by T. S. Joyce
The hairs rose higher on Tobias’s neck. “Look—”
“You can call me Harlan. I’m king of this place.”
“You mean alpha?”
“Nope.” He shook his head once, slow. “King.”
Tobias’s patience was wearing as thin as spring ice, and a growl rattled his chest before he could stop it. His bear wanted to bleed this prick, and it had nothing to do with this weird-ass conversation and everything to do with how dominant Harlan felt. Whatever animal he was harboring was a monster, just like Tobias’s.
Harlan smiled and canted his head, his dark eyes amused. “Grizzly, grizzly, grizzly. So touchy. You wouldn’t last a day here. Too weak for my Vera. She’d eat you up and spit you out. Nah, she’s mine, and I don’t have to worry about you. I’ll be fuckin’ her soon. She probably likes it rough. The smart-mouthed ones always do. She put me off too long, and now my animal is angry. He’ll have her rough as punishment for making me wait.”
Fury burned through Tobias’s veins, and for what? No damned reason he could see. The dynamics and mating behavior of this village were none of his concern. And if she really was a witch, as Harlan suggested, Vera could likely take care of herself.
Tobias offered him an empty smile. “Tell me where Vera is so I can be on my way.” Preferably before he ripped Harlan’s throat out through his mouth-hole.
He spat, then jerked his chin toward the woods. Through the trees, Tobias could make out a cabin set some distance away from the rest.
“She’s in heat,” Harlan said, lips curved in a hungry grin that made Tobias nauseous.
He ignored the asshole and strode off.
“Don’t get her with a baby,” Harlan called. “That witch is mine.”
God, he couldn’t wait to get off this island. He had gotten this same sick feeling in his gut the last time he made a delivery here. Like nothing was right with this place.
Vera’s cabin was bigger than the rest and looked much better taken care of. There were new planks mixed in with old on the small porch, and in front of the door was a new welcome mat. Except instead of Welcome someone had painted, Fuck off Harlan, in bold, white letters.
Tobias snorted. He rapped his knuckles onto the smooth wood of the door, and a moment later, a short woman yanked it open, blue eyes blazing and mouth open like she was ready to de-hide him. Tobias stumbled back a step as they stared at each other. Her hair was medium brown with a reddish tint and curled into soft waves down her shoulders. Her eyes were stormy blue and almost too big for her heart-shaped face. Her eyebrows were delicately arched in surprise, and she smelled faintly of fur, though he couldn’t tell what kind of animal she was. Something dominant. And under that was the slight scent of pheromones that told him Harlan had been right. There weren’t many female shifters on this planet, but the scent of their heat was unmistakable to any male.
She was short, curvy, and had done her eyes up pretty with some kind of shimmery eyelid shit women used to doll themselves up. Vera Masterson was about as out of place here as she could get.
“You’re him,” she said on a soft breath.
“Tobias Silver,” he murmured, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m being so rude. Come in.”
His urge to run from the beguiling woman was almost as strong as his instinct to stay, but he’d promised Link to hear what she had to say, and he sure as shit wasn’t going to make a second trip out here. With a glance over his shoulder for Harlan who was standing by the fire watching him, he stepped through the door.
Whatever he’d expected to see when he walked into a witch’s cabin, it wasn’t this. Most of the place was cluttered with tables covered in Bunsen burners, vials of different colored liquids, scribbled notepads, and row after row of ingredients packed in glass mason jars. In the corner was a pair of propane tanks, and near the fireplace were more glass vials. He saw exactly zero of the spell books, cauldrons, or fragrant herbs he’d expected to see hanging from the rafters, though she did have a long strand of garlic cloves in her small kitchen.
“It took you long enough to get here. I’ve been fixing my hair for a week on the off-chance you showed up, and do you know how hard it is to get a curling iron going out here in bum-fucked Egypt? I shit you not, I had to rig it up to a solar panel because Harlan has been watching the generator like some sort of guard dog. I swear, he’s like one of those girls who’s like, ‘I won’t have sex with you until you mow the yard,’ or whatever, but with him, he’s like, ‘you can’t use the generator until we make thigh friction.’ Asshat.” She was talking with her back to him as she began to pack up vials and packs of sterile needles into a black suitcase.
