Page 2 of Mitchell’s Untamed Mate (More Than Human #2)

P resent day:

The dense canopy of the Olympic National Park filtered the early morning sunlight, casting dappled shadows on the forest floor. The air was crisp and filled with the rich scent of pine and damp earth. Mitchell moved through the underbrush. His senses were attuned to his surroundings. After a lifetime of living with the dangers of discovery, he had become a master of navigating these wilds, always on guard for both prey and predators.

Today, however, his instincts buzzed with a different anticipation. There was something—or someone—out there, moving with purpose and skill. He paused, crouching low and letting the forest’s natural sounds guide him. A rustle of leaves, the snap of a twig, and then he saw her.

The woman moved through the forest with a natural grace. The markings along her hairline and along the exposed column of her throat showed she was a shifter. The markings reminded him of Ty Bearclaw, Ella’s new husband.

For centuries, Mitchell's people, the last known humans to exist on Earth, had hidden from the shifters who had nearly wiped his people out. Ella had been discovered after she and Jayden had ventured beyond the forests. Their recklessness had forced Mitchell, as leader of the clan, to move their clan repeatedly to remain hidden. But as long as Ella was with them, they could not stay hidden from Ty Bearclaw. The shifter would not forget her.

The elders had been relentlessly urging Mitchell to marry Ella. The two of them had been lifelong friends, and deep down, Mitchell couldn’t deny the relief he felt when she decided to be with someone else—though her choice was the most outrageous she could have made: a shifter.

When the other villagers had called for Ella and Ty’s execution, Mitchell had refused. The tale Cyrus had told him long ago had drifted through his mind. Humans and shifters could live as one.

He did not know how the choice to spare them would ultimately affect his clan, but he believed the connection between humans and shifters was inevitable. He would not add more deaths to the long-standing conflicts between their peoples if he did not have to. Ella had been banished from the village, Ty had been returned to his people, and Mitchell hoped that their love was still going strong.

Love finds a way.

Mitchell's headaches, however, had continued: the elders who were unhappy with his choice, his own insatiable curiosity about Ella’s bond with a shifter, the logistics of moving his clan again , and now another shifter was here in his forest.

His breath caught in his throat as he watched her. Her presence was commanding. Her movements were measured and confident. It was one thing to hear stories about grizzly-shifters, but actually encountering them in person was an entirely different and unforgettable experience.

Ty Bearclaw had impressed him. The man’s love for Ella had been clearly written on his face. Still, that didn’t mean he would welcome the female shifter who was here now. Mitchell may have hope for a better future, a shared future, but he could not afford to be a na?ve fool. Lives depended on how he handled every encounter with the shifters.

He followed her, staying upwind. She paused every once in a while, scanning the ground in front of her before looking up. His gut warned him that she was searching for his clan.

Why is she alone?

It could be a choice meant to show that she meant no harm—or it could be that she intended to never be noticed at all. If that were the case, what was it that she intended to do in secret? If she did plan to introduce herself, what did she want with them? As he followed her, she maintained a steady pace that gave her time to study the ground in front of her for tracks.

He wasn’t overly worried about her discovering anything. He had moved the clan deeper into the woods. It was further east and a good four days’ journey from his current location. He had entrusted Connell and Thomas with the responsibility of establishing a temporary village, allowing the rest of the group to rest while he retraced their steps to eliminate any possibility of being tracked.

He was tracking the shifter now, and two hours later, she was standing within the grouping of trees where Ty Bearclaw had been held. She turned in a tight circle, muttering inaudibly under her breath. He could tell from her expression that the words were far from pleasant.

She scuffed the toe of her boot against the ground and studied the vegetation. He held his breath when she squatted down and gently ran her fingers over the ferns Jayden and Mallory had planted. Weeks had passed since they left this place. He was sure she wouldn’t find anything. The frequent rains had nurtured the plants, helping them thrive, and his people were meticulous about not leaving any evidence of their existence behind when they moved.

Unless she dug down several feet, she wouldn’t find anything. She tossed the handful of dirt she had picked up back onto the ground and stood. She walked in a circle, looking up at the trees.

