Amber (Jewels Cafe Book 1)

by Mia Harlan

  He’s a head taller than everyone else in the crowd, but something about the way he moves makes him look even bigger. He holds his head high and his shoulders back, almost like he thinks his sheer, massive size isn’t enough. Absurd, right?

  He’s as big as the bouncer I’d shifted into earlier, if not bigger, and a hundred times more attractive. His package is probably a hundred times more attractive, too, unlike the junk that had materialized between my bouncer legs. Which is when I realize that I’m trying to picture a stranger’s cock in the middle of a crowded street in downtown Silver Springs. Way to go, Amber.

  My cheeks heat, but I can’t seem to break eye contact. The way his pupils dilate beneath dark eyelashes tells me he knows I’m watching... and he likes it.

  He crosses the rest of the distance between us, and my pulse spikes. My heart pounds so hard and fast in my chest that I start to panic. I move to the right so I can get around him, but he takes a step in the same direction, blocking my path. I step to the left, and again he copies me, until I want to turn tail and run.

  My magic flickers. I shift into the bouncer, then the grumpy werewolf, and finally Minerva. The wards in Silver Springs keep the humans from noticing, but all the supes walking past gape. The man in front of me doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed.

  When I finally start to shift back to my own body, his lips curve up in a slow smile. He seems perfectly content to just stand there, watching me regain control of my magic. His huge frame forces people to push past. He doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s only got eyes for me.

  “Chameleon?” he asks, his deep drawl sending a wave of heat coursing through me.

  I tilt my head up—way up, because he’s even taller up close—and nod. “Bear shifter?”

  Somehow, I know I’m right. I can totally picture him as a huge grizzly, even if I’ve never met a bear shifter before. There weren’t any at the academy, since bears don’t abandon their young if their magic goes wonky. I doubt their magic ever goes wonky—all they really have to do is shift into one form and back again.

  Okay, fine, I know wonky magic isn’t the only way to land at the academy. I know that some supes, like Julian’s coven, actually believe in a well-rounded academy education. But the rest were rejects like me. A situation bear shifters like this guy probably never have to face.

  “I’m Wesley Berrett.” The bear extends one huge hand. “Everyone just calls me Wes.”

  “Amber.” My name leaves my lips in a breathless whisper as I slip my palm into his.

  Actual sparks shoot up my arm, and Wes’s hand tightens around mine. His lips curl up in a slow, predatory smile, and he runs his thumb along the pulse point on my wrist. That gentle caress is enough to send my whole body into overdrive.

  “Ambear.” Wes’s voice cracks, and his pupils dilate. He stares at me like I’m a jar of honey or his very reason for being. Maybe both. Then, he advances.

  Stalking me.

  Cornering me.

  Until I somehow end up with my back against a shop window and Wes with his huge palms planted on either side of me.

  He growls. A predator who has just captured his prey.

  His eyes darken. His gaze locks on my lips. I know beyond a doubt that he’s going to kiss me.

  He starts to lean forward, and my eyes widen. I can’t do this. No matter how my body reacts. No matter how much I want him to. I’m still too raw from what happened with Julian.

  My chameleon magic spikes.

  I know what’s going to happen a split second before Wes jumps away from me like he’s been burned.

  “What the hell?” he demands as I transform into Minerva. It’s the exact opposite reaction to Julian’s, and tears spring to my eyes.

  “I—”

  “Oh, Ambear...” Wes reaches out and tentatively cups my Minerva cheek. “Is this what you really look like?”

  Is it just me or does he sound kind of disappointed? I shift back to my own body in my surprise.

  “Or is this is the real you?” he presses. “You can be honest with me, honey.”

  “This is the real me,” I whisper, but I can’t quite meet his eyes. I don’t think I could take anyone else preferring Minerva over me.

  “Promise?” Wes asks hopefully, and my eyes snap up.

  “You like that I look this way?” I gesture at myself—my fine, blonde hair, my slightly too large nose, and my too small breasts.

  “Of course I do,” Wes says, like he can’t imagine why anyone would want to look like Minerva. Unlike Julian, who’s in love with her... and not me.

