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TAYTE
Finding the bear’s headquarters was easy enough. I just followed the stench and the information that I’d accumulated from Celeste about them.
She’d told me that they were on the furthest outskirts of town, in a ramshackle apartment block that looked like it was barely holding itself together.
I stared up at the building I’d found in my walking quest.
Celeste had lived here her whole life?
How had she survived?
There were beer cans and cigarette butts littering the grass and not much else around.
It was still early, maybe seven o’clock in the morning.
The humans in the surrounding neighborhood had stirred. Some were on their way to work, school, or whatever else they did.
But the bears didn’t seem to have woken yet.
I walked forward, up the path to the apartment block.
Surely, they’d wake up for this? An Alpha wolf coming to surrender?
I lifted my hand and knocked on the door. I waited for a while, then did it again.
What time did these creatures rise? Or more rightly, what time did they go to bed?
Eventually the door opened. A sleepy-looking woman in her twenties or thirties blinked up at me.
“I’m here to see your Alpha.”
She yawned at me. “He won’t be awake for a while.”
Geez, you’d think this sort of thing happened every day.
“It’s important. I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself.”
She showed me inside to a living area, where there was a rundown snooker table and a leather couch with a great big hole in it.
“You may be waiting a while.”
So much for charging to my death.
“No problem.”
I sat on the couch, avoiding the hole and feeling a strange buzz in my veins. A weird desire to chuckle and laugh aloud overtook me. There was no anger or regret, only warm feelings I couldn’t identify.
I’d once read that some people experienced a sort of euphoria before they died. This was what they must have meant.
I chuckled to myself, realizing how ridiculous I sounded even inside my own head.
I waited what felt like hours, but it probably wasn’t that long until a young kid stumbled into the room.
He saw me and stopped short. “Who are you?”
He smelled like the wrong end of a horse, and unfortunately my wolf-like senses made me cringe.
“I’m Tayte. Can you get the Alpha for me?”
“Hmm. Okay.”
And he wandered off.
Oh my God. Why was I so worried about an attack from these people?
They were unclean, unorganized and slept all day.
But then I heard it.
The rumble of the bears.
The hairs on the back of my neck tingled as a dozen men stepped into the room.
Trevor, their Alpha, was in the center of a the large group.
Celeste was right about their physicality. They were soft bodied and unshaven, and on the surface looked unfit. But they were big, and like the bears they shifted into, I knew they would be fast and strong and mean.
“What the hell are you doing here? I thought you said a month?”
Oh, so they’d partied and relaxed, had they? Thinking they had time before they had to do anything with us.
Maybe I should have come back with a hunting party. Every Alpha and Beta in our pack could have taken these guys down.
But my pack didn’t want me. My Beta wouldn’t even look at me and my mate had rejected me.
Why would I risk the lives of anyone else, when a simple sacrifice was all these bears wanted?
I squared my shoulders and said what I’d come to say. “I’ve come to take her place.”
Trevor blinked, then glanced to the men at his side, who seemed equally confused.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said. You want Celeste here, so you can carry out your sentence. I’m here to take her place. A peace offering to stop all the fighting.”
The men gaped at me.
“But... but... you’re an Alpha. You can’t do that,” Trevor said.
One of the beefy old guys at his side, said, “This is a trap. I’m sure of it.”
I wanted to laugh. Why was this so hard for them to believe? Celeste was my mate. Of course, I would do anything to save her. Did they not know that?
“Look, this is a simple trade, with one condition. That you swear off attacking the wolf pack and worrying about if they have their mates or not. That was your father’s agenda, wasn’t it, Trevor?”
The bear shifter lifted his chin in the air. “Yeah. So what?”
“So, you had to date Nevaeh for how long because of all that crap? You lost years when you should have just been here, in your den, with your woman.”
Woman? Women?
I didn’t know the terminology. And although I’d love to smash Trevor’s face in for what he’d done to Nevaeh in the years he’d been with her, this was a negotiation. I had to keep my cool.
“We can’t do that,” one of the younger guys said.
Trevor looked torn, so I kept talking, hoping to sway him.
“Hey, look. I’m handing myself over to you. If you want to show the den how strong you are, just destroy me. I won’t fight you. That’ll be enough. And you can leave the rest of the pack alone.”
My brain searched for another argument. I hadn’t really thought the bears would need convincing, but then it came to me.
“Leave them to their human mates. The wolves will never be as strong as you when the next generation comes through. Those kids might not even be able to shift!”
I had no idea if my daughter would be able to shift or not, but I didn’t care. She was perfect and beautiful.
But I was betting the bears would care.
There was a rumble of ascent.
Trevor began to laugh. “That would be an even greater victory, wouldn’t it? To see that pack turned into a group of humans!”
He practically rolled on the ground he was laughing so hard.
And I let him.
Whatever he needed to believe to keep my mate safe.
“So, we’re agreed?”
“Yes. We’re agreed.”
That was great. But how was I going to make sure Trevor followed through with his deal?
“Does anyone have a phone, so I can let my elders know the deal’s done? Then I’m all yours.”
One of the younger kids was pushed forward and he timidly offered me a cell.
Again, strangest scene, ever.
I punched in the numbers for Sam’s cell. He never answered his phone.
His voicemail kicked in and I cleared my throat, now strangely tight.
“Sam, it’s Tayte. The bears have agreed to my terms and will take me in exchange for Celeste. They’ve also agreed to leave the pack alone, and everyone is to get on with their lives.”
I hesitated to say more while the bears still listened.
“So, you take care. Thanks.”
I hung up and my heart dropped, aching and bare.
Trevor clapped a hand over my shoulder.
“I have to say, wolf, you’ve got balls. I’ll give you that.”
They herded me out of the room, and I went willingly.
“Well, you know. Anything for the family, right?” I looked at him, Alpha to Alpha and expected to see some sort of camaraderie.
But instead, he looked away, then pushed me out the back door.
Into a fenced-in backyard filled with men and women and children.
“Welcome to your execution, wolf.”