After chapter 8 I was a bit stuck. I mean how do you follow that? Avery's POV? Rick's POV? I tried to work on either but came up with nothing. Then I remembered some of the writing block tips here on Wattpad, and one of them was writing in a new POV. So... SCOTT SUMMER'S!!! The poor guy has sort of just been thrown in there now and again but now here he is!

        On another note I did notice that the comments were pretty angry with Rick and I know that most of the people who did not comment felt that way as well. I don't blame any of you for feeling that way (I would probably feel the same). But I did feel a bit of sympathy for Rick at the same time. So here in Chapter 9 we are going to see the OTHER side of what happened that fateful day. PLEASE COMMENT!

and enjoy.

Scott Summer's POV (Evie's husband)

"He won't FUCKING pick up!!! PICK UP!! I know where you LIVE!!!"

My beautiful wife slammed her cell phone against our dining room table filling the room with a loud crack and growled in anger as she rung her hands. I sighed softly as I stood and went to her side gently taking her shoulders within my hands starting to massage her tense shoulders.

"Maybe he just needs time."

"Ha! Time! Its been a week and still not a word! He simply calls Blake one morning to tell him he won't be in to work for a while. A WHILE! Seven fucking days later and not a word! Not even a peep! What more does he need?!"

I slowly brought my fuming wife over to a chair and sat her calmly down. I continued to massage her tense shoulders and heard the long sigh of tension leave her as she melted back into my touch. After a few minutes of massaging I heard her begin to purr.

A smile formed on my face as I leaned forward and gave her neck a lingering kiss and she moved her head to the side to give me more access. But instead of continuing I moved around and kneeled in front of her.

Evie groaned in defeat as she looked down at my smiling face, "You tease."

"You know you love me." I winked with a crooked smile and she giggled.

"Yes I do. I do. I do. I do." With every 'I do' she spoke she pecked me with her plump delectable lips around my face, every place except my lips.

I gave a small feral growl, "Tease."

She giggled as I grabbed the back of her head and brought her delicious lips in contact with mine. They were warm and soft, full and delicious against mine. Just to prove something I nipped at her bottom lip and tugged slightly.

She started to purr once again and I chuckled gruffly under my breath, "Do you feel better?"

My lips hovered over hers as her bright green eyes shimmered with love and trust. Her cheeks tinged with pink as she smiled and ran her finger down my left cheek lightly. The soft touch sent shivers down my spine and I gave her one last peck before I stood and went to grab her something to drink.

"A little..."

I looked back and smiled as I poured her a glass of milk. As I poured the milk splashed slightly and a small dribble of the white goodness fell onto my thumb. I closed the milk jug and brought the glass back Evie as I licked the cool liquid off watching as my wife's eyes followed my tongue. I smiled as she took a long gulp but the smile faded as she swallowed and spoke again.

"I'm worried about him Scott... What if he's hurt? What if something happened to him? What if..."

I placed my forefinger on her lips to stop her and gave her a slight smile, "You are a worry wart. But that's exactly what I love about you. But you're probably right. Avery isn't exactly open with words but he is with actions. But I also think that barging into his home and demanding answers isn't going to work."

She chuckled darkly, "You know me so well..."

I ran my thumb down her cheek, "Of course."

Her eyes lifted to mine for a moment as her voice shook with worry and anger, "What if HE hurt him?"

I didn't have to ask who HE was.

It was Rick Kodiak. The man who had constantly been in our conversations for the past few months. Evie was on the fence about him. Ever since she had met Avery three years ago it seemed as if her maternal instincts had kicked in and she latched on like a protective mother, yet at the same time being a close friend. I didn't blame her or feel jealous of him. I knew why she felt the way she did.

Avery was... special. He was certainly not weak in the sense of strength but there was this fragility about him that made you want to watch your step.

When I had met Avery for the first time I had immediately noticed his strong aura of dominance. But I also noticed that he did not act upon it in the least. In fact it seemed as if he ignored it. He seemed to flow through life like a snowflake.

Calm, cool, and silent.

