Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance (24 page)

“Aye, he’s broken yer heart, hasn’t he, lass?” Donal lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“Into so many pieces I will never put them together again,” she whispered. “I wish he would just talk to me. Or at least listen…”

He nodded, glancing over her shoulder, then back into her eyes.

“What would ye say ta the man?” Donal asked softly.

“That I love him.” She twisted the handkerchief in her hands. “That I only did what I did because I love him. Because I wanted to keep him safe.”

“I understand.” Donal gave a long, deep sigh.

“I wish he did.” Sibyl half-stood, ready to go. She wanted to go hide in her room, bury her face in a pillow and sob the rest of the day away. But there were potatoes to peel in the kitchen. And linens to change on the beds. Anything to keep her hands, and her mind, busy.

“Ask ‘im.” Donal nudged her gently.

“I cannot!” She handed him his handkerchief. “He will not give me the time of day.”

“Mayhaps he has a few minutes now?” He glanced over her shoulder again and Sibyl frowned, turning her head in that direction.

The sight of Raife standing in the doorway made her heart drop to her knees. His face was a mask, unreadable, but his eyes were as blue and expressive as ever. He had heard her, that much was clear. But had he listened? Did he care?

“Raife?” she whispered, using the chair to hold herself up, because her knees turned wobbly.

“Ye asked t’see me?” Raife turned his gaze to Donal, ignoring Sibyl.

“Aye, I did.” Donal waved him in with a sigh. “Come in.”

“I was just leaving.” Sibyl lowered her head and moved to sidestep him as Raife came into the room. She had just decided that running up to her room and burying her face in a pillow to sob for the rest of the day was exactly what she was going to do.

“Och!” Donal rolled his eyes, throwing up his hands. “Nay,
I
was jus’ leavin’!”

It happened so fast. One minute, Donal was standing there, the next, he was on the other side of the door, and a key was turning in the lock.

Raife frowned, reaching for the door handle, turning it. But it wouldn’t budge.

“Unless ye plan on breakin’ down me door, ye’ll be workin’ this out between ye!” Donal called through the thick, solid wood door. “I’m tired of havin’ t’comfort that poor girl’s tears on me shoulder.”

Raife scowled at Sibyl, as if her tears were her own fault, and Donal’s comfort was too.

“I jus’ have one more thing ta say afore I go,” Donal called, clearing his throat. “Son, if’n ye do’na want her—”

“Go!” Raife snapped at the closed, locked door. “Leave us!”

They both heard Donal chuckle and then there was silence.

“So ye did it for me, eh?” Raife crossed his big arms over that giant, bare chest of his—the MacFalons had all tried to get him to wear a shirt under his plaid, but he refused—scowling at her. “Ye ran back here into yer lover’s arms for me benefit?”

“Yes, you big, dumb oaf!” Sibyl snapped. “As a matter of fact, I did! Did it ever occur to you that coming back here and marrying Alistair was something I didn’t actually want to do?”

Raife’s brow knitted, his frown deepening. Sibyl had held her tongue long enough. She had chased him all around the grounds trying to get him to listen to her, and now that he was a captive audience—until he broke the door down—she wasn’t going to let the chance pass her by. She had practiced everything she was going to say in her head, in a cool, even tone, and all of that went completely out the window when she was faced with him.

“Did it ever enter your thick skull that maybe, just maybe, I was doing it to keep King Henry and the entire English army from attacking the wulvers?” she cried, her hand itching to reach out and smack him upside his big, dumb head.

“We’re wulvers, Sibyl!” he roared right back at her. She didn’t even shrink from his anger—at least he was responding. “We can take care of ourselves!”

“Your brother was run through with a MacFalon sword. He could have died!” She reminded him. “Now multiply that by a hundred. A thousand. How many wulvers would I have had my hands inside, trying to stop the bleeding, if war had broken out?”

Raife shook his head, ready to deny it, to argue with her, but she couldn’t keep any of it at bay anymore. She had let some of it out on Donal’s wide, generous, kind-hearted shoulder, but it wasn’t Donal she was mad it, and it wasn’t Donal she had been so afraid she was going to lose. It was Raife. It was her big, giant, stubborn, bull-headed, sweet, kind, protective, loveable man of a wolf she had been so scared she was going to lose. It was this man who she had been willing to sacrifice everything for, who she would rather have known was living safely up in the mountain, while she suffered at Alistair’s sadistic hands, than lying dead somewhere on MacFalon land.

“What if… what if it had been you…” she whispered, eyes brimming with tears. She saw a look of concern pass over his face, the way he reached for her but stopped himself. “What if it had been your severed head… in my lap…?”

She couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t stop picturing it in her mind. She sobbed into her hands, turning away from him, and then heard him say something she couldn’t quite believe.

“Would ye have cared if it had been?”

Sibyl lifted her head, gaping at him.

“Oh you bastard!” she whispered, a sudden wave of anger overtaking her. She launched herself at him, pounding her fists against his chest. “How can you say that? How can you even ask that question?”

Raife caught her wrists, half-smiling, an expression she hadn’t seen on his face since they’d been there. It made her want to smack him.

“Ye never told me, lass,” he said softly, meeting her clouded gaze.

“What?”

“Ye never said the words,” he said again. “How was I supposed t’know?”

“Are you mad?” she murmured. “Am I… dreaming?”

“D’ye or don’ye?” He pushed his chin out, defiant, glaring down at her.

Sibyl looked at her wrists, encircled by his big, giant paws, and then up at his face.

“You want me to say the words?” She shook her head, incredulous. “Because giving myself to you, that wasn’t enough? Because risking my life to save your thick hide wasn’t enough? You need me to say the words?”

He shrugged. “T’would be nice.”

“Raife…” She burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. “My God, you idiotic, ridiculous man. I love you! Is that what you wanted to hear?
Tha gaol agam ort!”

His eyes searched her face for the truth. She prayed he found it.

“Do you understand that?” she asked softly. “In your own language?
Tha gaol agam ort.”

“Are ye done insultin’ me now?” he asked, letting her wrists go.

“No!” She hit him again, this time square in the chest with both fists. “You lumbering lout!”

He caught both wrists again and pulled her close, trapping her arms between them. Then he kissed her. Everything they hadn’t said to each other went into that kiss, everything they both wanted, everything they hoped for, all their desperate fears, all their dreams of a future together. Sibyl tasted salt on their lips.

“I love you,” she whispered when they parted. He kissed the tears from her cheeks. “Tha gaol agam ort, you boorish fool.”

“And I love ye,” he said hoarsely. “Ye strange, irrational woman.”

She rolled her eyes at him and he kissed her again, this time capturing her mouth in a desperate slant, as if he could put every moment they had missed into it.

“And if ye ever…” His mouth dipped to her neck, nipping and biting her there, making her cry out. “Do anythin’…” His tongue moved down to her collarbone, making her moan as his hands moved under her plaid, seeking the heat of her skin. “So idiotic again…”

“You’ll what?” she challenged, sliding a thigh between his, feeling the steel heat of him, satisfied when she heard him groan. 

“Wulvers mate for life, lass, I told ye,” he breathed against the tops of her breasts. “I guess I’ll have to kill us both.”

“Oh but what a way to go,” she whispered as her man, her mate, her wulver, cleared Donal’s desk with one fell swoop, knocking everything to the floor so he could sit her up on it.

Sibyl wrapped her arms and legs around him, hungry, desperate for him, unable to quench the fire he’d started burning inside her without him.

“Ye’ll’na leave me again, lass.” Raife said the words as he entered her, making her cry out and cling to him. “Ne’er again.”

“I promise,” she whispered into his neck, trembling at the thought of losing him again. “I am yours.”

“Say it again,” he growled, thrusting deep.

“I’m yours!” she cried, biting her lip.

“Again!”

“Yours!”

“Mine!” he groaned, driving in deep, filling her completely. “Mine!”

Sibyl wouldn’t let him go. Even when they came and knocked on the door, asking if everything was all right—someone had obviously heard all the clatter—she refused to let him go. She wasn’t going to ever let him go again.

Her father used to tell everyone that Sibyl Blackthorne wasn’t afraid of anything, and that had been true. But she had been stupid, and reckless, in her fearlessness.

That was back when she didn’t have anything to lose.

Now she knew what it was to love a man—a wulver—and how it felt to lose him.

She wasn’t fearless anymore.

But she was wonderfully, desperately, humanly in love.

And Sibyl would take that over being brave, any day of the week, any month of the year, for the rest of her life—and his.

The End

I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Sibyl and Raife stole my heart and surprised me probably as much as they surprised you. They have been some of my favorite characters and I couldn’t resist the chance to explore more of their world. The epilogue to Highland Wolf Pact follows. I do hope you decide to pick up the next two and give them a read.

In the meantime, I just wanted to let you know that you can get five free reads from me if you subscribe to my newsletter. Don’t worry, I always message responsibly. I never send spam—only great deals! So take a moment to click below and subscribe to get your free reads.

Then go ahead and read the epilogue. I think you’re going to like where Sibyl and Raife ended up and be quite interested in where the story is heading! I know I am!

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