She slipped once. Twice. And the bear laughed, its body shaking.

Glaring at him, she pointed to the grass. “Get down so I can climb up.”

Body still shaking, Valentin sprawled down on the ground as if he were fast asleep. He even made a snoring noise. Feeling her lips curve, she grabbed handfuls of his fur and managed to get onto his back. He was warm, and when she leaned down and threw her arms impulsively around his neck, he made a sound that she knew meant pleasure, though how she knew, she couldn’t say.

Then he was rising beneath her, a huge living rock. But when he began to move, he was no rock, his movements far smoother than she’d expected. And far faster. She bared her teeth against the wind and held on for the ride. As Valentin said, she was Silver Fucking Mercant. She had this.

• • •

VALENTIN had always been open to the idea of a mate who was Psy or human rather than changeling. All he’d wanted was a mate to adore and fight with and play with. The one thing he had worried about was that his bear would feel left out of a relationship with a non-changeling. Today, as Silver laughed while he ran through the forest with her on his back, he knew that had been a foolish worry. The bear was ecstatic—and more than a little bigheaded at both her delight and her fearlessness.

So it ran and it showed her secret places in the land around Denhome and it kept her safe, easing its speed anytime Silver needed to adjust her grip. But for a woman who’d never before been on the back of a large beast, she was a star. By the time they’d done this a few more times, she’d probably be trying to put reins on him.

Valentin laughed before he remembered there wouldn’t be more times if Silver succeeded in erasing her emotions.

Raw pain scored his insides, but the bear was in agreement with the man: as long as Silver lived, he could take the pain, take the loss that would haunt him always. He had this big body for a reason. It could take a lot of punishment. As long as she breathed, he’d survive. He’d watch over her from afar, and he’d survive because his mate was alive.

Shoving away the agony of the future because this night was a memory he’d treasure forever, he ran until they were on an outcrop that gave them a startling view of the stars, the Milky Way a scattering of diamonds in the sky. He went down so Silver could slide off his back, then he shifted.

Exquisite pleasure and wrenching pain, that was the shift and it was over in a moment. Naked to the skin, his blood hot from the run, he lay on the grass, head braced on folded arms, and nudged his head again. Silver scrambled onto his back to lie with her chin propped on his shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck.

Her weight was nothing and it was everything.

He drank her in, the scent of her, the softness of her, the steel of her. Never again, he knew, would he meet anyone like his extraordinary Starlight. “Mating is once and forever, solnyshko moyo,” he told her, because he could deny her nothing. “Once a changeling mates, that changeling will never again mate with anyone else, never want to mate with anyone else. Many don’t survive the passing of their mate.”

Silver pressed her lips to his shoulder. “I hear so much pain in your voice, Valyusha, so many memories.”

Throat thick, he swallowed. “My mother survived the breaking of her bond with my father, but she’s never been the same. She no longer shifts out of her bear form.” He blinked away tears that made him feel a cub as small as Dima. “I haven’t spoken to her in over fifteen years.”

Galina Evanova had held on for nearly two years after her mate’s death, but the instant Stasya turned eighteen, it was as if she’d given herself permission to break—though Nova had been only seventeen, Nika fifteen, and Valentin fourteen. “Even if I go to her as a bear, she looks right through me.”

Silver’s response was fierce. “That is unacceptable. Loss of a mate or not, she is a parent. That responsibility is forever.”

Valentin found himself chuckling through his pain. “I think my mother, when she was herself, would’ve liked you—she was one of my father’s seconds before they mated.” Two strong women, they would’ve probably struck sparks off each other that Valentin would’ve winced at and pretended not to see.

A man didn’t get between his mate and his mother when they had a difference of opinion. He pretended to be a dumb bear who saw nothing, heard nothing, had no opinions on the matter whatsoever—anything else was just asking for trouble. Unless of course, his mother crossed an invisible line, in which case, said bear had better become not-dumb very fast.

Pissed-off mothers could be coaxed and calmed after a cooling-off period. Pissed-off mates would rain down fire and brimstone and, in Silver’s case, storms of ice frigid enough to turn his balls blue.

How he wished that was a tightrope on which he had to balance.

“Hmm, perhaps,” Silver said, her tone icily doubtful. “From what you’ve said, the mating bond is a deep psychic connection.”

He shrugged, Silver’s breasts momentarily pushing down into him as he lifted up. “It just is.”

“If we don’t complete the mating, will you be able to find someone else?”

He wanted to lie to her, but bears were terrible liars to start with—and Valentin did not lie to Silver. “I’ve heard rumors that mates can repudiate each other,” he said, a hitch in his voice, “but I’m never going to repudiate you. Who would ever measure up to Silver Fucking Mercant?”

Another kiss, the small touch from his glorious ice queen melting him. He was pure mush, would do anything she asked if only she’d reward him with little kisses and petting strokes.

“Are you sure, Valyusha?”

“It’s you or no one.” Nothing would change that. “But don’t you dare allow that to influence your decision when it comes to contacting the Aleines. If I have to protect my Starlichka by letting her go, that’s what I’ll do.” His chest hurt with the force of his need to protect her. “Don’t steal that from me.”

“How could I?” A brush of warm air against him. “No one will ever measure up to Valentin Mikhailovich Nikolaev, either.”

His chest puffed up, his bear strutting. “So we’re stuck with each other.” Until she wasn’t the Silver he’d fallen for any longer, until she didn’t understand what it was to love, what it was to find a mate.

“Since we are and since you won’t ever find another mate,” Silver said, “can we mate?”

Valentin froze, his mind hazed.

He had to physically shake his head to snap out of his shock. “No.”

“Why not?”

Trembling inside, Valentin tried to think, to explain. “The mating bond is a powerful force. You can’t block it, and breaking it with anything other than death is next to impossible.” He knew of only one case of the latter. Ever. No other rumors, no other whispers. Nothing. Just that one horrible case.

“Talk to me.” A firm order that said she’d heard his renewed pain and was through with giving him room to hide.

He had an alpha’s strength, could’ve kept his most shameful secret, but Silver was his mate, bond or not. “My father’s name was Mikhail,” he began, his bear’s heart a black bruise all over again.

“He was alpha of StoneWater from the time he was thirty-two. A good alpha, one who was respected and loved, even though he could be stricter than usual for a bear. He was always Mikhail to clanmates. Only my mother ever called him by any other name. ‘Moy dorogoi Misha,’ she’d say and pull him into a kiss.”