Page 31 of Bear’s True Mate

My hands curled under the table where she couldn’t see.

“It started small. Comments about what I wore. Who I talked to. How long I was gone when I ran errands.” Her voice was flat, like she was reading from a list she’d memorized. “By the time it got bad, I didn’t even recognize what was happening. It was just... normal. My normal.”

She dropped her hands to her lap, and I noticed the way she chewed along her bottom lip. This was hard for her. I needed to remember that. While it filled me with a rage, it also made her feel things too.

“The first time he hit me, he cried after. He told me he didn’t know what came over him, and that he was under a lot of stress at work. He told me he was sorry and that it would never happen again. I believed him.” She swallowed hard. “The second time, he didn’t cry.”

My bear rushed to the surface, and I had to force my eyes away from her so she wouldn’t see. My nails dug into the palms of my hands while I struggled to gain control over him again. I could barely breathe. Every instinct I had screamed at me to get up, to move, to do something, but Rose wasn’t finished with her story, and this was the most she’d ever given me.

I wasn’t going to interrupt.

“Neither did I, honestly. Some days were harder than others, and I know how that makes me sound, but he spent a long time making me believe I couldn’t do any of this on my own. That I needed him. That I’d fall apart without him.”

“Seems like you’re doing just fine without him.”

Her eyes locked with mine then, and she smiled. “Yeah. I am.”

She took another sip of her tea, even though it had to be cold by now. I took a sip of my tea too, which was a bad idea.

How the hell could she drink the stuff on the regular? It tasted awful.

“Not a fan?” she asked, nodding to my tea.

“No. Can’t say that I am.”

She smiled. “It’s an acquired taste.”

“Definitely,” I said, holding her stare.

Our eyes held. The air between us thickened the way it had at her door after the burgers—that same pull, that electric sensation I kept trying to pretend wasn’t there, filled me. Her lips parted like she was about to say something, but then she blinked, drew back, and the moment was broken.

“I should head back. Get some sleep,” she said, walking her mug to the sink. “Thank you for the tea, and thanks for listening and calming me down too.”

“Of course. Anytime.”

I walked her to the door and watched as she slipped inside Alister’s place for the night. My bear wouldn’t let me go home after that, though. Instead, he demanded I set him free so he could work through his pent-up energy and anger at learning everything we had tonight about Rose’s past and her asshole of an ex.

Honestly, I needed the release too.

The beach was empty. Dark. The waves crashed against the sand, and the wind pushed against me. I stripped down and folded my clothes into a neat pile on one of the rocks far enough away from the tide that I knew they’d be waiting when I came back.

Then I let my bear out.

The shift ripped through me—fast, hard, fueled by every ounce of rage I’d been swallowing for the last hour. One second I was standing on the sand, and the next I was on all fours as my bear, massive and heaving. He released a roar that tore out of him but was swallowed by the wind and waves before breaking into a run on the shore. I retreated, letting him take over fully so I’d hopefully get some sleep tonight after.

Sleep never came, though.

I stayed up practically all night. By the next afternoon, I was dragging ass so badly, I stopped by Delilah’s for a coffee. The lunch crowd had cleared out, and the café was mostly empty. Delilah was wiping down tables. She looked up when I came in, and the expression on her face shifted into something I couldn’t read. She set the rag down and walked toward me. There wasn’t a smile on her face, or a sparkle to her eyes, nothing like normal.

Something was wrong.

“I’m glad you came by. I was planning on reaching out if I didn’t see you today,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“There was a man in here today. He was asking around about a woman—showing people a picture on his phone of her.”

That mother fucker found her.