by Roxie Noir
Mostly, she’d had to switch windows every time someone walked by, which took a lot of time.
At last, she put her laptop back in her bag and pulled out the sheet of phone numbers that she’d been given the day before.
Heart beating fast, she dialed Hudson’s. He answered on the first ring.
“Hey there,” he said, a smile in his low, rough voice.
“Hey,” she said, already feeling the flush creep up her cheeks. “Is the offer still good?”
“Of course it’s still good,” he said, half-laughing. “Quinn, that offer is always good.”
Julius said something in the background that Quinn couldn’t quite hear.
“Could you pick me up at the library?”
“That I can,” he said. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Sure, sounds good,” Quinn said. She stared at a poster with two kids on it, reading books under a tree.
“We’ll be right there,” he said.
Quinn lowered the phone, her palms sweaty. She was still worried that someone might find out what she was doing and tell her parents. Or, worse, that whoever the shooter was would find out and simply take matters into his own hands.
Then she took a deep breath, wiped her palms on her pants, and walked to the front steps of the library. She wasn’t even the target. The least she could do was be brave.
Fifteen minutes later on the dot, a dark blue SUV pulled up in front of the library and Julius popped out of the front seat, bounding up the steps to her. He looked serious until he reached her, and then his face broke into a wide grin.
“Shall we?” he asked. “Hudson kept the car running so we can make a quick escape.”
Quinn had to smile as he led her down the steps and into the front seat of the waiting SUV. As soon as she was buckled, they sped off down Main Street.
Before long, they were winding up a mountain, through the woods.
Every warning her mom had ever given her was sounding in Quinn’s head.
They’re stealing you away so they can do whatever they want to you, her mother screamed in her head. These perverts do horrible things to human girls.
She swallowed and cleared her throat.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked, forcing her voice not to shake. She peeked around the front seat at Hudson, buckled into the back.
Cars just weren’t made for triads.
She blinked at the thought.
I just called the three of us a triad, Quinn thought. She wasn’t exactly sure how that made her feel, but it wasn’t bad. There was something soothing and alluring about the thought, at least.
Hudson grinned and reached over the back of his seat, lifting a picnic basket out of the trunk space.
Quinn raised her eyebrows.
“You actually own a picnic basket?” she asked.
Hudson chuckled.
“Julius’s mom gave it to us when we moved in together,” he said.
“It’s made by a this local craft store,” Julius said. “Most picnic baskets have space for two of everything. This one’s got three.”
“Mrs. Bloom isn’t always subtle,” said Hudson.
“It could be worse,” Julius offered. He turned left, onto a gravel road. “My cousin Hunter’s mom gave them a baby blanket and a copy of The Complete Guide To Shifter Pregnancy when his human mate moved in with him and Ash.”
“Was she pregnant?”
“Nope.”
“Shifter parents can be pretty intense,” Hudson volunteered from the back seat. “There’s three of them, after all.”
Quinn sat in silence for a moment, trying to figure out exactly how to phrase her question.
“So... Ash’s female mate is human,” she said.
“Yup,” said Julius. “Cora.”
“Cute as a button,” said Hudson.
“If she has kids with them are they half-shifter?”
“That’s never really happened,” Julius said. He slowed down, going over some rough parts of the road, and Quinn was glad that they were in a high-clearance SUV, not the Prius. “All the female humans we know, the kids seem like they’re full shifters.”
“It’s apparently a very dominant gene or... whatever,” Hudson said.
“Everyone’s got some human ancestors,” Julius said.
“Is it always the woman who’s human?”
“Usually,” Julius said. “Though there have been a few instances where one mate was a male human.”
They came to the end of the road, where there was a small clearing. Julius pulled off to one side and parked. Then he turned his head and looked at her.
“You up for a quick walk?” he asked.
The forest was so gorgeous that Quinn’s mom’s voice had finally gotten out of her head, and she could just enjoy the scenery. They were surrounded by massive trees and boulders, the sort of lush forest that seemed to only exist in fairy tales. The path they were on was vague at best, but Julius had no problem knowing exactly where to go, and Hudson followed behind her, carrying the picnic basket in one hand.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“This is Rabbit Mountain,” Hudson rumbled behind her. “One of the lower Cascades.”
“It’s actually a volcano,” Julius volunteered.
Quinn slipped slightly on a tree root. Instantly, Hudson caught her arm.
I’m not usually clumsy, she wanted to say, but instead she felt herself blushing slightly at his touch.
“Thanks.”
Hudson just smiled.
“It’s not active, I guess?”
“Nah. Most of the volcanos this far south are dormant. The ones up north are another story.”
Quinn could hear the sound of rushing water, getting closer through the trees.
“Why’s it called Rabbit Mountain?”
“It’s got rabbits, I guess.”
“Rabbit shifters?”
Julius didn’t answer, but stepped forward through a gap in two trees, and suddenly they were in a small clearing. One one side was a creek, rushing over a set of rapids, and the whole green expanse was strewn with boulders.