“Uh, do you want me to set this over here?” he asked, gripping the package.
“Sure but don’t unpack it. We’ll need that stuff.”
Tobias blinked slowly. “I’m sorry?”
“Just to get things out in the open, I’m a Virgo, and I hate long walks on the beach because sand between your toes is incredibly uncomfortable, am I right?” She turned and lifted her hand, like the tiny woman wanted a high five. Tobias refused on account of the giant package in his hands and the fact she felt dangerous to touch. His inner bear had quieted completely in her presence. It had been a while since the monster in his middle had gone still.
Undeterred, Vera clapped her hands together in her own high-five and went back to packing. “Do you snore?” she asked, twisting around with a frown.
“Uuuh, no?”
“Great. I’m a light sleeper, and I could deal with snoring, but I need to be mentally prepared not to whack you with a pillow.”
She’d lost him completely.
“I won’t need any money from you—”
“Wait, what? You’re supposed to pay me, lady. I delivered to you, remember?”
“Oh! Put that down,” she murmured, scrambling for a coffee can that sat on her kitchen counter. She pulled out a surprisingly thick wad of twenties and started counting them out, then apparently changed her mind, shoved the money back in, and handed him the entire can. “What’s mine is yours now.”
“No. No it’s not,” he gritted out, taking what he’d earned and shoving the can back toward her.
Vera had gone back to packing, though. “I won’t be fixing my hair for you every day, so you should accept that early. Like I said, I don’t need money from you, but I will need you to hunt at…where do you live again?”
“All over.” God this was getting weird. “Listen, Lincoln McCall said he talked to you—”
“McCall?” Vera’s giant wood-sprite eyes grew bigger somehow. “I didn’t know he was a McCall. Oooh, that’s bad.”
“Why is that bad?”
“I can’t help those McCalls. Too wild. Too crazy, and it doesn’t have as much to do with their animals as they think.”
“So, you can’t help him.”
Vera frowned and leaned back against a wobbly table. With a sigh, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s your favorite sexual position?”
Tobias just about choked on the air. “What?”
“I mean, I assume with bears it’s something animalistic. From behind while you’re growling or roaring or whatever. Do you like it from behind?”
“Y-yes.” Why was he talking? Engaging with this lunatic was a terrible idea.
“Okay. It’s not my favorite, but I’m flexible.”
“It’s not your favorite,” he repeated distractedly.
“No, but that’s fine. I have faults, too.”
“Fucking from behind is a fault?”
“I have needs, and I’ll expect babies at some point. Cubs? That’s what grizzly babies are called, right?”
“Right, I’m going to go. It was weird meeting you.” Tobias turned and opened the door, cursing Link for sending him on this dumb mission.
Harlan stood there looking pissed with his arms crossed over his chest. “She’s mine!”
Tobias slammed the door and ran his hands thro
ugh his hair.
“Fuck off, Harlan. I have a mate now!” Vera yelled through the open window.
When something crashed against the house, Tobias ducked out of self-preservation. “Lady, I sincerely hope you aren’t talking about me.”
“I have a contract for you to sign. You can mark out the no doggy-style clause. And I put three kids—cubs—on there, but you can scratch it out and put whatever number you want to under eight.”
Something else crashed against the house so loud it made his ears ring. “I’m not your man, and we aren’t making eight cubs. Tell Harlan to back off so I can get out of here.”
Vera zipped the suitcase full of science shit and set the wheels on the floor. “Oh! I need clothes.” Suitcase abandoned by the door, Vera began to throw clothes from a dresser into an eye-scorching purple duffle bag. “Do you want to bite me now or later?”
“Bite you?” Another crash rattled the house, and Tobias scrubbed his hands over his face in sheer frustration. “Never is my answer. No biting.”
His bear snarled his disagreement, and Vera shot him a bright smile. “Your monster likes me. That’s good. I’m getting off this island, away from those murderous sons-of-bitches, and away from Harlan.”
“Harlan seems like a nice guy,” he argued.
