“You don’t remember me?”
His jaw froze mid-chew and he searched her face, trying to recall when they met. “Um…”
“You seemed to enjoy yourself,” she pouted. “I know I did.” The wink she gave him made him blink in surprise. It was quickly replaced with dawning recognition.
“Ohhh, yeah…” he said, giving her a wink back. “I remember now. You were…awesome.”
Rolling her eyes at his lame attempt to save face, she turned back to the sink. “I was kidding, Yoren.” She flipped the switch again to drown out any response.
This was silly, this pretending to be on a date thing. It was time they just laid their cards on the table and worked out the details.
“Listen, Yoren. I’m not a fool. I know who you are and that you’ve been put in a situation you’re not happy about. I get that.”
He glanced up at her warily as she sat down across from him.
“You’re well past the age most weres take a mate, plus you’re one of the town’s leading businessmen, so the council no doubt is pressuring you to find someone already. This isn’t what I wanted either, but we have an opportunity before us that I think we should discuss. Honestly.”
He continued to look at her from under his brow as he chewed. She took this as a sign to continue.
“I have no doubt you know exactly why I was chosen by the council to be your mate. They found out I was dating a human and didn’t like it. I was taken by surprise myself, but I’d already lost my heart to him. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out with Jess.”
She was trying to contain her emotions. They were so raw and fresh, though, that the tears came unbidden. She sniffed them back and took a deep breath. This wasn’t the time to get mushy about her ex.
She was startled by the fierce look in Yoren’s eyes when she met his gaze again. His nostrils were flaring and his upper lip was quivering. Was he jealous? Seemed a bit sudden for that, but she took it as a compliment.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…well, anyway.” She blushed a little as he continued to stare. “What I’m trying to say is that I would be open to becoming your mate, with the understanding that it would be a business partnership. I’ll be the best mate in Kodiak, with one small exception: I won’t have sex with you. But you’re free to take care of your needs wherever and however you want. I get the security of knowing my sons will never go hungry and you get the freedom to live your life as you wish without the interference of the council.”
She searched his face for some sign of agreement, but it was completely blank.
“What do you think?”
At that moment, the front door burst open. Sam and Jason came running into the kitchen and climbed all over Veronica, giggling and tickling her. “Momma, we missed you!”
Pushing back from the table, she gathered her boys in her arms, sniffing each one’s neck in turn and hugging them tight. The pain in her heart was eased by their love. She’d do anything to give them a better life, including binding herself to the increasing tense werebear across from her.
“Boys, I’d like you to meet Momma’s new friend.”
She nodded toward Yoren and the boys grew suddenly shy, hiding their faces in the crook of her neck. They hadn’t noticed his presence until she mentioned it.
Grinning at their silliness, she said, “Yoren, these are my sons, Sam and Jason.”
Jason slipped from her arms and cautiously approached Yoren. He had the sweetest soul and proved it by climbing onto Yoren’s lap and giving him a tentative hug.
Veronica’s heart lurched at the scene, her smile growing to a grin. But it faltered when her gaze drifted up to meet Yoren’s. His eyes were blazing, his upper lip was in full snarl mode and his entire body was shaking. He was enraged, not charmed. What the…?
Then the world exploded.
“That was you?! You fucked that fish guy?!” he yelled at her, taking her by surprise.
With a growl that turned the room icy, Yoren batted sweet Jace off his lap and across the room. Her poor baby hit the wall with a thud and a loud snap, and crumpled to the floor in a heap.
Before her brain could process what had just happened, Sam howled in grief and anger, shifting to his bear form as he bolted from her arms. Using the table as a launching pad, he landed on Yoren’s increasingly red face, a whirling dervish of teeth and claws, drawing blood and flaying flesh.
In the blink of an eye, Yoren shifted as well, roaring in pain and swatting at the little demon latched onto his skull. The table went crashing on its side as he twisted himself in circles trying to reach Sam but Veronica barely noticed.
