Brother Bear Mated Read Online Free PDF Page A

watching the crew work and had learned a lot.
    Like measure twice, cut once. And which saw performed which cuts. And that you laid the drain pipes before you laid the floor. And that drilling through rock was very, very loud.
    Nastia eased around a pile of discarded wood and pipe pieces and headed for the warmest spot in the great room. She’d left her lizard in a pool of sunlight on a waist-high rock. She had the feeling he was a nightowl since he’d been snoozing the entire morning. Time to check on the little guy.
    But the skink wasn’t in the place she left him.
    Looking around, she didn’t see the black streak anywhere against the red-gray wall of the cavern.
    “Where have you gone, you slippery lizard?” she murmured, bending low to search the ground.
    “Looking for something?” Clara’s curious voice called from across the room where she was laying out a line of boards.
    “Just… well…” An arrow shaped head poked out from the smallest crack in the rock. “Aha! There you are.”
    Nastia held out her palm for the skink to crawl into and straightened to show off her new friend. Walking back over to Clara, she clucked her tongue and he scurried up her arm to sit on her shoulder.
    “Skink!” Clara’s voice squeaked in excitement as she tossed her tools aside and rushed over. “Where have you been, little rascal? Look, Owyn,” she called over her shoulder. “I told you he was still around. He wouldn’t leave this place. He’s one of us .”
    “Awww, shit,” the burly tattooed shifter drawled as he lumbered over. “I was sure there’d be no losing on that bet. The damn beast has been away for months. You sure it’s actually him?”
    “One hundred percent,” Clara insisted. “This is Skink. See how that middle line right there is lighter than the rest? And this notch right here on his tail? It’s him, now pay up.”
    Nastia looked between the two workers.
    “Damn.” Owyn sighed. “How much do I owe you?”
    Clara smiled up at him triumphant. “A cool twenty.”
    “Twenty dollars,” Owyn murmured eyeing the lizard. “How’d you manage not to get eaten by an owl or something, huh?”
    “He doesn’t talk,” Nastia informed him.
    Owyn’s brow furrowed as he looked up from the reptile.
    She cleared her throat. “I tried, but he doesn’t… um… talk.”
    Nastia hesitated because maybe what she was saying was stupid. The shifters didn’t talk in their animal forms either. But magic was in everything, so she never underestimated anything. Maybe a lizard could communicate. Maybe he couldn’t.
    “So I went ahead and named him Newt because I have no idea what his actual name is, or even if he’s ever had one. I think he likes it.” She nodded, to assure herself more than Owyn.
    The panther shifter’s expression curved into a grin and he shook his head seeming lost for words.
    Clara shrugged. “Sure. Why not. I always just called him Skink.”
    “Why Newt?” Owyn asked.
    “Well…” Nastia stared over at the snoozing skink. “He’s a lizard and I’m a witch. So, Newt, for Eye of Newt. Even though he’s not technically a Newt and I’ve never used eye of anything for a spell.”
    “Ahhh,” Owyn said, nodding. “I see what you did there.”
    Nastia shrugged a shoulder. “Thought it was funny.”
    “I love it.” Clara smiled. “And it looks like you’re taking good care of him too. He never had such a warm place to sleep when he was rubbing elbows with me. You’re good at this, taking care of people… er, reptiles.”
    “Bears too.” Thames’s voice rumbled from beyond Owyn’s shoulder and brought their attention around. He stood casually, arms crossed with one shoulder propped against the cave wall. But his gaze was nothing close to casual. It was intense as always, blistering past any barrier she might try to erect.
    He’d see straight through to her darkness before anyone else did. She was sure of it.
    “Healed me right up,” he murmured. “Her spell worked