AXMAN

WEREBEAR
(SAW BEARS, BOOK 5)

By T. S. JOYCE
 Other Books in the Saw Bears Series

This book was not written as a standalone.

The author recommends to read these stories in order for optimal reader enjoyment.

Lumberjack Werebear (Book 1)

Woodcutter Werebear (Book 2)

Timberman Werebear (Book 3)

Sawman Werebear (Book 4)

As well as the first book in the spinoff Fire Bears series

Bear My Soul (Book 1)

 Axman Werebear

Copyright © 2015 by T. S. Joyce

Copyright © 2015, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: May 2015

T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoycewrites.wordpress.com

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the
author’s permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used
fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely
coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Published in the United States of America
 Chapter One

Bruiser Keller flipped off a happy-looking pair of red foxes that dashed across the road in front of
his clunker pickup truck. That would never be him, grinning from ear to ear, chasing a girl, and hoping she
liked him as much as he liked her. Hell, even if he’d been interested in that, it was off the table now since
he’d made a deal with Damon Daye, owner of the land he and the Ashe Crew felled trees on.
Yet another lovey dovey romance crooner belted out from the radio, and Bruiser retracted his
middle finger for the foxes and gripped the steering wheel. He would have to ignore the pimply teenager
singing about finding his one true love since it was the only station he got way out here in the Montana
mountains around the Asheland Mobile park he called home. He couldn’t drive without music, or his
mood would plummet even more, thanks to his inner grizzly pissin’ and moanin’ about trapping him in an
airplane for the flight back from Colorado.
The worst part? Normally, he was a happy person. He used his happiness as a weapon to annoy
the ball sacks off his crew. Damon Daye had done this. Made him grumpy as a bear waking up from
hibernation. No. Scratch that. Damon Daye’s daughter, and Bruiser’s future wife, was to blame for this
one.
He hadn’t even met the damned woman, but if her father had to push this hard to play matchmaker
from his mansion in the mountains, and if he thought a lumberjack werebear who lived in a trailer park
was the perfect mate for his only daughter, well then, she was probably hideous.
Not that Bruiser really cared, but dammit, he’d started changing over the past months about
wanting to settle down. He’d started warming to the idea as the Ashe Crew had coupled up, one by one,
with phenomenal women who brought the old trailer park to life and gave him and the other boys purpose.
Brooke, Skyler, Danielle, and Everly had become the heart and soul of the crew, turning their mates from
beer-chugging, half-crazed, careless idiots to real men. And Bruiser had begun to think he wanted
something like that. He wanted someone to make him want to be better—to make him want to be more.
Strangling the steering wheel, he jerked his attention back to the radio. That prick kid was now
singing the word love in the longest note ever heard. Slamming on his breaks, Bruiser lurched forward as
his truck skidded sideways. He came to a rocking stop and scrabbled with the edge of the stereo he’d put
in a few summers back. It wasn’t enough to turn the damned thing down anymore. Not when the kid singer
had decided to repeat the word love in the same, annoyingly long vibrato note as before.
“Aaaah,” he yelled as he pulled the radio free.
Before he could get a grip on his raging emotions, he pulled the still singing contraption until the
wires snapped, then rolled down the passenger window and chucked it out. Guilt washed over him at
what a litterbug asshole he’d turned into, so he swung out of the truck with some choice words for the next
DJ who dared to play a love song on this station, then he slid down the hill he’d tossed his radio down
and retrieved it like a good little fetch bear.
Today sucked.
Tagan was going to kill him when he found out about the deal he’d made with the scary ass
monster who was cutting their checks every week. Men like Damon Daye were best kept at a safe
distance, not made into a father-in-law.
Bruiser turned onto a switchback and wound his way through a mountain pass. Beetle infested
evergreen forests covered this land, but right now, he couldn’t see more than a blurry green and brown
smear out his side windows as he sped past, trailing a plume of travel grit behind his back tires. He was
too stuck in the muck of what he’d agreed to.
Arranged marriages for survival of the species had been normal a couple hundred years ago, but
these days, it was more accepted to choose a mate. Human or shifter, it didn’t much matter what the
choice was, as long as it was for love. Love. Bruiser blasted a snort. He’d dumped himself back into the
dark ages with this little arrangement.
Brooke, Tagan’s mate, waved to him as he drove through the Asheland Mobile Park. Her belly
was round as a full moon with the cub she was carrying. Any day now, the Ashe Crew was going to have
a little one. Warmth trickled from his fingers gripping the steering wheel to his work boot-clad heels
resting on the floorboard. At least he hadn’t missed Tagan’s cub being born. He’d come back from
Breckenridge as soon as he was able to get away, hoping he would be here for the birth. It wasn’t every
day a crew got a new cub, and this one was special. Shifters didn’t breed easily.
He gave her a smile and whistled as he rolled down the window. “Lookin’ good, momma.”
“Oh, please. My ankles are so swollen it looks like I got snake bit,” she called, cupping a
steaming mug. On the breeze, he could smell the sweet scent of hot chocolate.
“Nothin’ sexier than a woman with chubby feet!” he called out as he rolled by.
“Flatterer.” Brooke tilted her chin up, her blond hair whipping in the breeze. “It’s good to have
you home.”
He gave her a two fingered wave. She wouldn’t think that for long. Not when she found out about
the deal he’d made. Damon Daye’s daughter was about to rattle this whole trailer park in ways that would
affect the easy pattern of life around here. Bruiser gritted his teeth and sped up at the straightaway.
Another fifteen minutes of regretting what he’d done to that poor stereo and driving over pot-hole riddled
dirt roads toward the landing where the Ashe Crew worked, and he was sweating bullets.
Maybe he could get a good day of work in and tell Tagan about it tomorrow.
Tagan stood on the landing with Denison and Skyler, but when Bruiser pulled his truck into the
parking area, his alpha looked up and narrowed his eyes.
“Shit,” he muttered, turning off the engine.
 Tagan’s dark eyebrows arched high and his eyes blazed that bright blue that made it hard to look
him in the face when he was mad enough. Like now. “Can I talk to you?”
“Sure, I’m ready for work. You want to do this now or later?”
“Now, asshole. Skyler, can you oversee the crew for a bit?”
Skyler twitched her head at an angle and blinked, a gesture of curiosity for falcon shifters such as
herself, then nodded and murmured, “You got it, boss.”
Tagan led him up the mountain on a trail that didn’t exist. The deeper he led Bruiser into the trees,
the bigger the weight of dread that fell across his shoulders.
“You want to tell me what’s going on now?” Tagan said, spinning on his heel and crossing his
arms over his chest. “Because you sure as shit didn’t give an explanation when you blasted out of here on
your way to Colorado. And I just fielded a call from Damon Daye asking me to officiate a wedding
between you and his daughter.” His voice dipped to a whisper. “What the fuck, man? I didn’t even know
what to say. Is this something you want?”
“Uh, no. But it’s something that needs to happen because that’s the deal I made with Damon to
save my brothers.”
Tagan puffed air out of his cheeks and shook his head, as if he didn’t know what to do with this
information. “Explain.”
“My half-brothers live up in Breckenridge, where I’m from, and some government agency was
pressing on them hard.”
“IESA?” Tagan asked, his eyebrows furrowing lower.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“Because that Krueger prick has been keeping tabs on this crew for years. Jed dealt with him
before I became alpha, and now that falls to me. So far, he’s only made empty threats, but he’ll be a
problem eventually.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Why?”
Bruiser lowered his voice to a whisper and stepped closer. “Because Damon Daye ate him.”
Tagan’s face went comically blank. “Like…just ate him?”
“Yeah. No more Krueger. IESA was after my family, and it was bad. They pushed my half-brothers
too far, and they buckled against orders. I knew it was coming eventually, and Cody, alpha of the Breck
Crew, called me and told me what was happening right before they pushed back. I had to help.”
“So you asked Damon Daye to help you. Obviously, you know what kind of shifter he is, right?
And you still wanted to swap favors?”
Bruiser sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Look, Damon has been circling me for years. I
don’t know why, and this isn’t the first time a pairing with his daughter has been brought up.”
“But why you?”
 “Fuck if I know, man. I’m nobody. A tree-cutting bear shifter. A bastard son of an alpha who
couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. My old singlewide ain’t exactly the type of palace his daughter is used
to, if you know what I mean.”
Tagan rubbed his forehead as if he was staving off a headache. “Bruiser, this feels all wrong. How
is a pairing going to work between you two? Have you even met her before? Because I haven’t, and I’m
the damned go-between for this crew and Damon.”
Throat tightening, Bruiser shook his head for fear of his voice cracking.
“So we’re doing this like the old days? Sight unseen, getting you hitched, and hoping the shit
doesn’t hit the fan? Because I have to tell you, she’s going to be terrifying when she’s angry. Terrifying
and deadly.”
“Tagan, if it was your family, and you knew a way to help them, to save them, what would you
have done?”
His alpha’s shoulders sagged as his eyes took on a faraway look through the trees. At last, he
muttered, “I would’ve made the same deal.”
“Let me tell the crew tonight over dinner,” Bruiser pleaded. “I want to break it to them gently.
Right now, all I want to do is try to get us back on track to chop the lumber Damon has asked for and meet
this deadline. I know my leaving like that put us way behind.”
“Yeah, okay. Are you going to tell them what she is?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
Tagan scrunched up his nose. “He ate Krueger?”
Bruiser nodded slowly and clapped Tagan on the back. “Maybe if we’re lucky, Damon will
change his mind. Or he’ll at least give us some time to adjust to the idea of keeping her at the trailer
park.”
Bruiser could only hope for more time because, right now, he was remembering all the IESA
agents Damon had demolished with little effort. If Diem Daye was anything like her father, she was about
to light the damned trailer park up—and the Ashe Crew along with it.
 Chapter Two

Diem Daye bit the edge of her thumbnail as she stared out the window of the heavily tinted car.
The driver, Mason, glanced at her in the rearview mirror for the tenth time since they’d left the house.
Usually, he was nearly as stoic as her father, but today, traces of worry darkened his eyes.
Father patted her leg from the seat beside her, and she jumped. He never touched her. Touch was a
no-no for her kind. Or at least that’s what Father had instilled in her since birth.
“Everything will be okay,” he murmured, his silver eyes tight as he brushed his fingers through the
sides of his dark hair.
If she didn’t know any better, she’d say Father was nervous, but that was impossible. Emotions
were forbidden.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Father inhaled deeply and looked out the other window, refused to answer. Shocker. Maybe he
would’ve tried harder at the conversation if she was one of her half-brothers. She was just a woman,
though. Nothing more than a breeder. That thought left a sour feeling in her stomach.
Diem clenched her hands in her lap, but Father looked at them and frowned. “None of that, love.
Have some pride in what you are and control your emotions.”
How many times had she heard that in her twenty-five years? Probably about a billion. He called
it “controlling her emotions.” She called it “maintaining a constant bitch face.” A practice that hadn’t
gained her any friends in college, but Father was unconcerned with such things. Above everything, she
had to act her station and cast away those pestering emotions she’d inherited from her mother. Father
hated that she was harder to train then her half-brothers.
You’re female. You’re expendable.
Closing her eyes against the onslaught of those unsettling thoughts, she clenched her hands again,
only to be scolded once more by Father. She was terrible at this. Always had been, probably always
would be.
As Mason pulled them into a dirty, make-shift parking lot, Diem craned her neck and tried to get a
glimpse of the mysterious lumberjack crew who was helping Father manage the land he so loved. He
talked about them almost as if they were his sons, and she felt like she knew each of them already. Tagan,
the alpha of this crew of bear shifters. Kellen, his second, then Denison, Brighton, Bruiser, Haydan, and
Drew. And if Father’s mutterings were correct, several of the shifters had picked up mates in recent
months.
Diem ran her father’s books and handled many of his business affairs. She was good with
numbers, and he’d trusted her more and more with his work as she got older.
This morning, he’d given her the shock of a lifetime when he’d told her she would meet the Ashe
Crew today. He’d said it was so she could get an up-close look at the logging side of the mountains. He’d
told her it would be good for her to meet the men who worked so hard for them.
She’d be lying if she didn’t say she was ridiculously curious about the simple lives of these men.
Mason put the car in park and got out, then opened her door. She waited patiently as he opened the
door for her father. From where she stood, she could see the massive equipment. From ten minutes of
research this morning, she could identify the Titan machine settled on the edge of a cleared flat area with a
long arm for trimming logs as a processor. A skyline dove from the ancient tree it was tied to, all the way
down the slope of the mountain the Ashe Crew was clearing. The throaty sound of working machinery
filled the air, and she coughed delicately at the scent of gasoline and oil.
“This way,” Father said, barely brushing his fingers against the lower curve of her back. Two
touches in one day. This had to be a record.
“Better watch it, Father, or you’ll be hugging me like a simpleton in no time.”
Father yanked his hand away from her and narrowed his eyes. “It seems I forgot myself for a
moment. Forgive me.”
“It was a joke.” One wasted on him since he didn’t seem to have a mind for humor, and he seemed
to despise that she, on occasion, did.
Father walked primly in front of her, clad in stiff dark dress slacks, a matching jacket, and highly
polished shoes. Against the backdrop of the two yellow hard-hat-wearing men who stood near one of the
machines, he looked utterly out of place.
One of the men turned wary eyes on them, as if he’d heard their approach from all the way over
there. His eyes were a blazing blue color that looked alluring and dangerous all at once.
“Tagan,” Father greeted him. “So nice to see you again.”
Tagan’s eyes tightened at the corners. “Is it?”
Father gave him a cold warning look, one Diem had received many times in her youth. “Careful
now. This wasn’t your choice. It was his.”
“No, he agreed to it. He didn’t seek out this deal. Is this her?”
Father gestured her forward, and Diem frowned at the confusing way they spoke to each other.
“Tagan, alpha of the Ashe Crew, this is my only daughter, Diem. I trust you with her safety.”
Her safety on the job site? Okay. But she was only supposed to be here an hour to see how things
worked. God, Father was so overprotective. She tried to mentally fan the heat in her cheeks as she shook
Tagan’s calloused hand.
“Where is he?” Father asked.
Diem pulled her hand from Tagan’s and stared at a dirt smudge across her palm. Wiping the dust
off, she asked, “Where is who?”
 “Horace Keller.”
Tagan’s smile was void of humor. “He goes by Bruiser, and if you keep calling him Horace, he’s
likely to revolt on you. Best not test him. He’s been in a foul mood since he came back from Colorado.
Can’t imagine why.”
“Horace is a fine name. A respectable one. One passed down from his ancestors.”
“Damon,” Tagan gritted out.
“Bring him up. My daughter is ready.”
Tagan’s dark eyebrows arched high. “Ready as in, you want to do this right now?” He made a
show of looking around the metal-cluttered clearing. “Here?”
“I have the paperwork in order, and I’ll be here as a witness.”
“Father, what’s going on?” Warning bells had been blaring in her head since Horace Keller’s
name had entered the conversation. It sounded so familiar.
“Please tell me you’ve at least talked to her about this,” Tagan said, words growing growlier by
the second.
Diem shook her head, baffled. “Told me what?”
Father’s eyes had completely shut down. Not a muscle twitched in his face as he stared blankly at
Tagan.
The bright-eyed alpha turned to her and said, “You’re getting married today. Didn’t you know?
Your father made a deal with one of my crew members, and you are the spoils.”
Her mouth dropped open with questions she was too shocked to string together coherently.
“What?” She swung her gaze to Father, who was now meeting her eyes just fine. “Please tell me what he’s
saying isn’t true.”
“It’s time.”
Time? “Father, you can’t be serious. This is your idea of joking, right?”
“I’ve put it off as long as I was comfortable with, but you are of an age where it is time to fulfill
your duty. Our survival depends on it.”
“Our survival? Our survival?” She screamed the last part, sure, but the words he was saying were
lies. He meant his survival. She was as good as dead now. “Please don’t do this. Not now. Give me more
time. A few years, and then I’ll marry who you wish. Or let me get to know him first and see if he is right
for me.”
“Enough!” Father swung his attention to Tagan. “Can you excuse us? My daughter has forgotten her
place.”
Tagan’s eyes went round. “Okay.” He blinked slowly and began to back away, but paused. “You
know, Mr. Daye, if someone ever told my mate she’d ‘forgotten her place,’ I imagine Brooke would shred
that person and squat on their carcass. How you talk to women in your family is your own business, but in
front of me, that shit doesn’t fly.”
 “You sure have grown bold since I last saw you,” Father growled out.
“I don’t like what’s being done here, and I sure as hell don’t like preforming ceremonies that
tether two people together who don’t want to be tethered. I’m aware of how it was done in the old days,
but my crew is different. We mate for love, and we mate for life.”
Father yanked Diem’s arm and led her away from Tagan. Touch number three for the day, and
lucky fuckin’ her.
“So you’re ready for me to die? You’re that tired of me?”
Some emotion she didn’t recognize slashed across Father’s normally cold features. “This has
nothing to do with that, and you know it. You’ve been told what your duties would entail from the day you
were born, Diem. I stalled this for four years so you could attend your schooling, work, and feel like
you’ve led a full life. You’re lucky you don’t have to find love like these lesser shifters. Love is
dangerous and bloody, and it brings destruction in its wake. Love is what killed our kind.”
“What does that mean?” Her voice had wrenched up to a yell, but screw it all. Father was trying
to marry her off to a stranger.
“You are the last of us,” Father hissed out, a long, unsettling growl rattling from his chest.
“No, I’m not. You’re still here. Your sons are still here.”
“Your half-brothers haven’t bred successfully. The genetic pool for them doesn’t exist for viable
offspring. You’re our last hope.”
“You mean I’m the last sacrifice.” She hated the defeat that was spreading through her chest,
filling her with loss. If she’d had any question before about her value, it was put to rest now. She wasn’t
worth anything more than her ability to breed. Tears streamed down her face, and Father frowned in
disapproval. Let him. She and her untidy emotions wouldn’t be his problem much longer. “Fine.”
“Good girl.”
She swallowed down bile at such a backhanded compliment, the only ones he seemed capable of
giving.
“Now,” Father said, straightening his spine. “Go freshen your face. Today is the most honorable
day of your life.”
“Yes, sir,” she muttered bitterly.
Seated in the car again, she slammed the door beside her and let the sob sitting in her throat
escape. Her life was over. And even worse than that, she’d never had a breakthrough with Father. He’d
never learned to show her that she pleased him or that he cared about her. He’d remained just as cold
from the moment she’d been born to the moment he’d ordered her death sentence.
Mason made to get out of the car, but she asked, “Did you know?”
With a sigh, he settled back behind the wheel and nodded, eyes on his clasped hands in his lap.
She looked down in dismay at her starched, black business suit. Fitting for a funeral. “And you
couldn’t warn me I was walking into an arranged marriage?”
 Mason shook his head. He’d been her bodyguard in college, hired by Father to keep the human
interaction down to a minimum. She’d grown to trust him over the years, but this was a monumental
betrayal.
“I packed a bag for you,” he whispered. “It’s in the trunk.”
“Are you here to witness?”
“No.” His tone turned to that of disgust. “To do so would say I support this, and I don’t. Boar
shifters, like bear shifters, mate for love. I know it is different for your kind, but you, Diem, are different,
too. Try to find solace in your mate. Give him a chance.”
She huffed a humorless laugh. “What’s the point of that, Mason? You know what’ll happen. What’s
the point in getting close to someone at the end?”
Mason shrugged miserably and got out of the car. When his door was closed, Diem’s shoulders
sagged, and she stared out the window at the Ashe Crew as they crested the top of the hill together. She
was going to be a part of them for a short while. For some reason, that thought made her even sadder.
The last over the ridge was a man who was larger than the rest. His shoulders were broad,
straining against the sweat-dampened white T-shirt he wore. His eyes were intense and dark, and the short
hair that stuck out from under his yellow hard hat was dark to match. Chords of muscle delved from under
his jaw, down through his neck, and into a defined line between his stony pecs. His waist tapered into a V
shape, and hole-riddled jeans clung to his powerful legs. Scuffed work boots kicked up swirls of dust as
he strode after his crew. She couldn’t tell from here if he was handsome or not because of the unhappiness
etched into his face. If she’d had any question before now about him being Bruiser, her betrothed, well,
that disappeared the second he threw his hard hat against the processer. The word fuck echoed off the
mountain a moment later, and she couldn’t help the tiny smile that took her lips. He didn’t want this any
more than she did, and that made this situation a little better. Maybe they could find common ground by
loathing her father together.
Ripping her gaze away from the rugged stranger, she opened a mirror she kept in her purse and
blotted her eyes dry with a tissue. And like she’d done a thousand times before, she composed her face to
look just like her lineage required. She wiped all emotion clear, leaving only the dispassionate blank slate
she hated most.
Today was her wedding day—the most important day of a dragon’s life.
 Chapter Three

