Page 6

Chapter Six

A Ghost Bear Cult Clan

Clover

Weirdly, I didn’t run. And even weirder, I knew I should have.

For the first time ever, a strange feeling of peace washed over me. At least, that’s what I thought it was. Like I said, it was completely unfamiliar.

Now wasn’t the time to get in touch with my feelings. I needed to pay attention to my surroundings, because as soon as this spell Alba had surely cast over me wore off, I was out of here.

At least, I was going to keep telling myself that.

The clan was lively and a lot bigger than I expected. This was no rogue, temporary camp. This clan lived, loved, and thrived here. I took a seat in front of a fire, where other clan members looked at me with curiosity. Some smiled and waved. Others looked straight through me like I wasn’t even here. There was a table off to the side, topped with heaping plates of fish, game, and vegetables.

It was rustic and a little rowdy, but something about it felt right.

Nope! I couldn’t fall even further under Alba’s spell, even if she did seem to have alchemy flowing through her ancient veins.

Speaking of ancient…I blinked to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The women were all wearing long dresses, the men loose pants and shirts. Even the kids who were running around the adults in a lively game of tag were dressed like they’d stepped out of another era.

Great. This wasn’t a clan, it was a cult.

I was going to find myself in even more hot water if I didn’t leave the first chance I got.

Nothing’s stopping you now , my bear pointed out.

She was right, but I had no idea where I was, I felt like I was lucid dreaming, and my stomach was rumbling at the plates of food being passed around.

A giant man who made Bellamy look small sat beside me. As I was trying to figure out if he was one of the behemoths who had hauled me away from my car, he offered me a heaping plate.

“I should’ve asked you what you liked, but I put a little bit of everything on the plate.” A little bit of pink blossomed through his beard onto his cheeks. He was bashful. “It’s just a little taste of what we have to offer. I hope you enjoy your stay with us.”

I shouldn’t have taken the plate from him. But I was starving, salmon was my favorite, and…was it possible to become even more bewitched? Alba had been right about one thing—I needed to keep my strength up.

“Thank you.” I took a bite of salmon, and it melted in my mouth. “This is amazing.”

“I caught it this morning in the stream.” Now he was beaming. The giant bear was adorable, even if it was possible he’d abducted me days before. “My sister is in charge of the community garden where the vegetables were grown.”

“It seems like your family is prominent in the clan.”

He furrowed his brow. “No one here has any more importance than anyone else. We all work together for the common good of the clan.”

Definitely a cult. “Not even your alpha?” I asked.

“I am the alpha.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” I carefully balanced the plate on my lap and offered him my hand. “I’m Clover.”

“Oh, I know who you are.” He smiled. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Alba sat on the other side of me. “I see you’ve met Anders.”

“He’s taking good care of me.” I should’ve regretted those words the moment they came out of my mouth, but it was true, even if this transaction wouldn’t end the way he hoped. They thought I had what they wanted. I had to get out of here before they realized I didn’t.

The two bears shared a knowing smile, like I wasn’t there.

“Can we talk about the talisman?” Anders asked.

“You mean, my grandmother’s necklace,” I corrected, taking another bite of food as he nodded. “It’s a gorgeous piece of jewelry. I swear every color is in that stone, and the metal is silver. Possibly platinum.”

“We know what it looks like,” he said with a faint hint of a rumble. “We want to know where it is.”

“Don’t we all.” I laughed. “Can’t help you there. I’m on the hunt for it too.”

“That locket belongs to us.” All the adorable was gone, replaced with pure alpha.

I couldn’t stop my mouth from dropping. “No, it doesn’t. It’s been in our clan for generations.”

“That’s true,” Alba chimed in. “Your ancestors stole it from us.”

The way she said us was like she meant that the bears who came generations before me had taken it directly from the bears sitting on either side of me.

Great, not only was this a cult, it was a ghost bear cult.

And to think I’d felt at home here. I was such a fool. I set the plate down and rose on shaky legs, wiping dirt away from my jeans.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” That sounded much better in my head. “But like I said, I can’t help you.”

