The Bear's Arranged Mate: A Bear Shifter Romance Novel Read Online Free PDF

closer inspection hadn’t been as deep as she had feared. Some of her fears about Connor had been abated. If he, too, had meant to kill her, he could have done it a long time ago. He didn’t want to hurt me, he deliberately held back , she thought. No, the more she thought about it, the more she was willing to believe that she had been used as a pawn in someone else’s game. Force of habit prevented her from saying it aloud, but a name kept swimming in her mind. Caroline .
    “You’re her, aren’t you? The Greyback girl…. Sarah,” he said, “I can't think of any other Bears who would be out here. And certainly no one ridiculous enough to try and sneak up on me when they’re upwind .”
    His chiding remark hit her like a nail and she flinched. It was true, she had forgotten all her training and merely acted on reflex – that kind of thinking could get you killed out here, and it was a mistake she couldn’t allow herself to make again.
    “You’re Connor,” she replied, as if confirming the fact.
    “Guess we found each other,” he said grimly.
    There was something aloof and cold in his tone, but it wasn’t the same as the sort of distance she had come to expect from the others in her family, such as Caroline – this was a distance created out of suspicion and exhaustion of rules. Maybe he really is like me , she thought. They were both anchored to events out of their collective control.
    “I’m sorry about earlier,” she admitted.
    “You still haven’t told me why you attacked me,” he said, raising his eyes.
    “It’s difficult to explain. I wish I could tell you, it’s just-”
    “It’s fine,” Connor interrupted brusquely, and tried to smile, but it was like he wasn’t used to using the right muscles, and it made him look more menacing in the dim orange light. “I’m sure you had your reasons, it doesn’t matter.”
    No, it definitely does , Sarah said. She scooted forward on the log, and shivered in spite of herself. “I have something to tell you,” she said very softly.
    “Wait, you didn’t start off in Form, did you?” Connor said, his eyes growing wide and comical again. It was a peculiar quirk of his, one which was in contrast to the gruff adult exterior – this side of him, when he became excited, was boyish. Almost charming.
    “Uh, no, I… I took them off, and hid them. About a three kilometers back,” she said.
    Connor stood up, and raised his arms above him in a stretch. “Well, I don’t recommend trying to track through the bush after nightfall. The mosquitoes will suck you dry before you get there. You can stay here for the night, I’ll try to erect a shelter.”
    The idea of spending a night alone with the strange man whom she had only known in whispers gave her a thrill, and she felt a warm giddy feeling bubbling up in her chest, spreading downward.
    “Connor, I know… what we’re supposed to do,” she said.
    He stopped, and turned, and the adult façade disappeared again, the bashful boy staring back. “You mean the marriage, the ceremony… I know. Listen, I know that you’ve just been manipulated into this, just like me. We don’t have to… y’know,” he said, not able to actually say it out loud.
    The first coupling was a very important part of the marriage process. Of all the aspects of her upbringing, Sarah had secretly wondered and yearned over this one the most. It was true, there were suitors on the Estate. And even after their marriage, it was quite common to find another suitor or mistress – their marriage in this remote wilderness was, as Caroline had put it, merely politics.
    Still, she had never felt the warmth of another man. It wasn’t anything to do with propriety, it just hadn’t happened for her. She had read the books, that was it – and learned, in her own way, a number of things. But it was all theoretical. She felt another surge of warmth between her legs and pressed her knees tighter together until they hurt.
    “I have to tell