by Rosanna Leo
Soren stared at him out of the corner of his eye. “How’s that possible? She gave birth to a shifter kid, so she must have mated with a shifter.”
His brother’s eyes grew wide. “I know. It’s the weirdest thing. Somehow, even in mating with her husband, Gioia never became a shifter. I’ve never seen that happen.”
It was weird. Not that Soren liked to spend his leisure time discussing shifter biology, but even he knew Gioia Clementine’s state was virtually impossible to achieve. You mated with a shifter, you became one. It was that simple. Just another reason shifters had to be so careful about those they fucked. Sure, Soren slept with human women, but he’d never felt compelled to mate with one. For that, he’d need to mark her as his own, and he hadn’t met a woman yet that he wanted to keep for a lifetime. Mating was final and involved an extraordinary pull toward one’s partner. Frankly, he was relieved it hadn’t happened to him. He wasn’t really the settling down kind of guy.
The world was full of Irina Ivanovs, and he hadn’t had a chance to discover them all yet.
“So what does Gioia’s husband say about all this?” asked Soren, now a little more curious about Gunnar’s mother.
Ryland frowned. “Not much. He’s dead.”
As a wave of peculiar empathy washed over Soren, he leaned on a nearby maple for support. For Gioia to lose her mate must have been devastating. Mated shifters meant the world to each other. Soren had seen first-hand how crazed Ryland had become when Lia’s life was in danger. Not a pretty sight. How could Gioia Clementine have lost her mate and still be standing upright? She ought to be clawing her way into the ground to get at her dead husband, would feel as if she were dying inside herself. “That complicates things.”
“You have no idea,” said Ryland, rolling his eyes. “Things are very complicated for Gioia right now. Anyway, I’ll tell you more later. For now, let’s just get the introductions over.”
He led the way into a small clearing by the lake. Lined by tall trees, summer’s greenery cast a leafy shade over the spot. Soren followed, looking down at his motorcycle boots, still wondering about Gunnar’s mom and wondering why he was so curious about her in the first place. Ryland stopped moving. Soren stopped behind him. He looked up.
The first things he saw were the sexiest high arches he’d ever had the pleasure of glimpsing. Or rather, a pair of feet dangling from a high tree branch. They were pretty, feminine feet with cute toes. No nail polish. They looked soft, clad in strappy flat sandals that emphasized the curve of her foot. Those arches were so hot he could imagine himself planting kisses all over them. So help him, he didn’t have a foot fetish, but he'd always had a thing for high arches on a woman.
He allowed his vision to pan slowly up her body. There was indeed a woman attached to those feet. A tolerable-looking one, he supposed, despite her ridiculously hot feet. Perhaps the rest of her wasn’t quite of the Irina Ivanov standard. Mind you, even Irina hadn’t been as winsome as her pictures, and her lips had been downright scary.
Mental note: succulent lips are not a good thing on a woman when they stand six inches out from her face.
No, this Gioia woman had a much quieter beauty, if he could call it that. Round hips and womanly legs, wrapped in jeans with big pink flowers all over them. A knockout rack, but it was hidden under a light sweater that covered her from wrist to neck. No cleavage showing at all, a total tragedy. She had puffy black hair curling down to her shoulders. The woman needed a bit of hair relaxer or mousse or something. Her face could be considered aesthetically pleasing, with a tiny moue of a mouth and dark eyes, but she had these huge glasses on. She looked like a little owl doll.
Soren suddenly felt the need to spring for a pair of contacts for her. He also had the strange urge to unbutton his jeans. They felt tight all of a sudden. Reaching down with a discreet hand, he adjusted his strangely inflated cock.
“Gunnar, please?” Her voice cracked with a hint of desperation but retained a distinctly sexy timbre. Soft and sweet with a gravelly touch, as if she’d just rolled over in bed and hadn’t quite shaken off the cobwebs. “It’s been hours.”
Man, how long had she been pleading with the kid? And was she born with that sexed-up voice? Soren ignored what had to be rolling hunger pangs in his stomach.
Even though he had trouble looking away from Gioia, he glanced toward the child. He only saw foliage. The boy knew how to stay well-hidden.