Bruiser was about thirty seconds away from an uncontrolled Change. His body was practically
humming with his need to escape what was happening. He’d thought Damon Daye would give him a
couple of days before he pushed his daughter onto him, but nope. Six hours after he’d arrived home from
Colorado, and here the man was, collecting his due.
Damon stood at the edge of the tree line, hands clasped in front of him, chin lifted high and proud,
dark hair gone a regal gray at the temples. His dark suit looked hot as hell on this Montana summer day.
“Well,” Bruiser said, holding his hands up, “where is she?”
“Good,” Damon said with the only smile the man seemed to be able to manage—an empty one.
“You’re in a hurry to marry her.”
“Or in a hurry to get this done with before I change my mind and you eat me.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Denison muttered, helping his mate, Danielle, over a felled log.
“Can someone explain this to me? Because last I heard, Bruiser wasn’t keen on taking a mate, and from
the way he’s been cursing for the last five minutes straight, it seems he still isn’t.”
“I told you I would be the witness,” Damon said to Tagan.
“Yeah, well, if I’m getting myself hitched, my crew is going to witness this train wreck too,”
Bruiser said, matching Damon’s cold smile. “They’re family, you see, and this little ceremony says she’s
going to be a part of this family, too. What’s her name, by the way?”
Drew guffawed as his shoulder length blond, Viking-looking hair waved in the wind. “You don’t
even know her name? Bruiser, come on, man. This is some bullshittery, and you know it.”
“Whatever,” Bruiser grumbled. “You look like Fabio.”
“Thank you,” Drew said through a flattered smile. The dick.
“Diem,” a soft voice sounded from behind him.
Bruiser turned and froze. The woman was not at all what he’d expected of the dragon’s daughter.
She was shorter than he’d imagined, and her hair was raven’s feather black. Her eyes were as dead as her
father’s, but the color was that of fine whiskey. There were no frown lines or smile lines, nothing that told
him if she laughed easily. Her skin was creamy and smooth like porcelain, as if she’d never been out in
the sun a day in her life. The curve of her full lips showed no passion as she studied him in turn.
Straightening to his full height, Bruiser cleared his throat. “You aren’t hideous.”
“Thank you.” Diem dragged her gaze down to his chest, then back up to his eyes. “Neither are
you.”
“This is so romantic,” Danielle squealed from beside Denison.
 “Seriously?” Drew muttered, ruffling her hair.
“Let’s get this over with,” Diem said in an empty tone.
Worry slithered through Bruiser’s gut. She wasn’t like the other women in the Ashe Crew. She
seemed disconnected from everything, like Damon. As if the chip that allowed her to feel anything had
been turned off. He hadn’t any expectations about a marriage like this, but he would’ve rather Diem been
plain and warm, than beautiful and cold.
“Can I talk to you before we do this?” he asked low.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Bruiser grabbed her hand before he could talk himself out of it and pulled her toward his truck.
She allowed it. And she could pretend she was unaffected all she wanted, but her hand was just as shaky
as his.
“Look, Bruiser—”
“I’m sorry,” he rushed out.
She skidded to a stop and blinked her eyes wider. “What? Why?”
“Because this is my doing. I made a deal with your dad, and it was bullshit of me to do without
seeing what you thought of all this.”
“Oh. It doesn’t matter what I think.”
Bruiser took a step back. Her words stung like a slap. “Of course, it does. It’s going to be me and
you now, and your dad and I didn’t include you in this decision. I fucked up, and now we’re both in this
position that I shouldn’t have ever—”
“What kind of deal did you make for me?”
Bruiser opened his mouth, then closed it, surprised at the turn in conversation. “I asked your dad
to help me save my half-brothers, their mates, and their kids from IESA.”
Diem’s dark and elegant eyebrow twitched. “The International Exchange of Supernatural Affairs
was after your family?”
“Well”—Bruiser jerked his head—“they’re kind of my family. It’s a long story. Look, I couldn’t
save them on my own, and I got desperate, and you were made part of the deal. It was wrong, and I don’t
know how to fix it.”
“That’s better.”
“What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.
“At least I’m being given away for a good reason. Is your family safe?”
“The Ashe Crew is more my family more than the Breck Crew, but yeah, they are safe.”
“Because of this deal?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then ask me.” Her face was still stoic, her lips barely moving as she talked.
“Aw, shit, okay.” Bruiser ran his hands through his cropped hair, as if that would fix it after
sweating under a hard hat all day. With a steadying breath, he knelt on one knee and ignored Danielle,
Skyler, and Everly’s awww in unison. “Diem Daye.” What was he supposed to say to a stranger? “I know
we didn’t get here through conventional ways, but I’m in this. I’ll protect you with my life and keep a roof
over your head. A shitty trailer roof with leaks in it, but it’s still a roof, and you won’t go cold or hungry a
day in your life. Everything that I have will be yours. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Will you marry me?”
Sadness washed through the clear brown of her eyes for a moment before she replaced it with a
blank stare again. “You’ll be the one to hurt me, Bruiser, but I’d rather it be you than anyone else. Yes, I’ll
marry you. I’m in this, too.”
Her words bothered him. Not just because they were monotone and unfeeling, but because she’d
said he would hurt her, and he sure as shit wouldn’t ever hurt a woman.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” Tagan said.
Startled, Bruiser jumped and twisted around.
Tagan was leaned up against the back of the truck, looking as unhappy as Bruiser felt right now.
“Sign the paperwork Mr. Daye has so generously drawn up, and then we’re cuttin’ out early.” He turned
his glare on Damon and said, “I’m sure you won’t mind us leaving before the daylight is done today,
seeing as how we have your daughter’s wedding reception to throw together. You’re welcome to come.”
Tagan’s tone said he wasn’t welcome at all.
“I’d rather he not,” Diem said as she scribbled her name on the marriage certificate in angry,
scrawled letters. “His determination to give me away says I’m Bruiser’s now, not his.”
“Well, I… It’s not like I own you,” Bruiser stumbled out, but one icy look from Diem had him
shutting his pie hole real quick.
The low rumbling sound that said Damon Daye was losing his patience rattled out, vibrating
against Bruiser’s skin and electrifying the hairs on his forearms. When he listened closer, it seemed part
of that sound was coming from his new bride. Oh damn, Diem was scary. And hot.
“As you wish,” Damon said with a curt nod, then turned on his fancy heel and strode toward the
pristine car waiting for him. He stood by as the driver struggled to pull a large suitcase from the trunk.
When the luggage was settled in the dirt, Damon gave Bruiser a dead-eyed look and said,
“Congratulations to the both of you.” Posture ramrod straight, he tapped his foot as he waited for his door
to be opened.
The entire Ashe Crew watched the car pull away in stunned silence. Bruiser pressed the
paperwork against the side of his truck, then signed it, shocked that he’d really gone through with this. He
was a married man.
Tagan slid him a sad shake of his head, then said, “You can kiss your bride now.”
Diem’s breath hitched, and she froze. “Now? In front of everyone?”
Bruiser frowned and lowered his voice. “Haven’t you kissed a man before?”
“Have you met my father?”
 Bruiser snorted a laugh. Now that was funny right there. He could see her point. Damon was a
freaking dragon shifter and about the scariest man he’d ever had the non-pleasure of meeting. Damon was
probably still digesting the leader of IESA, so yeah, any boys trying to get in his daughter’s pants
would’ve been strictly dealt with. But she’d said the joke in that emotionless voice of hers. “I can’t tell if
you’re kidding.”
She cast the tiniest eye roll he’d ever seen from a woman and huffed a sigh. “If we must do this,
let’s get it over with.”
She apparently wasn’t one for romance, and he couldn’t figure out if he liked that because he was
going to save money on buying her flowers over the years, or if he hated it because she was ripping the
fun out of being with a woman.
“Right.”
“Kiss her, kiss her,” Drew chanted.
“Shut up,” Bruiser ordered before the others caught on. It had been a few months since he’d kissed
anyone, and he’d definitely never been a woman’s first.
He flared his nostrils, inhaling her scent to commit it to memory. Vanilla and fruit shampoo, and
something tangy. She was his now, for better or worse. Drawing up in front of Diem, he brushed her long,
dark hair over her shoulder and cupped her cheek. Her chest heaved, and her eyes widened slightly at his
touch, proof that she wasn’t made of stone. Her lips parted as he leaned forward.
Bruiser closed his eyes at the last moment and pressed his lips onto hers. He could’ve pulled
away immediately, should’ve maybe, but her lips softened against his. Fingers in her hair, he drew even
closer to her. Where he’d expected her to be cold because of the creature that dwelled inside of her, she
was warm instead. Inviting. Enticing and intriguing, and she smelled so damned good. He brushed his
tongue along the closed seam of her mouth, asking gently.
As she opened her mouth slightly, her body lost some of its rigidity against him, and he lifted his
other hand to her other cheek as she became precious to him.
Slipping his tongue against hers for the first time, he tasted her, and all the fear and tension left his
shoulders. God, this was amazing.
She jerked back. “Stop,” she said on a breath. “Stop, stop, stop. Something’s…that feels…just
stop.”
“Okay,” he said, disappointed that she was shrinking away from his touch.
The Crew was clapping and whistling, and it was nice of them to do so considering what this was
—a forced pairing.
Diem shrugged her shoulders up to her ear lobes and dropped her gaze. Which was strange that
she’d make a submissive gesture when he knew the animal inside of her was much scarier than any grizzly
or falcon that made up the Ashe Crew.
The mysteries around Diem Daye were piling up by the second.
 Without another word, she wove through the gathered crowd, dodging hugs and claps on her back,
and made her way toward the lonely suitcase sitting in the dirt.
Bruiser jogged to catch up, determined to help her carry the gargantuan luggage.
“Don’t,” she snapped when he reached for the handle.
“Why?”
“Because I’m sick of everyone doing everything for me.”
“Okay,” he drawled out, frowning so deep it hurt his face. “I won’t help unless you ask for it.”
Her face smoothed to look glasslike once again. “Thank you. Which one is your car?”
“Ain’t no cars here, D.”
“Diem.”
He mirrored her empty smile. “I like pet names.”
“I’m not your pet.”
“But if you were,” Denison hollered across the clearing, damn his good hearing, “what kind of pet
might you be?”
“Denny, not now,” Bruiser called back.
“Because I saw your pupils go all weird-shaped like our pet goat, Bo, so are you a goat shifter?”
“What? No!” Diem shouted with an offended snort. “I’m a dragon.”
Denison’s single laugh cracked and echoed off the mountains. “Okay, but really. So, like, a cat or
something?” He muttered, “Do tigers have those weird-shaped pupils?” as an aside to Danielle. “Or a
snake?” he yelled.
Diem just stared at Denison, but hell if Bruiser was going to explain away his crew’s
inappropriate questions. It was only going to get worse the better they got to know her. He gave them a
month tops before they were charting her damned menstrual cycle. She had to learn how to ignore them, or
she was going to lead a very unpleasant life in the Asheland Mobile Park.
He pointed to the mud-covered truck they’d been married next to. “That one’s mine. Ours,” he
corrected himself with a shake of his head. This was going to take some getting used to.
Diem’s eyes tightened ever so slightly.
“You don’t approve?”
“It’s a shit-wagon.”
“Don’t talk about my truck like that. She’ll up and give me a flat this week if you keep bustin’ on
her like that. And she’s not a shit-wagon. Never once has she stalled out or got bogged down while we
were muddin’. That highfalutin city car you drove in on wouldn’t last a day out here.”
“Please,” she muttered. “It made it here, didn’t it?”
“Here isn’t the final destination, D. Asheland Mobile Park is, and we have a shit-ton of washed
out mountain roads and switchbacks to navigate to get there. If your fancy dancy driver tried to maneuver
your snob-mobile all the way down, you’d go over the cliff and be a little splat on the rocks below.”
 Diem ignored him as she stumbled toward his awesome-wagon, heels rolling at almost a ninety
degree angle on the rocks.
“I hope you packed tennis shoes ’cause those pretty spikes you’re wearing are sexy as hell, but
they aren’t going to work where we’re going.” They weren’t even working here, and the ground was
relatively even.
“Do you always talk this much?”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic,” she muttered. “And I have no idea what is packed for me since I didn’t pack my
suitcase.”
“You had someone else pack it for you?”
“I didn’t know until we got here that I wasn’t going back home. Mason, my driver slash
bodyguard, packed it.”
“Wait, your bodyguard packed your underwear and everything?”
“Panties, and I suppose.”
Something green and ugly ignited in his stomach. “You don’t mind your driver touching your
intimates? Wait.” Bruiser tugged her arm until she turned her dead gaze on him. “Do you have feelings for
him? Please tell me I didn’t come between you and someone you actually cared for.”
“What? No! He’s a boar shifter.”
Like that explained anything away. “And?”
“And he’s twice my age.”
“Age is just a number,” he said, wanting to know for sure.
Her delicate nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply. “I don’t have feelings for anyone. Not a single
person on this earth. That’s how it is with my kind, so don’t expect me to moon over you. No, you didn’t
come between me and some one true love. You only came between me and my freedom.”
Whoa, what those words did to his middle. His guts burned as he swallowed her detached
admission.
“I didn’t mean to steal your freedom. I just wanted to help my family.”
“I know.” She tried and tried again to heft the suitcase into the bed of the truck, failing until her
arms looked shaky.
“Can I help now?” he asked, leaning against the side.
Diem blew a damp strand of hair out of her face and conceded. “Fine.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t called her names, my truck would be kinder to you,” he said through a
hidden grin as he lowered the tailgate.
“Well, that’s handy,” she muttered, lifting the suitcase into the back on the first try this time.
He tried to open her door for her, but she glared at him. At least, he thought she did. Her face
didn’t really change. So he threw his hands up in surrender and muttered, “Don’t breathe fire on me.”
Then he jogged around the front of his truck and settled behind the wheel.
“I don’t breathe fire.”
“Bullshit. I watched Damon burn an entire clearing a few days ago.”
“My father can. I’m not a full dragon. My mother was a bear. I don’t have the fire, and neither do
my half-brothers, who are also part bear.”
Bruiser swung a shocked gaze to her. “You’re half bear?”
“My mother was a black bear. Father got lucky that I was born with his shifter instead of hers.”
“Wow.” He blinked back his surprise and turned the engine. “I never in a million years would’ve
guessed Damon would fall for a black bear. He seems so…uptight.”
“He didn’t fall for my mother. I told you, we don’t do love. He paid her lots of money to breed
with her, and she left two days after I was born, much richer for having known my father. She was a paid
broodmare. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“That’s really fucked up,” he muttered, pulling around Denison’s Bronco. “No wonder you don’t
believe in love.”
“It’s not about believing in it, you silly man. Dragon’s just don’t feel like lesser shifters do. Love
doesn’t exist for us.”
“Lesser shifters, like bears? Like half the blood running through your veins? And before you get
all high and mighty with me, know that my mother was a dragon.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?”
“Because she died.”
Bruiser’s heart rate kicked up to a gallop, his chest thumping painfully. “What do you mean?”
“You killed her.”
He cast her a horror-filled glance to see if what she said was some sick joke, but she stared
blankly ahead, as if the words that had tumbled from her mouth weren’t akin to knives against his soul.
“Are you always like this?”
“Like what?” she asked in that echoing empty voice of hers.
“Are you so dead inside that you can say things like that and not regret your words when you hurt
people?”
“They weren’t meant to hurt you, Bruiser. Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll apologize. Did you kill your
mother?”
He swallowed hard and concentrated on not steering them over the steep embankment that lined
the gravel road that would lead them back to the trailer park. Out of the side of his vision, he could see
her staring at him, awaiting an answer.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was born, and she died having me, so I guess I killed her.”
Diem nodded once, as if she’d won.
 And it was in this moment that Bruiser realized maybe he couldn’t warm Diem up or show her
what it was like to care for someone.
Not if her heart had already grown irreversibly cold.
 Chapter Four

Diem wished she could take the words back. She’d put them out there to punish Bruiser for
winning her as a favor. To hurt him for what he would do to her, but when she’d said he had killed his
mother and then watched his handsome face melt with devastation, she’d almost got sick in the cab of his
crappy old truck.
But he deserved it. He was practically strutting around like their new marriage was something to
be proud of while she was being destroyed from the inside out. Father didn’t love her, didn’t care about
her at all, and this man had helped him to break her heart.
But…he was kind and had soft eyes. And his lips had been gentle against hers, not demanding as
she’d imagined the first kiss with her mate would’ve been. Especially from a man as big and dangerous-
looking as Bruiser.
God, what was she doing? All this wishy washy guilt and for what?
None of it mattered.
She didn’t matter.
As the hurt in his eyes flashed across her mind again, she winced and looked out the window to
hide the emotion.
The woods here, just like her home with Father in the mountains, were breathtaking. Sure, many of
the trees were dead and brown from the beetle infestation, but there was still enough greenspace that she
was awed by the beauty of the wild land. Down in the valley, she got her first glimpse of the Asheland
Mobile Park.
It was exactly how she’d expected it to be, worn down, ratty homes in a couple of rows, bisected
by a dirt road. What did surprise her was that the yards were all perfectly manicured and mowed.
Granted, they were one hundred percent weeds and wild flowers and not the soft Bermuda that graced
Father’s sizable yard, but at least the bears here seemed to take some pride in their dwellings.
“We’re home,” Bruiser said softly as he pulled in front of a trailer with the number 1010 nailed
crookedly beside the dilapidated front door.
Without another word, he exited the truck and snatched her suitcase from the back, then stomped
up the front stairs and disappeared inside.
The unstained and splintering stairs creaked under her footfall as she approached the open
doorway.
A light flicked on inside, and she stepped into a musty singlewide. It was actually much nicer than
she’d imagined it would be from the outside. A living area took up most of the main room, and a kitchen
adorned with white cabinets and natural wood counters was to the left.
When she took a step forward, her foot sank into a squishy place in the fake wood floors. Lovely.
Bruiser had disappeared with her suitcase into a room on the other side of the kitchen, but when she
moved to join him, a brown rodent ran across the floor.
She narrowed her eyes at the creature and called out, “Bruiser, there’s a mouse in here.” Who was
apparently not afraid of people.
“That’s Nards,” came the muffled reply.
“Nards?”
“Yeah.” Bruiser sauntered back into the kitchen and leaned his hips against the counter by the
baby-diarrhea-colored sink. “Nards, like balls. Look at his giant testicles. Denison named him.”
“Of course he did.”
“Look, why don’t you get off your high horse and be thankful that you’ll have a roommate. Now
you won’t be all alone in here.”
“Wait, I thought you were my roommate.”
“No, I’m your reluctant and apparently unnecessary husband. That don’t mean we have to live
together. My trailer is next door on the left if you need anything.”
“You don’t want to live with me?” She was baffled. Perhaps she’d imagined marriage all wrong.
Maybe it really was just fucking and then going about the day like they didn’t know each other.
“You just called me a murderer.” He gave a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, then dropped the
expression. He looked the way she did in the mirror when she practiced being a good dragon. That look
on his face blanketed her with a chill. “It’s clear you want to be married about as much as I do, so let’s
just make this easy on both of us and try to be friends.”
“Friends,” she repeated low.
“Yeah, like your dad and mom were.”
“They weren’t friends. They were a business arrangement.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“You’re being insensitive and mean now.”
“Or,” he growled out, approaching her slowly, “I’m tapping into my mother’s dragon lineage and
using it as an excuse to say hurtful things.”
Touché big, sexy, irritating, hillbilly bear.
Diem held her ground as Bruiser invaded her space.
“You can feel, can’t you?” he asked in that husky, deep voice that she was already becoming
attuned to.
Diem blinked slowly, deliberately. “No.”
Bruiser hooked his finger under her chin and lifted. Then he leaned forward, eyes daring her to
run, and kissed her. This wasn’t like their wedding kiss. It was rougher and felt different. Where their first
kiss had brought on a disconcerting tingling sensation between her legs, this one warmed her from the
middle downward. His jaw moved as he plunged his tongue into her mouth, and he gripped the back of
her head so she couldn’t escape. A helpless and mortifying moan escaped her as he eased her against the
wall. His hand slipped from her face to her waist, and with a powerful grip, he pulled her hips against
his.
His hard erection brushed her belly, and her stomach quivered with an anticipation she didn’t
understand. Breeding with a rutting male wasn’t supposed to be pleasurable.
“Now do you feel anything?” he rasped against her lips as he pulled her knees around his waist
and rubbed against a shockingly sensitive place between her thighs.
“No,” she said on a sigh.
He leaned forward and drank her in, teeth grazing her lips. His hands were so strong, holding her
up against the wall like this, as if she weighed nothing at all.
“Okay, okay,” she murmured, stepping down.
“Okay, you feel something?”
“No, okay you seem ready. Let’s get this over with.”
His eyes narrowed, but she turned her back on him and kicked off her heels. She padded into the
bedroom he’d set her suitcase in and took in the thick blue curtains and queen-size bed. It looked clean
enough if she ignored Nards, who marched by her bare foot with a cracker in his mouth.
Her hands shook so badly, she clenched and unclenched them before she began unbuttoning her
jacket, then her blouse.
“You know,” Bruiser said from behind her. “You’ve used that phrase three times today already
—‘let’s get this over with.’”
“You don’t approve?”
“Hell no, I don’t approve. What are you doing?”
She shimmied out of her shirt and then pushed her dress pants and panties to the floor. Bruiser
crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. Closing her eyes tightly in embarrassment, she
unhooked her bra in the back and let it fall down her arms. Her knees were knocking so she settled herself
onto the bed and spread her legs wide.
Bruiser’s eyebrows arched impossibly high as he raked a hungry gaze over every inch of her bare
skin. His eyes had gone bright, and a gold-green color that was nothing shy of unsettling.
“I repeat, what are you doing?”
“I’m ready to breed.” She looked pointedly at the huge bulge fighting against the seam of his jeans.
“It looks like you are, too.”
He scrunched his nose up until the laugh lines by his eyes crinkled. “Breed?”
Heat flooded up her neck and burned her cheeks. Fury filled her, and she clapped her knees
together, denying him further visual access to her lady bits. “Yes, breed. That’s what you signed up for
when you made this deal with my father. It isn’t happily ever after, Bruiser. It’s fuck me, get me with child,
and move on with your life.”
“Move on with my life?” His words came out gravelly and low, sending chills up her arms. “You
are my life now! I’m not going to breed you, woman. I’m not going to fuck you to have a kid with you. If
and when we’re together like this, it won’t be a let’s-get-this-over-with kind of moment. I want you
begging to have me inside of you, and not for some technicality fuck so you can have a little baby dragon.
I’m not just a dick!”
“Yes you are!” she screamed, tears burning her eyes as she sat up and pulled the comforter against
her body. “Didn’t you realize that when you signed the contract for my soul? Didn’t you ask my father why
he chose you? The poor bastard lumberjack son of Titus Keller. Your mother was a dragon. My father
picked a mate based on the probability of us making viable dragon young.”
Bruiser’s face fell utterly blank with shock. Slowly, he shook his head. “I’m not going to fuck
you.”
“Yes you will! You will, and you’ll love it, and then you’ll watch me wither away to nothing to
have your child. You’ll feel bad for a few weeks because of what you had to do. Maybe you’ll leave
flowers on my grave when you think of me. Then you’ll move on like I never existed at all. It’s what you
do.” A sob wrenched from her throat. “Males are all the same.”
Bruiser rushed to her and scooped her into his lap, the mattress creaking under his weight. “I don’t
understand,” he whispered against her hair.
“Dragons aren’t like bears, Bruiser. We females live to bear young, and then we die getting them
here. Our shifting doesn’t turn off when we get pregnant. We have to force ourselves not to shift to protect
our unborn babies. We grow weaker and weaker, and then we use the rest of our energy to have the baby,
and then we live a day, maybe two, afterward. You didn’t agree to marry me, Bruiser. You agreed to kill
me.”
“My mother?”
“Gave her life so that you could live. You didn’t murder her. I shouldn’t have said that earlier. She
chose that sacrifice for the continuation of our kind.”
“But I’m not a dragon. My animal is from my father.”
“Unlucky for her. Doesn’t matter what kind of baby we grow. The sacrifice will still be the same.”
Defeated and drained, her shoulders sagged, and she melted against the hard planes of his chest.
For a long time, he rocked them, like she was a wee babe in need of comfort. She would appreciate his
kindness for the rest of her life, but it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Bruiser’s life was just
beginning, while hers was at the end. They didn’t match up, like two planets too far out of each other’s
orbit.
“Diem?”
“Hmm?”
 “Do you feel anything now?”
She smiled as another tear trickled down her cheek. Against his chest, she nodded her head. “I’m
not like my father. It just hurts too much to hope.”
Bruiser pressed his lips against her hair. “I’m not going to let you die. I promise.”
 Chapter Five