He was a striking young man with bright fluorescent blue eyes and shocking white hair but he was also a shy person who would rather watch from afar than be inside. That was something we shared. I always felt words were never my greatest tool. I was more silent than outspoken. To me actions spoke louder than words and together Avery and I seemed to be in unison.

So when the day came that my little Evie came home fuming and pacing holes in our floor I knew it was about Avery. Once I had calmed her down she went into a flurry about a new shifter in town and how he had claimed Avery as his chosen mate.

This new shifter being Rick Kodiak.

At this point in time I had known OF him but not the man himself. He was the talk of the rumor mill for a time when he first arrived. Of course he was. It was not every day that a new shifter came to town let alone a bear shifter.

Bear shifters are usually secluded beings who enjoy privacy above anything else. Bears are not pack animals and as such they usually avoid living in close quarters with other bear shifters unless they are looking for a mate.

When I had come home with the news of another bear shifter in town Evie had at first been ecstatic. She believed that another bear in town would give Avery a kindred spirit to talk to, a friend that would understand him on a deeper level. But when she heard Rick say that Avery was his mate she had flipped. And almost immediately the maternal instincts of a mother protecting her cub had come forward.

Over the past few weeks Rick had seemed to prove himself but Evie kept a close eye on him whenever he was close. I personally had only formally met Rick at the Halloween party but afterwards whenever we seemed to bump into each other we would converse about our day.

Rick, to me, was a very down to earth man. He was a bit rough and rigid around his edges but truly he never seemed to act impulsively or let his emotions dictate for him. He did elude a few times to having a short temper but I had yet to see this in action.

Until last week when my wife came home rambling about a fight. She had went on to tell me that it seemed that Tom and Rick had gotten into a fight and had practically destroyed the school's gymnasium. It was only when Avery came that the fight ended and the two were brought to the infirmary to be treated.

After the infirmary door closed Evie had no idea what happened. Only that the next day Avery had called in for vacation time and did not specify when he would return.

Evie had since then called him numerous times but had always received his answering machine. For the past week she had been running herself into a wreck and I could no longer sit back and watch as my beautiful wife worried herself sick.

"I'll be right back."

I stood and started to head for the door, Evie followed behind. As I came to the front door I grabbed my jacket and keys and opened the door only find my hand being grabbed. I looked down to find two sparkling green eyes peering up at me.

"Don't... Don't do anything I wouldn't let you do."

I smiled warmly at her and leaned down to give her a sweet gentle kiss, "Never."

She smiled as I left and softly closed the door behind me.

***

"Rick Kodiak?"

The group of men turned to me and nodded their heads as they recognized me. One of them, I knew as Douglas, stepped out of the circle and motioned with his head down the hall, "I'll show ya."

I followed behind him as we made our way to the end of the hallway where two office doors laid. Both had wooden plaques on their face, the left read Jeffery Cromwell, and the right read Rick Kodiak. Douglas knocked on the right and after a few moments of silence there was a gruff growl from the other side.

Before Douglas opened the door he turned slightly to me and spoke with a hushed voice as if to make sure no one else heard, "Be careful. He hasn't exactly been..."

"In a good mood?" I offered.

Douglas gave a rough snort as he shook his head.

"That's one way of putting it..."

He opened the door softly and motioned for me to go in. I nodded my thanks and stepped into the threshold. As I came in the door was closed softly behind me and I could hear the soft sound of receding footsteps. I looked forward to face the room and found my shoulders tensing slightly.

It was a disaster.

Papers strewn across the floor, cabinet drawers left wide open spilling their contents everywhere, the smell in the air was stale but with the pungent scent of sweat and dirt. But what kept my guard up was the shattered glass across the floor accompanied by claw marks scraping along one of the walls.

The only other inhabitant of this scene of chaos sat limply hunched over in a swiveling chair with his head held within his hands. There was only one word to describe this lone figure surrounded by chaos and that was, wretched.

"...Rick?..."

I took another tentative step into the room stepping over a discarded accounting book. Rick did not move. He did not even give any sign that he had heard me speak or even that he acknowledged my presence. He simply sat limply in his chair with his face hidden in his hands.