Ryland called out to Gioia, and she looked over at them. And then she glanced at Soren and froze.
Once again, a strange wave of feeling rolled over him. His pulse jumped into a new, erratic beat. Was it nausea? It had to be nausea. He shouldn’t have eaten all those fatty snacks on the plane. Either that or her loud flower pants were giving him a headache.
Gioia reached for a branch as if to steady herself, but missed. She pitched forward off her perch, letting out a high-pitched yelp. Soren raced toward her, unthinking, and put out his arms just in time to catch the soft, fragrant bundle. She caught her breath and looked at him from behind those owl glasses.
Big, brown eyes blinked at him. Once, twice, three times. She cleared her throat.
Put her down, you fuckwad! He dropped her to her feet, and she gave a little whoop of surprise.
Somewhere deep inside him, his bear came to life. He hadn’t listened to his inner bear much, preferring to favor his human side. Hell, he didn’t even shift much. But right now his bear caused a ruckus, howling against his rib cage as if needing to get out. He had a sudden image of his polar bear getting red in the face.
Because of her.
He couldn’t stop staring at the queer, little woman. And she looked at him as if he were the ghost of Elvis.
Ryland moseyed over, a smug grin playing on his lips. He bit his lip as if stifling a guffaw. “Gioia, this is my brother, Soren. Soren, Gioia.”
Meanwhile, Ryland spoke to Soren using the telepathy common to their kind. “Fuck me, little brother. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
“What do you think you’re seeing?”
Ryland laughed silently. “A bear recognizing his mate. I’d know that look anywhere.”
“Don’t fuck with me. That’s bullshit.”
“Yeah, well, that dumbstruck look in your eye is what I used to wear when I first met Lia. Remember?”
“Yeah, but…but this is me. I’d expect you to look dumbstruck!”
“Now, now. Don’t get testy, Soren. What’s happening inside you? Bear feeling a little grumpy? A little hungry, maybe?”
“Ryyyyy…Oh, fuck. No, no, no. I refuse to acknowledge what you're saying.”
“Oh, this is priceless. The playboy, snagged by the soccer mom.”
“Get outta my head, you sick piece of…”
Gioia’s suspicious gaze darted between the two of them. “Um, thanks for catching me, Soren.” She adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. “Nice to meet you?”
Soren gaped at her, unable to make his lips work. He swallowed, the walls of his throat resembling the arid landscape of the Sahara. His normally deep voice emerged but about two octaves higher. “Okay.”
Now she was staring at him like he was a tool. He sounded like a tool. What the hell was going on here?
Ryland, clearly beside himself, exploded into a fit of laughter. Fuck him, there were tears in his eyes. “I think the traditional response, Soren, is ‘nice to meet you too.’” And then he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his stupid plaid shirt.
Gioia transferred her glassy-eyed stare to him. “Is something wrong?”
Ryland put a hand over his mouth and attempted to calm his badly timed fit of revenge-driven hilarity. “Nothing at all. How’s Gunnar?”
Gioia sighed and peered up at her son’s perch. “Still up there. Won’t come down. He hasn’t eaten for hours. I’m waiting for him to fall off his branch from dehydration.”
Soren stepped forward, relieved to be out of Gioia’s piercing line of sight for a second. Now if he could jus
t get the sexy lilt of her voice out of his eardrums. He shook his head like a dog emerging from a dip in the lake and stared at the tree. Black Converse high-tops dangled from one of the highest branches.
Ryland walked over to the tree and called up to the kid. "Gunnar, there's someone here you'll wanna meet."
The Converses stopped waggling in the air and hung straight. Soren watched, conscious of Gioia creeping up behind him to observe. Why was she standing so close to him? He was tempted to turn and shoo away the little bird of a woman, but her unruly hair smelled too good. Was that vanilla mixed with peaches? He allowed his nostrils to flare. What sort of devilry created a shampoo that smelled so delicious? Trying to ignore her tasty scent, he focused on the kid. Soren knew a lot hinged on this moment; he just wasn't sure what.
