Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

GARRETT

We emerged from the water. It took us less than a minute, but that was with the assistance of gravity. I hoped going back up would be just as quick. I didn’t know how long the kit could hold her breath.

As soon as we were through, Rodger let out a roar. It was the signal to Dameon and Ethan that we were through. They were to head to the tunnel exit to help get us back up if needed. We really could have used Dameon’s help knocking over that tree, but there’d been no time to go back and get him. His elephant could have taken out that tree in a matter of seconds.

I heard the smallest echoing yip from down the tunnel and knew it was my mate’s niece. My bear would know my mate’s call and it wasn’t hers. Plus, while I wasn’t an expert in fox calls, it seemed too high pitched to be from an adult fox.

The water came up to our underbellies. No doubt a fox would be unable to stand in it.

I could feel Odette’s hope and excitement rise the closer we got. Rodger was in front of me, mainly to keep my bear from charging down the tunnel and causing a collapse that would bury us all alive in an effort to get to his mate faster. My bear was not happy about this fact, but also seemed to understand the necessity of it.

My Kodiak was larger than Rodger’s black bear. At his shoulders, he was around three and a half feet tall. My bear was just over five feet. We were able to walk on all fours in the tunnel. If I lifted my neck up, the top of my head would touch the top of the tunnel. Odette had described the tunnel as very tall and very wide , but I had a feeling our descriptions of ‘tall’ and ‘wide’ differed.

My mind immediately turned to a more carnal line of thought. I was a big guy—and that was not an exaggeration the way male humans said it. Bears were known for our size even in our human forms. Odette was a fox. Her mother had barely come up to my chest. Her father had been sitting down but I’d estimate him to be around five-five. How tall—or short—was Odette?

I loved the idea of a small mate. To be able to wrap her up into my arms and guard her with my body from this cruel world. I pictured my snowy cabin and imagined carrying her around while her belly was full with my cub.

Another thought occurred to me then.

Bear sows were as big as our males because our cubs were known for being just as large. I’d been with a few over the centuries, but I never thought of them as a mate because they weren’t my mate. Our time together was simply for the purposes of driving off the loneliness of our long existence.

Would my mate be too small to carry my cubs? Fox kits were certainly smaller than a bear cub. Would our offspring be kits then? I didn’t mind the idea of my offspring being foxes, and neither did my bear. I would love them either way. It was just a new concept for me. Not having cubs .

Cubs or kits, we had to be compatible or our animals wouldn’t have chosen the other.

“Garrett?”

My ears perked up at her voice. It was dark in the tunnel but my bear had excellent night vision. I could see the debris and the collapsed floor. It blocked my vision of where I knew the concrete slab was that she and Amelia had taken shelter upon.

My bear let out a huff of air in response to her calling my name.

We’re here, my love, I told her, but we cannot see you.

Just then I could make out a small hand sticking out from behind a long piece of the floor that was hanging down. So much furniture, equipment, insulation, and pieces of the building’s structure was piled up between me and that small hand. It was a mountain of debris that was stacked tall from the flooded tunnel up into what used to be the showroom, just as Odette had described.

I moved forward, but Rodger was suddenly there, blocking my path. My bear growled at him. How dare he stand between my mate and me?

Then Rodger shifted back into his human form. “Our bears are too heavy. Think, Garrett. We’d surely cause an avalanche if we tried. It’ll be slow going, but we’ll have better odds as men. Shift,” he commanded my bear.

My bear was not happy. He snorted and pawed inside my head at the idea of having to take a step back, but I placated him with the idea that the sooner I got to our mate, the sooner I got her out of here, and then the sooner he could meet her.

Slowly, almost begrudgingly, I shifted back. Both of us stood naked in the flood water before the debris pile. It was beyond slow going. We had to very strategically move certain items out of our way. Like the human game of Jenga , it was nerve-wracking with each piece we moved.

Rodger made it to the concrete slab first.

I could smell her, that sweet fruity fragrance that drove me nuts above ground. My bear was beyond impatient to lay claim to her. “Odette! Baby, we’re here!”

“Garrett! I’m going to need to shift to make it out of here. Can one of you reach in and get Amelia?”

I could see the small gap between the concrete slab that had ironically protected them and was equally trapping them. The hole was maybe eight inches wide. There was no debate as to which one of us was taking Amelia and which was taking my mate. My bear would not allow another male to touch my mate, not while she was still unclaimed. My gums around my incisors throbbed with the need to place my mate mark on her. When our bodies joined for the first time, it would seal our bond, but our mate marks would seal our souls. We would be one. Carrying each other’s scent and, from my understanding, then we would develop a mental link. I was beyond grateful for whatever glitch that had occurred that allowed us to form our mental bond before we mated.

Rodger carefully worked his way over to the small gap. “Odette, I’m Rodger. I’d like to say it’s nice to meet you, but we’ll exchange such pleasantries once we’re out of here. Raise Amelia up as high as you can and I’ll get her.”

I saw a flash of orange under the hole and then Rodger reached inside. He had to twist his hand to fit through and I wondered if his fist would be too wide once he was holding the kit. I estimated the kit to be around a foot long. I didn’t know enough about fox shifters or their kits to know at what rate their kits grow. I based my assumptions based on what I knew of how bear cubs grew.

Rodger had a tight grip on the kit’s scruff, lifting the tiny little body through the hole in the concrete. My heart actually squeezed at the adorable little sight. She was a fuzzy blob of cuteness with the fluffiest tail I’d never seen.

Rodger brought up his other hand and gently cradled the kit against his chest. Her body was about the size of one of his large hands. Her tail hung down beneath his arm. She curled herself against his chest as if seeking the warmth of his body.

Cautiously, Rodger moved himself back on his haunches. I moved closer.

The first sight of my mate was the black tips of her orange ears. Then the whites of her inner ears, her orange fur, and her yellow eyes. She squeezed through the tight space with ease. Her agility and flexibility was incredible.

But I could also understand why she was hesitant to do so with a kit in her mouth.

Once she got her front paws through the hole, she turned and our eyes met for the first time.

I’d heard about the impact meeting your mate had on your soul, but I’d greatly underestimated the sheer magnitude of it. Looking into Odette’s yellow eyes, seeing her fox smile at me… It was like a sledgehammer to my heart.

This was my mate . My love. My missing piece of my soul. She was mine and I was hers. We were forevermore one. Even if death claimed one of us, there would be no other. It was rare for one to survive long after the loss of the other, but some managed it in rare circumstances. Like my Alpha did, for his young cub whom his mate had died giving birth to.

But I couldn’t see it.

I’d never met her before this moment, yet I couldn’t imagine a life or a world without her in it. It was too painful.

She held my life in her very small, black socked paws.

As you hold mine , she replied mentally.

I reached for her, taking her small body, which weighed practically nothing, between my two large hands. She was maybe ten pounds—and most of that was fluffy tail! Her fur was stiff from grime and filth. I imagined it was normally extremely soft.

Odette turned her head to smoosh her little black nose against the crook of my neck, breathing in my scent.

“Come on, little vixen,” I told her softly. “Let’s get you out of here.”