by Holley Trent
And…love.
That seemed to temper all the rest, so she reached for the love as if the emotion were a tangible thing and tried to spread it over her like a balm.
“Tomorrow, you’ll be smiling again, I promise,” Peter said. “You’ll survive this like every other thing.” He chuckled. “Maybe you’ll even survive me. Tamara seems to find that unlikely.”
She couldn’t respond. Her body was preoccupied, and even if it weren’t, her mind was too much of a scramble for her to formulate a cogent statement.
You stop this right now! The bear was in her face, or at least seemed to be. The bear was stealing her air, keeping Drea from breathing.
You…wanted me dead, Drea thought at the toxic thing. Why do you care if you stay or if you go?
She wanted again to claw at her skin—claw out of her body if she could. She was really beginning to wonder if Peter was trying to harm her. She wasn’t feeling that love anymore—not through all the despair.
“Turn her over onto her side so she doesn’t choke,” came the stranger woman’s voice.
Peter must have because suddenly the tightness in her torso abated. The sting was still there, though. Pain coiled around every part of her, digging in and rooting out what didn’t belong.
The magic is coming after me, she thought, but then she remembered it wasn’t the woman they meant to expunge, but the bear she’d never connected with.
You’ll regret this. The bear’s admonition was weak, but the beast wasn’t giving up without a fight. Drea’s control over her body remained tentative, but she could open her eyes.
There were Peter’s legs stretched out on the bed. A towel covered with vomit. Mine? A dark-skinned woman kneeling beside the bed and peering at her.
Safe. Drea read her quickly as neutral.
“Don’t let her make you think she’s gone,” the lady said quietly. “When the pain goes away, you’ll think we should stop, but she’s not gone until you feel the rip.”
“Rip?” Drea whispered.
The lady nodded. “You’ll know when you feel it, I suppose. She won’t be gone before that. If she were the type to quickly cut and run, she would have been gone an hour ago.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Damn shame she couldn’t have lent you some of that fortitude when you needed it, huh?”
Drea let out a breath and curled her fingers into the covers when another wave of pain crashed into her.
She felt like thousands of grappling hooks had notched into her skin and were being tugged from every possible direction. She hurt too much to even scream. All she could do was writhe and flail.
Peter yanked her up by the waist and clamped his arms around her torso, pinning her arms.
Still, she kicked her legs reflexively. Her nerves were overloaded and body moved on its own accord.
She didn’t understand why she wasn’t bleeding out because she certainly felt like her skin was being ripped from her body. There was no blood. Just puke, and she felt the compulsion to make a little more of that, too.
“Hold her as still as you can,” the lady said. She hurried across the room and from her bag, withdrew some herb—sage—and a lighter. She lit the stick and wafted the smoke toward Drea. She walked the smudge around the room, letting the scent pervade every corner.
“Why sage?” Peter asked.
“Whatever that thing is, it isn’t right,” the lady said. “I’m just making sure the being knows not to come back.”
“Come…back?” Drea asked. The thing hadn’t even left yet.
But then came the rip, breaking apart her head, neck, and torso, leaving her too broken to holler or even sob. All she could do was fade, because she had nothing left.
“Good riddance to you,” the lady said.
Drea didn’t know if the lady was talking to her or to the bear, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore, because she was certainly dead.
___
“Oops. Sorry.”
Drea opened her eyes to find herself in cool bathwater and Tamara pressing a washcloth toward her.
“Didn’t mean to splash you.”
Drea gripped the tub rail and tried to straighten up a little, but she didn’t have the strength. “What happened?”
“Um…” Tamara cringed and sat back onto her heels in her squat. “When Bryan and I returned with dinner, Peter was gripping you against his chest like a rag doll and staring blankly, and San was cleaning up around him. I think he’s in shock.”
“Why? Buyer’s remorse?”
Tamara snorted and popped the cap open on a bottle of shampoo. “Sit forward a little if you can.”
