Auctioned To The Grizzly Shifter by Olivia T. Turner

Stop.

Just keep it together.

My grizzly lets out a low ferocious growl and three of my brothers glance nervously at me.

Not now. Please, not now.

My asshole grizzly is picking the worst time to have a tantrum. It’s like living with a psychotic two-year-old who hasn’t learned boundaries yet.

I can feel him pacing around inside, huffing angrily and snarling at the smell of love in the air.

This time, even the groom who is my youngest brother, Nathan, turns around. It’s the middle of his wedding ceremony and he looks worried that his older brother won’t be able to keep his insane grizzly bear in check.

It’s a valid concern. I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately.

It started when my older brother Caleb found his mate. My grizzly started getting more and more upset that we didn’t have our mate and he began taking it out on me.

Keeping me up all night by thrashing around inside and trying to claw his way out at the worst possible times. He was always a pain in the ass—more savage and violent than all four of my brothers’ bears combined—but lately, he’s moving toward full-on feral and I don’t know how to stop it.

Caleb finding his mate was bad, but when my younger brothers, Scott and Lionel, found their mates too, he got worse. He actually burst out of my body when we met Lionel’s mate, Aubrey, and ran into the woods, snarling like a rabid beast. I couldn’t pull him in for four days.

When Nathan found his mate, Candice, at only twenty-two years-old, a full ten years younger than me, my enraged bear kept me up for three straight nights and days.

“It is now time for the vows,” the minister says.

My whole body is flexed in this tuxedo as I struggle to hold my barbaric grizzly back. I’m sweating. My breaths are all harsh and ragged. This is not a good look.

I force out a smile to the crowd. Some of them are looking back at me, probably wondering if I’m having a stroke.

Nathan and Candice are mates, so this wedding is pretty useless. What’s more of a connection, more of a bond, more of a commitment than being a fated mate?

But still, Candice is human, so it was important to her and her family. Nathan is willing to do anything for her, so he went along with it all.

I should have sat this one out. I should have known.

“From the second I met you,” Candice says to her mate with a look of pure devotion in her eyes, “I knew you were the one.”

My bear starts boiling at the words. He lets out a nasty growl and charges forward. I grunt as I flex my whole body, trying desperately to hold him in.

The humans can’t hear his noises, but the shifters can. My brothers turn to me with worried glances. My family in the crowd is on the edge of their seats, knowing what my maniac of a bear is capable of.

I can’t let Nathan and Candice down. I won’t.

Fuck off! I growl back.

My bear takes this as a challenge and lunges forward, trying to pull me in as he claws his way out. I stumble back as I squeeze my eyes shut, gritting my teeth as I force him down. It’s like trying to stop a tsunami. It’s like trying to push down an earthquake.

We’re not doing this fucking shit here! Fuck. Off.

He snarls and bounds forward again in a brutal charge. I nearly drop to my knee as I struggle to hold him in. I grab my tie and yank it loose so I can fucking breathe. My head is pounding. My pulse is racing. I hate this fucking bear.

He’s always been a fucker. An untamed, wild predator that I had to share this body with. But this—ruining my brother’s wedding—is a new low. Even for him.

I can feel my body swelling, my skin tightening as he ruthlessly tries to break free. My gums are on fire as his teeth slowly push out, replacing my own.

Just before I feel the long brown fur sprouting out of my skin, I get a handle on him and shove him back down to the dark depths inside me.

When I open my eyes and come back to reality, I’m breathing heavily and hunched over. Scott and Lionel are holding my arms. Everyone is looking at me now—the bride, the groom, the minister, and every one of the guests.

“Sorry,” I spit out. “I’m feeling a little faint.”

I catch Nathan’s eye. “Dude,” he whispers. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head, straighten my tuxedo jacket, and excuse myself.

Everyone’s eyes are on me as I hurry away from the ceremony. I can feel each one burning into my back.

Once I’m around the building, out of view from the gawking crowd, I run my hand through my brown hair and curse out my bear for ruining one more thing in my life.

“One hour,” I hiss. “You couldn’t let me have one fucking hour?”

My grizzly snarls back, furious that I’m standing here and taking a minute for myself. He wants me out there every single second of every day searching endlessly for my mate.

I’ve looked. I’ve searched for fifteen fucking years and I still haven’t found her.

I’m always trying to calm my bear down, but the reality is, I’m pissed too. At the universe, at myself, at fate. Where the fuck is she? What the fuck do I have to do?

All of my brothers have their mates and I got nothing. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.

I can barely handle it anymore.

I’m so caught up in my own shit that I don’t notice my uncle Andrew until he’s limping right up to me. He’s an old grizzled grizzly bear shifter and probably the only one who understands me. He’s got a raving furry lunatic for a bear too.

“When was the last time you let him out?”

Let him out. That’s a laugh. Half of the time, he comes bursting out of me whenever he wants. If I let him out the fucker might not let me back in for days.

“He was out last week.”

My uncle sighs as he looks at me. “I always hoped you weren’t going to be the last one to find your mate. I knew it would have been especially hard on your bear.”

“Well, you were right,” I say as I drop my shoulders in defeat. “I ruined Nathan’s wedding.”

“No,” he says as he exhales long and hard. “All the shifters back there understand.”

