Page 29 of Chased Bear

Corey let out another squeal and clapped his hands. His daughter looked up at him, eyes wide, then her face split into a grin, and she clapped her own little hands. She was growing so quickly. I felt like I went home at night and came back in the morning and she was an inch taller or had a new skill.

“This is so great! Oh, I can’t believe it. You two are such opposites, but it works, right? Like, you’re happy?” He wastalking a mile a minute, and I was surprised the entire place wasn’t looking at us.

Maybe they were all eavesdropping and that was why. If that was the case, we’d find out soon enough when someone who wasn’t here randomly congratulated one of us. This den wouldn’t let knowledge like this go unspread. It wasn’t in them.

I grinned. “So happy. I do love your brother very much. We balance each other.”

“You drive each other to distraction—both in good and bad ways.” He wasn’t wrong about the distraction, but it was all good ways. With Aydan there weren’t any bad, even if some were a tad annoying.

“Yes, I suppose that’s accurate.” I wasn’t going to argue the point. He was thrilled. I was thrilled. My mate was thrilled. That was all that mattered.

“I’m so happy for you.” I had a feeling he was going to say that a few thousand more times, and I was okay with that.

“Thanks,” I said. “That means a lot, Corey. And... well, I suppose I should say that you were right. Your brother’s not so bad.”

Corey laughed heartily. “See? All these years I’ve been telling you to just give him a chance. He’s not a stick in the mud.”

Corey was wrong on that account.

“Well, he is a stick in the mud, but he’s my stick in the mud, so I’ll keep him.”

“And when can I expect my niece or nephew to be born?” He spoke so low even I almost missed it.

“A couple of months, I think. I don’t know. I guess I should see Rissa, huh?” I had gone and gotten the supplements I needed, but we hadn’t talked past that.

Fine, they’d talked about how keeping things from them wasn’t the best way to stay healthy and there was no denying that. There was also a hug and a reminder to come back soon for a physical, but no actual baby exam. I wasn’t even sure what those would entail.

“Yeah, I would say so. Why don’t we go over there now?” Talk about cutting to the chase.

“Well, I have to wait until Aydan can go.”

“Right, of course.” I was going to have to bring Corey to some appointment because seeing him not quite disappointed but maybe a little sad wasn’t working for me. “So happy for you.”

“Thanks, Corey. That means a lot.” More than he could ever know.

Chapter 18

Aydan

I hadn’t seen Jayce all day, and I didn’t like that. Being mated was so different than I’d thought it would be. True, I’d been jaded thanks to my past experiences with my parents, but I’d watched my brother and his mate. I’d seen firsthand both the best and the worst of fated mates. I wasn’t flying in blind.

It was hard to imagine that there was a time when Jayce wasn’t in my life, and even harder to imagine that there was a time when Jayce was in my life but was the bane of my existence. I hated that I allowed my past trauma to prevent me from seeingwhat was before me. Yes, he stank. But that wasn’t why, not wholly. It was my inability to let go of what my parents did to each other and us.

That had all changed even before I scented him that first time. Now he was my reason for being. The reason I got up each day. The reason I wanted to build this den to be the best it could be. With him at my side, I knew that was totally possible.

Oddly, as much as I would do anything to inhale his scent, there were times I missed his stinkyness. It had been part of who he was when I fell in love with him. I’d always love that scent.

“Hi, Alpha!” people called as I walked through the crowd. I wasn’t even sure which were speaking to me.

It probably didn’t matter. It wasn’t a meaningful conversation or anything. Just a greeting. Once upon a time, I’d have not thought twice about it. But now? Now I saw my role in the den differently. It wasn’t just about making sure things went smoothly, it was about relationships. My mate taught me that. He taught me so many things, and I doubted he even knew it.

The Harvest Moon Gathering had turned into quite the large affair. We even had visitors from other packs and dens who were joining us for the festival. More than one person from Greycoast and Northbay were going to be present for the celebration. It was important to us as a den that we forge relationships with other packs, at least for the vision I had for us.

Historically, a lot of bear dens kept to themselves. It would be easy to fall into that here. It wasn’t healthy though, to be that isolated. Not for our den as it was and certainly not for den growth.

It had taken a great deal of time, but we’d managed to clear out a field and measured the distance so that when the catapults launched, we could tell how far the pumpkins went. It cracked me up that such an outlandish idea had taken over and become the full-ass personality of the festival. I’d even heard some alphas refer to the event as Pumpkin Launching Day. Hey, if it got everyone excited, I was here for it.

It wasn’t a competition; it was just for fun. That didn’t mean people didn’t want to be the one who sent theirs the farthest. It was going to be me who managed the task, of course. And I was fine with whatever that said about me.