“Where in the hell are you? I know you are out there. My bear can sense you watching us. You’ve been following me for half the day,” she growled.

His lips twitched at the exasperation in her voice. She had her back to him with her hands on her hips. His amusement grew when she kicked her boot against the ground in frustration.

“Okay. If you want to play, we’ll play!” she called out.

Mitchell wasn’t sure what she planned until she unfastened the backpack she was wearing, dropped it to the ground, and shrugged out of her jacket. She tossed her jacket onto the ferns. He straightened when she turned in his direction and her hands went to the top button of her shirt. He knew she planned to shift when the shirt slid down to reveal her shoulder. He made a decision he hoped he wouldn’t come to regret.

Stepping out of his hiding place, he cleared his throat. The shirt stopped its downward slide, and she stiffened. She slowly pulled her shirt back on, and his eyes were immediately drawn to her fingers as she refastened the buttons. This time, she was the one to clear her throat. He raised his eyes to her face—and felt an unusual pressure in his chest when she stared at him with a raised, knowing eyebrow and an amused smile.

They stared at each other in silence, each weighing the other. He kept one hand on the knife sheathed at his hip. She finished buttoning her blouse, then she leaned down to retrieve her jacket and slid it on without breaking their connection. Her lips tightened and an unexpectedly intense emotion flashed through her eyes before she blinked and it was gone. He wasn’t sure if it was surprise or annoyance.

“You’re Mitchell, I presume,” she called in greeting.

Her voice was sultry with a slight growl to it that sent a shiver down his spine. It was a voice that brooked no nonsense, commanding respect without demanding it. His lips twitched at his musings. She raised both eyebrows and shot him a glare that made it clear she wasn’t someone to be laughed at.

“That’s me,” he replied, standing his ground. “What brings a Bearclaw to these parts? I assume you are a Bearclaw. You look…” he paused and studied the white streaks running through her hair on each side, “… like the man we captured.”

Her eyes flashed at the reminder of the threat to her brother. “You didn’t capture him. He walked into your village looking for Ella. I’m Tracy Bearclaw, Ty’s sister.”

“Did you plan on just walking into our village as well? As far as I know, you don’t have a mate there willing to fight or die for you,” he replied in a dry tone.

Tracy’s eyes flashed with a mixture of determination and something else—something that Mitchell couldn’t quite place. “I’m here to offer protection for you and your people,” she said bluntly.

Mitchell raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think we need your protection? We’ve done pretty well without shifter help.”

She stepped closer. “Have you? From what Ella told us, there aren’t many of you left.”

His mouth tightened. “Thanks to the shifters.”

She stopped, and her eyes filled with compassion and wariness. “Other shifters know that humans exist now. They tried to kidnap—no, they did kidnap Ella. They will assume there are more of you and come searching. I'm here to help you.”

Despair rose in his gut. “Ella?—”

Tracy smiled. “—is safe with Ty. She is pretty amazing.”

“For a human, you mean?”

Her expression hardened at his sarcastic tone. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.

“No," she retorted.

Mitchell smiled. It would appear the tint of red in her hair was indicative of her temper.

"Look, I’m a senior field faculty member for the Washington State Animal Sanctuary, Research, and Observation Center. I work in the Anthropology and Archeology department studying ancient human civilizations,” she explained.

He gave her a suspicious look. “You've studied ancient humans. And you're here now because you want to add us to your collection?”

“No! No, I want to save your life.”

“How?"

She squared her shoulders with determination and took a deep breath, clearly readying herself to begin a long, well-practiced speech. He leaned his shoulder against the tree he was standing next to and studied her. He liked the way her eyes flashed and her cheeks turned rosy. She must have sensed he was thinking of something other than their conversation because her cheeks turned a brighter pink.

She ignored it and answered his question, “There's a transition location within this National Park where you and the rest of your people could stay until a permanent location is completed. It will be close to home and more familiar to you than the permanent compound, but it's still relatively easy to defend, and it has infrastructure already in place, so we can give you supplies without attracting notice?—"

“You want to cage us.” Mitchell shook his head vehemently.