What she did see was Yoren finally finding purchase and tearing Sam from his head. The cub fell to the floor at their feet, bleeding and whimpering, trying to crawl away.
Yoren turned his blazing gaze on little Sam, and Veronica could see his evil intent there. Her bear wasted no time in leaping to action, yet someone else beat her to it.
From the corner of her eye, a blur of grayish-brown fur rushed toward Yoren, knocking him backward and away from Sam. Veronica joined Gretchen by lunging forward and snapping her jaws around Yoren’s exposed throat, shaking her head violently, trying to rip it out.
No one attacked her children and lived to tell about it!
But Yoren was much stronger and, with a tremendous effort, was able to pull himself free. He backed out of the kitchen, keeping his eyes glued on the enraged female bears tracking him. They all stopped moving when his rump bumped the front door.
Veronica and Gretchen growled and blocked the kitchen from his view. There was no way he was getting near those cubs again. His eyes pingponged between them, and once he seemed satisfied they weren’t going to lunge after him, he shifted back to his human form.
Blood ran down his face, staining his expensive shirt and suit, and Veronica had a brief moment of clarity thinking that humans would be far more alarmed by his appearance now than if he’d run out of the house as a bear.
Glowering at Veronica, he pointed a finger. “You’re a traitor to your species,” he whispered in a steely voice. “You filthy human-fucker, you disgust me!”
Whipping open the door, he stormed out. The roar of his brand new Escalade reverberated through the house and the squeal of his tires signaled it was safe to tend to the cubs.
Shifting back to human form, Veronica rushed to Jason’s side while Gretchen tended to Sam. As it turned out, Sam was just a little stunned — he’d never been struck by an adult before — but Jace had a broken arm, at the very least. The clan’s doctor was called and the women soothed the cubs while they waited.
“But why did he hit us?” whined Sam. He kept trying to snuggle up to his brother, but Gretchen kept a tight hold so he wouldn’t further injure Jason.
Gently rocking Jace, Veronica shook her head. “I don’t know, honey. He’s a very bad man.”
Gretchen gave her a sharp look but said nothing.
An hour later, the healer had worked her magic on the boys and they were snuggled in bed together. By morning, Jason’s arm would be as good as new, but both boys’ psyches might be permanently damaged, and that infuriated Veronica.
“I could just kill Yoren for that,” she fumed to her mother-in-law. “I still don’t understand what happened back there.”
“Don’t you?” Gretchen had cocked her head and had a look of genuine surprise on her face.
“No! Everything seemed to be going fine. I’d told him that it would be a strictly professional arrangement and that he could continue to prowl around as much as he wanted. Then you guys came home and…kablooey!”
Gretchen was thoughtful for a moment. “What about the things he said as he was leaving? You know, that thing about being a traitor? What was he talking about?”
Veronica ducked her head in shame. Not for her love for Jess, but that she’d kept the secret from Gretchen. She was the closest thing to a mother she had up here in the wilds of Alaska, and she’d kept a big part of herself hidden.
Barely able to whisper, Veronica admitted everything. Gretchen took it with grace, gently stroking Veronica’s hair as she spewed out her tale. When she finally got to Yoren’s attack, Gretchen nodded and sighed.
“Well, my dear, you truly screwed the pooch on this one.”
Veronica looked up at her with tears streaming down her face. The emotional roller coaster she’d been on for the last couple of days was taking its toll. She was falling apart, shattering into a million pieces. There was no way for her to survive if her in-laws cast her aside.
“I know I shouldn’t have fallen in love with a human…” she started, but Gretchen waved away her words.
“Not that. Don’t you know who Yoren is?”
She shrugged in response. “Sure, big businessman, big horndog, big asshole child abuser.”
Gretchen snorted. “Well, yes, he’s all of those things, but he also happens to be something far worse.”
Veronica couldn’t imagine what could be worse than that last thing.
“He’s the leader of the Kodiak chapter of the Brotherhood.”
