with my jaws. The wolf screams in pain. The other gets his teeth over my snout and tears at my face. The wolf thrashes out of my grip. I swipe at it, but it’s already out of reach.
Frantic paws recede down the mountain. The other wolf releases me from its jaws, and it flees as well.
I bury my face against the snow, grunting in relief as the cold soothes the pain.
When I raise my head, Carys is standing in front of me. She’s white-faced and bare-legged, and her hair and dress are being whipped around her by the frozen wind. She doesn’t seem to notice as she gazes up at me, the bear towering over her. The bear that just fought three wolfskins for her.
The bear that declared she belongs to him.
Slowly, painfully, I turn back into my human form. The tears and bites in my flesh sting with blinding pain as they’re stretched and pulled. Finally, I kneel on all fours, gasping in the snow, blood dripping down my face and chest.
With the last of my strength, I haul myself to my feet.
“What are you?” she whispers, as I swipe the back of my hand over my bloodied mouth. My woman hasn’t run screaming at the sight of me. She’s brave, as well as beautiful.
I pick her up in my arms, my hands leaving bloody marks on her dress. “I already told you what I am. I’m your mate.”
Chapter Five
Carys
Balen carries me back to the cabin, and I gaze at the man who holds me so securely in his arms. His face is scratched and his chest is wet with blood, and my body flutters and heats at the sight. In that fight, he was magnificent. I’ve never seen so much power.
He pauses to turn the dead wolf over with his foot. “Not the one-eyed wolf,” he mutters, and curses.
The one-eyed wolf, the man I remember from the harvest festival. I thought he was a field worker from the next village over. He gave me something to drink, and after that, my memory’s blurry. If my eyes are to be believed, he’s a wolf shifter, what Balen calls a wolfskin. And the man carrying me is a bear.
I raise my eyes to Balen’s face once more. My mate. The word rings strangely in my heart. If he’s to be believed, then I’m not human, like I always thought I was. And I was made for him. A warm feeling spreads through me as I remember his words.
More precious than silver and gold.
As Balen crosses the threshold with me in his arms, he crumples onto one knee, head bowed.
“Quickly, come and sit on the bed.” I take one of his massive hands in mine and tug him toward it. I could never hope to carry him as he carried me.
Leaning heavily on my shoulders, he makes his way across the room and collapses onto the bed, sitting upright. I get to work cleaning up all the blood covering him. It was a vicious fight, and there’s so much of it, trickling down his face and chest from his scalp and cascading from a gash on his throat. There’s a bad tear on his upper back, too, but I’m most concerned about the one on his neck.
I wad up one of the clean cloths Balen prepared for Finley and put it into his hands. “Press here,” I say, guiding Balen’s hand to the spot on his neck. I work quickly, almost frantically. His flowing blood is making my chest feel tight, and the more he bleeds, the more despair expands within me.
I clean up the rest of his cuts and scratches, bandaging them where I can to staunch the flow of blood. After a few minutes, he starts looking more like himself, though there’s a pallor to his skin and circles under his eyes I don’t like as well as a pool of blood at our feet.
“You’re helping me,” he rasps.
My eyes meet his deep brown ones. “You nearly died to protect us.”
One of his brows quirk as if to ask, Is that the only reason?
I open my mouth to answer. Before the wolfskins interrupted us, I was feeling things I’d never felt before as his body moved against me and his lips tasted mine. Now, some long-dormant part of me has erupted into life, and with every touch, I can feel it growing stronger.
I want Balen.
Hesitantly, I lean forward and press my lips to his. The tang of blood and