“Thank you,” Diem said as Bruiser handed her a small paper cup of what smelled and looked like
sweet red wine.
“You’ll get used to it,” Brooke said as Diem lifted it to her nose and sniffed.
“It’s not… I’m not trying to be snobby about it. I haven’t drank much, so I wouldn’t know much of
a difference in quality.”
Brooke rubbed her round belly absently from beside Diem on the tailgate of Bruiser’s pickup.
“Don’t let her fool you,” Bruiser said with a wink. “She’s a total snob.”
“Stop teasing her. This is all a lot to take in.” The alpha’s mate swung her blond hair over her
shoulder and leaned back on locked arms. “When I first came here, Bruiser was the first one I met, and I
thought he was a redneck idiot and this place was a dump. It grew on me, though. The people here make it
impossible not to appreciate the little things about a home like this.”
The sun was sitting low in the sky, casting pinks and oranges across the mountains. It would be
dark soon, but already, the boys had built up a raging bonfire at the end of the street, and someone had
turned on hundreds of strands of outdoor lights. Strings of them were hung from every trailer and porch,
connecting them all in a surprisingly cozy way.
Drew was driving Kellen, Skyler, Haydan, Everly, and Denison around in circles in a gravel
parking lot. Diem squinted at the dilapidated old basketball hoop and thought perhaps there had once been
a clearing for sports. Dust had kicked up in the shape of a tornado as Drew pulled the truck in tighter
circles to the screaming, laughing amusement of the passengers holding on for dear life in the back.
“That looks terrifying,” Diem muttered. “And dangerous.”
“You’ve never done anything like that?” Bruiser asked.
She tried to imagine Mason going even five miles over the speed limit and shook her head.
“Never.”
“They’d probably hate it if you drove,” Brighton whispered from where he leaned on the truck
near her. His voice had been damaged by something, and he couldn’t do any more than rasp his words out.
She could hear him just fine from this close, though.
“They’d probably all die if I drove. I’ve never learned.”
“What?” Brighton rasped out as he stood up straight. A face-cracking and mischievous grin took
over his handsome features. “Well, tonight is your night. I hear Bruiser’s giving out free lessons.”
“No I ain’t. She insulted my truck already once today. I don’t trust her not to destroy her.”
“Fine,” Brighton whispered. “I’ll teach you.”
 “Oh, God, turn that offer down quick,” Brooke said with a laugh. “Brighton is terrifying behind the
wheel.”
“Am not,” he said with an offended frown.
“I saw that,” Bruiser said as he looked down at her with a calculating look.
“Saw what?” she asked, confused.
“You just smiled. It was tiny, but it counted. She feels, everyone,” he crowed. “Diem Daye feels.”
“All right asshole, they get it. Don’t tell my father, though. Smiles aren’t permitted in his house.”
She stared down at her drink, which was still full and untasted in her hand. “I don’t know why I just said
that. I’m sorry.”
“Girl, why are you apologizing?” Danielle asked. “Nobody ended up here without a past pushing
them to look for a deeper connection with people who would understand them. Life isn’t always pretty, or
clean. Don’t feel sorry for the grit. It is what it is, and I know your daddy. I work for him and have
meetings with him a few times a week. I’m his environmentalist. He seems like a tough nut to crack. All
the more reason to live like you mean it now. Smile all you want to here. Nobody is judging you.”
A weight lifted from Diem’s shoulders at the realization that really, no one here would judge her.
They teased her an awful lot, but they didn’t seem to mean it. Making fun of each other and calling each
other names seemed to be the way they told each other they accepted one another. She was just a misfit in
a band of misfits, no more special or damaged than any of the rest of them.
“There it is again,” Bruiser mused. “Put that drink down, D. I’m rewarding you for those smiles
tonight.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, setting the cup gingerly beside her.
“I mean, you’re going to learn to drive.”
“That sounds…no.” She shook her head hard. “No, absolutely not. I’ll wreck your truck, and then
we’ll die, and then you’ll be mad at me, and then your ghost will haunt my ghost, and no. Nope.”
Bruiser was just staring at her with an amused smile and his hand outstretched, waiting.
She stretched her neck out and sighed. “Bruiser, I’m serious, I don’t want to wreck your truck. She
means a lot to you. Obviously.”
“Come on,” he groaned, tossing his head back with impatience. “I’m a great teacher.”
“You’ve had six beers.”
“I’m highly functional when drinking.”
“He is,” Brooke said.
“This will be my wedding gift to you.”
“Driving your shitty truck? You shouldn’t have.”
Bruiser’s mouth dropped open, and he looked appalled. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Your
voice sounds so serious.”
Diem allowed a tiny smile. “Joke.”
 Bruiser reached in his pocket, pulled out a set of jingly car keys, and gave them a shake. “You
ready?”
“No.” She stood anyway and followed him with a tiny wave behind her to the members of the
Ashe Crew cheering her on. She was about to have a head-on collision with something, everyone would
be watching, she would be so embarrassed, and no one would want to be friends with her. That’s what
was about to go down.
Diem wiped her sweaty palms against her jeans and nearly tripped over the flip-flops Mason had
packed for her. At least he had packed her suitcase and not Father. He would’ve stacked it full of business
suites and matching high heels, none of which mattered here.
Bruiser opened the door for her, and instead of reaming him for coddling her this time, she thanked
him politely and slid onto the bench seat. This was different than with Mason and the house staff Father
kept. Bruiser seemed to like doing things for her, and when she was grateful, his face turned even more
handsome when he got that deep-dimpled smile.
“I like your crew,” she said shyly.
Bruiser jammed the key in the ignition and turned the roaring engine. “So you can be polite. I knew
you had it in you.”
“I’m being serious. They are really nice, and we’re in a strange situation, and they could’ve been
weird around me, but none of them have been. Except for Tagan. I don’t think he likes me much.”
“Tagan is reserved with his approval, but for good reason. He has to be. He’s alpha and has more
on his shoulders, and if for some reason you didn’t fit in his crew, that stress would be on him. Plus, he’s
been one of my best friends for the better part of a decade, and this was kind of sprung on him. He and
Brooke are a love match, and he wants the same for his crew members. So far, it worked out with Kellen
and Denison and Brighton. I came out of left field with my arrangement with your dad, and it has Tagan
worried.”
“You want to know a secret?”
Bruiser leaned back and draped his arm across the back of the bench seat. His fingertips brushed
her shoulders, and this time, she didn’t feel like balking away from him. “Yeah, D. Spill your secrets so I
can figure you out.”
“I like the name Horace.”
“Shut it, no one likes that name. What were you really going to say?”
“This is the first time in my life I’ve been unchaperoned. No overbearing father, no bodyguard, no
driver.”
“You feelin’ like you could find some trouble tonight?”
“Yeah, I feel…floaty.”
“That’s freedom. See? I didn’t steal it from you after all. Left pedal is the brake, right is the gas.
Push the break all the way down before you put it into gear.”
 Five minutes of instruction later, and Diem lurched the truck forward with a squeak.
“Well that was pretty damned cute,” Bruiser said. “A dragon shifter, and you just squeaked like
Nards.”
“I can’t take anything you say seriously after you utter the word Nards.”
“Ease your foot onto the gas. Slower.”
The pickup lurched again, and Diem slammed on the brake. “Bruiser, I don’t think I can do this.
It’s hard, and there really isn’t a good reason for me learning how to drive at this point.”
“If you’re talking about this being pointless because you’re going to die in childbirth, I already
told you that ain’t gonna happen. I’ll buy us a pygmy piglet farm before I’d let my seed poison you, D.
Now, stop complaining and own this shit like I know you can. You’re a fucking dragon who can fly.” He
lowered his voice. “You can fly, can’t you?”
“Yes, I can fly, just no fire.”
“Okay, you’re a fucking dragon shifter who can fly over mountains and eat anyone who threatens
you. You can do that too, right?”
She screwed up her face and swallowed bile that was creeping up the back of her throat. “I
suppose I could, if I were a man-eater. Which I’m not.”
“My point is, you can do all of this magical shit, Diem. Drive the truck. Drive it. Go.”
Gripping the wheel, Diem eased onto the gas and drove a straight line toward an open field beside
the fence that encircled the trailer park.
“I’m going to hit that tree.”
“Then turn the wheel,” Bruiser said, rolling the window down.
“Which way?”
“Whichever way feels right. Pick one.” He draped his arm out the window and relaxed against the
seat like he hadn’t just entrusted his precious truck to a beginner driver.
She pulled the wheel to the right and got a feel of which way turned the truck where she wanted to
go. She practiced braking and accelerating and giggled like a lesser shifter when Bruiser encouraged her
to step on the gas and pull a few donuts. He even taught her to reverse the clunker truck before they drove
back under the Asheland Mobile Park sign. She was wretched at it, but at least she had tried, and warm
pride washed over her that she hadn’t chickened out.
Brooke, Danielle, and Everly clapped excitedly as she pulled to a stop near them. After Bruiser
instructed her on the finer points of putting the truck into park and turning off the engine, she hopped out
and grinned as Kellen handed her the warm cup of boxed wine back to her.
“You did some fine driving. Your mate looks proud of you, as he should be.”
“Thanks, Kellen,” she said in a soft voice. She clinked her tiny cup against his beer and slurped it
down. It wasn’t bad, and Kellen automatically took the cup for a refill. “Steak’s ready,” he murmured,
jerking his chin toward the bonfire.
 So that was what smelled good. After the long day and skipping lunch, she was famished. She
followed Bruiser and the others toward the rough, splinter-riddled buffet table that had been set up near
the firelight.
Bruiser leaned in close, resting his hand on her back, and whispered, “I am really proud of you.
You’re a quick learner.”
Heat flooded her face from ear tips to chin as she ducked her head under the compliment. She
bumped his shoulder.
“I like your smile. I was scared when we did the ceremony today that you wouldn’t have it in you
to smile, or to feel. You’re beautiful when you let your guard down.”
“So I’m not beautiful when it’s up?”
“You are then, too, but I like it best when you are open and animated.”
“It’ll be a hard habit to break while I’m out of my father’s direct line of sight. I eased off the
monotone gig when I went away to college, but I’ve been working for Father for a few years now, and
sometimes it’s hard not to reprimand myself for showing emotion.”
“It’ll get easier the longer you are here.”
Would it? Bruiser was being kind, but it didn’t change the fact that she would have to breed with
him. Her days were numbered, thanks to the rare animal inside of her. Female dragon’s lifecycles were
short. That much had been beat into her head since she was a kid. Bringing that up now would only ruin
what was turning into the best night of her life, though, so she swallowed the argument down and boldly
slipped her hand into his instead.
It was fun pretending that everything would be all right.
Bruiser seemed to enjoy touching her, and she had to admit, she thirsted for it. After all these years
of being denied physical comfort, it was a relief to have someone who wanted to be close to her in such a
way. It wasn’t anything obvious or inappropriate. Just a brush of his fingers on her hip when he said
something to make her laugh, or a hand on the back when someone shimmied by her, too close. Once, he
brushed her hair back out of her face when she threatened to eat all of his food and leave him hungry. The
threat apparently didn’t scare a man like Bruiser if his dancing eyes were anything to go by.
His touch was addicting and awakened her sleeping dragon in ways she didn’t understand. And
from the way his eyes had turned a muddy golden-green the first time she rested her head against his
shoulder for just a moment as a thank you for a sweet compliment he’d given, she thought his animal was
affected by her as well.
She would’ve given anything in that moment to be a bear instead of a dragon. Life would’ve been
so uncomplicated. She’d be free to live with him for always and give him as many little cubs as he
wanted. Their future could’ve been endless if she’d only taken after her mother instead of her father.
“What are you thinking about?” Bruiser asked as he pulled her empty metal plate from her hands.
With a sigh, she propped her feet up against a log and stared at the flickering flames of the bonfire
they were sitting around. All night, the conversation had been seamless. And hilarious. The Ashe Crew
men had filthy minds and mouths. “I’m thinking I wish things were different. I wish I was different.”
“Stop,” he drawled out. “You’re fine just the way you are.”
“But if I were a bear, things would be easier.”
Bruiser dragged her chair closer to his, making lines in the dirt from the plastic legs. “If you were
a bear, you would’ve found a mate long before you met me, and we wouldn’t be here.”
She narrowed her eyes at the flames and nodded once. He had a point. If Father hadn’t been
desperate to track down a husband for her with dragon’s blood in his veins, she probably would’ve never
met Bruiser or the Ashe Crew. And right now, that seemed sort of tragic to think about.
A terrifying boom blasted around them, and the night sky lit up with a sparkling white firework
that detonated way too close to the ground.
Diem ducked and gasped out, “What in the world?”
“The boys got into the leftover stash of Fourth of July fireworks,” Brooke muttered, placing her
hands over her ears.
Everly shook her head and took a long swig of beer as Brighton bounded off toward the open field
where Denison and Drew were lighting up anything with a fuse. “They’re probably going to burn this
place to the ground tonight, so take one last look at the trailer park, guys and gals.”
Skyler snorted and shimmied out of her pants. “I want to see this from the sky.”
“Man plan,” Brooke groaned with a frown.
“I’ll watch it from well out of range,” Skyler promised with a wink at Diem. “You aren’t a bear.
Are you a flyer?”
“Yes, I am, and no I’m not going up there with those boys popping off fireworks.”
Skyler gave her a cheeky grin, then hunched in on herself just before a giant falcon burst from her.
With a few powerful thrusts of her wings, she was in the wind and headed straight up.
“You sure you don’t want to go with her?” Bruiser asked, his arm still draped across Diem’s
shoulders.
Since she hadn’t ever Changed in front of anyone on purpose, yeah, she was pretty damned sure.
“Maybe next time.” But probably never.
Something sparkly drew her attention, and Bruiser yanked her against him just as a tiny flaming
ball zoomed past her face.
“Hey asshole, you almost hit my wife!” Bruiser yelled. And oh, he sounded pissed. Something
thick filled the air and spiked up the hairs on the back of her neck.
“I’m okay,” she said, resting her hand against his rattling chest. His growl sounded feral, and a
shiver traveled from where her palm rested against the vibrations to her spine and through her shoulders.
“You mind if I go out there?” His eyes were that strangely beautiful gold-green.
She went for lighthearted to try to settle him further. “Hey, if you want to go play with fireworks,
don’t let me stop you.”
Bruiser kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger for a few moments, then he stood and sauntered
off in the direction of the men who were now shooting roman candles at each other.
“Hey,” Bruiser said, turning at the edge of the firelight. “I’m glad you aren’t a bear.”
Diem’s heart went to galloping against her breastbone. She should’ve been scared of him with his
eyes reflecting like a wild animal’s behind the flames, but all she could think of was how strong and
handsome he looked, standing there, offering compliments instead of tearing her down like the other men
had done in her life. “Yeah?”
Bruiser nodded and said, “No regrets here. You?”
She held his gaze so he could see the truth in her words. “No regrets.”
Not yet.
 Chapter Six

