Page 33

I laugh, wet and broken and real, and it turns into a moan as he thrusts deeper, and I come apart beneath him. My muscles seize around him, release, then seize again until I can no longer hold my head up, and he follows me over, and afterward he holds me while I sleep. His heartbeat under my ear.

And I think about marrow.

About what is inside the bone. Something stirs at the edge of my exhausted mind, but before I can catch it, Ivan pulls me closer.

Tomorrow Steven will come to this compound. Tomorrow Ivan will have to stand in a room with the man who almost took what is his, and I will have to stand between them because a man's life depends on it.

Tomorrow.

Tonight, I am held by my mate, warm in my nest, and I do not sleep at all.

Chapter 8: Ivan

I won't say his name. His plane lands in an hour, and every instinct I possess wants to turn it around before it touches Russian soil. Unfortunately, Aleksej needs the bastard, and there isn't a damn thing my tiger can do about it. I've spent my life solving problems with money, threats, or violence. None of those will repair my brother's arm. Cienna needs another doctor, and whether I like it or not, I've agreed to let him onto my territory. My tiger snarls, threatening to rake me from the inside, but I make him stand down.

But it was my mother, who finally convinced me. My mother who would stand shoulder to shoulder with us defending our territory, guns blazing or fangs bared depending on what was needed. My mother, her eyes wet with tears, pleading, begging me to save her son's life. Her baby. The two words weakened me. As I pictured Cienna sacrificing her pride for our child.

Fuck it. I agreed. But the sooner the shit is done, the sooner they can escort him out of my territory. And it had better be immediate, or I won't hold back. Once he's gone, they can quit barricading me in my office and pretending like the men stationed in the suddenly busy hall are here to make sure I don't lose my fucking shit.

I claimed her again this morning. biting down on the opposite side of her neck. Another mark on her breasts where it better not be visible to anyone other than me. I made her come, knees on nest, ass up, her dark star winking at me, as I spread those round cheeks and drove into her, scooting her higher up the bed with each rabid thrust. I'd never taken her that hard before, but I wanted her walking on bowed legs. She got it. And if she didn't, she accepted it when I told her. "No, Omega," when she went to take her shower. "Today, there is no rinsing me away. I want him to smell me on you, in you, from yards away."

"Ivan," she'd said biting her lip.

"Yards, better yet fucking miles away."

"We're not really animals. You know that right?" She'd said, giving me sass as if I were joking.

"Tell it to my tiger."

She'd only sighed and started dressing. We'd let our animals have their turn at play, too. My tiger chased her cougar through the forest, caught her in a bed of fallen leaves dusted with snow, and rolled with her until both our coats were soaked. She swatted at him, slipped free, and took off again, only to circle back and challenge him with another playful swipe. He could have chased her until sunrise, but Cienna was exhausted. I finally made the stubborn bastard herd her toward home, where he rubbed his enormous head along her neck one last time before letting me have my mate back.

Now, he needed to take her again as much as I do. But we are forced to sit and fucking wait.

Georgy bursts through my office door. I'd sent him to find out what bee had flown up the bears' fucking asses this time. The Mordecai bears are a bunch of temperamental idiots, but they'd honored the last treaty for ten years. We needed to know what changed before we wiped them from Russia. "Remember," my father had cautioned. Doesn't matter if it's man or beast, the price of war is more than most can afford."

"Is that why you negotiated?"

"Da," he'd said with troubled eyes. "Aleksej is my son, as much as your mother's. I, also, burn for their blood. But I see no wisdom in losing three lives to save one."

"Do you think us so weak?" I asked offense boiling through every word.

"No. And I will join you in the battle. I will stand before everyone, except you. But soon, very soon, you will have cubs of your own. And if there is a way to avoid putting them at risk, especially while they are young or worse, while your mate is heavy with them. We will take that route first." I started to protest but he ground out in a low voice that reminded me of how he led our clan for decades. "We will punish the perpetrators, absolutely. But maybe we won't have to take out every other bear as well." He raises his glass of vodka to mine. "A man must learn the difference between vengeance and justice, Ivan. We broke the treaty first. Now you must decide which one will serve our clan."

"Sit down, Ivan," Georgy says, when I raise my brow at his sudden entrance.

I don't sit. I cross my arms and wait. I am the vor, not a circus animal. I do not sit on command — not for my brother or anyone else.

He leaves the order alone, dropping a folder on my desk instead. I open it. Photographs. Reports. Inside my chest, my tiger goes very, very quiet.

"Yermack Mordecai," Georgy says. "Alpha of the bear clan. He ordered the ambush."

"Because of the bile."

"One of ours broke the treaty first, Ivan," Georgy says. "He's been capturing Mordecai bears and selling their bile to buyers across the Chinese border. There's a fortune in it. Yermack found three of his people dead near Mount Ko, their gallbladders cut out. He thought we sanctioned it."

I look down at the photographs again. "He didn't attack us without cause."

"No. And Pavel made damn sure he wouldn't come looking for the right man."