Page 26 of Bearly Yours
Alpha Riggs came in then. The alpha power spoking off of him made me groan in pain. I could even see it with my eyes closed, it burned so bright. Behind my closed eyelids, Alpha Riggs’ power looked like pure white rays of light that shot through his skin and outward in a circle of ultra bright beams.
“You’re hurting her,” Roarke growled.
“I’m sorry, Emrie,” Riggs said quietly, and the bright spokes of light began to dim. To Roarke he said, “I’m not trying to. I’m sorry that I am.”
Roarke nodded stiffly above me.
“I’m going to go check the second floor and make sure it’s clear.” He ascended the stairs and started moving methodically through my second floor, and from the sound of it, checking all the nooks, crannies and closets.
I wasn’t sure how he’d known my second floor hadn’t been checked yet. Probably by the scents in my house.
He came back down a few minutes later, and sat in the fluffy, stuffed chair that sat kitty corner to my couch.
“How are you holding up, Emrie?”
“I’m okay, Alpha. I just have a headache from where my head smacked the hardwood floor.”
I opened my eyes a slit, but when even that hurt, I closed them again. Alpha got up and rummaged in my cupboards. He came back with an unopened bottle of ibuprofen. He emptied three out into his palm, and handed me a bottle of water toswallow them with. I propped myself up on one elbow and downed them, then handed the bottle back and lay back down.
Alpha sat back down in the chair. “That should take the edge off in a few minutes. We’ll wait to talk until then.” After about fifteen minutes, the pulsing pain in my head had lessened, and I gently sat up.
Roarke rummaged in one of my drawers and came back with a pair of sunglasses. I thanked him and put them on. I might look ridiculous wearing them inside, but they helped a ton.
He sat back down next to me, and pulled me close to him so I was snug against his side. I had no idea what’d come over my best friend. He was acting like an octopus with sticky tentacles.
I finally got a good look at my alpha, and was startled to see a huge smile on his face. He even looked a little choked up.
“Will someone please explain to me what in the world is going on? I mean it was weird enough for the intruder to drop by unexpectedly, steal a cheap locket, and break my brain, but then the Clan was acting all weird, Roarke is being very cuddly all the sudden, and you’re smiling like a ghoul!”
I swore, the next words out of someone’s mouth had better be something that made sense or I was going to turn into my bear and go take a nap in the woods.
And then my alpha spoke, and it stunned the frustration right out of me.
“Congratulations Emrie and Roarke. Emrie, Roarke is your mate.”
Chapter 6
Emrie
Everything changed with those words. And yet, nothing changed with those words.
On the one hand, if I dared to believe my alpha, it was like my wildest dreams had come true. But at the same time, I was weirdly hesitant. How many shifters got to be with the person they wanted most in the world? How many dreams came true in the exact way that we wanted them to?
Call me a skeptic, but I was sure this was all some kind of bizarre mix up.
Hope, when there had been no hope at all, was very painful.
And after all, I was broken. There was no way to accurately determine who my mate was. There just wasn’t.
Roarke’s expression was ultra gentle, as if he knew that I was wildly fluctuating between the desperate desire to break out my box of last year’s fireworks, party hats and fizzy poppers, and walling off my heart because the hope that he might be mine was just too painful. “It’s true. I can smell you now. Your scent mingles with mine. You’re my mate.”
I scooted away from him on the sofa, and I could feel his hurt. I wanted to punch myself in the face, but also, Roarke was possibly my mate. It was like the sentence didn’t compute in myhead. Didn’t I hate this when the heroines did this in romance books.Oh no, he’s my mate, let me run from him like an idiot!And yet...I got it now. Fear was like a multi-tentacled monster with poison dripping fangs. It was so painful it burned inside of me. I think—I felt my heart racing underneath my palm—I think I was having a panic attack.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” he said, rubbing my arm in gentle motions with his huge and comforting hand. The heat from his hand was soothing, and almost against my will, I began to calm down. My breathing steadied as I tried to pull myself together.
I hated panic attacks.
Unfortunately, they were just a part of life for me. This is why, outside of my Clan and Roarke, I didn’t do people. People were... weirdly combative, had opinions about literally everything—even things they didn’t understand—and would fight in a death match against anyone who’s opinion differed from theirs. It was like the whole world had gone crazy, and here I was just very chill, and like, seriously people, can’t we all just get along? The world is not a death match! Tolerance, kindness, respect...ugh. I just couldn’t people.
