Redeem The Bear (15 page)

A pang of painful sadness stabbed through her chest, but she understood. He had fought too hard just to leave them to rebuild their treachery. His people needed to be rehabilitated into a civil society they had never known. One with laws and councils, and Brooks was the only shifter strong enough, and with enough influence, to see it through. She couldn’t ask him to leave his duties and people behind.

She still had the cell phone he had gifted her, so there was that. It wouldn’t be the same as looking in
to his eyes and touching him. She would hear his voice though, and that would have to be enough for now.

The field in front of Riker’s house was filled with Bear Valley shifters, as well as Brooks’ new council members.

Corin frowned. Perhaps this hadn’t been the exclusive party she had assumed when Riker invited her. How was she going to do this? She felt so raw and upset about her and Brooks’ impending separation, and now she was going to have to put on a brave face and mingle. They would be able to sense how upset she was, and she wasn’t prepared to explain her feelings.

She hesitated as they approached. Maybe no one would notice if she didn’t attend. Everyone was talking in groups and laughing and the barbeque grills were fired up in the back. People were eating and enjoying themselves and surely she wouldn’t be missed.

“I can’t do this.” Her voice sounded airy as she pushed it through closing vocal cords.

“What’s wrong?” Brooks asked, squeezing her arm comfortingly.

“I have one day with you, and it’s going to hurt so badly to say goodbye to you tomorrow, and I can’t go talk to everyone and pretend that I’m not falling apart inside.” Her weak admission came out in a rush.

“Corin!” Hannah hailed, waving.

Joanna, and Anya tugged on their mates’ hands and the crowd surged closer. Great. They were probably coming to greet Brooks, and she’d be the weeping psychopath trying to hide behind Riker’s giant truck.

Gently, Brooks thumbed her chin up until her gaze reached his. “This isn’t what you think it is, Corin, and I don’t want to be separated either.”

He cupped her cheeks as the crowd gathered around them. The talk died until only the breeze and Corin’s pounding heart filled her ears. Someone lit a candle. Another and another lit up, casting the night in a warm, flickering glow. She searched the faces of the people she loved as they looked back at her expectantly.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured, placing her hands over Brooks’.

“I asked them to be here,” he said low. “In another lifetime, I stood before the Kodiak council and asked to be promised to you. And now,” he said, easing back and pulling something from his pocket. “I’m asking again.” From his hand dangled a necklace on a gold chain. A medallion with a script letter
B
spun and shone in the candle light.

Her face crumpled and the tears filling her eyes spilled over.

He clasped the token of their past and future around her neck, and settled it right in the center of her chest, just where the old necklace had sat for all these years. Then, he knelt down on one knee and looked up at her, his gaze open. “I wanted to ask you, in front of your people and mine, if you would be my mate. I’d be honored if you would come back to my clan and become mate of the alpha. I would be honored if you would choose me, as I have already chosen you.” He inhaled deeply. “I would be honored if you would be mine.”

Riker stepped forward and placed the han
dle of a ceremonial knife against the palm of her hand. She stared at it through tear-blurred vision.

The choice was hers.

Saying yes would mean leaving her people, and living among the Long Claws. She would leave her cottage, her job and her friends and forge a new life with Brooks in an unfamiliar place.

She tried to imagine life here without him, but it hurt too badly.

Home was with him. It always had been.

Swallowing
hard, she looked up and unsheathed the knife.

He pulled his shirt over his head and stepped toward her. Around the bandages she
had doctored him with were the silvered scars of countless battles fought at the whim of his clan. They were scars he had taken to protect her and beloved Bear Valley. But the three long marks she would make across his chest tonight would be the most important scars. Now, they would belong to each other always.

His slow smile stretched until the shadow of his dimple ghosted his jaw.

There he was—her perfect match.

The blade shone in the
candle light created by the people she loved as she lifted it to his chest. “I choose you, too.”

“Are you ready to see
everyone again?” Brooks asked through an easy smile.

One
hand rested comfortably on the steering wheel of his SUV, and his other hand was clasped in Corin’s.

