by Jade Alters
Debra nodded. “My late husband was a soldier too. He was the same way. Their sense of danger can be overdeveloped. Although I have to say I agree that we’re all far too complacent where our government is concerned. However, Hunter wouldn’t have acted without a reason.”
She seemed so certain. “Sometimes my sense of danger is not good enough. I deal with sick kids all day. Most with normal stuff, some with life-altering illnesses. I see people who are stressed to their limits, but I don’t deal with crime. I don’t think I could do it.”
“But we’re blessed to have you as a nurse. Just like we’re blessed to have Hunter as a soldier.”
“That’s true.” I shivered. “The thought of something dangerous going on so close to my house.” I blinked a few times. “So close to Jacob. I can’t deal with it.”
Debra put her arm around me. “You don’t know me, and you hardly know Hunter. But if there is anything on this planet that he can do to make it safe for you and Jacob, he’ll do it. It’s what makes him such a great soldier.”
“Don’t you worry about him?”
“All the time. I lost my husband too. When Hunter was injured, I didn’t know if I could make it without him. I could have thrown a fit and he might have retired. But he wanted to go back. So I had to let go.”
“I understand. Richard was the same way. I admired his passion for his duty.”
“He sounds like a good man. Did Hunter tell you how he lost his leg?”
“No. He hasn’t told me about it at all.”
“Oh, dear. I always think it’s going to get easier for him, but it hasn’t.” She folded her hands over. “It’s not my place to tell his story.”
We moved on to simpler topics, chatting for nearly an hour until my phone lit up.
It was a text from Hunter, letting us know he was back, right before he unlocked the door and deactivated the alarm.
It was obvious from the set of his jaw that he didn’t have good news.
Before I could ask what happened, Debra patted my back and kissed Hunter on the cheek. “I’m going to bed, honey. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
He hugged her in return, and I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Thank you,” I said.
With a nod, she slipped out of the room.
Once she was gone, Hunter looked right at me, as if he were willing himself to tell me the truth, no matter how distasteful. “I didn’t find the men,” he said. “But Jacob was right. There’s a cache of guns on your lake island. Looks like smugglers have been using the cabin there to store them.”
“Oh, God.” Smugglers? Right next to my house for God knows how long? “Now are we calling the police?”
“I’ll call my commanding officer. I’ll report it, make it official, but it won’t be splashed all over the police radio, and it won’t be leaked to the news.”
“Really?” None of those things had even occurred to me. “Thank you.” Overcome by a flood of emotion, I threw my arms around Hunter.
He stood still for a moment with his arms fixed at his sides. “You’re welcome,” he said. His arms came up around me slowly, until he locked his hands behind my back. I spent a few minutes breathing into his shirt, concentrating on the smell of his laundry detergent mixed with his cologne.
“You and Jacob should stay here until we eliminate this issue.”
Still clinging to him, I spoke against the fabric of his shirt. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” He brought one hand up to rest on my back. “It’s much safer here than a hotel, and you aren't going back to your house.”
My hands went straight to my hips. “Oh, I’m not?” No one told me what to do these days, so it was a gut reaction. Rationally, I was glad to have Hunter thinking through this. If he had a cough or a fever, I’d take over, but this wasn’t my area of expertise.
“Sorry,” he said, but his tone was unapologetic. “You can’t. If you’d called the police, they’d say the same thing.”
I let my arms flop to my sides, but I wanted them back around him. “But Jacob’s safe here?”
“Yes. I have a state of the art alarm system, security cameras, and I’m here. Not much will get through me.”
The nerve of this guy. I had to admire his absolute confidence. “Fine.” I picked up my glass filled with a good red wine. “I guess I can stay in your nice clean home instead of a seedy motel.”
Finally, he cracked a smile. “We even wash the sheets here,” he said.
That smile on his handsome face was lethal. I’m sure he didn't mean it that way, but at the mention of sheets, I pictured him in bed, with me next to him.
