Bear Bride (Bear Cove #1)(4)
They had taken up carpentry, selling their craft in the famous furniture stores of Bear Cove, and finally resumed hunting, only very cautiously in order not to attract the eyes of the enemy. The children had started going to the local school and even Troy and Matt went to finish up their studies. They had befriended the locals and established business relationships with the furniture dealers, though they kept their distance and reduced all kinds of interaction with humans to the bare minimum, afraid that they would be chased away if anyone found out their real nature.
Normally, bears weren’t the type to set up camps or live together in any organized manner. They were loners, hunters, predators at heart, but for the Shadows it was a necessity. Their shared history had forced them to come together for protection. It had been quite hard at first to learn to share and mind each other’s interests. Fights were not uncommon even among the clan’s members, but little by little they had managed to settle into the new routine and pay their respects to their leader from up close.
The peace hadn’t lasted for too long. They had soon been discovered by the Blackstone informers and shortly afterwards the rival alphas paid them a visit. Troy had managed to convince them not to tear their settlement to pieces but only at the price of merging the two clans through a union between him and the daughter of a prominent local Blackstone alpha, Corin. He had seen her in school, but that was all. They didn’t move in the same circles and had never even been alone together. Now he was tying his destiny and future to hers until the end of times and his entire self rebelled against it. His bear was fuming and raging inside him, threatening to burst out and fight and every day it took more and more strength and energy to contain him, keep him at bay. He knew the time for a fight hadn’t come yet. The clan was sparse and weak and they were still dozens of Shadow Bear brothers and sisters lost in the woods, making their slow way towards them, if they ever made it at all. What they needed now was peace.
A startling noise pulled him back to the present and he turned to see Matt doubled up on the couch, surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke, retching and coughing, his face swollen and red from the exertion. Troy hurried over to him and stroke his back a few times with his open palm.
“Who the hell thought this was a good gentlemanly pastime?” Matt managed to spit out between spasms. He was still holding the cigar, which gave out a filmy ribbon of smoke that stung their eyes. “My insides are burning! Get this thing away from me. I’m done and once again I’ve convinced myself humans are weird.”
Chase was laughing at the miserable face of his brother who was still coughing when a beautiful blond head peeked in from the crack in the massive wood door. It was Shona.
“Sorry to interrupt bachelors… and husband,” she giggled, her eyes exaggeratedly closed, “hide the strippers, I’m coming in.”
“Ha-ha, funny,” Matt groaned, “with these two, it’s a wonder you didn’t find us raking leaves or cutting wood for fun. You sure scored there with a hilarious husband, Shona.”
“Hey, no bashing the husband in front of me, remember? I get…umm, irritable.”
Everyone laughed, knowing Shona wasn’t even joking. On more than a few occasions she had been known to jump straight into a fight to defend her husband, despite her slight figure. She was much smaller than the tall, magnificent-figured Shadows, but then again, she was the only human accepted into the family. With her fiery temperament and her natural inclination to boss others around, it wasn’t her who was scared by the family of gigantic bear shifters. More often than not, it was the other way around.
“And what exactly is going on with you?” she indicated Matt’s wet shirt front and tousled, dripping hair. “Anyway, no time for explanations. You better fix yourself quickly. I think the show is about to start… I mean, the wedding. How are you feeling, Troy?”
“As excited as I’m ever going to get,” Troy mumbled gloomily.
“Oh, come on now, there is nothing wrong with Corin. I’m sure she is nice, or at least not so bad. We owe you everything, you know that, right?”
The bear inside him scratched at his insides, giving him yet another warning that he was making a mistake.
Chapter 3
Corin
Corin twirled in front of the full-length mirror and stopped breathless and dizzy, the cloud of satin and lace settling about her with a sigh. Her long veil had caught on a gem in the intricate handmade embroidery of the wide green sash wrapped around her waist and a girl quickly dove forward to untangle it. Corin smiled, more at her own breathtaking beauty than at what lied ahead for her. Her delicate features were lightly accentuated with discreet makeup and sprays of baby’s breath were woven into her flowing, glistening blond hair.
“But he doesn’t even speak!” she whined without tearing her gaze from her sparkling white reflection. “I can’t believe dad would make me go through with this! What am I supposed to do? Sure, he is good looking, but a marriage is more than just mating…”
“You really are short-sighted, Corin,” an older woman with regal features and a soft, motherly voice said and came to stand next to Corin, “this marriage will make you a queen, can’t you see this? You think a queen’s job is to walk around, happily skipping, hand in hand with her perfect king? You’ll have your own clan to rule over and protect, remember that.”