Ain't No Party Like a Bear Party Read online

  Timeline: This story slots in after the end of Silver Silence and before Ocean Light begins.

  Ain’t No Party Like A Bear Party

  Psy-Changeling

  by Nalini Singh

  Silver walked into the heart of Denhome to find herself confronted by a naked little boy covered in glitter and yellow paint. “Hello, Dima,” she said, used to such welcomes by now. “Why are you wearing glitter?”

  “For the party!” He raised his arms toward her.

  Putting her satchel on the floor, her heels kicked off before she exited her vehicle, she leaned down to pick him up. He snuggled himself onto her hip, then pressed an enthusiastic wet kiss on her cheek. “Love you, Siva.”

  It was still a surprise, to hear such things said so openly—and to her. Stroking her hand over the soft silk of his tight, dark curls, she forced out the words locked in her own throat because it was important to children to hear them. “I love you too, Dima.” Even now, the verbal admission of emotion didn’t come easy, though she’d lay down her life for this cub and any other in their clan.

  One arm around her neck, Dima pressed the side of his face against her gray jacket. “I made you sparky,” he said in delight.

  Silver glanced down and saw that “sparky” meant a glitter infestation. Such was the inevitable result of living in a clan of bears. “Excellent. I would not want to be underdressed for the party.” She took in the activity around the huge open space of the Cavern, frenetic and wild even for StoneWater bears, and said, “Dima, what’s the party for?”

  The little changeling polar bear on her hip lifted both hands in a “I dunno” shrug. “Party is party.”

  No more bear thing had ever been said.

  Walking over with Dima to where several adults were rushing around opening boxes full of decorations, she cornered the bear who’d made a hobby out of tormenting her brother. She’d have smacked Pavel for it, but Arwen was fully capable of tormenting said bear back. “Why are we having a party?” Valentin was usually good about warning her of parties—her mate understood that much as she loved their clan, she occasionally needed warning of especially exuberant events.

  On the whole, however, Silver had become surprisingly adept at handling chaos.

  Pavel pushed up his spectacles and scowled. “Your brother should be kept away from nice bear boys.”

  Shaking her head, Silver patted his cheek. “You’re a big, tough bear. Why are you afraid of an empath?”

  Grumbling under his breath about “Sneaky-cat Mercants,” he nonetheless leaned over and rubbed his cheek against hers in an affectionate welcome that would’ve shocked her not so long ago. “Party’s for your mating,” he said with a grin afterward. “Did you think we were just going to allow that to slide?”

  “No, though I had hope.”

  Pavel’s aqua-green eyes were bright behind the lenses of his spectacles. “Sneaky sense of humor, too.” A wink at Dima. “Want a piggy back ride while I go hunt down your mom about the cake?”

  “Cake!” Dima switched allegiances at once.

  He landed safely on Pavel’s back…just as a much bigger bear wrapped his arms around her from behind, his skin honey-dark and his muscles defined. “Hello, Starlight,” Valentin rumbled, his warmth seeping through her clothes to brand her skin.

  Things stretched and woke inside of her, her soul sighing. Her often stubborn and always loving mate reached parts of Silver no one else ever had or ever would. “Hello, Valyusha,” she murmured as Pavel walked off with Dima riding his back. “I heard that three of our bears are in Enforcement lockup.”

  Valentin groaned. “I just sprung the idiots. They got drunk last night and decided to steal a parrot.”

  “A parrot?”

  “A trash-talking parrot owned by a damn feral human who clearly taught her parrot everything it knows.”

  Silver felt an effervescent warmth inside her that she now knew was amusement. “Was she mean to you?” Turning in his arms, she patted his cheek as she’d done Pavel’s; his jaw was hard and square under her touch, his skin rough with stubble. “I’ll go take care of her.”

  A scowl, black brows drawing into a vee above the gorgeous dark of his eyes. “Stop making fun of me,” he grumbled before kissing her.

  The contact was a familiar shock, a physical pleasure and an emotional joy so visceral that Silver might never find the words to describe who and what Valentin was to her…but he knew. Her mate felt her heart and he understood all the things she couldn’t say.

  Nuzzling at her afterward, Valentin didn’t even seem to notice when one of their clanmates ran into him while ferrying over what looked like paper hats in the shape of cat ears. He was built to handle the rough and tumble that came with being alpha of a clan of bears but Silver knew those big hands could also be sweetly tender.

  “I mentioned our mating party while I was in the city,” he said, “and all these people made sad faces at me because they weren’t invited.”

  Silver raised an eyebrow.

  “So I invited them.” Valentin smiled a gorgeous, open smile that would’ve shattered her defenses if they hadn’t already been in shards at her feet. “This party is going to blow the roof off Moscow!”

  Word of his comment spread in a matter of seconds. A hundred or more bears pounded their feet on the ground in raucous agreement.

  Despite that, Silver was not ready for the celebration that took over their city that night. Bears in bear form danced with humans wearing Mardi Gras beads that had appeared out of nowhere, while Psy stood shellshocked on the edges…but didn’t leave. Every so often, a bear in human form would chance his or her luck and take over a set of sparkling beads or a cookie to their chosen Psy. The particularly sly ones scrounged up flavored nutrient drinks.

  Most of the approached Psy took a step back, then politely accepted the gift—and somehow found themselves agreeing to dance with a bear.

  Silver shook her head. “Bears are a menace.” She wondered how many of her race would end up charmed into a bear’s bed exactly as Silver had been.

  The menace holding her against him while he moved their bodies in a slow and sensual dance that made her blood molten, just grinned and kissed her. Since he was bare-chested, his T-shirt gone who knows where, she spread her hands on the skin of his back and indulged in him while he devoured her. Valentin Nikolaev was her favorite in every way.

  “Your former boss has moves,” he said to her when they broke for a breath, his lips wet from the kiss and his hand lying possessively over the swell of her hip, his fingers brushing her lower curves.

  Silver followed Valentin’s gaze to see Kaleb bring Sahara into his arms after having spun her out with fluid grace. “He’s a telekinetic.” The most powerful one in the world. “Physical grace is natural.”

  Valentin wrapped her up in his arms again, the chilled bottle of beer that had appeared in his hand resting gently against the skin of her upper back. “Bears are better at dancing.”

  Silver looked up at her sulking mate. And smiled. “Bears are better at everything,” she said, and got a playfully smug grin, followed by a move that had her bent over his arm, her hair flowing to the ground and the gold sequins in her short dress glittering in the lights strung all over the square.

  The dress had been a gift from Valentin’s sisters, with Nova saying, “You have legs up to whoa, Seelichka. Go pop my brother’s eyes out.”

  Now, that brother abandoned his beer to the ground and ran his hand up her naked thigh. “I like this dress.”

  “Possibly because it has no back and ends an inch below my butt.”

  Lifting her up into an upright position, he pressed a kiss to her throat. “It’s a very nice
butt.”

  A thunderous boom, the sky bursting with color. In the shape of a giant bear. The bears around her—including her gorgeous mate with his huge heart—roared out their approval. Surrounded by noise, by chaos, by drunk bears, and held against the primal warmth of a changeling who was the other half of her soul, Silver knew she was home.

  Because…bears.

  Copyright © 2018 by Nalini Singh

 

 

  Nalini Singh, Ain't No Party Like a Bear Party

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