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  It was okay, though, because Kamp’s son Raider got to visit a couple weekends before the war with the Sons of Beasts, and he and Remi had knitted a little Santa suit for their pet naked mole rat named Waffles with Peanut Butter. Waffles for short. Remi currently had the hideous little critter bundled in her jacket to keep it warm for the picture, but the thing had bitten her six times already. Ash was good at counting. That bald little rodent was very angry inside. But Ash liked her. Waffles reminded her of Grim, and she thought Grim was very cute, even when he was bitey and grumpy. They should’ve named her Reaper Junior instead of Waffles with Peanut Butter. Just thinking about waffles made her tummy growl.

  Grim was so hot in his work jeans, scuffed-up boots, wool-lined jacket undone to expose a red and black flannel underneath, and gray beanie covering his mohawk. He was tall and strong as an oak, long powerful strides, arms busting against the seams of his jacket, ax in his hand. This was like one of those movie scenes where a big mountain man was coming in from a blizzard like the cold weather didn’t affect him at all. Or like when a hero walked away from an explosion without flinching. All three of the boys looked so cool. Until Kamp turned and kicked Rhett’s ankle mid-stride, and he tripped and fell face-first in the snow. He cussed a lot so Kamp kicked more snow on him and cackled like a hyena. And then Grim told them they were both worthless. But before that, they looked very cool.

  The second Grim looked up and caught her eye, Ash took off. She didn’t want to not be touching him for another second, so she bolted through the snow and leapt through the air as he held his arms out. She wasn’t one of those skinny girls, but she had faith in her man to catch her. And catch her, he did. His chuckle was deep, growly, and sexy, and he nipped her neck immediately as she hugged him up tight. Goodness, she loved this man. He smelled so good, so familiar, like home.

  “I missed you all day,” she announced much too loudly against his ear. Grim hunched his shoulders, so she said, “Sorry, I’m just excited to see you.”

  He eased her back onto her own feet in the snow and kissed her so sweetly she knew what color his eyes were not. The Reaper must’ve been sleeping because he didn’t allow gentleness. His eyes would be the brown of his human side or the green of the good lion.

  “I love you I love you I love you,” she murmured, rubbing her nose against his.

  “Sweet mate,” he rumbled, hugging her tighter.

  “Get a room,” Rhett groused as he stomped by.

  “How was your day?” she asked Grim, ignoring grumpy Rhett.

  He heaved a frozen sigh and said, “Better now. It was long and so fuckin’ cold up there, but the boys did good and we hit our numbers.” He grinned but ducked his face from her fast.

  “You’re proud,” she sang softly.

  “Hell, yeah, I am. We rarely have good work days. I didn’t fight anyone today. And no one made excuses to quit early.” He cleared his throat and his eyes grew serious. “I’ll have to give the Reaper the body tonight, though.”

  “I’ll Change with you.” She cupped his cheeks and grinned at him. “Grim, I’m proud of you.”

  He snorted. “Woman, you say that if I lower the toilet lid after a piss.”

  Ash shrugged. It was true. He’d been a bachelor for so long that she fell into the toilet in the middle of the night once because the lid was up. Now he always tried to lower it. Heck yeah, she was so proud!

  “I have a question,” he murmured. “A couple questions, actually.”

  Oh, that sounded very serious. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  “One, do you want to go on a date with me tonight? And the Crew. A Crew date. I owe the boys a beer.”

  “Gasp!” she exclaimed. “Yes! What are we going to do?”

  “Well, we have to drive a shipment of logs down to the lumberyard, but I figured we could all pile in and go to that tourist bar right off that little mountain road that leads into town.”

  “Meaties on the River?”

  He laughed and gave one nod. “Yup, that’s the one.”

  “Yes! I want to date there. Crew date. I mean, I want to do that. I mean, let’s do a date there.”

  “Good. And two,” he said, his eyes dancing. He was the most handsome man in the whole world when he smiled like this. “Do you want to register to be my mate?”

  Ash froze. Just…her body stopped working or feeling or responding. Even her lips. In her head, she was thinking, Yes, Grim, I would love to register to be your mate for all the public to see. But all that came out when she forced the words was, “Waffles is a bad rat.”

