Bitten (Black Mountain Bears Book 2) by Ophelia Bell, Amelie Hunt

cuts without moving, knowing it must hurt him to be touched there, as raw as his flesh was. He breathed deeply, his head turned and eyes steadily watching. Beneath her palm, the blood mixed with their fertile juices, the alchemy of their union seeping into him, cementing the mating into something that almost transcended life, at least in her eyes.
    Jasper’s flesh knit together beneath her touch, and when she pulled her hand away, what was left was a rough grid of upraised, pink flesh that faintly glowed. Autumn smiled and bent to press her lips against it, then moved up to lay a gentle kiss on his lips.
    “Your turn,” she said, turning to Gunnar.
    Her favorite Windchaser turned to lay on the bed and she repeated the sealing process on his wound, giving his unwounded cheek a light smack when she was done.
    “I love you,” he rumbled, rising to his knees before her, gripping her head in both hands and kissing her. When he pulled back he held on, continuing to gaze into her eyes. Autumn’s breath caught at the look of unabashed adoration he gave her. She’d seen hints of it off and on when she would spend time with him at his mother’s lodge when he was younger. Now, she couldn’t tear her eyes away, even if she wanted to.
    Gunnar took a shaky breath and continued, never shifting his gaze from hers.
    “I hope you understand exactly how much I love you, Autumn Sundance. For my entire life—ever since I was old enough to love—I have loved you. Every time you would come to stay at the Windchaser Lodge—to wait out your estrous there—I wished I could be the male to service you, but I was never old enough. I hated the males who had that privilege. Now I know that I didn’t need to hate them, because you were always meant to be mine.” He glanced at Jasper and smiled a little. “ Ours, ” he amended. “Because this goes both ways, I think. Let us mark you, too, to prove it.”
    Tears pricked at Autumn’s eyes and she found it difficult to speak.
    “What you’re suggesting is . . . ” She swallowed thickly, glancing at Jasper who sat up, watching them both. What Gunnar had suggested wasn’t unheard of, but rarely happened. The males didn’t need the mark the way the females did. The connection provided her with an irrevocable magical tether to them. It would send her excess power to them when she was breeding, as well as the baby’s new magic, too overwhelming for her to contain on her own.
    “We don’t have our own energy to share. Our purpose is to absorb your excess. It’s easy for us to hold as much as you can give us until it’s reabsorbed by Gaia, but if we can make use of it, it would make us all stronger. Especially now that we’ve agreed to live outside the Sanctuary until the peril has passed and our enemy is dealt with.”
    Jasper scooted closer and rested a warm hand on her naked hip. His touch sent a pleasant shiver through her.
    “Would it be against some rule?” he asked, looking as hungrily at her as Gunnar did.
    “No. It just isn’t necessary. And if it is done, it isn’t shared publicly, anyway.”
    “It wasn’t necessary before,” Gunnar said. “If we mark you, the connection goes both ways. Our potential is unlocked.”
    Autumn held her breath, her mind spinning with his suggestion. Would this be an even more reckless proposition than what she’d done with Aidan so long ago?
    “Let me think about it, please,” she said. “It’s a pretty big decision. Marking you two was necessary, if we were going to stay together out here. Letting you mark me . . . ” She shook her head and placed a hand on Jasper’s scruffy cheek.
    He stared up at her, brow creased.
    “Tell me what it would do,” he said, his voice grave.
    “Male ursa don’t inherently possess magic. You simply carry the seeds for it to grow. That potential is what you give to us—the females—in the form of your sweet spunk. We are the furrows that let the magic grow, the rain and sun to feed it. And you are