Page 6 of Her Beary Spicy Valentine (Welcome to Bear Mountain #2)

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let’s do this!

leif

W hen I was turned three years ago, I discovered a shocking truth: my grizzly wasn’t hard to put up with at all. Unlike my human, he didn’t care what others thought of him, kept quiet when I decided to quit my job and sign up with the RCMP, and even let me keep my love of hot Bikram yoga without too much grumbling. All in all, he’d been a surprisingly chill dude.

Until now.

Have to find her. Have to get to her. Have to make sure she’s safe.

I stalked the length of the station’s cell, back and forth, like a wild animal trapped unfairly in a cage.

“Stop pacing. You’re giving me a fucking headache,” the Iron Claw MC growled.

He smelled like a much rougher version of the cognac my dad preferred for his last drink of the night. And though I hadn’t seen him before today, there was something faintly familiar about his scent—an undertone that reminded me of one of the Bear Mountain residents I’d met during the whirlwind of pre-denning season introductions. But I couldn’t quite place who.

He was probably a full Ayaska black bear like Takoda, judging by the similar light umber tint of his skin and the way he’d dared to speak to my hard-ass boss. And though he was just as stuck in here as I was, he leaned casually against the wall with his arms crossed, watching me with an annoyed expression. Like I was overreacting.

He obviously didn’t understand.

“I can’t just sit here!” I shot him a glare without breaking stride. “She’s out there—my mate is out there—and I’m stuck in this stupid cell!”

The Iron Claw arched a dark eyebrow, his amber eyes glinting. “We’ve got a name, don’t we?”

“What?”

“She said it back at the bar. She’s got a sister. First name, Noelle. Last name Winters—until the Tuk’Mara’s maul wifes her in the spring. That’s enough to go on for a Dudley.”

The implication in his tone made me stop mid-step and turn to face him. “What the hell are you suggesting?”

The Iron Claw just smirked and nodded toward the computer sitting on top of the station desk I shared with Takoda. “You’ve got access to the right databases. All we have to do is track her down as soon as Horse lets us out of here.”

Horse . Takoda had pretty much stabled Sentinel—or Senty, as I called him when I snuck him apples behind my superior officer’s back—for the winter. Senty wasn’t the only horse in the stable we were responsible for during hibernation season—one of my more enjoyable duties in a dead mountain town. Takoda, however, was the only person I knew, in, well, life, who still used a horse as his primary mode of transportation. So it didn’t take much to figure out who the MC meant.

My heart tripped over his suggestion: that I go behind Takoda’s back to get the information I needed to track down Noelle Winters’ sister. The bone-deep need to see her clashed with the undeniable wrongness of misusing RCMP resources—especially after getting myself arrested.

“That’s—that’s not just unethical,” I reminded him. And myself. “It’s illegal!”

The Iron Claw shrugged. “And?”

“You’re basically talking about stalking her.” I wanted the words to taste sour in my mouth, but my no-longer-chill grizzly growled in complete agreement with the criminal who’d broken my nose and probably ruined any chance I had of staying in the RCMP with an arrest on my record less than four months into my first assignment.

“If stalking’s what it takes.” The Iron Claw’s tone held a calm pragmatism that didn’t match the coiled violence radiating off him. “Like Don Quixote said, ‘Love and war are exactly alike. It is lawful to use tricks and slights to obtain a desired end.’”

“Wait.” I held up a hand. “Are you seriously quoting somebody who was known for swinging on windmills at me?”

A loud roar rumbled through the station before he could answer—so deep it reverberated in my bones.

The sound snapped my head up, and the Iron Claw pushed off the wall, his smirk twisting into something sharper.

“Who the hell is that?” he asked, his fists clenching for a fight.

The growl came again, this time louder, right before the station door slammed open.

My eyes widened as the largest black bear I’d ever seen in a village full of them barreled into the station, dragging something limp behind it.

No, not something.

Someone . Another black bear, but much smaller. And wearing a pair of Hoka runners of all things.

The scent of the two of them hit me before my brain could process what I was seeing. Caramel encased in chocolate and toasted hazelnuts. Sweet, rich, and overwhelming.

I recognized the hazelnut scent as Takoda and the other as…

“Holly!” The Iron Claw’s gravelly voice cut through my confusion. “He turned our girl!”

No, wait, what? Takoda had bond bitten a human out of the blue? That didn’t sound like him.

