The Bears of Blackrock, Books 1 - 3: The Fenn Clan (42 page)

He growled softly, whispering her name.

“Come with me, Maggie.”

She let her head fall back, unable to look at him anymore as her body convulsed on his.  He cooed to her, coaxing her to let go, to give him everything she had. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, ignoring the bandages and bruises, letting him hold her and move her. She held her breath and her body melted, sending waves of heat through her belly as he moved beneath her. He pulled her harder, pushing himself into her a little deeper with each thrust.

He groaned with satisfaction, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing her down onto him, letting her take all of him and sheathe him there. Her whole body slumped into his, feeling every inch of his warm skin.

He held her a moment, letting her pant into the crook of his neck, then he slowly lay back onto the floor, pulling her down onto his chest. For the first time, she remembered his wounds and tried to pull away from him to alleviate any pain she might cause. He held her fast, refusing to let go.

He let loose a contented sigh. “My god, Maggie.”

She laughed, softly. “What?”

He turned to look at her, his blue eyes returning to Caribbean Sea color. “I’ve never – it’s never been like that before – for me.”

“What do you mean?”

He ran his hand up into his hair, closing his eyes. “I’ve never been with someone who made it feel like that. Like they wanted me like that.”

Maggie lifted herself to look at him. “Why would you be with a woman who doesn’t make you feel wanted?”

He furrowed his brow. This question seemed to settle someplace deep. He looked at her for a long moment. “Do
you
want me?”

Her chest tightened to hear him ask this. The answer was yes - a desperate, resounding yes. Still, to confess that felt like asking for rejection, like this was some kind of trick question before the candid camera crews burst from the closet.

Despite the caution she felt, Maggie touched her hand to his cheek and kissed him. “I’m almost afraid to say it, but I do. I really do -”

“Deacon! You need to get out here! Now!”

Maggie and Deacon parted from one another, scrambling to find something to cover themselves as Patrick Fenn burst through the front door and marched into the living. The old man looked down at them both and his eyes went wide.

“Jesus, boy!  What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it fucking look like, Gramps! Get out!”

Patrick shook his head, turning his eyes away. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Come outside when you’re dressed.”

With that, the old man turned back toward the door, disappearing into the kitchen.

Deacon turned to her, his face paler now.  “Oh man, I’m so fucking sorry.”

The corner of Maggie’s mouth curled upward, and she began to laugh. Deacon glared at her in jovial offense, then lunged onto her, kissing her harder then than he had all night.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Deacon stepped outside and stopped dead. His entire family stood loitering around their various vehicles, all lining the stretch of dirt road known as Fenn Way. Maggie stopped in the doorway behind him, seemingly just as unnerved by the sudden company.

He swallowed, zipping up his navy blue hooded sweatshirt. He glanced back to Maggie, who was swimming in a pair of his sweatpants and his UMaine hoodie. Still, she looked beautiful, her scent easily mingling with his.

“What the hell’s going on out here?” He asked, scanning each face in wait of response.

Patrick scratched the back of his neck as Janice Fenn came toward her son. “Are you alright? John told me you were -”

“Yeah, Mom. Mom, I’m fine. What’s going on?”

John stood beside their grandfather with cousin Kirk, the three men conferring in hushed tones by Patrick’s truck.

“Gramps, what the hell is going on?” He demanded, marching down his front steps to join the crowd. Tiernan was there, sitting in the front seat of his car, and Gracie was leaning against the hood of a familiar truck. Deacon paused a moment at the sight of it, glancing through the windshield at the driver – Bennett Calhoun.

Deacon stood amidst a crowd of people that could claim every loyalty he’d ever had, feeling the tension as though someone had smacked him in the face with it. He glanced back to Maggie. She could feel it, too.

“Deacon, are you well enough?” Patrick asked, his tone eerily calm.

Deacon nodded. “I am. For what?”

Kirk turned his eyes away from his grandfather, shooting Deacon a sad look. “Richard White Eagle has challenged Gramps.”

