Page 15 of Marked By The Filthy-Mouthed Grizzly

Magnus

Twenty-Five Years Later…

I sip on my morning coffee and smile as I watch the kids playing in the lake.

Twelve of them and they’re all having the best summer of their lives.

Four of them are mine, and the rest are my nieces and nephews.

Three of them are in their bear forms, thrashing around in the weeds—Hunter’s grizzly is always hunting for frogs—and the rest are jumping off the dock, swimming, or in the kayaks.

I lean on the porch railing as I watch them down below, listening to their squealing and laughing with my heart so full it hurts.

I take another sip of coffee and for a second… I just let myself feel it.

Gratitude. Peace. Awe.

This is what we built.

We still have the tattoo shop, but we’ve hired some talented young artists to work it. We just pop in from time to time when the artistic need hits us.

It’s still going strong. Still popular. Still the foundation of all this. Of everything we’ve built.

A decade and a half ago, we bought a big spread of land up here by the lake, and over time we all drifted this way—Julian and Lainey first, then Victoria and Adrian, and finally me and Erica with our kids in tow.

Now we have three houses nestled in the trees, connected by trails and family dinners and endless stories around campfires.

The porch lights are always on. The coffee's always brewing. Loved ones are always coming and going.

And the forest is alive with the sounds of our cubs.

Mine and Erica’s youngest, Ethan, is thirteen now and still sleeps like a rock, even with a dozen cousins screaming outside the window. Our oldest, Nathan, is away at college but he’s home for the summer, and he’s already been roped into lifeguard duty at the lake.

God, I love our kids.

I love this whole damn life.

Sometimes I still can’t believe it. That this is where we ended up. That a lonely, half-feral bear like me found his mate and built a life that turned out this good.

“Are you hungry for breakfast?” a familiar voice calls from inside.

I smile and turn to find my mate standing in the doorway, one hand on her hip, the other holding a coffee mug. She’s barefoot and wearing one of my old giant shirts with her hair up in a messy bun. And she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’m hungry for you.”

Those cheeks start blushing as she walks over, dragging her hand over my ribs. “Don’t start. You’ll get me going.”

“You always get me going,” I say as I wrap my arm around her shoulders and kiss her hair.

She looks out at the kids having fun and smiles. “Can you believe we made all this?”

I breathe in the fresh mountain air and let it fill my lungs. “It’s hard to believe it,” I whisper. “It’s still hard to believe that you’re even real.”

She laughs and kisses my shoulder. “You happy, Magnus?”

I don’t even have to think about it. “Happier than I thought possible. Happier than I deserve.”

Erica looks up at me with those same beautiful blue eyes that stopped me in my tracks all those years ago. They’re still full of light. Still breathtaking. “You deserve it.”

I look at my mate and my bear rumbles with love. I don’t deserve her, but every day, I try to be the type of man who does.

“Morning!” Victoria calls out from the trail down below. She’s carrying a stack of containers full of food. Adrian is following with the orange juice and sparkling wine for mimosas. “Up for a family breakfast?”

“Definitely!” Erica yells back. “You know I can’t say no to mimosas.”

“Right?” Victoria says, laughing. “Julian and Lainey are coming with fruit and pancake batter with— Hunter! Stop eating frogs!”

I laugh as Hunter’s grizzly cub looks at his mom with two frog legs hanging out of his mouth. He pauses for a moment and then wolfs the poor thing down.

“That kid,” Victoria says, shaking her head as she glances back at Adrian. “He gets that from you.”

“ One time my polar bear eats a frog and I never hear the end of it.”

Adrian has more gray in his beard now, but the guy is still as strong as an ox. He and Victoria are solid as ever—always laughing, always bickering, always sneaking off like teenagers when they think no one’s watching.

Julian and Lainey wander down the path next, holding hands.

They look like they’ve stepped out of a damn magazine—he’s got the salt-and-pepper vibe going now, and she hasn’t aged a day.

Their oldest Angelica is visiting this weekend with her husband and they brought their toddler who was waddling around yesterday in a teddy bear onesie that had us all obsessed.

“Kids!” Adrian bellows in his deep booming voice. “Breakfast!”

They all turn and start popping out of the water, dripping all over the dock. Nathan starts throwing them towels as the kayaks return and the bears morph back into our kids. That bellow even woke up Ethan who’s walking out of the cabin in his underwear, yawning with his hair sticking up.

“Wow,” Erica says, smiling as she watches everything going on. “We’re so lucky.”

I smile as Ethan walks up beside me and puts his head on my shoulder, yawning so big I can see his tonsils. “We really are,” I whisper.

Erica leans her head on my other shoulder, and I kiss the top of it. Her delicious scent is still the same. It still makes my bear rumble with happiness. Still makes me feel whole.

I still haven’t forgotten what it felt like before her—how restless and broken I was, like my bones didn’t quite fit right inside my skin.

She changed everything for me. From the very first second, everything in me knew: this is who I was waiting for.

This is who I belonged with. This is who I loved.

She saved me.

She still saves me, every damn day.

Ethan heads down the stairs to help his aunt Victoria with the food. “Ethan, I’ve never seen you up this early,” she teases as he takes a few containers.

“Remember our first kiss?” Erica whispers, nudging me gently while we’re still alone.

I grin. “In my truck. You accused me of using you to make another woman jealous.”

She winces. “God, I was such a mess.”

“No, I was a mess,” I say, turning to cup her face. “You were everything. You still are.”

She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are pink. “You’re still such a sap.”

I lean in closer, brushing my lips against hers. “Only for you.”

The kids are running up the path now, soaking wet and yelling about waffles and syrup. Our third child, Finn, is carrying his little cousin on his back who’s screaming because he got a splinter in his foot. It’s chaos. Loud and messy and perfect.

“Time to feed the zoo,” Erica says as they all pour onto our porch. We have the largest porch, so outside meals are usually at our place.

A few minutes of chaos later and Victoria has the splinter out of Christopher’s foot, I’ve flipped about forty pancakes, the platters are set, and the mimosa is half drunk.

The second we drop the plates on the table, the kids go at it, elbowing and stabbing forks and grabbing every last morsel of food.

“I’m not hungry,” Hunter says, his empty plate in front of him.

“How many frogs did you eat?” Victoria asks with a frown. “Tell the truth.”

“Three.”

Everyone laughs as she shoves a bagel onto his plate. “Eat this.”

Erica comes over and tops off my mimosa, giving me a sexy smile in the process. God, I just want to drink her up.

I sip on my drink and stand back, letting the warmth of the sun soak into my skin.

This life… this love… this family.

It was everything I didn’t know I needed. Everything I never dared to want. And now that I have it, I will never take a single second of it for granted.

I want to live this forever.

Erica. Me. Our kids. Our family. This beautiful legacy.

I’ll never get tired of any of it.

I may be older now. My beard is streaked with gray and my joints creak louder than they used to, but the fire in my chest—my love for my mate—burns brighter than ever.

And it always will.

Forever and ever, until my last breath and beyond.

Because once a bear finds his true mate…

That fire will burn forever.

The End