Chapter 10 Tolin
TOLIN
The door slams.
The lock clicks.
And then I hear it. Muffled through the walls, quiet like she’s trying to hide it, but unmistakable.
She’s crying.
My mate is crying, and I’m the one who made her cry.
My bear fights to break free, howling with grief and rage. Not at her. At me. At us. At what we’ve done to the one person in this world who was made for us.
He wants me to go to her. Break down the door. Hold her. Fix this.
I can’t. Breaking down more doors is what got us into this mess. She’s terrified of me. She thinks I’m a monster.
She’s not wrong.
I stand in the middle of my living room, hands shaking, listening to my fated mate cry herself to sleep thirty feet away. Every hitched breath guts me. Every muffled whimper. When the sounds fade, the emptiness is somehow worse.
I did this. I did all of this.
The cruel words. The crushed phone. The car door ripped off its hinges. The terror in her eyes when I threw her over my shoulder and carried her inside like some kind of caveman.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
My bear paces inside me, restless and anguished. He doesn’t have an answer either. He just knows that our mate is hurting and we can’t fix it. We can’t even get close to her without making it worse.
I sink onto the couch, my head in my hands, and try to think.
The storm howls outside. Snow batters the windows. We’re trapped here together for days, maybe longer. Days of her hiding in that room, flinching every time she hears my footsteps, crying herself to sleep while I sit out here and hate myself.
I can’t do this. I can’t just sit here and listen to her suffer.
I need to do something. I need to fix this. I need to prove that I’m not the monster she thinks I am, even if the evidence suggests otherwise.
My eyes land on the window. On the snow piling up outside. On the shape of her car, barely visible in the darkness, one door missing.
I know what I have to do.
The storm slams into me when I step outside.
Wind howls through the trees, snow thick enough to blind. Any human would be dead in minutes out here. But I’m a bear. The cold is nothing. The storm can’t hurt me, no matter how much I might deserve it.
Her car sits in the driveway, half-buried in white. I circle it slowly, taking in the damage I caused. The driver’s side door is gone, lying somewhere in the snow where I threw it.
I destroyed her only way out. Her only escape from me.
Now I’m going to fix it.
I bend down and grip the frame of the car, testing the weight. Substantial. Small, yes, but dense with metal and machinery. A normal man couldn’t budge it.
I’m not a normal man.
I lift.
My muscles scream in protest. My back strains, my legs burn, my arms tremble with the effort. But I get it up. I get it off the ground and settled against my shoulders, the frame digging into my flesh, the weight threatening to drive me to my knees.
I start walking.
The clan’s territory is five miles away. Five miles through a blizzard, carrying a car on my back, in the dead of night. It’s insane. It’s impossible.
It’s the least I can do.
My bear settles as I walk, focused now, channeling all his anguish into physical effort. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. The snow tries to drag me down, the wind tries to push me back, but I keep moving.
I think about her as I walk. Imani. My mate. The woman I’ve been waiting for my whole life without knowing it.
I think about the way she stood up to me that first day, defiance on her face, refusing to back down even when I was at my worst. I think about the dinner she made me, perfectly cooked, researched and prepared because she wanted to do her job well.
I think about her on her hands and knees scrubbing my floors, her curves testing my control, her wild hair escaping its bun.
I think about the sound of her crying through the wall.
The weight of the car is nothing compared to that.
The clan’s territory appears through the snow like a ghost. Cabins scattered across the mountainside, smoke rising from chimneys, lights glowing in windows. Home. Or what used to be home, before I exiled myself.
Clan members stare as I walk through. I can feel their eyes on me, hear the whispers starting. Tolin’s back. The exiled brother, the scarred one, the grumpy bear who lives alone on the mountain. And he’s carrying a car on his back in the middle of a blizzard.
I ignore all of it. I have one destination in mind.
The mechanic’s shop is on the eastern edge of the territory, a large structure built into the hillside. I set the car down outside with a grunt of relief, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning.
Then I turn toward my mother’s cabin.
She opens the door before I reach the porch.
“Tolin.” Her voice carries that mix of warmth and worry I know so well. “What are you doing here? In this weather? Is something wrong?”
Everything. Everything is wrong.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
She takes one look at my face and steps aside to let me in.