“Are you serious? He smells like beef jerky, his teeth are the color of sunshine, and he can fart the alphabet. My kids would be weird. Look out that window, Tobias. Would you choose him as a mate?”
As soon as Tobias pushed the curtain aside, an empty bean can came flying past his head. “In all fairness, I’m biased because I’m not attracted to men.” But he could see where she was coming from. Harlan really did smell oddly like beef jerky. “Look, I’m a grizzly shifter and not meant to keep a woman. You seem nice, and you aren’t hideous. And your teeth are straight.”
“Aww! Thank you.”
“But I hibernate half the damned year, and I don’t want a mate. Not ever.”
“Oh, didn’t Link tell you? I’m hiring you as my mate.”
“Hiring me?”
“Yes, you don’t have to fall in love with me. I’d prefer you use me for my vixen body because that’s what I’m in this for, too. That and protection. I want a big shifter to bite me.”
“Vera,” he warned.
“And we won’t have to worry about you hibernating anymore.”
“Oh, yeah?” He was in crazytown, and Vera was the mayor. He should’ve known better than to come out here, and fuck Link for giving him the weirdest experience of his life. “And why is that?”
“Because I can cure you. Just in the winter months, and you can Change and roar and eat honey until your heart’s content in the summers. And diddle me because I’m serious about that being part of the contract.”
“I’m sorry…you can cure me?”
“I don’t earn enough to hire you with money, but I can barter with you. Bite me, claim me, protect me, and I’ll make sure you don’t hibernate if you don’t want to. And not only you, Tobias. Your brothers, too.”
Tobias sat heavily in a creaking chair near the door.
“Vera,” Harlan said in a whiny voice from outside, “can we talk alone?”
“Fuck off, Harlan,” Tobias and Vera both said at the same time. It would’ve been funny if he hadn’t been utterly dumbfounded over the situation. Mate this woman for a cure?
“Are you a witch then?”
Vera gave him a sad smile and knelt down in front of him, her duffle bag slung over her shoulder. “More like a mad scientist. I wasn’t born a shifter, Tobias. Someone I loved Turned me, and I’ve worked for years to learn how to fix myself. I can fix you, too.”
He narrowed his eyes and tried to guess what kind of shifter she was. Not many could Turn a person with a bite. “Fix me?” he asked, the words bitter on his tongue.
“Not like that. I need your bear as much as you do. I want to feel safe again. Living here wasn’t ever my choice, and I’ve been dealing with that shit,” she said, jerking her head toward the door where Harlan sounded like he was scratching at it, “for way too long. I need out, but Clayton won’t let me off this island unless I’m with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and your brothers are his prized possessions. I’m unnatural and expendable.” Her voice sounded odd though, as if she was telling a half-truth, but whether she was lying about being unnatural or expendable, he couldn’t guess.
Tobias ran his hands through his hair and shook his head over and over, staring at her as he mulled over what she’d said. A cure? A real cure?
“Can you guarantee my brothers won’t go to sleep in the winter?” Because Tobias owed them both so much and, dammit, he was actually considering this contract pairing. Not for him or Link, but for Ian. For Elyse. For Jenner, the brother he’d almost killed because of what he was.
“I suppressed every animal on this island for two years.”
“They all smell like animals to me.”
“We stopped taking the meds almost a month ago when supplies stopped coming in. One of the misfits pissed Clayton off, so he punished us all by depriving us of deliveries. This island is a beast to live on without outside help. Harlan and the others decided they needed their animals to survive this place in case deliveries get patchy again. Some of us can Change already. And trust me when I say I won’t live through what’s coming. I’m the only female on the island.”
“Fuck,” Tobias gritted out. He couldn’t even imagine what the others would do to her if Harlan was already acting like this. Was he crying on the porch? Yep, and now he was chanting, “She’s mine. She’s mine,” in a deranged voice.
“Bite me, and I’ll spend the rest of my days helping you and your family. It’s a fair trade.”
“I don’t want cubs. That should be out in the open right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because of…hibernation.”