Maggie stormed forward, growling her words. “No! He can’t do that!”

“It’s done,” Patrick said, shaking his head. “John tells me you fought with them tonight.”

Deacon’s stomach turned. “I did. I had no choice, Gramps. I’m so sorry, I had no fucking choice.”

Patrick was by no means weak, but he was older now. He hadn’t fought another bear in decades. Richard White Eagle had built everything he had on fighting.

Patrick reached for Deacon, planting a hand on Deacon’s wounded shoulder. Deacon steadied himself against the pain, refusing to flinch.

“I don’t doubt it, son. John told me what happened.” Gramps turned toward Maggie, giving her a once over before he bowed his head to her. “I’m told you were something of a surprise.”

Maggie frowned at him.

Deacon’s mind began to race. What right did Richard have challenging Gramps? Gramps did nothing wrong. He wasn’t involved in the Kalmud, he wasn’t even aware of it when it happened.

“Why is he challenging you? You didn’t do anything! It should be me he’s challenging. For fuck’s sake, you haven’t done anything!”

Patrick snorted, giving a half smile. “Oh no, it’s not what I’ve done. It’s what I’ve refused to do.”

Gracie slumped onto the hood of the truck, covering her face in her hands. Kirk went to his baby sister and put his arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head.

Deacon watched his grandfather saunter up the stairs to the front door, leaning to look inside as though he was saying goodbye to his childhood home for the last time.

“Gramps?” Deacon paused. His words were catching in his throat. He could smell the fear and feel their sorrow. His entire family was grieving a man that hadn’t yet died.

Damn it, it should be me!

“Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?!” Deacon bellowed, his voice echoing through the nearby trees.

His mother shot Maggie a sad smile. “Richard White Eagle has demanded that we turn Maggie over to them – and your grandfather refused.”

Maggie almost collapsed in on herself. Deacon turned to her, grabbing her around the shoulders to hold her upright. She began to shake violently, fighting to hold back tears.

Maggie pulled from Deacon’s arms, her voice teeming with rage and despair. “I can’t let you do this, Mr. Fenn.”

Patrick gave her an almost impatient look. “I didn’t ask you, Maggie. Richard doesn’t intend to have polite conversation when he has you, he means to kill you.”

“Then let him! I won’t let any other person suffer for me. Not anymore! If he wants me he can have me,” she said, and her voice cracked.

Deacon’s heart instantly broke. No they damn well couldn’t, he thought.

“When? When are we supposed to be there?” Deacon asked, his own timber shaky in the wake of emotion.

“Dawn.”

No more than two hours away. Deacon clenched his fists. He half wanted to fight his grandfather for being so stubborn. He knew damn well there was no convincing this man. Patrick Fenn was going to accept a challenge that would surely kill him, and no one on earth had the power to change his mind. “No, god damn it!”

Patrick ignored him, opening the door to the house. “I need to have a few words with my grandsons, if you lovely ladies would mind waiting outside.”

With that, Patrick marched into the house again without invitation, and John, Kirk, and Tiernan all stepped forward to follow him. Uncle Terry wrapped an arm around Janice’s shoulder, then his other arm around Gracie. Maggie stood there alone, her expression void of any emotion, as though she’d become lost in herself, somehow. Deacon shot Bennett Calhoun a pleading look, and his old friend read it clearly. Bennett hopped out just long enough to offer Maggie his passenger seat and a chance to keep warm. She hardly nodded as she accepted the offer.

Deacon cringed as he entered the house. The smell of sex lingered in the air enough for a norm to catch it, let alone a bear. Still, he hadn’t been expecting company so soon.

“Alright, boys. This isn’t a pleasant conversation, but it needs to be had.”

Deacon started to protest, knowing exactly what he’d say, but Patrick simply raised a hand, stilling him.

“My will has been written for many years now. You all know full well what’s yours, so I’m not concerned with any of that. There’ll be no bickering.”

They all muttered their agreement, save for Kirk.

“Gramps,” Kirk said, frowning.

