The Bear's Secret Surrogate

by Amy Star

  “Where are we going?” she wondered as the bike pulled away from the curb.

  Atticus might have answered her, but if he did, his reply was lost to the wind as the bike sped up. Casey supposed she would just need to wait and see, then. If nothing else, she had already had the biggest surprise of her life, so anything else would likely seem like small potatoes.

  What a strange thought, to be able to say with reasonable certainty that she had already had the biggest shock of her life. It was actually sort of a relief.

  *

  Casey hadn’t been expecting to wind up at one of the city parks. Not that she was complaining; Crestholme had always been an attractive city, and its parks were in abundance. She had just sort of assumed that Atticus had something fancy in mind.

  Granted, as they walked along the winding trails, it started to make more sense. Everyone expected him to opt for something fancier. As such, they didn’t run into a single camera-person. It was sort of surreal; they had something approximating privacy.

  Besides, Casey wasn’t going to complain about a reasonably simple date. Assuming it counted as a date. Were they dating? They were already married, even if they had hardly even stood closer than arm’s length from each other. Casey was just going to go ahead and say that they were dating, for simplicity’s sake and the sake of her own sanity.

  There was a café in the park, though it was more just a small counter in a shack with a kitchen behind it. It was near the main entrance to the park, beside a complicated arrangement of tables and chairs around an ornate fountain. Atticus and Casey entered the park from a gate that was nearly clear on the opposite side of the park and meandered their way to the main gate, where they got dinner at the tiny café. Soup, a sandwich, and coffee may not have been a feast fit for kings, but Casey was content with it, and she balanced it carefully as she carried it to one of the tables closest to the fountain.

  Their conversation had carried on in no particular direction as they walked, and it continued to do so for the first few minutes as they ate, though gradually it lulled.

  “What about your job?” Casey wondered quietly, once their aimless chitchat turned into silence and she remembered that there was supposed to be a purpose to the evening. She was supposed to be learning about him. She stirred her soup in idle circles with her spoon. “The antiquities thing. Was that true?”

  “Yes, though not the whole story,” Atticus replied. “I own a travel agency. Under a different name, of course. It’s called Highland Ventures. And it is a legitimate business, but it’s also a front for a much more specific sort of travel.”

  “I’m going to assume that travel involves people who turn into animals,” Casey guessed before she picked up her cup to drink the last of her soup.

  “Right.” Atticus nodded once. “I use the business to help were-animals that have been discovered or are at risk of being discovered to disappear. A lot of the time, it’s as simple as just relocating them, but occasionally, we’ve had to manufacture entirely new identities.”

  “Who are they running from?” Casey wondered, bemused. It took a moment for her to recall that her first instinct had been to tell two other people, so perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that occasionally a were-animal might need to run from their past. She felt bad for a moment, until she reminded herself that neither Annie nor Jason had actually believed her and so were both pretty unlikely to actually tell anyone else about it.

  “Neighbors or coworkers or something like that who found them out on accident and can’t be trusted not to say anything about it, most of the time,” Atticus answered, just reinforcing Casey’s silent musings. “In those cases, just relocating them typically works because then, even if the neighbor or whoever tells everyone they know, they’re pretty unlikely to be believed, or whoever they’re telling won’t know the were-animal in question and so probably won’t give a shit.”

  “And what about the rest of the time?” Casey asked slowly.

  Atticus cleared his throat. “Sometimes, people find out, and they get violent or obsessive. And it’s really rare in this day and age, but there are still a few families who consider themselves hunters, and they can be tenacious, to put it mildly.”

  “Hunters,” Casey repeated flatly.

  “Hunters,” Atticus confirmed. “People dedicated to getting rid of were-animals. Like I said, though, they’re pretty rare now that getting away with murder is such a challenge; the only guaranteed way to do so is to make sure the were-animal is in their animal shape, and that’s when we tend to be the most dangerous.”

  “Why is that a guarantee?” Casey mumbled against the edge of her coffee cup’s lid.

  “We don’t shift back when we’re dead. Whatever form we die in, that’s how we stay,” Atticus answered simply, as if he were just explaining a biology lesson to someone. In a way, he sort of was.

  Casey started on her sandwich, since it offered her a decent excuse not to say anything as she processed everything she had been told. A quarter of the way through it, she paused and mused slowly, “So, you don’t want people to know because it’s not safe for people to know. Or potentially unsafe, I guess.”

  “That’s part of it,” he agreed. “On top of that, my job is to help other people disappear. It doesn’t look particularly professional if I get found out myself. My business would crumble, and considering there aren’t many people offering the service that I’m offering, that could leave a lot of people in danger.”