Rain drummed against the tin roof at an alarming volume, and lighting flashed constantly through
the windows. The thunder that followed the strikes rattled the entire trailer.
The sagging ceiling in the living room concerned Diem, but she kept reminding herself that this old
trailer had been here for at least thirty-five years and still hadn’t been knocked over by a storm.
Still, it was frightening, and she snuggled deeper under the covers, unable to sleep despite the late
hour.
“Hey,” Bruiser said from the doorway, and she yelped and jumped so hard she nearly fell off the
bed.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted to make sure you’re all right in here. Storms can be
pretty brutal in one of these old trailers.”
She sat up and gestured him closer. Between the razor sharp dragon vision her ancestors had used
in the old cave days and the lightning illuminating the entire room, Bruiser was as clear to her in here as
he was in sunshine. “Will you sleep here tonight?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said and rested his hand on the other side of her comforter-clad legs. “I can sleep
on the couch out there.”
“No, I mean… Look, I’m not asking you to breed with me, but could you just sleep beside me?”
He hesitated, and she thought he’d deny her, but at last he said, “Sure.” Standing, Bruiser pulled
off his rain-dampened T-shirt.
Diem didn’t even try to stop staring. His back was smooth, and his defined muscles rippled as he
moved to unbutton his jeans. He cast her a look over his shoulder. “Is this okay? I can sleep in my clothes
if you want me to.”
“No,” she murmured in a dreamy voice. “By all means, strip down.” To nothing, please.
Bruiser snorted and kicked out of his pants, then turned just in time for the blue lightning flashes to
illuminate his eight-pack abs that delved into his black briefs. She could identify the outline of his long
dick lying down against one thigh.
She scooted over and held up the covers for him. His short hair was mussed, as if he’d tried to
find sleep, too, but was unable. Facing her, he settled onto a pillow. A small smile crept across his face as
he studied her.
“What?” she asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“You look pretty without make-up and with your hair all wild like that.”
“My hair looks wild?” She patted around and, indeed, it was spread out like a tangled bag of
ropes across the pillow. That’s what she got for taking a shower and letting it dry naturally. In her defense,
she’d blown a fuse turning on the blow dryer and hadn’t figured out where the fuse box was yet to fix it.
“Stop messin’ with it, D. I said I like it, didn’t I?”
“Boys lie.”
“Men don’t.”
“Hmm,” she said, allowing her dragon to rattle her throat in a soft hum.
“You better stop that, woman. I like that, too, and I’m trying to be good tonight. Go to sleep.”
“Okay,” she whispered, disappointment blooming in her chest.
“Diem?”
“Hmm?” she asked, pausing from giving him her back.
“It bothers me that you keep calling it breeding.”
“That’s what sex is.”
“No, sex is supposed to be fun.”
“Says the man who won’t die from it.”
“Have you ever touched yourself?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Touched myself, how?” she asked as panic froze her limbs.
“Between your legs. Have you ever made yourself feel good without thinking about what sex
could do to you?”
“No. Nuh-uh.” She’d been blushing before, but now her cheeks seared like the bonfire from
earlier. “Hell nope. Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay?”
“Not okay. I think we should. It’s important.”
“Oh my gosh, Bruiser! This isn’t something to talk to ladies about.”
“Why not? And you aren’t just some random lady. You’re my wife.”
“Yesterday, I was just some random lady.”
“You gonna argue with me all night, or are you gonna answer my question?”
Diem huffed an irritated sigh and wished she had about fifteen more Dixie cup shots of that boxed
wine Kellen had given her. “No, husband, I haven’t touched myself because it doesn’t seem like it would
feel good when all I can think about the whole time is how someday I’m going to die from sex.”
“We’re all dying, D, but when that happens, you’ll be an old lady, gray-haired, and yelling at me
from a rocking chair to help you find your dentures.
She giggled at the picture he painted. “That sounds nice,” she admitted, watching the flashes of
lightning filter through the windows.
Bruiser wrapped her up in a hug and pulled her flush against his warm body. “We’ll have seven
pygmy pigs, and you’ll name them all something that starts with a single letter.”
“Erma, Ethyl, Elvis—”
“I’ll still be devastatingly handsome at eighty years old—”
 “Naturally.”
“And we’ll be sad that we never had kids, but fulfilled because we played a pivotal role in
helping raise the cubs born to the Ashe Crew, starting with Tagan and Brooke’s baby.”
“So, your plan is to replace our child with pygmy pigs. Is that even a thing, or are you making that
up?”
“I’m not making it up, and I’m pretty sure there is such a thing as pygmy pigs. But they’ll be nicer
than Bo. I don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure of being head-butted yet, but that little goat is an
asshole.”
She snorted and snuggled closer to him until her cheek rested on his arm. “I did meet Bo tonight,
and he was sweet as pie with me. I fed him a carrot. You’re forgetting one thing,” she said, her voice
growing tight with the seriousness of her words. “My father.”
“Let me worry about him. If it means losing you, the dragon line stops here. The pressure of an
entire shifter race shouldn’t be on the shoulders of one person with the right lineage and gender. And if it
does, maybe it’s all right that Damon and your half-brothers are the last dragons. Females dying off for the
betterment of your kind just feels all kinds of fucked up.”
“Well, fucked up or not, that’s the way it’s been for eons.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“You don’t understand,” she murmured softly.
“We’re married now, Diem. I don’t know how tradition works with dragons because I never spent
any time with my mother’s people. They were gone before I came along. But what I do know is that a
marriage is an equal partnership, same as a mated pairing. It means you and I both have a say in what we
do as a family, and I don’t want kids. Not if it means I lose you. There’s my vote. It’ll never change.”
“Yeah? And how do you plan on stopping it? You’ll never want me? Never breed me?”
“Shit, woman, stop calling it that. Sex won’t be breeding for us.” He pulled her hand against the
insides of her thighs and whispered, “It’ll only be for fun with us.”
“Fun?” she scoffed.
“Yeah,” he whispered against her ear, rolling his hips until her hand pressed even firmer against
her sex.
“So, no penetration?”
“Not without a condom, which I don’t have on me tonight. But we’ll go into town first chance we
get, and we’ll get you on birth control as a second layer of protection. I just got you. I’m not losing you to
something we could avoid.”
“But, my father—”
“Fuuuck your father. He has no place in our bedroom.”
“Technically, this isn’t our bedroom. It belongs to me and Nards.”
A deep chuckle reverberated through him and warmed her from the inside out. “Stop talking and
start feeling.”
He rolled his hard cock against her hand again, which pressed her palm harder against her sex.
She gasped at the sensation. “I can’t do this,” she said, jerking her hand away as shame heated her cheeks.
“You want me to start?”
There was no keeping a stoic face when he asked questions like that. “You mean…” She couldn’t’
even say the word out loud. Masturbation, she mouthed.
“God, it’s cute that you say it like it’s a curse word. Hell yeah, masturbation. It’s not as good as
sex would be with you, but it’s fun, and it feels really freaking awesome.”
“You think sex would be nice with me?”
“Geez, woman, of course I do. I’ve been rocking a chronic boner since we were in the truck
earlier. Every time I touch you, my body instantly reacts. Now, go sit at the end of the bed and watch if
you want.”
“Watch you…you know?”
He bit her neck playfully and pulled the covers off their legs. Diem scurried to the end of the bed
and settled onto the mattress, cross-legged. “Okay, now what do I do.”
“Do what you want. Whatever makes you feel good.”
This should be mortifying, but curiosity had crept over her, greatly outweighing the shame she was
supposed to feel. Sex for the sake of fun. Who knew?
She settled her oversize T-shirt nervously and fidgeted as Bruiser propped a pillow against the
headboard and leaned back against it. Slowly, he spread his powerful legs, then reached under the elastic
of his briefs and unsheathed his thick cock.
Diem exhaled slowly and clasped her hands in her lap.
Bruiser was all male confidence and dripped masculine sexuality as he pulled the first long stroke
of his dick. Diem’s heart pounded against her sternum as he rolled his hips with the next stroke. His abs
flexed with each slow thrust, and now her middle was feeling all tingly and warm.
His hooded gaze met hers, and a sexy, crooked smile took his lips. “What do you feel like?”
“I feel like I should be ashamed.”
“Why? I’m your husband, and I’m not ashamed.”
Hmm. He had a point, and she couldn’t think of one logical reason this was wrong. Decidedly, she
slipped her hand under the elastic of her lacy panties. She was slick and hot to the touch. “And I feel
wet.”
“Shhhit, keep doing that,” he murmured in a husky voice, eyes riveted between her legs.
She smiled, feeling empowered, and lifted her shirt over her head so he could see her better. Her
bare breasts tingled against the cool air wafting from the window unit air conditioner. A dewy drop of
liquid formed at the tip of Bruiser’s cock, making her grow wetter by the second.
“How does it feel?” he asked, his voice hitching as he pulled another stroke.
 Diem touched a sensitive spot and jolted, then stilled. “Kind of good when I touch at the top of my
seam.”
He smiled and lifted his chin proudly. “That’s your clit.”
“Gross word,” she said, scrunching up her nose.
“Stick your finger inside of you and tell me how it feels.”
She did as he asked, and her eyes rolled closed with how good it felt. Leaning back onto one
locked arm, she spread her knees and pressed into herself again.
Bruiser was stroking faster now, his movements jerky and his breath accelerated. God, he was
beautiful like this, rutting against his hand, watching her with that hungry gaze of his. He bit his bottom lip,
as if he was trying to stop himself from saying fuck. His hips jerked, and she sped up her pace as pressure
built inside of her.
She was panting now, eyes glued to the red, swollen head of his shaft as he worked himself into a
frenzy. Her knees shook, and as she pushed her finger deeper, she groaned as the tingly feeling deep inside
of her spread.
“Come here,” he said gruffly.
“But we can’t—”
“I won’t, but I want to be the one to finish you.”
She pulled her hand free of her panties and crawled to him on hands and knees that were the
consistency of noodles. With impossibly strong hands, he spun her and pulled her back against his
erection. His lips plucked delicately at the sensitive skin on her neck as he slid his hand under her panties
and cupped her sex.
“You are wet, aren’t you?” he murmured against her ear.
He nibbled at her lobe, causing her to arch her back against him as he pressed his finger slowly
into her. His hips rocked, and the steely warmth of his erection pressed against her back.
“I’m close,” she whispered. Close to something big. She could feel it.
A soft growl sounded from behind her, vibrating against her back, but the noise wasn’t scary. Not
now. Perhaps it was approval, and she nearly glowed under his feral compliment. His finger went deeper
the next time, and his palm pressed against her clit, just in the right way. Gasping, she rocked against his
hand.
His breath was ragged against her neck as he thrust against her faster. Desperately, she pushed her
back against him as hard as she could, and he groaned. Wrapping his strong arm around her waist, he
drew her closer as his pace became frantic.
“Diem,” he gritted out as warm wetness shot against her back.
She cried his name as she exploded from her middle outward. Closing her eyes, she pressed her
hand over his as she bucked erratically against him. Another jet of warmth shot onto her back and trickled
down as her body pulsed rapidly around Bruiser’s finger. Three more shots hit her spine as she slowed
her hips and relaxed against him.
“Damn, woman.”
“I did good?”
“That was the best non-sex I’ve ever had.”
She laughed and curled up between his legs. “I’m filthy,” she mused as the cold air hit the wetness
he’d left on her back.
“I like you like this,” he rumbled, nibbling at her ear.
“It’s gross,” she argued half-heartedly.
“No,” he said, pushing two fingers in her slowly as the aftershocks subsided. “It’s natural. And on
you, it’s beautiful.
He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. It was a gentle kind of kiss. One that he
could’ve used before they fooled around to get her excited but had instead saved for the end when it
would show her how much he cared.
Bruiser liked her. Accepted her, wild hair and all, and was willing to go against her father to keep
her safe.
And now, as she lay curled up against him, daring to hope that she could live longer and spend
more time with him, it was clear as crystal that Bruiser Keller was the most dangerous threat her kind had
ever faced.
This was what Father had meant when he said love had killed the dragons.
 Chapter Seven

Bruiser stroked Diem’s dark hair away from her face so he could see it better in the gray morning
light. She was stunning, his wife.
Wife. A trill of excitement shot through him at the thought of that word.
A small smile played across her full lips in her sleep, and he wondered what she was dreaming
about. A selfish part of Bruiser hoped she was thinking about him.
The movements of the other members of the Ashe Crew had awoken him. It was time to get ready
for a day out on the jobsite, but damn if he could manage to lift Diem’s head from his chest. His arm had
gone numb twenty minutes ago, and he still couldn’t make himself move. She was so beautiful like this, all
tangled up with him.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it? He’d never seen his mom and dad together, so he wasn’t
sure of their feelings toward each other, but adoration like this was supposed to take longer. Right? He
thought of Tagan and Kellen. Of Denison and Brighton and what they’d gone through with their mates.
Sure, it wasn’t an easy kind of love, but there had been a connection between them and their mates that
was as quick as the snap of a rubber band.
Maybe this was just how it was for bear shifters—that instantaneous knowledge that he’d knocked
into the right woman. No, not just bear shifters. He could practically smell the happiness rolling off Diem
last night. Not just when they’d been fooling around either, but when she’d been talking to the Crew and
casting Bruiser heavy-lidded, shy smiles across the bonfire.
She was happy here with him.
Fuck it. He’d woken up trying to convince himself she wasn’t real, but she was. This was real and
substantial—this feeling inside of him. His bear was pledging his fealty to the woman snuggled up against
his chest, smiling in her sleep.
“Hey,” Kellen said, sticking his head through the doorway.
Bruiser wasn’t going to waste his breath telling Kellen he needed to knock next time. He didn’t get
personal space like other people because of the way Kellen had been raised, so now, Bruiser didn’t even
bat an eye. He just covered Diem’s bare back with the covers and pulled his finger to his mouth to shush
the giant.
“Tagan says twenty more minutes, but you weren’t at your house. My truck needs a jump-off.”
Bruiser smiled at the vision of his shitty old pickup jumping off Kellen’s white, jacked-up, fine
piece of muddin’ machinery. “Yeah, man. I’ll do it. I’ll meet you in twenty.”
Diem stirred against his arm and rolled her head, eyes bleary from sleep. “Hi, Kellen.”
 “Good morning. You have very pretty skin. And you’re very intelligent. Bruiser is lucky to have
found such a mate as you.”
A beat of silence followed as Bruiser tried and failed to hide his grin. Kellen was just…well…
Kellen.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Skyler says you’re a flier, and she’s very excited about having another flier in
the crew. You make my mate happy.”
“Kellen,” Bruiser warned when it seemed words had failed Diem at this early hour and
unexpected bedroom visit.
“Right. Twenty minutes.” He disappeared from the doorway but returned shortly.
“Congratulations.” He spun and left.
When the front door had clicked closed, Diem buried her face against his chest and laughed. She
had this tinkling giggle that was so adorable. Bruiser gripped her hair and kissed her forehead as he
snickered at what she must think of his crew.
“Does he ever knock?”
“Nope. Sorry, D, but you’ll just have to get used to that one. Half the other crew members don’t
believe in it either.”
“This place is really different from where I’m used to living.”
“Was it solitary at your dad’s house?”
“Very.”
“Does this place make you uncomfortable?”
“I’m still deciding.”
“Look, about today. I know it’s kind of our honeymoon—”
“Trailer park stay-cation—”
“But I just got back from Colorado yesterday morning, and I feel like a jerk bailing on the guys
after a week off and with them behind on deadlines.”
“Bruiser, stop. It’s fine. I can explore this place without everyone here, and after the whirlwind of
our…marriage…yesterday, it would probably do me good to get some alone time and figure out where my
head is at.”
“Hey,” he said, cupping her soft cheeks in his palms. “About our marriage. I know it wasn’t either
of our choices, but I’m really happy you turned out to be…you.” Her smile made his heart thump harder,
and harder still when she pressed her hand against his chest as if she wanted to feel how she affected him.
“You aren’t just my wife, Diem. You’re my mate. One my bear approves of. You settle him when
you’re around. You feel just right in my life. I just wanted you to know before I leave that you’re it for me,
and I’ll work to make you happy as long as you’ll let me.”
Diem scrunched up her pert little nose, then drew her shoulders up as a soft squeal left her throat.
She snuggled closer against him until he couldn’t see her face anymore, so he gave up trying and rested his
chin on top of her head.
“You make me happy, too,” she whispered. “I think I like you.”
“Oooh, the cold dragon does harbor warm feelings after all.”
Diem pinched him and giggled, then said, “Don’t make me eat you. I get terrible indigestion when
I eat big burly men this early in the morning.”
“Speaking of eating,” he whispered against her hair.
“You hungry?”
He bit his lip and glared at the door, calculating how long he’d been lounging in bed with his
mate. He probably had fifteen minutes before Kellen came back. “Yeah, for you.”
“Meaning?”
He cast her a wicked grin, then threw the covers over their heads and went down on her. She
tensed when he spread her knees apart, but relaxed into his touch when he kissed the sensitive nub she’d
discovered last night. Damn, she tasted as good as she smelled.
Her hips rocked when he pushed his tongue into her for the first time, and he knew he had her.
Hands in his hair, gripping, begging for more, soft pants and moans coming from her lips as he ate her.
Fuck, she was sexy, all vulnerable and open with him like this. Three more strokes of his tongue, and her
body clenched around him hard. His name came to her lips soft, like a prayer, and she loosened her grip
in his hair as she rolled against him a couple more times. He didn’t leave her until he’d felt every
aftershock, and when at last he eased away and bit her inner thigh gently, she shuddered and let off a
satisfied sigh.
He couldn’t help the triumphant grin on his face if he tried. His mate was a noisy little critter when
she was with him, and he reveled in the fact that he was able to draw those sexy sounds from her.
If his niggling guilt would lay off for a minute, he would’ve begged a sick day and spent from sun
up to sun down with Diem, exploring her body. With a low growl, he lifted off her, kissed her neck, then
made for the bathroom. His erection was so hard it was uncomfortable.
Diem sauntered into the bathroom and crossed her arms, hungry eyes on his dick. “That was
difficult.”
Worry slashed through his chest as he checked the temperature of the tap water he’d turned on in
the shower. “What was?”
“Not asking you to make love to me.”
He rolled his head down until his chin rested on his chest from the relief that washed over him. He
looked back up at his mate, all sleep-tangled hair and bright eyes, naked and open, and looking like a
goddess come to the trailer park. “I like that you didn’t just call it breeding.”
“I know the difference now.” Her voice pitched low as she dropped her gaze to the gray bathmat
under his feet. “It wouldn’t be like that—cold and unfeeling. Scientific. Not with you.”
 “No, it damn-sure wouldn’t. I like you too much to just fuck you. You’re special to me, Diem.”
“I know.” Her smile was shy and slow. “I can tell.”
****
Before Father had fired her from helping with his companies so she could perform as his prized
broodmare, Diem’s days had been full and busy. And though she didn’t miss being slammed from the
minute she woke up until the minute she fell into bed every night, she had been filled with a need to
constantly do something because of her years handling his business affairs at all hours of the day and
night.
After waving Bruiser off this morning, it had become clear she didn’t know how to relax and
enjoy downtime. Not by herself. She’d already walked every inch of the place, trying to remember who
lived in which trailer. Bruiser had told her when she got hungry for lunch to let herself into his house next
to 1010 and fix what she liked.
Still, it was strange walking into someone’s home for the first time without them being there. As
she stepped over the top stair of his porch, she got the overwhelming urge to knock first, though she knew
no one was there.
With a steadying breath, she pushed open the door and padded into the entryway. This trailer’s
floorplan was similar to 1010, but flipped. An open kitchen with dark countertops filled up most of the
space on the right, and on the left was a long living area. The master bedroom seemed to be on the other
side of a small breakfast nook, and it looked to be only a one bedroom house. A fine leather sectional in
front of a big flat screen television brought a smile to her face. Fancy.
It made her want to pick apart what made Bruiser…Bruiser. The furnishings in his tidy home said
he liked possessions of a finer quality, but his mud-splashed old pickup truck hinted at just the opposite.
For some reason, he was loyal to that thing. And he’d become instantly loyal to her, as well, and had said
as much. That was just the way he was, but only with certain things. Things he cherished.
And for some reason, comparing herself to his old beat-up pickup truck made her happy. She
wasn’t perfect, but he cared for her despite her flaws and hang-ups. He’d come into this forced
relationship, mad as a hornet if throwing his hard hat and cursing loud enough to scare birds from the trees
yesterday was anything to go by, but never once had he blamed her for the situation. He hadn’t been
resentful that she was changing his life, or cruel when he could’ve been. Bruiser seemed to look at this
marriage like a team, and she was an equal part of it.
Diem made her way through the kitchen to his bedroom and ran her finger down the smooth
cherrywood dresser that housed the only picture frame that she’d seen in the place. It was a black and
white photograph of a family. A proud looking, flaxen-haired woman stood over a brood of five boys, all
with platinum blond hair but one. The dark-haired boy was the one who drew her attention. She cradled
the photo in her palms and studied it closely. The other boys were smiling with big, gap-toothed grins.
One had his arm slung casually over the dark-haired boy’s slim shoulders, but he wasn’t smiling at all. He
was staring sadly at the camera, mouth turned down like he’d never smiled a day in his life.
She’d recognize those intense, dark eyes anywhere, no matter what age the photo depicted.
Bruiser. He was adorable as a kid, but also obviously unhappy in the moment this picture was taken.
Frowning, she set the picture down just where she’d found it. Why would he keep this? She
couldn’t hold the gaze of the dark-haired child in the image. It made her too sad, but Bruiser thought highly
enough about this picture from his youth that he kept it in his bedroom.
Danielle had said no one ended up here without a past that pushed them to find a group of friends
like the Ashe Crew. Perhaps that was true of Bruiser, too.
A weight settled across her shoulders like a yolk attached to sloshing water buckets. She knew
very little about Bruiser—how he had turned into the settled, easy-going, happy, take-charge kind of man
he was now. She’d missed a huge part of his life and was only coming in when he’d weathered the
experiences that turned him into the person he was today. A feeling of loss clogged her throat, and she
turned away from the picture, then leaned back on the dresser, arms locked.
They’d done this backward. A relationship was supposed to come before marriage, and now she
was having to play catch-up. They both were.
A soft knock sounded at the door, and she straightened her blouse and padded into the living room.
Brooke stood there, full-moon belly leading the way as she offered Diem an easygoing smile. Her blue
eyes twinkled as she asked, “May I come in?”
“Of course! Although, that sounds a little weird inviting you into a house that isn’t even mine.”
Brooke laughed and waddled over to the couch, then sank into the leather cushion. “The lines of
ownership blur in this community.”
“I’ve noticed. Kellen walked right on into 1010 this morning to find Bruiser.”
“Oh dear God, were y’all doing anything?”
“No.” Diem’s cheeks heated to blazing. “But I didn’t have any clothes on… Oh, God, I can’t
believe I’m telling you this. I was covered up, but still felt…”
“Vulnerable?”
“Yeah, that’s the word.”
“Have you not Changed in front of other shifters before?”
Diem shook her head as her stomach bottomed out. “My shift isn’t pretty, and we don’t Change
openly.”
“Want to know a secret?”
Diem nodded and sank onto the couch beside Brooke.
“My Change isn’t pretty either, and it’s still something I struggle with. Or I did when I was shifting
before I got pregnant. It was painful, and the boys always look so powerful when they Change into bears.
It will probably always be something I’m insecure with. Even Everly Changes beautifully, and she didn’t
even know she had a bear in her for months after she was Turned.”
 “Will I be required to Change with everyone else here?”
“No, I don’t imagine it would be required,” Brooke said with a slight frown drawing down her
delicate sand-colored brows. “I think that someday you might want to, though. There is something
therapeutic about putting yourself out there around these men. They are so accepting it’s hard not to test
them.”
“I’ve noticed that. It’s been a strange adjustment, going from my father’s overbearing rule to
Asheland, where it seems no one is offended.”
Brooke snorted. “Give that one time. The boys bicker like old married couples. They just never
really mean what they say and get over their arguments quickly. How are you settling into ten-ten?”
Diem stretched her legs out and worried her finger over a wrinkle in her jeans. “It will sound
strange, but ten-ten feels like more of a home than my room did at my father’s house. Which doesn’t make
a lick of sense because I lived there most of my life.”
Brooke patted her leg and nodded. “I understand that exactly. When I first came here, ten-ten was
my sanctuary after I’d been through something awful. I found myself again in that old trailer. Have you met
Nards?”
“Yes,” Diem said with a giggle. “I fed him a piece of granola bar this morning. I don’t even know
if that is what mice eat, but he took it politely and scurried back toward the bedroom.”
“Oh, gosh, you are much braver than I was. I screamed when I first saw him and just about
knocked heads with Tagan.”
“How did you and Tagan meet?” Diem asked, unable to control her curious words.
“In ten-ten.”
Diem nodded. Of course they had. It was becoming clear as creak water that old trailer held
magic. “And did it happen fast for you two?”
Brooke lifted her chin and cast her a knowing look. “Very fast. Our bond happened so quickly it
scared me. That seems to be the way of it with these Ashe boys, though, Diem. The same happened to
Danielle and Everly and Skyler. If it’s a good pairing, you’ll know almost instantly.”
Diem didn’t know why, but those words settled something that had been churning in the pit of her
stomach since waking up beside Bruiser this morning. So, she wasn’t imagining the intensity of her
feelings. This wasn’t just some pathetic attempt for her to connect with another soul out in the universe
after being sheltered for so long. Her deep affection for him wasn’t because he’d been the first man to
touch her—to kiss her.
Her bone-deep adoration and respect for Bruiser was real.
She let off a relieved smile.
Brooke squeezed her knee, then arched her delicate eyebrows. “You bored yet?”
“About that. I don’t really know what to do with myself. I know Skyler and Everly work with the
rest of the Crew on the landing, and that Danielle works for my father doing environmental research, but I
don’t really understand where I’ll fit in. I’ve always handled high volume business decisions for my
father and ran the books for him as well, and now it feels like I’ve quit work cold-turkey. How do you do
the domestic goddess thing?”
Brooke huffed a laugh and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. She snorted, then
squeezed her eyes closed as if she was really trying to control her laughter. When she was in control of
her mental facilities again, Brooke explained. “I’m no domestic goddess. There is a reason the boys never
ask me to help when they do community cooking by the bonfire. I burn the devil out of everything.
Honestly, Tagan still handles most of the domestic stuff—dishes and cooking. I help with laundry and
tidying up the trailer, but that’s about it. I work, just not up on the landing with the rest of the crew.”
“You do? In town?”
“No, I’m a painter. In fact, I’m painting a picture of this place right now for you and Bruiser. When
it’s done, I want to give it to you for a wedding present. Though I may beg to borrow it in a few months
for a show I’m doing up in Boulder.”
“Oh, my gosh, that is so nice of you! I’m amazed by creatives. I can’t draw a stick figure or even
pick a good color of paint for decorating a wall, so the way your minds work just intrigues me.”
“Well, what do you like to do?”
“I like numbers. They make sense to me.”
“Hmm,” Brooke said, the smile falling from her face. “And you don’t think your dad would want
you to work for him anymore?”
“Oh, no. My life, as far as he is concerned, is at its end, as well as my usefulness.”
“What?” Brooke straightened her spine, and her eyes went wide.
“I’m supposed to breed with Bruiser and bear his young. My pregnancy won’t be like yours,
though.”
Brooke’s hands went over the swell of her belly. “In what way?”
“I would have to force myself not to Change, and I would grow so weak that having my baby
would be the end of my life.”
Brooke gasped and shook her head, blue eyes darkening with horror. “But that’s awful. Why
would your father want that?”
“Because he doesn’t want to be alone. He lives forever. My half-brother’s and I do not. He needs
us to carry on the line so that he won’t be the only one left. Growing old and gray is for the males of my
species. Females, if they are proper dragons, don’t live past their breeding years.”
“You’re a dragon?” Brooke asked so low Diem almost couldn’t hear her.
“Yes. I told everyone that yesterday when Denison asked.”
“Uh, we thought you were joking. So your dad is a…”—Brooke swallowed hard—“dragon?”
“The biggest baddest dragon left. I can’t believe Tagan didn’t tell everyone here. You seem to
share everything amongst yourselves.”
 “Nope. He and Bruiser have kept quiet about your lineage.” Brooke looked nonplussed about that
little revelation.
“Well, if it makes you feel better, my father probably asked Tagan not to say anything, and he can
be very intimidating.”
“Well, yeah, ’cause he’s a fuckin’ dragon. I’m afraid of him now, and I’ve never seen the man in
person. Which, by the way, sucks, because I totally missed your wedding ceremony to Bruiser yesterday.
Sorry about that. If I would’ve had any warning, I would’ve been up at the landing as fast as my car could
make it.”
“I had about as much warning as you did. No one told me yesterday was my wedding day until I
got there.”
“Okay, so let me get this straight. Your dad married you off without your permission, and all
because he wants a baby from you that he knows will kill you?”
“Yep.”
“Your family sucks.”
Diem snorted and nodded. “Well put.”
“So, are you going to have a baby then?” Brooke asked in a careful tone.
“No. Bruiser shut that notion down as soon as he found out how sick it would make me. He won’t
even sleep with me until we have condoms and birth control.”
“Oh, thank God,” Brooke said on a breath.
“My father is going to be pissed.”
“Well, your father is going to piss off the entire Ashe Crew, as well as the Boarlanders and Gray
Backs if he pushes the issue. He messed up bad by giving you to us. We’re not down with sentencing our
own to die.”
Diem’s eyes burned with tears, and she dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Brooke asked, squeezing her shoulder.
How did she explain the tidal wave of gratefulness washing over her? “It’s just really nice to have
friends who care about my well-being. Who are defensive of me, instead of telling me I’ll be a failure if I
don’t do this.”
“Oh, honey,” Brooke crooned, wiping Diem’s tears from her cheeks. “You’ve been through a lot, I
can tell, but you’re safe here. You’ll never have pressure from anyone in this place. I know it might not
seem like much, living in a shitty little trailer park in the middle of nowhere, but we won’t let anything
bad happen to you, okay?”
Nodding, Diem swallowed down the lump in her throat and whispered, “Okay.”
“Good. Now go grab your purse. We’re going to town to do some shopping and eat a nice lunch. I
have a craving for gourmet pizza, and I don’t want to eat alone.”
And that was when Diem knew she had found something truly special in this place. She’d hit the
jackpot with Bruiser, but there had been hidden treasures that she hadn’t immediately seen.
Here, in this “shitty little trailer park in the middle of nowhere” with a band of strangers who
already acted more like friends than the people she’d known her entire life, Diem felt like she finally
belonged.
 Chapter Eight

