Return To The Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #3)(7)

Thirty clan members ate comfortably below them, and Nathan watched them, pride evident in his arrogant smile. Here was a man who relished being alpha.

“Before we eat,” Nathan said, rising, “I’d like to announce that Joanna…” He offered his hand and helped her up. Her skin felt clammy where it touched his. “Joanna has finally accepted my offer to be mated to me.”

“What?” she whispered. “No, I didn’t.”

“Didn’t you? You let me taste your slick folds only an hour ago, Joanna. I told you all you had to do was let me touch you, and you did.”

His voice echoed through the room and nods of frank approval shook, making it look like a sea of bobble heads below them. She was really going to be sick now.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“She’s already moved into the big house and will start sharing my bed tonight. She’s in heat, and with any luck, we’ll have a cub running around here by this time next year.”

Shocked, a strangled noise came from her throat and her knees buckled. She sat heavily into the chair to the applause of the clan. This wasn’t happening. Greta and April could’ve killed her with their looks alone, and Anya looked as sick as Joanna felt.

Taking the chair beside her, Nathan lifted his glass high and the rest of the room followed suit. All but her. She wouldn’t toast her own demise. Anger, fear and loss churned inside her, wringing burning heat from her skin until it reached the tips of her ears.

“Settle down, love,” Nathan murmured.

“Don’t. Don’t you f*cking call me that,” she growled low.

He lifted his chin and narrowed cold eyes at her. “I’m done waiting, Joanna. If you can’t fulfill your duties to me, your alpha, I have no use for you anymore.” He leaned forward until his lips brushed her ear. “And I’ll be damned if I let another man touch what is mine. If you refuse me, you’ll join the rest of your sniveling clan in the afterlife.”

She clutched her napkin as a warm tear of anger slid down her cheek. Turning slowly, she leveled him with a broken gaze. “Then I’m doomed either way.”

Fury wracked his face and he parted his lips to say something, but the door swung wide and one of Nathan’s guards led a stranger into the alpha’s dinner party.

The man was tall, with dark hair that brushed his neck. Thick brows were set over a somber gaze that remained focused on Nathan. The color of his eyes waged a battle between green and brown. She’d never seen such an alluring color on a man’s face before. They were light hued, contrasting against his sun kissed skin. A casual, long-sleeved black shirt stretched across the defined muscles of his torso. His shirt harbored a trio buttons near the strong cords of his neck, and all three had been thankfully left undone, exposing a smooth triangle of his taut chest. He wasn’t a Long Claw. She would have remembered a man like him. His expression was severe, as if he were unafraid of Nathan, and the alpha beside her stood.

“Who are you?” he asked as the room settled.

The man stood in front of the stage and lifted his face, his angled jaws clenching. “My name is Brody Bannister,” he said in a rich baritone that commanded attention. “I’m a council member and advisor to Benson Riker, alpha of Bear Valley. I’ve come as his representative in search of his mate, who was taken from our land yesterday.”

“She can’t be that important if Benson Riker himself didn’t come for her.”

Brody’s eyes tightened at the corners and his nostrils flared. His temper was barely controlled and the smell of fury wafted from his skin. “We have reason to believe a woman, Merit, has taken Hannah from us. She threatened to leave our clan for the Long Claws, but there are many different clans under the umbrella of your name. My alpha is searching for her in other Long Claw communities as we speak. It seems you’ve conquered much of the other clans’ territories.”

It didn’t sound like a compliment the way he said it, but Nathan puffed his chest round and smiled. “Long Claws can’t help but extinguish lesser clans. It’s in our nature.”

The memory of Mom screaming as Dad was cut down, of the Blood Den houses burning, and the bodies of her clan lining the streets slashed across the backs of her eyelids. A strangled sound ripped from her.

Brody’s eyes jerked to her and for an instant, his face softened. She couldn’t breathe. His gaze froze her like winter’s first frost, and she had this sudden feeling that if he touched her, he could release her from the spell he’d cast.

A snarl burst from Nathan and he leapt over the table. The two men were the same height, but while Nathan leaned into Brody, barely in control of his fury, the stranger brought a slow and calculated gaze back to the alpha. He seemed completely unfazed by the rage that faced him.

Joanna’s mouth dropped open. Brody’s bear was as dominant as Nathan’s and he wasn’t even the alpha of his clan. Benson Riker must have been a monster.

Nathan slid an infuriated look to her, then back to Brody. “Your accusations have no grounds here. We don’t know where your alpha female is, nor is she our concern. If you cherish her as much as you pretend to, perhaps you should have protected her better.”

“I didn’t come to accuse. Only to ask if you’ve seen the woman, Merit. It is clear you haven’t, so my most sincere apology for having upset you.” He didn’t sound sorry at all.