Page 6 of Bearly Yours
I rarely got cold, needing only a sweatshirt through the winter, so the weather was invigorating for me. I skirted the outdoor fire-pit and the many cushy chairs set around it, made my way past the pool along the side of the lodge under a huge awning, and stomped my feet on the grey stone steps and entry rug before I opened the door.
Zin would have my hide if I tracked mud into the lodge. He had his hands full keeping the lodge maintained and cleaned with so many bear shifters in and out as it was, I didn’t want to create more work for him.
I bypassed the cozy entry and den and followed the sound of voices and the smell of my bear Clan. When I entered the room, I spotted the tee shirts that everyone was wearing and snorted, choking on a laugh. The tee shirts were mint green and saidMoonhaven Cove Bear Clanon the front, with the various illustrated bears all flexing, and then on the back they saidThe only B Team Worth Mentioning.
“Did you guys seriously have tee shirts made up?” I really wanted one. They were hilarious.
Atanassio, or Taco, as everyone called him, grinned at me as he grabbed a twenty-pound bag of ice out of the freezer and started adding ice to everyone’s glasses with a slightly dinged metal cup. “Of course.pequeño.We’ve gotta represent! The wolf, lion, and tiger shifters all have their own Pack tee shirts and sweatshirts. I’ve been complaining for ages that we need our own.”
I didn’t roll my eyes, even though I wanted to. Badly. No one had more Clan pride for our Moonhaven Cove Bear Clan than Taco. If there were a Clan job that required a bear shifter to go out and bring in recruits like the military did, we would all send Taco. No contest. He’s funny and charismatic, and he’d have them all agreeing and following him like the pied piper before they even realized what they were agreeing to.
I shook my head, laughing, and entered the kitchen to help set out dinner. Our sprawling, two-story Clan lodge had a massive kitchen that had grey brick facing over the stove, huge lofty ceilings with open beams, and a gigantic table that could seat twenty or so bear shifters with ease, with padded benches for seating.
Sullivan, who was our main Clan chef unless someone was feeling either adventurous or peckish for something specific, was stirring something on the stove that smelledamazing,and everyone who had kitchen duty was bustling around, setting plates and sides on the table for dinner. The rest were sitting around and chatting, waiting for Alpha Riggs to arrive with his First and Second, and for everything to be out on the tables so we could eat.
I didn’t have kitchen duty tonight, but I pulled two ginormous salad bowls full of salad out of the fridge anyway. No one else would, except maybe Sullivan. His attempts to get themale shifters to eat anything other than meat and honey were a never-ending battle, and one I was wise enough to stay out of. Besides, the mates would eat some of the veggies with me. At least I hoped they would, because I couldn’t eat two huge bowls of salad all by myself.
And the honey... Let’s just say the stereotype of bears and honey was alive and well in my Clan. We had honeyeverything.Honey flavored sticks, honey cereal, peanut butter and honey, honey protein bars, honey-based dinners that Sullivan prepared, honey flavored drinks and teas... If there was a new product on the market that featured honey as the main flavor and ingredient, my crazy Clan eyed it like a magpie eyed shiny things. I tried to tell them once that they were perpetuating a stereotype, but they just laughed and kept sucking on their honey sticks, so I gave up.
I sat next to Akeno, who nodded distractedly at me and kept typing something into the notes app on his phone at rapid speed. Akeno was a slightly hyper, high-energy bear, but he needed all that high energy as he was the Clan teacher for the cubs.
Akeno spent a good six or seven hours a day at the school on Clan property, trying to teach the handful or so cubs of various ages. Teaching the juniors and seniors was easy because everything was mostly handled through an online school offsite, but to teach the younger ones, especially those under ten, he had to get creative to keep them interested. He always managed, and I was fully convinced he used magic.
“What’s up?” I asked, taking a peek at his phone. “New science project for the younger cubs?”