For the second time in as many days, Max burst into Elder Watkins’ tiny office, bellowing with rage. “Where is she?! Where’s Bethany? We had a deal and I held up my end of the bargain. Now where is she?!”
His bear was pacing back and forth inside him, scratching to be let out. Not yet, he soothed. We need answers first.
Elder Watkins leaned back in his old office chair, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, Max. Settle down, son. Have a seat.”
His easy manner infuriated Max even more. His gaze bore into the elder until he shifted his large ass in his seat. “Please, Max, sit.”
“I prefer standing.”
He almost added, All the better position from which to rip your throat out, but pulled that punch at the last second. He couldn’t allow his out-of-control emotions cloud his judgment. The poor excuse for a were sitting before him was his best chance to find Bethany, and he had to play his cards just right.
Watkins sighed. “Have it your way. Now, what’s your beef this time? Still the mate thing?”
“Still the… YES!” Max was flabbergasted at his audacity. “We had a deal. I’d help hook up Veronica and that shitbag Yoren, and you’d release Bethany unharmed. That was the deal, now where is she?”
Watkins was shaking his head in disappointment. “We had no such deal, Max. You were hired to find Yoren a mate, and volunteered to help Veronica see the light. I appreciate your efforts in that situation.”
“And?” Max demanded.
“And nothing. I simply suggested that if the Brotherhood had taken her, they might consider releasing her if you tried to undo the wrong she committed by trying to pair a human and a were. Either they are choosing not to release her for some reason, or they don’t have her. All I know is that I have no idea where your mate is, Max. Now please remove yourself from my office — and Kodiak, for all I care.”
The callous tone in his voice and blatant dismissal sent Max and his bear into a rage.
“Fuck protocol,” he muttered as he grabbed Watkins’ neck and pulled level with his hard gaze. “Where. Is. My. Mate.”
His tone left no room for arguing, no room for dismissal. Either Watkins answered or he was dead, his status in the clan be damned.
Gasping for air, the fat man choked out, “Dun-oh.” He clutched the hand holding him up by the throat. “Pless.”
Disgusted with the wretch, Max dropped him to the floor, where he lay like the pile of crap he was. Watkins scrambled back against the wall, shielding his face from his enemy.
“I don’t know, I swear it. I didn’t even know she was kidnapped till you came storming in here. I saw an opening and I used it to…to get what I wanted. I swear that’s the truth!”
He was shaking like a cub caught in a tree. Max almost felt sorry for the old faker.
Almost.
He advanced on Watkins, wanting to keep the elder just frightened enough to talk.
“So there was no threat against her? What about that business with the airport?”
Watkins cowered. He shook his head so hard his glasses slipped off his face and ended up dangling from one ear. “I lied!”
“If you really don’t know where she is, old man, then tell me where you think she is?” he growled.
“I…well, if it were me…”
“Yeah?”
“I…I…Max, if they find out I said anything…”
“Speak!” he roared.
“Yoren! Go talk to Yoren Brand. He’s the glue that holds the Brotherhood together. That group of idiots and yahoos would have died off long ago if he hadn’t breathed fresh life back into it. If anyone knows where your mate is, it’s him.”
Max was stunned. He sat in the same room helping the were that was holding his mate hostage. He nearly vomited at the thought, but nothing would have come up anyway since he hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before.
As he stormed out of the office to track down Yoren, he barely heard Watkins whisper, “I’m dead, and so are you.”
~ * ~ * ~
Max knew exactly where he could find Yoren: Veronica’s house. He ran back to the hotel to search Bethany’s computer for the address, and hoping — in vain, as it turned out — that her abductors had left some kind of message. His pulse was racing as he pulled up a few houses down from Veronica’s place in the beat-up truck the council had loaned him.
A Cadillac SUV was parked at an angle in the driveway. Veronica’s 4Runner was parked on the street, and he doubted most folks in town could afford such a rig. No, that was Yoren’s Glam-o-lac for sure.