The cabin is warm and bright, filled with the smells of her cooking and wood smoke. I stand in the middle of the living room, dripping melted snow onto her clean floors, and try to find the words.
“Tolin.” Mother sits in her favorite chair, watching me with those sharp eyes that have never missed anything. “Tell me.”
So I do.
I tell her everything. The cleaning lady from Shadow Suds.
The way my bear reacted to her from the start, restless and agitated and drawn to her in ways I couldn’t explain.
The cruelty I showed her, the words I used to push her away, the fight over the chair that spiraled into something ugly and unforgivable.
I tell her about the shower. About the steam clearing and her scent hitting me for the first time. Brown sugar and vanilla and shea butter and everything I’ve ever craved without knowing why.
“She’s my mate,” I say, and my voice cracks on the word. “She’s my fated mate, and I didn’t know. The cleaning solution she uses, it masked her scent. I couldn’t smell her. I treated her like garbage because I couldn’t smell the truth.”
Mother is quiet for a long moment.
“And when you realized?”
“I lost control.” The shame burns through me.
“I tried to stop her from leaving. I broke her phone. I ripped the door off her car. I carried her back inside against her will.” I look down at my hands, the hands that did all those things.
“She’s terrified of me. She thinks I’m insane. And I don’t blame her.”
“Tolin—“
“I don’t know what to do.” The words pour out of me, desperate and lost. “She’s locked in the guest room crying herself to sleep and I can’t fix it. I can’t make her understand. She hates me, Mother. My own mate hates me.”
The door opens behind me.
I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. I can feel his presence, the weight of his authority, the Alpha energy that fills every room he enters.
Ronan.
“I heard you were back.” His voice is carefully neutral. “Didn’t believe it until I saw for myself.”
I turn to face my brother. He looks the same as always. Tall and broad, dark skin, close-cropped hair. The mirror image of me, minus the scar. The scar he put there.
“I’m not staying,” I say.
“I didn’t think you were.” He crosses his arms, leaning against the doorframe. “Mother, what’s going on?”
She looks at me. I nod, giving her permission.
“Your brother has found his fated mate,” she says simply.
Ronan goes still.
I watch his expression shift. Surprise. Disbelief. And then something else, something that looks almost like pain.
Jealousy.
Of course. Ronan has wanted a mate for years. He’s searched, waited, hoped. The Alpha of the Ironwood Clan, with all his power and authority, and Fate hasn’t delivered his woman yet.
But I, the exiled brother, the scarred failure who lives alone on a mountain, I found mine first.
“Well.” Ronan’s voice is clipped. “Congratulations.”
“Ronan.” Mother’s tone carries a warning.
“What? I’m happy for him.” But he doesn’t sound happy. He sounds bitter.
“It sounds to me like a fair trade from Mother Fate,” she says quietly.
Ronan’s head snaps toward her. “What?”
“You got the Alpha position. You won the challenge. You got everything your brother wanted most in this world.” She holds his gaze, unflinching. “But your brother got the fated mate first. The thing you want most. Fate has a way of balancing the scales.”
No one speaks. Ronan’s hands clench at his sides.
Finally, he looks away.
“You said you found her,” he says to me, his voice quieter now. “What happened?”
So I tell him. The shortened version, but honest. The cleaning solution. The cruelty. The fight. The realization coming too late, after I’d already destroyed everything.
“Her scent was masked,” I say. “I didn’t know it was her. By the time I figured it out, I’d already been a monster.”
“The cleaning solution.” Ronan frowns. “From Shadow Suds?”
“Yes. Something in the formula blocks the fated scent.”
“Derrick needs to know about this.” His Alpha instincts kick in, overriding his personal feelings. “We can’t have this happening again. Once the storm clears, I’ll contact him.”
I nod, grateful for his practicality.
“So what now?” he asks. “She’s at your cabin?”
“Locked in the guest room. Probably still crying.” The words taste like ash. “She thinks I’m insane. She called me a psycho and a monster and she’s not wrong.”
“She’s your mate. The bond will—“
“The bond doesn’t matter if she hates me.
” I cut him off, frustration bleeding through.
“She doesn’t know about fated mates. She doesn’t understand what’s happening.
All she knows is that I screamed at her, destroyed her property, and physically restrained her when she tried to leave.
The bond can pull all it wants. If she doesn’t trust me, none of it matters. ”
Mother says nothing. She rises from her chair and crosses the room to stand in front of me.