  Chapter 4

  AMBER

  “I... I have to go.” I slip under Wes’s arm and rush down the street.

  Wes doesn’t chase after me. He doesn’t have to. His huge frame allows him to match my hurried steps with slow, languid ones.

  “Where are we going?” he asks casually, like we’re on a leisurely walk instead of a breathless race.

  “Nowhere.” I speed up some more. It hurts that this man I just met is doing everything I wish Julian had done... and didn’t. It hurts that Wes is following me, while Julian just let me go. Like I didn’t matter. Like Minerva mattered more than I do.

  “Are you late for something?” Wes asks.

  “No.” I break into a run. I should probably shift into a faster form, but knowing me, I’d screw it up and have arms for legs and legs for arms. Or someone’s hair growing out of my chin.

  “Are you alright?” Wes asks as he casually jogs next to me.

  “No, I’m not alright!” I throw my hands up and pull to a stop. The stitch in my side is a painful reminder that I need to work out more. And the ache in my chest is an even more painful reminder that Julian broke my heart. “Why do you even care, Wes? We just met. You don’t even know me!”

  “I care.” Wes regards me for a few seconds, and then nods, as if coming to some sort of decision. “And you’re right. I don’t know you... yet.”

  Before I get the chance to respond, Wes grabs my hand and pulls me through the nearest door. It happens to lead into a shoe store, or what a shoe store would look like if mated with a polar bear.

  The floor is carpeted in faux polar bear fur. Matching pillows are scattered across plush benches, beckoning customers to try on shoes. And the rest of the place? It’s spotless, sparkling and color coordinated: the walls, the ceiling, the counters, even the shelves.

  “Halo! Welcome to the Perfect Fit! We’ve got a heavenly selection of shoes!” The angel behind the counter greets us cheerfully. Her small white wings fan out behind her, and I realize that the store decor is a lot less polar bear and a lot more... well, her. “Is there anything I can help you find today?”

  “We're fine,” Wes practically growls as he leads me to the back of the store. His behavior is actually pretty fitting for a bear shifter. I think? Everything I know comes from one year of Shifter Culture studies, taught to me by a textbook and a turtle shifter who hated all other supes. So who really knows?

  Wes pulls me down onto the soft, padded bench. I sink into it, which reminds me of my bed, which sets my heart racing. Around a bear shifter who I just met five minutes ago. “Why are we in here, Wes?”

  “To get to know each other.” He turns to face me and smiles encouragingly, like he thinks we’re at a table in Jewels Cafe instead of in a shoe store.

  “Hi again!” The angel sneaks up on us, and we both jump and nearly fall off the bench. She doesn’t seem to notice as she focuses on smoothing out invisible wrinkles from her 1950’s white sheath dress. “I’m Ruby. And I don’t like to harp on about shoes—just kidding! I totally do. Darn it! Sorry. My remote didn’t work. Harp music is supposed to play during that line.”

  The angelic Ruby fumbles with the remote, then stops and stares at us. She smiles sweetly for several long seconds, like she has absolutely nothing else to do and nowhere else to be.

  “How about we just go?” I ask Wes.

  “She'll try those on,” he says at the same
time.

  I turn to look in the direction Wes is pointing. He's not even looking, so his choice of shoe is the equivalent of throwing a dart blindfolded. It also happens to be the same pink high-heeled pumps Minerva wore this morning while she flirted with Julian. Is it some sort of sign?

  “I’m not wearing those!” I snap at Ruby, since there’s a good chance this is her doing. Aren’t angels responsible for signs from fate? Or was that unicorns? And why didn’t we have better professors at the academy to prepare me for times like these?

  “I wouldn’t wear those shoes either. They don’t look comfortable at all!” She shakes her angel wings, and a few feathers drift down onto the carpeted floor. “Perhaps you’d like to try on something else?”

  I start to shake my head but Wes nods. “How about those slippers?”

  “The yellow ones?” I frown, because the things he's pointing at look like a pair of angora rabbits that fell into a vat of mustard and then got chased through a field of dandelions by hungry wolves.