After a tense minute, the Converses scrambled down the trunk, accompanied by a lanky body. Gunnar looked about five feet tall, a few inches shy of his mom. He wore tight, torn jeans, a T-shirt, and a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off. He twirled a set of drumsticks as if they were an extension of his hand. The boy had talent and good taste. On his jacket, he'd pinned a button with Soren's face on it.
He moseyed over as if he had nothing but time. His laid-back air didn’t match up with his rounded, hazel eyes. Within seconds, he narrowed his gaze, trying not to appear so starstruck. He blew up an errant chunk of brown hair from his brow and stopped in front of them.
Ryland grinned. "Gunnar, this is my brother, Soren."
Gunnar nodded at Soren and gawked at him for a long moment, taking in every detail from hair to boots. "Dude."
Gioia clasped Soren's arm and gasped. Heat from her touch shot right up his arm, straight into his brain, and then rained hellfire into his crotch. What in the blazes? Focus on the boy, not on her crazy witch powers!
Soren ignored the trickle of sweat dripping down the back of his neck. What was he supposed to say to this kid? He hadn't had a conversation with a child since he was one. Kids were smelly and picked their noses. They produced foul noises and licked things they shouldn't. How would he relate to this one? Well, take a stab at it. He nodded at Gunnar. "Little dude."
The kid stared at him. Soren wasn't sure if he should say something else, so he didn't say anything. And all the while, mommy Gioia squeezed his arm so hard he suspected one of his veins might now be severed. The feeling ought to have been uncomfortable, but much to his chagrin and astonishment, it gave him an even bigger boner.
What are you doing, you sex fiend? he raged at himself. There's a kid here. Think of…think of Nikita Krushchev naked in the sauna with Mikael Gorbachev. There. Boner gone.
Almost.
"So, Gunnar," he stammered. "I hear you play drums too."
Gunnar didn't respond. He just twirled his drumsticks like a baton, tossing them into the air. It was a move Soren often employed onstage. Only, rather than catching his sticks as Soren always did, Gunnar dropped them and blushed. Fearing he might bolt up the tree again, Soren picked up the sticks and handed them to the kid.
Gunnar gaped as if he'd received the keys to the kingdom of heaven. "Thanks, dude." He then escaped up the tree again.
Ryland smiled. In fact, his brother bounced on his toes a little with excitement, and Soren worried he might receive a brother-hug. Okay, so he'd gotten some surly kid to say a total of three words. Not exactly breakthrough material.
The reaction he was most keen to see, strangely enough, was Gioia's. He turned to the woman, catching a hint of yet another bracing perfume on her body. Wait, it wasn't perfume. It was hand sanitizer. What a mom.
Another scent emanated from her at the same time, one he hadn't smelled on anyone he knew in a long time, and certainly not one that was ever directed at him.
Ire.
He took a closer look at Gioia Clementine. She was prettier than he'd originally suspected, with almond-shaped dark eyes and olive skin. There was an interesting trail of brown freckles under her right eye.
Her eyes were now narrowed in clear anger. A blush of fury colored her cheeks, ornamenting her face right down to her rounded nostrils.
"Gioia?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"The first words he's said in weeks," she spat. Her spectacular chest rose and fell with her jerky breath. "Why did he have to say them to you?" With that, she turned and hurried out of the clearing toward the lodge. On her way, she tripped over her feet a couple of times. Her swearing echoed in the woods. “Fuck nuggets!”
Soren found himself admiring her cursing ability. As one whose own language was often peppered with expletives, variety was a quality he respected in others, especially women.
He stared after her, his bear roaring in apprehension inside him. And his boner was back big time. He looked at his brother, at a complete loss. "What did I do?"
Ry merely patted him on the back and curled his lip in sympathy. "Welcome back to Gemini Island, bro."
* * * *
Gioia wasn't sure why she fled from Soren Snow. After all, the man had managed to pry several syllables out of her son, which was more than she'd been able to do in months. She should be thanking Soren. She should be genuflecting before the rock god and offering her humble thanks and praise for his kind attention to a poor soul.
However, she really just wanted to hit him.