I kept my distance from him for I knew better than to aggravate a fully grown male grizzly. It was a death sentence. But I did stand my ground firmly not taking my eyes away from him. I took a deep breath and coughed slightly at the smell that entered my nose. I knew immediately the smell was from Rick himself for it was clearly the stench of unwashed flesh. And from the pungent smell of it he hadn't washed in over a week.

From this new information I felt myself grow bolder, "What happened?"

Rick didn't acknowledge this question so I went for a more blunt approach, "What happened between you and Avery?"

His name alone seemed to cause Rick immense pain as he flinched and a painful whine came from his throat. He ran his hands roughly against his face and groaned long and hard. He turned slightly away from me and I felt myself taking another step deeper into his domain.

"Rick what..."

"I didn't mean to!"

My eyes widened slightly at his voice. His voice broke on his words and grated against the nerves with how dry and raspy it sounded. As if he had been... crying for hours... maybe even days...

"What didn't you mean to do?"

I grabbed a fallen, discarded stool and set it upright a few feet away from Rick and sat down hoping to get on his level to make him open up to me.

As I sat down I saw Rick's shoulders fall and his frame begin to shake. I could smell his strong emotions in the air like a fog, anguish, pain, and anger. But the last I felt was more directed at himself than anyone else. I could see plain as day Rick was suffering and as a fellow shifter, No, as a friend, I felt this NEED to help him.

I slowly and carefully leaned forward and rested a calming hand on his knee. He froze for a moment before all the tension that had built up left him in a deep and painful sigh.

He slowly turned his chair to face me and brought his hands to rest limply on his knees. He looked like shit. His once well-trimmed beard was now a raggedy clump of untrimmed hair. His normally proper wavy hair was nothing but a mass of frizz and grease. He had obviously not showered from the smears of dirt and mud along his hands and face. It honestly looked like he had shifted and spent a week in the wilderness and then had just now come inside and put on some clothes.

Although his clothes were no better than his body. They were tattered and worn. The buttons of his shirt open wide with a few popped off and his jeans were ripped multiple places with smears of mud and grass. His boots were a mass of dried mud and leaves.

"You look like shit."

Rick glanced up at me then back down to himself and gave a dark humorless chuckle, "I feel worse... far worse..."

I nodded my head and patiently waited for him to continue on his own. He needed his time and I was going to give him that. But I was also going to give him a little push just to get things started. It must have been 15 minutes or so before Rick spoke again. His voice was less raspy but still sounded broken.

"At first I had just planned to surprise him... Jeffery had invited us out to a barbeque and I thought it would be fun... But then..."

A deep guttural growl left Rick as he wrung his hands, "I saw HIM... that piece of shit of a wolf..."

I didn't need to ask who this HIM was, I could guess.

"I saw him going into the school with his students and he was looking at Avery and I... I just... got so ANGRY! I mean how dare he look at Avery like a piece of meat! Looking at MY mate! I had to do something. And I did... But I never meant..."

His voice broke again as he looked down at his white hands and let out a terrible sigh, then continued in a pained voice, "At first I just wanted to shake him up a bit, draw the line so he knew not to cross it. But then he said something stupid like, 'Avery was his FIRST!' Ha! That son of a bitch couldn't lick Avery's shoes and he thought he was HIS? I just... snapped... After that I don't remember much... I was just so... Angry! He dared to challenge me and I just wanted to tear him to pieces. But in the end I, I put him in his place. I was going to make sure he never got close to Avery again. I was going to make sure of that..."

The way Rick's eyes darkened at this I knew Rick had meant at that time to kill Tom. He had meant to make sure Tom never laid eyes on his mate again, and I found I couldn't truly blame him for his feelings. If I were in his position at that time, I would've done the same. No matter what people think shifters are still animals, led by pure instinct and little else. In the animal kingdom if someone threatens you or your family, they die.

Simple as that.

Rick paused for a moment looking to the ground with a blank expression. I didn't move or touch him,

"What happened then?"

His gaze whipped to mine and soon his eyes came back with that pained expression.

"Avery came. I remember that. He came and calmed me down. When Avery was there I could start to think clearly. I didn't want to fight with him around... I didn't want him to see that... He took Tom and I to his room and started to fix up Tom."

