Chapter Ten
Tobias
Three months in and my parents finally make the drive out for the dinner mom has been angling toward since the day she heard the change in my voice over the phone.
I watch Christa get ready this morning with more nervous energy than I’ve seen from her in weeks.
Trying on and discarding two different shirts, asking my opinion on her hair twice, her hands not quite steady as she moves around the small cabin that has become more storage space for things she doesn’t need in the main house than an actual place she sleeps.
She moved into my bed properly a few weeks back, a transition so gradual and unremarked upon that neither of us has ever formally discussed it.
She simply stopped walking back across the clearing at night, and I simply stopped expecting her to.
I lean in the doorway and watch her fuss over a third shirt, amused at the sight of a woman who can split firewood without flinching reduced to this particular kind of nerves.
“That ones fine.” I offer for the second time.
“You said that about the last one.”
“Because it was also fine. You’d look beautiful in a feed sack Christa. This isn’t the problem you think it is.”
She shoots me a look that’s half exasperation, half something warmer and pulls the shirt on anyway, smoothing it down with hands that still aren’t quite steady.
I understand, watching her, this this isn’t really about the shirt at all, it’s about being seen properly, by people whose opinion of her matters to me, after a lifetime of being seen by people whose opinions has mostly ranged from indifferent to cruel.
I don’t rush her through it. Just let her work through the nerves at her own pace, the way I learned to let her work through most things.
“They’re going to love you,” I tell her, catching her hand as she paces past me a third time. “There’s no version of this where they don’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do actually,” I pull her gently closer and press a kiss to her temple.
“My mother’s been asking after you by name for a month. My father already asked if you like fishing, which is about as close to an official blessing as the man gives anybody. You have nothing to prove today. Just be yourself. That’s already more than enough.”
She doesn’t fully relax, I can feel it in the tension sitting in her shoulders, but something in her expression eases slightly, trust doing it’s slow and familiar work.
My parents arrive a little past noon, my dad’s truck kicking up dust down the long drive and Christa meets them at the porch steps with a careful, polite warmth that dissolves almost instantly under my mom’s easy affection.
The woman has never met a stranger she couldn’t fold into a hug within the first five minutes, and Christa visibly startled by the sudden embrace, goes stiff for half a second before something in her seems to decide to let it happen.
I watch that decision cross her face and feel something in my own chest ache with how much courage a simple hug apparently still requires of her, and how gracefully she pushes through it anyway.
“Look at you,” my mom says, holding Christa at arm’s length afterward, studying her with the kind of open, delighted appraisal that has nothing critical in it at all.
“Tobias undersold you completely. He said you were lovely. He didn’t mention you’d have him this settled after three months, when I couldn’t manage it in thirty years.”
“Mom.”
“I’m complimenting her not you.” My mom waves me off without even looking at me, already steering Christa toward the porch with an arm looped easily through hers. “Come sit, tell me everything he hasn’t. I want to hear it from someone who isn’t trying to make himself sound good.”
My dad trails behind with a cooler full of fish he apparently insisted on catching himself this morning, he catches my eye and gives me a small, knowing smile, the particular, quiet approval of a man who doesn’t waste words in things that don’t need them.
“She’s got good colour in her cheeks,” he says low, just between the two of us. “Didn’t have that the last time your mother described her over the phone. You’re doing something right out here.”
“Trying to.” I say and I mean it more than the casual words let on.
Dinner goes easier than I hoped. My dad tells the same fishing stories he always tells, exaggerated a little further each year, the trout got bigger with every telling, the storm that nearly capsized him grew more dramatic, and Christa laughs in all the right places,
genuinely amused rather than performing amusement the way I sometimes caught her doing in the early weeks.
My mom asks Christa gentle, careful questions that never once stray toward anything she’s clearly not ready to discuss.
Favourite foods, whether she’s found the town nearby yet, small kindness disguised as ordinary conversation, reading the boundaries with an instinct that makes me deeply grateful for the woman that raised me.
By the time the plates are cleared, Christa is laughing at something my dad said about a fish he swears had been the size of his own arm, unguarded in a way I rarely see her around anyone but me.
