Page 60 of Bearly Yours
“Of course! I’m just trying to figure out a good place to store them. They need a room that doesn’t get a lot of sun, right?”
He nodded. “That would preserve them better. My UV sealer is only about 99 percent effective.”
I hummed in thought. “I think the bedroom in the basement would work for now. It’s carpeted and clean.”
He kissed me in acceptance, and we strode into the lodge. Immediately I was hit with the amazing smells coming from the kitchen. We got there just in time to take a seat at the table as those on kitchen duty for the night brought platters and bowls to the table.
It was a small crowd tonight, with just a few of us crowded around the table.
“Thank you, Sullivan. It looks amazing!” I was starving, and my bear was making whining noises. She wasn’t all that patient when it came to food. I loaded grilled corn salad, Spanish rice,green-chili refried beans, and a huge serving of enchiladas onto my plate, then laughed when Sullivan set a big salad bowl near me filled with fresh veggies and my favorite creamy dressing.
“Oh, wow. I needed those. Thanks.” I smiled sweetly at him, and became amused when he focused on his food, blushing a little.
After dinner and clean up, I got into my swimsuit, a basic black swimsuit I’d had for years, and headed out to the hot tub with a towel and my flip flops. Roarke was already out there, and I tried not to trip over my own feet at the sight of his well-defined chest. Seriously, I did this every time. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I still wasn’t. My mate wasgorgeous.
“Thank you,” he said, stealing my thoughts, and I cringed in embarrassment. Telepaths. “There’s nothing embarrassing about you enjoying me, Emrie. I enjoy the sight of you just as much.” He pulled me closer to him in the warm, bubbling water. “In fact, you always take my breath away.”
My knees went to putty.
I loved how Roarke made me feel like his enjoyment of our kisses and his enjoyment of my appearance wasn’t a shallow thing. But a deep thing. He enjoyed my kisses and my appearance, not because I was feminine, available, and attractive—interchangeable—but because I wasme. Because I was his mate. Because he loved me. I knew for many the attraction came first, but at least on my end, I’d become attracted to Roarke the more I’d grown to know him. And I think that went for both of us.
He kissed my nose—I noticed that was a favorite thing of his to do, and I loved how adored it made me feel—and then pulled me onto his lap as he laid back against the wet, cool concrete of the built-in hot tub.
“Your plan?” I reminded him lazily. I was feeling lethargic at the moment, but still brimming with curiosity about everything he’d been up to the last several days.
“I’ll start at the beginning.”
“Thank you.”
He laughed. “You’re welcome,mo chroì. One thing first though. I noticed you were curious about my tattoo?”
I turned in his arms and studied it. I wasn’t trying to be big-headed about this, I absolutely wasn’t, but that was a cinnamon-brown furred black bear near a stream on our Clan property. I recognized the location. I was sitting by the stream, watching the water, with the forest surrounding me.
“Is that me?” I asked in a bashful whisper.
He nodded, letting me trace the design on his chest and arm. “It was the first day I saw you in your bear form. It was evening, and I was stretching my wings on a night flight. You were out alone on Clan property, probably trying to escape your Clan,” he joked. I could hear Taco’s “hey!” from inside the lodge, and I laughed. So much for privacy tonight. But then I could hear Taco yelp and take off running. I was betting Mateo was chasing him away from the back door.
Roarke and I laughed. He put his hand over the hand that was still tracing his tattoos. “From that moment on, I felt changed. Although I didn’t know why. A stillness had settled in me. My dragon and I had been hurting for many years, but that night, peace settled upon us, and it stayedwithus. The experience was so profound that I wanted to remember it always. It makes sense now when I look back on it. It was the first time we saw our mate, though we didn’t know it at the time.”
I kissed his chest where the tattoo was, not salaciously but innocently and gratefully. “Thank you for sharing that, Roarke. The artwork is beautiful.”
He kissed my lips. “The moment was beautiful, and the bear is beautiful.”
My inner bear preened, so unbelievably happy that her mate found her form beautiful.
He turned me around and I leaned back against his chest again. “Now, for the story. It occurred to me while you were in the hospital, that if the assassin had been around the person who contracted them for your life, I might be able to smell their scent and at least get a scent memory of it so we can move forward.”
I nodded. A scent memory was permissible as evidence in paranormal law. And from someone as well established in this town as Roarke, it made sense that he would think to start there.
“It took me two days in the station’s sensory deprivation chamber, but I finally whittled down the two scents of the person who stabbed you. One was the assassin himself, a small player in a larger game. I have his scent, and some of Draven’s team are tracking him. He’s wily, but they’ll catch him.”
I nodded.
“The other...” He turned me around so he could see my face, and I floated in the water above him. “It was Premier Drakis.”
I blinked, utterly stunned. Premier Drakis was the head of the shifter Council. Why would he...?
“My mom?” I croaked.
