The Apex Shifter Complete Set: Books 1 - 3

by Emilia Hartley

  The old woman reached across the table and put her hand on Felicity’s. With a knowing look and a wink, Mrs. Shoat said, “I’m pretty sure he’s single.”

  Felicity’s brain started working overtime. A big, dumb guy with a lot of land was just her type. It might be a lot more fun to go the seduction route with him than her usual cat-and-mouse intimidation tactics.

  Mrs. Shoat read the look in her eyes. “He’s a good looking boy, that Thorn. Tall as a tree, with that handsome face and that beautiful, sculpted muscular body and that tiny, tight little butt.”

  Mr. Shoat scowled at her. Mrs. Shoat patted his arm. “If you’re into that sort of thing,” she said.

  Felicity figured any woman with a pulse would be into that sort of thing. Not to mention the man smelled of pine and sawdust, had long, flowing hair and eyes the color of a dusk sky in autumn. Though it made her seduction plan all the more enticing, she mentally fanned herself. Down girl!

  Excusing herself, she returned to her room. Even on Saturday, she had a business to run. On the little roll top desk, she opened her laptop and booted it up. She made calls to the architect, surveyor, giving them instructions and updates. Next, Felicity called her building managers. Her new apartment building in Estacada wasn’t fully occupied. Elevating her inner animal, she gave orders to find reputable tenants before the end of next week. The subtle undertones of a predator in her voice added subliminally—or else.

  As the sun lowered, she returned to the dining room to endure another meal with the Shoats. Luckily, they were busy at doing whatever B&B owners got busy at, and she ate alone. Felicity’s eyes strayed to the photos above the mantle. Were all of those kids the Shoats’, or was she looking at family reunion photos?

  After she finished, she returned to her room. It was time to strut her stuff. Felicity dressed in a snug, low-cut V-neck sweater and her shortest skirt. She’d seen the way Thorn had stared at her stockings when she’d gotten in the car. Opting for the laciest ones she owned, she surveyed herself in the mirror. You could see maybe an inch of the dark welt beneath the hem of the skirt.

  Just for the sake of going over the top, she added tall patent leather boots with a three-inch heel. She made a last turn before the full-length mirror. “Eat your heart out, Thorn.”

  There was only one place around the lumberjack might go—the same place he went last night. She wrapped herself in a trench coat. No need to bring out the big guns until she needed them. Hopping into her up-righted sports coupe, she made the two-minute drive and wedged the little vehicle between two giant white trucks in the lot of the Squirrels Nuts.

  For a moment, she thought she’d lucked out when a man nearly plowed into her as she reached the door. Few men stood so tall, or so broad at the shoulder, and this one dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. Even the hair and beard were similar to Thorn’s, but shorter and shot with gray. His eyes met hers, a cold dark green that seemed lit from behind. Without a nod or an excuse me, he brushed past. Felicity shivered a little from the man’s glance. Nope, not Thorn at all.

  Immediately, Felicity knew Thorn was not inside, either. Customers were a few deep at the bar, tables were full, conversation roared over the jukebox and no one looked ready to run away or pee their pants. She eye-browed and half-smiled her way onto a bar stool. When she caught the bar owner’s eye, Felicity crooked a finger.

  “I don’t care what you offer me, I’m not selling,” the woman with the big boobs hidden under a man’s shirt scowled.

  “What if I offered you seven hundred fifty thousand dollars?”

  The bar owner paled. It took her a few heartbeats to find her voice. “Are you being serious right now?”

  Felicity chuckled. “Absolutely not. Can you just relax Miss…?”

  “Sally.”

  “I need to talk to you, Sally.”

  Her eyes skated across the busy place. “I’m a little busy.”

  “About Thorn.”

  Sally’s face closed down quicker than a rat trap. “What about Thorn?”

  As Felicity suspected, Sally was into the big lumberjack. Not that she could blame her. But despite Sally’s protectiveness, her expression, her lack of words, brought her to realize that Thorn did not reciprocate. She was dealing with a little unrequited love here, and Felicity would have to move carefully.

