Free His to Bear by Lacey Thorn Page A

submits.”
    Holt thought of the times Jaeda had done exactly what he’d told her to. Had she
    been submitting to him all along and he’d just not taken notice?
    “This is why I push you to complete the bond,” Laramie admitted. “Her bear
    won’t be at ease until you’ve proven your worthiness and justified her choice. The
    woman’s fear will continue until her mate claims every part of her as his, taking not
    just her body but every hidden inch of her under his command until there’s nothing
    for her to feel that doesn’t belong to him, first. Her mate controls her pleasure, her
    pain, even her fear belongs to him.”
    “Jesus,” Holt muttered. Submission? Dominance? Was this some BDSM
    lifestyle they lived? “I don’t want her to fear me.”
    “You misunderstand,” Laramie said. “Your mistake is in trying to equate this to
    some human concept of what you don’t understand. We’re as we have always been.
    Some see submission as weakness. Don’t make that mistake. I assure you that you
    will find out far differently as your relationship with Jaeda develops. There’s power in giving. You’ll feel the weight of it heavy on your shoulders. Brace yourself. The life
    of a bear isn’t easy, especially for a male. Though you have no animal, you will be
    held to the same standard as all mates.”
    “What standard is that?”
    “Jaeda is yours, by her choice. Her happiness or unhappiness is yours to give.
    She has a playful spirit, one that makes even me smile. I’d hate to see anything
    happen to change that, to mar it or extinguish it. She’s a reflection of you as a man.
    And we’re all watching. Remember that.”
    “I’d never do anything to hurt her,” Holt muttered, but wondered if he was right.
    Would he be able to give her the mate Laramie made it seem she needed? He felt a
    surge of something move through him, a strong desire to take and claim. A vision
    flashed behind his eyes. One of his mate naked, on her hands and knees in front of
    him while he took her, plunging his cock forcefully inside her pussy while she
    screamed his name. He closed his eyes and blew out a hard breath as he tried to regain
    control. Where they hell had that come from?
    Holt saw Laramie’s smirk when he opened his eyes and had the impression the
    other man knew exactly what Holt had been imagining.
    “Don’t restrain the instincts coming alive in you, and don’t confuse her
    submission with fear. Already, she seeks to submit to you. Don’t overlook the gift she
    offers.”
    “How do you fit into all of this?” Holt wanted to know. “If I’m the one she’s to
    obey then why did I see her give in to you? Is she expected to obey all males?”
    “No. That belongs only to her mate.”
    “And you?” Holt pressed, sensing Laramie was holding something else back.
    “My role is different. I’m not her mate and yet, I will hold the role of alpha. It’s
    one I thought was lost to me with the attacks.”
    “Why is that?”
    “My father was the alpha of the bear shifters. At his death, the title would have
    fallen to me as the last Kodiak among us. Hunters struck during our grief, and we
    believed they’d wiped out all of our females.”
    There was fire in his eyes, and Holt knew he was still in a rage over what he’d
    learned from Jaeda earlier. Not only had his father’s death been planned, but so had
    the attacks. The elders had suspected an enemy among them and instead of going to
    their alpha, they’d hidden the remaining females from him.
    “Without them, we would have all died off with no more females to breed us.
    There was no point in assuming my role.”
    “Wait? I don’t understand? Couldn’t you mate with humans? Our alpha, Tah,
    mated with a full human, Abby. They have a little girl.”
    “Perhaps that’s one way they were smarter than we were,” Laramie conceded.
    “By embracing the human side, it allowed for the animal to adapt and for mating to
    occur with human women. We embraced the