by Holley Trent
Grunting, Peter followed. He’d planned on curling up beside Andrea and keeping her warm. Holding her close and assuring himself she was fine, really. He thought he might die if she weren’t.
He closed the door gently and joined Bryan and Tamara in the little kitchen.
“How long have you had this place?” Tamara asked.
“A few years.”
“And Soren doesn’t know about it?”
He shrugged and planted his palms atop the spindly table. “I imagine Soren has his secrets as well.”
“You have other hideouts like this?”
Peter made a noncommittal grunting sound. He couldn’t think of a single good reason to confess that.
Of course he had other places he could go to at the drop of a hat—in case he needed to run and hole up until dust settled and law enforcement agencies decided to withdraw the warrants they had out on him.
They usually did. Most of the time, they figured out that Peter was just doing a public service and that the people he dealt with were ones they couldn’t legally touch. Evidence disappeared pretty quickly when cops realized the folly of charging a man for murdering someone who’d killed ten or more innocents—especially when those men didn’t seem quite human.
Bryan pulled out a chair and sat. He flicked the donut box open and took out one of the slightly stale confections. “Tamara and I wondered if we should divide and conquer—if I should come here and let her deal with Soren.”
“What, precisely, is Soren doing? I haven’t spoken to him.”
“He’s taken a shine to Maria’s sister, Marcella. We need him out chasing Gene, but his brain is so scrambled right now, he’s of no use to anyone.”
“Sister? What sister?” Peter knew all of the Shrews and also any local family they had. The hippie didn’t have siblings, the last he heard.
Tamara chuckled and fished a chocolate-covered donut out of the box. “Long story. All you need to know is that she has a half sister, that she’s a natural witch of some sort, and that she thinks she might be able to lure Gene, if push comes to shove.”
“You just threw too much information at me at once. Wait—she’s imprinted on Soren?”
“Mm-hmm. Just that quickly. All he needed was one glance. Funny the way magic works.”
Peter shoved his hand through his hair and gave it a tug. “Shit. A witch? That’s surprising. He’s never gotten along with them. Where is he?”
“For a while, we had him locked into the walk-in refrigerator at the lodge. We let him out so he could help us track you and Gene—who we believe may not be so far from here, by the way—but Soren was useless. He was too distracted and too distracting. We locked him inside the shifter bunker and left him with enough food for a couple of days.”
“No guard?”
She narrowed her eyes. “The last time we put an Ursu in the bunker with a guard, that Ursu sweet-talked a woman into getting that guard to let him out to…what did you tell Drea?”
“That I’d gotten locked in accidentally. Would have been more suspicious if Marty hadn’t left the main bolt unturned after bringing me breakfast.” Peter shrugged. “Did what I had to.”
“As will we,” Bryan said. He grabbed another donut and scanned the counter behind the table. “Got coffee here?”
“I’ve got a kettle and some instant crystals.”
“Why don’t you go out and get some real stuff?”
Peter scoffed and folded his arms over his chest. “And leave you here with my mate, right? Then come back to find you’ve taken her? I’m not that stupid.”
“Actually, I hadn’t considered that. I just wanted coffee.”
Tamara grunted and snatched the kettle off the stove. “Instant will do for now, but what I really need is a nap. I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours.”
“Sounds like a typical Shrew schedule,” Peter said.
Tamara gave him a long blink that might have in fact been her briefly nodding off. “We’re trying to get better about that. All of us.” She carried the kettle to the sink and filled it. “Our staffing shortage makes establishing any sort of regularity difficult. First, there was Sarah getting pregnant and taking maternity leave, and now Astrid is being restricted for possible pregnancy complications. Three Shrews would have probably been just enough two years ago when we were taking less urgent cases, but we’re stretched too thin now. Dana is looking to add some permanent staff members as soon as the mess with Gene settles down and she’s not having to drive back and forth between Durham and the mountains several times per week. That drive is a huge time suck.”
“I think you’re busy now, but you’ll be even busier once you bring new folks onboard,” Peter said. “You’re going to have to shadow those new hires. Also, I have it on good authority that certain types of people who need the kind of investigation work you do are waiting for opportunities to get on your client list.”
Dana, an ex-cop, might have started Shrew & Company as an outlet for her professional skills, but the agency had gone at least six months since they’d worked a mundane private investigation or bodyguard job. Word had gotten out that the ladies had a touch of the supernatural about them and that they always ended up on the right side of a fight. Shapeshifter groups and witch covens needed their kind of discretion on the jobs they couldn’t take to the police, and that didn’t necessarily require a bunch of Peter’s or Soren’s bullets, either.
“You might, at the very least, be able to keep a more structured schedule,” he added when Tamara sighed.
“I shouldn’t complain,” she said. “The money’s good. Gotta feather the nest and all that. So.” She opened the cabinets behind her and pulled out several mugs. Looking inside them, she cringed, and plunked them into the sink. She rolled up her sleeves and then squirted some soap into the cups. “About Drea. I believe we need to make a decision. That is why you called us, right?”
