Stripped Bear Read Online Free Page A

I’d known you were playing matchmaker, I wouldn’t have come.”
    “Which is why I gave you a reason to come home,” she replied. “I was right though. I’ve always known that Leah would be your mate.”
    “You know she’s engaged?”
    She nodded. “The wedding is next Saturday.”
    “Jesus Christ, Grandma.” Since when had Cade become the responsible adult in this family? “Do you realize what you’ve done with your scheming?”
    “Of course I do,” she said. “I righted a wrong. I don’t know what Leah was thinking agreeing to marry that jackass Adam Davis. Lawrence says that the boy is as bland as a soggy cracker.”
    “So Lawrence is in on this?” Cade bet Leah would be thrilled to learn that her father had conspired to ruin her wedding.
    “Of course he is. He knows as well as I do with whom Leah belongs.”
    Lawrence Ridgeway was mundane. Nothing more than the lawyer he presented himself to be. But he’d been Cade’s grandmother’s confidant for years. He knew all of their family’s secrets, including their unique heritage. The Mitchell family wasn’t his only supernatural client, even. That Lawrence would choose to help push his daughter into this life was nothing short of insane.
    “What were the two of you thinking?” Cade raked his fingers through his hair. What a monumental clusterfuck . “She doesn’t know what we are or what’s even happened to her. The least the two of you could have done was prepare her for the possibility.”
    “We could have,” she admitted. “But you know as well as I do that seeing is believing. Rather than try to explain something to her that she would have no doubt discounted, I convinced Lawrence to let her feelings—her instinct —guide her. Your pull will be even stronger for her because she can’t explain it. It will solidify your bond. Now that she’s felt it, you can reveal yourself to her. Ease her into this life. She’ll be more accepting because she knows deep down that you belong together. Leah needs you as much as you need her. Lawrence and I weren’t about to sit around and do nothing about it. You never should have left here,” she chided. “You never should have left her.”
    Cade refused to acknowledge her. Gone for years, and now they were both thrown into the whirlwind of a claiming. Cade barely understood it himself and he was expected to make Leah understand it? Jesus. The Sortiari employed him because he was a man of action, not a blowhard who rocked the purple prose. His grandmother wanted Leah to let her feelings and instinct guide her? When he’d let her leave tonight, she’d looked ready to lay her fist into his gut, not cleave to him for the rest of their lives.
    Leah had been a girl when he left. Seven years his junior and already a blossoming beauty. They’d been close friends for years and as she got older, Cade’s attraction to her had grown. He’d been too old for her, for what he’d wanted, and when she confessed her feelings for him he’d done what he thought was right. He’d broken her heart and left.
    “I’m needed in L.A.” Trenton McAlister was going to have Cade’s ass if he ignored the director’s orders. “I don’t have time to deal with the intricacies of a claiming, let alone the fact that Leah is engaged.”
    “The Sortiari are nothing more than a band of arrogant, posturing idiots,” his grandmother spat. “You’d do best to leave foolish deeds to foolish men.”
    Luanne Mitchell could probably teach McAlister a thing or two about how to run his organization. Cade sighed. They’d gone round and round about his choice to associate with the guardians of Fate. Once you signed on, you were in for life.
    “You and Lawrence might be proud of yourselves for what you’ve proven here tonight. But Leah isn’t a shifter. No matter what you’re sure she feels, she doesn’t understand the claiming like we do. And as if I have to remind you, she’s getting married in a week.”
    “Pfft.” She