Chapter 9 Tolin
TOLIN
Ipace the living room like a caged animal.
Because that’s what I am. An animal. A fucking beast who just tore into the one person who’s shown me kindness in months.
My bear is furious. Not at her. At me. He’s fighting my control, snarling and snapping, demanding to know why we attacked her. Why we drove her away. Why we said those things.
I don’t have an answer. Not one that makes sense.
I had to. That’s what I keep telling myself. I had to push her away because I’ve spent all day watching her. On her hands and knees scrubbing my floors. Bent over the tub in my bathroom. Reaching up to dust shelves, her shirt riding up to reveal a strip of soft brown skin.
I’ve been hard for hours. Fighting it. Hating myself for it. She’s here to work, not to be ogled by a scarred, bitter bear who hasn’t touched a woman in longer than he cares to admit.
So when I saw her touch my chair, I snapped. Used it as an excuse. Let all the frustration and desire and self-loathing pour out of me in the cruelest words I could find.
And now she’s leaving.
Good. That’s good. That’s what needs to happen. She needs to get off this mountain and away from me before I do something I can’t take back.
My bear roars in protest.
Shut up, I tell him. This is for the best.
He doesn’t believe me. Neither do I.
The bathroom door opens.
I freeze mid-pace, turning toward the hallway.
She steps out in a cloud of steam, her body wrapped in a towel.
Just a towel. White cotton against brown skin, tucked between her breasts, barely reaching mid-thigh.
Her hair is wet, curls heavy and dripping down her shoulders.
Water beads on her collarbone, her arms, the swell of her cleavage above the towel’s edge.
She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t acknowledge my existence. Just storms toward the guest room with her chin held high and fury in every line of her body.
And then the steam clears.
And I smell her.
Brown sugar. Warm vanilla. Shea butter and a floral softness that wraps around my brain and squeezes until I can’t think of anything else.
The most perfect scent I’ve ever encountered in my entire life.
My bear goes still. Completely, utterly still. Like the whole world has stopped spinning.
Then he roars.
MATE.
The word explodes through me. My knees buckle. I grab the back of the couch to keep from hitting the floor, my claws extending without permission, shredding the leather.
Mate mate mate mate MATE.
My bear is trying to shift. I can feel him pushing against my skin, desperate to break free, to chase her down the hallway and claim what’s ours. My bones ache with the effort of holding him back. My vision blurs.
She’s our mate.
She’s our fucking mate.
The woman I just destroyed with my words. The woman who’s packing her bags to leave us forever.
No. No no no no no.
I force my bear down, pushing him back into the darkest corners of myself. He fights me every inch, howling with rage and desperation, but I’m stronger. Barely.
My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. I’m harder than I’ve ever been in my life, my dick straining against my pants, throbbing with a need so intense it borders on pain.
I have to stop her.
I move down the hallway on legs that don’t feel like mine. The guest room door is open. She’s inside, throwing things into her bag with jerky, furious movements. Still in the towel. Still wet. Still smelling like everything I’ve ever wanted and didn’t know I was waiting for.
“Imani.”
My voice comes out wrecked. Hoarse and desperate and nothing like the cold tone I used before.
She doesn’t turn around. “Get away from me.”
“Please.” The word scrapes out of my throat. “I need you to stay.”
“Fuck you.”
“Imani—“
“I said fuck you.” She jerks the zipper closed and finally turns to face me. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her cheeks still damp with tears I put there. “You want me gone? Fine. I’m gone. You’ll never have to see my face again.”
“That’s not—“ I take a step toward her. “I was wrong. What I said, I didn’t mean—“
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand, stopping me in my tracks. “Don’t you dare. You meant every word. You’ve been looking for an excuse to kick me out since I got here, and you found one. Congratulations. Now get out of my way.”
She pushes past me, her shoulder brushing my bare chest.
The contact jolts through me like a live wire. My bear howls. My dick twitches. I have to close my eyes and breathe through the overwhelming need to grab her, pin her against the wall, bury my face in her neck and inhale until I drown in her scent.
When I open my eyes, she’s disappeared into the guest room again. I hear drawers opening and closing. She’s getting dressed.
I should look away. I should give her privacy.
I can’t move.
She drops the towel.
I see everything. The length of her body. The round fullness of her ass. The dimples at the small of her back. She pulls on underwear, then pants, then a sweater, covering all that gorgeous brown skin inch by inch.
My bear is going insane. Clawing, snarling, demanding I stop her. Demanding I claim her right now, consequences be damned.
I dig my claws into my palms until blood wells up. The pain helps. Barely.
She grabs her bag and pushes past me again, heading for the front door.
“Imani, stop.” I follow her through the living room. “The storm is too bad. You can’t drive in this.”
“Watch me.”
“Your car won’t make it down the mountain. You’ll get stuck, or worse—“
“Then I’ll freeze to death.” She yanks open the front door, and a gust of snow-filled wind blasts into the cabin. “At least I won’t have to spend another minute with you.”
She’s outside before I can stop her.
The wind cuts like a knife, but I barely feel it. All I can feel is the mate bond demanding I bring her back, protect her, never let her out of my sight again.
I follow her into the storm.
Her car is half-buried in snow. She drops her bag and starts digging with her bare hands, scooping snow away from the tires.
“Imani, please.” I’m begging now. I’ve never begged for anything in my life. “Come back inside. We can talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She doesn’t stop digging. “You made yourself perfectly clear.”
“I was wrong.”
“You were an asshole.”
