Page 6 of Bear Your Fate

Damien ignored me and focused on Audra. “We both know that’s not true, considering what you’ve been doing for the last nine months.”

“Poppycock.” Her version of a muttered oath would have made me laugh except I didn’t like the implication behind Damien’s statement.

“What the hell do you know about what she’s been up to?”

“More than you,” the dragon shifter replied. “Even though you’ve been keeping tabs on her.”

I couldn’t deny it, not when it was true. It had taken every bit of my control not to chase after her once I’d realized the witch business she was attending to after the holidays had taken her out of the country for an extended period of time. Knowing she was so far out of my reach drove me crazy. Both sides of me—the man and the bear.

“You were?” she breathed out, looking up at me with wide, emerald green eyes.

“Of course I was.” I rumbled softly.

“Are you really surprised?” Damien asked her, his eyes doing that funky fire swirling thing that always freaked me out. “Considering what you mean to each other, it shouldn’t come as a shock.”

“I—He—We—” Audra stuttered, at a loss for words.

I, on the other hand, didn’t suffer from the same predicament. “What the fuck do you know about Audra and me?”

“Enough to know I don’t really want to answer that question.”

“The last time you were all cryptic and your eyes swirled with fire—” I broke off abruptly, my eyes jerking towards Audra. The outcome the last time around had been Selene mating with Camden. I didn’t see how the same would ever be possible between Audra and me because our situation was completely different since there was no fated mate in my future. Then again, a year ago I never would have guessed that a witch would be my son’s mate either. They’d managed to do the impossible, so maybe we could, too.

Damien’s eyes darted towards Audra and back again before he gave a slight shake of his head and switched the topic of conversation back to why he wanted to talk to her in the first place.

“When you were asked to visit the largest covens around the world as an emissary of the Council of Four, I don’t think they hoped for the outcome you delivered.”

I was aware that Audra had been meeting with the high priestesses of at least a couple dozen covens over the last nine months, but I hadn’t known someone had sent her to do so. “The Council of Four?”

“It’s comprised of four of the most powerful witches, one representing each power—earth, water, fire and air,” Damien explained. “They serve a similar purpose as the shifter council.”

“They sent you around the world as some kind of emissary?” I asked Audra. “For what? What did they hope you could accomplish for them?”

“To smooth things over,” she sighed. “There were rumblings in the witch world about Selene’s mating with Camden and how her powers increased. Quite a bit of misinformation was being spread out of fear. So many of the covens have never had contact of any kind with shifters, not even dragons since they’re so rare. Being told that a witch was now mated to a bear shifter was a shock to many, and it sent ripples through our community.”

“So they just threw you to the wolves and hoped you could make it better?” I bit out. “You’re her mom, didn’t anyone stop to think some of the hate could spill over to you?”

“I’m perfectly fine. Nothing like that happened,” Audra whispered, sliding her hand up my arm to grasp my shoulder and squeeze it. At the feel of her hand on me, I started to calm a bit.

“Quite the opposite, in fact,” Damien added. “Audra was the perfect person to broach the subject since she’s a well-respected high priestess. Plus, she’s the only witch with a familial connection to shifters besides Selene. Who better to try to persuade other witches that this is a positive change for all of us than one of the two witches who passionately believes it to be true?”

“I had to go. For obvious reasons, it couldn’t be Selene.” She waved her hand towards the nursery. “I couldn’t trust someone else with the situation, not when the outcome was vitally important to my daughter and grandbabies. It needed the right touch, and I was the only one who could do it.”

“Your touch was more than just ‘right.’ It was perfect. The majority of the behind the scenes grumbling has died down because of you,” Damien complimented her. “It’s only the die-hard exclusionists who are causing any trouble now.”

“I’m not surprised she did a first-rate job of it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like that she was sent in the first place.”

“Well then you’re probably not going to approve of what I’m about to ask her, either.” My entire body tensed up when Damien turned to Audra with a serious look on his face. “Will you step into Selene’s shoes with the shifter council?”

4

Audra

“Me?” I was just as shocked as I’d been almost a year before when I’d learned that the leader of the council had asked my daughter to take a seat on it. “You’re joking, right?”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who plays around when it comes to important shit?”

I scanned his body from head to toe, all six feet and six inches of him. I took in his shortly cropped, dark hair, shining green eyes, firm lips, and ridiculously muscular frame. “No. Now that you mention it, you don’t look like much of a kidder to me.”

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