She stopped running when she got close to the cobbled pathway leading to the lodge entrance. Picking out a nearby park bench, Gioia sat. As relaxing as the surroundings were, her heart fluttered with unease. She concentrated on a small group of children playing on one of the expansive lawns and grinned at their antics. She wanted Gunnar to feel free like that. He used to be carefree and innocent. Not anymore.
Gioia swallowed hard in an attempt to dislodge the lump in her throat. She wrestled with ragged emotions, the same ones that had been pushing her to the edge for weeks, for months. She felt like crying all the time, which was unusual. She wasn't a crier; hadn't been since Paul died, when all her tears dried up. She generally had no time for moping anyway. Between working her day job as an office manager for an accounting company and caring for Gunnar, she wasn't at liberty to carve out chunks of time to bare her soul. But since arriving at the Ursa Lodge, her eyes seemed constantly waterlogged.
She just wanted her son, her only child, to be happy. He'd almost looked happy when he'd mumbled those three words to Soren Snow. And all the musician had said was "little dude." Bond established instantly. Even though she'd spent endless days appealing to Gunnar, encouraging him and offering to listen to him, he'd been moved by "little dude."
She supposed if the words had come from someone else, like Ryland or Lia, she wouldn't have minded. But because they'd been mumbled by a man who was the antithesis of everything she stood for, it stung. Soren Snow of the interminable line of celebrity girlfriends, designer jeans, and a face whose features were arranged so perfectly it seemed criminal.
His appearance in person had stunned her; she couldn't deny it. For Christ’s sake, seeing him had almost caused her to fall to the ground. His longish-blond hair reminded her of that movie actor she liked, the one who was in all those period pieces. Long enough to pull back and soft enough you wanted to release it from its elastic and feel it falling over your fingers. His cat-like blue eyes were unusual, almost Asian in their tapered contours, making him appear even more mysterious. Unfortunately, they seemed to be constantly appraising her and finding her lacking. And that body…well, she might be a mother to a tween, but she still understood the power of heaven-sent proportions. He stood about six feet three, but appeared even more imposing when you factored in his obvious strength. Thanks to his drumming, or perhaps a battalion of expensive personal trainers, Soren absolutely rippled with muscle. It coursed along his broad shoulders, curved over his biceps, and teased from under his Hugo Boss jersey shirt. And you just knew he was the sort of man who looked even more devastating in the nude.
Insult added to injury? Check.
Not that it mattered. She was here to hel
p her son, not feel sharp pangs of embarrassing lust. She adjusted the way she was sitting on the bench. Damn, somehow Soren Snow had managed to ooze right under her skin. How had that happened?
Okay, he was crazy hot, she could admit it. And the famous lothario must think she was an emotional nutcase. Way to make a first impression, G.
Gioia stared at the hands in her lap, frowning at her cracked knuckles, so dried from washing dishes at home. Her nails were clipped and short for work, chipped in a couple of places, and in desperate need of a manicure. Sex goddess hands…in a parallel universe, maybe.
She heard footsteps approaching. She looked up and saw her second cousin Wes. Wes Clementine was a bear shifter who'd made it his mission to spend as much time as possible with Gioia and Gunnar since Paul's demise. She appreciated it, seeing as Gunnar didn't deem her worthy of conversation. Wes had not only been Paul’s cousin but his best friend, and he was one of the few stable male influences her son had in his life. So when Wes had suggested he come along on the retreat to the lodge, Gioia had jumped at the opportunity. It was important for Gunnar to know his family cared.
If only he hadn’t been acting so strange lately. There was a new, curious light in Wes’ eyes, and it always seemed trained on her. She dismissed the thought as usual, figuring she was reading the wrong emotions in his heated looks. "Hi, Wes."
Her relative smiled and sat down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. He drew her close and kissed her forehead. "You're worrying again. Don't. It'll all work out in the end."
"Promise?"
"Promise, sunshine."
He picked up her hand and stroked it, running his thumb over her palm in a caress that felt way too intimate to be appropriate for second cousins. Gioia slid her hand out of his as awkward heat scored her skin. He regarded her with obvious interest for a moment, took a breath, and then spoke. “So, did you and the boy meet the big rock star?” He sniffed, a look of disdain marring his handsome features.
