Page 1 of Marked By The Grouchy Grizzly

CHAPTER ONE

Julian

It’s hard to tattoo when you’re irritated. Your muscles tense up. Your pulse quickens. The tightness in your jaw makes it hard to focus.

And right now, this couple is really testing my limits.

I’m getting all twitchy as my inner grizzly bear paces around in a fury. I can feel him moving in the deep, dark depths of me, getting madder by the minute.

I trace the faded black line on my client’s skin, tattooing the head of a Kodiak bear onto her ribs. It’s the Kodiak bear that her prick boyfriend has lurking inside him.

They’re newlymates. And they’re fucking annoying about it.

The possessive fucker actually asked me if I could do his mate’s tattoo without touching her. I told him yeah, if you want the bear to look like a donkey.

He finally agreed to let me touch herifI had gloves on and hestillkeeps watching me like a hawk.

She whimpers as I do the shading on the bear’s nose.

“You’re hurting her,” the brute growls, glaring at me.

I glare back at him. “It’s a tattoo,” I snap. “It’s supposed to fucking hurt.”

“You’regoing to be hurting if you don’t be more gentle,” he warns.

I bite my tongue and focus on the lines even though I’d like to take this prick outside and unleash some of my aggression onto his face.

“It’s okay, babe,” she says, whimpering again as she takes his hand.

“I just hate to see you in pain,” he whispers, gently kissing her temple. “It kills me to see it.”

“As long as you’re beside me,” she whispers back, staring up at him with her big doey eyes, “I can endure anything.”

Gross. I want to be sick.

It’s always hard being around newlymates. My bear gets so agitated. He can smell the newly imprinted mark on her neck and it makes him ache with longing for our mate.

We’ve been waiting for her our entire life, but it’s been much harder lately. It’s been physically painful.

“It’s so sweet,” my younger sister Victoria says, smiling at them. “When did you two lovebears find each other?”

Why is she encouraging them?

She should know better. I shoot her a look where she’s sitting at the front desk, but she ignores me. Victoria has always been a romantic. She loves to heareveryone’sstory about how they met their fated mates. It’s so annoying.

“Don’t you have a tattoo to prepare?” I ask, interrupting her.

She shakes her head and grins at me. “I’m all done. I have nothing but free time until my customer arrives.”

“Wonderful,” I growl as I get back to work, tracing the bear’s nostril.

It can be hard working with family. Believe me, I know.

I work with both of my siblings at our tattoo shop, Heat & Ink. My older brother Magnus thinks he’s the boss since hefound the location and put in the most money to get us started. Then, there’s my younger sister, Victoria. She’s a talented artist, but she never stops yapping. It drives me crazy.

We’re all tattoo artists and we’re all grizzly bear shifters, but that’s where the similarities end. Besides that, we couldn’t possibly be any less alike.

“I was parked at a red light,” the lady says as I stretch her skin out, shading the inner nostril, “when then this man pulled up in his pickup truck beside me. I felt this intense feeling coming over me.”

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