But the faint rise and fall of the unconscious bear’s chest was exactly what the Bear Mountain manual from the nineties said would happen for what it called “Tourist Bites”—highly unethical cases of a bear resident turning the humans that came to visit Bear Mountain on holiday.

It looked like I was no longer the only constable around here in violation of the town’s law, which meant Takoda would have no choice but to let me off the hook.

However, my relief at that realization died when I saw the state of her back left leg, bent at an unnatural angle.

She’s hurt!

My bear reared up inside of me, and I grabbed the bars, a growl ripping out from my throat.

“What did you do?” I snarled at Takoda.

The large black bear didn’t answer. Just let go of Holly’s bear body and lumbered over to the station desk to reach one of its massive paws underneath it.

There must have been a button there I hadn’t seen before—or hadn’t been told about when I reported for duty back in November. The bars of the cell swung open with a groaning whine of metal.

I lunged forward to get to Holly, but the Iron Claw barred an arm across my chest.

“Wouldn’t if I was you. See that bite on her front leg?”

I froze, my gaze fixed on the crescent-shaped indentation on her foreleg. A bond bite.

Rage, sharp and unfamiliar, flared through me, and my bear surged toward the surface, clawing to break free for reasons that had nothing to do with healing my broken nose this time. “He hurt her—then he bond bit her, even though she’s mine!”

“Not just yours.” The Iron Claw’s voice was steady, but his amber gaze stayed locked on Holly. “And he might not be the one who broke her leg. Let’s see what he does next.”

“Next?”

The bear’s glowing red eyes lingered on Holly’s limp form, a low growl rumbling deep in his chest.

Then his gaze snapped to us—sharp, deliberate, and full of intent.

My heart seized. What was he going to d?—

He lunged, cutting my wondering thought short.

Fast, with his maw gaping wide.

Before I could blink, he had the Iron Claw pinned to the cell floor with one massive paw.

I expected a fight, some kind of resistance. But the Iron Claw didn’t struggle. Didn’t even yell out.

Instead, he pulled up the sleeve of his leather jacket to expose his forearm.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, my voice rising in pitch.

The Iron Claw didn’t answer. Just grinned as the bear’s teeth sank into his exposed arm, drawing blood.

“Yeah, Koda. That’s right.” To my shock, the Iron Claw let out a low, approving growl, his chest practically purring. “Let’s do this!”

I stared, horrified, but then the bear finally released him. A thin line of blood trailed from the bite.

“Well, that’s one way to say, ‘Welcome to the family.’” The Iron Claw sat up, his smirk returning as he flexed his arm. Then he grinned at me. “Your turn, Blondie.”

“What in the actual fuck?” I shouted, backing away as the bear turned his attention to me.

The growl deepened, reverberating through the cell as he stalked toward me.

For the second time that night, I reached for my bear outside a full moon. But it stayed back, refusing to resurface. In fact, it hummed inside me, happily thrumming with an emotion that felt a lot like… anticipation.

“No, no, no—” I raised my hands in a futile attempt to ward off Takoda’s bite-happy bear.

But he was on me in seconds, his clawed paw pressing me to the floor.

I was 6’6” and nearly 300 pounds, yet he held me down like I weighed nothing. Goddamn bear magic! I thrashed, adrenaline screaming through me, but his weight was unyielding.

“Stop fighting it,” the gravelly Iron Claw called out from somewhere in the distance. His tone was aggravatingly unbothered. “’I surrender to it, and by surrendering, I control it.’—That’s some Robert Jordan for ya.”

“Who?!”

“Robert Jordan, one of the founding fathers of modern epic fantasy.”

“Okay, this bear is trying to take a chunk out of me, and you’re quoting—ahhh!”

My question dissolved into a yell as the bear’s jaws locked onto my forearm. Sharp teeth pierced through skin and muscle, sending lightning bolts of pain shooting through me.

And then?—

It tingled.

Not in a bad way, but in a way that made my head spin—then abruptly clear with a strange sense of… Brotherhood?

The word floated into my only-child brain like a bright red, heart-shaped balloon.

But yes— brotherhood . That was what I felt when I stared into the glowing eyes of the bear with its jaws locked around my arm.

The connection was instant. Primal. Raw. Something ancient and feral unfurled in my chest, snapping into place like a puzzle piece I hadn’t even realized was missing.

The bear released me, and I scrambled back, clutching my arm. But when I looked down, the bite mark was already fading, replaced by a spreading warmth that defied explanation.