“You can,” Anders said. “Would you like to know the truth about your clan?”

“I’ve lived with them for forty years. It’s pretty impossible to keep secrets from me for that long.”

They shared another one of those looks. They weren’t looking through me this time, it was more like telepathy.

“Forty years is a blink of an eye in this story,” Anders said.

Run , my bear said. But my feet were pretty much rooted to this spot.

“You owe it to yourself to hear our story, and then you can decide what to do with the information,” he added.

I lowered myself back to the ground, equal parts pissed at myself for giving into this nonsense at every turn, and curious about what bombshell these bears could possibly drop. Maybe they could explain why I had no magic.

Now I was the adorable one, still believing this story had a happy ending. “Fine. Tell me everything.”

Anders cleared his throat. “Generations ago, there was only one bear clan in Idaho. We were strong and our magic was very, very powerful.”

“We didn’t consider it magic then,” Alba corrected. “It was simply being in tune with nature. Working with our surroundings. Listening to what the spirits have to tell us.”

“The Lynwood family had produced a long line of alphas,” Anders continued. He’d never clarified if he was also a Lynwood. “The Crowley family wanted to make a deal. They offered their daughter, one with strong intuition, as a bride to the next alpha, mostly as a business arrangement that they claimed would strengthen both families. It was an excellent deal. They were in control of one of the most prosperous farms in the clan. But our alpha was fated to another bear. And no force on earth is stronger than fate.”

It took everything I had to bite my tongue and say sheer, personal will could trump fate any day of the week, but things were different back then. That arrangement was probably the best my long-lost ancestor could’ve hoped for.

Hell, no. I needed to come to my senses. This pack was creepy AF and she probably dodged a major bullet by getting rejected.

You can’t deny this story has some major parallels to your situation , my bear said.

I wasn’t following her.

I could feel her rolling her eyes. Your family promised you to an alpha that would awaken your magic.

Okay, she did have a point, because they thought the key to their future depended on me producing a magical baby.

But until the locket went missing and I got abducted, everyone was doing just fine without it.

“We refused the offer,” Alba said, in case I was expecting a happily ever after. “The elder Crowley was furious. He refused to accept that we would reject his daughter, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Families started to take sides. Clan members stopped talking to each other. Tensions rose to an unbearable level. Then, the talisman went missing.”

“The Crowleys thought they could destroy us,” Anders rumbled. “It didn’t work.”

“When we realized your grandmother was in possession of the locket, we hoped she would do the right thing and give it back. That she would listen to her intuition. But there were other voices, stronger voices, telling her that she had the right to lay claim to something that didn’t belong to her.” Alba shook her head sadly. “She refused, even after we told her that in the wrong hands, the talisman would only manifest misfortune.”

That last bit hit like falling out of a tree for so many reasons, but the biggest one was I felt like I was a walking, talking manifestation of that misfortune. The end of the magical road. There had to be a reason the power chose not to come to me. My eyes stung with all these unprocessed emotions, but there was no way I was going to let these bears know I was feeling some pretty intense feelings. If a tear managed to drop, I’d blame it on the smoke from the fire.

But they were also talking some serious shit about Nana and it just didn’t line up with anything I’d been told about my clan’s history.

There are a lot of secrets and mystery around the clan’s magic … I hated that my bear was right.

Even more, I hated that this was all making too much sense.

But there was another issue.

“You’re talking like this happened so long ago—using words like ancestors—but you’re also making it sound like you were actually there, and this jilted bride is my nana.”

The two bears shared one of those looks that was just getting annoying.

Alba nodded to Anders.

“You need to trust your intuition, Clover.”

I rolled my eyes. I was exhausted, sore, pissed off, and I’d given these bears too much of my patience. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I prepared myself for yet another cryptic reply when a scream pierced the camp. I jumped and the food flew off my plate, and Anders tensed like he was ready to shift. The heat wasn’t coming from the fire anymore, instead it rolled off the bear beside me.

The clan were still in their human forms, running toward us, screaming something I couldn’t understand.

Then I heard the roar that was responsible for this chaos.

I knew that roar all too well.