Akeno nodded as he typed one final thing, then closed his app and gave me his full attention. Akeno was Japanese American. He had black, straight hair, cut short and messy; dark, liquid eyes; long black eyelashes; and very light bronzeskin. His shifted form was a sun bear, otherwise known as a Malay bear.
Which, to me, looked like an oversized marsupial, and not really like what people pictured when someone saidbear.And...you know...he didn’t have a pouch. At least, I didn’t think so. I wasn’t going to ask him,thatwas for sure.
“Yes,” he answered, his full lips tilting up in a small smile. “The younger cubs will be making solar ovens to cook s’mores in. We’re learning about solar energy.”
Drew, who had barely turned nineteen and was new to the Clan, chimed in. “It doesn’t seem like it’s hot enough for that. For late January we’re barely in the forties.”
Akeno nodded, taking no offense, which was kind of his MO. “Yes, I agree. That’s why we will be using hairdryers to provide the heat of the sun.”
Three of the Clan males immediately volunteered to let him borrow theirs, and I offered mine up as well. I rarely used it anyway, choosing the ease of taming my long sandy blonde hair in a messy bun instead.
Personally, I thought it was hilarious that at least three of the Clan guyshadhair dryers. I didn’t think Roarke would get within thirty feet of one. Not that he needed it. For one, his hair was pretty short. It probably dried in like three seconds. And for two, there was probably some dragon shifter short-cut that he could use to dry off, like steaming his hair dry or something.
“Where are you going to set the ovens up?” I asked Akeno, curiously.
“I think the concrete firepit circle will work fine if we move all of the seating out of the way.” He gulped water from his filled glass, then refilled it and drank some more. All of that speedy typing must have dehydrated him, poor baby.
Alpha Riggs came in, his power and presence filling the room before his body did. All of the bears at the table straightened inrespect, dipping their heads when he sat down. Matteo, his First, sat on the other side of Akeno. He just scooted in in his quiet, graceful way without any fuss. “Can you help Akeno and the cubs with that, Matteo?” Alpha Riggs asked.
Matteo nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”
It wasn’t unusual for me to look around at the male members of my Clan, like I was doing now, and wonder why I wasn’t half in love with all of them.
For one, bear shifters were built like tanks. The males had muscles for days and were stocky and broad from the time they hit their teen years. Most of them were good-humored, treated females well, provided well for themselves, their families, and their Clan, and were just all around good males to have in your corner and in your life.
Of course, there were some that were more on the crazy side—*cough*Taco—but they were all good males that didn’t embarrass me too badly or make the female species as a whole hate their guts. We had a small group here today, only twelve or so, and as my eyes traced over the few shifters at the large table, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in my Clan.
Alpha Riggs, down at the end, was a massive polar bear shifter who looked Scandinavian in his human form, with ice-blue eyes and pale blonde hair. He was naturally a quiet person, so when he spoke, others in the Clan listened. Power rolled off of him in waves so strong that humans could even feel it. It wasn’t too much for us in the Clan, but I knew that non-Clan members, even alphas from other Clans, felt bowled over by it. He was methodical and wise, even-tempered and intelligent, and I wondered for the millionth time why the honey drops he was still single. In fact,mostof my Clan was single. There were some families with cubs, but they were in the minority.
Alastair, Alpha Rigg’s secretary, sat next to him. He had short dark hair, emerald-green eyes, and was grumpy as all get-out.Despite his feral personality, Alistair was one of the bears I was especially close to. He could be kinda intense, but he was a good guy. I sensed a lot of heartache within him. From what little information I’d gotten from him, his heartache revolved around an incomplete mate bond.
Mating for shifters was a thing dearly hoped for. Sometimes you got those shifters that didn’t want a family, and that was a completely valid choice, so they dated whomever they wanted to, but for most shifters, theylongedfor their mate, they hoped daily to find their other half, and they felt a sense of emptiness without them. It was a difficult thing that many of us unmated shifters had to bear, and it never got any easier.
