Page 4 of Grizzly's Bear

Chapter Two

Rissa couldn’t believe she was exhausted. After being in a coma for a little over four weeks, sleep should be the last thing she needed. Jensen had assured her rest was exactly what she needed. Her body was still healing. She should spend the rest of the week in bed. Recuperating. Which explained her lying down but not where she was lying down. Slade’s bed.

One minute, Adam had been talking about taking her back to the cabin while Em had argued Rissa needed to be closer to the main house and Jensen until they knew for sure she was out of the woods. Then Slade had growled, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her out. She’d tried to argue, but Slade had merely snarled at her and kept going, carrying her straight into the main lodge, downstairs to the family quarters, and put her to bed. His bed.

Gone was the easy-going guy who’d let her tempt and tease as she’d waffled between wanting him and feeling unworthy of him. This Slade wasn’t taking no for an answer. He’d told her quite clearly she was in his bed, and he wasn’t letting her leave. Period. Then he’d stomped out, teeth clenched against the growls spilling from his lips. Had he bothered to inhale, he would have noted how turned on she was. Slade was sexy no matter what. But this dominant, force-to-be-reckoned-with Slade was so much more.

She tugged his pillow against her chest, holding it to her as she sat up in bed. She’d wanted Slade since the first moment she’d seen him. But mating him? There was no doubt that was what he intended. There were things he didn’t know, though. Truths she’d have to share before she’d ever be able to make a choice like that.

There was a knock on the door, and Emersyn Langston—Holloway now—poked her head in.

“Feeling up to a visit?”

“Yes, please,” Rissa agreed.

Emersyn walked in, tugging the door shut behind her as she did. She crossed to the bed and gingerly sat beside Rissa.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Sore. Confused.” Rissa glanced around Slade’s room. “How did I get here?”

Em had the audacity to grin. “Pretty sure we all saw Slade carrying you here and giving the order as he left that you were to stay here.”

“He did what?” Rissa demanded, but Em merely laughed.

“He’s a lot like his arrogant older brother,” Em mused, speaking of her mate, the alpha of the Holloways, Laramie Holloway. “But I don’t think you were speaking of being in Slade’s bed. It suits you by the way.”

“Slade’s bed?” Rissa asked with a wry expression.

Em laughed again. “I should have said he suits you. The two of you look good together.”

“Don’t,” Rissa warned, but Em ignored her.

“You have to quit blaming yourself for Jack’s death.”

In one of her more social moments, Rissa had admitted how hard it had hit her and Adam when they’d lost Jack. Em had known Jack, too. As the alpha’s daughter, she’d known everyone in the pack.

“I sent him there,” Rissa reminded her friend. She didn’t want to discuss this with Em. Em’s dad, their pack alpha, had been killed at the same time Jack had.

“You didn’t know what was waiting for them. None of us did. Should I feel guilty for my dad being there? I could have asked him to do a hundred other things that day, but I didn’t. What about Amber?”

“Your cousin’s death is my cousin’s fault. It kills me to know that. I never particularly cared for Natalie, but I wouldn’t have thought her capable of murder. Adam and I are completely ashamed.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything. Natalie’s sins were her own, and she paid for them.”

Yes, she had. Em had faced off with Natalie in the woods on Holloway land. Rissa had always known her friend was more than she seemed. Had sensed it even if she didn’t understand why. But when Natalie had threatened Em’s adopted daughter and tried to kidnap her, Em had dropped the façade of pretending to be human and shifted into a fully grown and incredibly pissed off Kodiak. It had been a sight to behold. And the heat and sexual tension between her and the Holloway alpha had settled over those collected and put them all under a spell. She’d taken one look at Slade and gone somewhere private with him then indulged in a night of unparalleled passion that had only left her wanting more. Nothing felt so right as when she was with Slade, with him buried deep inside her.

“He wanted to mate me,” Rissa confessed.

Em stared at her for a moment then slowly nodded. “That explains why you’re so hard on yourself over Jack. You can’t feel guilty for not wanting a man who wanted you.”

“He came to me that day. I knew what he was going to ask. I knew, and I didn’t want to hear it. So I sent him to join the others. Teased him about trying to skip out on all the hard work or some such nonsense. I don’t remember the words exactly.”

“What do you remember?” Em asked, and Rissa had to swallow twice before she could answer.

“The look on his face. He knew what I was doing. I think he knew I was going to tell him no. He tried to play it off with a laugh and one of his smiles, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It cuts me to the core that I sent him off to die. That the last exchange we had was me rejecting him. I rejected him, and he died.” Rissa closed her eyes, seeing it all so clearly.

“Enough.”

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