Grayslake: More than Mated: Bear Up (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Free Page B

his bear to remain in its cage, the door barely open to allow just enough power through. He didn’t need Morgan’s magical instincts to know that the spell had almost run its course. Make or break time.
    Please Lady Luna, he sent a quick prayer up to the moon goddess he and some of his people still worshipped. Let her live and I’m yours in this life and the next.
    Pain racked his body, from holding still for so long and from keeping the connection between him and his bear on a knife edge. But he was only a man, and his strength was finite.
    “ HOLD IT!” Morgan bellowed as he began to slip. Fear hit hard and fast then. He was too weak. He couldn’t hold it. He would fail and Kacie would burn out… die.
    Help came from an unexpected source. As he began to lose his grip on the connection between him and his beast, the bear didn’t break free as he’d expected. Instead, the creature added its strength to his, supporting him as they both fed power to Kacie.
    Ours. Protect. Heal, the beast rumbled.
    Dean allowed himself a smile. Yes. Ours.
    “That’s it! It’s working!” Morgan caroled in triumph, his voice raising to chant unintelligible words in a language Dean never wanted to hear ever again. They rose in a crescendo until…
    Silence fell between one second and the next. Dean’s breath rasped in his ears as he looked around, wondering if someone had let off a percussive grenade in the room and robbed him of hearing.
    Morgan leaned over them, his fingers prying at the edges of the dressings across Kacie’s midsection. They came away easily, the skin beneath unmarked.
    “Holy shit,” Dean breathed, hardly believing the evidence of his own eyes. Relief hit half a second later, making him shake and haul her closer in his hold. “It worked. It actually fucking worked!”
    Morgan chuckled. “Of course it worked. What do you think I am, some kind of hedge-witch? Now, are you going to cuddle her all night or are you going to let me clean her up and check for any other wounds while you go and deal with whatever hell is breaking out with your bears in the other room?”
    “Fuck.”
    At the warlock’s words, Dean became aware of the growls and rumbles from the room next door. He wasn’t sure how Itans from other clans handled things, but in the Lizard Lick lodge, the Itan lived literally in the middle of things. His quarters were a two story apartment built right into the side of the bigger building. It meant that he was on hand to deal with most things that cropped up, which could be both a blessing and a curse.
    It was a blessing when things like Kacie being injured happened and a curse went he wanted a bit of peace and quiet but kept getting interrupted by the werebear version of squabbling siblings.
    Easing himself from his now peacefully sleeping mate, he slid off the table and stalked toward the door. He didn’t care that his shirt was torn and covered in blood or that his bear had poked fur through his skin. After what he’d been through tonight, seeing his fated mate unconscious and bleeding from a gut wound inflicted by other bears, no one had better comment on his fashion sense. Not if they knew what was good for them.
    He yanked the door open to find himself looking at a crowd. Well, the back of a crowd anyway. His eyes narrowed. What looked like most of the clan was packed into the main room of the lodge. He couldn’t see to the commotion at the center of the room through the mass in front of him.
    It was a large room, but the presence of so many bears made the air thick with shift potential, not to mention the threat of violence that was inherent anywhere large groups of bears gathered. Some of the males just couldn’t keep their aggressive tendencies in check. Which was why the clan had enforcers—their very own police for want of a better word—responsible for ensuring the clan’s laws were obeyed.
    Like the two bears who were at the center of the commotion. Dean moved to the side to get a