  “I think I owe that big dumb jerk a favor,” she said.

  Sally’s face remained emotionless, her eyes narrowing. “What for?”

  Felicity blew out her cheeks and cast her eyes skyward. “I think he was trying to save my life last night. It was really just a big misunderstanding. But I shouldn’t have blown him off like that. I probably bruised his ego, and I feel bad.”

  “Well, he’s got a big one, all right,” Sally said. Then her face colored. “Ego, a big ego I mean.”

  Oh, this poor sucker of a girl was really stuck on the big galoot. “I just wanted to buy him a drink and put things right before I leave town.”

  “You’re leaving town?” Hope shined in Sally’s eyes.

  “Real soon.”

  Sally took a relieved breath. “Well, Thorn really likes fighting. No one around here will fight him, so he drives around looking for a bunch of bikes parked outside a bar on Saturday nights.”

  “He goes looking for bikers to fight?”

  With a shrug, Sally said, “Thorn’s interests are pretty limited, he likes to knock down trees, he likes to get drunk and fight.”

  The redhead sitting at the bar next to Felicity leaned closer. “He likes fucking.”

  Sally’s face beamed like a stop light. Felicity gave the redhead the stink eye. The woman wasn’t unattractive. “You know this from experience?”

  “Ha!” The woman knocked back her beer. “Don’t I wish. Man’s got a reputation, though. And it’s not like any gal wouldn’t want some of that.”

  Felicity turned an inquisitive face to Sally, raising her brows.

  “I have to pour beers.” Sally ducked away, avoiding eye contact

  And I have to go find a bar with bikes parked outside, Felicity thought to herself. Maybe I can pull a damsel in distress bit for the lumberjack.

  But her suspicion was confirmed. Sally was smitten with the Lumberjack, and the Lumberjack was too stupid to notice, or just not interested. Felicity’s experience was that most men were into huge boobs. Was there something else about the bartender that made Thorn shy away? If there was, she would have to make sure the big man didn’t shy away from Felicity.

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  Chapter Four

  True to his word, Laramie Marino and his clan cleared the deer from Thorn’s yard. Even with his bear’s senses, he hadn’t smelled, heard or seen them in action. They were a sneaky bunch, those wolf shifters.

  Something was very wrong about that. The fact that he hadn’t sensed them, even if he was engaged in binge watching a Good Eats marathon, disturbed Thorn on a deep level.

  If you wanna know about apexes and stuff, you gotta talk to The Vet.

  Thorn eyed Marino’s place, the front porch just visible over his fence. If you were six-eight, anyway. The wolf-shifter was connected. Thorn was not. Maybe there was something to what Marino said. Sighing, he figured there was only one way to find out.

  It was a little cool for all but the staunchest campers, still too warm for ski season, and the grounds around Little Crater Lake were unoccupied. The small lake looked like a sapphire dropped in the middle of leaf litter. Thorn parked his truck and let his senses guide him to the swamp. A few minutes’ walk brought him to a log cabin with a swayback roof. He read the shingle hanging from a porch support:

  Sybil Auger

  Wildlife Rehabilitation Consultant

  Whatever the hell that was.

  He could smell animals around the place—wounded animals. It brought his blood up. Thorn creaked up the porch steps and knocked on the door.

  “C’mon in,” a woman’s voice called. “What’d you
do, run over a bobcat?”

  Thorn pushed into a one-room space with herbs hanging from the rafters and cages lining the walls. Something deep within his animal psyche wanted to turn tail and run. Caged wildlife squawked and howled as he entered. He silenced every critter with a hard stare.

  A woman sat on a tall stool in the center of the room. In front of her was a surgical tray on a stand, covered with glittering instruments. A hawk, eyes shuttered by a hood, perched on a T-shaped mount. Thorn guessed Sybil Auger, The Vet, to be pushing fifty from her long gray ponytail. But beneath her faded Fish and Game jacket, her tits looked perky in a tie-dyed shirt and his enhanced senses detected no sag to her ass.

  At the silence, she spun toward him. “Shifter.” She said it like a swear word.

