Check out an excerpt from “A Cub for the Alpha Bear”!
Life had been unkind.
Not in a cinematic, lightning-strike sort of way. More like death by a thousand paper cuts. Quiet. Efficient.
And I've known rejection for as long as I can remember. It's familiar. Comfortable, even. Like a sweater that doesn't quite fit but you keep wearing because, well—at least it's yours.
My father was human. That should tell you everything you need to know. He left town the second my mother told him she was pregnant—no goodbye, no apology, no forwarding address. Just poof. Gone.
My mother didn't survive the birth.
So, yea. Off to a strong start.
I was raised in the den by my aunt and uncle—both bear shifters, both deeply committed to the mountain and its many, many rules. They fed me. Clothed me. Loved me in that careful, cautious way people love something they're afraid might not turn out.
Eighteen came.
Eighteen went.
No claws. No fur. No bear.
Just a long, uncomfortable silence and the dawning realization that I was, apparently, a manufacturing error.
The Alpha didn't yell when he told me I'd be better off in town. He didn't apologize either. Mostly, he looked relieved—like I'd finally given him permission to stop pretending I was going to work out.
They packed me up and sent me to live with my father's grandmother.
Mona.
She was ninety-seven years old, mean as a rattlesnake, and fueled almost entirely by cigarillos. She lived in a leaning little shack on the edge of town where the road gave up and the forest started creeping closer again.
She opened the door, squinted at me, and said,
"Well. Don't you got that same stubborn look your daddy had."
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