  “I guess I can understand that,” Casey mumbled before she returned her attention to her sandwich. She was learning all sorts of strange and unusual things that night. Whether or not she actually wanted to know them, she was still undecided, but she supposed she had decided they were going on a date so she could ask him about those things. She couldn’t say she had expected every detail of it to be sunshine and daisies.

  “Have you ever met any hunters?” she wondered once her sandwich was gone and all that remained was the last two thirds of her coffee.

  “Maybe?” Atticus didn’t sound particularly sure, but he also didn’t sound especially bothered by the ambiguity. “Much like were-animals, hunters tend not to just… announce themselves. Since most of the world doesn’t believe in were-animals, most people assume someone saying they hunt were-animals is delusional, on drugs, or trying to pull a really strange joke.” He shrugged one shoulder. “So, I suppose it’s possible that I’ve met a few, but I wouldn’t really know. It’s not exactly the sort of thing I can quiz people on without being too obvious about my own secrets.”

  “This has gotten a lot more complicated than I expected,” Casey informed her coffee softly.

  Atticus sighed out a quiet laugh. “I doubt it’s going to come up in day-to-day conversation,” he assured her wryly. “And the odds of you running into any hunters is honestly slimmer than the odds of you running into other were-animals.”

  “How many were-animals are there?” Casey wondered, before she picked up her cup and tipped her head back to drain the last of it.

  Once again, Atticus shrugged. “We don’t exactly keep a tally. Crestholme has a higher than average number because two families congregated in the area, along with their tagalongs.” “Two families” didn’t sound like a lot to be considered a higher than average amount when Casey thought about it. Considering that, she was pretty content to assume that were-animals were not particularly common.

  “Tagalongs,” she repeated, caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “Is that what Branson and Lydia are?” she asked dryly.

  “More or less,” came the easy reply. “I helped relocate both of them a few years back. They decided to stick around. Since then, I’ve handed most of the running of the travel agency over to them.”

  “How much money does that sort of business even make?” Casey asked as the thought occurred to her.

  “It depends on who’s being relocated,” he replied. “Technically speaking, I do it for free, but those who can afford
to do so are encouraged to leave a… healthy tip. Forging documents is expensive, yes, but so is making someone disappear even without a change of identity.”

  Casey hummed thoughtfully as she pondered that.

  They were both done eating by then, and the sun was starting to sink. Casey’s thoughts were spinning in sixteen different directions. Considering all of that, it seemed like a good time to wrap up the conversation.

  They threw out their garbage and made their way back across the park towards the gate they had initially used, where Atticus’s motorcycle was still parked along the side of the road, just waiting for them to return.

  *

  There was something strangely thrilling about riding a motorcycle after dark, and Casey put some serious thought into asking Atticus to teach her how to drive one. Another time, though, if only because she didn’t want to go through the hassle of getting a motorcycle license when she wasn’t even licensed to drive a car yet.

  The house was quiet when they got back. The chef hadn’t been in that day, and the cleaning staff had already left for the night. For once, neither Branson nor Lydia were there. As Casey and Atticus walked through the front door, everything was so quiet, and it felt as if they were the only two people in the world.

  “Hey.” The word left Casey’s lips before she could rethink it, and Atticus paused and glanced over his shoulder at her until something about her expression made him turn around to face her properly. With a deep breath, Casey reached up, clasping one hand around the back of his neck so she could draw him down to her height. He bent easily, and when Casey kissed him, he needed no coaxing to return it.

  The kiss was slow and gentle, slightly fumbling at first as they adjusted to each other. And then, Atticus gently cupped her jaw in one hand; he pressed his other hand to the small of her back, and it felt right after that. It felt like it was where they were both supposed to be.

  They were dating, after all.

  Casey couldn’t quite hold in a giggle at the thought, and the kiss broke. Atticus offered her a slightly bewildered smile as he wondered, “What’s so funny?”

  Casey shook her head briefly. “It’s nothing,” she replied. “Just a silly thought.” She leaned up on her toes to kiss him one more time, just a brief peck that time, before she retreated once more.

  Slowly, almost cautiously, she wondered, “Can I sleep in your room tonight?” There was nothing sultry in her tone. There was no double entendre. The words meant exactly what they spelled out; she was asking about sleeping and nothing more.

  At first, her only answer was startled surprise, before Atticus finished processing the question and assured her, “Of course.”

  Casey grinned up at him. “Great. I’ll… see you in a few minutes then.”

  Despite that, it took a moment before they both stopped staring at each other long enough to go their separate ways.

  C HAPTER SEVEN

  The curtains in her bedroom were closed. They always were if she was getting undressed. She had learned that lesson very quickly. Casey changed into her sleepwear, and for some odd reason, she felt compelled to check herself in the mirror before she headed to Atticus’s suite, as if he hadn’t already seen her in her pajamas or in clothes that she saved for just lounging around the house. All they were going to do was sleep, and yet she found herself feeling self-conscious, as if somehow, she would mess that up, even if she couldn’t even see how that was possible.

