Page 39 of Bear With Me

Bjorn and Dennis were cooperating to produce breakfast for all three of them the next morning when someone knocked loudly on the front door. “I’ve got this,” Dennis told Bjorn, waving him away from the stove, where Bjorn had been cooking eggs. “Go get the door.”

Bjorn doubted their visitors would be anyone he actually wanted to see – if it had been the healer, she’d have let herself in, and the alpha was unlikely to come knocking at 7am – but as the knocking continued, he sighed and went to let whoever it was in.

He glanced through the door’s peephole and…yup, not anyone he wanted to see. He sighed again and pulled the door open. “Good morning, Mother.”

“Bjorn!” She pushed past him without another word, dragging another man behind her who looked somewhat wide-eyed and hunted. He was smaller than Bjorn, and slighter as well. Reasonably good-looking, with blond hair and blue eyes, his nose pointed in an elfin manner. But…who was he?

Bjorn’s mother stopped short just past the threshold, nose wiggling. “What is that smell?”

“Uh, eggs?” He knew the woman had smelled eggs before.

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No, it’s…oh.” A deep sigh. “It’s that human of yours. They smell so odd.”

Bjorn bristled almost automatically. “Dennis doesn’t smell odd! He smells…” Warm. Comforting. Like happiness but with a residual bit of anger just for flavor. “Good.”

Rowena sniffed haughtily. “Doubtful. But anyway. I brought you a mate.”

She…what? Bjorn was genuinely speechless at that, and he stared at the stranger, who stared back at him in apparent alarm.

“Uh, Miz Rowena,” the man began tentatively, “I said I’d meet -”

“Nonsense.” She gave his arm a yank, putting him between her and Bjorn. He stumbled at the sudden motion and Bjorn had to catch him to keep him from faceplanting into Bjorn’s chest. “You’re a perfect match. Certainly better than my boy and a human who runs a bar.” She looked at where Bjorn’s hands were still on the man’s arms and smiled in satisfaction. “Kevin is twenty-five and helps in the den kitchens. He’d be a perfect mate for a busy den beta.”

Bjorn gritted his teeth, trying to resist the urge to yell something obscene, as he drew his hands away from the other man, who had regained his footing. Poor Kevin clearly hadn’t signed up for this any more than Bjorn had, and he looked terrified now, though whether of Bjorn or his mother, Bjorn wasn’t sure. “Mother,” he said slowly, teeth still clenched, “I already have a mate. A fated one. I’m sure Kevin is very nice, but -”

“Nice?!” she exclaimed. “He’s perfect! Fated mates are a silly myth, anyway. Now. As I said, Kevin is young, but he’s ready for cubs, and since he works in the kitchen -”

“Uh, ma’am?”

“Hm?” She leaned forward to look at Kevin, who was now looking like he regretted every life choice that had led him to this point.

“Ma’am, I…I don’t actually want kids?” It came out sounding more like a question than a statement. “And a kitchen is actually a really dangerous place for children. So many hot things and sharp things, you know?”

Rowena seized his shoulder and spun him around to face her. “Your father told me you wanted cubs, and soon!”

Kevin sighed heavily, as if this was a topic he’d debated umpteen times before. “My father wants grandcubs. That’s not the same thing as me wanting cubs. Believe me, we’ve argued about this. If you’d mentioned that you were looking for someone to raise children with your son when you asked me to meet him, I would have told you that I didn’t want them, but you grabbed me and brought me over here so fast that…” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

Bjorn couldn’t decide whether to laugh, cry, or rage at his mother. He settled for giving Kevin a sympathetic look. “Sorry about this. My mother is…”

Rowena’s lips tightened.

“…forceful,” Bjorn forced himself to finish diplomatically. “Mother, as I’ve already told you, I have my mate. If – and it is an if at this point – I have children, it will be with him. If he renounces me, I'll be stuck as a bear, anyway, and wouldn't be any kind of mate. Kevin, I’m sure you’re really cool -” Kevin shrugged self-consciously “- but I’m not in the market for another mate.”

“What the fuck is going on out here?”

All three of them spun to find Dennis standing in the kitchen doorway, a frying pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. He looked decidedly unhappy, and Bjorn wondered how much he’d overhead of their conversation.

Rowena rolled her eyes. “Go back to cooking, human. This is den business.”

“This is not ‘business’ at all!” Bjorn burst out, exasperated. “My mother brought Kevin, here, to meet me as an alternate mate.” There was no use trying to lie about it; he knew his mother was going to blabber all over everyone if he tried to cover her purpose up. “I was just telling her I wasn’t interested, and as it turns out, Kevin isn’t either. Oh, Kevin,” he added, “this is my fated mate, Dennis.”

Kevin waved weakly. “Uh, hi.”

Dennis blinked and looked from Bjorn to Kevin and then to Rowena. “Ok…” he said slowly. “Well, as Bjorn said, he’s already got a mate, and I didn’t make enough eggs to feed two more, so y’all can get going.” By the time he got to the end of the sentence, his words and face had both firmed up. He turned to Bjorn then. “Food’s ready.” He didn’t add So get them out of here, but Bjorn got his meaning loud and clear.

“Time to go, Mother.” He took her arm and started towing her toward the front door, Kevin trailing behind them. “Thanks for visiting; don’t do it again.”

“Well, I never – !”