What had I gotten myself into?
Hunter
“I made breakfast!” Jacob’s voice called out. His voice wasn’t high, but it hadn’t changed yet. It was still clearly the voice of a kid, unmarked by testosterone.
As I rounded the corner to my kitchen, I found Jacob at the stove while Debra sat near him on a barstool. Next to Jacob was an open carton of eggs, several empty eggshells, mangled biscuit tins, and a jug of orange juice. Orange juice had been poured into four glasses but dripped down the cabinets to pool on the tile floor.
He wore Debra’s apron covered in bees making honey, and a big, bright grin.
I’d never mourned the lack of family in my life. Until today.
Growing up with Aunt Debra and Uncle Charlie, we’d only marginally participated in clan activities; Debra always thought the shifter clan acted like more of a cult than a family.
Having a kid in the house was nice. I was an oddball in the shifter community, because I wasn’t mated, and I didn’t have cubs. Until Aunt Debra needed more help, I’d lived alone.
I’d thought I liked it that way, and then the explosion happened, and I put my personal life on hold. For two years, I hadn’t dated or even slept with anyone.
Jacob stared up at me. “Aren’t you hungry? Aunt Debra said you’re always hungry.”
“She’s right. I am hungry.” Shifters already had bigger appetites than humans, from the extra calories we used transforming our bodies. And as a special forces operative, I spent most of my off-duty time training. Protein was required. A lot of it.
I made a big show of inhaling. “This smells great.”
Jacob scrambled for a plate. “You sit down. I’ll fix your food.”
Unable to hide a smile, I sat on a barstool while Jacob served me. While Debra and I ate, he kept up a steady stream of chatter about the food, his friends at school, and added in a few random questions about the gun smugglers that I wasn’t sure how to answer.
When we were done eating, Cassandra appeared in the doorway. She was wearing one of my t-shirts. Debra must have given it to her.
My bear approved.
“Oh my. Jacob, did you cook?”
“Yep!” He shoved a plate in his mom’s face. “Here’s yours!”
“Oh thank you, sweetie. This looks great.” I saw her gaze dart over to the sticky mess that coated the stove, but she didn’t say anything to Jacob yet, just joined in our conversation.
After breakfast, Debra took Jacob outside to empty the leftover food into her compost pile, and Cassandra grabbed a sponge and started scrubbing the stove while I picked up plates. Mid-scrub, she turned toward me. “Hey, I really need to go home and get some of Jacob’s stuff.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I realize that, but he has school tomorrow, so he needs clothes, and his backpack. It’s the last week of his fifth-grade year, and he’s not going to want to miss it. He also has an essay due tomorrow, and yearbook signing, and he takes allergy medicine,” she said, and her eyes were tight as she spoke.
I figured that while all the stuff she mentioned was important to Jacob, it wasn’t the end of the world if he didn’t have it. However, I knew better than to argue -- she was smart, and well-aware of how narrowly Jacob had escaped tragedy. She’d had to hold it together in front of him, and now she needed to be able to at least try to get their
lives back in order.
“I know you don’t trust the sheriff’s office, but I trust them. One of them can go with me,” she said.
Like Hell. Even if I’d wanted to, my bear never let that happen. “I’ll go,” I said.
“I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve already disrupted your life for us.”
“I want to.”
She rinsed the sponge and wrung it out over the sink. “If you’re offering, then sure.”
That was easier than I’d expected. “We can leave in fifteen.” I left her staring into the sink. On my way to get my sidearm, I passed by the back porch, only to overhear Jacob’s voice. Then Debra’s.
“I had a really romantic dinner planned for them. I had a whole bunch of stuff in my kayak,” Jacob explained.
“Tell me about what you were planning,” Debra said, her voice full of encouragement.
“I had bread. Real bread, with wheat. And I had fancy cheese. And candles, and a tablecloth!”
“That does sound very romantic.”
“So it all got ruined, and so did my party.”