She arched her eyebrows and gave him a significant look. “I’m going to take hibernation off the table if you’ll let me. I want cubs. Doesn’t have to be this year, but I’ve always wanted a family. I didn’t have a shot of that here. Didn’t want it, but I’ve thought about this, and you should know going in it’s what I’ll want with you.”
“But you’re asking for a family with me, Vera. Me. You don’t even know me. I could be abusive or a shit father, and I’ll definitely be a shit mate.”
“Will you protect me if someone tries to hurt me?”
Tobias sighed and stared at her for a long time, then nodded once.
“Will you ever lift your hand to me?”
He shook his head. That one was easy. He would never hurt a woman.
“Good.” She handed him a thin stack of papers with handwriting scribbled across it. The contract was simple and straightforward. Vera would come up with the medicine to stop hibernation and, in exchange, Tobias would be her mate and protector. He did scratch out the number of cubs though and penciled in 1 eventually in shaky scrawl. He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but the contract would be null and void if Vera failed to deliver on the cure, and as stupid as it was to build hope like Link had done, Vera wasn’t going at this hibernation problem like a witch. She was some backwoods scientist whose every word about the cure had sounded honest. She wasn’t lying about this, and for a shot at securing a solution to their hibernation problem, well…he’d do just about anything—including hiring himself out as a mate.
Sex, and no emotional strings, and he could just leave Vera somewhere safe to play with her test tubes while he ran his deliveries, so how much would he really see her? As little as he wanted. This could work.
With a sigh that tapered off in a growl, Tobias signed his name along the bottom. Vera sagged against his knee, smelling of potent relief, and now she was shaking. What a confounding woman. She’d been so confident when she spoke earlier, funny even, but she’d been hiding how nervous she’d really been.
Pity nagged at him. Harlan was cus
sing a string of obscenities outside, all aimed at her, and Tobias imagined she must feel desperate to escape this place. He had been here less than an hour and had been itching to leave the entire time.
“How long have you been here, Vera?” he asked softly.
She swallowed audibly and tried to smile, but it faltered off her face. “Three years.”
His chest hurt to think about a woman putting up with this for so long. To avoid his bear shredding him from the inside out, he needed action. Tobias stood and took her purple bag from her. “Do you have everything? We won’t be coming back here again.”
Vera’s face crumpled, and her pretty blue eyes rimmed with tears. What had he said wrong? He stared at her, too panicked to ask in case it made her cry harder.
She laughed thickly when she looked up at his face. “You look terrified.”
“You’re leaking.”
“I’m happy you said we won’t come back.”
“You’re crying because you’re happy?” Shit, females were confusing.
Vera sagged against him and wrapped her arms around his waist. And now she was leaking those happy tears onto his shirt as he stood frozen, arms out. Unsure of what to do, he patted her roughly on top of her head.
“Geez, Silver,” she murmured, easing back as she frowned at his chest. She poked him right by his nipple. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she looked up at him and grinned. “Come on, McBeefcake. Let’s make tracks before Harlan hits his stride.”
“His stride?”
“Usually after the crying and cursing comes the fighting.”
Chapter Three
Tobias Silver was the sexiest man Vera had ever laid eyes on. He wasn’t just some pretty face either. He was tall as a mountain, built like a brick, and his dominance came off so heavy even her crazy inner animal got quiet around him. He growled more than he probably noticed and had a filthy sailor’s mouth, but oh, when she’d hugged him, she’d felt like everything was going to be okay for the first time in a long time.
Sure, he didn’t know the whole story yet, but he was big enough and his inner grizzly felt gnarly enough that he just might survive what was coming after her. She liked the thought of him surviving the dark parts of her life. It’s why she’d chosen him. Sure, she had drawn up the mate-fur-hire contract sight unseen because it hadn’t really mattered if he was a crater-faced, dirty-diaper-scented ogre or not. She needed him for that apex predator that lived inside of him. This was about survival—or at least it had been until she’d seen him. He was strong, level-headed, and compared to the crying maniac clawing at her door, he was deliciously normal. He smelled like evergreens, spicy, manly body wash, and grizzly. That sexy combo was way better than beef jerky and toots.
