Free An Ember To Bear (Fire Bear Shifters 5) by Sloane Meyers Page B

to face her again after the ungentlemanly way he had left her the last time he saw her. And he felt anger at himself, for being attracted to a human and caring about what that human thought of him.
    “What are you doing here?” he snarled at her. She didn’t flinch or back away. Instead, she gave him the same sort of sickly sweet smile he had given her at the hospital right before flipping her off.
    “Working,” she said. “I’m going to be helping Bailey with her jewelry business, so I’ll be hanging around here a lot. We’ll get to see each other all the time. Isn’t that fabulous?”
    Zach snarled again, and turned on his heel to leave the hangar.
    “Ian approved it, so don’t even try going to complain to him about it,” Bailey called after him.
    Zach felt his stomach lurch at Bailey’s words. He felt like he didn’t even know who Ian was anymore. Just a year ago, Ian had been similarly opposed to having any humans around the hangar. But ever since Ian had taken a human lifemate, he’d gone soft and forgotten the danger that humans could pose to shifters.
    As soon as Zach made it around the corner of the hangar, where Bailey and Mindy couldn’t see him anymore, he gave the grassy earth a giant, frustrated kick. For the first time, he let the thought of leaving his clan seriously cross his mind. Even a week ago, he would have never dreamed of considering such a thing. But he felt like he didn’t fit in anymore, and everything around here made him unhappy. The crew tolerated him, but only out of a sense of duty. He knew they all hated his attitude and thought he was out of line most of the time. And, honestly, he was starting to feel like he didn’t like anyone on the crew anymore. Not even Ian.
    Zach felt miserable, but he couldn’t tell anyone why. He was trapped in this web of secrets, and the only way out was to put the whole clan at risk. He knew he could never do that, no matter how tense things had become. Worrying him more than anything, though, was the way he felt when Mindy was around.
    He could never be with her, because she was human. And yet, his bear insisted on feeling all sorts of things when she was around that he’d never felt before. The rush of excitement was familiar—that satisfying sensation of desire that a potential new love interest sent coursing through your veins whenever they were around. Zach had felt that before, for sure. But he felt something in addition to that, something deeper. Whenever Mindy was nearby, he felt like the atoms of his body were being literally drawn to her. She had some sort of magnetic pull on him, drawing him in as though she had an actual physical connection to him.
    Zach covered his face as he realized in horror what that magnetic pull was: the lifemate bond.
    “No,” he roared, and took off running toward the bunkhouse. This had to be some sort of mistake. He didn’t trust humans. He didn’t want them around. He couldn’t possibly become bonded to one. There’s no way that he was actually fated to be lifemates with a human. Was there? What kind of sick, cosmic joke would that be?
    Zach suddenly felt trapped, like he needed to get out of here now. What was the point in staying, anyway? Sure, he liked his job. But the crew didn’t like being around him, and he didn’t particularly enjoy being around them, since it meant being around their human lifemates all the time. Every day around here had become a painful reminder of how he would never be able to look in a human’s eyes with trust ever again. And, speaking of humans, he didn’t want to be around Mindy for another second. Every moment he spent around her was a moment spent fighting off traitorous feelings of desire. How could his bear be so attracted to a human when it knew how Traci had betrayed him?
    There was only one answer to this situation: he needed to leave. He needed to get out of here without telling anyone, and go somewhere where he could truly be alone and have time to