Page 7 of Her Beary Spicy Valentine (Welcome to Bear Mountain #2)

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like a frigging celine dion song

12 hours later

takoda

“ R ough night, Takoda?”

The low growl pulled me from my tunnel vision just as I was about to pass the row of KEEP OUT signs marking the boundary between Bear Mountain and the Ayaska Village.

I glanced up to see one of the three outsider grizzly brothers who ran the bar while Cody hibernated with his new maul ambling toward me in his grizzly form. One of the identical twins. Nobody in the tribe could tell them apart, so we called them the Rekaikhanuk Nakai behind their backs—“the red outsider twins.” But to their faces, we simply called each of them...

“Twin.”

Stopping in my tracks, I gripped the edge of my makeshift toga and greeted him with a stiff nod. “Something like that.”

The red outsider twin tilted his massive head, golden eyes flicking over my outfit. “Night become more wild after bar fight, hugrrh?”

“Bar fight?” My voice came out sharper than I intended.

“Grrrugh! Your bear gave you true black sleep!” The twin snuffled, the grizzly equivalent of a laugh. “You no remember? New constable and Hawk get into fight. Over human. Looking for your brother’s maul mate.”

No… no, I didn’t. Twin was right. My bear, who’d never turned outside of a full moon, had truly blacked me out.

I’d assumed Hawk would show up in town any moment now. But I hadn’t known he was actually back in Bear Mountain—and apparently getting into fights with Bjorn, the additional constable I didn’t need and never asked for. Also…

“Human?” I asked the red twin. The word felt foreign, like it didn’t belong to me.

“Yes, human. Her car outside station. I thinking you allow her to stay. Maybe she new mate. You and her smell right together.”

New mate? Smell right together?

Unintentional turns came with a certain amount of amnesia, the shifter equivalent of getting blackout drunk. I knew this because my mother had beared out at first sight over Zion, a Jamaican-Canadian tourist who’d been in town with his then-fiancée.

She’d woken up with him in the cave she shared with my father, her then un-mauled boyfriend, with no idea of what happened the night before. But she’d said the three of them had “smelled right together,” so that had been the beginning of their unplanned maul.

But I’d only heard about unintentional turns. Those were things that happened to other shifters—ones way more impulsive and far less responsible than me.

I couldn’t believe my bear had not only lost control like that but had also completely blacked me out. As if he’d intentionally decided to act behind my back.

Do something truly terrible behind my back. But my bear would never...

The sight of my brown hat lying in the snow, alongside my boots and the shredded remnants of my clothes, told me he had, though.

Among the scraps, something red stood out—something other than my jacket. A scarf.

It was hers. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. This scarf belonged to the woman my bear had built the nest for—despite everything I’d sworn after Ash chose my brother over me.

Kneeling, I picked it up and brushed snow from the fabric. The moment I touched it, the scent hit me: sweet and warm, like caramel dipped in chocolate.

Flashes of memory followed: blood, chocolate, maple, cognac. Teeth sinking into flesh. “Don’t fight it,” a gravelly voice advised.

I blinked hard, trying to make sense of the jagged images. But they slipped away, leaving behind emotions I couldn’t reconcile. Or shake.

MATE! OURS! My bear growled low in my chest, a primal claim that made me clutch the scarf even tighter.

The thought of my bear claiming a mate behind my back unsettled me—almost as much as the possessive growl I couldn’t suppress.

“Memories coming back to you, hugrrh?” Twin asked behind me.

Yes and no.

“I’ve got to get to the station,” I muttered, brushing past the red grizzly without explanation.

What explanation was there to give? I couldn’t remember enough to make sense of anything, and the fragments I did recall only confused me more.

What the hell did my bear do? The question echoed in my head as I made my way down main street to the station.

Despite the too-large boots and my blanket toga, I crossed the distance in record time.

Unease coiled tighter in my gut when I spotted the bright red rental car with Vancouver plates parked outside the RCMP detachment. Pulse racing, a cold prickle climbed up my spine. This wasn’t good. The bear had definitely done something—something I would never approve of.

Hand frozen on the door handle, alarm bells blared at me to stay outside as my chest tightened, possibilities racing through my mind—each worse than the last. But I was the chief officer of Bear Mountain. Running from responsibility wasn’t an option. Even when my brother claimed the life that should have been mine, I’d stayed at the post I’d sworn to maintain.

I took a breath, steadying myself, and pushed the door open.

And immediately wished I hadn’t.

The scent hit first—maple, cognac, and that unmistakable chocolate-caramel warmth. It was overwhelming, filling every corner of the space, like it had been waiting for me.

But it wasn’t the scent that made my stomach drop.

It was the sight of what was happening inside the station’s holding cell, illuminated under harsh fluorescent lights.

And that was when the events of last night all came flooding black to me. Like a frigging Celine Dion song.

Every. Single. Moment.