  “So you don’t like them?” Wes chuckles. “See? We’re getting to know each other already!”

  “How is this getting to know each other?”

  All I’ve learned so far is that he has terrible taste in shoes. And that he has the sexiest laugh.

  I don’t even understand why I’m still here instead of heading back to the cafe. I need to pull myself together, march back in there, and convince Julian that nothing happened. And then I need to forget all about it this afternoon and focus on finding a way to save the cafe.

  “Now I know you don’t like heels or slippers,” Wes announces happily.

  “I don’t have anything against slippers! I love slippers when they don’t look like furry corn on the cob! No offense,” I add the last part for Ruby’s benefit, though she doesn’t look the least bit offended.

  “They don’t...” Wes tilts his head to inspect the slippers. “Actually, now that you mention it, they kind of do.”

  “Oh yes, I see it.” The angel smiles like it’s somehow a good thing. “If you don’t like corn, I carry these in four other colors, too! Lettuce, and blueberry, and pumpkin! But, most importantly, carpet.”

  “Carpet?” I frown, my gaze following hers to the faux fur beneath our feet.

  “Oh yes.” Ruby smiles happily. “The closest you can get to walking on a cloud. I should know!”

  “That sounds nice,” Wes says seriously. “Why don’t you try them on and see, Ambear?”

  “No, thanks.” I shake my head. I can barely afford groceries. What am I even doing at a shoe store? “I really think we should—”

  “Perhaps a pair of boots, then?” Ruby picks up a pair from a nearby display. “It's getting colder, and these are really in season.”

  “I already have boots,” I tell her. And even if I didn’t, I would not buy the polar bear mukluks she’s picked out. One week with me, and they’ll turn into drowned rats.

  “One can never have too many boots,” Ruby says with a sweet smile. “Darn it, I had a joke about boots but I forgot!”

  “You should try them on, Ambear,” Wes wraps an arm around my shoulder and whispers into my ear. “Trust me.”

  “Fine. Yeah. Okay.”

  “Size...” Ruby regards my feet and then adds, “ten?”

  At my nod, she spins around and starts to fly away. Except, her foot gets caught on the carpet and she crashes down face first.

  “Are you alright?” Wes jumps up and pulls her to her feet.

  “It’s nothing like a cloud,” Ruby complains, stomping on the carpet with her foot before taking flight toward a door leading out back.

  “That should buy us some time.” Wes turns to me with a boyish grin. He looks like he’s just gotten away with something, and for a split second, I actually expect him to do something crazy like rob the place. “She kind of reminds me of my niece.”

  “Who, Ruby?”

  Wes nods. “Sarah is ten. She just went through a growth spurt, so she’s tripping over everything.”

  “Do you have a big family?” I ask. I think we learned in Shifter Culture that bears tend to have huge families. Or maybe that’s wolves? If I’d been paying attention instead of ogling Julian, maybe I’d know the answer.

  “Not that big. Just my dad, twin sisters, and triplet brothers... and a bunch of uncles, aunts and cousins.”

  “So not big at all,” I say sarcastically.

  Wes laughs. “How about you?”

  “Just my mom and sister.” Who I barely talk to.

  Wes waits for several seconds in silence, and his eyes twinkle as he asks, “What’s your favorite color?”

  “Why?” I frown.

  “Because...” Wes laughs. “We’re getting to know each other.”

  “In a shoe store?”

  “Can’t think of a better place. Now, favorite color? Mine’s gray.”

  “Gray isn’t a color. And fine, amber.”

  “Amber, huh?” He grins at me. “That suits you. And now I know you have a mother and sister, you wear size ten shoes, and you like practical footwear.”

  “And you wear sneakers.” I glance pointedly at his feet. Giant sneakers. “So what?”

  “So they’re important things to know about your mate.”

  At his last word, I completely freeze. Mate? As in...

  “Me? Us?” I point from him to me and back again, my mouth gaping like a fish.

  “You... don’t feel it?” Wes’s shoulders slump.

