Page 16 of Sasquatch's Claiming

Her body stiffened. “Are there any black portals around here?”

“No,” he reassured her. “Just gold. Several months ago, we destroyed a red one, a secret illegal red portal that connected to the elven realm.”

“Why?”

“We destroyed it to prevent access to a tyrant king,” Ben growled.

Bernadette didn’t ask him any more portal questions. “So do you have more siblings besides that one who found us having sex?”

“There are seven of us brothers scattered in these woods.”

“Do they live nearby?”

“By human standards, no. By my standards, too damn close.”

She laughed softly. “By your standards, eh?”

“Our territory is large. My eldest brother and his wife live closer to White River, but I like the even taller hills and cliffs, forged by long-extinct volcanoes and the glaciers. I’m more at peace in the boreal forest.”

Bernadette smiled, wiggling in his arms. “I like that too. I am cold though. I hope we get there soon.”

“My cave is warm.”

“Cave?” she asked, and he could hear the trepidation in her voice.

He chuckled. “It’s not the kind of cave you think. My mother was human. I may be a beast, but I am not completely uncivilized, unless you let me hunt you.”

Her cheeks flushed with pink and he could smell her arousal, firing his own need. “Maybe some other time.”

He growled appreciatively and moved quicker up the steep hills until they came to his cave. Much like Adam, he had built a door and a bit of a log cabin front to his cave, but his home was bigger. He’d spent years, lonely years, carving out a home in the hopes of finding a mate. He scavenged and bartered for furnishings.

His brother Daniel thought he was being foolish, because Daniel was kind of a pessimist and believed that they would never find mates. Now, he knew for a fact Daniel was working on his own home since they overthrew Tiene. He also knew that Adam was redoing his too and it gave Ben pride to know that his home was the standard to which his brothers all tried to achieve.

“Here we are,” he announced, setting her on the porch.

She spun around, her eyes widening as she looked down the hill. “We’re so high up. Is that Lake Superior?”

Ben chuckled. “You can see it and the Pic Island from here. There’s a clearing, a little farther up, where you get an unobstructed view of it.

“It’s gorgeous.”

He beamed proudly and opened the door. “Welcome to my home.”

Though there was a part of him that wanted to say “welcome to our home,” but he didn’t want to frighten her away. He didn’t want to force the issue on her. They might be both bound by the love spell that drove their need to mate, but he wanted her to love him.

For him.

Just like he loved her.

The moment he first caught her in his arms, he knew she was the one who was supposed to be his mate. It was fate. And nothing was going to change that. So he wasn’t going to pushher. He wanted Bernadette to feel completely comfortable with him, so that maybe one day she could really feel like this was her home, too.

For now, it was all about protecting her.

He opened up the door and flicked on a light, illuminating the wood and rock walled cave. Bernadette gasped in wonder.

“You built this yourself?”

“I did. Dug out the cave, built rooms, put in the plumbing system and electricity.”

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