Patrick ignored him. “The future of this clan is all I care about. I think you all suspected I was planning to name Deacon the next Chief.”

Kirk nodded, and despite himself, John gave an audible sigh of relief.

“I feel it best to leave leadership in the hands of one of the grizzlies, would everyone agree with that sentiment?”

Deacon’s cousins nodded, but Deacon couldn’t listen to this anymore. “Gramps, stop. You don’t have to fight him. This isn’t the god damn Stone Age for fuck’s sake!”

Patrick shook his head. “Refusal means war.”

“Then we go to war! Damn it, how can you all be so fucking calm right now?”

Kirk frowned.

“Josephine is about to pop. That woman’s been through enough in her lifetime; do you think she deserves to live in constant fear again? Because that’s what a war with the Talbots will be.”

Deacon tried to protest, but Patrick continued. “These bears are not like us. They live by fighting. To them, killing Maggie is their right. The fact we’ve denied them that right will be enough. They will do all in their power to punish this family if we don’t -”

“Are we supposed to believe they’ll stop when you’re dead? They’ve no honor. Richard White Eagle has no honor. We saw that with our own eyes! He’ll just keep coming for us – for Maggie.”

The thought struck him and he hurt a thousand times more.

Every man in the room seem dejected and beaten down, like they’d accepted this fate from birth. Deacon couldn’t do the same. He refused to accept.

“Is this woman the one for you, Deacon?” Gramps asked.

Deacon startled at this question, broadsided by the thunderous sound it set off in his chest. “What? How can I know that, I’ve only just met her -?”

Patrick’s brow furrowed. “I knew your grandmother was the one from the moment I saw her. Tiernan married his within two weeks of meeting the bastard. Kirk here spotted his when she was half dead, and John waited ten years for his to come back -”

“You’re a bear, Deac. I know you know. Is she it?” John asked, frowning from under his baseball cap.

Kirk, Tiernan, and Gramps all watched him for response. He felt cornered and vulnerable, not because they wanted to know, but because his answer felt irrational. How could he be so sure about a woman in three days?

Deacon nodded.

“There you have it. My hope is that killing me will be enough to sate the man, and he’ll leave this family alone.”

“Fuck, Gramps! No!” Deacon said and his eyes welled over. He was so angry he feared he might shift, might attack his own family just to make them feel something – to make them see sense.

Patrick crossed to his grandson, planting a hand on Deacon’s shoulder as Deacon began to lose his fight with grief. Gramps wrapped his arms around Deacon and pulled him in to embrace him. Deacon pushed against the older man, angry to be touched and have the room see the weak state he was in, but Patrick didn’t let go. Finally, Deacon wrapped his arms around his grandfather’s chest and pressed his face to into the folds of his shirt.

“I’m so sorry, Grampy. I never thought this would happen.”

Patrick squeezed him, chuckling softly to himself. “It’s alright. I’ve done my fair share of darkness in this world, and I’ve lived a damn good life. I think I’ve been ready to be with my Laurel and my little Ali again for a very, very long time. If this is it, I’m ready.”

These words just set Deacon off even harder, and a sob escaped his throat. He shoved his grandfather away, turning for the kitchen to be away from the men of his family. He didn’t want them to see him cry.

“Just my luck my successor would choose a god damn mountain lion for a mate.”

Deacon gave a sad laugh, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.

“Terry has my will; he knows my wishes. Just keep the bears alive for me, for the love of god.”

Deacon leaned down, bracing his hands on the kitchen counter as he fought to get a hold of himself.

How could he fix this? He couldn’t let them have Maggie, no more than he could stand by and let Patrick die for his mistakes – for Maggie’s secrets. Honor be damned, he thought. He would take on the entire Talbot clan if he had to, but he wouldn’t let Gramps go down alone.

“Guys! Hey,” Bennett said, his voice startling everyone in the house. “We got a problem.”

Patrick appeared in the kitchen door, his grandsons just behind him. “Jesus, what is it now?”

“It’s Maggie. She took off.”