She was nearly bouncing with anticipation. “Of course I am. I feel like I want to change and run the rest of the way.”

He barked out a laugh. Even Bethany, Angus, and the rest of the council who sat patiently in the back seats chuckled.

It had been six months since she’d last laid eyes on Bear Valley. And though the Long Claws were her clan now, and her home with Brooks in Wyoming, this place would always hold magic for her.

Behind them trailed a long line of vehicles transporting the entirety of the Long Claw Clan. Only seventy strong now after the battles of the last year, but three summer babies would be born into the new and much improved shifter community. They would know a much easier life than their parents before them—one filled with peace.

It had been an adjustment. The Long Claws were a raucous group and the clan run much differently
than she was accustomed to. Brooks talked often with Riker for advice, but the goal wasn’t to turn his clan into Bear Valley shifters. It was to find a compromise between the old clan, and the new laws that encouraged alliances with their shifter brethren. It had been a long, hard battle, and the Long Claws got into more damned fights than Corin knew what to do with, but for better and worse, they were home now, and she served as their alpha’s mate as best she could.

Her union with Brooks had united the clans more than she ever could’ve imagined. As she made friends and dispelled rumors of her old clan, tensions settled and Brooks had finally suggested they all meet with Bear Valley to encourage relationships.

She smiled as they passed the no trespassing signs along the fence line of her old home. If her clan could mind their damned manners for a few days and open up to the possibility of friendship with bear shifters outside their own, Brooks and Riker would make history as the first Long Claw and Bear Valley alphas to ever work together for a common goal.

Pride surged through her as it so often did when she watched how strong her mate was in the face of adversity, and she squeezed his hand.

“I can almost feel your happiness,” he murmured, lifting her hand and kissing her knuckles.

The final grove of towering pines blurred by as they passed, and Corin leaned forward. Riker and his people were gathered in the field in front of his house. Fragrant smoke rose from a barbecue pit
, and it reminded her so much of the night Brooks had claimed her. The faded marks he’d made on her chest tingled with the memory. It had been the happiest moment of her life.

He pulled around the field, leading his people to park out of the way, and she slid out of the passenger’s side as fast as she could scramble. Anya and Joanna were running for her and she bolt
ed toward them. Crashing into her friends’ arms, she laughed as she spied Jenny and Hannah waddling toward her, twin moon bellies leading the way. Hannah was already crying.

“Come here, you sappy human,”
Corin murmured, pulling them all in close.

She talked to them on the phone all the time, but it wasn’t the same as being near them. Corin pressed her cheek against Anya’s and hugged the others to her tighter. Chase nodded a
greeting and Brody gave her a two fingered wave, and Juan, Cameron and Riker moved to greet her mate.

It felt so damned good to have everyone back together.

She watched Riker shake Brooks’ hand, and they both bowed their heads respectfully as they spoke low through matching smiles.

Bear Valley and Long Claw—two of the greatest bear shifter clans in the world
, and they had ended their centuries of pretend alliances and war because of these two great alphas.

Hannah res
ted her forehead against Corin’s and said, “They did well, didn’t they?”

In the field of wild
flowers, in the shadow of the Bighorn Mountains, both clans were meeting, talking…laughing.

Corin drew her gaze back
to Brooks and Riker, the alphas who had changed everything.

Brooks looked at her and smiled slow, like he could sense how proud she was.

Because of them, peace had come to her kind.

Because of them, bear shifters would rise again.

Dear Awesome Reader,

This is usually the part of the book where I’m supposed to include an acknowledgement, but every time I sit down with my fingers hovered over the keyboard to write
one, I just want to thank you.

If you’re reading this, you’ve read the entire series, and
have been affected in some way by these characters who have affected me so completely. You’re the reason I’m able to write stories and share them.

So, before I turn into a sappy bear, thank you for getting lost in this story with me.

You. Rock.

-T.

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Bear Valley Shifters Series

The
Witness and the Bear (Book 1)

Amazon

Devoted to the Bear (Book 2)

Amazon

Return to the Bear (Book 3)