  “Agreed,” Grim said, dropping his chin to his chest. “Did you hear what I just said?”

  Ash tried and failed to inhale a deep breath. Did the oxygen disappear from the mountains? Breathing was like sucking on a vacuum right now, and her lungs were screaming. Finally, she wheezed out, “Yes!”

  Her eyes were burning. Or freezing. She got embarrassed because she didn’t like people seeing her all weak and crying, so she buried her face against the impossibly sturdy indention between his pecs.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re shivering.” He wrapped her into his open jacket. “Are you cold?”

  “Nope, I shake when I cry. Don’t think that’s lame and leave me.”

  “Woman, I just asked you to register to me and the Crew. As my mate. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But you never bit me, so I was confused. Sometimes when you’re gone all day, I think maybe you don’t like me enough to bite me, and then I get embarrassed that I bit you first because I think it’s supposed to be the boy who does it first, but my bear just did it and I thought I messed everything up and—”

  “Aaaash,” he crooned, gripping her by the arms and easing her crying, tear-soaked, sobby, make-up smeary face away from his chest to look at her. Great, there was mascara all over his shirt.

  He ran his thumbs under her eyes and cupped her cheeks. “I’m scared to bite you because of the Reaper, Ash. I don’t want to hurt you more than I have to when I claim you. I’ve been waiting for him to settle down. You think I don’t want to give you a claiming mark? I stay awake every night you spend in my bed thinking about it. I want you bound to me. I just don’t think the Reaper can be trusted with something like that. Not yet. This paperwork would announce to the whole world that you are mate of Grim and member of the Rogue Pride Crew, though. The whole Crew is registering—”

  “Not me,” Rhett called from where he was scraping his boot off on the bottom stair of 1010. “I hate you all today.”

  “He’s just hungry,” Juno called out. “Carry on. None of us are listening!”

  Ash could barely make out Kamp whisper-scream, “Rhett, shut the fuck up.”

  Grim glared at the Crew, all milling about the front of the trailer, trying to look busy but not really doing anything. Remi was just plugging and unplugging the Christmas lights and Juno was inspecting the snow on the porch railing.

  Grim muttered a very bad cuss word under his breath and pulled Ash by the hand back toward the woods, farther away from the Crew. “So I guess what I’m asking is for you to be mine, but to be patient because our mating story will just have to be a little different than other pairs.”

  “Like no claiming mark,” she said.

  Grim’s smile was tiny and sad. “I wish I could do just one thing normal, Ash. I want to give you the world, and you deserve for our pairing to be exactly the way you want it.”

  “No.” Ash lifted her chin, planted her feet, and crossed her arms. “I don’t want that. I don’t want the same story as everyone else because you are different and I am different, and together we are different. And that’s okay. Yes, I want to ride in the log truck and help you drop off the lumber and eat and drink at Meaties on the River with you and my other four best friends—”

  “Don’t forget to include Waffles!” Rhett called.

  “My five best friends,” Ash corrected. “And, yes, I want to register to our Crew and to you. And then you’ll
be mine and I’ll be yours and we will officially bang for the rest of our lives. Whatever we decide to do with claiming is our business and is perfect for us. You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re protecting me.”

  “You really see me, don’t you?” he asked softly.

  “Yes, and I love everything you are. Reaper and all. I’m an accepter, remember?”

  “You’re perfect, Ash.”

  “Oh no, not me. I’m a mess.”

  “Not to me. Your mess is beautiful. To me, you’re the perfect match.”

  She giggled. “I’m not a match, silly. I’m a girl.”

  He belted out a laugh and swatted her ass, guided her back toward the Crew. “I didn’t mean a match that you light. I meant someone who fits me.”

  “Oh. Yes, I fit you very good.” She waggled her eyebrows so he would know she meant it in a perverted way but every time she did, her nose flared uncontrollably, so she probably looked weird. But he didn’t look concerned about her facial health. He just chuckled a lot. And that was a victory, because when she’d first met Grim, he had very, very little laughter in his life. And now that happy sound came easy. A big part of her hoped she had something to do with that.