“I'll tell you what. I’ll help you plan another romantic dinner for them.”
Debra knew I’d be able to hear them. Hell, she had the same hearing at one point in her life. It was a little faded with age now, but still better than a human’s. She wanted me to hear. The last thing I needed was for her to give Jacob false hope.
“Aunt Debra,” I growled under my breath, knowing very well that she’d ignore me.
“Your ideas are just wonderful, young man. You should be very proud.” This time her voice was loud enough to ring in my ears.
Insanity. Best if I got out of here now. “Cassandra,” I said. Where had she gone?
She stood outside next to my SUV. “You shouldn’t be outside in the front yard alone.”
“I can’t stay locked up forever.”
“It’s been twenty hours. It’s hardly forever.”
“What’s got your panties in a twist?”
“I’m not wearing any panties.”
That stopped her in her tracks. She barked out a laugh against her will.
“That’s a weird expression,” I said.
“I think it’s fitting.” She yanked the door open. “If you don’t want to take me, then don’t. I have plenty of people that would help me.”
No. No others.
Sometimes my bear was not helpful. He didn’t care how rude she was. He liked her, and he did not approve of anyone else taking care of her.
Exercising restraint, I got into the SUV without saying a word.
“Now you won’t even answer.”
My bear wanted to grab her, take her back inside, and lock her in my bedroom.
Not gonna happen, buddy.
Staying calm was required. She just had a really shitty situation happen. Her kid was in danger. She already lost her husband. Don’t smart off. My only show of frustration was letting my head thunk back against the seat rest. “I want to take you.”
She seemed to deflate, and my bear didn’t like it one bit. It felt like he bared his teeth at me for upsetting her.
“I get it,” she said. “You suddenly had two house guests you didn’t plan on, and one of them is chatty and loud and dumped syrup and batter all over your pristine kitchen, and the other is snarky and rude even though you’re trying to help.”
Had I been such a jackass that she thought I didn’t want her and Jacob there? “That’s not accurate at all.”
Her mouth flattened as she crossed her arms. “You can’t tell me you liked having your Sunday morning disrupted with all that commotion.”
I unclenched my hands from the steering wheel and started the car. “I did.”
“You’re trying to say you liked it. I find that hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because you looked like this.” Cassandra twisted her pretty face into a glowering scowl and rolled her hands into fists. She even added a huffing noise.
“That’s me?”
“Yes,” she said. “Like a snorting bull.”
Taking a deep breath, I didn’t react but focused on the scenery. Along the highway, the grass was a true green. Here and there, wildflowers bloomed. “Maybe I’m not good at showing my true reaction.”
As a large man when human, and a deadly bear when shifted, I’d had to learn from an early age to control my emotions. Now that I was a trained soldier, going nuclear meant someone could end up dead.
“Understatement. If you weren’t annoyed, then you’re a brick wall.”
A brick wall? I’d been called uncommunicative a few times, and remote. Maybe I was a little reserved compared to the other shifters I knew, but surely I wasn’t that bad. “I enjoyed Jacob’s breakfast. He’s a great kid.”
“He is. And if people don’t appreciate him, I get twitchy. But it’s a problem with you because he really likes you for some reason, and I’m going to owe you forever because you immediately put him first last night.”
“I always will. I like Jacob too. I do not resent either of you being in my house. I’m not sure how I’ve given off that impression.”
“Maybe it’s me. I think I’m going crazy.”
“It’s understandable.”
Her face lost that gloom and melted into a smile as I parked in front of her house. Before I could tell her to stay put, she’d hopped out of the car.
“Let me go first,” I said.
Shit. Her front door was wide open. “Get back in the car,” I said.
She froze.
They were inside. I could hear them. I’d been so freaking distracted trying to reassure her that I wasn’t an angry jerk that I’d barely paid attention to the danger. “Get in the car. Lie on the floorboard. If I don’t come out, drive away and call 911.”