Diem was humming with excitement by the time she saw the first truck picking its way down from
the landing. The foliage here was so thick she could only catch glimpses of each truck as they passed
through the trees, and when she saw Bruiser’s old clunker third in line coming home, she grinned big
enough to crack her face open.
A mixture of nerves and happiness filled her. The uncertainty came from not knowing if they
would be as comfortable with each other after ten hours apart, but her excitement overshadowed her
doubt.
Brooke waved from across the dirt road as she plodded carefully down the porch steps of her and
Tagan’s trailer. Diem waved back and jogged toward her to wait for the crew to return from a long day
cutting lumber.
Absently, she waved to the others who drove by like a sexy lumberjack parade, but her eyes
drifted time and time again to the nose of Bruiser’s truck. He pulled in front of his trailer, and she bolted
for the driver’s side.
He threw open the door, and his gaze collided with hers. Smiling dark eyes and a big old grin just
for her, and she was running straight for his outstretched arms. Not even the dirt smears on his cheeks and
arms took away from how sexy the man was.
He bent and caught her, then lifted her off her feet and spun in a lazy circle. “Damn, woman, it’s
sure good to come home to a greeting like that at the end of a long day.”
She giggled and gave him a half-hearted swat as he nuzzled her neck. “You’re getting me all dirty.”
“Good,” he rumbled against her throat as he gave her biting kisses upward toward her ear. “I need
to get you used to this. You aren’t in some fancy dancy mansion anymore, D.”
A soft rumble emanated from her, and he drew back as if he’d been slapped. “Was that her?” he
asked in a shocked voice.
Pursing her lips to ward off the embarrassment, Diem nodded.
“Mmm, my sexy dragon,” Bruiser murmured.
He nibbled her bottom lip until she melted against him and the rattling growl came from her again.
“You know,” she teased. “Most men would be terrified of that sound coming from a woman he was
kissing.”
“Not me. I like my woman dangerous.”
She laughed at the idea that he found her dangerous. She was pretty much the worst dragon ever.
Father and her half-brothers were terrifying, but Diem was a newborn kitten compared to them.
 “Guess what?” she asked coyly.
“What?”
“I cooked dinner for you.”
Bruiser jerked his strong chin back as his eyes went round. “What? You cooked for me?”
“I did.” And it was at that moment the smell of smoke hit her nostrils. And apparently Bruiser’s,
too, because he inhaled deeply and shot a worried look at his trailer.
“Oh, no!” Diem wiggled out of his arms and sprinted for the porch.
Inside, spaghetti-flavored smoke billowed from the skillet on the stove, and she yelped in panic as
she pulled it onto a cool coil and rushed to turn off the knob. “No,” she groaned as she lifted the edge of
the clumped pasta with a spoon. It was completely charred on the bottom.
Bruiser wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his lips against her shoulder. His body
shook with laughter, and she rounded on him.
“It’s not funny! I had this all planned out. I was going to impress you with my cooking. I wanted to
prove to you I’m not just some spoiled rich girl who can’t do anything domestic. The meal looked perfect
before I went outside. You were supposed to be proud of me. For once I was going to make someone
proud.” Her voice hitched as she fought the sob that clawed its way up the back of her throat. “And now
dinner is ruined!”
Bruiser was doing an awful job of hiding his obnoxious grin behind pursed lips. “Diem, I don’t
expect for you to cook for me, woman. But this,” he said, gesturing to the kitchen, “is so damned cute and
so damned sweet, and if you ignore the smoke, it smells fuckin’ divine. Dinner is perfect.”
“It’s inedible,” she groused, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Look.” Bruiser scooped the top layer of pasta out of the pot and plopped it into a serving bowl.
“Perfect. And the green beans and garlic bread look like they cooked up just right. Come here.”
“I failed.”
Bruiser canted his head. “Even if you burned all the food, I’d still eat it. You didn’t fail. This
looks delicious.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“I’m not. I’m starving and can’t wait to eat with you.” He approached slowly and gripped her
waist, then dragged her against him. “My mate. This is perfect. More than I ever expected.” He leaned
down and sipped at her lips until she melted the rest of the way against his taut chest.
It was really hard to stay mad at herself when Bruiser was so forgiving. But then again, perhaps
this was how it was supposed to be. Maybe she’d been treated too harshly by the people who had raised
her, who made her feel like she was never good enough. Between Father and the nanny he’d hired to bring
her up, she’d been scolded often and given praise seldom. Bruiser wasn’t like that, though, and she was
going to have to learn to get over her insecurities. He deserved the best of her, burned pasta giggles and
all.
 “I don’t know about you, but I prefer my food burnt.” Diem wrapped her arms around his waist
and squeezed him tight, a thank-you for being so sweet with her mistake.
“I’m actually surprised you don’t just eat ashes, you little fire-breather.”
“I’m not a fire-breather, but I do like my steak well-done.”
“Oh, now that’s just wrong. Just pass my cow by the fire and I’m ready to eat.”
“Gross,” she said, biting his pec gently. “Go clean up and I’ll get our charred dinner on the table.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, then kissed her right on the hairline and headed for the bedroom.
She watched him saunter away until he ducked under the doorframe, because dang, that man could
fill out a pair of old, faded holey work jeans. A dirt-smeared white shirt clung to his defined back, as if
he’d entered a wet T-shirt contest just for the benefit of her pervy eyeballs. Ripping her gaze away from
the door he’d disappeared through, she set the table double-time. The sooner they ate, the sooner she
could get to her naughty plans for him tonight.
Diem had psyched herself up all day for spending another night with Bruiser, but she grew more
and more nervous through dinner. Fooling around was one thing, but actually making love to him was
huge. She was guaranteed not to be very good at it. And she definitely didn’t want to disappoint her
mate…
“What’s wrong?” Bruiser asked from across the small two-seater table in his kitchen. “You’ve
been quiet the entire meal.”
“I went into town today.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Good.”
“Brooke drove me, and we had a nice lunch together, and I picked up a few things Mason didn’t
pack for me, and then I picked up groceries so I could cook the only thing I knew how to, and even that
didn’t turn out very good.” She was rambling. “And I went to the doctor.”
The confusion in his coffee-colored eyes turned to worry in an instant. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I just…well, I got these.” She pulled the tiny pack of pills from her pocket.
She’d gulped down the first one before she and Brooke even left the parking lot of the pharmacy.
A slow-simmering grin spread across his face as he stared at the tiny packet. “Damn, woman, I
thought something was actually wrong. Are you seducing me with contraceptives?”
“Well, I know you said you didn’t want to be with me until I was on the pill and had condoms. I
got those, too, but I didn’t know which ones to get, so I got a party pack of like ten different kinds, and oh,
my gosh…” Diem put her clammy palms against the heat in her cheeks to try and relieve what was
probably an epic blush. “I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing in the world for you to apologize for, D. I’m really glad you took care of all that
today. It was hard enough trying to resist you last night. Tonight would’ve been brutal.”
“For me, too,” she admitted softly. “I like you.” Those last words slipped out unbidden, but she
wouldn’t take them back. She felt how she felt, and Bruiser should know he was cared for.
 He opened his mouth to say something, but a pounding knock sounded against the front door. Tagan
stuck his head in before Bruiser could get a “come on in” past his lips.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” the alpha asked.
“Oh, sure,” Diem said. “I’ll just go in the other room.”
“No.” Tagan shut the door behind him and canted his head at her. “I meant, can I talk to you?”
“Me?” Her voice came out a meek squeak, so she cleared her throat and asked again in a stronger
voice, “Me?”
“You want me to leave?” Bruiser asked.
“No,” Diem rushed out at the same time Tagan said, “Yes.”
Bruiser froze, half-standing from his chair.
“Stay then,” the blazing-blue-eyed alpha commanded.
Bruiser took his seat again as Tagan pulled up a rocking chair that was sitting in the corner.
“Brooke told me why your dad married you off.” Tagan jerked his head toward Bruiser. “Does he know?”
Bruiser nodded as his lips pressed into a thin, angry line. “I do.”
Tagan’s attention swung back to Diem. “I’m sorry for that. It’s messed up. I wanted your
permission to tell the others so they aren’t left out of the loop on this one. I wouldn’t bother normally,
because it’s you and Bruiser’s business how to handle all of this, but your dad is a beast, and I’m guessing
he isn’t going to take you shunning his traditions well. I get a bad feeling up my neck when I think about it,
and I want my crew to know about any risks.”
“I understand,” she murmured, dropping her gaze to the edge of the table. Power crackled in the
air and weighed heavy on her chest. Bruiser’s building discomfort mixed with an angry Tagan had her
wanting to shrink into the woodwork. “Can you tell them when I’m not around, though? It’s all really
embarrassing for me.”
“Of course. Whatever you want.” Tagan sighed and drummed his fingers against the table. When
she snuck a glance at him, the corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re one of the crew now, Diem. Your
battle is ours, and your worries are ours, too. You aren’t alone, not anymore.”
Diem shook her head, sickened by the thought of the Ashe Crew ever placing themselves in
Father’s path of destruction over her. “I’ll handle my father,” she promised, determined to keep her new
friends safe from the danger she brought to their little paradise.
“Not alone,” Tagan said, voice stern with finality.
“Not alone,” Bruiser agreed, tone somber.
“Anyway…” Tagan knocked once on the table and stood. “Drew set up a Slip ’N Slide flip-cup
challenge, and we could use you two if you aren’t busy.
“What’s that?” Diem asked.
Bruiser’s earlier anger apparently forgotten, a wicked smile commandeered his face as he said,
“You’ll see.”
 “If you don’t have a bathing suit, Brooke is a hoarder of them and has about ten you can choose
from to borrow.”
“Oh, I bought one today in town,” Diem said, growing excited. Beer and water and something
about a flipping cup, and this sounded fun. “Brooke said I’d probably need one for hillbilly hot tubs and
tubin’ season.” Whatever that meant.
“Good, I’ll see you out there then.” Tagan stood and walked off, but hesitated at the door. “Diem, I
didn’t tell you yesterday.”
“Tell me what?”
“Welcome to the Ashe Crew.”
Diem tried to smile, but it came out a pathetically emotional lip quiver. “Thank you,” she rasped
through her closing throat.
Tagan nodded once and disappeared out of Bruiser’s trailer, and her sense of belonging slid a
little more comfortably over her shoulders.
Diem had a mate and friends, and now she had an alpha.
 Chapter Nine