  A good man deserved laughs. Grim had The Bad in him, sure, but The Good was way bigger.

  Chapter Six

  This picture was going really wrong.

  Click.

  The camera was on a tripod and the timer was set to take pictures at intervals.

  Grim growled low in his throat, and Ash could feel the sickening waves of dominance buzzing off him.

  “Maybe don’t stand that close to Grim,” she whispered to Rhett, shoving him back a couple feet from where he hovered on Grim’s left-hand side.

  “I’m his best friend. I should be the one standing next to him.”

  “How are you his best friend?” Kamp asked around the candy cane hanging from his lips. He puffed it like a cigar and then spoke as he blew smoke into the air, “You have a giant black eye from where he punched your face yesterday, and he deemed you last in the Crew.”

  Click, went the camera.

  “Sixth in the Crew. Sixth!” Rhett said before he took another swig of homemade beer.

  Grim was growling louder now. “Is this almost done?”

  “I want one good picture, and you idiots have been talking in every one,” Juno said, striking another fashionable pose with her leg extended and her hand on her hip. She was wearing elf shoes with bells hanging off the curved toes and the reindeer antlers they’d gotten for the baby donkey. Her shoes looked very uncomfortable and cold.

  Kamp was holding mistletoe over Remi’s head while she pretended to kiss Waffles. Suddenly, Remi flinched back. “Owwww, you bit me, you bald little fu—”

  Click.

  “You forgot your hat,” Rhett said unhelpfully as he handed Grim the Santa hat they’d fought over yesterday. “Kamp would have never remembered your costume. My Christmas wish is that you make him be Sixth and make me Fifth.”

  Click.

  “Your eyes are really yellow,” Ash whispered. “Like the Grinch’s.”

  “Kamp, get off your phone,” Juno demanded.

  “I’m taking a selfie,” he muttered, aiming the phone at him, Remi, Remi’s bleeding lip, and Waffles, who looked a little bit like a penis dressed in a Santa costume. A penis with teeth.

  Juno shoved Kamp hard in the shoulder.

  Click.

  “Hey! You made the picture all blurry!” he griped, glaring at his camera screen.

  “Yeah?” Juno said in a dangerously low voice. She jammed a finger toward the camera. “What about the actual picture we are supposed to be taking for the Christmas card?”

  “It’s two days before Christmas, Juno,” Grim gritted out, staring with dead yellow eyes at the camera. “How can we even send these out in time?”

  “I’ve compiled an email list!”

  “Oh, my God, I just found a candy bar in my pocket,” Kamp announced. “Here, Rhett, feed it to your mate quick. She’s on her period.”

  “Don’t be a dick!” Rhett shoved Kamp hard who knocked into Remi who gave a scary-sounding bear growl.

  Click.

  A long, feral shriek came from Juno. “I’ve asked for zero things from this Crew. Zero! All I wanted was a good picture to send to the Crews of Damon’s Mountains because I’m proud of us! I’m proud we ended up here!”

  While Juno was yelling at the Crew, Grim pulled on his Santa hat, scooped Ash in his arms and gave the biggest, most empty, cheesy grin she’d ever seen. Okay. So Ash made the same face at the camera and did a thumbs up. On Grim’s other side, Rhett went down hard on account of Kamp tackling him, and Juno was throwing candy canes at them like little mint-scented javelins. Remi was frowning at the camera and holding a squirming Waffles as far away from her body as possible.

  Click.

  “And that’s a wrap,” Grim snarled, setting Ash on her feet. He strode right over to the camera and turned it off.

  “What do you mean that’s a wrap?” Juno asked, a pair of candy cane grenades clenched in each fist. “Those were all terrible!”

  Rhett Changed into his lion and then so did Kamp, and now they were roaring and growling and brawling like they wanted to end each other’s lives.

  Grim blinked tiredly at them and said, “Our Crew is terrible. Those pictures are accurate.” He strode off toward his trailer on the other side of the park, his warm, strong hand wrapped around Ash’s.

  Juno scoffed and called out behind them, “I’ll have you know I believe we are a mighty Crew!”