“No! No, you could leave. I swear it. You could leave—it's just... well, it would not be advisable to leave, not at first. The goal is to welcome you into normal society. Before we can do that, we have to make sure you and your people are safe. Once shifters become used to the idea of there being humans, they will be more accepting and think of you less as… well, as novelties. Until that point is reached, it will be necessary to protect you. We can’t do that if you stay at your current location because any assistance we provide could be traced and we wouldn't be able to protect you as well out in the open forest. So we have a transition compound ready for you and then there would be a permanent one with a lot more space and security?—”

Mitchell narrowed his eyes. "No."

"It's a big change, I know. You don't have to answer right away?—"

"No."

“Are you always so stubborn?” she snapped, exasperated again.

An unexpected chuckle slipped from him. He pointed out, “I’m not the one venturing into the forest alone, chasing ghosts.”

Her lips twitched, her eyes roving over his face with frustrated appreciation. She dropped her arms to her side and shoved her hands into her back pockets as she released a deep sigh. Curious, he stepped away from the tree and approached her. She didn’t move as he circled her.

“You’re not a ghost,” she murmured.

“How do I know you aren’t one?” he asked, stopping mere inches in front of her. He didn't much care that he wasn't making sense, he couldn't stop himself from daring her to touch him. Even so, shock still coursed through him when she placed her hands on his shoulders, leaned forward, and… paused.

Confusion, vulnerability, and uncertainty warred within her eyes. The unusual thread of awareness he'd felt when he first saw her tightened, wrapping him like a moth in a spider’s web. He swore he could almost see the silver strands of the web glistening in the midafternoon sunlight.

He lowered his head, capturing her upturned lips in an exploratory kiss. Her lips parted under the pressure of his, and he took command. He slid his hands along her hips under her jacket and pulled her against his body. She would feel his arousal, just as he could taste hers in her shuddering breath and soft lips.

Sanity was slow to return. She was a shifter… an Other. He was the leader of his clan. They were natural-born enemies, regardless of what she said. He had a responsibility to his people to be careful. This was a disaster. He released her and stepped back.

“Go back where you came from, Tracy Bearclaw, and forget about us.”

Mitchell turned to walk away, but Tracy's hand shot out and she gripped his arm. He looked down at her. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were soft with confusion and desire. Her lips were swollen from their kiss.

“What about the dangers?”

“If the shifters come, we will deal with them,” he replied before striding back the way he had come.

“You’re wrong, you know. You don’t understand how dangerous it will be,” she called after him.

Tracy gritted her teeth and continued following Mitchell, the man who, for better or for worse, was going to be stuck with her as his annoying shadow. She pushed aside a fern and kept pace with him. With her curiosity on high alert, the scientist side of her meticulously analyzed every detail about him, searching for clues and insights.

Not just scientist , her grizzly snickered.

Shut up.

He good. I keep.

You know it’s not all about you, right? she silently retorted.

The warm, fuzzy feeling inside her gut when she first saw Mitchell had spread to the tips of her fingers and toes. As a shifter, she recognized what it meant. She had found her mate.

And he thinks I’m his enemy.

That was a sobering thought. She stumbled back a step when the bottom of her jacket caught on a saw-vine. With a displeased growl, she forcefully tried to yank it loose.

“You’ll rip the material if you keep doing that.”

She scowled at him when he stepped closer and untangled her. She swallowed the defensive retort on her lips, distracted by the silly thought that his eyes were the soft warm brown of her bear’s fur.

“Thank you.”

He gave her a curt nod before he turned away again. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head, hurrying forward. She had to take three steps for every one of his.

“I'll give you some time to think about it," she called after him, "but I'm not leaving. I can protect you."

“Well, that would be a change.”

She growled with frustration. "I know! Ok? I know. It's a big ask for you to trust me. I can wait until you're ready."

"You'll wait ?" he complained. "And, what? You'll be following me until I'm 'ready'?"

"Yes."