  “I...” I definitely feel something. An attraction, a chemistry, a pull. But no stronger than what I feel with Julian.

  “Chameleons don’t have mates?” Wes frowns.

  I shake my head. The idea of a chameleon like my mother falling in love is completely absurd. “No. And you and I can’t be mates, Wes. I barely even know you!”

  “That’s how mates works, Ambear. Don’t you believe in love at first sight?”

  “Of course I do!” It happened with Julian. But it can’t possibly be happening with Wes, too.

  Can it?

  Chapter 5

  WES

  What are you doing, Wes? I berate myself.

  I know I'm rushing things with Amber.

  I’m going about things backwards. Doing things all wrong. All those stupid mistakes I’ve seen other bears make when they met their mates—all the things I promised I wouldn’t do—and look at me now. No better than they are.

  I practically tried to maul my mate in the middle of a crowded street. Didn't even last a full hour before bringing up the l-word. I dragged her into a shoe store, for honey's sake!

  This is my grand gesture? The big, romantic date that will win my mate’s heart? Shoes?

  Not that shoes are the worst date in the world. If you ask my sisters, shoes are a gift from God and a monthly way to your mate’s heart: birthdays, holidays, anniversaries. When it comes to Clara and Carla, there’s no wrong time for their mates to buy them shoes. And their parents. And their siblings. They may be grown women with kids of their own, but if the twins were here now, they’d be drowning in a pile of shoes, fighting over who saw which shoes first, and shouting about dibs.

  My Ambear? She seems pretty resistant to shoes. But maybe she’ll like something else? Like jewelry? Or dresses?

  I look her over, not for the first time, and wonder how soft her dress would feel beneath my palm. I want to cup one of her perfect breasts and massage her nipple through... I slam my eyes shut.

  Breathe, Wes! You are not jumping your mate in the middle of a shoe store! You are done rushing things!

  My mate deserves better than the shit job I’ve done trying to make her feel special. She deserves to be wooed. If she was a bear—if she'd grown up with the idea of fated mates and knew I was hers from the moment our eyes met—she still wouldn’t agree to get naked in a shoe store. She'd expect me to buy her dinner and give her my house before she ever considered taking her clothes off.

  When my fathers met my mother, they spent a we
ek romancing her before she finally accepted their advances. Yes, she loved them at first sight, but no bear worth her berries would ever let her mates off that easy.

  My Ambear is no different. I need to win her over with romance, commitment, and food. It’s no wonder she’s resistant to being mates.

  “Let me take you to dinner,” I say, pulling Amber to her feet.

  “I can’t. I—”

  “Please? I know—”

  A sudden crash thunders from the back room. Amber and I both spin around to face the back door just as the angel flies out. Or tries to, anyway. With her wings fanned out, she crashes into the doorframe and bounces back with an oof.

  “Wow. That was pretty embarrassing,” she says as she folds in her wings and attempts to walk through the doorway again.

  “I’ve done worse.” Amber grins at her. “One time, I shifted into a Pegasus and took out an entire chemistry lab.”

  “You can shift into a Pegasus?” I turn to my chameleon mate in awe.

  I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about chameleons. Bears and other supes don’t really mix. I’ve got a few witches working for me—magic’s pretty handy when you need to clean up a mess—but no chameleon. So what I have learned, I know from stories told around a campfire. And somehow, I’d assumed my Ambear could only take on human forms.

  “Only if I’ve seen one in the past week.” Amber’s cheeks flush, though why she’d be embarrassed by such an awesome power, I can’t even guess. “I... can’t really shift into anyone I haven’t seen in the past week.”

  “So you can shift into me?”

  Amber nods and morphs into me.

  The rendition is so accurate, it’s like looking in the mirror. Almost. If I liked to wear pink dresses. And I was in the habit of constantly glancing down, as if I were trying to check out my crotch through the dress.

  “Fuck, am I hard?” I ask her before I can filter myself. I don’t really see a hard-on through the dress, but it is a little loose. Maybe she can feel it. I definitely can, since I’ve been semi-hard since the moment I met my Amber. So, if she shifted into me, it only stands to reason that...