Free Bearly Accidental (Accidentally Paranormal Book 12) by Dakota Cassidy

OOPS?
    Darnell grinned, his teeth glowing in the dimly lit great room filled with all sorts of medieval paraphernalia and a velvet wall hanging of Barry Manilow back in his Copacabana days.
    “Yep. Someday when all this has passed, you an’ me, we’ll sit a spell, maybe on Marty’s big ol’ porch swing, and I’ll explain how that all happened. Right now, we gotta keep you and your mister safe.”
    Her mister. Hah. Did he mean the man who’d done nothing but give her the cold shoulder since they’d arrived in a blur of a flight on an amazing private jet with the word Pack on the side of it? That mister?
    How did this life mate thing work anyway? Did Cormac feel it, too? Because if he did—if he felt this magnetic pull to her like she did to him—he was going to win an Oscar for hiding it on the outside.
    She remembered a bit of the legend her mother had once told her a long time ago, but Masha Gribanov had been gone since she was fourteen…sixteen years now. Not a day went by when she didn’t think about her mother, miss her, need her advice. If there was ever a moment she needed her, now was that time.
    How could she possibly ask her brothers Vadim and Viktor about something as sensitive as life mates? They wouldn’t know sensitive from a Costco-sized box of condoms.
    Marty came and sat by her on the big red and gold couch made of beautiful brocade fabric, and patted her knee. “Glad you decided to join us.”
    “I’m just not sure what I’m joining you for.”
    Marty simply grinned, wiggling her fingers at Cormac’s cat, Lenny Kravitz, who jumped into her lap and snuggled down. “But! You’ll wake up tomorrow without a bullet between your eyes, and that’s always a comfort, don’t you think?”
    Teddy swallowed hard. There wasn’t much she was afraid of, but the unknown rated pretty high. “About that…”
    Why did everyone know what was going on with this guy out in the woods but her?
    “Oh, hell no. All answers and back story are up to your life mate to disclose, sister. I’m just here for the cheap thrills and Arch’s weenies in a blanket.”
    Speaking of Arch—or Archibald, as he was introduced to her with much flourish—he’d once been a vampire and was now human, too.
    Though, she had to admit, he was absolutely precious, from the top of his balding, British-accented head right down to the shoes that shone so bright, she saw her own reflection. His suit, silver ascot, and trousers were equally as immaculate. As Marty told it, he was Wanda and Heath’s manservant, and a surrogate grandfather to the many paranormal children in this group of accidental friends.
    Not to mention, he was, according to Nina, an amazing cook. The scents flying from the ultra-modern kitchen, where Nina had told her to make herself at home with anything in the enormous fridge but her chicken wings or she’d lose a kidney, were amazing.
    Archibald held a tray of those very weenies in a blanket under her nose, the smell making her mouth water. It had been hours since she’d last eaten, and the grumble of her stomach said as much.
    “Surely you’re famished, Mistress Jackson? All that frigid mountain air and the call of the wild makes for a hearty appetite, yes?”
    Despite the fact that she had not the first clue what she was doing here or why she’d agreed to come other than the fact that her heart, while still attempting to compartmentalize, told her she should be here, Teddy smiled up at him.
    “Thank you, Archibald. This is very kind of you to cook on such short notice. I feel like we’ve been thrust upon you without warning.”
    His eyes gleamed down at her when he barked a laugh. “Bah! If you only knew how often the thrust happens, milady. Please, don’t allow yourself to be troubled. There is no putting me out when it comes to a crisis. Everything is better when there are weenies in a blanket, wouldn’t you agree?”
    She popped one in her mouth, the flavors exploding on her tongue in a riot of such