Finally, she crept toward the car and crawled back in. I was armed, but it was my Sig Sauer P226, which might not be enough up against multiple gun smugglers. I’d probably be better off shifted, but I didn’t want to terrify Cassandra. If it came to that, I’d shift.
I pulled my gun and made my way to the cabin. Once I was on the porch, I stood next to the open door and listened.
“Can’t believe you let that little shit catch us.”
“He’s a fucking kid. We’ll get him at his school.”
“Okay, Einstein. Figure out which school it is, and we’ll go tomorrow. Maybe we can lure him back out to the lake. Perfect cover”
My blood ran cold and my heart thundered in my chest. My bear pushed forward, demanding to be let out.
These two weren’t going to live to see tomorrow. Usually killing humans was not on my list of options, but if they’d harm a child, then I wasn’t going to waste a second rethinking it.
The floorboards creaked. They were coming. I ducked backward and peeked through the window. Each carried what looked like a Colt M4 Carbine assault rifle, more powerful than what a local sheriff would carry.
I had my small sidearm, but I’d be much more effective as a bear. I reached for my shirt. If Cassandra saw, I’d deal with that later. Hers and Jacob’s safety came first.
It was time to shift.
Cassandra
I’d done as Hunter told me and curled into a ball on the floorboard of his SUV. Against the black floor mat, my entire body trembled. If they caught me, Jacob could grow up without a mother or a father.
Had Hunter been an orphan? Is that why his aunt raised him? Oh, God. Jacob didn’t even have an aunt like Debra to take care of him if I was gone. My best friend would take over, but it wasn’t the same.
My cheek pressed hard into the bottom of the steering wheel. I hadn’t heard a gunshot or even a scuffle. Leaving Hunter here alone without backup was not an option, but I also didn’t want Jacob to lose me. Once I was on my knees, I pushed myself up enough to see out of the window.
Hunter stood on my front porch. No one else was in sight. As I peered through the window, Hunter flung his shirt to the ground. His pants
were next, and I had been right. From the knee down, he’d lost his left leg, but that was secondary to what happened next. Hunter’s body morphed, changing from a gorgeous man, to a large black bear.
This wasn’t possible.
Okay. The bear could be explained. I hadn’t slept well last night. Now I’d hallucinated a bear. Or maybe a bear really was on my front porch. It happened out here by the lake, with all the woods around us. It was one of the things the realtor warned about when I bought the house. I rubbed my eyes and massaged my temples.
Ducking back down, I breathed in, making sure to keep my breath even. I’d listened to plenty of meditation podcasts over the years. I knew the drill. I could bring my heart rate down, and slow my spiraling thoughts.
A thunderous roar echoed from the cabin. What the Hell.
I peeked back out the window again. The glass was getting fogged up from my frantic breathing.
By the time I wiped the fog away and focused, the bear had a man pinned to the ground, while blood soaked the grass a solid red. Oh jeez. The bear was missing a hind leg. Just like Hunter.
Another man ran from my cabin, screaming and pointing a gun at the bear. The bear let go of the first man, who lay on the ground, not moving.
The bear whirled, leaping in the air. Somehow his movements were graceful, despite his big body and a missing leg. He opened his jaw and clamped it shut on the man’s neck. He must have sunk his teeth into the man with the gun because blood ran from his neck, spilling more dark blood onto the ground.
After a minute or so, the bear let go. He circled the man, apparently satisfied that he was no longer a threat. A low growl emanated from him the entire time. He did the same thing with the other man, walking around his body, sniffing.
I stayed where I was, crouched in front of the driver’s seat of Hunter’s SUV.
Maybe five minutes later, the bear lumbered back onto my porch. He stood right next to the pile of clothes before transforming again, this time into a human. Into Hunter.
Holy shit.
Hunter refastened his prosthetic leg. He pulled on his pants and shirt. Before I could decide what to do, he was standing by his SUV. “Cassandra,” he said. “I know you saw that. We need to talk.”