Somewhere overhead, a hawk cried out, perfectly on cue.
“This is beautiful,” she said, walking forward into the space. “We weren’t even on a trail. How’d you find this place?”
“We turn into bears sometimes, remember?” Hudson asked. He set the picnic basket on a rock.
Quinn walked to the end of the creek. It was ten feet across, maybe a little more, and so perfectly clear that she could see every rock and stick on the bottom.
She dipped her hand in and then yanked it back out.
It was freezing.
“Glacial melt,” said Julius. “No skinny dipping, I’m afraid.”
Then he winked at her.
Quinn just laughed. With every step they’d taken into the forest, Julius and Hudson had finally seemed to relax. It made sense. Quinn didn’t think anyone could follow them, let alone someone from her parents’ organization. There wasn’t even a trail.
Here, in the forest, they were all perfectly safe.
“All right,” said Hudson, opening the picnic basket. “I’m starving and thirsty. Quinn, you want some wine?”
“There’s wine in there?”
Grinning, Hudson held up two bottles of red wine in one hand and three wine glasses in the other.
“That’s a hell of a picnic basket,” Quinn said, laughing. “What else is in there?”
“Plates, cups, silverware, a cheese tray, a cheese knife, a tablecloth, matching napkins, salt and pepper shakers, and a box of matches. That’s not even counting the food.”
“No martini glasses?” Quinn asked.
Hudson grinned. “Bring it up with Mrs. Bloom,” he said.
Julius groaned, behind them.
“Or don’t,” said Hudson. “She’d probably have kittens if she knew Julius had talked to a woman.”
Then Julius and Hudson looked at each other, and there was an awkward silence
.
“I’d love some wine!” Quinn said, just a little too loudly. She had the same strange feeling she’d had in the car, when Julius had called the three of them a triad.
It definitely wasn’t a bad feeling.
9
Julius
It only took them thirty minutes to finish off a bottle of wine. Julius and Hudson were still fine, but Quinn was definitely feeling the effects, noticeably, as she laid on her back on the checkered blanket, shoes off, nearly-empty wine glass resting on her belly with one hand on the stem. In the center of the blanket was the cheese board, along with a few half-finished cheeses and a bunch of crackers.
Quinn’s chest rose and fell as she breathed, and Julius was having a hard time watching anything else.
“So are there rabbit shifters?” she asked, wriggling her toes into the grass.
“No,” said Hudson.
“Well, not that we know of,” Julius said.
“I think we’d know by now.”
“What about squirrels?” she asked, ignoring their minor disagreement.
“Also no,” said Hudson.
“All the known shifter species are carnivores,” Julius volunteered. He took another sip of the wine, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
“Why?” she asked
He just shrugged.
“It would be kind of a bummer for an animal to eat something and then realize that you killed another guy, you know?” Hudson said.
That made Quinn sit up, just a little.
“You eat things as a bear?”
“Sure,” said Hudson.
“When we’re bears, we’re bears,” Julius told the girl, shrugging.
She glanced from one man to the other, suddenly looking uncertain.
“Can you think at all? Or can you only think, like, bear thoughts?”
Julius frowned. How could he explain how it felt when he was shifted to someone who’d never done it and never would?
“You can still think,” he said. “And it feels mostly the same, except you think about different stuff.”
“You get very concerned with salmon,” Hudson said.
“And sniffing trees where other bears have peed.”
Quinn wrinkled her nose.
“Can you control yourself though? Or does instinct just take you over?”
Julius spun his wine glass between his fingers, watching the red liquid swirl. He wanted to lie to her, to tell her that every single shifter had complete and total control over themselves at all times. They all knew it wasn’t true, though.
“Yes, you can control yourself,” he said, slowly. “But it takes time and practice. You have to want to learn to control yourself.”
“Which most shifters do,” Hudson offered.
“But not all,” Quinn said. She sounded uncertain again.
“Not all humans can control themselves,” Julius said. He sounded more terse than he meant to, but he felt defensive. After all, the wild, oversexed, out-of-control shifter was something that people like Quinn’s parents loved to talk about.
She didn’t really seem to notice, though, and instead she drained her glass, then set it gently on the blanket, where it fell over immediately on the uneven ground. A single red drop rolled out and onto the blanket.
“What does going feral mean?” she asked suddenly.
Julius and Hudson looked at each other across the blanket. Julius could practically read his mate’s face: You answer, it said. You’re the one who knows what he’s talking about.
“My parents talked about it,” she apologetically.
“It’s what happens when a shifter stays an animal for too long,” he said, simply. “If you’re a bear for a long time, it gets harder and harder to shift back.”
Quinn’s eyes widened, but then she frowned. “Is that bad?” she asked. “Couldn’t you just... become a bear?”
“Even in bear form, we don’t think like bears,” Julius reminded her. “We’re a lot smarter, for one thing. And we still know things from our human lives.”
“People in their animal form for too long get a little crazy,” Hudson joined in. “They cause a lot of havoc.”
