BEARly Mated to the Grizzly (Bear Clan 2)

I shut and locked the door one last time, and headed downstairs and out the front lobby doors, seeing Maddix waiting by his truck. He leaned against the side of it, his arms crossed over his chest, his big body looking really tense. I could tell he hated the city. It showed in the way he stood, in the fact he kept looking around, curling his upper lip in disgust.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. He saw me and pushed away from the truck, striding over to me and embracing me instantly. Maddix had his nose buried in the crook of my neck, right by the mating mark, and I heard him inhale.

“This place is suffocating,” he grumbled against my throat. I had my arms wrapped around him, knowing exactly what he meant. Although I’d felt the weight of the city on me, it wasn’t until I finally found Maddix—my other half—that I realized just how crushing it all had been.

All of this was a little crazy, I wouldn’t lie. I was moving out of the city, turning my back on everything I’d known for years. But it wasn’t just some whim. It was the right decision. Definitely. Undeniably.

Besides, I wasn’t leaving anything, but instead going forward, starting my future ... living my life. And at the end of the day, my happiness, being with Maddix and starting our lives together was what mattered.

* * *

Oli

I leaned against the thick trunk of a tree and watched as my brothers grilled steaks and visited. I was happy for Zakari and Maddix. They’d finally found their mates, something we all wanted, all hoped for.

I kept my needs hidden, busied myself, worked my ass off in my garage because I didn’t want that crushing loneliness to eat away at me like it did them.

And it did, because I could smell it pouring off them in waves, that desperation, impatience, and desire to find the other half of their soul.

Being a shifter wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. We had strength, healed faster, and could shift, but we were always searching for our mates, always feeling empty without them. We just went through the motions every day until they were with us.

And how fucking depressing was that?

If my brothers wanted to live that way, hope that they’d happen upon their female, then so be it. But not me. I was getting out of here, at least for a short while, seeing if I could be the one to find her.

Was she human? A shifter? Was she on the East Coast? The west?

All of these questions would be answered, because I wouldn’t stop until I found her. I was taking my future, my fate, into my own hands.

I brought the whiskey bottle to my mouth and took another pull from it. I’d been nursing it the entire day, and by now my throat was numb and my body relaxed.

My mate.

I’d find her or die trying.

Epilogue

Maddix

A few months later

I pushed the shopping cart down each aisle, feeling pretty out of place for being here, but when my mate said she needed help at the grocery store, I dropped what I was doing and went with her.

The stares I got, the whispers I heard, made me feel even more like I shouldn’t be here.

“Oh my God, is that a bear brother?”

“One of them actually came down the mountain?”

I glowered at each person I passed, showing them a flash of my canines.

I curled my hands around the plastic handle, one of the wheels on the cart jacked up as it wiggled and squeaked. I clenched my teeth together, my annoyance rising, my bear itching to get out of here. I turned the cart down the junk food aisle and start tossing in chips, donuts, hell, anything that would make me feel better about the situation. I was a stress eater, for sure, and being in town, around all these people, put me on edge.

Even now, I could see the looks they gave me, the whispers I heard in the next aisle.

“I heard they were getting mates. Maybe that’ll make them not so feral.”

I tossed in a couple more bags of chips.