He was itching for a fight but he had to wait. He didn’t want to frighten Veronica and her cubs — or put them in danger. Confronting Yoren in her house would be risky. But once he left…
Max’s thoughts turned to what Bethany must be going through. Frightened and alone, completely vulnerable and undoubtedly being treated like a prisoner. If not worse.
His bear surged forward at the hint of the thought she might have been hurt, forcing Max to reign him in.
“Not yet, boy,” he whispered as he struggled to control his enraged bear. “Soon, though. Very soon.”
A low growl slipped from his throat in agreement — or, more likely, anticipation.
A few minutes later, another SUV, this one much older, rumbled up to Veronica’s house. Two rambunctious cubs tumbled out of the back, running as fast as their little legs could carry them to the front door. His gut churned with a toxic mixture of love for his unborn son and hatred for the foul weres who had put his life in jeopardy.
Veronica’s sons were followed by an older woman, who Max guessed was their grandmother. She was burdened under a load of the boys’ gear, and kept dropping items and having to stoop to pick them up again. He wanted to jump out to help her, but he couldn’t risk tipping off Yoren to his presence.
As he watched the woman close the door behind her, Max settled in for a longer wait while Yoren met Sam and Jason. Who wouldn’t want to get to know those adorable kids better? He was reaching for the ancient AM radio dial when he heard the unmistakable sound of screaming coming from the house. Though a human couldn’t have heard it from the street, his ears picked up the distinct screech of a cub going ballistic. It was answered by the thundering roar of a mature male bear…an angry male bear.
But the anger in that bear’s scream — obviously Yoren’s — was nothing compared to the fury that poured out from the two females inside the house. He was grateful that homes in this part of Kodiak were spaced far apart and mostly filled with other weres. Humans hearing this would have thought a pack of rabid bears was tearing up that house and the family inside.
Max knew better. He had no idea what caused it but Yoren had pissed off two momma bears in a big way.
“Moron, you never get between a momma bear and her cubs,” he whispered while keeping a sharp eye on the house. If Yoren was really lucky, Veronica and her
mother-in-law wouldn’t tear him to shreds and he’d be coming out the door any second — if he had a lick of sense in him.
As if on cue, the door was thrown open and Yoren — in human form — ran to his truck like the devil was after him, blood spattering the pavement. He peeled out of Veronica’s driveway and sped across her front yard, rather than taking the time to back out, ripping it up in the process. Max was torn: His instinct was to see if Veronica and her family needed help but his gut told him that following Yoren would lead to Bethany.
As soon as his sensitive ears heard two women’s voices cooing to the whimpering cubs, he knew they had it all under control and he took off after the Glam-o-lac. The rattletrap the council loaned him had a hell of a time keeping up with the modern monster Yoren was driving, but traffic in Kodiak is an oxymoron so it wasn’t hard to at least keep track of where he turned.
When the Glam-o-lac pulled up to a ratty shack of a house on the outskirts of town, Max wondered if the poor little rich boy had gotten lost. Several rusted hulks of what once were trucks littered the yard, which was really just a tract of lumpy tundra. Several layers of exterior paint were peeling off the house, missing roof shingles lay on the ground like pulled teeth, a stained and tattered sheet had been hung as a curtain in the front window, and a mountain of beer cans had grown to an epic size in the side yard. The place was clearly in need of a woman’s touch.
On second thought, a gallon of gas and a match would be a better idea.
As he started to pull in behind the SUV, Yoren laid on the horn, long and loud. A sideways glance as the front door was yanked open caused Max to drive past. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror as three enormous weres stumbled out of the shack and clambered into Yoren’s rig.
Now what on earth is going on here? Yoren must have called these guys after leaving Veronica’s. But why?
Max slowed to a trundle and turned his head as Yoren roared past him, literally leaving him in the dust of the dirt road.
“All the better to track you with”, he mumbled with a dour smirk.
Laid Bear 2: The Kodiak Clan Page 13