  Thorn, a little taken aback, felt his jaw drop. No human had ever pegged him, and not even another shifter had identified his inner beast from a single glance.

  From her surgical tray, she lifted a gemstone that mirrored the appearance of Little Crater Lake and peered at him through it. With a sigh and a frown, she dropped the precious stone and folded her arms. “Oh. So you’re the asshole slacker fucking up the woods around here.”

  Still befuddled, Thorn only got out, “Hey!”

  With a head shake and an eye roll, the woman turned back to her work. Something had caught in the hawks wings. Fishing line, Thorn thought, and the scent of avian blood drifted in the cubic space. With deft hands, the woman carefully cut and pulled the string free.

  After a few minutes of being ignored, he stepped forward. “I’m Thorn.”

  “I know who you are.” She didn’t look at him.

  “I got a problem.”

  Still, she focused on her work. “I’d say you have a lot of problems.”

  “Somebody put a bunch of dead deer in my front yard,” he said, “and knocked down my satellite dish.”

  This seemed to interest her. She put down her forceps and scalpel and took him in. “Well, good. It’s about time we had a real apex predator around here.”

  It took Thorn a moment to find his voice. “Say what?”

  “We just had the worst winter in forty years. Game had to be put down, including hundreds of starving deer and elk. You don’t have the first clue about what you’re doing. I say, good riddance. If a new apex is challenging you for your territory, I’m rooting for him or her.”

  Irritation seeped into his brain. “What does a bad winter and starving deer have to do with me?”

  “For fuck’s sake, what did you just say?” Astonishment widened her features.

  “I turn into a bear. Period. I don’t control the weather.”

  “Holy shit.” Sybil squinted at him. “Just out of curiosity, what were you doing last winter?”

  Thorn thought for a moment. “Well, it got really cold for a long time. I ate thirty Big Macs and five gallons of ice cream, drank two cases of beer and went to sleep for a few weeks.”

  “Goddess, strike me dead. You hibernated?”

  Was that what that was? “There was too much snow to work. Seemed like a good idea.”

  “Work? Like a job, a human job?”

  “I’m an arborist.”

  She shook her head. Thorn couldn’t tell if she was frightened or angry. “You couldn’t be a lumberjack, so you hibernated.”

  Thorn held his palms out.

  Slowly, The Vet got off the stool and approached. “You’re an apex predator. It’s obvious. So why—” she poked him with her index finger—“aren’t” poke “you” poke “acting like one?”

  “Ow! Quit poking me.” Her nails were sharp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She stood staring at him, examining him like a patient. “Well, fuck me sideways, you really are as stupid as you look.”

  Inside Thorn’s head, his inner bear let out a roar. As if she heard it, The Vet stepped back. To his surprise, instead of running away, she smiled. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  Vision going a little red, Thorn rolled his neck and flexed his muscles hard to keep the bear within under control.

  The Vet dropped her shoulders and stared at the ceiling. “No, no, no. You have to let the bear out, not keep it in.”

  “If I let the bear out, I’ll kill you,” he said through his teeth, the rumble of the bear audible in his words.

  Sybil laughed. “In your dreams!” She raised her hand and opened it. He saw a small silver fetish in the shape of a bear. Thorn had one just like it. It was the one thing he owned of his mother’s. The Vet drew a symbol in the air with the charm.

  “Shift!”

  Thorn suddenly tumbled over the edge of his humanity. Bones and gristle popped, muscles swelled, teeth elongated, fur erupted. He felt his mass exploding outward, his hands widening into killing paws. In their cages, the animals freaked in a symphony of cries. The tiny room was suddenly filled with fifteen hundred pounds of Kodiak bear. Thorn reared back on his hind legs, head brushing the ceiling. He let out a rumbling roar that shook the window panes.

  “Son of a bitch,” the Vet breathed. “Ursus arctos—maybe Ursus arctos middendorffi. A brown bear shifter. Shit on a stick, sonny, you are a total fuck-up.”

  Enraged, Thorn swiped at her. But didn’t. The bear wanted to smash her to pulp with a single blow. Instead, he just stood on his hind legs while The Vet circled around him. He was paralyzed.