Drea leaned forward and let Tamara pour water over her head.
“I don’t imagine there are very many things that could frighten my brother, but I think for a moment, he worried they’d killed you. You were so limp and hot.”
“That’s why you have me in cold water?”
“You’re running a fever. Bears generally run hot, but…”
Drea pulled in a deep breath and closed her eyes as Tamara scrubbed her head. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” Drea scoured every corner of her brain checking for signs of her more animal side, but there was nothing there. No resistance, no hostility, no nothing. The bulk of her anxiety was gone, too. She could breathe. Really, truly breathe. She laughed. “She’s gone.”
Tamara cringed and rested her forearms atop the tub side. “Are you…okay?”
Drea nodded. She could even smile without crying for the first time in longer than she could remember. “Don’t worry about me. I think we did the right thing.”
“There’s no way to know what this means for you now. Genetically, you’re a Were-bear, but you don’t have a beast half anymore.”
“I’m sure Doc will figure out what’s what.”
Doc’s mission in life seemed to be figuring out what made the Shrews and their associated weirdoes tick. She’d been caring for Dana and her girls since they’d been involved in the drug trial that caused irreversible mutations to their DNA. The Shrews were honest-to-goodness super-heroines, though they tried as hard as they could to keep the public from finding out that their unique ability to problem-solve was because of supernatural skill sets.
Drea tipped her head back and let Tamara sluice water over her soapy hair.
“San seemed very mystified by what happened,” Tamara said.
“San?”
“The voodooienne. Witch, I guess.”
“Oh. Which part? Obviously, she knew what she was doing.”
“San?” Tamara called out.
The witch popped her head into the doorway. “You called?”
“You want to tell Drea what that thing was?”
Maybe Drea was a little wobbly, be she would have sworn her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. The woman had actually shuddered. That couldn’t have been a good sign, so Drea braced herself.
“Something that didn’t belong,” San said. “I felt the darkness when it started to claw you. Me and my mama, every lady on up the line of us—we’re all sensitive to them.”
“Sensitive to what?” Drea asked.
“Spirits and ghosts.”
“You think—”
“I know,” San said. “What I don’t know is whether or not that’s normal for your kind—if all your inner animals are just spirits that have attached to you. That thing you had was a nasty piece of work, I’ll tell you that. Be glad that it’s gone.”
“Could she ever come back?” Tamara asked.
San grunted and, crossing her arms, leaned against the doorway. “I don’t think so. She’s got to know that if she does return, we’ll get rid of her again, and I’m convinced she felt as much pain as Drea did. That thing won’t want to repeat the experience.”
“So, she’ll find some other shifter to inhabit?” Tamara asked.
“No way of knowing. If I’d been prepared, I could have done some things to banish it for good, but I’ve never worked this closely with a
shifter.”
“I’m pretty sure my father would like to collect your thoughts on this,” Tam said. “He’s a bit of a scholar on these sorts of things.”
“Have him call me. I have plenty of questions of my own.”
Drea took the cloth and scrubbed her face. “I’m so hungry.”
“Good.” San chuckled. “Peter told us before he left to make sure you ate.”
Drea dropped the cloth. “Where’d he go?” She didn’t want to believe that after everything, her mate had given up on her. Maybe he changed his mind about having mate who’s no longer a shifter.
Tamara groaned and muttered something in what was probably Romanian. “He and Bryan went after Gene. We’ve been canvassing his known family members and associates, and got over to his mother and put the fear of Jesus into her. Kindly, of course. She didn’t give us a whole lot of information, but that small connection helped one of the psychics we work with to finally get a read on him. Our sources in the area confirmed he’s there.”
Drea pulled the stopper from the tub with her big toe and looked around the small bathroom for a towel. “I gotta go.”
“Um, no. You stay here and rest, or I’ll drive you back to North Carolina and you can rest at your own place.”
