Page 40 of More Than I Can Bear

“They loove you,” she sang, off key. “They want to hold you. Kiss you and only you. Except they can’t love anyone or fuck anyone else, like ever.” She grabbed a street sign pole and spun around. “They’re like the anti-fuck boys.”

“The fuck…?” I stopped still, staring at her. “What are you on about?”

“I was quizzing Adam, doing some undercover research for you, bestie.” She gave me a shove and I went staggering away. “Apparently he and the other guys were keeping themselves pure and untouched for their fated mate.” She stopped spinning, then went an interesting shade of green and stumbled over to a nearby shop front, before the bouncers got cranky and moved us on. “No spew since ’92, Officer,” she said, giving the guys a salute and then marching us up the road. “You’ve got a three bear army of dudes that have never even been kissed before, willing to do anything you want them to. Turn into their bear form and let you snuggle them.”

“Oh my god, all that fur,” I groaned.

“Right now I’d settle for someone to carry me up to the taxi rank,” she said, pulling off her heels and pegging them at the nearest bin. Each one bounced off. “Ohmigod, you could have them turn into bears and we could climb on their backs and ride them home!”

Suddenly I could see it, Jack on the back of one polar bear, me on the back of another. My eyes went wide and my mouth fell open.

“We could have races!”

“Yes, races!” She skipped up the road, guys shouting out some shit as they passed by in their cars. “First one to the Mall’s Balls wins!”

“Yess…!”

She grabbed her phone then, tapping on the screen at least some of the time, though her fingers seemed to slide over the surface like drunken ice skaters.

“Jack, it’s River.” Art Boy’s voice came out through the speakers, much to Jack’s delight.

“River! Are you a bear too?” she asked. “Do you have those cute widdle fluffy ears?”

I don’t even remember the conversation, just that the whole world seemed to be moving in time with my heart, pulsing over and over. My body swayed in time with the dull thud of the bass line we heard from the nearby clubs and a breeze picked up. It seemed to bath my overheated skin, washing it all away, everything that had happened. And then I heard this.

“I’ll be there in ten.” Art Boy’s voice was deep and authoritative, which was somehow comforting. “Don’t fucking move an inch.”

Chapter21

River

They didn’t understand. Neither Kaine nor Adam understood what it was like, growing up in our community as the son of someone who wasn’t their fathers’ fated mate. They just assumed it’d be all happy families, like it was for them, but as I shifted gears, swiftly swerving through traffic, I was reminded of just how untrue that was.

“My mum says you can’t play with us.”

That was my earliest memory of what other boys had said to me during community events. I was the only child, Mum struggling to even have me, it was said, so I’d been hungry for the company of other kids. But boys had turned their back on me, girls had shrunk away, until one of them had finally said that. And I realised, at five years old, that I was being shunned. I’d stumbled back then, as if slapped, unable to work out what the hell was going on. My family was loving, tight-knit and when I hung out with Mum’s side of the family, people always treated me well. I’d just stopped and stared, unable to process the words.

“What? You gonna cry?”the boy had said, then smirked.

“Don’t.”A much smaller Adam had stepped in then, frowning when the other boys snickered, then he’d lunged at them, forcing them to scatter. He’d looked over at me then and held out his hand.“I’m Adam.”

He’d stuck by me at school and during social events. We’d forged a tight friendship. And because I was Adam’s business, I became Kaine’s. The two of them unconsciously ruled the playground at school, making clear I was untouchable, but that’s what made what I was trying to do so hard.

They were fucking everything up and I felt like I couldn’t stop them.

I roared up Hindley Street and some of the blokes trawling the street in their V8 cars revved their engines in response, but I didn’t care about that, just them. I saw two women wobbling on the pavement, a couple of big bouncers standing over them and saw fucking red. Somehow the gods of parking saw fit to bestow a boon upon me, and a space appeared just in front of the pub. I jumped out of the car, right as Jack was berating some massive guy all in black, so I swooped in and grabbed her around the waist, slinging her over my shoulder and was carrying her back to my car when I saw Freya.

“River…”

Her eyes were too bright, her cheeks too flushed and those pretty little lips were parted in surprise, making me think of all the very bad things I wanted to do to them. But not now. Both of my sleuthmates had made things worse for my girl, and I couldn’t compound that.

Get them somewhere safe and secure, the bear insisted.

And make sure they don’t choke on their own vomit, I added.

I picked Freya up with my spare arm and threw her over my other shoulder to the catcalls of a few drunk men wandering through the mall.

“Fuck yeah, mate!” someone shouted down the road, but I ignored them, bringing the women over to the car and setting them down beside it.

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