The Bear Claw

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Pitch Rhys thrust into the man in front of him, reached out with his power, and trapped his body. Under normal circumstances, he needed to speak a command, but they were touching, and the submissive was both weak and had his defenses down. Most dominants were unable to issue a demand without uttering a word, but Pitch was strong.

He thrust one last time and emptied his balls. The man still couldn’t move or speak, but he painted the bathroom stall wall with his release.

Pitch grunted and pictured how it would’ve been if he hadn’t trapped the man with his mind. Would he have squirmed? Moaned? f****d himself on Pitch’s c**k?

It didn’t matter. He didn’t have the energy for a conversation, and there were always conversations when he’d f****d them.

He allowed himself five seconds to catch his breath before pulling out and buckling up. “Thanks, man.” He patted the smaller man on his right butt cheek above the purple fabric of his pants, released the hold on his mind, and walked back to the bar.

Lyra glared at him when he sat next to her and reached for the beer she’d held for him while he’d been away. She scrunched her nose in distaste. “You stink.”

Pitch ignored her and took a sip of the beer.

“You don’t have to f**k them, you know? A handshake will do.”

He knew, and she knew he knew, so he continued to ignore her.

“Do you really want to find a mate?”

Pitch grimaced. “It’s time.”

He was tired of wandering from city to city, tired of the fights, tired of the f***s. He wanted his mate, one who would bend to his every will, one who would follow him wherever he went. Someone he could relax with without having to fear they’d stab him in the back.

“You don’t get to decide when it’s time.” She kicked his shoe and slid off the barstool. “I’ve had enough. Are you gonna f**k anyone else before we go?”

Pitch allowed his gaze to sweep over the clientele in the nightclub. There were more than a few watching him—both males and females, and he suspected one or two were humans too. He had that effect. He was a powerful alpha, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in leather and covered in tattoos—it attracted a certain kind of humans even if they couldn’t sense the supernatural connection.

He allowed some of his power to trickle through the room, saw more than one submissive take a stumbling step in his direction, but he’d already been with most of them.

Lyra gave him a disgusted look. “I’m all for drawing them in, but could you please do it one at the time? I’d rather not get caught in an orgy.”

“Damn, you’re grumpy today.” He finished his beer and stood. A bare hand landed on him as he made his way through the crowd, but the touch did nothing for him. The disappointed whine issuing from the slender woman made him grin. So many ripe for the picking.

Submissives needed an alpha to look after them, to care for them, to make decisions for them. He could use his power to control most of the people in the room.

It was unusual for dominants to bow to his will, but there were several weak doms here tonight, and once one of them yielded, more would follow. If he got mated to the right sub, he’d become more powerful. It depended a little on the sub’s power, but he’d be able to draw on it too should he need to.

The crowd parted for Lyra, and soon they reached the door.

“Mr. Rhys, Ms. Murray.” The doorman s***h security guard nodded at them. He was a dominant bear shifter. Bears made good guards even when they only were on the mid-scale of dominance like this one—Barret, Berend, something along those lines.

“Night, Bernard.” Lyra waved at him.

Bernard. He should have remembered. It was less complicated than the names he’d come up with, and he should’ve learned it by now since they came here almost every night.

They’d hung around this town for two months. If they stayed any longer, he needed to get himself a job. He’d slaved a few weeks as a construction worker before they got here and still had some cash, but it was time to either move on or look for some kind of income.

“Wait!” A small guy came running toward them. Pitch slowed but didn’t stop. “Wait, Pitch!”

Pitch frowned but stopped. He never gave them his name, though it was no secret. He had been here for a couple of months and good news traveled fast, so many were bound to know by now.

“Please.” The man threw himself at him, hugging his waist. It wasn’t until Lyra rolled her eyes that he recognized the purple pants the man was wearing.

“Let go.” He put demand in the words, and the man instantly dropped his arms. “Better luck next time.”

The man sobbed as Pitch walked away.

“You can be a bit less of a d**k. It won’t hurt you.”

“I’m never mating some clingy sub who isn’t a true mate.” Some mated without being true mates, but if one of them found their true mate the previous mating was annulled, and it was not a hassle Pitch wanted to live through.

“Then you’re looking in the wrong places.” Lyra shook out her long sand-colored hair, her lion peeking out of her eyes for a brief second before they turned into their normal hazel.

She was right, but it was…maybe not illegal—or it was, but few cared—to touch a submissive without their consent. It was a stupid law, any dominant could simply control their will and force them to consent, but he guessed it was there to give unmated subs some sense of them having a choice when it came to whom they mated.

The reality was another matter.

The submissive in the shifter bars either wanted to get mated to the first available alpha or they got off on being controlled. He got off on being controlling, nothing made him hotter than a needy sub moaning when he allowed his power to wash over them. It was when they didn’t understand it was over once they’d gotten off he got annoyed.

“Gloves?” Lyra held up a pair of black leather gloves which Pitch ignored.