“I can’t just—” Drea gripped the tub rail futility.
Tamara had her hands on Drea’s shoulders and was keeping her firmly in place.
“You can,” Tamara said. “Just like I can. Sure, I’d prefer to be assisting Bryan. I’m not an easy woman to kill, after all, and I certainly have no affection for Gene whatsoever after all he’s done. But sometimes, you have to divide and conquer. Soren and Eric are meeting them up there.”
“But you don’t understand. Peter’s my mate, and he left before—”
“Ah.” Tamara took her hands away and let her breath out in a sputter. “Spare me the details. We’re talking about my brother. But…I imagine you’re feeling a little feral, perhaps?”
Drea grimaced. “Maybe more than a little.”
“Well. You’ll have to wait. You’ll be a distraction.”
“I don’t want to be a distraction, and I don’t want to get in the way.”
“I seriously doubt he’s going to forget about you in a couple of days. If anything, he’ll work faster so he could get to you.”
“And how do you feel about him getting to me?”
Tamara shrugged. “I already slapped him once. I’ll probably slap him again. I’m not going to get in your way, Drea. We just wanted him to wait.”
“I don’t know if he could have. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to. I think I feel what he was feeling now. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s the truth. Me knowing where he is right now scares me. I need to be near him.”
Tamara grinned and leaned sideways a bit so Drea could reach the towel San was holding out. “More power to you. Just let him do his job and don’t think too much about what he had to do when you see him again.”
Drea stood with Tamara’s help and tucked the towel around her torso. “I don’t want to think about what they’re doing, but I hope they make Gene hurt. I hate feeling like that—so petty and vengeful, but…”
She stumbled a little as she stepped over the tub side, but San was there to grab her arm.
“You’re entitled to feel like that,” Tamara said. “All of the Ridge Bears are. Gene ran roughshod over the entire clan and left few people unscathed. He took a special interest in you and punished you for every perceived slight because he couldn’t have you.”
Tamara and San led Drea out of the bathroom and gave her some clean clothes. They looked new. Perhaps Tamara had brought them back along with food.
“Don’t feel guilty about being angry,” San said. “There’s nothing inherently bad about anger. Anger gets a bad rap sometimes. What you have to be careful of is becoming consumed by the anger.” She tapped Drea’s temple lightly. “Don’t let it cloud your thoughts or impel you to act without consideration.”
Drea sat at the edge off the bed and nodded. “There’s nothing I can do now. Yes, he humiliated me time and time again. Hurt me and had his enforcers hurt me, too. He made me scared to go anywhere because I knew every move I made was being watched.” She pulled her underwear up her shins and stood to wriggle them up the rest of the way. “I don’t have to be there getting in my lashes and strikes. I’d feel good if I had a hand in taking him down, but I’d just be getting in the way. I’ll leave the work up to the ones who are actually equipped to do the job.”
“Good logic,” Tamara said. “Then let’s go home so Dana can see you’re truly alive and well. If you’re going to fret anyway, you might as well worry where you’re comfortable.”
“Are you going to be doing much fretting?”
Tamara’s cheek twitched. She cracked a couple of her knuckles and shifted her weight. “You would think I wouldn’t worry about Bryan with him being the alpha, right?”
“I wouldn’t dare think that.”
“Good. You shouldn’t. Bryan puts on a tough front, but he’s like you in some ways. The things Gene did scarred him, and he regrets not killing him when he had the chance. Perhaps he doesn’t let the regret cripple him, but I think sometimes, it makes him cold. I don’t want people to think he’s cold.”
“Everyone who knows him already knows that he’s not.”
Tamara nodded and stuffed her hands into her pockets. “I’m more worried about the strangers whose first meeting with him is one where he has his fangs out and he’s making that unholy growling sound. He’s really just a teddy bear.”
Drea grinned and shoved her arms through her bra straps. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but I get your point.”