He laughed with exasperation. "Then I guess we'll see how well a shifter can keep up." Grumbling under his breath, he added, "See if you've gotten soft since The Great War."

She sighed, but didn't reply. He continued walking. Tracy started after him again. They covered close to a mile before he slowed his pace and came to a stop. Tracy opened her mouth, but closed it when he lifted his hand in warning.

Do you smell anything?

She lifted her nose and sniffed the air. Her head turned slightly to the right. The very faint scent of smoke from a campfire.

Shifter? her bear mused.

No. Not this far in.

Mitchell pulled the knife at his hip and motioned for her to get down. She began to sink to her knees when a man with reddish-blond hair stepped out from behind a tree nearly fifty feet from them. Tracy straightened. There was no sense in her trying to hide when it was obvious the man had spotted her. He was dressed similarly to Mitchell in a woven shirt, leather pants and boots, and a loose-fitting leather jacket.

“Jace, what are you doing here?”

Mitchell’s voice held a note of caution and an underlying thread of anger as Jace came closer. There was a palpable tension between the two men.

“I see you caught another beast,” Jace responded.

Mitchell took a step back in her direction but didn’t take his eyes off the man. The hair on the back of Tracy’s neck was standing up. There was something off about this human. Her bear did not like him.

“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?” Mitchell repeated.

The man named Jace shrugged. “We promised always to have each other’s back. Remember?”

There was a slight dig in the man’s voice. Tracy lifted her nose and sniffed. She couldn’t tell if the man was lying or not. It didn’t matter. She had been in enough dangerous places in the world to know when to trust her gut, and it was screaming bloody murder.

“You should be helping the others,” Mitchell replied.

“Connell and Thomas had it under control. It isn’t our first move. What are you going to do with it?” Jace asked, staring at her.

Tracy lifted her chin and folded her arms across her chest. She could handle a human wanting to play 'big man in the forest'. This wasn’t her first rodeo with arrogant, macho men.

“ Its name is Tracy Bearclaw. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jace,” she responded in the same tone she used when her students got too big for their britches.

“Bearclaw? Any relation to Ella’s beast?” Jace asked.

“Ty is my twin brother. We prefer to be called shifters, or better yet, I prefer you call me Ms. Bearclaw.”

Jace’s lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’d prefer to call you dinner.”

Tracy paled and warily stepped back. Uncertainty flashed through her. Had she missed something? Were humans cannibalistic?

“Knock it off, Jace.” Mitchell turned to face her. “We don’t hunt shifters.”

“Not for food… yet,” Jace added with a malicious grin.

Anger flashed through Tracy. “I guess being a first-class jerk runs through humans as well,” she retorted.

The man surprisingly kept his mouth shut. She didn’t miss the flash of anger before he laughed. He twirled the spear in his hands and shoved the blunt end into the soft soil before he leaned against it.

“I can see why you kept her. She’s funny. She’ll make an interesting pet. What is she?” Jace commented.

Exasperation flared across Mitchell’s features and he scowled. “I’m not keeping her. She was about to return to her people,” he stated.

“No, I wasn’t,” Tracy retorted.

“You can’t be serious!” Jace said at the same time.

Mitchell glared back and forth between her and Jace before he muttered an expletive. She watched in disbelief as he pushed past Jace and continued in the direction he had been traveling before the other human appeared. She shouldered past Jace and followed.

“I’m serious. I’m not going anywhere!” she argued.

Three hours later, she was grumbling under her breath comments that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap when she was a kid. Jace’s snide remark that he never knew shifters were so damn noisy all the time had finally shut her up. Her bear wanted to rip the stupid human’s head off.

“That goes against everything I’ve been taught,” she muttered.

“What does?”

Straightening up from collecting wood for a campfire, she was taken aback by the unexpected interruption to her silent tantrum. Standing just a few feet away, Mitchell’s gaze locked with hers. A flush of embarrassment spread across her face as she inwardly cursed her bear’s loud and unmistakable rumbling growl of pleasure.

“What does what?” she asked with a frown.

“What goes against everything you’ve been taught?” he asked.