“And the humans?”

He shrugs. “They have a bear shifter in their family now. Will probably have some shifter cubs soon. It’s about time they learn what we’re about.”

I close my eyes and drop my head. “They’re probably going to be terrified of us now. It’s not the impression of shifters I wanted to make.”

“At least you didn’t phase,” he says as he pulls out a pack of smokes and taps one out. “That would have been ugly.”

He laughs as he lights his cigarette. I just stare at him.

The smell of the smoke makes my bear livid and he charges forward with a new onslaught of aggression. I stumble back against the brick wall as I struggle to hold him down. Fuck, you, I snarl as I pound him down. He’s getting stronger. Faster. I’ve never seen him like this. It’s always been bad, but this is getting scary. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to control him for much longer. Every day it gets worse.

He slices and claws at me as I force him down. It takes everything out of me and when he’s finally back in, huffing and puffing angrily, I drop to my knee, exhausted and ready to throw in the towel.

“Your jacket,” my uncle points out.

“Shit.”

He got so close to the surface that my arms swelled up and the seams of my tuxedo jacket tore over my triceps. Should have gotten the insurance on the rental. I wonder how much this will set me back.

“It’s not good,” my uncle says as he calmly smokes his cigarette. “I can smell him. He’s close to being feral.”

Fuck. I wasn’t sure if it was that bad, but now that I know, it’s not a total surprise.

“I can tell you’re barely hanging on. How long has it been this bad?”

“A couple of weeks,” I say, still breathless from the fierce internal battle. “Since Nathan found his mate, but even before that it was bad. But not this bad.”

“He’s close to turning,” he says with sad eyes. “If you lose control of that animal, your brothers are going to have a tough decision on their hands.”

“I won’t let it get to that,” I say in a firm voice, but my trembling hands aren’t so sure.

He grunts as he looks me over. “It’s already getting dangerously close to that and you’re not looking too in control.”

I look at my torn jacket with the crisp white dress shirt underneath. At least that didn’t tear. I made sure to get the synthetic stretchy kind.

“I think you’re right,” I say as a feeling of defeat takes over. “I’ll kill myself before I let him go feral.”

“Finding your mate will reverse the worst of it. Finding her will bring him back in control. You have to find her before he goes to the dark side.”

I throw my hands in the air and grit my teeth. “I know that. But where the fuck is she?”

He frowns as he watches me. “She can be around the corner ready to pop into your life or she could be on the other side of the planet wandering around in Australia.”

Just the thought of her out there in the world without my protective eyes on her makes me and my bear crazy. He snarls low. I agree with him on that one.

“So, how does that help me?”

“There’s another way,” my uncle says.

“There is?”

“Your bear is desperate to mate,” he says with a nod. “But if he can’t have his fated mate, you can keep your bear busy with someone else.”

“Out of the question,” I practically snarl.

He puts his hand up, like he wants me to hear him out, but I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want someone else. I only want her.

I’d rather slit my throat than be unfaithful to my girl, to my mate.

“You don’t have much of a choice,” my uncle says, raising his voice. “You’re going to get a bullet in the head if you’re not careful. You can still have your mate when she comes, but in the meantime… nothing wrong with keeping your bear busy.”

I can feel my jaw clenching. I don’t like this at all. Even talking about it is making me tight and edgy all over.

“Your bear is a width of fur away from going full-on feral,” my uncle points out. “And then what good are you going to be for your mate when she arrives? You’ll be dead. If your brothers don’t put a bullet in your head, then I will. We can’t have a feral bear running around town, terrorizing these nice folks. Dylan, listen to reason. This may be your last chance.”

Oh, fuck. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t… How the hell has it come to this?

“The woman who runs this, Coco St. James… She’s an old friend of mine. She’ll find someone to keep your bear calm.”

He hands me a business card.

I hate myself for taking it.

Breeding Bidders Auction House.

“You can’t be serious,” I say in a trembling voice as my bear’s rage amps back up. He likes this topic of conversation even less than I do. “An auction? For what? Women?”

“Just keep an open mind,” he says as my bear comes charging forward, thrashing and mauling his way out. “And keep your bear away from the reception for your brother’s sake.”

This time, I have no hope to hold him in. He explodes out of me in a burst of long brown fur, cruel black claws, and nasty white teeth. He roars at my uncle who calmly inhales his cigarette while watching through a cloud of smoke.

“Think about it, Dylan,” he says, knowing I can hear him from deep down in here. I’m in a dark lonely place inside my bear. A place that I might never leave if my grizzly turns feral. “It’s for your own good.”

Into the woods, I beg the beast, pulling him away from the wedding. He wants to go investigate the ceremony, but he’s not totally feral yet. I still have some pull on the monster.

He huffs out a frustrated breath, tramples over my torn tuxedo rental, and then sprints into the forest in the distance.

I can feel his power growing. It feels like every time I phase, he gets stronger.

There’s no way I can pull him back in like this. It might be days before he lets me back out.

He slams his shoulder into a tree as he disappears into the forest, about to terrorize the local wildlife for a few hours.

I hate to admit it, but my uncle might be right.

If I don’t keep this wild bear busy with someone soon, he’ll turn feral for good.

And then I’ll be getting a bullet in my head.