“Okay, I think I got it, but just in case I don’t, can you explain the rules again?” Diem asked
Bruiser.
“I got this,” Drew said, shoving past her mate and latching his giant hand around hers. “You suck
at explaining.”
“Hey,” Bruiser huffed.
Diem looked behind her sympathetically as Drew dragged her toward a long plastic table lined
with cups of beer. He had just confused the stuffing out of her, though, so Drew was right.
“Stand here and practice so you know what you’re doing because you are on my team, and my
team wins. What are we?”
“Um, winners?”
Drew squinted his blue eyes and frowned. “Well, don’t say it like a question, Diem.” He lifted his
voice louder. “What are we?”
“Winners!”
“Better. Now look, chug that. Do it. It’ll loosen you up.”
She did as she was told and downed the cup of light beer. “Okay, now what?”
“Put your cup right side up on the edge of that table and knock it with your fingertips. Try to get it
to flip upside down. Here, like this.” Drew gulped another cup down and showed her how to play flip-
cup.
She tried a few times—or more accurately a few dozen times—until she was comfortable with the
motion.
“Good. So, when the person in front of you, me, flips my cup and throws my hand up like this, you
slide down that tarp as fast as you can, then chug your beer, then flip it and signal the next person. Fastest
team wins. Got it?”
“I’ve totally almost got it.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“What will we win?”
“Bragging rights and more beer.”
“Right.”
“You ready?”
“I’m mostly ready.”
“Okay, line up!” Drew yelled, pulling her back past the giant blue tarp soaked in suds and water.
 The Ashe crew filed into two separate lines. The men wore swim trunks, and Diem blinked hard
at the sea of muscles, tattoos, and scars. Brooke and Haydan stood waiting by the table of beer to judge
there was no cheating because apparently cheating at Slip ’N Slide flip-cup was a thing. Brooke wore a
little yellow bikini and showed off her gorgeous baby belly proudly, stretch marks and all. God, Diem
loved it here. She’d seen half the crew at some point lean down close and talk to Brooke’s unborn cub as
if he could hear them.
The way the men treated women here, it was impossible to feel self-conscious, especially when
the other women were so confident with their revered place among these dominant grizzly shifters.
“You’re going down, Daye!” Skyler called from the other line.
“That’s Keller to you, as soon as I fill out the paperwork.” Oh, geez, she sucked at trash talk.
Drew shoved her into the third spot in line, right in front of Bruiser.
“Is this where the weakest link goes?” she joked.
“No,” Bruiser said, brushing his lips against the back of her neck. “This is where the badass
dragons go.”
“Huh?” Denison asked from the other line.
“Nothing!” Diem called with a grin.
She pulled the strap on her bright green bikini top tighter and narrowed her eyes on the beer table.
Brooke and Haydan held up their hands and the former called out, “Ready, steady, go!”
Diem’s hands shook from nerves as Brighton took the first turn for their team. What if she fell on
her face and messed up and everyone was mad at her for sucking at team sports? In her defense, dragons
didn’t exactly play well with others. Or at least the Daye dragons didn’t. She was pretty sure her half-
brothers would lose for their team just to be assholes.
That was the Daye way.
But she wasn’t a Daye anymore, and black bear blood ran through her veins from her mother’s
side, a fact she was growing prouder of by the day. And when Drew took a turn and flipped his cup and
his hand shot up in the air, well, Diem took off determined to not be the weakest link in her team’s chain.
She fell stomach first onto the tarp and squinted against the flying water and bubbles to the raucous
encouragement of her team behind her. They were chanting her name as she slid onto the grass and
sprinted for the table. Drew murmured encouragement as she downed the beer and set her cup right side
up. The first time she missed, and the second time, too, but the third time was the charm, and she shot her
hand in the air as Drew grabbed her shoulders and shook her like a rag doll as he whooped. Her bones
were thoroughly rattled, but nothing could touch this feeling as she watched a proud grin stretch across
Bruiser’s face as he took off for the tarp.
Skyler flipped her cup a moment later and raised her hand, and the race was on between Bruiser
and Kellen. Bruiser’s abs flexed with every powerful stride, and he slid onto the tarp without abandon.
He and Kellen shot down it like two muscly rockets, then raced for the table. Their cups flipped on the
first try and at almost the same moment, they raised their hands.
Everly was up for Diem’s team, and she cheered so loud for Brighton’s mate. She was the nicest,
sweetest person Diem had ever met, and she wanted badly for Everly to be the one to shoot their team to
victory.
Everly flopped off the tarp and ran for the table, chugged her beer, and flipped the cup twice
before Danielle reached the table for the other team.
“Come on, Everly!” Diem cheered. “You can do it!” She grasped Bruiser’s hand and jumped up
and down beside him.
Everly flipped the cup, and it wobbled, but landed a split second before Danielle’s did. The team
erupted into a deafening victory cheer. Clapping, ear-splitting whistles, and she and Everly were hugging
and laughing and jumping around in a circle. Bruiser picked them both up in his meaty arms like they were
no bigger than toys, and when he set them down, Brighton kissed his mate until she looked drunk.
“Undefeated!” Drew yelled, pointing at Denison.
Denison flipped him off and drank another plastic cup of beer. “Rematch.”
Drew’s blond eyebrows arched high, and he spread his hands out, palm up. “Bring it, Denny boy.
My team is undefeatable. We’re like a well-oiled machine!”
“Line up,” Denison called as he pointed to the start again.
Worried, Diem looked up at Bruiser. “Uh, this well-oiled machine has now had two beers in the
last few minutes, and I’m feeling wobbly.”
“And that is the point of the game,” Bruiser said, then leaned forward and kissed her until she was
even more unstable on her feet.
“That’s not helping,” she muttered as he laughed and pulled her toward the starting point again.
“Are you having fun?” he asked, sliding his arm over her shoulders.
Here at his side, she felt all glowy and safe. “Yeah,” she answered him breathlessly. She really,
really was.
“That’s also the point of the game.”
****
After three consecutive games of Slip ’N Slide flip-cup, and after the sun had set over the
Montana mountains that nestled the Asheland Mobile Park, Diem settled in with the others around the
bonfire and watched fireflies lazily floating about on the breeze along the tree line. In an attempt to sober
up, she’d downed a giant glass of water.
“You like your marshmallows burnt to a crisp, don’t you, D?” Bruiser asked, mischief dancing in
his eyes.
She giggled and leaned back in the neon green plastic chair by the fire. “You know I do.”
“Alligator,” Denison said half-heartedly around an entire s’more. He’d been tossing out guesses
all night.
 “Nope.”
Brooke snickered from across the fire, and even Tagan was smiling.
“Man, Skyler already said she is a flier,” Bruiser said, shaking his head in disappointment. “Last
time I checked, gators didn’t have wings. You suck at this.”
“I do not! And I’ve already guessed every flying shifter there is. Flying squirrel.”
“Nope,” Diem said. She’d tried to tell him earlier just to put him out of his misery, but Tagan had
cut her off and told her to let him guess.
“There, there,” Danielle crooned as she sank onto her mate’s lap. She petted his head
sympathetically and handed him another s’more.
It was a sad day to be Denison. Couldn’t guess Diem’s shifter, even though she’d already told him
what she was on the first day she’d met the Ashe Crew, and then his team had lost three times in a row, a
fact which Drew hadn’t stopped crowing about for the past two hours.
“You look happy,” Bruiser said as he handed her the gooey snack he’d so carefully made for her.
“I am.”
Bruiser leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Happiness is sexy on you.”
“Well, in that case”—her voice came out much huskier than she meant for it to—“I’m ridiculously
happy.” She leveled him with a hint-filled stare.
Her heart pounded as she watched a sensual smile curve his lips. “Ladies and gents,” Bruiser said
as she bit into her s’more. “My lady and I are done for the night.”
“Bow chicka wow wow,” Drew called.
Bruiser lifted her off the chair and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He
smacked her bikini-clad butt and called over his shoulder, “Shut up, Drew.”
“If I shut up, then we’ll all hear you boinking,” Drew said with a frown.
“Plug your ears,” Diem joked around the full mouth of marshmallows and chocolate.
Bruiser’s booming laugh under her warmed her from her hairline to her toes.
At his trailer, he set her down, then picked her up like a babe and carried her across the threshold.
“You sobered up yet, woman?”
“Is that what you’ve been waiting for?”
“Hell yeah, it is. I don’t want our first time to be a blurry memory for you.”
“I’m mostly sober.”
“Mmm, shower first then. I’ll wash you up with that fruity body wash and hoity-toity squishy
loofah sponge I found hanging in your shower this morning.”
She snorted. “Don’t hate on my bath essentials, Mr. Keller. I like to smell good.”
“Well, I like the way you smell right now.”
“I smell like dirt and beer,” she argued, pointing to a mud stain across her abdomen to highlight
her point.
 “No,” he said, sucking on her bottom lip. “You smell like s’mores and campfire smoke and piney
earth.
Oh. Well, that actually sounded kind of nice with him saying it all low like that.
“And arousal,” he added.
“That’s embarrassing.”
“Why?” he asked against her lips as he reached into the front of her bikini bottoms.
A slick sound filled the air as he pushed his finger slowly into her.
“And anyways, that’s your fault for walking around all night in your swim trunks that show off
those creases of muscle over your hips bones, your eight-pack abs, sexy chest, and muscly arms. The
arousal smell is unavoidable if you set out to seduce me like that.”
Bruiser’s lips turned up in a smile against her neck as he kissed her. “You think it’s been easy for
me?” he murmured against her skin. “Watching you in that sexy two-piece, the outline of those perfect tits
right there for me to see, and all that creamy skin I can’t get enough of? I’ve been rockin’ a boner since
you came out of the trailer in that swimsuit, D.”
“For me?”
“Of course, for you. You’re sexy as hell. You’re beautiful, yeah, but it’s more than that. Your
personality makes me want you even more. Confidence sure looks good on you, woman.”
Diem slid her arms around his neck and tried to steady her shuddering breath. “I don’t want to take
a shower.” Before she could talk herself out of her boldness, she leaned up on her toes and kissed him.
And when he leaned into her to deepen that kiss, she brushed her tongue against the closed seam of
his mouth. That soft growl she was growing to love rattled his chest, and she pulled her hand down across
the warm, smooth skin to feel it against her palm—that small sound of satisfaction. She’d done that.
He opened his lips and allowed her to brush her tongue against his. With a helpless sound deep in
his throat, Bruiser lifted the backs of her knees until he was nestled between her thighs, then he walked
her backward toward his bedroom.
Desperate to feel all of his skin against hers, Diem untied the drawstring of his swim trunks and
pushed them down his legs. Bruiser seemed just as thirsty for her skin when he tugged the string of her
bikini, then plucked her bottoms off and tossed both pieces to the floor. For a moment, he seemed stunned,
staring wide-eyed at her body. There wasn’t much light in here, only the soft illumination from the kitchen,
but her skin was pale and glowed like a bug light in the dark. She used to be self-conscious about it, but
reflected in Bruiser’s dark eyes, she looked quite different. Pretty, even.
“I don’t know how I got so lucky,” he murmured, settling over her.
And she understood. He’d made a deal for her hand in marriage, and by all accounts, this
shouldn’t have worked. They shouldn’t have clicked like this. Father had made a mistake giving her to the
Ashe Crew for protection because now, she had for a shot at living a happy life, and there would be no
more dragons.
 It seemed fate had slapped his hand for mistreating his kin.
“I’m the lucky one,” she whispered.
Bruiser’s eyes pooled with such adoration she was filled with a warm, funny feeling from her
middle outward. Her limbs tingled with it.
Bruiser’s smile faded, then returned slowly. “Do you feel that?”
“What is it?” she asked on a breath.
“Our bond. Are you sure you choose me forever, Diem? After this, we’ll be bound and there is no
going back. This feels…big.”
Stretching up, she kissed him softly. With a happy sigh, she relaxed under him and said, “I’m not
scared. Not anymore. I choose you for always.”
He reached for the end table drawer where she’d told him she’d stashed the condoms. The rip of
foil sounded loud in the quiet of the room, but seconds later, his attention was back on her. He leaned
forward and drew her nipple into his mouth, sucking gently until it was drawn up tight. Her skin was
sensitive there, and she arched up to encourage the affection. His hand slid under the curve of her back
and held her there. And by the time he paid her other breast equal attention, she was rolling her hips
against his just to feel him against her. Knees spread wide, she moaned and gripped his hair as he trailed
kisses up her neck. He nibbled her earlobe and touched the slick opening of her sex with the thick head of
his cock.
“Relax for me all the way so I don’t hurt you,” he whispered, and she made the conscious effort to
do so.
He rubbed his fingers down the inside of her leg while propped up on a locked arm. As he pushed
into her, he held her gaze. Inch by inch, his long, thick shaft filled her. The stretch burned, but she kept her
face neutral and waited for the pain to subside. She’d read books on sex, and a little burning pressure was
to be expected, especially since her mate was large. It wasn’t until he filled her completely and brushed
her clit that it felt good. Really good. He slid out of her slowly and pushed in again. When he touched that
sensitive spot again, she dug her nails into his back.
Bruiser clenched his jaw, and the muscles in his arms flexed and tightened, as if his control was
slipping. Diem forced herself to relax further, and he slid in easier, faster this time. She gasped at how
good it felt and held onto him tighter.
“Right there,” she panted.
“Fffuck, woman. You’re so sexy when you tell me what you like.”
She leaned upward and kissed his earlobe. Softly, she whispered, “Faster.”
Bruiser’s hips bucked against hers, and now the pleasure greatly outweighed any discomfort. She
smiled and grazed her teeth against his neck. “Harder.”
He thrust into her again, this time slipping his arm under her hips and pulling her closer as he
pushed into her. A quiet moan escaped her lips, and he captured the sound with his, kissing her as he filled
her again. His tongue thrust against hers in rhythm to the penetration between her legs, and she was gone.
Pressure building, sex tingling, rocked by utter pleasure.
His control was no more as the muscles in his stomach flexed with every powerful thrust. The
growling in his throat grew louder as she bowed against him and ran her nails down his back.
He slammed into her, faster and faster until the pressure was too much. “Bruiser!” she cried out as
he clamped his teeth against her shoulder and slammed into her hard enough to move her backward on the
bed. She detonated around him, crying out as the pleasure became blinding. She closed her eyes to the
world as her mate froze inside of her, swelling as he growled out her name. Throbbing pulses ripped
through her, but she was helpless to decipher between her orgasm and Bruiser’s. He bucked into her
sporadically as he swelled again, warming her from the inside out.
“Shit,” he muttered, eyes intent on her shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”
Warmth trickled into the hollow at the base of her throat, and she turned her head and stared at the
stinging bite mark he’d made.
“Will it scar?” One could hope.
“How fast do you heal?”
“Not as fast as you would.”
“Then yeah, it’ll scar. Fuck, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did that.” Bruiser backed off her and
pulled out, then ran his hands through his hair like he was pissed off at himself. “I hurt you.”
Frowning, Diem said, “I’m not complaining. This is a claiming mark, right? The other women here
have them.”
“Did you want one? I should’ve asked you first.”
Diem sighed in relief and pulled him onto the bed. Rolling him over, she straddled his hips and
tucked her arms under her breasts, then lay against his chest. “I secretly wanted one, but I didn’t know
how to ask. I know it’s different if it’s not a bear-bear pairing.”
“You aren’t mad? You aren’t hurt?”
“No, and not really. It just stings a little, but now I’ll bear your mark for always. You claimed
me.”
Bruiser huffed a little relieved laugh and wrapped his arms around her back. For a long time, she
stayed like that, safe and warm in her mate’s arms. And he was her mate now, in all the ways he could be.
They had a paper that bound them by human laws, and their animals had accepted each other. Now, she
had Bruiser’s mark on her shoulder that said he chose her back.
Nothing in the world could touch this feeling of elation.
“Tell me about the picture.” She was drowsy but wasn’t ready for sleep yet. Not when she wanted
to enjoy every moment here tonight with the man she was falling in love with.
Bruiser inhaled deeply and rubbed her back in a distracted sort of way—little circles here and
there with his fingertips. “The Ashe Crew is the family I created for myself, but that picture is a
photograph of my blood family.” He made a ticking sound behind his teeth. “Kind of.”
“What does kind of mean?”
“I didn’t meet them until I was ten. That photograph was taken a few months after Ma Keller found
out about me.”
Diem frowned at the wall as she snuggled her cheek against his chest. “Explain.”
“Diem, this isn’t something I enjoy talking about.”
“Tell me once and be done with it. And then you can ask me anything, too.”
“Shit,” he said on a breath. The massage circles stopped, and he hugged her real close. His hands
shook against her back. “My dad stepped out on Ma Keller, who was his wife. They had four boys
together, Gage, Cody, Boone, and Dade. My dad fucked up. Cheated. Nah, it was more than that. He had
an affair. Ma Keller had no idea. Dad was a firefighter and worked odd hours, and she didn’t even
suspect he was shacking up with my mom whenever he got the urge.”
Bruiser got quiet and puffed air from his cheeks before he continued.
“When I was born...well…you know how it works with dragon females better than I do. My mom
didn’t make it, and my dad had a newborn bastard kid he didn’t know what to do with. So he hid me
away. Hired a full time nanny to live out in the boonies with me. She raised me, and I thought she was my
mom for a long time. No one ever told me otherwise, and I had no idea about the scandal that surrounded
my birth. Dad was always weird around me. Distant. He said I looked just like my mother, and I think that
hurt him. I don’t know. I wanted to go to parades in town with him. Wanted him to take me to movies and
let me go to public school, but he said I couldn’t because I was special. I wasn’t fuckin’ special, though. I
was a blight on his name. His darkest secret. He died in a fire when I was ten. Or at least I thought it was
a fire that took him. There was some confusion around his death. Chemical burns to his neck, which didn’t
make sense at the time because he was still wearing his fire suit when his crew pulled him from the
wreckage of this old blazing building. It had to be IESA. They detonated these trackers filled with acid in
my brother Dade’s neck when I went to help them last week. Same type of chemical burns. Anyway, my
nanny had instructions on what to do if anything ever happened to my dad, so she dropped me off at the
Keller’s house with a single suitcase and an envelope that had Ma Keller’s name on it in dad’s
handwriting. That’s when I found out I was the half-dragon bastard secret of the great and honorable Titus
Keller. Or so his letter to Ma Keller said. Dad was a bit of a legend in Breckenridge, so when word got
out around town, Ma Keller was shamed just as much as I was. She took me in, but she couldn’t seem to
get over my parentage. She kept me separate from her boys for a while. They all looked just like her, and I
was living proof that her husband had led a secret life for a decade that didn’t include her. I can’t blame
her, really. I understand why she never bonded with me, but it was an uncomfortable home situation for
the eight years I lived with the Kellers. I grew up never fitting anywhere, watching this amazing, happy
family going about their lives from the outside. I grew resentful. Packed my bags the day I turned eighteen
and never looked back. Not until last week when my older brother Cody called me, telling me the family
was being pressed on by this asshole IESA agent named Krueger. I knew the man because he’d been after
me for a while, too, but I think your dad had been keeping him at bay. I knew if Cody was desperate
enough to call me, they were in trouble. Like end-of-their-entire-crew trouble, and they had three cubs to
protect.”
“You have nieces and nephews?” she asked.
“Two nephews and a niece, all towheaded Keller stock through and through. Cute as shit, and I
couldn’t stop playing with them when I was there, but I sure was in a rush to get back here where I
belonged. Being back in that town where everyone knew about where I’d come from just felt like it was
going to suffocate me.”
“How did your brothers treat you when you were growing up with them?”
“Half-brothers. And they were upset at first. It’s a lot for a kid to accept they have this brother
they’ve never heard of, and that he’s there because their father was a rat bastard of a man and not the hero
they’d always thought he was.”
“Do you ever talk to them on the phone or write letters?”
“They call from time to time. I think they want a relationship, but I’m not ready. Not after
everything, and not after finding such easy relationships here.”
“But they’re blood, Bruiser. Having a relationship with your half-brothers doesn’t have anything
to do with how much you love being a part of the Ashe Crew. If they are reaching out to you, you owe it to
yourself to respond. You were put into that family for a reason.”
“Yeah, and what about you?” he asked, his voice defensive. “You think it’s fair you were given to
your dad? You can’t choose family, Diem. Not blood family.”
“Are they murderers? Are they terrible people?”
A snarl of frustration rattled against her cheek. “No. They do what they have to do to protect their
crew, same as we do, but no, they aren’t murderers. The Kellers are good to the bone. I just didn’t fit in
with them.”
“But you’re the one still hurting after all this time. You keep that picture of them in your bedroom
because you feel some connection with them, but you keep them at an arm’s length. You don’t have to,
Bruiser. You can’t ever heal from what was done unless you accept who you are. And like it or not, dark-
headed or not, same mother or not, you’re a Keller same as them. Now I’ve said my piece, but know this.
If my father or half-brothers ever tried for a relationship with me the way your half-brothers have tried,
I’d be happy just to have them care.”
Bruiser rolled her over and made her into a little spoon against his chest. “You had to come in
here and be all logical and make me feel like a complete douche wagon, didn’t you?”
“You are definitely not a douche wagon, lover. Just hurt and stubborn about bundling that pain and
keeping it inside of you when you don’t have to.”
“Okay,” he conceded, kissing the back of her hair. “I hear you.”
 She smiled at their shadows against the wall. Limbs all tangled up until they were one big
indiscernible lump.
“Now, your turn. What do you want to ask me?”
“That’s easy. When are you going to let me see your dragon?”
She chuckled and snuggled her back even closer to him. With a happy sigh, she said, “Whenever
you want. If you’ve seen my father’s dragon, though, I can assure you, you’ll be utterly disappointed with
mine.”
 Chapter Ten

