Pieter scowled when she held them out, but put them in his ears. Now he’d be able to see her, but not hear her conversation with Galina. She rose to her feet, stepped forward, deliberately making a noise. The sleeping bear woke, her head jerking up.
She began to lumber to her feet seconds later.
“Do not run,” Silver said flatly. “I’m an extremely strong telepath. I will slam you into unconsciousness as many times as it takes.” It wasn’t that easy, of course, but Ena had taught her that sometimes, belief was all about projection.
She set her feet apart and stared into the wild amber eyes facing her, daring the other woman to defy her.
When the bear rumbled at her, she folded her arms. “Try it,” Silver said softly. “I will put you flat, then I’ll tie you up and drag you to Denhome.”
The bear just stared at her. As well it might. Silver was currently a tiny percentage of its overall weight. But it was listening, and it hadn’t run. Nostrils flaring, it suddenly jerked forward before stilling. Behind her, she felt Pieter ready himself, but he held back when the bear froze.
“Yes,” Silver said softly. “I’m your Mishka’s mate.” She used the pet name deliberately as a reminder of the boy whose heart this woman was breaking every day that she wandered out here. “I’ve also had enough of this bullshit.” She spit on the ground for emphasis, the act not natural to her, but in a negotiation, every move counted.
“You’re in pain, I understand that,” she said in the same hard tone. “But that does not give you permission to brutalize your children’s hearts.” Never again did Silver want to see that pain in Valentin, his big body held so fiercely rigid as he contained his emotions. “Get out of sight, or come in,” she said flatly. “Those are your only choices.”
Bear faces might be hard to read, but Silver had been around them enough to know this one was as outraged as Pieter had just been. “If I see you lingering around Denhome but not coming in, if I so much as hear a report from a sentry that you’ve been spotted, I will track you, and I will put you down. Is that understood?” Of course, Silver wasn’t about to murder Valentin’s mother, but this was a hardheaded bear she was trying to reach. It required tough talk.
“Your children’s wounds need to heal,” Silver continued. “Each time they see you, and you turn away from them, it rips the scabs wide open. Enough.” She sliced out her hand.
The bear actually scrambled back.
“If you want to wallow in your pain, you do that. But you do not get to hurt Valentin or his sisters.” She took a step forward.
The bear backed away.
“The next time I see you,” Silver said in her most icy tone, “you’d better be walking into Denhome.”
Shifting on its paws, the bear turned and lumbered off into the trees.
“These earplugs don’t work that well, you know,” Pieter said softly from behind her.
She shot him a flinty look. “Say a word, and I’ll bury you beside her.”
A rare grin from this reserved bear. “You’re the scariest woman I’ve ever met. I think I’m in love with you.”
Bears. “Let’s get back.”
As they made their way through the forest, Pieter said, “You’ve taken a risk.” It was quiet. “They hurt seeing her, but they also need to know she’s all right.”
Silver knew that. She also knew that StoneWater bears would’ve never called Galina Evanova on her behavior. Valentin, with his big heart, would’ve never been so pitiless. He looked after the people he loved. He’d looked after Silver even after she hit his heart with blow after blow. “She’s a bear, Petya. You really think she’ll listen to me if she wants to see her children?”
“Huh.” He ran a hand through the sunset of his hair. “Never knew a mama bear to let anyone stop her seeing her cubs, but you did say some pretty harsh things.”
“They needed to be said.” She didn’t think Galina was manipulating her children and clanmates on purpose, but she was doing it. If Silver had to face her down again and again until the other woman understood the damage she was doing, so be it.
No one was allowed to hurt Valentin.
Not even Silver.
Chapter 51
Love is no rose. It’s a goddamn weed that digs its roots in so deep, there’s no hope of getting it out.
SILVER AND PIETER made it back fifteen minutes before Valentin returned.
Having gone to her room to dress for bed, Silver waited another ten minutes before leaving that room and going next door to Valentin’s. She pushed open the door without knocking because he was hers and she had every right to go in.
He was standing shirtless in front of the bed, his hands on his hips and his hair damp from a recent shower that scented the air with soap. Wearing blue jeans on his lower half, he was staring at three different shirts laid out on the mattress: one white, one black, the third a steely blue.
“Why are you getting dressed?” Silver asked, closing the distance between them.
He’d gone motionless the instant she entered, watched without moving as she picked up the blue shirt. “Put on this one.” Shaking it out, she walked around behind him and helped him shrug it on, smoothing her hands over the muscled breadth of his shoulders before she came around to the front. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m planning our next date.” He raised a hand, caught a lock of her unbound hair, tugged her gently closer. “I need to have a swanky outfit for that.”
She didn’t offer to button his shirt for him, though the strip of skin and crisp hair on his chest was highly distracting. “What are we doing that requires formal clothing?”
“A dinner date at a fancy restaurant.”
“I would suggest we swap that date for a different one.”
Valentin folded his arms, jaw set. “No trickery.”
“Let’s exchange naked skin privileges.”
Valentin ripped off his shirt so fast she heard fabric tear. She was on her back on the bed the next second, a bear in human form looking down at her. “Done,” he said, but froze with his hand halfway down her side. “Hold on—is this Silver-and-Valentin-wild-monkey skin privileges, or is this biological-exchange-of-fluids-so-we-can-create-a-cub skin privileges?”
She felt the tremor in his body, heard the hope twined with fear in his voice. And knew, no matter what, there was no turning back. Hurting Valentin was simply not acceptable to any part of her.
“This is Silver-tasting-Valentin all over again.” Breasts aching and her core hot, she touched her hand to his cheek, things unfurling inside her for which she had no name. “This act, it’s so raw, so primal, so intimate. I need to know if I have the capacity to process it along the new pathways in my brain.”
VALENTIN’S heart pounded like a bass drum. Sliding his hand under Silver’s head, he pressed his face against the side of hers as his body shook. She’d come to him. They’d rewired her brain, and still she’d come to him. He could work with that.
She wove her hand into his hair, wrapped her legs around him in an open possessiveness that gripped his heart tight. “Valyusha, you’re shaking.”
He kissed her, hot and deep and full of all the love he’d had to contain while she woke from her long sleep. He’d missed her so much. Crushing her to him, he told himself to slow the fuck down, to not rut on her like a damn feral bear. But then Silver licked her tongue against his, and he had no hope in hell of doing that.