Page 33 of Stolen Mate

“I’m sorry. I was teasing but didn’t mean it that way. For the record, I’m not all that sure I’d put up much of a fight. I find you incredibly arousing and feel drawn to you in a way I’ve never felt before, so I’ll try and follow your lead.”

“Does anyone else know—about the journals or about your birth mother?”

“My sister knows I have them, and that I think my birth mother may have been a bit crackers, but I don’t really remember how much I told her. But I didn’t know about who and what I was. She just thinks, as did I, that I was coming up to try and trace my roots. Lara would never betray us. Never.”

Derek believed her, but that didn’t mean that others would. They might need to get word to those they trusted in Seattle to keep an eye on Lara.

“So, what do I do?”

“Just find a quiet place in your mind, focus on your bear, and ask her to come forward. I’m pretty sure after all this time…”

He didn’t even get to finish before he felt the vortex for the shift open and he turned to see the swirling mist envelop Tess’s naked form as the lightning sizzled, the thunder sounded, and shards of color created the maelstrom. As it dissipated, Tess’s polar-bear form was revealed. She was a glorious snow-white bear whose eyes sparkled with mirth and intelligence. She charged Derek, playfully bowling him over before whirling around on the rocky shore and galloping into the glacial coastal waters of the Gulf of Alaska.

Derek knew a challenge when one had been issued. He stripped quickly and called forth his own bear. The instant the centralized storm around him had dissipated, he charged forward in chase of his mate. This was one hunt he wouldn’t lose.

CHAPTER 13

TESS

Journal Entry, November 5th

Today I shifted for the first time. I can’t believe I wrote those words. It is somewhat mind-boggling to now know that I share a mind, body, and soul with a lethal predator, and yet within me she is gentle and grieves with me for that which I have lost.

I try to tell myself that never having had a family, I will adjust to having one and to having rules imposed by others. But I also know that’s a load of crap.

I don’t like it here. I don’t like that I was forcibly mated to a man who thought it perfectly okay to kidnap me and rob me of my humanity. I am trying to convince myself that the freedom and joy that I find in being my bear self compensates for all the shit that comes with it.

But she knows. I cannot fool her. She knows, and when I cry all alone in the night when he’s done with me, she chuffs in consolation and in sorrow.

There must be something I can do. Some way I can get away. I overheard Henry and his henchmen condemning a group of women known as the Shadow Sisters. Perhaps they can help.

The first time she read that entry, her heart broke for her mother, and she believed she was cracking under the strain. But now, Tess knew better. Knocking Derek on his ass had been fun, but she doubted it would work a second time. She rushed towards the waters that beckoned her with their siren song. She was one with the sea and with the beast within.

There was something freeing in becoming her bear self. She felt as though a puzzle piece that she had long known was missing was finally falling into place. Because she’d always accepted her polar bear as a kind of spirit guide, it also felt as if every question she’d ever been too afraid to verbalize was now being answered.

It also meant that she knew a lot about polar bears. She’d studied them. They were incredibly strong swimmers, swimming across bays or wide expanses of water without hesitation or fear. They could swim for several hours at a time over long distances without rest.

Tess knew from her reading that her enormous paws were webbed, and she used them to propel her through the water, keeping her hind feet and legs flat to be used as rudders. She wasn’t able to swim particularly fast compared to other marine mammals, but there was a grace and effortlessness to her swimming that she would never have experienced as a human.

She dove underwater, making shallow dives as if she were stalking prey or navigating ice floes. She couldn’t hold her breath much longer as a polar bear than she did as a human, but still, it was easier, and there was no need for nose plugs. She played in the water, swimming upside down and doing a kind of backflip. She could not only see Derek coming, but she could also feel him.

She dove down, making a sharp pivot and swimming past him to get away, although it was only play. Tess had always liked the water, but this was something else again. She could glide through the water with a speed and, dare she say, elegance she’d never known before.

However, once she emerged from the water, all that disappeared. She had more of a lumbering gait as she rushed up the rocky beach. She wasn’t even a little bit cold, which was nice. By the time Derek realized she had left the water and emerged himself, Tess had shifted back, pulled on her clothes and made a dash for the lighthouse—being in the cold as a polar bear was one thing; being outside in people clothes was something else altogether.

* * *

Tess spent the next several days getting to know Zak and his people and how the grumpy alpha ensured that his people were happy and well-cared for. The thing that always made her smile was how he doted on his mate. Zak made sure that Sienna had pretty much anything that made her happy. She did find that most of the shifter males, although they were very much in charge, made sure that their mates felt loved and appreciated. They also seemed to participate equally in taking care of their children.

Derek’s job kept him away through most of the day. He stayed there most nights and was always there for breakfast. He and Tess had taken to getting up and cooking for those in the lighthouse cottage, which was actually an enormous octagon-shaped building with the tower for the light house coming out of the top.

Sitting on one of the dug-out benches, Tess smiled as Derek’s sister, Annie, joined her. “He’s nuts about you.”

“So he says.”

“He’s serious, Tess. I’ve never known Derek to behave around a woman the way he does you. He’s always been a bit of a playboy—he didn’t break any hearts, but he was kind of a friend with benefits, and he’s still on excellent terms with his former girlfriends—but with you he’s different. Even Deke noticed it, and Deke never notices anything about interpersonal relationships.”

Tess smiled. If Zak was grumpy, Deke was downright malevolent, but he loved Annie and would do anything for her.

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