Rick spat out that name like it was poison.

"Even while sitting with Avery I still didn't feel like myself. I felt off. It was all too much for me. I still felt jumpy from the fight and a few times I found myself blacking out kind of... Then Blake came for Tom and... we were alone... and I..."

His hands came up to his head and grabbed his hair in clumps and started to pull aggressively. There was a painful whine that left his chest that caused me to flinch in sympathy. His body hunched over as if to protect himself as he shook his head back and forth.

"I didn't mean for it to happen!!! I just... I just... I just wanted..." He savagely yanked at his hair and I could smell the strong metallic scent of blood in the air as Rick's claws dug into his own scalp and drew blood. His whines of pain filled the room as I sat watching him injure himself in his agony.

"Wanted what?"

I stayed my ground not wanting to show fear in case Rick lashed out at me. I had never dealt with a distressed bear before but right now my gut was telling me what to do and I was listening with rapt attention. My muscles tensed slightly in preparation to fend him off as his back bunched in tension and a vicious growl vibrated through him.

"That SHIT's scent was all over Avery!!! He had touched that FUCKING piece of shit... the wolf's scent was all over him!!!... and I wanted his scent off of HIM. He's MINE!!! I just wanted him to know I... that I... I could protect him... that I... I love him!"

I watched in silence as the strong and powerful grizzly fell to pieces in front of me. Broken cries left him as tears and blood trickled down his face, smudging the dirt that was already there.

I slowly and carefully left my seat and softly kneeled in front of his broken form. And oh so slowly I raised my hand and set it gently on his shoulder. He flinched terribly from the slight touch but slowly he leaned into the companionable touch shaking from the exertion it took not to cry out.

In this moment I saw his pain as if it was a being standing in this room with us.

Rick had fought hard.

It had been practically two months since he had met Avery, his instinctual mate, and since then all he had been able to do was to sneak a few fleeting touches. Most mates soon after they first meet and recognize the other as a mate, complete the bond within the first few weeks.

With dominant shifters, like Rick, it is normally in the first few days that they complete the bond. But like I had said, I have never truly interacted with any bears before other than Avery but I had heard that bears are one of the most aggressive when it comes to mating. Since their numbers are so few they normally mate right away to insure that their mate isn't taken by another.

Kind of like a first come first serve. If you wait too long you'll have to fight off other potential suitors...

Like Tom...

This realization of what really happened dawned on me as I looked up at Rick's pained expression. He wasn't just going in looking for a fight, Rick actually felt like Tom Could take Avery away from him.

Rick loved Avery.

He loved Avery so much he held back everything he had wanted just for him. And now here he sat. Rotting inside out from guilt for suffering from one single moment of weakness. He had let himself slip for one moment and now here he sat. Rick had tried to fight for what he wanted and in return it backfired.

Was it fair?

I don't know. All I know is what happened that day was an accident and now both of them were hurting from it.

"You need to talk to him Rick."

Rick sniffed and shook his head.

"You need to tell Avery everything you just told me."

"... he won't speak to me... I tried to call... but he wouldn't answer... He hates me... and I don't blame him..."

I gave a soft growl and grabbed ahold of both of Rick's shoulders and shook him slightly till his dejected gaze met mine, "He doesn't fucking hate you! He loves you! He's just too afraid to tell you! He needs you Rick. He may not admit it but he needs you. Just as much if not more than you need him."

His eyes fell back to the floor, "It doesn't matter if he forgives me... because I can never forgive myself..."

I leaned back and let out a long sigh, "Well that's something you need to figure out for yourself. But right now the only thing that matters is if you're Bear enough to go and get your mate? Or are you just going to sit here and wallow in self-pity while your mate is out there suffering alone?"

As my words sunk in deep the room was filled with a powerful growl that shook the cabinets and windows. He stood suddenly and in that moment I saw him. I mean really saw him.

Rick Kodiak.

"Where is he?" his voice was once again strong and thick was dominance. I smiled slightly as I stood and produced a small slip of paper with an address printed in my own handwriting. I held it up in front of Rick and smiled,

"At home waiting for you."