  What. Thee. Fuck.

  “You’re the biggest fucking specimen I’ve ever seen. Hol-ee shit.”

  The Vet examined him, poked him, prodded him, and Thorn could only stand like a statue. A hippie witch, Marino had called her. After a few moments, she appeared in front of him again. She shook her head. “What a waste.”

  Sybil made a gesture, fingers closing on the figurine, hand descending. “That’s enough. Down, boy.”

  Spine shifting, hair retreating, every part of him crackling and retracting, Thorn found himself assuming human form against his will. He stood, shocked, naked, glancing at his shredded clothes on the floor. The Vet, the witch, reached into a cupboard and tossed him a hospital gown.

  “I guess I have to spell this out for you.”

  Bewildered, Thorn gathered up his destroyed clothing. Not his favorite boots!

  “As your veterinarian—”

  His eyes snapped to her. “Who said anything about you being my—”

  She talked over him, raising her voice “—I can’t help you. You have to figure this out for yourself. The only thing I can offer you is a piece of advice, and a warning.”

  Thorn wanted to protest, but something stilled his voice. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, the bear wanted to listen.

  “First, I’ve heard about you. I know you like to raise a lot of hell in town. Your bear wants the same thing. Let the bear out. Let him run and hunt and rule the woods. Without a functioning apex, the ecosystem falls apart. Which brings me to the warning.

  “Something as big and bad as you wants your territory, deserves your territory. He or she is coming to kill you. Whatever this shifter is, it has enough confidence to warn you—to taunt and threaten you. Nature abhors a vacuum. Either you start acting like an apex, or nature will replace you. The world is changing, the climate is changing. If you don’t adapt, you’ll go the way of all the brown bears in this part of the world.”

  Thorn shrugged the gown over his head. “I’m not afraid of a fight.”

  “Everyone around here knows you like to fight. But how many shifters have you fought? How many apex shifters, Thorn? Have you ever had to battle for your own territory?”

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  Chapter Five

  Thorn fished his truck keys out of the pile of rags that used to be his clothes and started for home. Memories flashed in his mind. He remembered as a little kid spending time in the hospital. There were just bits and pieces, fleeting and frightening. He knew that his mother had died defending him from a bear, and he had been grievously inju
red. For his entire life, he believed his aversion to the medical profession stemmed from this early trauma.

  Apparently, this was not the case. The fact of the matter was that doctors were asshole shit-eating motherfuckers of the highest order, and fuck them all. He needed to get drunk and beat the shit out of somebody—hopefully many somebodies.

  First, he needed pants.

  And shoes, a shirt—did he even own another belt?

  After forty minutes, he skidded to a stop in his yard. Marino abandoned his lawnmower and wandered over before Thorn could get in the trailer.

  “Visited The Vet I see,” the wolf called.

  Thorn didn’t turn. “Fuck you, Marino.”

  He did have another pair of shoes—beat up old sneakers, not boots. His other clothes were smeared with mud and tree sap and smelled like Thorn. Whatever. He didn’t need to dress up for a fight. He grabbed some stretchy sweat pants. Five minutes later, he was back in the truck. Laramie Marino waved at him with a smile. Thorn waved back with two middle fingers.

  While Thorn felt riled up and a little humiliated, he noticed the bear within seemed calmer than usual—especially for a Saturday night. Was it the hippie bitch’s words that soothed the beast? Perhaps it was that charm she waved at him. What had he done with the one his mother left him? He’d have to look for it later. It must mean more than being a simple inheritance.

  It was true that Thorn didn’t take the bear out for a ride as often as he used to. Usually, the bear fully emerged under the full moon. But no way was he about to admit that The Vet was right.

  He keyed up his bear sense of smell—seven times better than a bloodhound’s—and rolled down the window. Cool air filtered through the cab. He sought the smell of grease and exhaust, dope and beer, poor hygiene—biker smell. There were only so many bars out in the boonies to begin with, and even fewer that would welcome an outlaw biker gang. Thorn knew them all, and each was dozens of miles away from the next. He didn’t want to be driving all night.