“What the…” My voice trailed off as I stared at my arm, then back at the Iron Claw, who was watching me with a smug expression. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

“Nah, he didn’t kill you.” The Iron Claw held up his arm to reveal a now completely healed crescent-shaped bite mark of his own. “He made you.”

“Made me what?” I asked. Warily. The last time a bear attacked me, I got a very furry surprise at the next full moon.

But this bear didn’t stay to try to claw me to death like the last one did. It dipped its head and suddenly retreated. As if its job was all done here.

I watched in wide-eyed shock as he used the front of his head to nudge Holly’s bear body into the cell with us.

“What are you…?”

Takoda let out a deafening roar before I could finish. First at me. Then at the Iron Claw.

“Alright! Alright! Don’t get your fur in a knot,” the Iron Claw grumbled, raising his hands in mock surrender.

He peeled off his jacket, which was confusing enough. Until both he and Takoda turned to me with twin looks of expectancy in their amber and glowing red eyes.

Making me ask, “What?”

“You don’t speak Bear?” The Iron Claw shed his black t-shirt, revealing an impressive set of prison abs.

“Bears have a language ?” I glanced at the animal on all fours, who somehow managed to regard me with as much disdain as Sergeant Takoda would have in his human form.

Meanwhile, the Iron Claw standing beside me gave me a look I had no problem translating as, Are you a fucking idiot?

Short answer: Yes.

Slightly longer answer: “I’m not a born bear, like you two.” And seemingly this entire town , I added with an internal eye roll. “I was only made three years ago.”

The Iron Claw stared at me, then glanced back to Takoda’s bear. “You sure about this, Koda? Yeah, he smells like maple fudge, but if you kill him now, we can find another third.”

The black bear tilted his head, as if considering the Iron Claw’s suggestion. Then growled something long and low that was definitely some sort of communication.

I instinctively took a step back and threw up my fists since my grizzly had apparently decided to abandon me. “I’m not going down without a fight.”

“Relax, Blondie.” The Iron Claw dropped his t-shirt on top of his coat and unbuckled his jeans. “Our first is saying you can stay. But if I was you, I’d start stripping before he changes his mind.”

“Stripping?” I repeated, blinking.

Another roar came from Takoda’s bear, so fierce I swear I felt the wind of it blow back my hair.

“Before he changes his mind!” the Iron Claw repeated, shoving down his own jeans.

“Okay! Okay!” I quickly removed my flannel shirt. Then the waffle-knit layer I had underneath.

“Put them under her,” the Iron Claw instructed. He was now completely naked save for socks and a pair of boxer briefs with a picture of a bear skeleton in a leather jacket throwing up devil horns. “Our first wants us to build her a nest.”

“Our first? A nest?” I repeated.

“For fuck’s sake.”

The Iron Claw snatched my shirts from where I’d let them fall and started arranging them underneath Holly’s sleeping form.

As he worked and I started taking off my joggers, the black bear lumbered out of the cell and over to the station’s closet.

By the time I joined the MC in constructing the so-called “nest,” Takoda’s bear had come back with a hanger bearing a red-and-black uniform that smelled faintly of hazelnuts.

“Good idea,” the Iron Claw said, taking it out of the bear’s mouth. He handed the uniform to me. “Here, put that under her head like a pillow while I make sure her leg’s in the right position to heal nice and proper.”

I did as instructed, folding the pants and jacket before gently tucking them beneath her head.

I’d never gotten this close to a female bear before. Especially one who’d been made, like me.

My hand lingered for a moment, brushing against her soft black fur as I wondered what I’d say to her when she woke up. My mate.

Our mate . The Iron Claw’s reminder echoed ominously in my ears, along with the weird brotherhood sensation on my arm. But would she pick me or truly be okay with?—

Another metallic groan interrupted my thoughts of the future. I looked up just in time to see Takoda’s bear on the other side of the bars.

Right before he slammed the cell door shut.

The lock reengaged with a final, ominous clunk .

“Wait, you’re just going to leave us here?” I rose to my feet and ran to grip the bars.

But the bear didn’t even bother to growl an answer. He just lumbered out of the station, letting the door close shut behind him.

“What the hell?!” I yelled into the now-empty station. “What the hell just happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened.”

I turned to find the Iron Claw grinning at me, his white teeth gleaming under the cell’s fluorescent light.

“The guy who supposedly didn’t want to eat that Valentine’s Day box of chocolates that strolled into Bear Mountain just turned the three of us into her motherfucking maul.”