Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance by Selena Kitt Page A

dress her for bed like a child and tuck her in, too. Sibyl’s eyes closed all on their own. She couldn’t keep them open. The girl moved around the room, straightening and singing to herself, but Sibyl was only peripherally aware. The day had been long and she was exhausted. Before she fell asleep, she caught the scent of Raife on her pillow. It was the last thing she remembered, smiling to herself, until she woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a baby crying. 
     
    She woke with a start, the room cool—the fire had burned low—not knowing where she was. Then it came back to her in an instant. She remembered everything. Everything. And the chill wasn’t all that made her shudder. She was in a wolves’ den and, if any of them wanted to kill her, that door wouldn’t keep them out. Sibyl put her head back down on the pillow—it still smelled like Raife—and tried to sleep again.
     
    But the baby continued to cry.
     
    She tried to judge how close it was. Things seemed to echo down here. Sound was strange. But it sounded very close. Right next door mayhaps. Laina’s baby? Was it ill? The sound went on and on. The baby was frantic now.
     
    Sibyl got up, glancing around for something to put on, but her dress was gone. She was wearing her underwear and a long shirt that came to mid-thigh. There was a plaid on the chair and a leather belt. Sibyl did her best, cinching the belt around her waist over her nightshirt, so the plaid hung just past her bare knees, and then pulled the extra plaid fabric over her shoulder, tucking it into her belt. She considered going out into the hallway barefoot—she couldn’t find her stockings or garters—but the mountain floor was cold, so she tied her soft-soled shoes on before opening the big door to her room.
     
    The sound of the baby crying was louder here. It was a lusty, wailing cry. The poor thing sounded hungry. Sibyl crept down the dark hall, heart thudding hard in her chest, hoping she wouldn’t run into any wolves. She didn’t exactly relish coming face-to-face with an animal in the darkness, even if Raife had assured her that none of them meant her any harm.
     
    “Laina?” Sibyl called the woman’s name outside the next door. The baby’s cry was definitely coming from there and, as far as she knew, this was the room she had woken up in. This was where the white she-wolf had birthed her baby. She knocked, waiting for an answer. “Laina? Are you in there?”
     
    She told herself she should just go back to her room, close the door, and ignore it. This wasn’t her place, it wasn’t her child. She told herself, while she was at it, she should probably just go back to her room, grab her satchel, and slip out of this place in the middle of the night. But she did neither. Instead, she put her hand on the latch and pushed. The door swung open.
     
    “Laina?” Sibyl saw the woman on the mattress near the fire, her back bare, the sheet pulled up. The baby was beside her on the mattress, waving his fists in the air, his face red from crying. Hungry, she thought. She had been an only child but she had spent enough time with her father’s healer, tending birthing and nursing women, to know that cry.
     
    The midwife was gone. She wondered where Darrow was, but mayhaps, like many animals, male wolves were a danger to their own young? She couldn’t remember enough about wolves and their behavior, cursing the fact they’d been outhunted in England by mid-century. Was Laina so exhausted from the birth she slept right through the babe’s cries?
     
    “Are you all right?” Sibyl crept closer, suddenly imagining this woman turning back into the great, white wolf she had been, imagined the wolf seeing a human approaching her baby, seeing her as a threat and tearing Sibyl’s throat out.
     
    In spite of that image, in spite of her fear, Sibyl crept forward. She touched the woman’s shoulder and Laina moaned softly, but didn’t wake, even when Sibyl shook