Page 78 of Bear With Me

Bjorn scowled at her. “First, I have no problem with humans. I never have. That’s a ‘you’ thing. And second, you will speak with respect about my mate or you won’t speak to either of us at all.”

“Darling,” Ronald tried tentatively, putting a hand on his wife’s arm, “perhaps we should just -”

“No!” she burst out, actually stomping her foot. “No, this is not acceptable! I won’t have it.”

Escalus, who had been watching avidly over the past few minutes, broke in then. “You don’t have to have it, Rowena. It’s your son who’s choosing a mate, not you. As we all know, you don’t have power over who he mates.”

“I will not -”

“Enough!” burst out Ronald, startling every single one of them to attention. Possibly also some of the squirrels in the woods around them, and everyone else within a two-mile radius.

Rowena spun in place to stare at her husband. “Ronald?”

“I said enough, Ro. It’s done. They mated. We can’t undo a bite, and honestly, I’m not sure I’d want to even if we could.” He looked over at Bjorn, his gaze softening. “I think perhaps Rowena and I have been…short-sighted.”

“Short-sighted?” Bjorn echoed confusedly. “How so?”

“Well,” he said slowly, “perhaps that’s not quite the right word. Maybe I mean something more like ‘of limited sight’.”

Bjorn and Dennis exchanged a look, no more enlightened by this than by his last attempt, then looked back at Ronald. “What, exactly,” Bjorn asked, “have you been ‘of limited sight’ about?”

Ronald sighed heavily. “We have lived in this den our entire lives, and the den has always kept itself apart from the town. Yes, we went there to buy or sell goods, but other than that, we lived our lives here and the humans lived their lives there. We rarely mixed, and it didn’t help that when we did go into town, we were negotiating business in an often-adversarial manner.”

“O…kay?” Bjorn didn’t look like he understood his father’s point any better with that, but Dennis thought he was starting to get an idea. Was it possible Ronald…didn’t suck as much as he’d thought?

“I thought of humans as very different from shifters,” Ronald went on, “and I know Rowena was of the same mind. Our priorities, our goals, our lifestyles…all different. A mismatch. Humans want money and power.”

Dennis couldn’t hold back a snort at that. Ronald, who held a powerful position he wouldn’t relinquish for love or money and who was trying to force his son into the same type of position, was standing here saying humans craved power?

Ronald spared him a glance, then steeled himself and went on. “Humanity was very…foreign to us, I suppose. I wasn’t comfortable when I did have to do business with them. I may have made comments to that effect around the den. But…” He sighed. “Those children at the community center. They…they reminded me so much of Bjorn as a child. So very much. Playful, and sarcastic, and wanting the best for the world. And I started to think that…perhaps they weren’t actually so different from my son.”

“They’re not,” Bjorn agreed.

“And,” Ronald went on, “if they’re not so different from my son, who I like to believe is very like me -”

Yeah, no. Dennis looked to the side and rolled his eyes but didn’t interrupt him. This was starting to get good.

“- then perhaps they are like me, as well. Even though they’re humans and I’m…not.” He paused and drew in a breath. “And then I thought about what I’d seen of my son’s…uh…my son’s mate.” He stumbled over the word, but he got it out. “Dennis does not appear to be violent or power-hungry. He has cared for my mother while she was ill, even though he’d never met her before. He has…well, he has tolerated my wife and me and the indignities we brought to the table. I find it hard to dislike him, even though he clearly dislikes my wife and me. Which,” he added hastily when Dennis opened his mouth, “I can’t blame him for.”

“What, exactly, are you saying, Papa?” Bjorn asked, taking Dennis’s hand nervously.

Ronald straightened his back and looked at his wife, who scowled at him. He blanched a little, but determinedly went on. “I am saying that I think perhaps I was…I was wrong about humans. A bit. And I am saying that I can’t disapprove of my son’s choice of mate.” He heaved out a breath.

“You don’t get to approve or disapprove, Papa,” Bjorn said tightly. His hand tightened on Dennis’s. “My mating is mine, and nothing you could say would make me leave Dennis.”

Ronald inclined his head slightly. “Yes, I understand that. But I would like to think that it’s possible to…establish a relationship with Dennis. One that’s not adversarial. And so I felt it was important to tell you that I no longer object to him.”

Beside him, Rowena sucked in a breath, but before she could get out whatever viciousness she was about to eject, Escalus raised a hand to forestall her. “I’m sure Bjorn appreciates that,” he said smoothly, “and I do as well. But that does not mean I don’t expect you to continue volunteering at the community center.”

Ronald bowed his head again in understanding. “Yes, I figured that. And while I would like to think I am better than things like counting paper plates, I…am trying to believe that I am not better than the people who use the community center.”

“Ron-ALD!” Rowena fumed, unable to hold her tongue any longer. “They are humans! Violent, dirty, unintelligent…”

Dennis couldn’t stop it. The words were coming whether he liked it or not. “You’re disgusting,” he spat at Rowena. “You sound like every bigot ever, ranting about Black people, or gay people, or people of a lower caste. It’s always the same bullshit, and you’re always convinced you’re so superior, and every single time, reality and history prove you wrong. You've spent years – an entire lifetime – hurting your only child by being a stone-cold bitch. Why not grow up and give not being an idiot a try, for once?”

Silence. Stunned silence. And then Escalus whistled a low, impressed note. “Damn.”

Dennis managed to close his mouth, but he was breathing hard with his fury. He was so, so sick of this woman and her bullshit. He was sick of this den where most people treated his mate with condescending fondness, at best. He was sick of being away from home, of being on his best behavior in an attempt to represent humans well, of sleeping on small beds…he was just damn sick of everything.