Beary Mated Christmas (Double Booked for the Holidays)

Chapter One

Denali

The Christmas season was a really big deal with my family, especially Christmas Eve.

My mom would make enough food to feed the entire town and then wonder why there were so many leftovers.

My father had the place decorated to the point where a visitor could easily think they’d stepped into the North Pole.

You wouldn’t look at our tree and think, “Wow, that needs more ornaments,” but you’d be wrong. The finishing touches were always the ornaments my siblings and I made over the years and hung up last. My father said it wasn’t Christmas without them.

We’d would feast, drink gallons of hot, spiced cider, and then, after we couldn’t eat another bite, it was story time.

My father would put on the Santa suit he picked up when my older sister was born and had never been in good shape but was now completely tattered, and read us The Night Before Christmas.

He went all out on his performance and always gave his best Santa “Ho Ho Hos.”

Our night would end with my siblings and I begging to open “just one gift.” My parents would pretend we had to wait because it wasn’t Christmas yet and then, just before bedtime, they would cave and “randomly” pick out a gift for us to unwrap.

That gift was always a pair of pajamas, and they would all match. It was the best.

This year was going to be even better. My parents had agreed to have Christmas Eve dinner for lunch, and then, before our evening festivities of tree decorating and Santa time, I was going to have dinner at my best friend Abel’s house.

I called him my best friend, but he was so much more than that.

We met when we were maybe five and had been inseparable for years, but over the past year, my feelings had changed…

deepened. I found myself wanting to always be by his side and not in a friend way.

I longed to touch him, hold him, kiss him…

all things I was far too scared to do but often dreamed about.

It was too risky to tell him how I felt.

What if I confessed and he didn’t feel the same way?

Or worse, what if I did, and then he found his true mate years later?

He’d leave me, and our friendship would be over.

No one wanted their mate to have a friend who was in love with their other half.

No one. I didn’t care how understanding his potential future mate was, they wouldn’t want me in his life anymore.

So I kept my feelings to myself, hoping that maybe one day we’d shift for the first time, scent each other, and know instantly that we were our forevers. But until then, I kept my desires hidden away where no one could see…or at least I thought I did.

“Why did you change your shirt for the third time? You’re going to Abel’s.”

I gave my brother some serious side-eye. “Yes, exactly. I’m going to Abel’s for Christmas Eve. I should look good.”

“He likes you already.” My brother winked. Asshat.

“What?” I played stupid, but my brother didn’t say things he didn’t mean. It was one of his best and worst qualities.

“You heard me.”

I closed my eyes, willing the conversation to be over.

“You think I don’t know what’s going on with you two?” He just laid it out there. Why couldn’t he pretend he didn’t notice, like a normal brother.

“Nothing. I repeat, nothing is going on with us.” Despite my wishing it were.

“Well, if nothing’s going on between the two of you, that’s because you’re both stubborn mules.”

I pushed him away, told him to shut up, and left. Not because he was wrong, at least not about my feelings, but because I wasn’t ready to have this conversation.

I hopped on my bike and headed the three blocks to his house.

Unlike mine, his family wasn’t huge into Christmas Eve and, when I walked inside, there wasn’t a Christmas decoration in sight.

Their family had always been different from ours about that.

Not a wolf vs. polar bear thing but family traditions.

Tomorrow morning, they would decorate their tree, make cookies, and open presents. They weren’t scrooges, just different. I’d actually been surprised they invited me for dinner tonight. To them, it was usually just a random day of the year.

“Hey, Denali, Abel’s in his room waiting for you.” His father went back to the book he was reading, and I walked straight into my bestie’s room.

“Took you long enough.” He popped up, grabbing his hoodie.

“It’s not like I’m late. Dinner isn’t on the table yet.” He wasn’t usually the one to worry about punctuality, but we’d been out of school for a half a week already. He was probably bored.

“No, but I have something I want to do first.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me out to the woods behind his house. “I’m itching to hike.”

It was a weird day for that, but I was game. Anything to spend time with him, even hiking when we could be playing video games.

“What’s going on?” I was so confused.

He sped up his pace. “I haven’t even told my parents yet, but I think it might be close to my first shift.”

Two minutes later, he stopped and took his clothes off.

Not gonna lie, I felt like I’d hit the jackpot. How could I not? The object of all my fantasies was getting naked for me.

But then I realized he wasn’t getting undressed for me, just in front of me. Not a striptease in the cold because he thought I was his too. No…he was shifting.

He took his fur, his wolf beautiful, absolutely stunning.

“You shifted.”

We’d both been longing to shift for the first time. A bunch of our classmates already had, so we knew the time was getting near. I was so happy for him.

He rubbed his body against my leg, and my polar bear took over.

I’d felt my bear a few times in the background, but never once had he hinted that it was time for me to meet him. And now, he was ripping through me, my clothes in shreds as my huge form fell to the ground with a thump.

Abel and I talked about how cool it would be to have our first shift at the same time. And while technically it wasn’t, we saw each other’s beasts first, and that was special, too.

I lifted my head and inhaled. The sweet smell of peppermint chocolate tickled my nose.

Ours, my bear insisted. Ours.

It was a Christmas miracle. Abel was ours. He was my mate.

We ran around in the snow, playing and exploring and, as the sun set, it was time to go back.

Abel shifted first, putting on his clothes. “I gotta tell you, buddy, I didn’t think you’d smell like wet bear, but you’re beautiful, so all is forgiven.”

He thought he was teasing. He had no idea his words shattered my heart into a million pieces.

Abel walked toward the house, and I lumbered after him, not willing to take that trek in my skin. I shifted at his back door and snuck inside, where he tossed me a pair of joggers, a shirt, and a pair of sneakers.

“I have to go.”

“Oh yeah, you probably need to tell your parents about this. I need to tell mine too. I just… I wanted you to be the first one. You’re my best friend, after all.”

“Best friends forever.” Why did those words have to hurt so bad?

I gave him a quick hug, knowing that we would never share more than a friendly one, and got on my bike, pedaling all the way back to my house.

My parents commented that I was back early, neither of them noticing my change of clothes, and I grumbled something about not feeling well. Then I locked myself in my bedroom, where I cried and cried and cried.

Just as I was pulling myself together, my brother came in. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“He shifted,” I said between sobs that reappeared the second I tried to verbalize what was happening. “He’s mine. But I’m not his.”

I threw my arms around my brother. My tears no longer allowed me to form words. He rubbed my back and told me everything would be okay—that Fate doesn’t make mistakes.

If Fate didn’t make mistakes, it meant that Fate hated me. And I wasn’t sure which was worse. Because I knew one thing…a life without Abel wasn’t a happy one, not even close.