Bear men really did get a bad rap sometimes. But the greatest secret of Bear women is that they knew how to deal with them. Drea was pretty sure she knew how to deal with Peter.
She’d give him exactly what every born-Bear male wanted: a reason to go home every night. For the moment, though, she had to do her part in the scheme and stay out of his way. Hopefully, he’d come around when he was done.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dana leaned against the Shrew & Company hall wall the following day in her usual detective-chic ensemble of very nice black leather boots with heels, dark jeans, and a crisp, white button-up shirt that concealed a couple of weapon bulges at her hips. She bobbed her dark eyebrows at Drea and cleared her throat.
Oh, boy.
Drea knew that Dana wasn’t really going to yell at her for her temporary absence, but she was so used to expecting people to fly off the handle that sometimes, rational responses were almost a letdown.
Drea squirmed uncomfortably in her rolling chair and tried not to look away from her boss.
That look… She already knows too much.
“So,” Dana started.
Ohhhh, crap.
“Are you hungry?”
“Um…” Drea glanced at the clock on her computer. It was barely nine. “I had some coffee. I haven’t had time to go the grocery store. Tam and I got back into the area around dawn. I only had time to catch a quick nap. I figured I’d just have a big lunch.”
“Lunch is too far from now. I’ll order bagels. There’s a new New York bagel place down the street. I’m sure if I ask nicely enough, they’ll run them over.”
“Why would they do that?”
“The guy who owns the place is a transplant, new to Patrick’s group. A Cougar from Washington, I think.”
“A Cougar from Washington owns a New York-style bagel place? Can we even trust them?”
“I asked the same thing,” Tamara called from the inner bowels of Shrew & Company.
The office suite had a wide reception area at the front—where Drea’s desk was. A hallway beside her desk lead to the newly-enlarged conference room, the small staff kitchen, two tiny bathrooms, the supply closet, and then the five office spaces—Dana’s being at the end of the hall facing the front door. The oth
er four Shrews shared two and two. They still hadn’t gotten used to having the space and didn’t see a reason to spread out yet. Dana had enlarged the office when the business behind them in the old warehouse building went kaput.
Dana shrugged. “He just owns the shop. His wife and sons do most of the cooking, from what I hear. His wife is the one with the street cred.”
“Oh,” Drea said. “Well, I could eat.” She shook her mouse to wake up her computer. “Is there a menu online? We could put together a list and I’ll call them.”
“I’ve got the menu. Hold on.” Dana retreated down the hall, and Sarah stepped up in her place with her baby, Gabrielle, slung across her chest. Sarah was the operations lady in Dana’s absence. She kept the lights on and made sure the payroll company didn’t mess up their checks. And she was an ex-Marine. She was one of Shrew & Company’s stronger field agents when she wasn’t on diaper duty.
“I thought you were still on maternity leave,” Drea said. “I hope you didn’t come in just because…”
Drea’s cheeks burned, and she turned away to look at nothing in particular on her computer screen. Because of me. She didn’t want to think about the reason the Shrews might have been worried, because when she thought about that, she started to worry about what Peter and Bryan were up to.
She was certain they were fine. Tamara would have been able to sense otherwise from Bryan if anything bad had happened, but being away from Peter made Drea twitchy with a whole new kind of anxiety. They’d left things undone, and the anal retentive admin in her didn’t like that.
“We’re all here,” Sarah said.
“Astrid, too? And Maria?”
“Everyone. They’re only quiet back there right now because they’re watching some security footage Soren fed to us overnight. They’ll be up in a minute. We’ve got business stuff to hash out.”
“Soren?” Drea sat up a little straighter. “Did they find—”
“Yeah. The guys believe Gene is laying low in a little podunk town in Delaware, but he’s made a lot of enemies. People are keeping an eye on him for us and are ratting him out, because they’re tired of him moving through their communities and disrupting things. The men are waiting to make a move when they can do so cleanly.”
