Page 5 of Chased Bear

Aydan’s hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. My bear recognized its Alpha and relaxed.

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ve all gotten into situations like this.”

I wasn’t so sure about that.

“Thank you, Alpha,” I whispered.

“Please, get inside. At least try a shower, though.” He took a step back, covering his mouth as he coughed. I could tell he was fighting back a gag. At least he was trying to be polite. It was well within his rights to give me a good dressing down. “I’ll open all the windows.”

For one of the first times in my life, I felt the desire to actually apologize for my behavior. I did want this to work out here, but I saw the disappointment in his eyes. Anger would’ve been better. Disappointment sucked.

It was not likely that I would actually be staying here. There was no reason for me to even unpack my bag. He hadn’t really wanted me from the beginning. His brother hadn’t said as much, but I pieced it together with what he didn’t say.

Nonetheless, I grabbed it from the back seat, slung it over my shoulder, and followed Aydan into the house. Please let the goddess send a whole lot of breezes through the windows so the entire place doesn’t smell like that skunk-hole. Aydan didn’t need a reminder of this night every day for the next decade. It was memorable enough as it was.

Chapter 4

Aydan

The tick of the clock distracted me from my work. Every little creak and noise in the house pulled my focus away. Typically, once I finished my morning routine—a quick run in the woods, either in my bear or human form, followed by a hearty breakfast and five minutes of browsing the internet for silly videos—I’d get straight to work. Usually, I had no problem concentrating, but not today.

Today my mind wasn’t on paying the bills or fixing a road or visiting the teens. No. It was on the houseguest who’d managedto turn my life upside down simply by showing up. Sure, part of it might or might not have been his fault. I probably wouldn’t ever know for sure, but his story didn’t exactly sound complete. His fault or not, it was still a lot to deal with.

The house was filled with the stench of skunk. It was horrible, but I was getting sort of used to it and could probably live with it if it weren’t for Jayce. Jayce spent his day walking around, muttering to himself, humming happily, and wearing the shortest pair of shorts I’d ever seen in my life.

I wasn’t one who cared about what omegas or anyone else wore. It was their body to cover or not cover. But in Jayce’s case? I hated the way it had my body reacting. Seeing his globes peeking out when he bent over… yeah, that had me thinking things I very much should not be thinking about my brother’s bestie. That was for sure.

He leaned on the doorframe, sipping his coffee. “I really appreciate you letting me stay here,” he said. “And I’m sorry I got here so late yesterday. Can I make it up to you?”

My mind flashed to a very naughty place, and I pushed all those thoughts away. This was Jayce, not some random guy I met at a bar. He was going to be one of my den members. Not only was my thinking inappropriate, it bordered on creepy given that lens.

“Become a contributing member to the den, and you’ll have made it up to me,” I replied, flipping through the papers I was trying to read but hadn’t retained a single word. For all I knew one of them was a memo announcing aliens landing in New York City and claiming The Statue of Liberty as one of their long-lostartifacts or something equally bizarre. The papers had turned into props and nothing more.

“Do you have a particular job in mind? Corey didn’t have any idea what you do for work.”

He blew onto his mug. His pink lips pursing as he cooled his coffee. Try as I did, he kept managing to bring me right back to the less-than-appropriate thoughts.

Jayce’s brow furrowed. “Corey knows what I do for work. I’m a floater.”

“A what now?” I asked, throwing down my paper, because clearly, I wasn’t going to get any reading done.

“A floater. You know, a temp.”

“Enlighten me,” I said, leaning forward. No wonder my brother hadn’t mentioned what he did. It didn’t make a lick of sense.

He adjusted his stance so that he was leaning on the doorframe even more, making the white tank top he was wearing bunch up around his abs, exposing about two inches of skin between his waistband and his shirt.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply to clear my head. Big. Mistake. I ended up coughing, and when I opened my eyes again, he was looking at me with an I’m-sorry-but-aren’t-I-hot glance. Or maybe I was imagining all of that because gods helped me, he was hot.

Where in the world was my mind going? Perhaps it had been too long since I’d indulged if I was thinking about a pack member this way. A quick stop to the local human bar to find a one-night stand might be just the ticket—only it was off the table too because of Finnegan. How had I forgotten about him? But I had completely. Weird.

One thing was for sure, I needed to not be thinking these thoughts about our brand-new den member. It made me no better than the alphaholes I was trying to protect my den from. Thinking about someone else this way was practically cheating, considering I was contemplating proposing a mating to one of the omegas in the pack.

I’d started courting Finnegan a few weeks prior. Not really courting as much as hinting around about officially courting. Every fiber in me was dragging their feet. I needed a mate, and he appeared willing to consider that, but gods, it wasn’t what I wanted. But that didn’t matter in the long run.

Was it a love match? Absolutely not. Could it turn into love? Probably not. But I didn’t need love or true mates or any of that. I needed to be practical. Waiting until the goddess sent me someone wasn’t fair to the den. They needed a mated Alpha.

Gods, I wished fate had been on their A-game. Finnegan was not ideal. He felt it too. It wasn’t as if he thought we were a love match. I wasn’t even sure he was agreeing to consider attempting something for any reason other than I was available and had a decent position in the den.

---