Bruiser couldn’t sleep. Not after the conversation with Diem about his family. She saw things
differently, and for as bad as he’d thought he had it growing up, Ma Keller had taken him in when she
didn’t have to. It must’ve been hard on her to feed the boy that meant her mate hadn’t loved her like she
thought. To tuck him in, read him stories, and raise him alongside the sons she’d had with the man she was
mourning the death of.
And connecting with Gage, Cody, Boone, and Dade had been difficult, but hell, they’d never sold
him off in an arranged marriage knowing he would die having a baby. Diem’s family was four shades of
fucked up, and if she thought he should think twice about throwing away a relationship with the Kellers,
well, maybe she was right.
As carefully as he could, he lifted her head off his arm and slipped out of bed. Barefoot and
dressed in his swim trunks, he checked that he had enough battery life on his cell phone and let himself out
the front door as quietly as he could manage. Which was actually ridiculously noisy, because he was a
damned house-sized grizzly who wasn’t known for his light-footedness. Plus, he lived in a thirty-five year
old singlewide with creaks under every floorboard. He waited outside for a few minutes to see if Diem
stirred, but the house remained quiet.
Everyone had gone to bed, and even the outside light strands had been turned off. It had to be three
in the morning, and hell, he knew he would pay for this in the morning, but he couldn’t sleep until he
called Cody.
Cody was the leader of the Breck Crew. He and Dade had tried the hardest to include him when
he’d lived with them. It had been Cody who had asked him to come back and visit soon when he’d left
Colorado a few days ago. He’d told him okay, but they could both hear the lie in his voice.
Bruiser climbed up the trail toward the clearing on the mountain with the best view and the best
cell phone reception. It was windy tonight and smelled like rain. The clouds covered most of the stars, but
he still loved the landscape out here. Dark blue, churning sky, casting blue light across the mountains of
evergreen forest.
With a steadying breath, he hit the speed dial for his oldest half-brother and waited through two
rings. Cody picked up on the third.
“Bruiser, are you all right? What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing, man, I just—”
“Who is it,” Cody’s mate, Rory, asked in a sleepy voice.
“It’s Bruiser, baby. Go back to sleep. I’m going to take this outside.”
 “I’m sorry, man. I shouldn’t have called so late.”
“Hang on,” his half-brother whispered.
The click of a door sounded, and Bruiser imagined Cody standing on the front porch, looking at a
mountain scape much like this one, just a couple states away.
“No, stop apologizing. I’m glad you called. I’ve been wondering what happened with you and
Damon Daye’s daughter.”
Bruiser smiled and leaned up against a giant pine tree. “I’m a married man now. I claimed her
tonight.”
“You marked her and everything?” Cody asked, voice low and serious.
“Yeah, she ended up being amazing. I lucked out. I think I… Well…”
“Oh, damn.” Cody gave off a knowing chuckle. “You love her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense. I know it doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop my feelings. God, I sound
like such a dipshit saying that out loud.”
“Nah. Maybe to Dade and Boone, but I’m newly mated too, remember?”
“Yeah, how are Rory and Aaron?” Aaron was Cody’s son he only recently found out he had.
“They’re amazing.” Cody’s voice was filled with a smile. “Aaron is all signed up to do this
shifter pre-school in the fall with Gage’s kids. He keeps asking me every five minutes when school is
gonna start. He’s already driving Rory up the wall talking about bear school.”
Bruiser huffed a laugh imagining it. Silence filled the line, and it was now or never. “Cody, the
reason I called is that I wanted to say sorry about not talking to you more since I left. You and Dade and
Ma and everyone. I know I just dropped off the face of the planet, and now I think maybe that wasn’t fair
of me.”
“Stop,” Cody drawled. “That isn’t your fault. I know it was hard for you to be raised with us, and
getting out of Breckenridge must have been a great relief. We miss you is all. And we regret things hadn’t
been different.”
“I just…” Bruiser blinked rapidly, because he obviously had some sort of pollen in both eyes. “I
just didn’t know how to be a part of your family.”
“Which was dad’s fault.”
“Yeah, for having me behind your ma’s back.”
“No, that’s bullshit. He messed up worse than that. He hid you from your family for a decade, then
left it up to all of us to try and piece together this family he’d blasted apart. The man I remember was a
good man, a good father, but he was also a stick of dynamite with the shit he pulled. His death lit a long
fuse, but none of that was on you. If anything, it was more on us for floundering with your existence for too
long. It was like we just couldn’t accept that he’d do something like that, but you were there, proof he’d
hurt Ma. I can’t take back the way things were. I wish I could because it’s something I deeply regret. You
should’ve felt a part of us. Hell, you should be part of the Breck Crew right now. We should’ve tried
harder to help you fit in with us.”
“Now you stop. You were kids, and Ma had just lost her husband and found out he cheated on her
in the same week. It is what it is. I just wanted to say sorry for my part.”
“Ma has a photo album of you,” Cody blurted out. “I saw it the other day. She has one for each of
us, and I caught her crying over yours when you left Colorado. I know it probably doesn’t seem like Ma
bonded to you when you lived with us, but she did. She just didn’t know how to show it to you.”
Bruiser wiped his blurry eyes with the back of his hand before the damned tears could escape.
Fuck. He had to wait a minute before he could speak again so his voice wouldn’t crack with emotion. “I
used to wish she was my ma. I know I’m not blood related to her, but I saw how she was with you boys,
and I wanted that so bad, too.”
“I’m sorry.” Cody sounded as choked up as he did. “I can’t begin to explain why she treated you
different. I think you should call her sometime, though, because I know her regret with you runs bone
deep. She can’t say your name without tearing up. Bruiser, I’m gonna beg you again. Please come back
and visit more. I know I already asked, but in case you don’t pick up my calls again. I’m not asking you to
leave the Ashe Crew and join ours. I just want a chance to get to know you again. You saved our family,
man. I mean, you didn’t have a stake in our battle with IESA, and you dropped everything and made a deal
with Damon Daye that could’ve ruined your life, and you did it to save us. You think you’re different, but
the way I see it, you’re the best one of us.”
Bruiser scrubbed his hand over his face and leaned his head back against the rough bark of the tree
behind him. “Okay, man. I will.” And this time, his words rang with honesty because he knew he would
go see his family again and try to repair the deep cracks in their foundation. “You mind if I bring my mate
when I do? I want you all to meet her.”
Cody huffed a laugh. “Yeah, brother. I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get to meet the woman who
tamed you.”
Bruiser sat there for a long time after he and Cody had hung up. Already, the ball of pain he kept
well-fed inside of him had become lighter and smaller. He smiled and shook his head as he stared at the
dark screen of his phone.
Diem had come in here and shaken everything up.
She’d pushed him to man up in ways he’d been lacking, and that’s how he knew she was a keeper.
She made him want to be a better man—the type of man a woman like her deserved.
 Chapter Eleven

Diem bounced on the bench seat of Bruiser’s truck. Over the crunchy, shell-riddled scrambled egg
breakfast she’d made this morning, he’d joked that it was Bring Your Mate to Work Day. Diem didn’t care
what he called it, as long as she didn’t have to spend the entire day at the trailer park away from him.
After last night, and his admission about calling his half-brother this morning over breakfast, she didn’t
want to be away from him for a single minute, much less an entire day.
Plus, she’d always run the numbers side of this business, and she was finally getting an up close
and personal look at what the Ashe Crew, the Boarlanders, and the Gray Backs really did. And she had
her very own, sexy-as-all-get-out tour guide to show her the ropes—or rather, the skyline and cables, as
the lumberjacks called them.
Bruiser had already explained the theory of lumberjacking over breakfast. He’d told her about the
machinery, the beetle infestation wiping out the trees, hauling schedules, who ran the processor and
cables, as well as the role the Boarlander Crew of cutters played. But still, seeing the things her mate had
described would be much different than trying to imagine it all.
Bruiser pulled to a stop beside Kellen’s truck and settled a yellow hardhat on her head. It was
cute that he worried about her. He leaned forward and kissed her, and they giggled when they knocked
hats with a thunk. Bruiser licked his lips in a decidedly delicious manner, then leaned her hat back and
leaned in again, taking his time to pluck at her lips with sexy little smacking sounds.
“I like you,” he whispered, but she knew what he meant. Bruiser was falling for her just as hard as
she was falling for him. She could tell because he was so open and honest with her. She could tell by the
way he looked at her that she was precious to him.
Leaning forward, she whispered against his ear, “I love you, too.”
Bruiser’s face went comically blank as she slid from the truck. She wished she had a camera to
take his picture right now. A smile as slow as molasses took his face as she rounded the front of the truck,
grinning like an idiot at him through the front window.
“Hey,” he said, jogging after her as she followed the rest of the crew toward the processor. “I was
going to say that first.”
“Too slow, Keller.”
“I wasn’t slow, D. I was just working my way up to it, when I was sure you’d feel it back.”
“Now you know,” she said cheekily.
Bruiser grabbed her ass and bit her ear gently before he jogged on up ahead. His eyes twinkled
with happiness when he looked back over his shoulder at her. Diem’s belly dipped and warmed under his
adoring gaze, and she giggled and looked at the ground as heat flushed her cheeks.
The Ashe Crew went to work, Brighton on the processor that stripped trees and cut the ends
evenly so Everly could load them onto a truck for the log buyer. Kellen worked the main machinery that
controlled the cables that dragged logs up the steep mountainside three at a time. Tagan oversaw the
landing while he and Denison cut loops of cable with a saw that cut through metal. The rest of the crew
worked down the hill, attaching the skyline cables to logs and scrambling out of the way before Kellen
dragged them up toward the processor. It looked like grueling, dangerous work, but the crew was careful
and worked well together. It wasn’t an hour into the work day when they were all sweating through their
T-shirts and chugging water. Even though heavy, dark rain clouds blocked the sun, the job was physically
demanding enough that they all were drenched despite the cooler day.
A niggling disappointment took Diem as she watched them from the landing. They seemed to have
enough workers here, and no positions were lacking. She’d hoped to find some kind of work to occupy
her days, but she simply wasn’t needed.
She wasn’t needed.
Diem frowned.
“What are you pouting about?” Tagan asked, chin lifted high and exposing a long dirt smear down
his jawline.
“I don’t pout,” she said primly. “I was just thinking that I’m going to have to find a job in town.”
“That’s quite a commute.”
“Yeah, but I can’t just sit around the trailer park waiting for Bruiser to come home every day. I’d
feel stagnant.”
“A hard worker. I respect that.” Tagan rested his hands on his hips and watched his crew shove
loops of cable around a large felled tree. “Your dad won’t let you work for him anymore?”
“No. Likely, he’ll have one of my half-brothers take over my work.” In Father’s eyes, their life
expectancy was much longer than hers.
Tagan jerked his head behind him, and the hairs rose on her arms as Brighton cut the engine of the
processor and turned in the same direction with narrowed eyes. Bear shifter hearing was much better than
dragon’s.
“What is it?” she asked as dread slammed into her gut.
“Sounds like that fancy car the boar shifter drives your dad around in.”
“Shit.”
Tagan pursed his lips and arched his eyebrows. “Indeed.”
“I’ll handle my father.”
“From the look on your face, you don’t think your dad is here to just do some friendly jobsite
overseeing, do you?”
She shook her head miserably and made her way toward the mouth of the thin mountain road. She
could hear the car now, too, and it definitely lacked the throaty sound of one of the work trucks. Stomach
souring, Diem clenched and unclenched her hands in an effort to stop them from shaking. Living in
Asheland with her friends and mate had been a vacation away from the reality of her situation. The
continuation of her species rested solely on her shoulders, and now she had to find a way to tell Father
she was bowing out of the breeding game.
This was going to suck.
She’d grown used to smiling, laughing, frowning, showing any emotion on her face over the past
couple of days, and with great effort, she smoothed her features the way Father had taught her.
The dark car pulled up and came to a silent stop right in front of her. She stared passively at the
heavily tinted window and clamped her sweating hands behind her back.
Mason turned off the engine and stepped out from behind the wheel. With a nodded greeting for
her, he opened Father’s door and waited, face as stoic as she hoped hers was.
A trickle of sweat ran between her breasts, and Diem fought the urge to wipe it with her T-shirt.
“What are you wearing, daughter?” Father’s formal words floated to her on the breeze as he
stepped out of the car and made a show of lifting his chin to look down at her.
Void of any intelligent response, she looked dumbly down at her shirt and jeans that were now
threadbare at the knees from a game of charades she’d played with the Crew the other night. She’d
pantomimed an elephant in the dirt and hadn’t washed them since. Her sneakers used to be gray with
purple trim, but now they were the color of the rich dirt on the landing, and mud was squished out the
sides of her heel. “A T-shirt I borrowed from Brooke. Brooke is Tagan’s mate.” Hopefully he wouldn’t
read the label across her chest, which was the logo of some small-town beer brewery Brooke had visited
once.
Father’s nose twitched. “Hmm. I suppose to fit in you must act like the people I’ve given you to.”
Diem narrowed her eyes and regretted not bringing sunglasses to shield her dilating pupils.
“Speaking of, I think we should discuss that. You didn’t give me to anyone. Bruiser and I chose to follow
through with the deal you made, but it was my decision.”
Father snorted indelicately, and Diem clenched her hands harder behind her back to resist the urge
to clutch air and pretend-strangle him.
“You know why I am here, so let’s get straight to the point.”
“Right. I’m very happy, and I’ve found a good match. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can
breathe. I’m having fun and fitting in with the Ashe Crew. That’s what you wanted to know, right? About
the happiness of your only daughter?”
Father’s face was frozen like a statue in that bored expression of his. “Don’t trifle with me, child.
Have you consummated your marriage?”
“Father, I don’t think that is any of your business—”
“Diem!” A crack of power rocketed from Father and washed across her skin, covering her in a
chill.
A shrill whistle sounded from behind her, and the rumbling engine on Kellen’s machine cut to
nothing. When she turned, Tagan was approaching with steady strides, flanked by the rest of the Ashe
Crew. Drew and Denison tossed their hard hats beside the processor, and Brighton cracked his knuckles
loudly. It was Bruiser’s furious gaze that held her, though. His eyes blazed gold, and all around her wafted
the scent of fur.
“I think you should leave.” Diem turned to her father and leveled him an empty gaze. “I have
consummated my marriage, but we have chosen not to have children. My husband values my life over the
need to procreate to make you proud of me.”
“You can’t just make that decision without considering the consequences. For me and for your
kind.” Father’s words came out low, and a soft hissing sound emanated from his throat.
“I can, and I did. My fucking body, my fucking choice.”
“No, it’s not your choice! You’re my daughter. Mine! You have a duty to me and to your people.
Make the sacrifice and die honorably to continue our race!” Father curled forward, his eyes melting to a
steely silver color as his pupils elongated. “You’ll bear a child and be grateful for the honor!” His face
was a mask of red as he snapped backward.
“Get back!” she cried as the sound of clanking armor-like scales sounded.
Father morphed and grew, his face turning monstrous as his teeth formed white daggers. Long
whiskers trailed down his face as his body grew longer. Sharp claws clutched mounds of earth, digging
craters into the landing as a bellowing, ear-shattering roar burst forth from his long, scaly neck. He shone
in the dim light, blue and pearlescent white, a perfect specimen of what a warrior dragon should look
like.
The dragon rose high above her, eyes wild and furious.
“No!” Bruiser yelled from behind her.
Horror filled her chest as she looked back to see a giant, dark-furred grizzly rip out of the man she
loved. He charged, and behind him, the Ashe Crew exploded into raging, roaring bears.
Bruiser skidded to a stop in front of her, then shoved her backward step by step with his massive
weight.
“Stop! He’ll kill you,” she screamed.
No, no, no, this couldn’t happen now. Father didn’t have his complete mind when he was a
dragon.
The earth shook as Father approached, eyes emotionless like an apex predator focused on the hunt.
More bears circled her, hiding her, snarling and pacing as she was herded backward. The Ashe Crew was
trying to save her, but what they didn’t know was going to get them killed.
“Father, please!” she pleaded. “It’s Tagan and Kellen. Denison and Brighton. You’ve looked after
the Ashe Crew for years. They help you protect your treasure!”
 Bruiser grunted and looked back at her, confusion swimming in the gold depths of his feral eyes.
A clicking noise echoed from above, sparks igniting in the gasses that dwelled deep in Father’s
throat. That sound meant death and destruction. It was too late. Too late to reach Father. Too late to save
herself, but dammit, she could try to save her friends.
“Bruiser,” she said around a sob, “I love you.” Her face crumpled, and her voice dipped to
nothing. “You can’t say it back, but I know you love me, too.”
Then she threw her head back and let the dragon out.
 Chapter Twelve

Bruiser froze as Diem arched backward, breaking bones cracking against the sound of the monster
above them. She fell forward with a cry, her fingers elongating into blade-like claws as her body swelled
with power and sprouted scales to cover her thinning human skin.
Power blasted against him, buckling his legs in the moment of her Change. Forest green scales
shone in the muted light like gunmetal, and her belly was bright gold. She was stunning as she leapt over
him and curled her body around the Ashe Crew.
Much smaller than her father, Diem’s dragon was no match for the titan bearing down on them
now. Still, she cuddled them under her outstretched wing, and her yellow eyes met his the moment before
heat blasted from somewhere above. Flames licked the sides of her wing, and she hunched around them
tighter. A cry of agony wrenched from her throat in a high-pitched, prehistoric screech of pain.
Bruiser roared for her to let him go—struggled against Drew’s body as he suffocated along with
the rest of the crew, who were gasping for breath and space as he was. The heat was too much, torching
him from the outside in, until he thought he’d die from the burn.
When the flames stopped, the relief was instant. Diem, his beautiful, brave mate had put herself in
between her father’s flames and the Ashe Crew, but her body buckled with the disappearance of the
hellfire blaze.
Her eyes, yellow with veins of shining gold and dark, diamond-shaped pupils, were full of
sadness and pain. She turned her head toward the dragon towering over her. Bruiser didn’t know what
passed between them, but Diem retracted her wing and bunched her muscles. With a blast of wind that
made Bruiser have to dig in his claws to stay upright, Diem flapped her wings and lifted into the sky.
Without a backward glance, she struggled toward the trailer park.
Black smoke billowed from her side, and her wing was riddled with singed holes, making her
flight look unbalanced and painful.
Damon shrank back into his human skin and sagged to his knees. “What have I done?” he
whispered, silver eyes devastated as he watched his daughter disappear over the next mountain.
Red rage boiled in Bruiser’s blood, building until all he felt was hatred. He charged Damon,
slapping him down with his claws and piercing his shoulder with his canines. He wanted to fucking kill
the man for what he’d done to Diem.
Something hard hit him from the side, but he smelled blood. Tasted it. Wanted more until Damon
was pale as a ghost and lifeless in the mud where he belonged.
“Bruiser,” a voice murmured over the roaring in his ears. A roaring he came to realize was
coming from him. “Bruiser!” the voice said again, louder and more demanding. Tagan.
“Stop! That’s an order.”
Bruiser froze, his muscles tightening and refusing his brain’s order to murder.
“Change back. Now!” Tagan yelled, the crackle of power thick in the air.
With a pained sound in his throat, Bruiser shrank back into his human form. It hurt, because he
wasn’t ready, and he sure as shit didn’t want to do it. Tagan was in control now, though.
Damon was on his knees, clutching his crimson-streaming shoulder. “I have to make sure she’s
okay.”
“No you fucking don’t,” Bruiser yelled. “That job belongs to someone who actually cares about
her. She isn’t yours Damon. She isn’t anyone’s.” He lurched for him again, but Drew and Brighton held
him back. “You’ll go to your house, and you’ll wait for me to bring you word. And if she dies, well then
you fucking die, too.”
Bruiser shoved off Drew and strode for his truck. God, please let her be okay. He turned the
engine and spun out of the lot, spewing gravel as he went.
The trip down the mountain toward the trailer park was hell. He sped around slick corners and
switchbacks, reckless on the cliff edge. He didn’t slow until he reached the dirt road that ran down the
center of the Asheland Mobile Park. The truck skidded through the dirt just as the first raindrops splatted
across his windshield.
“Diem!” he shouted, slamming the door.
He searched his house first, but she wasn’t there. But the second he crossed the threshold of 1010,
he knew he’d found her. The soft crying gave her away. Fuck. He took a deep breath, preparing himself
for the worst, and made his way into the bathroom.
The lights were off, and she lay naked in the empty tub, knees drawn up like a shield and her arms
wrapped around her legs. Her long, dark hair hung in tangles around her shoulders.
“Don’t,” she said in a hoarse voice as he reached for the light switch.
“Okay,” he murmured, dropping down beside the tub. “Can I see?”
“It’s best if you don’t.”
“Diem, I—”
“I’ll live, Bruiser.” Diem sniffled and wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He waited, heart constricting with the waves of sadness that pulsed from her.
“He doesn’t care about me at all,” she whispered at last. “He only cares about what I could do for
him.”
Bruiser knew exactly how she felt, orphaned and abandoned. Uncared for. If he could, he
would’ve given his bones so she didn’t feel this way.
“He seemed regretful.”
“Don’t defend him.”
 “What did you mean about treasure? When you were trying to talk him down, you said the Ashe
Crew was helping him protect his treasure.”
“Don’t you know anything about dragons? We covet treasure and protect it all our lives. It’s not
like legends say, though. It’s rarely precious gems and bricks of gold hidden in some cave somewhere. It’s
something we attach to. Something we grow to adore in our lifetime. For my father, these mountains are
his treasure. It’s why he has bear shifter crews up here clearing out the beetle-rotted trees. It’s why he
hired Danielle to study the impact on the ecosystem here. These mountains are his to protect for always.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“What is your treasure?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked in a broken voice. “It’s the thing I can’t help but protect with my life.
My treasure is you, Bruiser. You and the Ashe Crew.”
Bruiser’s throat thickened until he couldn’t speak without his voice cracking. Gently, he hooked
his finger under her chin and turned her face out of the shadows into the muted light. The skin on her cheek
was red and painful looking, and as he dragged his gaze down her body, her entire left side matched in
intensity.
“Will it scar?”
Diem sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been burned by dragon’s fire before. It’s one of the only
things that can penetrate my scales. Yet another reason our kind was doomed from the beginning. Our
females didn’t survive their breeding years, and our males burned each other to ash fighting.”
Bruiser brushed the backs of his knuckles down her uninjured cheek. “You protected us today.
Saved us, my brave, strong mate. Even if you scar, you will be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes
on.”
A single, shining tear slipped down her cheek as she laid her face against his opening palm.
“What do you need?” he whispered, desperate to ease her pain.
“A poultice. Danielle would know where to find the herbs I need.”
“Okay.” He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I’ll go get her. Diem?”
She turned her head, exposing the angry burns down her face. Burns she’d taken to protect him.
“Yes?”
“I love you, too.”
A smile took her face. It was small, here one moment, gone the next, but it counted. It was the first
sign that Damon hadn’t broken his warm mate.
She squeezed Bruiser’s hand and murmured, “I know.”
****
Bruiser sat in his truck in front of Damon’s house, weary to the bone. Rain pattered against the
windshield, the wipers wicking it away in a never-ending cycle.
 He’d wanted to storm Damon’s castle guns blazing after what he’d done to Diem, but that
wouldn’t solve the hurt that had been done today.
Gritting his teeth to stifle a growl, Bruiser slid from the car and slammed the door, then jogged up
the rain-soaked flagstone steps that led to Damon’s house. The mansion was austere and dark, etched into
the stony surface of the cliff behind. Windows covered every wall of the modern architecture, but from
here, it didn’t look like any lights were on. He thought of Diem, sitting in the dim bathroom, burning.
Perhaps dragons dealt with pain better in the dark.
And Damon was in pain. As the door creaked open, the stink of acrid agony assaulted Bruiser’s
sensitive nostrils.
Damon’s driver stood by the door with the saddest expression in his eyes. “Diem?”
“She’ll live. Where is he?”
Mason shut the door behind him with a click and nodded his chin. “This way. I’ll take you to him.
The house was a maze of minimally furnished living spaces, oversize bathrooms with gold fixtures
and dark wallpapers. Great hanging chandeliers remained unlit in every room, and Bruiser’s soggy work
boots squeaked across pristine white marble floors. At a double doorway at the end of a wide hall,
Mason stopped and gestured, palm open.
Bruiser nodded his thanks, then pushed open the heavy mahogany. Damon Daye stood facing a
wall of windows with his back to Bruiser. His hands were clasped behind him, and the lights were off.
Rain pattered against the glass, making the soft hum of the storm the only sound.
Bruiser approached and stood beside him, staring down at his truck.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever come in,” Damon said quietly. “Then I thought it was
bad news that kept you in your truck, and I believed the worst.”
“She lives.”
“But she’s marked?”
Bruiser swallowed hard at the image of the red burns that stretched across half of her body. He
nodded.
Damon inhaled deeply and released the breath. “Have you come here to try and kill me, anyway?”
“No. I came here to try to fix this.”
Damon’s silver gaze jerked to his, and his dark eyebrow arched high. “You’ve surprised me.”
“To be honest, I’ve surprised myself. You don’t deserve for me to champion you, but Diem
deserves a better father than the one you’ve been.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Bruiser asked, rounding on him. “Because it seems to me you’ve gone so deep into
your own head and your own traditions that you’ve become calloused to what bearing children really
does. It will actually kill her, Damon, your only daughter. You didn’t marry her off to see her happy. You
sentenced her to die. To die.”
 “I studied genetics and each generation. I chose breeders who would give the next generation the
best chance of survival. Diem’s odds of living through childbirth are better than her ancestors.”
Bruiser closed his eyes against the urge to take an ax to the man’s jugular. “And how good a
chance do you calculate for your daughter?”
“Twenty percent chance of survival.”
Bruiser huffed a humorless laugh. “And that’s good enough for you?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then please, Damon. Please help me to understand.”
“I’m not like you,” Damon gritted out, eyes blaring. “I’ve lived hundreds of years, and I’ve
stopped aging. Immortality sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? Live forever and never age again. Except
it’s not. Immortality means you watch everyone you love die. I buried my first human wife when she was
eighty-four. My second one at seventy-six. My third lasted a little longer, but my fourth took her own life
at barely thirty years old. She said she couldn’t stand aging while I stayed the same. Every dragon woman
I’ve had a child with died. The line became diluted, and immortality ended with me. I buried my children,
one by one. My friends, family. Everyone I loved found the sweet solace of death, leaving me here alone
until I couldn’t feel anymore. Everyone dies in the blink of an eye, Bruiser. At least to someone like me.
I’ve grown cold over time, convincing myself that I don’t feel anything anymore. I don’t grow attached to
mortals because they will wither away, and my heart is already too heavy with the pain of loss to bear the
burden of another passed soul I’ll never meet in the afterlife.”
“But can’t you see? One life is all your daughter has to live.”
“But if there are no more dragon children, I’m the last of us. For the rest of eternity, there will be
no connection between me and the rest of the world. My sons have only had bear shifter children. There is
too much grizzly in their lineage. Diem is different.”
“But you can’t sentence her to death for your own gains. That’s not what a father does.”
“I know.” Damon’s voice hitched, and he winced. “I just got so focused on the end result that I lost
sight of what was right in front of me.”
“Your daughter is special, Damon. She’s amazing, and you’ve failed to really see her. She isn’t
bearing children. That’s not to say we won’t adopt or search for a human surrogate to carry our child in
the future, but she will never, ever carry a baby at the cost of her own life.”
Damon’s nostrils flared as he sighed a defeated sound. “I thought I’d made a mistake giving her to
you.” Damon’s Adam’s apple dipped low as he swallowed. “But it seems I gave her to the right man. To
someone who could make her feel loved and protect her where I fell short.”
“It’s not too late.”
“It is, and you know it. I’ve burned my own daughter. I showed her I’d rather her die and give me
a grandchild than to live and be happy.”
Bruiser mirrored Damon, hands behind his back as he stared at the churning rainclouds over the
evergreen woods. “She convinced me to fix things with my real family. And when she talked to me about
mending my own relationships, she said if her father tried at all, she’d be thankful. It wouldn’t be easy,
and I can’t promise she’ll ever forgive you, but if you’re lucky, you have another seventy years to be the
father to her you should’ve been all along.” Bruiser turned a serious gaze on Damon. “Don’t waste them.”
 Chapter Thirteen

