Warm Like Firelight (Bear Shifters of Silver Lake Lodge #2)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Raif

“ H ey there, Raif.” Raif can hear Sandy’s sweet voice coming from the side of the diner, and when he sees her, his steps falter, and he follows her around the back of the old building. Sandy’s a nice enough woman, pretty, kind, funny. But she’s not his mate.

“Takin’ a break?” he asks her as she bats away a fly and lights up her cigarette. He wishes she wouldn’t smoke, but it’s not his place to say anything. They’re friends in a general sort of way, but not close.

“Yup, business is slow today. You coming in to eat?”

“Yeah, I figured I’d grab a breakfast burrito before I head to Sal’s.”

“Better make it a dozen; that mechanic can outeat almost anyone except you.”

She winks at him and snuffs out her cigarette on the ground before she shoots him that smile and beckons him closer.

He knows what she wants. She wants him to kiss her, hold her.

But the one time she kissed him, his stomach roiled in terrible pain, and he had to pull away.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to kiss someone; he does, badly.

But bear shifters can only be with their mate, and trying to be with anyone else results in ‘love sickness’ as his parents called it.

He steps towards her and lets her pull him into a hug, this he can tolerate.

“You doing okay, Raif? You seem like you’ve been a little more grumpy than usual lately.”

“Just busy,” he mumbles.

“You call me if you need anything, okay? I know you’re not interested in me that way, but we’re friends, right? I’m here if you need an ear.”

He nods in acknowledgement and lets her hug him one more time before he pulls away and squeezes her hand.

As he heads around the side of the building back towards the front of the diner, he hears Sandy let out a huff, and he feels bad that he can’t give her more, but she’s not his mate.

She’s a small-town girl grown up into a fine woman.

Would make any man happy. She’s kind, pretty, and funny.

But she’s not Raif’s, not his true mate.

Raif’s tired of being alone. Thirty-three, virgin, mateless, grumpy as fuck.

He wanted something else, something more.

Sandy had always flirted with him. She’s a few years younger, and he’d see her every time he went to the diner in town.

Her parents owned it, and she would probably take over one day.

Dark blonde hair in big curls. A wicked smirk on red-painted lips.

Big doe eyes. There were many men in town infatuated with her.

Raif didn’t know why she chose him. Why she pulled him behind the diner one day and kissed him?

The pain had been more than he imagined when she kissed him and told him to stop by her place the next night, but he couldn’t.

It’s not that he couldn’t stand the pain, he probably could endure it.

He just didn’t want to. Didn’t want to be with anyone who wasn’t his soulmate, even if that meant being alone forever.

No one knows why bear shifters are bound to only be with their mate. His mother said it was a form of shifter evolution. That there was magic involved in finding your mate, and that by restricting who else you could be with, it guaranteed you would be with your mate when you met them.

Axel had it easy. He met Chloe when she came on vacation.

The lodge was failing then. Maury, the accountant, had embezzled millions under their noses.

With the help of Chloe and her friend Danielle, the lodge was running better.

Visitors coming in even with the snow. Raif had hoped, foolishly, that more visitors meant he would find his mate.

That she would come on vacation like Chloe had, and he would meet her, and they’d fall in love.

But it didn’t happen. Hasn’t happened in the months since the lodge business picked up.

Raif feels like giving up. He knows it would be easy to tell Sandy he wanted to try with her.

He saw the way she looked at him with pity when he doubled over in pain as they kissed.

She asked him in the beginning if he was okay, if it was a medical condition.

He couldn’t tell her the truth, shifters are a secret, and he can’t risk it.

He told her his family had very traditional values and that getting past them was hard for him.

“You want to stay and eat here? I’ll be back off break in a minute.”

“No thanks, I’ve got to get back. Morning work, you know?” He’ll stop by her house later this week to mow her grass, he knows she’s too busy.

When he gets to Sal’s with his twelve breakfast burritos, the mechanic is wiping his hands on a dirty rag.

One of the things that gets Raif upset is people taking advantage of others.

He can’t stand it. And he knows Sal took Mrs. McGill’s money for a repair that she didn’t necessarily need.

Sandy thought he was going to visit Sal, but really, he went to chew him out, maybe growl at him a little, so he knows not to mess with the people in town.

Sal, being the only mechanic in town, means he gets all the business, but Raif knows his way around a car and can easily help people out when needed, he just doesn’t want it to get around that he’s fixing cars in his spare time for free. He’d be flocked by the townsfolk if it got out.

“Hey ya, Raif. What can I do for you?” Sal smells like old sweat and oil, and Raif has to breathe through his nose to avoid the stench.

“You’re going to give Mrs. McGill her money back.”

“Now why the fuck would I do something like that?” Sal says, smarmy smile, cracking his dirty face.

“You’ll do it unless you want me to tell Marcus you charged him for spark plugs he didn’t need.”

Sal tosses the rag down on the ground next to a pile of other oil-soaked rags. Not safe at all, but not Raif’s problem.

Raif is guessing he's overcharging other customers for shit they don’t need, but he’s pretty sure he’s spot on from the way Sal’s face furrows in anger. Marcus is a big, burly motherfucker, bigger than Raif, and has a short temper.

“You give her back her money, or you’ll not just have me to deal with.

” He puts a bit of growl into his voice, not enough to let on he’s not fully human, but enough that his voice rumbles in a way that shows he’s serious.

The threat holds real meaning, and Sal knows it.

Raif has a reputation. Not just for being a grumpy ass mother fucker, but also for putting assholes in their place.

Sal unleashes a torrent of swear words, and Raif nods towards the phone balanced on a toolbox.

“Call her and make it right,” Raif tells him, and Sal reaches for the phone.

After a talk with the asshole mechanic, he’s on his way back to the lodge with a new chainsaw from the hardware store, twelve cold breakfast burritos, and some sadness in his heart at how alone he feels sometimes.

He has his brothers, of course. Axel, the oldest, who’s finally mated to Chloe.

He runs their family’s lodge. Raif is second, and then Gunner is next.

Gunner is ex-military, quiet, and reserved.

He takes care of the horses and runs the activities.

Jack is the youngest. Chef extraordinaire and the most outgoing of them all.

And Raif, the second oldest. He manages the grounds.

Clears the hiking trails, fixes what needs fixing, and hauls heavy shit when needed.

His work is solitary for the most part. He barely interacts with the guests and usually only if they spy him about and have a question for him.

There’s always a ton of things on his list to do, but he does them alone.

Except for dinner with his brothers, he barely speaks. And then during dinner, it’s grunts.

Raif wants a mate, don’t mistake his quiet, gruff demeanor.

He knows without a doubt that he will have to try to be friendlier when he meets his mate.

He will have to talk more and open up. And he has no issues with that.

His mate will be perfect. The other half of him and he will do anything for them, anything in the world.