Peter grunted. “I already know what I want, but I realize I may not be thinking forward enough. I may seem calm right now, but the part of me that’s beast will obviously pull my reasoning strongly in one particular direction.”
Bryan leaned his chair onto its back legs and jutted his chin aggressively. “And what did your beast decide?”
Peter stood and rooted in the cupboards for the instant coffee. He needed to be doing something—not just sitting still and being glared at. “My beast would prefer that she dispense with her bear.”
Tamara slammed one of the mugs onto the counter.
Given her profound strength, he was surprised the ceramic didn’t shatter on impact.
“You would take that from her?”
He unscrewed the lid from the coffee jar and rooted a clean-enough spoon out of the drawer. “If the choice were ultimately left up to me, yes.”
“You would take away the only means she has to protect herself?”
He tamped down a growl and scooped an extra spoonful of coffee into his mug. “There are some people who shouldn’t even bother shifting, and she’s one of them. If she and her inner bear are in constant conflict, being able to shapeshift is a useless ability. She’s too tentative to fight back. If anything, being what she is gets her into trouble she wouldn’t be in otherwise.”
“You can’t seriously mean that.”
“I agree with him,” Bryan said quietly.
Tamara turned briskly on her heel and stormed over to him. She bent so she was nose-to-nose with her mate and said in a low, growly voice, “Are you telling me you’d strip away everything about her that makes her a Bear? And a born-Bear at that?”
Letting out a breath, he wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist, turned her, and plopped her onto his lap.
She pouted and, as always when he was so close, composed herself. She seemed to melt into him a bit. There was no dispute whatsoever that their mate match was a sound one. They were a puzzle with just two pieces that fit perfectly together.
“Yes. I would,” Bryan said. “You weren’t there when we were
locked up in that circus trailer and being burned with silver for even looking at Jacques’s guards the wrong way. I was so angry with her for so long because she couldn’t fight back. The burden was all on me to get us out, and I didn’t understand how I could get so mad and she couldn’t. Her reflexes are garbage, Tam. Her instincts are way more human than they are Bear.”
“Her nose isn’t so good, either,” Peter said.
Bryan grunted. “I know that. She’ll never be able to track by scent or discern when someone’s gotten too close before she can see them. In her bear form, she’s not particularly powerful and not especially aggressive. So, what good is being a Bear for her? She’d be better off if she weren’t one.”
“But at least she can shift,” Tamara whispered and shook her head. “I can’t even shift.”
Peter massaged the bridge of his nose and let out a breath. “Stop thinking of yourself as defective. You’re a Bear who lacks a particular genetic trigger, but you’re still a Bear. You have the same instincts as Soren and me, and the same motivations. Andrea has the trigger, but she doesn’t have the instincts, sissy.” He poured the hot water into the mugs and looked over his shoulder at Tamara and Bryan.
“I think you know,” Bryan said to her, “deep down, you know. Andrea won’t get to be a part of the club? So what? I’d prefer her to be calm and sure of herself in the body she’s in than to keep trying to make allowances for the one she dreads shifting into. If she loses the shifting trigger along with that beast component of her personality, so be it. We’ll take care of her just like we always have.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Peter said low.
Bryan grunted.
Tamara scoffed and scrambled off Bryan’s lap. “He’s not going to tell you, but I will.” She took two of the mugs and handed one to Bryan along with a spoon. “You’re not the kind of mate any reasonable man would want for his little sister.”
“I could say the reverse is true of you,” Peter said calmly. “I’d venture to guess that you’re just as trigger-happy as Soren and me, but you get away with being reckless because you’re small and cute.”
She narrowed her eyes again and opened her mouth as if to rebut, but before she could get a word out, Bryan reached over and pinched her ass.
“You’re my mate because you are what you are, Tam,” he said. “That’s the way circumstances shook out. As much as I hate to admit it, there’s always a reason Bears imprint on whom they do. We could try to claim that our choices are due purely to lust or mating fever, but the more likely truth is that he has something she needs, and she has something he needs.”
“The shark and the guppy,” she muttered.
Bryan grunted and sipped his coffee. “We always assume the shark has ill intent and that he’ll swallow whole anything he swims upon, but not every shark has the same motive. Who better to protect a guppy than a shark?”
Peter wouldn’t have bet money on the guess, but he was pretty sure he’d just gotten Bryan’s blessing…and that he’d been called a shark.
In the scheme of things, that wasn’t so bad. He’d sure as shit been called worse.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Andrea. Sweetheart.”
Peter’s voice pulled at Drea’s consciousness and, yet again, she tried to find that internal button to press to force her eyes open and her mouth to move.
Doing so seemed even harder than the last time she’d been conscious.
“Are you awake?”
Peter…
Her ever-present inner bear recoiled at Drea’s immediate response to the man. She might have played hard to get, but Drea had never been the kind of woman who liked playing games. She never had the energy.
“I need you to talk to us,” he said. “Bryan and Tamara are here. We’ve come to an agreement.”
Get me out!
They don’t care about you, the bear taunted. You’re just one pawn in their numbers game. Every warm body in a clan makes the alpha look stronger. Isn’t that what Gene believes? Bryan probably feels the same way, too.