“Yes.” I move closer. “I was. I am. But you can’t leave like this. The storm—“
“I don’t care about the storm!” She whirls to face me, snow catching in her wet hair, her eyes wild. “I don’t care if I have to walk down this mountain barefoot. I am not spending another night in that cabin with you.”
She turns back to the car and yanks open the driver’s door. Climbs inside. Turns the key.
The engine sputters to life.
She puts it in gear and presses the gas.
The tires spin. Snow flies everywhere. The car doesn’t move.
She tries again. And again. The wheels just keep spinning, finding no traction on the ice beneath the snow.
“Come on,” she mutters, pressing harder on the gas. “Come on, come on, come on—“
“You promised!” She lowers the driver’s side window. She’s screaming now, pounding the steering wheel with her fists. “You said you’d push me down the mountain! You said—“
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” She turns to glare at me through the open window, fury and desperation warring on her face. “You’re a seven-foot bear shifter! Push the damn car!”
I don’t move. I can’t. My bear won’t let me help her leave. Every instinct in my body is screaming to keep her here, to drag her back inside, to never let her go.
“Fine!” She fumbles in her pocket, pulling out her phone with shaking hands. “I’m calling Derrick. He said he’d come get me. He said—“
I reach through the window and snatch the phone from her grip.
“Hey!” She grabs for it, but I’m faster. “Give that back! That’s my phone!”
I look at the device in my hand. Her lifeline. Her escape route.
I close my fist.
Plastic cracks. Glass shatters. The screen goes dark as I crush it, pieces falling through my fingers into the snow.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Then she explodes.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She’s out of the car now, striking at me with both hands. I don’t budge. “That was my phone! That was my only way to call for help! What is wrong with you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. My bear is too close to the surface, too desperate, too wild.
“Do you have any idea how much that cost?” She shoves me again, tears streaming down her face. “I saved for months for that phone! Months! And you just—you just crushed it like it was nothing!”
“Imani—“
“Don’t you dare say my name!” Her fists strike my bare skin, bouncing off harmlessly.
“You monster! You absolute psychopath! First you scream at me for touching your precious chair, then you tell me to leave, then you won’t let me leave, and now you’ve destroyed my phone? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
She’s right. She’s right about all of it.
“I’m trapped here!” Her voice breaks on the last word. “I’m trapped on this mountain with a crazy person and no way to call for help and my car won’t move and—“
She breaks down. Sobs wracking her body, shoulders shaking, all the fight draining out of her at once.
My bear whines. He doesn’t like seeing her cry. He wants to comfort her, hold her, make everything better.
But I’m the reason she’s crying. I’m the monster she’s trapped with.
She turns back to the car, wiping her face with shaking hands. Gets back in. Tries the gas again.
The tires spin uselessly.
“Come on.” She’s begging now, pleading with the car like it can hear her. “Please. Please move. Please—“
I can’t watch this anymore.
I grab the car door.
“What are you—“
I rip it off the hinges.
The metal screams as it tears away from the frame. I toss it aside, and it lands somewhere in the snow with a muffled thud.
Imani stares at me, mouth open, eyes wide with terror.
“You...” She can’t seem to form words. “You just...”
I reach in and grab her around the waist.
She finds her voice fast.
“No! Let go of me!” She’s kicking, scratching, fighting with everything she has. “Put me down! You can’t do this! This is kidnapping! This is—“
I throw her over my shoulder and turn back toward the cabin.
“I will kill you!” She’s pounding on my back with her fists. “I swear to God, Tolin, I will find a way to kill you in your sleep! You psychotic, deranged, car-door-ripping, phone-crushing piece of shit!”
Her nails rake down my arm, drawing blood. My bear purrs.
Our mate has claws.
“Are you even listening to me?” She’s still hitting, still kicking, still fighting. “Put me down! Put me down right now! I’ll scream!”
“There’s no one to hear you.”
“I hate you! I hate you so much! You’re the worst person I’ve ever met in my entire life!”
I keep walking.
The cabin door is still open, snow drifting across the threshold. I carry her inside and kick it shut behind us.
Then I set her down.
In my chair.
The one I told her never to touch. The one I screamed at her about less than an hour ago.
She looks up at me, chest heaving, face streaked with tears and melted snow. Her hair is a wild mess, curls tangled and dripping. Her eyes are red and swollen.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Why?” Her voice is raw, broken. “Why are you doing this?”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
What am I supposed to say? That she’s my fated mate? That I’ve been waiting for her my whole life without knowing it? That the cruel, vicious words I threw at her were a desperate attempt to push her away before I lost control completely?
She won’t believe me. She’ll think it’s another manipulation, another cruelty, another reason to hate me.
And she’d be right to think that. After everything I’ve done.
“The storm.” My voice sounds like gravel. “It’s too dangerous. You have to stay until it clears.”
“You ripped off my car door.”
“Yes.”
“You crushed my phone.”
“Yes.”
“You carried me in here against my will.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re putting me in the chair you told me never to touch?”
I don’t have an answer for that one.
She laughs. It’s not a happy sound. “You’re insane. You’re actually, certifiably insane.”
“Probably.”
“Let me leave.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because you’re mine. Because my bear will die if you walk out that door. Because the thought of losing you makes me want to tear my own heart out.
“Because the storm will kill you,” I say instead. “And whatever you think of me, I won’t have your death on my conscience.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Tears still sliding down her cheeks. Body still trembling.
Then she stands up from the chair, moves past me without a word, and walks down the hallway to the guest room.
The door slams. The lock clicks.
And I’m alone.