“Beaver Dean,” Denison guessed.
“Man, is it possible you’re getting worse at guessing?” Drew asked, plucking a toothpick from his
mouth and tossing it into the ash-filled fire pit.
“I like that name. It’s like on the TV show.”
“He’s been watching reruns,” Danielle said, leaning on her mate’s shoulders.
“Tagan’s not going to name his baby Beaver Dean you dumbass,” Drew said louder than
necessary.
Diem snorted, and beside her, Everly coughed to cover a laugh. Everly looked pointedly at Drew
and said, “Y’all boys are so testy today.”
“Not testy,” Haydan said as he leaned forward in his chair. “Anxious. How long does it take to
push a kid out?”
“It’s Brooke’s first baby,” Everly said, spreading two fingers of the creamy burn balm Danielle
had whipped up across Diem’s arm.
The burns had faded to a soft pink, but the skin on that side of her body was peeling in sheets. She
looked like a snake.
“You’re pouting,” Bruiser mused as he pulled her flip-flop clad feet into his lap and rubbed her
arches.
“Am not. I’m just tired of shedding my skin.”
“That’s what you get for being a dragon,” Denison muttered.
“I told you what I was the first day. I said, and I quote, ‘I’m a dragon.’ I think your response was
to laugh. It’s not my fault you didn’t believe me.”
“Maybe Tagan will name him Connor,” Brighton rasped through a wicked grin as he plucked soft
notes on the fret of an old guitar.
Drew snorted. “If it’s a choice between that dick’s name and Beaver, Tagan’s kid better start
growing some buck teeth.”
Haydan cast another worried look at the trailer on the other end of the park. They’d gathered
around the bonfire to give Brooke, Tagan, and the shifter midwife he’d tracked down some space.
Hospitals were too risky with all of their required newborn tests and bloodwork. The alpha’s son was
going to be a true trailer park prince, a fact which had brought Brooke to giggles on multiple occasions.
Diem lifted her bathing suit strap so Everly could reach the damaged skin underneath. Everly
bumped her shoulder and smiled. “I know you hate the peeling, but it really does look a lot better than I
thought it would.”
Danielle fed Bo a weed. “You know, I know of some plants around here that would take out the
itch.”
“I want those,” Diem said, scratching her side just at the mention of itching.
Everly swatted her hand away and slathered another layer of soothing cream across her ribs, the
sun casting red hues in her golden-brown hair as she bent to her task. Brighton was watching his mate as if
he’d never seen a woman so beautiful, and it drew a smile from Diem’s lips.
Life was almost perfect here. Diem’s relationship with Father was a wash, but she had friends
who respected and loved their mates, and she had a safe home. And most importantly, she had Bruiser.
As if he could hear her mushy thoughts, he worked his massaging fingers up her ankles, then
leaned forward and kissed her knee. “I think it’s sexy that you shed like a reptile.”
His eyes danced with the tease, and Diem swatted him on the shoulder. “You stop it.” She tried for
a severe look, but failed.
“Sexy reptilian,” he murmured.
Denison scrunched up his face, gray eyes questioning. “Are dragons reptiles?”
Diem opened her mouth to drop some science on him, but Tagan whistled from his trailer down
the road. Diem shot up and speed-walked toward him, desperate to see the newest member of the Ashe
Crew first. Haydan showed up beside her, hips swaying in rhythm with hers as he matched her pace.
Everly, Skyler ,and Kellen showed up on her other side, and she narrowed her eyes in challenge at
them. With a breathless laugh, she pushed her legs harder and settled into a trot, then a run, and then she
was sprint racing the others to Tagan’s trailer.
“Oooh,” Diem said on a breath as she approached and beheld the tiny babe cradled in Tagan’s
arms.
Swaddled in a baby blue blanket, the sweet baby opened his bleary, steely gray eyes.
“Beaver!” Denison said.
Drew jammed his finger at him. “Stop it.”
Tagan chuckled and sat on the step so they could all see his baby better. “His name is Wyatt
Andrew James.”
“Aww,” Everly murmured, pressing her pinky against Wyatt’s palm. “It’s perfect. The perfect
name for a strong little cub.”
“How’s Brooke?” Diem asked.
“She’s waiting for you ladies inside.”
“Why not us men?” Haydan asked.
“Because she just had a baby, and you’ll annoy the shit out of her,” Drew said, blond brows
arched high like he knew everything in the entire world.
“You can’t say shit anymore, Drew,” Denison said with a derisive snort. “We’re raising a baby
now.”
“Oh, dear goodness,” Skyler muttered, grabbing Diem’s hand and ducking around the others.
She and the other Ashe Crew women stepped lightly through the bedroom door. Brooke was
resting on the bed as the midwife, a quiet woman with deep leathery wrinkles and glasses, bustled around
the room.
“Did you see him?” Brooke asked, pale as a sheet but smiling bright enough to light the room.
Diem’s eyes burned with emotion, and she sat on the bed right next to her. The mattress creaked
under the weight of the others. “He’s perfect, Brooke. You did amazing.”
“And Tagan looks proud as a rooster,” Danielle murmured, holding Brooke’s hand. “He’s a dandy
cub.”
“Did you see his hair?” Brooke asked.
“No, he had his cap on,” Diem said. “What color is it?”
“Dark like his daddy’s. He looks so much like Tagan to me. Except his little nose. That nose is
mine.”
Tagan sauntered in, eyes only for his baby boy as he settled him into Brooke’s arms. The rest of
the Ashe Crew hovered in the doorway, and Diem looked back to find Bruiser watching her.
He looked sad, and she understood. This moment Brooke and Tagan were having would never
happen for them. She’d never watch her mate stare at his son like Tagan was watching Wyatt, and Bruiser
would never watch her rock their child to sleep at her breast.
But even if that fate was never meant for them, it was okay. She was going to be the best auntie
ever. She’d throw herself into helping with Wyatt and with whichever cubs were born to the Ashe Crew.
She’d always be here, a part of this place, and a part of these people’s lives.
Brooke looked up at her with an angelic curve to her lips. She was practically glowing. “Do you
want to hold him?”
Diem nodded and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands before she cradled tiny Wyatt
against her. He grunted and made a smacking sound. His little fists were clenched, and she pressed one
open with her free hand until he grabbed onto her finger with a firm grip.
“He’s a strong one,” she murmured thickly, imagining how she would watch this child grow. First
Changes, first steps, first teeth, first words. She was luckier than she had any right to be, just being a
bystander in his life.
Bruiser’s strong hand gripped her shoulder as she stared into baby Wyatt’s sleepy eyes, and she
rubbed her cheek against his palm, telling him she was okay. And she was.
Better than okay.
She looked around at the smiling faces of her mate and friends—of her crew.
Whatever the future held, she was going to face it with the people she loved.
 Chapter Fourteen

“Geez, woman, you’re making it worse,” Diem grumbled as she reached over Wyatt’s car seat to
help Brooke free her snarled ponytail from the band she’d used on it this morning. “Why did you use an
actual rubber band?”
“Because all of my hair deals have somehow disappeared, and this was all I could find this
morning. And really, y’all are lucky I’m even wearing a bra today because it was a tough decision to
actually put one on this morning. Ow.”
“There,” Diem said, pulling broken blond hairs from the band. She widened her eyes at Wyatt and
cooed, “You’re momma’s gonna ruin that pretty hair of hers, yes she is.”
Wyatt rewarded her with a gummy smile that made her giggle from the pit of her stomach.
“This,” Skyler said matter of factly, “is why you needed to go to town with us today.”
They’d piled into Kellen’s truck first thing this morning and spent the day in Saratoga to celebrate
Diem’s birthday. Really, her birthday was just an excuse to get Tagen to let them all off work at the same
time to spend a day watching a movie at the theater, eating copious amounts of pasta at a local Italian
bistro, and shopping.
“Okay, Diem,” Everly said excitedly as Skyler pulled under the Ashland Mobile Park sign. She
twisted in her seat on the passenger’s side and set happy blue eyes on her. “Close your eyes.”
Diem squinted suspiciously. “Why? You aren’t going to stick something gross in my mouth, are
you?”
Everly squealed out, “Don’t be weird. Just close them.”
“Okay, they’re closed.”
“No peeking,” Skyler demanded.
Baby Wyatt gurgled from beside her.
“You too?” Diem asked. “Okay, Wy, I swear not to peek.” She palmed his full belly and felt him
kicking his strong little legs.
Kellen’s truck came to a stop, and the engine turned off. Everly told her not to peek about a dozen
more times as she helped her out of the car and led her down what felt like the gravel road in the middle
of the trailer park. At last, she pulled her to a stop and turned her shoulders.
“Okay, you ready?” Everly asked breathlessly. Her excitement was catching.
“I’m ready.”
“Okay, open your eyes.”
Diem blinked them open and gasped as the Ashe Crew yelled, “Surprise!”
 “What on earth?”
Balloons were tied everywhere, to every available nail and corner possible, and in every color of
the rainbow. A large sign had been hung over the fire pit that read Happy B-Day, D and had a cartoon
dragon breathing flames onto the letters.
The splintered buffet table they used to serve dinner most nights was covered in expensive
gourmet trailer park fare. Hotdogs, stuffed jalapenos, and mini-burgers with high-end sauces and fancy
condiments. Vegetable and fruit trays brought bright colors to the offerings, and beers with fancy labels
she didn’t recognize sat half buried in open ice-filled coolers. Even the napkins were custom-made with
tiny green dragons.
“Do you like it?” Bruiser asked from right beside her.
She melted against him, too shocked to say anything. She looked up into his dark, adoration-filled
eyes and nodded. “It’s perfect.”
“We have something for you.”
“We?”
“I bought it, but I needed help tracking your birthday present down.”
“Okay,” she said on a breath as she wrapped her hand around the crook of Bruiser’s arm.
Drew and Haydan parted, then Denison and Brighton. Kellen and Tagan stepped apart to reveal
Father, who stood there holding the tiniest black and white spotted piglet she’d ever seen.
Diem froze, utterly shocked and unable to move an inch from where she was. Father gave her a
small smile, the first she’d seen in a long time.
Forcing her legs, she approached slowly, unsure of what to say.
“I never gave you a birthday party, and you asked for one every year. Do you remember? You
wanted to invite friends over, and I never allowed it.”
A sob wrenched from her throat as she nodded. “I remember.”
Father’s gray eyes filled with emotion, and his lip trembled. “I have made so many mistakes with
you, Diem. So many. I can’t fix them or take them back, no matter how much I wish I could. All I can do is
beg your forgiveness and promise you that I’ll make it up to you, and try to be the father you deserve.”
“No more pushing me to continue our line?”
“I’ll never bring it up again. But if you ever do decide to pursue a human surrogate or adoption,
your child would be precious to me, as you are precious to me.”
“I don’t understand, Father. What’s changed?”
He jerked his chin at Bruiser and gripped his shoulder with his free hand. “Your husband is a good
man. It seems I needed some sense talked into me.”
“A lot of sense talked into you,” Bruiser said, cocking a dark brow.
Father chuckled out a rich sound and handed Diem the tiny piglet. “What are you going to name my
grandpig?”
 Diem snorted and wiped her damp lashes. “Did you two buy me a replacement baby?”
“Hell yeah, we did,” Bruiser said. “I told you I would, didn’t I? I said I was gonna buy you one of
them pygmy pigs, but don’t call them pygmy pigs to this little one’s breeder because they get real pissed
off if you don’t call ’em micro pigs.”
“Petunia,” she breathed, snuggling the tiny critter close. “We’ll call her Petty for short.”
“Pretty Petty,” Brooke crooned as she walked by, scratching her little furry head.
Petty made the most adorable high pitched grunting sounds, just about melting Diem into a puddle
right then and there.
“Thank you for her,” she whispered, looking from Father to Bruiser. “Both of you. And I can’t tell
you how much it means to have everyone I love here tonight.”
Father cracked another smile, warming her further by revealing glimpses of the soft-hearted man
she’d always imagined he could be.
“We have so much to talk about, Diem. I have so much to apologize for, but it can all wait until
tomorrow. Tonight, I want to celebrate your birthday with you and your friends.”
“Wait, are you saying we’re not your friends?” Denison called from where he was perusing the
desserts table that was lined with cupcakes in every color imaginable. “What?” he asked, frowning at
Drew. “You don’t think it would be cool to have two dragon friends?”
“The catered food,” Diem said, looking around at all of the treats that covered every even surface.
“Did you bring those?”
Father nodded, a twinkle of pride in his eye. Before she could change her mind, Diem lunged
forward and hugged him up tight. For a moment, his arms hung in the air around her, as if he didn’t know
what to do with them. But as moments drifted by, he softened and patted her on the back, then hugged her
tight and let off a long, relieved exhalation.
She understood how he felt. She’d been holding her breath, too.
“When I asked Drew what I should bring, he called this gathering a potluck and told me to bring
food, something called eatin’ pants, and highfalutin booze.”
Diem giggled and eased away, her cheeks heating with happiness.
“Elastic pants and boxed wine,” Drew clarified as he popped the top of one of the fancy beers. He
took a swig, and his eyes went wide as he studied the label. “Oh, my God, this is amazing. Damon Daye,”
he said, pointing to Father, “I challenge you to horseshoes. Winner buys a dinner.”
Father winked at her and murmured, “Happy birthday, daughter of mine,” then he laid a peck on
her cheek. “Oh,” he said, turning. “I’ve missed you to work with, and I’ve realized how very much I hate
running the numbers side of my businesses. If you’ll consider it, I’d like to offer you your old job back.
Not to work under me, but to work in a partnership.”
Relief flooded her veins, and she nearly sagged with the fuzzy feeling in her legs. “I’d like that
very much.”
 Father nodded and smiled, showing teeth this time, then followed Drew. “If winner buys dinner,
does that mean I get a hamburger if I win, and you’ll get filet mignon?”
“He catches on quick,” Drew called over his shoulder with a cheeky grin.
“Are you happy?” Bruiser asked, lifting her off her feet until she rested above him.
She cradled Petty close and kissed each of Bruiser’s cheeks, then his nose, then his lips. “Happy
is an understatement.”
His taste had grown familiar and vital to her over the last few weeks.
Who would’ve known that all she’d had to do was trust fate and take a leap into an arranged
marriage that should’ve never worked? Because Bruiser was special, her relationship with her mate had
thrived where it should’ve withered. Loyal and hardworking, always placing her happiness above his
own, just like she did for him. He admitted when he was wrong and held her accountable when she
needed support. He loved her without reservation and was verbal with his adoration.
He’d put all of her insecurities to rest and taught her that she was enough.
And then he’d gone beyond healing her heart. Bruiser had become the safety net under the
splintered bridge of her tentative relationship with her father.
It would’ve been so easy for him to push Father out of their lives for good, but that would’ve hurt
her. It would’ve left her with a hole that could never be filled.
And as she relaxed into the arms of the man she loved and looked around at her friends, who were
more like family now, talking and laughing with her father, everything became so clear. This was the exact
moment her life had been building to.
No one could predict what the future would hold, but as she looked down into the loving eyes of
her mate, one thing was for certain.
Here, in this simple existence with the man who held her heart, she’d found a life worth living,
and a treasure worth protecting.
 Bear Shifter Romance Newsletter Sign-Up

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Other Series by T. S. Joyce

Bear Valley Shifters

The Witness and the Bear (Book 1)

Devoted to the Bear (Book 2)

Return to the Bear (Book 3)

Betray the Bear (Book 4)

Redeem the Bear (Book 5)

Bear Valley Valentine (Valentine’s Day Novella)

Hells Canyon Shifters

Call of the Bear (Book 1)

Fealty of the Bear (Book 2)

Avenge the Bear (Book 3)

Claim the Bear (Book 4)

Heart of the Bear (Book 5)

 Wolf Brides

Wolf Bride (Book 1)

Red Snow Bride (Book 2)

Dawson Bride (Book 3)

Standalone Shifter Romance

Coveted by the Bear

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Standalone Contemporary Romance

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 About the Author

T. S. Joyce

T.S. Joyce is devoted to bringing hot shifter romances to readers. Hungry alpha males are her calling card, and the wilder the men, the

more she'll make them pour their hearts out. Experienced at handling an alpha male of her own, she lives in a tiny town, outside of a tiny city,
and devotes her life to writing big stories. Foodie, bear whisperer, ninja, thief of tiny bottles of awesome smelling hotel shampoo, nap

connoisseur, movie fanatic, and zombie slayer, and most of this bio is true.
Bear Shifters? Check

Smoldering Alpha Hotness? Double Check

Sexy Scenes? Fasten up your girdles, ladies and gents, it’s gonna to be a wild ride.

For more information about T. S. Joyce and her work, visit her website here.
Contents
Other Books in the Saw Bears Series
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
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Other Series by T. S. Joyce
Hells Canyon Shifters
Wolf Brides
Standalone Shifter Romance
Standalone Contemporary Romance
About the Author