Page 14 of Hexy Bear
"This isn't the same," he said, his voice cracking with the weight of fears he'd been carrying alone for too long. "Sarah died because I couldn't protect her from magical forces I didn't understand. If I fail again, if I can't keep Tilly safe from this thing, if I lose her the way I lost Sarah..."
He couldn't finish the sentence. The possibility was too terrifying to put into words, too overwhelming to contemplate without his bear clawing its way to the surface in desperate, futile rage.
"Hey," Mara said softly, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. "Look at me."
Her touch was warm and steady, anchoring him to the present moment instead of the spiral of catastrophic possibilities that threatened to pull him under. Her green eyes held compassion and determination in equal measure, and something deeper that made his heart stutter in his chest.
"You're not alone this time," she said, her voice firm with conviction. "You don't have to carry this by yourself. Tilly isn't just your responsibility anymore, and neither is figuring out howto fight cosmic horrors. We're a team now, remember? All three of us, together."
"What if I lose you too?" The words came out raw and desperate, exposing fears he'd been trying to bury since the moment he'd first felt attracted to her. "What if caring about you, letting you become important to me, just gives that thing another way to hurt us? What if love makes us weaker instead of stronger?"
Mara's expression softened with understanding. "I was terrified of the same thing when I first realized what was happening between us. In Boston, I had someone I cared about. Another healer who worked at the clinic where I had my practice. We weren't... we hadn't gotten to where you and I are now, but there was potential. Real potential. But it wasn’t the same as what we have."
Her hands were still on his face, her thumbs tracing gentle patterns across his cheekbones. "When the attacks started, when my protective wards began failing, he was the first person targeted. Not killed, just... taken. Absorbed into whatever was hunting our community, used as bait to lure others into range. I spent months thinking that if I hadn't cared about him, if I hadn't let him get close to me, he might still be alive."
"But you don't think that anymore?"
"I think isolation is just another kind of death," Mara said simply. "I think the entity that's been hunting us feeds on loneliness and fear and the belief that we're safer when we're disconnected from each other. I think love isn't what makes us vulnerable, Griff. It's what makes us worth protecting."
The sincerity in her voice, the way she looked at him like he was something precious and worth fighting for, broke something loose in his chest. For five years, he'd been carrying the weight of single parenthood like armor, convincing himself that keepingeveryone at arm's length was the best way to protect both himself and Tilly from further loss.
But standing here in his kitchen, with Mara's hands on his face and her magic humming in harmony with his bear's protective instincts, he finally understood what the shadow beings meant. Connection wasn't weakness. It was strength multiplied, courage shared, love made to stand against forces that sought to divide and conquer.
"I'm scared," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"So am I," Mara replied, and the admission somehow made them both braver. "But I'm more scared of losing you and Tilly by not trying than I am of whatever might happen if we choose to be together."
The space between them seemed to shrink without either of them moving, and Griff became acutely aware of the way her pulse was visible at the base of her throat, the way her breathing had changed, the way her magical signature was reaching toward his like a plant growing toward sunlight.
"Mara," he said her name came akin to a prayer and a question combined.
"Yes," she said, understanding what he was asking without needing the words.
When he kissed her, it was with five years of loneliness and fear dissolving into something that felt like coming home. Her lips were soft and warm and tasted like the herbal tea she'd been drinking, and when she made a small sound of welcome and pressed closer, his bear rumbled with satisfaction so deep it was almost territorial.
Her hands moved from his face to his shoulders, then to the buttons of his flannel shirt, and every touch sent electricity through his system with everything to do with connection, need, and the simple human miracle of being wanted by someone who saw all of him and chose him anyway.
"Are you sure?" he asked against her mouth, giving her one last chance to change her mind before they crossed a line that would change everything between them.
"I've never been more sure of anything," she said, her voice breathless but certain. "I want this, Griff. I want you. All of you, including the parts that are scared and complicated and protective to a fault."
He lifted her onto the kitchen counter, and she wrapped her legs around his waist with an enthusiasm that made his head spin. Her dress rode up, revealing miles of smooth skin that he wanted to explore with his hands and mouth, and when she arched against him, he could feel the heat of her through the fabric that separated them.
"Not here," he said, though every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to take what she was offering right here and now. "Tilly might come downstairs."
"Bedroom," Mara agreed, but before he could set her down, she was kissing him again, her hands fisted in his shirt and her magic crackling around them in waves that made the surroundings seem charged with possibility.
The trip upstairs was a blur of stolen kisses and fumbled buttons, of careful navigation around squeaky floorboards and the need to be quiet despite the desperate hunger building between them. By the time they reached his bedroom, Griff was half-convinced he might be dreaming, that the reality of Mara Voss wanting him with the same fierce intensity he felt for her was too good to be true.
But when she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and ran her hands over his chest with reverent appreciation, when she looked at him like he was something she'd been searching for without knowing it, he finally accepted that this was real. She was real, and she was his, and in what felt like years, he wasgoing to let himself have something he wanted instead of just something he needed.
Her dress came off in a whisper of fabric, revealing skin that glowed faintly in the afternoon light filtering through his bedroom windows. She was beautiful in ways that made his chest tight with emotion, curves and softness and strength combined in proportions that seemed designed specifically to make him lose his mind with want.
"You're staring," she said, but there was no self-consciousness in her voice, only warmth and amusement and invitation.
"I'm memorizing," he corrected, his hands mapping the line of her waist, the curve of her hips, the way she shivered when he touched the sensitive spot just below her ear. "I want to remember every detail of this moment."
"We'll have more moments," she promised, her fingers working at his belt with determination that made him groan. "Lots more moments. This isn't a one-time thing, Griff. This is us choosing each other, permanently."
