Gray Back Broken Bear (Gray Back Bears Book 4) by T. S. Joyce Page B

back.
    She exhaled a long, shaky breath. “Maybe if you like me well enough, you’ll pick me for a mate.”
    Easton’s back went rigid. With each silent second that dragged on, the anticipation clogged her throat, making it harder and harder to breathe. She opened her mouth to apologize for intruding and excuse herself, but Easton murmured, “You’re scared of me.”
    “I’ll work on not being scared of you.”
    “Then okay.”
    “Okay?” Her voice came out a hopeful squeak.
    “Easton, I forbid you to Turn her,” Creed said, powerful voice sending electric currents into the air.
    Easton looked to Willa over his shoulder and shook his head. “I learned my lesson. I won’t Turn Ana.” He spun slowly on his heel and looked at Aviana over the firelight. “I won’t be any good at this.” There was warning in his tone, but his eyes softened. “But we can try. Alpha, I want your blessing.” He turned his inhuman, green gaze on Creed. “Please.”
    A muscle twitched in Creed’s clenched jaw. With a sigh, he leveled Aviana with a glare. “Before you answer the question I’m about to ask you, know that we can all hear a lie.”
    Steeling herself, Aviana nodded.
    “Why do you want to be with Easton?”
    That question held the easiest answer in the world. “Because I don’t fit anywhere else.”
    Softly, Willa murmured, “She sounds like a Gray Back to me.”
    A slow smile spread across Creed’s face in the flickering firelight. “Then a courtship between you and Easton has my blessing.”
    A giggle bubbled up her throat, and she sagged heavily against the brick as Easton stood frozen across the fire, looking stunned. Willa stood and reached her first, then hugged her so hard her lungs hurt. Gia and Georgia followed, and the boys smiled and nodded at her as she walked around the fire pit toward Easton—her Easton.
    “I won’t hurt you,” he said, promise in his voice.
    She stood on her tiptoes and hugged his neck, inhaling the wild scent of his skin. Fur and earth and pine. “I know you won’t. I trust you.”
    His hands slipped around her waist slowly, gently, as if he were forcing himself to be careful with her. “When you get to know me, you’ll leave.”
    She eased back and smiled up at him, trying her best to hold his feral gaze. She pressed her palm against his chest. Her hand rattled with the soft vibration of his pounding heart. “I already know you.”
    Confusion rippled over his face like a wave, there and gone in a moment. “Do you want to see my den?”
    “I want to see your den,” Jason piped up.
    “No,” Easton gritted out.
    “How do you like that?” he asked Georgia. “I’m his best friend, and he still won’t let me see the inside of his trailer.”
    “Nobody’s seen it,” Matt said. “Hey!” he called as Aviana and Easton walked toward the tree line. “I’ll give you five bucks to tell us what it looks like inside.”
    Aviana shook her head and ignored the banter that kicked up near the fire pit. “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I won’t tell anyone anything you don’t want me to.”
    Easton didn’t say anything back, only slipped his big, strong, calloused hand around hers and squeezed gently. That was a reward in itself, so she bumped his shoulder and snuggled her cheek against his taut arm. A sign of devotion from a raven, but he didn’t need to know about her animal side. Not yet. Not until she figured out a way to break it to him gently. Easton refusing to share his home with his crew was proof he was a keeper of secrets. Her instincts said he would be upset if he knew she’d witnessed the years that had shattered him. No, before she exposed her hidden feathered self, she had to make sure he wouldn’t run away from what they could be.
    By the time they’d walked up the trail to his singlewide—the one with the chipped white siding and stacks of firewood down one whole side—she wasn’t shaking so badly anymore. She did, however, feel as if