”
My heart stuttered. “Tired of waiting for what?”
“You know what,” Hawk said. He was always so nice to me. But suddenly, his voice dipped into the disapproving growl he often used with Koda and Leif.
“Koda isn’t the only one in denial,” he informed me. “This is your last chance. If you want a cub, you’re going to have to stop fighting her. Your bear won’t give you what you want—until you bite… If not me, one of us. Any of us.”
I shook my head, my chest clenching with a new fear. “What?”
“Your bear is in a frenzy,” Hawk explained, speaking slow like I was a foreigner who didn’t understand his native language. “That means she’s ready to come out of estrus. But she’s not going to fertilize an egg.”
He held my eyes in his grim amber gaze. “Not until you bite one of us.”
19/
bite me
holly
Not until you bite one of us.
Hawk’s directive reverberated through me like a lightning bolt, making clear what my human side hadn’t even thought to suspect.
Still, I had to sum it up out loud, like I did with pregnant mothers who presented me with particularly complex birth plans. “My bear’s ready to come out of estrus but won’t let me have my baby until I bite one of you?”
Hawk answered with a nod and a pitying look that scraped across my skin like sandpaper.
“And you know this how?” I shook my head, not wanting to believe. “Did you also get a bear shifter medical degree during your ten years in jail?”
My voice had taken on a sharp, bitchy tone, but Hawk’s expression remained patient. “No, baby, I did not. My mom’s a healer, and one of my maul dads used to be Bear Mountain’s official town doctor before my youngest brother, Ash, took his place. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘The apple never falls far from the stem.’ I mean, in my case, it seriously did. But before that, I picked up a lot of residual medical stuff.”
Wait, Hawk’s family maul included three medical professionals?
His eyes softened with a gentle reprimand. “You’d know all of this if you bit me.”
Bite him. Bite him. Bite him.
The call was coming from inside the house now. My bear issued the command, her growl vibrating in my chest.
Koda and Leif came to stand in the spaces on either side of our faceoff. I couldn’t tell if it was in solidarity with me. Or Hawk.
“Again, you’d know if you bit any of us,” Hawk replied out loud.
