Grayslake: More than Mated: Bears Do It Better (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Jessie Lane
Authors: Jessie Lane
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Chapter One
“An offer, I make. One that you cannot refuse, little Misha.”
Clamping her lips together tight, Misha did her best to give a straight face to the utterly crazy yet loveable woman standing in front of her, instead of laughing straight out. “Auntie Arina, have you been watching mobster movies again?”
The Russian tiger shifter who looked, dressed, and often acted like a wild twenty-year-old, but was closer to forty, gave her a hand wave and a pft as an answer. “You know I have to learn this American lingo if, fitting in, I’m going to do.”
This time, Misha didn’t bother holding the laughter in. “Yes, but you sound like Yoda when you do it.”
Auntie Arina gave her a glare of annoyance, and Misha decided to return to unpacking her suitcase that was lying on the hotel room bed. That didn’t stop Auntie Arina from continuing to give her opinion.
“I just do not understand, my little медве́дь, why you left Russia, our beloved homeland, and the pride, to come on some goose of the wild chase?”
A long suffering sigh escaped Misha as she pulled out another shirt and hung it up in the closet. How could she make Auntie Arina understand that she had inadvertently answered her own question with her question?
Hearing Arina call her медве́дь, pronounced “meed-VYEHT”, was something the entire Vasiliev Pride had called her as an affectionate nickname since they welcomed Misha into the pride. The word held the same meaning as the name they had christened her with. She had been too young and traumatized to remember the name her biological parents had given her. Bear.
Misha was the sole bear shifter in a pride of Russian Siberian tiger shifters.
They had not treated her badly. In fact, they had saved her life by rescuing Misha from a cruel human circus that had presumably killed her parents while they were in their bear form, and then captured her in the same vulnerable state.
Her past wasn’t all bad, though. The Vasiliev Pride had loved, cared, and protected her when they could have just shoved her off on the first bear shifters they came across. None of the men or women had tried to take over the role as new parents, and she had grown up with an army of adopted meddling aunts and grumpy uncles. Somewhere over the years, though, they had stopped looking at her as a bear, and more as a family member, which was sometimes a problematic situation.
For example, all young Vasiliev tigresses were encouraged to mate and produce cubs. The pride’s numbers were shrinking, and reproduction was on the top of their priorities. So when they accepted Misha as one of their own, naturally they expected her to do what all the other tigresses did: cat around.
Now that was a problem. Misha had absolutely no desire to sleep around with a bunch of men and get knocked up. She couldn’t explain it to them, but deep down inside, her bear yearned for more—a connection. It was what she lacked with all the men of the pride, which was why she was here, visiting Grayslake, Georgia, searching for a connection.
Perhaps it wasn’t quite the romantic one her extended tiger family wanted her to get, but in her opinion, it was just as important.
Family.
While cleaning out Auntie Arina’s attic a few months ago, Misha stumbled across something she never expected to find: a clue to her identity.
There, in boxes of old clothes Auntie Arina probably hadn’t worn in years, buried at the bottom, was a newspaper from twenty-two years ago and several towns over. At first, she had been confused as to why Arina would have kept it at all. Her aunt had always said the only good news was the kind she didn’t have to read or watch, so why did she have the yellowed, brittle newspaper buried underneath a pile of horrible clothing from the eighties? Why would the woman who didn’t pay attention to the world outside the pride have a human newspaper?
Like any young bear, Misha had a horrible sense of curiosity, or
“An offer, I make. One that you cannot refuse, little Misha.”
Clamping her lips together tight, Misha did her best to give a straight face to the utterly crazy yet loveable woman standing in front of her, instead of laughing straight out. “Auntie Arina, have you been watching mobster movies again?”
The Russian tiger shifter who looked, dressed, and often acted like a wild twenty-year-old, but was closer to forty, gave her a hand wave and a pft as an answer. “You know I have to learn this American lingo if, fitting in, I’m going to do.”
This time, Misha didn’t bother holding the laughter in. “Yes, but you sound like Yoda when you do it.”
Auntie Arina gave her a glare of annoyance, and Misha decided to return to unpacking her suitcase that was lying on the hotel room bed. That didn’t stop Auntie Arina from continuing to give her opinion.
“I just do not understand, my little медве́дь, why you left Russia, our beloved homeland, and the pride, to come on some goose of the wild chase?”
A long suffering sigh escaped Misha as she pulled out another shirt and hung it up in the closet. How could she make Auntie Arina understand that she had inadvertently answered her own question with her question?
Hearing Arina call her медве́дь, pronounced “meed-VYEHT”, was something the entire Vasiliev Pride had called her as an affectionate nickname since they welcomed Misha into the pride. The word held the same meaning as the name they had christened her with. She had been too young and traumatized to remember the name her biological parents had given her. Bear.
Misha was the sole bear shifter in a pride of Russian Siberian tiger shifters.
They had not treated her badly. In fact, they had saved her life by rescuing Misha from a cruel human circus that had presumably killed her parents while they were in their bear form, and then captured her in the same vulnerable state.
Her past wasn’t all bad, though. The Vasiliev Pride had loved, cared, and protected her when they could have just shoved her off on the first bear shifters they came across. None of the men or women had tried to take over the role as new parents, and she had grown up with an army of adopted meddling aunts and grumpy uncles. Somewhere over the years, though, they had stopped looking at her as a bear, and more as a family member, which was sometimes a problematic situation.
For example, all young Vasiliev tigresses were encouraged to mate and produce cubs. The pride’s numbers were shrinking, and reproduction was on the top of their priorities. So when they accepted Misha as one of their own, naturally they expected her to do what all the other tigresses did: cat around.
Now that was a problem. Misha had absolutely no desire to sleep around with a bunch of men and get knocked up. She couldn’t explain it to them, but deep down inside, her bear yearned for more—a connection. It was what she lacked with all the men of the pride, which was why she was here, visiting Grayslake, Georgia, searching for a connection.
Perhaps it wasn’t quite the romantic one her extended tiger family wanted her to get, but in her opinion, it was just as important.
Family.
While cleaning out Auntie Arina’s attic a few months ago, Misha stumbled across something she never expected to find: a clue to her identity.
There, in boxes of old clothes Auntie Arina probably hadn’t worn in years, buried at the bottom, was a newspaper from twenty-two years ago and several towns over. At first, she had been confused as to why Arina would have kept it at all. Her aunt had always said the only good news was the kind she didn’t have to read or watch, so why did she have the yellowed, brittle newspaper buried underneath a pile of horrible clothing from the eighties? Why would the woman who didn’t pay attention to the world outside the pride have a human newspaper?
Like any young bear, Misha had a horrible sense of curiosity, or
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