Lyra shook her head and put her gloves on. It was too fecking warm for gloves and they were in Shifterville. It wasn’t illegal to walk around without gloves. They were only mandatory on human soil—not that their touch had any effect on humans. The law was born out of fear for them. It was the same with the law about shifters not being allowed to live in human districts. They were still free to wander, so who cared where they were allowed to live?

* * * *

Shiro Amano forced his shoulders back and held his gaze steady. He wore a black turtleneck, black jeans, and black cotton gloves.

“Not the turtleneck.” Astra blocked his way.

“We’re walking alone today.”

“I know, but you’ll give us away if you wear it. Put on a T-shirt.”

Shiro shuddered.

“Okay, not a T-shirt, but not a turtleneck in August. You can wear long sleeves, but make it a light, summery shirt or something.”

Shiro’s hands shook as he went back into his room and pulled off the turtleneck. He hated the days Bernard worked late. He hated the days Bernard got off his shift in time too.

Normally, Bernard stopped by to pick them up on his way home from work, but today there had been some incident at the bar. It happened, not too often, but a few times a month at least. Alphas could never be trusted, and hot-headed alphas after a few drinks was a disaster waiting to happen.

For a short while, Bernard had stayed with them, but Shiro couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bernard…or it was. Bernard was his favorite dominant in the world, but he was still a dominant, and when he wasn’t careful his power leaked.

Nausea climbed Shiro’s throat. Invisible ants crawled over his skin when he recalled it. Bernard wasn’t a powerful dom, not as powerful as Torben, and Torben hadn’t been overly strong, but stronger than Bernard. A shiver shot through him. As mellow as Bernard was, he too had bad days, and Shiro’s mind blanked.

When he was touched by an alpha’s power panic rolled over him and he blindly fought the command—body and mind. It could be little things. Bernard stumbling up half-awake and putting a little power into a ‘hand me a cup’ or something else Shiro would’ve done anyway, and his mind screamed at him to run. Bernard never meant to control him, but sometimes he slipped.

“Shiro.” Astra appeared in the doorway. “We’ll be late.”

They set their hours. What did it matter if they were a few minutes late? He nodded and threw on a deep blue, long-sleeved cotton shirt. She frowned but turned to go. “Brave face on.” Her hand lingered on the door handle.

With a deep breath, he nodded. “Straight back, no looking away.” He could pass for a dominant. He was bigger than most subs, not as bulky as an alpha, but he was tall, and with a confident stride and an I-own-the-world attitude that could briefly fool people—as long as they didn’t touch him or use their power, of course.

“He’ll come by as soon as he can.” Astra patted his arm.

He didn’t tell her by then it might be too late. She knew, he knew, and Bernard knew—no need to spell it out. It was the world they lived in.

The scars on his skin burned, dread threatened to surface, but he clamped it down. Dominants didn’t panic when they stepped outside their house, and for now, he was a dominant. Astra curled her arm around his, most likely to keep him from running. Dominants didn’t run either. Or they could, but they ran without a care in the world. They ran to catch up with something, not to escape someone. Shiro had run a lot in his life, but it seldom helped.

“Chin up, shoulders back.”

It took a second before Shiro saw what Astra already had spotted. A male and a female walked on the other side of the road. Both of them undoubtedly dominant.

The male looked their way, and Astra giggled and leaned into Shiro looking like one of the subs from the shifter clubs. Shiro smiled at her, forcing a calmness into his expression he didn’t feel. There was no doubt they were shifters, and while they all had lost the ability to sense their mates other than through touch, some shifters still had an excellent sense of smell.

Neither Shiro nor Astra could shift, most subs could, but they had other, more subtle powers. Their scents would reveal it to the dominants should their senses be keen enough. This was why they needed Bernard.

The male slowed, his gaze lingering on Shiro, but the female huffed and continued to walk.

Two blocks to the border.

“We did good.” Astra spoke in a low whisper as they rounded the last corner and The Bear Claw, Shiro’s bakery, came into view. They passed the sign with a crossed-over wolf and entered the human-controlled district.

Shiro allowed himself a short breath. It didn’t help that they were in a human-controlled area. Shifters were allowed to be there, but there was a glove law, and alphas weren’t allowed to use their powers. Most did anyway, but it was against the law. Small comforts.

Shifters were allowed to own businesses in human districts, but they weren’t allowed to live in them. The Bear Claw was so close to the border to Shifterville it didn’t make much difference, but Shiro was glad the bakery was on human soil.

Every day, he thanked the universe for being a widower. Not only had he survived much longer than he ever thought possible as Torben’s mate, the many years had left him a shell of his former self, but the only way a sub was allowed to own a business was if he or she was unmated and there were no other heirs to the person they’d inherited the business from.

For once, Shiro had been lucky, but should an alpha decide to mate with him, the bakery would belong to him or her.

Shiro would rather die than be mated again.