Page 54 of Bearly Yours
Everyone winced at the concert idea. Yeah, loud music and shifters didn’t really go together. “It looks like we can do both the light show and the magic show,” Alpha Riggs said, folding his map, and sticking it in his back jeans pocket. “Does that sound good?”
Everyone nodded enthusiastically. The magic and light shows were both amazing, and they were a once-a-year thing, so if you missed them, you had to wait another year. “As for the rest,” Roarke said, doing the same with his map, “let’s play it by ear. We have a basic plan; let’s try to go with the flow with the rest.”
I was wearing a dusty-pink, cold-shoulder shirt tucked into a pair of jeans that hugged my curves but were also stretchy. It’d made Roarke’s eyes burn red when he saw me this morning. I smiled at the memory, feeling warm. The rest of the guys, in honor of the Valentines Fair, were also wearing pink tee shirts or nice button-up shirts.
Taco stopped us all before we tried to join the stream of traffic heading in. “Can I just say? We make pink lookgood!”
I laughed. Yes, yes we did.
The day was filled with a million and one laughs. The bumper hearts had a magic bubble around them that allowed you to bump the other heart cars as many times as you wanted without feeling that huge, neck popping jolt. When we got in, Mateo and Mathan just immediately went for each other until Alpha had to call them away because they were scaring the little kids. Both of them looked sheepish after that.
The love boats were amazing. They led us on peaceful waters down a beautiful, jade lagoon. Soft music played, and the spray of the water cooled all of us shifters off, because even though the weather was in the low 60’s, we were all super hot. It made our inner bears grumble.Just wait until summer,I told my bear.
Heat no good,she said miserably.
The magic show was spectacular. Drew volunteered to go up and help, and he was his usual sarcastic, teenager self. Which did not suit the wizard at all because on stage he made Drew sing soprano, and then sing bass, and then jump between the two extremes the whole song, screeching really high up, and then really low down, while the entire audience was laughing so hard they were holding on to each other for support.
Also, the mage had given Drew a secret word that evenhedidn’t know, and he clucked like a chicken for the entire rest of the day whenever we said team,so we obviously had to add it to everything we said. Taco was practically rolling on the floor because he was laughing so hard, and the rest of our little Clan weren’t far behind. The best part? He never knew that he was doing it! So, when we all started cracking up for the millionth time, he looked at us like we were one cuckoo short of a cuckoo’s nest.
We were currently roaming through the many fair stalls, and stopping by the ones that piqued our interest. Mateo and Alpha Riggs had gone to the stall that a cupid had set up. She was giving out love advice to those who came seeking her. It made my heart hurt that none of those I was closest to had found their mates yet. They still had loads of time, because they were all still young, but I know they yearned for their mates, and it broke my heart that they hadn’t found them yet.
I stopped at the Chocula’s Chocolates stall. They had chocolate-covered strawberries, made special for Valentine’s Day and the Valentine’s Fair, which were my favorite. I loved anything that was fruit and chocolate together. Roarke stood next to me, munching on a sample that the vampire running the stall had handed each of us. I looked up at him when he made a humming noise. “Good, huh?”
He nodded and swallowed. “Reallygood.” He looked at the cashier. “I’d like two dozen please.” The vampire nodded and started boxing the order up while I sampled a few other items. Roarke whispered in my ear. “One of those is for you.”
I leaned against the breadth of his massive chest and looked up at him. “You’re really good to me, you know that?”
He kissed my forehead. “It goes both ways,mo chroì.”
I smiled, then looked at the vampire who was waiting patiently. “Can I get a dozen of your fruit truffles?”
He nodded. “Of course. Let me get those for you.”
My Clan also ordered some chocolates, mostly the dark chocolate sea salt honey truffles, because they were all amazingly predictable. We paid extra for cold storage shipping to our lodge, met back up with Mateo and Alpha, both of whom looked deep in thought, and we all started exploring the rest of the stalls.
One vampire was advertising love letters written in fancy calligraphy. His samples were beautiful, and I snuck one of hiscards so I could contact him later, once I’d written my love letter to Roarke.
A vendor without a booth was selling balloons. Taco and Drew each bought one because the balloons were awesome-looking, and Roarke bought me a few. They were clear hearts, with soft rainbow colors flashing inside. They looked like rainbows inside bubbles, and were super pretty.
I caught Mateo looking at mine in envy for a minute, and I went to hand him one, but he shook his head. “I have to keep my hands free,” he said with a soft smile of thanks.
Oh, right. The whole reason my Clan had crashed my date. Because some lunatic was trying to kill me.
At his words Taco and Drew comically looked at each other with panicked expressions on their faces, then handed their balloons to the first pretty girls we came across. The girls walked away, I kid you not, with stars in their eyes. What was it about my Clan that was so attractive to females? I mean, I got it, but also, I didn’t get it. Was it the whole shifter thing? Because I’d never been treated that way as a shifter, and it seemed like an awful double standard.
Guy shifters equaled hot; girl shifters equaled not.
“I think you’re hot,” Roarke whispered sexily in my ear, and I shivered, once again reminded that my mate could hear some of my thoughts. Instead of feeling like I had a big glaring spotlight shining on my brain, I feltseenin a way I’d never experienced before. I turned to him and pulled him down to kiss him.
My Clan made grumbly noises behind me, but I laughed and kept kissing my very sweet mate. Finally, I pulled away. Roarke’s eyes were red again, and I grinned up at him, then lightly pecked his lips one more time. “You know I love you, right?” I whispered.
He leaned down so our foreheads were touching. “I love you, too,mo chroì. So very much.” Happy tears filled my eyes, eventhough they never spilled over. I looked over at my Clan, and they weren’t much better. Most of their eyes had a watery sheen, and they were clearing their throats and looking everywhere but at me and Roarke. I laughed. “You guys are all saps and I love you for it.”
After that we had to have a group hug, because we just had to. Roarke complained of bear musk smell on him, but our group stayed molded together for another long moment, and then we continued on looking through the booths.
“The last ride for the Ferris wheel is coming up, Roarke,” Alpha Riggs said, perusing the map. “And it looks like we’ve hit everything we wanted to.” He put the map back. “We’d better head over.”
Roarke had already gotten our tickets, so as we made our way over to the line, the rest of the Clan went ahead of us, and more people joined the line after us, crowding in until the lane snaked around the corner. “Wow, last call for the Ferris wheel is a big deal,” I said. I’d never gone on the Ferris wheel, so I’d never paid attention.