“Let me tell you something,” she says softly. “About your father.”
I go still. She rarely talks about him. The pain of losing him, even after all these years, is still too fresh.
“When I first met him, I was trapped.” A small smile crosses her face. “A snowstorm, not unlike this one. My car broke down on a mountain road, and this enormous bear shifter appeared out of nowhere to help me.”
“I’ve heard this story,” Ronan mutters.
“Then you can hear it again.” She doesn’t look away from me. “I was terrified of him at first. He was huge and gruff and he didn’t know how to talk to humans. He said all the wrong things. Made me feel like an inconvenience instead of a person.”
That sounds familiar.
“But he never gave up,” she continues. “Even when I was cold to him, even when I pushed him away, even when I told him I wanted nothing to do with him. He was relentless in his pursuit. Not aggressive. Not demanding. Just... present. Consistent. He showed me, over and over, that he was safe. That I could trust him. That underneath all that gruff exterior was a man worth knowing.”
Her hand comes up to touch my cheek, her fingers tracing the edge of my scar.
“Be gentle with her, Tolin. Show her the son I know has always been there, underneath all that armor. The one who makes sure his clan has enough wood for winter. The one who visits his mother even when he’s too proud to come home.”
“I’ve ruined it,” I whisper.
“No.” Her voice is firm. “You haven’t. There’s still time to fix this. But you have to be vulnerable with her. You have to be honest. You can’t earn her trust while you refuse to be honest with yourself.”
“What if she never forgives me?”
“Then you’ll have to live with that.” She doesn’t sugarcoat it. “But I don’t think that’s how this ends. She’s your fated mate, Tolin. Mother Fate doesn’t make mistakes. She just makes us work for what we want.”
I nod slowly, letting her words sink in.
Be gentle. Be vulnerable. Be honest. Don’t give up.
I can do that. I have to do that.
“I need to show you something,” I say to Ronan.
He follows me outside, into the still-raging storm, to where I left her car.
He stares at it for a long moment. The missing door. The smashed window. The frame dented where I gripped it too hard.
“Damn, man.” He shakes his head slowly. “What the hell.”
“I lost control.” The shame burns fresh. “My bear... when she tried to leave, he just...”
“I get it.” Ronan circles the car, assessing the damage. “I don’t condone it, but I get it. The thought of your mate leaving, of never seeing her again...” He trails off. “I’ve heard stories of bears who’ve done worse.”
“Can you fix it?”
He snorts. “It’s not pretty, but yeah. We can fix it. Give me a couple of days.”
“Thank you.”
He looks at me, and something shifts in his expression. The jealousy fades, replaced by something that looks almost like hope.
“Maybe she’ll be the reason you come home,” he says quietly.
I hold his gaze. My brother. My Alpha. The man who scarred my face and shattered my pride. The man who’s been trying to bring me back to the clan for years.
“Maybe,” I say.
It’s not a yes. But it’s not a no either.
The walk back is easier without the car.
The storm is starting to let up, the snow falling lighter now, the wind dying down. Dawn is still hours away, but I can feel it coming, the darkness softening at the edges.
My mother’s words echo in my head with every step.
Be gentle. Be vulnerable. Be honest. Don’t give up.
By the time I reach my cabin, I have a plan.
The first thing I do is clean. Every surface, every corner, every inch of the space she’ll have to share with me. I scrub down the kitchen. I sweep and mop the floors. I fold the blankets on the couch, fluff the pillows, make everything as welcoming as I can.
Then I cook.
Breakfast for a human. Not for a bear.
It takes practice. I burn the first batch of eggs, scorch the bacon, turn the french toast into soggy mush. My bear grows impatient, but I ignore him and start again.
The second attempt is better. The third is almost good.
By the time I’m satisfied, the sky is starting to lighten. Pale gray seeping through the windows, the storm finally breaking.
I cover the plate and leave it on the table for her. Then I grab my coat and head outside.
The woodpile needs restocking. It’s a good excuse. Physical labor to keep my hands busy, to keep me away from the cabin, to give her space.
She doesn’t want to see my face right now. I know that. So I’ll stay out here, chopping wood, until she’s ready.
And when she is, I’ll be there.
I won’t give up. I’ll be relentless.
Just like my father.