“Andrea, we all agree that we’ll do what’s necessary to get you healthy. If you want to part from the bear, we’ll get her out. Just tell us you haven’t changed your mind.”
I haven’t changed my mind!
She couldn’t say the words. She couldn’t integrate her consciousness with her body and make her parts move again—not even her eyes or her lips. The bear was in the way of everything, mentally boxing her in and keeping Drea in her pitiful little corner.
The body, pathetic as it is, is mine as much yours, the bear said. I’m not going anywhere.
And neither was Andrea. There was no way in hell she was going to relinquish her body to the bear. There were already enough wild animals on the lam in western North Carolina, and she certainly wasn’t going to have a hand in releasing one into the world that had superior intelligence. The bear may not have been much of a predator with Drea along for the ride, but without that human influence, the bear was going to be ruthless. She’d want to make up for lost time. She’d be indiscriminate and savage, and Drea wasn’t going to let that happen.
You don’t get to choose, Drea said. It’s my choice.
I think the goddess would disagree, the bear said blithely.
This isn’t what the goddess wanted. She didn’t create our race for us to be this way. The human parts of us are supposed to be united with our beasts and acting in one accord. You’ve been separate since the day I started puberty.
Even in the surge of hormones and adolescent uncertainty, Drea had been looking forward to getting to know that part of herself. She hadn’t understood why she’d felt so disconnected from her beast when Bryan and all the other kids in the clan were so certain about theirs. Her clan mates were more confident with their bear-enhanced personalities. Drea, though, withdrew even more. She’d felt like an outsider in her own body.
“Maybe the herbs stopped working,” came Bryan’s voice.
“Yeah, their scent is wearing off by now,” Peter said.
“You mean that lump right there at the end?” Tamara asked.
“The sachet shifted to the end of the pillowcase. Here. I’ll hold her up. Grab that from the pillow. I don’t have time to make another one before San calls.”
The bear was angry. The anger was like hot flames lapping against Drea’s human consciousness, and she had no way to protect herself from burning. They’re weak and stupid, too, if they’re going to expend all that effort to wake you up. They should cut their losses and leave you here. You’ll wither away in the bed and die, and I’ll move on to a stronger host.
What are you talking about? You make yourself sound like some alien thing that’s hijacked my subconscious instead of a part of my brain that’s been planted since conception. A self-destruct sequence. Ticky-ticky-boom! Drea gave a mental eye-roll.
Maybe I was just put here to make sure you died before procreating. Such a waste.
“Put it right by her nose,” came Peter’s voice.
Briefly, there was a flash of consciousness—Peter leaning over her looking so concerned and loving, Bryan wearing that worried scowl of his that was so familiar, and Tamara looking as always like the protective big sister with the way her brow was furrowed.
“Hhhh. Help,” Drea forced out of her unyielding lungs before she got pulled under again.
So pathetic, the bear said. Waste of skin. Waste of life.
I’m not listening to you.
You have no choice but to listen. And you know what? You’ll never forget. Even if I were gone, you’d know I was right.
___
“I don’t care what you say,” Peter said as he checked the time on his phone yet again. “That was consent. She wants help. She wants us to do what needs to be done.”
“I agree that she asked for help,” Tamara said, “but I have to play the devil’s advocate here.” She poured more boiling water over too-damned-many instant coffee granules and then stirred. “Could she possi
bly be asking us to wake her but not using the extreme means you’re prepared to use?”
“She told me before you and Bryan came that she wanted the bear gone. I don’t think she’d change her mind. She’s spent the past, what, ten years with the animal? I think that’s a long enough time for a shifter to decide if the relationship is a functional and productive one.”
Bryan leaned against the counter and let out a breath. “I’ve never even heard of anything like this happening before.”
“Neither had I until I spoke to my father,” Peter said.
“How many incidences of this sort of dysfunction is Joseph aware of?”
“Five or less. But remember, you’ve never encountered another Bear like Tamara before, either. As the Ridge Bears become less insular, there will probably be a number of shocking scenarios that’ll come to light.”
“I just can’t imagine her not being at Bear gatherings,” Bryan said. “People expect to see her, especially the kids. She was always scared out of her mind with worry, but the kids couldn’t tell. They didn’t have the senses to read her yet. She always made them comfortable when Gene was around. I guess she was sort of like a buffer. As long as she was there, they didn’t get too freaked.”
“Who said she can’t go to Bear gatherings?” Tamara asked. “She’ll still be a born-Bear. She’s still a part of the clan, no matter what happens.”
“I know that, baby, but where shifters gather, there’s always the possibility of attack by outside groups. If she can’t shift, she has no defenses. I wouldn’t want her there.”
“So, you’d exclude me as well,” Peter said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not a Ridge Bear. My presence around the clan at the moment is solely through my connection to Tamara, but that’s changing. Wouldn’t you agree that through Andrea, my association with the Ridge Bears is somewhat more solidified?”
“I don’t think that’s in question. And I think you know damned well that with or without Drea you could show up to any event we’ve got happening and no one’s going to tell you to go away.”
“But if she’s not welcome, neither am I.”