  “Weeell,” Ash drawled, smiling at Juno sympathetically over her shoulder to try to be supportive. “We are an acceptable Crew. That’s pretty good!”

  With her bottom lip poked out, Juno sat down hard on a case of Pen15 Juice and pulled one of the beers out. She popped the top just before Ash turned back around to watch where she was going. A beer would make Juno feel right as rain. Kamp brewed the best beer. Rhett and Kamp probably wouldn’t kill each other, and Remi was back to trying to cuddle the rat, so everything was fine.

  “Meet at the truck in fifteen!” Grim demanded, and a wave of something unfamiliar blasted through his words and straight into her. All she could think about was she needed to be at that truck in fifteen. Needed to be.

  When she looked back again, the lions had stopped fighting, and both of them were looking at Grim with wide eyes and their mouth’s hanging open. Rhett was on his back and Kamp had his paw jammed against his throat, but they’d just stopped mid-brawl to pay attention.

  “Babe,” she whispered.

  “I need your panties around your ankles.”

  “Ohhhh, okay! But Grim,” she tried again.

  “Yeah?”

  “You just did an Alpha order.”

  “What? No, I didn’t. Those morons will ignore it and be at the truck in an hour if I’m lucky.”

  “My bear is chanting ‘fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes’… Oh, wait. Now ‘fourteen minutes, fourteen minutes.’ She’s very good at counting.”

  He spun and picked her up, wrapped her legs around his hips and growled, “God, I love you, my little nerdy girl,” as he climbed the porch stairs of his trailer with her.

  “Me? A nerdy girl? I’m dumb as a post, mister.”

  “False and not true. You are the smartest girl I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “I barely passed high school.”

  “A pass is a pass.”

  “I got mostly Ds.”

  He set her down inside his cabin and pulled at the deep V in her bright red sweater. “I only care about these Ds.”

  “Double Ds, technically.”

  “Mmmm, double better,” he murmured in a gritty voice, easing her backward into the dark living room.

  He shoved her red bubble jacket off her shoulders and dropped it to the floor. You’re supposed to be dressing for the truck like your Alpha ordered you, her bear enlightened her. Not undressing.
/>   Grim’s fingertips brushed just underneath the hem of her sweater at both hips. ‘Take that off,’ she’d meant to say, but her words came out, “Thirteen minutes.”

  “Plenty of time,” he rumbled. “I’ll have you coming on my dick in five.”

  Her heart was pounding against her sternum, and her body was catching fire from the inside out. Oh, when that man touched her. His lips pressed onto hers in the exact moment the backs of her knees hit the edge of his bed, and she sat down with a gasp. Kisses for her lips and then underneath her jaw, her neck, right behind her ear. He pulled her sweater off smoothly and threw it against the wall. Grim didn’t even bother unhooking her bra. He just pushed the cups down until her full breasts spilled out of the top. And there were his hands, massaging her until she tingled. With his knee, he spread her legs and then cupped his big strong hand between her thighs. Ash couldn’t help it—she moaned his name because she knew what was coming. She flattened the palm of her hand onto the seam of his jeans. If bears could purr, she would be doing that right now. His thick, swollen cock was pushing against the material there. Breath shaking with her need, she unsnapped the button and pulled the zipper down, then shoved his clothes down his thighs.

  Grim’s kisses got rough, and his tongue plunged into her mouth, stroking hers. The growl in his throat was wild and uncontained. Hello, Reaper. He always came out when Grim was riled up.

  Hand on her throat, he gently pushed her backward until her shoulder blades rested on the bed. He left his hand there, but when he squeezed, it was so tender, she barely felt it. Just enough to let her know he wanted to be boss today. She loved when he went dominant like this. The submissive part of her reveled in the fact that her mate was an unapologetic titan in life and in the bedroom. With his free hand, he yanked her leggings and panties down to her ankles. And then that hand was right back on her sex, kneading and rubbing until she was writhing under his touch. Oh, God, she could finish just like this. His finger slid smoothly into her, and then a second finger. She dug her nails into his back and rocked her hips against his hand.