  She allowed herself only a moment of dithering, though, before she left her suite and headed to Atticus’s.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt when she got there. Just a pair of sleep pants. Casey sort of wanted to touch his abs, but she kept her hands to herself, clenching them together in front of herself and wringing them as he ushered her through his sitting room and into his bedroom.

  Casey followed a few steps behind him, waiting to see which side of the bed he would take before she lied down on the other side. Nothing happened at first, and then he shuffled closer to her, pressing closer to her back. She fought back the urge to tense, and relaxed completely when she heard him murmur, “Is this alright?” against her ear.

  “Yeah,” she answered, whispering even if she wasn’t sure why. Breaking the stillness of the room just seemed strangely impolite.

  And it was alright, honestly. Atticus was warm, his bed was comfortable, and on the whole, he was keeping his hands to himself, with one hand resting against the side of her ribs rather than reaching any higher or lower.

  His breathing was steady behind her, and if she concentrated, she could feel his heartbeat against her back. It was soothing, and soon enough, her eyes began to drift shut, and she couldn’t find it within herself to fight to keep them open. She drifted off gently, and she dreamed of peaceful things, though later she would recall them only as splashes of light and brief, bright bursts of beautiful sound.

  *

  Casey woke up when Atticus moved, blinking her eyes open slowly as he sat up behind her. “You don’t have work today,” she reminded him, her mouth getting ahead of her brain in that moment. She rolled over to face him.

  “No,” he agreed wryly. “But old habits die hard; I wake up at more or less the same time regardless of whether or not I have work.”

  Casey grunted at him, ignoring his logic. “You can be awake without moving,” she pointed out, reaching a hand towards him only to let it flop down onto the mattress.

  “I could,” he conceded dryly. “But that doesn’t sound particularly interesting, just lying in bed and staring at the back of your head while you sleep. What do I get out of it?”

  “Who said anything about sleeping?” Casey asked, trying for something like an innocent tone and more or less missing the mark.

  Atticus cocked an eyebrow at her, one corner of his lips quirking up slightly. “What are you suggesting?”

  Slowly, still loose-limbed with sleep, Casey sat up and slung a leg over his thighs, settling on his lap as if she belonged there. She kissed him slowly, her hands settling on his shoulders at first before they drifted downwards to rest against his chest. He met the kiss without complaint, his hands curling around her hips to pull her closer.

  It was just as Casey was beginning to rock slightly in his lap and his tongue was probing at the seam of her lips that his phone rang on the bedside table, and he leaned away from her to answer it. Casey pouted at him, but she kept quiet. As she watched, his expression got more and more put out until he hung up the phone once again.

  With a sigh, he dropped his phone onto the bed and stated, “They need me to come in today. There’s been something of a mix-up, and it needs to be straightened out.”

  “And there’s no one else who can do it?” Casey simpered, trailing the tip of one finger in idle, aimless patterns over his skin.

  “If it was the antiquities business, yes,” he returned wryly, “but it’s not.”

  Oh. Right. His other, probably more important job.

  With a sigh, Casey tumbled to the side, falling off of his lap to land in a graceless heap in the blankets. He leaned down after her, kissing her briefly. When he leaned away, it was just enough to say, “We can continue this later,” before he kissed her again.

  He stood up after that, disappearing into his bathroom to get ready for the day, and Casey sprawled out on his bed, taking up as much space as she could, as if she had been sleeping in it every night for weeks.

  It could have been a worse morning, she supposed. Maybe she was a little… justifiably frustrated, but it definitely could have been a worse morning.

  She dozed until he left his bathroom once again, and she watched him bustle through his room until he was dressed and ready for the day. He made no mention of her in his suite, apparently content to let her lie there for as long as she wanted in his absence.

  She didn’t remember dozing off again, but when she woke up as the sun spilled across her face, it was an hour later, and Atticus was long gone. With a yawn, she sat up, stretching her arms over her h
ead. She made her way back to her suite, intent on using her own bathroom and getting dressed before she headed downstairs to throw breakfast together.

  At least she didn’t need to worry about getting called in on her off days.

  *

  The day seemed to pass at a crawl. Casey couldn’t get Atticus’s words out of her head. We can continue this later. There was nothing inherently special about those words, but considering what they had been doing at the time, those words felt an awful lot like a promise. One that Casey was eager to have fulfilled.

  She kept glancing at the clock in whatever room she moseyed into, and it seemed like every time she did, regardless of how it felt like hours had crawled by, it had only been a few dozen minutes.

  She wound up sprawled out in a heap on the rug in the library at one point, staring up at the ceiling lamp as if it would answer all of her questions, or at the very least hypnotize her until Atticus got back. It did neither.