She blinked and gave him a crooked grin. “Killing humans. I don’t like your friend Jace.”

Mitchell looked over his shoulder. Jace was relaxing back on a log as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He turned back to her and smiled.

“Yeah, well, there are a few of us that feel that way sometimes about him. You’re not alone,” he admitted.

“Good to know.”

She returned to gathering firewood. When Mitchell stooped to gather wood, she surreptitiously studied him under her eyelashes.

“Your shirt… The sleeve is torn.”

He glanced at his arm, turning it until he could see the rip. Smooth, muscular mocha skin peeked through the torn fabric when he pulled on the woven cloth. He shrugged.

“I’ll mend it later,” he replied.

She paused, staring at him. The reality of who he was, what he was, and what it must be like to survive hit her hard. He must have sensed her distress because he straightened and walked over to her.

“What is it?” he asked.

Biting her lower lip, she shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re real. I’ve searched the world for artifacts on humans, devouring all the literature and research on humans that I could find. I never imagined meeting....”

Her voice faltered before fading. She tried to imagine what she would feel like if the situation were reversed. Her words seemed callous.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have?—”

He silenced her with a shake of his head.

“You don’t have to apologize. If it helps, I-I’ve always wanted to meet a shifter,” he replied with a crooked smile.

She stared after him when he turned and walked back to their makeshift camp. Following at a slower pace, she mulled over his comment. A slow grin curved her lips.

“Maybe I’m getting through to him,” she murmured, trying not to grin like a sloth.

She dropped the wood she had collected on the pile Mitchell had stacked. He was now stacking rocks he had collected earlier. She shot Jace a disgusted look. He was just watching them.

“Not much wood,” Jace commented.

“I hope you didn’t get a splinter or strain a muscle while you were sitting on your ass,” she retorted.

Jace snickered. “Who would have known shifters were so… touchy.”

The insinuation in his last word made her skin crawl. She had dealt with enough slimy male shifters in her career to know not to let him get under her fur. Of course, any male stupid enough to enrage a grizzly-shifter deserved what they got.

“Not touchy. I just have no respect for lazy, worthless pieces of shit,” she replied with a shrug.

Jace rolled to his feet, a knife in his hand. Mitchell, who had been working on the firepit as if nothing was happening, surged to his feet and faced Jace with a dark, menacing expression. Jace glanced from Mitchell’s face to hers, lifted his hands in surrender, and sheathed his knife.

“I’ll see if I can find us some food.”

Tracy waited until he had disappeared into the woods, the sound of his footsteps fading away, before she finally allowed herself to relax. Mitchell’s sudden turn made her take a step back in surprise. His disapproving expression instantly transported her back to her college days on Professor Tobias’s field research team, where she often felt judged.

“What? He was being a jerk first,” she defended, raising her hands and giving him a crooked grin. “Come on, you know he was. Admit it.”

Mitchell released a frustrated grunt and shook his head. “Yes, he was, but… Tracy, don’t underestimate Jace. He can be dangerous.”

Her smile faded, and she nodded. “I won’t. I promise.”

Mitchell studied her face. Based on the intensity in his eyes, it was clear to her that he wanted to ensure she was taking him seriously. She was. Her bear had been pushing at the surface when Jace rolled to his feet. Like a predator on the hunt, the move had been calculated and precise. And if there was one thing she knew—it was the unmistakable presence of a predator lurking nearby.

He danger.

I know.

Her bear wasn’t just warning her about the danger Jace presented to her. It was the danger he presented to Mitchell. Tracy had seen the hint of jealousy and suppressed anger in the other human’s eyes. She had seen it in a few shifters during her travels. There were many things about a person that could be dangerous to their friends. Greed, a thirst for power, and jealousy were just a few.

What we do? her bear asked.

Tracy pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, her attention fixed broodingly in the direction Jace had disappeared. There was only one thing she could do. She would have to be a tick on a human. It might drive Mitchell crazy, but he’d get over it—eventually.

Make dinner. I’m sure as hell not eating any of the shit that asshole brings back, she silently responded.