“Do you remember that lion that attacked a school bus full of children in Meriweather last year?” Julius asked.
“Of course,” Quinn answered. “My parents had a field day with that.”
“He was feral,” Julius answered. “He wouldn’t shift back for weeks. It finally took his mate, who he’d left, begging him to shift back.”
“He almost couldn’t,” Hudson said, quietly.
Quinn’s eyes narrowed just a little, and she looked from Julius to Hudson.
Shit, thought Julius. She knows there’s something.
I wish she were less perceptive.
“What else?” she asked.
The two men traded glances again.
“One of my cousins went feral,” Julius said softly. “Her name was Olivia.”
“That’s a nice name,” Quinn offered.
“It pretty much wrecked her family,” Julius said. “Her parents died a little while back, and her brother Kade is still...”
He trailed off, not really sure how to explain Kade.
“Kade is still working through some things,” said Hudson.
“Where’s Olivia?”
Julius shrugged. “She could be anywhere. Every time there’s an alleged grizzly sighting, Kade gets excited and tracks it down. So far they’ve all been real bears, though.”
Quinn stared at the blanket, slowly twisting it between her fingers.
“That must be awful,” she finally said.
Julius shrugged. “It is,” he said.
Then he stood up and stretched. Anything to break off the questions about Kade and poor Olivia.
“Anything else you want to know about shifters?” he asked.
Quinn leaned back on her hands, the serious moment over.
“Was Judge Wood a shifter?”
“Nope. Human.”
“Are there marine shifters?”
“Like sharks?”
“Right.”
“Nope.”
“Bird shifters?”
“Just hawks and eagles.”
“What does it look like when you shift?”
Julius grinned, putting his hands on his hips. These questions were much, much more to his liking.
“Do you want to see?” he asked.
Quinn gasped, and then clapped her hand to her mouth.
She’s adorable when she’s tipsy, Julius thought. Even though just being near her, knowing that she couldn’t be theirs and that she’d be gone before he knew it was torture, he couldn’t help but want her.
“So... yes?”
“Is that okay?” she asked. “It’s not, like, some secret thing?”
Julius just laughed.
“Of course not,” he said, and shrugged. “It’s just shifting.”
“Is it gross?” she asked, sounding more intrigued than disgusted.
For a moment, her excitement at watching him shift sent a pang through Julius’s heart.
What if she was someone else’s child? He wondered. If she’d had different parents, could the three of us be happy?
Quinn was brave and vivacious and inquisitive. Clearly, she was whip-smart as well, and everything about her, from her constant curiosity to her perfect ass, made Julius ache for her to be his.
It wasn’t going to happen, though. Her parents were going to try and have him killed, and then Quinn was leaving forever.
Maybe you can call her in a year, he thought. Once she’s out of her parents’ house.
“Not gross,” he told her. “Just... furry.”
Before she could ask any more questions, he whipped his t-shirt off over his head, then tossed it on a nearby boulder.
“Oh!” Quinn exclaimed, her cheeks quickly going pink.
“Grizzlies are much larger than people,” Hudson explained.
“Right, of
course,” she said, looking down at the blanket.
Julius took off his pants before he got an erection, then balled them up, holding the crumpled jeans in front of himself. For decency’s sake.
“Ready?” he asked with a grin.
Quinn just nodded, obviously staring at his body. That was perfectly fine with Julius.
Then he shifted.
It felt like an itch that started in his bones and then exploded out as his body expanded and fur covered him over, quickly. His face got longer and, just like always, he grew claws and a short tail, landed on his front paws.
It was over.
Quinn was standing now, looking half-ready to run, her left hand clutching Hudson’s forearm.
That was a good sign.
He raised his snout and sniffed the wind. Even though he had an abnormally good sense of smell as a human, it was nothing compared to the scent rainbow he experienced as a bear. There was the sharp scent of pine trees, the damp smell of moss and rocks. Two deer to the north; three wolves about a mile to the east.
More than anything, though, there were two overwhelming scents: Hudson and Quinn.
YOUR MATES, his bear-brain thought.
“Can he hear us?” Quinn asked.
“Of course,” Hudson answered. Julius could feel his mate practically vibrating with just the touch of her hand on his arm, the wild thing inside him desperate to claw its way out.
“I mean, can he understand us?”
Julius grunted and nodded.
Hudson smiled.
“Yup.”
Her heart was beating furiously, and Julius could smell her anxiety. He didn’t blame her.
After all, grizzlies were very, very dangerous.
“You’re in control, right?” she asked, this time directly to Julius.
He grunted again.
Then she took her hand off of Hudson’s arm and took a couple of tentative steps forward.
“Can I touch you?” she asked, her voice getting smaller.
Her heartbeat was even faster, and her scent — wildflowers and musk and fear and, impossibly, even a little arousal — was so strong that bear-Julius could almost taste it.
Julius bowed his head. Quinn held her breath and stood perfectly still for a few moments.
Then she closed the distance between them and extended one trembling hand.