I sit back for a moment just watching her, the easy tilt of her head, the real light in her face, and I feel something settle deep and certain in my chest, the same certainty my bear had handed me the very first night, now finally catching up in my own human heart at its own slower pace.
“She’s wonderful,” my mom tells me quietly, cornering me near the kitchen while Christa and my dad argue good naturedly about the best month for trout. “I mean that Tobias. I haven’t seen you like this in years.”
“I know,” I say. “I feel it too.”
“Marlow will want to meet her eventually. When you’re both ready.”
My mom’s voice goes careful in that particular way it does when she’s choosing words meant to reassure rather than pressure.
“No rush in that. He just… he’ll be glad, is all. He always felt guilty about pushing you the way he did, before you left. This will put that guilt to rest for him I think.”
“He shouldn’t feel guilty. He was trying to help.”
“I know that. You know that. Doesn’t mean the man’s stopped carrying it these six years.”
She pats my arm, the gesture as familiar as it has been my whole life.
“He’s a good leader Tobias, but he’s also a father to half that clan whether they share his blood or not, and fathers carry things longer than they let on. You coming home, however you decide to define that, would mean more to him than you probably realise.”
I nod, something settling in my chest at the thought, not urgency, just a quiet, growing certainty that the isolation I built around myself six years ago is finally coming undone from every direction at once.
I glance back toward the porch, where Christa is now demonstrating with theatrical exaggeration, exactly how big she imagines his father’s storm-tossed fish must have actually been, both of them laughing hard enough that my mom turns to watch too with a soft smile on her face.
“She fits here,” my mom says quieter now, almost to herself.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect, if I’m honest. You didn’t tell us much, only that she needed somewhere safe and that your bear had never been so certain about anything. But watching her out here, she fits. Whatever you two are building, it’s a good thing. I can see that plainly enough.”
I love my parents, with everything I am, but fuck if I’m not glad to see them leave. I’m hard as rock for my mate, watching her fit in with my parents pushed any last resistance I had out the window.
I find her outside on the porch leaning against the railing, I walk over and slide behind her, caging her in with my arms.
“I want you.” I whisper in her ear.
“Hmmm.” She moans when she feels my hard cock push against her ass.
I nuzzle into the back of her neck, right where I’ll mark when her, when she’s ready. But my bear is demanding I do it now, I remind him that it’s her choice, and hers alone. He’s not happy but accepts it. For now.
“I can’t wait to fully mate you, I’m going to mark, breed and impregnate you. I can’t wait to fill you up with my cubs.”
“Tobias.” She gasps.
I turn her around and smash my mouth to hers, she opens immediately. I wrap my arms around her and draw her closer. I need her close, for me and my bear. I can feel her nipples pressing against my chest, telling me she’s aroused as if her scent isn’t enough.
I rip her shirt off and unclasp her bra, her perfect tits spilling free. I want to be gentle with her, but the beast in me is taking over. I suck one of her nipples in my mouth and she rewards me with a cry as she grinds her needy pussy against my leg.
I slide a hand up and cup her through her jeans and she lets out another moan.
I undo her jeans and tug them down along with her panties.
I tap each leg for her to step out and within seconds she’s completely naked on my porch, for the first time in a long time, I grateful for the solitude I have here, I know there’s no one or nothing on my land, I can’t risk having anyone see her like this, this is for my eyes and my eyes only.
“Your turn.” She whispers breathlessly.
I waste no time in shredding my clothes, as soon as I do I pick her up and she wraps her legs around my waist, the head of my cock slipping between her wetness as I carry her to the bedroom.
I drop her to the bed and stand over her, taking her in.
The look of lust in those bright green eyes, the way her dark hair fans across the pillow, the flush that coats her chest and neck. So fucking beautiful. And mine.
I spread her thighs and what a sight it is, her sweet pussy wet and spread open for me.
I dip my head and lick, sighing at her sweet citrusy flavour.
She gasps and tugs at my hair, her legs begin to tremble then she explodes all over my tongue.
Once that’s subsided, I replace my tongue with my cock, I can still feel her muscles twitching around my cock.
“Harder, fuck me Tobias.”
A low growl breaks from me and I give her what she asked for. I plunge myself deep inside her pussy, she moans and clings to me, her nails scraping down my back.