Brother Bear Mated Read Online Free PDF Page B

do it seemed wrong.
    Complicated.
    As she followed Thames through the great room, Nastia had a feeling things would never be simple again. No, they’d get much more complicated before this was all said and done.

Chapter Four
     
    Leaning back on his elbows, Thames stared across the room at his mate as she daintily ate her lunch.
    She was a collection of discrepancies. Wise, yet naïve. Fierce yet gentle. Prim and reserved, even though a fire sizzled hot below the surface. He could tell by the way she set her shoulders and jutted her chin, she was a glowing ember waiting for a burst of oxygen to feed the flame. She spoke her mind, yet was careful with her words. Soft, but stern. The list could go on forever, but the problem was he couldn’t read her. She was too much of everything and too little of nothing.
    If love was a game as he’d suspected for so long that it was, he had no idea how to play it. Laugh and joke? Be serious and honest? What would endear his Nastia to him? Which parts of him would she like most?
    She grinned at Adira and Mirena, eyes sparkling, as they chattered. For now, the remnants of battle were forgotten and his mate was happy.
    Mason, who ate with the Sorcera, made a remark and Nastia let out a bubbling laugh. The cougar shifter and last of the unmated werecats frowned at her response. Clearly she found something funny that he hadn’t intended to be funny. Something Mason considered a negative, yet it endeared him to her anyway. And her sisters, she loved them even with their flaws. And the clan, she accepted them even with their differences.
    That exchange gave Thames his answer. If love was a game, it could be won. But it wasn’t a game, it was a journey. One he intended on taking with her for a lifetime. And playing his good qualities in the beginning might work if it was a game, but along the way she’d see all of him, the good and the bad.
    So the answer was simple. He just had to be himself. His true self. Honest and real would win his female, if she was to be won at all.
    She will be. She’s mine.
    Seeing her smile when he’d said yes to keeping the skink made him almost giddy with the prospects. He wanted to give her more things. Big, small. He’d give her gifts every day. Anything that resulted in that heart-stopping smile.
    But what? He knew so little about her. For example, he never could have guessed she liked reptiles. He only knew about the rocks. That she counted them for one, but when he’d brought her to the cave and laid her on the ground, the pockets of her dress rattled strangely. When he checked, he found that she collected them as well.
    Not just any old rocks though. She collected heart shaped ones.
    He had one jammed in his pocket right now. He’d found it while he and Renner were working in the bathroom that morning, and he was considering giving it to her.
    Except… it seemed so small. Insignificant. A tiny pebble that only really resembled a heart if you looked at it at the right angle and used a lot of imagination.
    No, he needed something better for his first gift to her. Flowers maybe, or a book. She seemed like a reader.
    Theron appeared beside Thames, sinking down next to him on the stack of wood.
    “Well?” he asked, not bothering to work up to what was on his mind. “How’s shit going?” That was just like Theo. Bold.
    “You mean how’s it going.”
    “It. Shit. Whatever. It rhymes, and it’s all pretty much the same at this point, ain’t it.”
    Thames pulled his gaze away from Nastia to stare at his brother. Theron’s bear was riding him hard, he could tell. Any normal day and the man would be all jokes and jibes. It was how he dealt with life. How he dealt with conflict. Emotion. How he’d managed to come out of their bear clan in one piece.
    But even though his face held that typical Theron-style smirk, he was serious right now. He wanted a progress report or he wasn’t going to drop it.
    “So far so good, brother,” Thames