Boarlander Boss Bear (Boarlander Bears #1)(20)

Audrey’s heart was breaking for him. Slowly, she eased back enough to trace the bullet scars on his torso. “Is that where you got these?”

Harrison huffed a humorless sound, and his eyes looked dark, so sad. “One of the Gray Backs, Georgia, tried to save me. She was human at the time and got riddled with their fire, just because she wanted me to live so bad. She was lying there on the ground, painting the forest floor red, and I just wanted to reach her so she didn’t have to die alone.”

“Did she live?”

“Barely. Jason, her mate, Turned her to save her.”

“And what happened to you?”

“The bears went to battle. Ashe Crew. Gray Backs. My boys. Damon was raining dragon’s fire all around us, and one of my Boarlanders went to work trying to get the led out of my body. It took me a month to recover. That’s a helluva lot of time for a shifter to heal. And while I was down, there was chaos in my crew. When a dominant animal is hurt, it riles up the others, makes them want to take over. So I was fighting, trying to hold alpha, and everyone was pissed. No one felt safe after that attack, and the hierarchy in my crew went to shit. I blame Clinton for pushing them out, but we were broken before he came along. He just deepened the cracks in my crew because he’s spiraling. We would’ve been okay if we’d been whole to begin with.”

“That’s not on you, Harrison.”

“It kind of is. As an alpha, it’s my job to shoulder the responsibility. I was always dominant and a brawler. My dad made me that way, but having a crew under you is more than just fighting. You have to balance your people’s needs, and somewhere along the way, that got all f*cked up. It’s not all my fault, but it’s my responsibility to repair those cracks as we go, and I let too many get away from me.” He frowned. “And again, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“Because I’m a witch and I drugged your ice water with truth serum.”

Relief unfurled inside her when Harrison cracked a slight smile. He hugged her waist closer and dragged her body up against his erection. “You have bewitched me,” he murmured just before he kissed her.

The rumbling sound of car engines sounded in the distance, prickling at Audrey’s sensitive ears. Several trucks came to a stop in the parking lot outside the fence, their headlights making her squint and ease out of the lip-lock.

“Stop banging the Boarlander,” a woman called. “We’re coming in and I have delicate, virgin eyeballs.”

“Aw crap,” Harrison muttered, shaking his head. “I apologize for everything that is said from this moment on.”

A small herd of people were filing out of the different-sized pickup trucks, and the sound of clacking flip-flops and the rolling wheels of a cooler echoed through the night.

“Who are they?” she asked, gripping Harrison tighter.

“You are about to meet some more of the shifters of Damon’s mountains.”

“Ah,” she exclaimed as she pushed off Harrison like she’d been caught at a junior high make-out party.

“No,” he murmured, gripping her waist. “It’s okay. Most of them are paired up, too.”

“Yoo-hoo,” a tiny red-headed woman who led the way through the bath house doors called. She wore an oversize tote bag and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on top of her head like a headband. She carried what looked like a giant canvas as the others filed in behind her, talking and cutting up.

“Audrey Foster, I’m Willa, also known as Almost Alpha of the Gray Backs, or Willa Wonka, or Nerd. This beefcake is not my man servant,” she said pointing to a huge, shirtless, scarred-up, sandy-haired bruin beside her. “He is my mate, Matt, also known as Griz.”

Matt waved and grinned. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“You have?” Audrey asked. “From who?”

“From Willa. She kind of dated you.”

“I’m super confused,” Audrey murmured as she watched the group peel out of their shoes and pass around beers from the cooler.

“I might have accidentally set up a website and flirted with you a lot, then invited you up here to meet Harrison.”

Audrey gasped as red hot fury blasted through her. “That was you? Why did you do that?” Her voice had gone shrill, but frick it all, she was pissed.

“So you could meet the man of your dreams, and he could meet you,” Willa said in a voice that said it should’ve been obvious. “I’ve brought you presents to buy your love and apologize. First…” Willa flipped around the canvas in her hands. “I took a painting class from the first lady of the Ashe Crew, Mrs. Brooke James herself, and I made this just for you.”

The painting was of a terrible, uneven rainbow in a blue sky with a tiger and a bear holding hands in a meadow of eye-scorching neon flowers and worms. One of the bear’s eyes was much bigger than the other, and the tiger was skipping on legs that were way too short.

“That looks like a first grader painted it,” Harrison muttered.

“Thank you. Next, I have brought you a fine batch of worms.” Willa handed the painting to Matt, and he traded her for a cardboard container with a lid on it. She flipped her hand around in circles, then bowed. She plucked the lid off, exposing a mass of slimy earthworms writhing around in a lump of black dirt. “You may use them for fishing, but they make better pets.” She pointed to each of the worms in turn. “This one is Norma Dean Wiggles-Too-Much, there’s Beatrice the Great, Handsy Thomas, Chuck the Perv, Princess Butter-Nipples, and Steven.”