“Does…does Biergon the Dead know?” she asked.
“Yes.” Kian twitched his head toward the woods on the other side of the females’ cabin. “He’s standing sentinel too.”
Oh. She lowered her eyes to the snow, her thoughts racing. Kian was confusing her. Something was happening that she didn’t understand, and it had always been this way. Getting answers from him was like pulling teeth.
“I heard what you said in there,” he told her.
“Which part?”
“Why I didn’t want you to move into my cabin. You were wrong, Eryn. I wanted you to be ready, and comfortable with me, but it never happened.” He turned around and gave her his back. Shocked, she just stood there for a few moments trying to compare what she knew of Kian with what she’d assumed of him.
He was supposed to be one of them—one of the Old Clan—but here he was at death’s door, standing guard because something had happened to convince him the Old Clan would come for her and the other females.
That didn’t match what she knew of Kian.
He was one of them, right?
He’d always abided by tradition…right?
She made her way inside and went straight to the window, watched his back as he reached over and pulled the bowl of stew to himself and began to eat.
Perhaps she’d never known her former mate at all.
Chapter Five
Today was the day.
“Are you ready?” Biergon the Dead asked.
Jaydah called him Foster, but Eryn would always call him Biergon.
“I think so. I have a lunch, and a second lunch, and a third lunch.”
Biergon chuckled and nodded. “Good. The roads are passable so we will take the truck.”
“I’m going to save up and get my own truck,” she blurted out. “You and Jaydah won’t have to give me rides forever.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, but you should be here protecting the others.”
The last couple of days had been tense. A few times, bears from the Old Clan had been patrolling the edge of their border, testing territory lines. Biergon looked exhausted, and she was pretty sure Kian hadn’t slept since he’d come here. “Will it ever end?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You know how.”
War. More war. That’s all bears knew how to do.
“Today is about victories,” Jaydah said from where she sat sleepily on the bench by the front door. “You are starting a job you chose, with no male telling you what to do. Today is the first day of you growing your independence. War talk will always exist, but it has no place here today.”
“Understood.”
“Now, go have the best first day of work ever. You better get a move on. The roads are thawing during the day but will have iced overnight.”
She bustled out the door toward the truck, which was already started with the windows defrosted. The high beams lit up Kian’s old cabin on the edge of the woods. The lights were on and glowing warmly.
“Does he never sleep?” she asked, but as she turned, she witnessed a tender moment between Biergon and Jaydah. He was standing next to her, hugging her up tight, and his lips were pressed to the top of her head. She wore the most tender smile Eryn had ever seen.
For a few seconds, she couldn’t rip her gaze away from them to offer them privacy. She just stared with this strange, wishful feeling in her stomach. How she’d dreamed of a match like that when she’d been younger. Jaydah was very lucky, and Eryn was happy for her.
She moved to open the truck door, but Kian’s front door swung open and out he came, looking very different than the last time she’d seen him checking the territory lines in heavy furs.
He was standing straight and strong, as if his wounds had fully healed, and he wore a deep green long-sleeved shirt that hugged his muscular arms. He wore jeans and thick-soled boots, and had shoved his hands in his pockets. A polite smile formed on his lips as he nodded his head in a greeting. “Good luck today.”
“Thank you,” she called. “I need it.”
“No you don’t. You’ll do great.” He gave her another half-smile and then sauntered to the edge of the slushy road that led out of camp.
His encouragement meant so much more than she could explain. He could’ve felt threatened by her leaving to find work, but he wasn’t, and she knew exactly why. He didn’t have feelings for her, so he could wish her well and not care that she was moving further away from him and their past together.
Perhaps they could be friends.
Biergon the Dead climbed up behind the wheel and rolled his window down, waved to Kian as her former mate gave them a two-fingered wave.
Eryn watched out the side mirror until they turned a corner into the woods and she could no longer see him. He didn’t stop watching them the whole way.
“He seems to be healing,” she said conversationally.
“Kian? He’s healing very well.”
“Does he sleep well?”
Biergon tossed her a strange look, then rolled his window up and returned his attention to the road. “It must be weird seeing him every day.”
“Not weird for me. I think eventually we will be friends.”
“Friends,” Biergon the Dead repeated. “I suppose friends wake up at three in the morning to wave each other off on a first day of work. Sure.”
“Jaydah did that for me.”
“Jaydah was still wearing her pajamas. Kian was not.” Biergon’s smile was obnoxious.
Whatever. She and Kian would become friends. Someday she would move on with another and he would be happy for her, and he would find a mate who suited him better and she would be happy for—grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
With a gasp, Eryn clapped her hand over her mouth and tried to swallow the very-obvious growl her bear had forced up her throat.
Now Biergon the Dead was smiling bigger. Frowning as hard as she could, she reached forward and turned up the volume on the music.
She was fine, and Kian was fine, and everything was fine.
****
Chop!
The sound of Kian’s axe blade hitting the log echoed through the abandoned clearing. He didn’t know why he’d come out here on the edge of the territory today. It was Eryn’s fifth shift at her new job, and he’d found himself stuck in a pattern. Sure, he’d gone back to work. The Challenges were done, and he was back in the territory with his cabin and truck, equipped with the snowplow that gave him his income during the winter months. It had been time to get back to the long driving shifts as the unpredictable weather switched from thaw to freeze to snow and back again. But he found himself waking up in time to watch his king take Eryn to work before dawn. He waved her off and then did his shift, and thought about her the whole damn time. Pined over her, really, and it was all his damn inner grizzly’s fault. He was horny as fuck and missed her touch. The man in him had told the grizzly in him to fuck off at least thirty times this week.
She wasn’t his anymore, but the bear didn’t seem to care about that stuff.
Chop!
He found himself taken with every smile she aimed in his direction. Even if one of the females had told a joke and she accidentally looked in his direction, he fucking breathed for it.