Shiftr_Swipe Left for Love_Ryzard

by Ariana Hawkes

  They’d gone nine, hard, punishing rounds, and there were three remaining. At the start of the fight, Braxton hadn’t expected it to last that long. He thought it would be a relatively easy win. But Mikal had recently gotten a lot harder. His reactions were faster, his punches and holds more brutal, his hatred of his enemy boundless. Braxton was fast developing a grudging respect for the younger bear.

  The bell rang and Braxton leapt to his feet again. But as he stood up, something in the crowd caught his eye. “What the –?” he muttered. He paused and looked at it hard, shook his head, checking that his vision hadn’t gone blurry. But no, there it was again. Huge and unignorable. He clenched his fists as rage coursed through his body, and his bear let off a furious roar. The audience screamed, already whipped up into a frenzy of excitement and terror. He checked himself, forced his bear back under control. One thing at a time. First, he had to win the fight, and then he’d deal with this bullshit, whatever it is. Mikal charged towards him, jaw jutting out in grim determination, and Braxton landed a punch square in his face, that sent him reeling back against the ropes. Anger lent power to his muscles and after that, he made short work of Mikal, alternately pummeling and throwing him until he didn’t know which way was up. The referee called the match half way through the tenth round, Mikal flat on his back and unable to pull himself to his feet.

  Braxton raised his fists to the sky and bellowed his victory to the hundreds of screaming fans who clapped and whistled their appreciation of him. He played up to them, flexing his muscles, boasting that he’d sent another Black Paw Ridge Bear home crying to his mama, and they soaked it up, chanting his name and waving banners, the girls making proposals of marriage, and more. But his attention was elsewhere. As he yelled and preened, he scanned the crowd, looking for the thing that had made him so furious a few minutes earlier, but it was gone. He ran his hand through his perspiration-soaked black hair and frowned. He knew he hadn’t imagined it; his bear eyesight was unerring.

  For the final part of the show, he paused in the bullet-proof-glass tunnel that led to the changing room, flirting with the female audience members, then he and the rest of the clan shifted and raced back into the ring, roaring and snarling as they tussled with each other, tumbling around the ring, claws out and teeth bared. The audience loved this part. They screamed and howled and hid under their seats. Someone always fainted and had to be carried out by the paramedic crew.

  But tonight, Braxton couldn’t get back to the changing room quick enough, every muscle in his body tense with agitation. He shifted, showered and charged into the conference room where the clan held their post-match debrief with the human promoters. Xander, his Alpha, was already in there, discussing sponsorship opportunities, while the humans nodded eagerly, faces pale, and perspiration dotting their faces and darkening the underarms of their jackets.

  “The Black Paws make me quake in my boots! – By Braxton Quentin,” Braxton thundered, smashing the door back against the wall. The humans jumped.

  “Wh-what?” a man in a gray suit stammered, clutching at his necktie.

  “Someone was wearing a t-shirt that supposedly quoted me. Saying the Black Paws make me quake in my boots!” he repeated. Xander’s head snapped in his direction.

  “What the hell?”

  “It was on a t-shirt. And it wasn’t home made. It was a real printed t-shirt. Someone had it made at a print shop or something.” He was standing inches from the glass divider, glaring at the humans, while his bear snarled low in its throat.

  “This has to be the Black Paws’ work,” Xander growled, getting to his feet as well. “They can’t beat us in a fight, so they’re trying to smear our reputation.”

  Braxton noticed distractedly that the humans were cowering together, trying to get as far away from him as possible. He cleared his throat and sat down. “How has this happened?” he demanded.

  “Www-we’re so sorry. It won’t happen again. We-we’ll make sure we do thorough security checks of everyone coming into the venues and make sure they’re not carrying anything that might insult you,” another man in a suit mumbled, looking like he was moments away from having a coronary. Braxton slammed his hand down on the table, and the man let out a small scream and clapped his hand over his mouth.

  “That’s not good enough!” he bellowed. “They’ll only go handing out these t-shirts outside the venue. We need to stop this altogether.” The humans stared at each other, eyes wide, mouths opening and closing like goldfish in a tank. They were evidently all out of ideas. If it hadn’t been so serious, Braxton would’ve laughed. The humans’ abject terror of the shifters was a constant source of amusement for the bears. Instead, he fixed them with a glare. Sorting out issues like these was what the management team was paid to do.

  “You need to protect your identity,” a clear, silvery female voice piped up. Braxton lifted his head. It was coming from a girl sitting right at the back of the room. He’d been in such a rage that he’d failed to notice her until now. She was young, with pale skin and auburn hair tied back from her face. Her eyes were large and brown and turned up at the outer corners, like a cat, and she had a narrow nose with slightly flared nostrils, and full lips that reminded him of a maraschino cherry. All in all, she was very pretty, and her gray business suit hinted at generous curves beneath. His bear gave a soft rumble and Braxton checked himself, surprised that he was finding a human attractive.

  “Thanks, Neve, we’ll handle this,” one of the men snapped, turning in his seat and throwing the girl a furious glance. Her lips pursed into a tight O, and she fell silent.

  “What did you say?” Braxton said, speaking more gently than he had before.

  “I’m sorry. She’s just a temp. She’s only here to take notes,” the man blustered.

  “Let the woman speak!” Braxton thundered, and the glass partition vibrated with the force of his voice. The humans all dived off their seats and flattened themselves onto the ground. All except for the girl. She was trembling, more than they’d seen anyone tremble before, but she stood her ground, sitting on the cheap, plastic chair, her arms wrapped around her body.

  “I said that you need to protect your identity. And there are laws that can help you do that,” she said, her voice taut with nerves, but clear.

  “Human laws?” Braxton said.

  “Yes. They’d prevent people from using your words or images deceitfully.” The girl leaned forward in her chair and a light came into her eyes as she spoke. She really is an extraordinarily pretty human, Braxton thought, and his bear purred in approval. But he didn’t like what she was saying. Not one bit. He threw a glance at Xander, whose brow was furrowed as he turned over her words, and took his silence as a sign that he wanted him to take the initiative. The clan was well aware that Xander was looking for his Second, and being the intelligent, strategic Alpha he was, he was testing them, waiting for someone to prove themselves worthy. Braxton badly wanted to be the chosen one.

  He got to his feet.

  “I don’t like the idea of getting tangled up in human laws. They’re not for bears,” he said. “What we need to do is to flatten those Black Paws, not sit back and wait on legal wrangling. Thank you for your help, lady – and gentlemen. We’ll deal with this particular issue ourselves.” The humans nodded in relief, except for the girl, who looked like she wanted to say more. Braxton sensed the intelligence in her eyes. But this wasn’t something for humans to have an opinion on. They couldn’t begin to understand the feud that had been going on between the Broken Hill Bears and the Black Paw Ridge Bears for so many generations. As his anger toward the Black Paws rose up again, he scraped his chair back and stormed out of the room without a backward glance.

  “If the Black Paws want war, they’ve got it,” he snarled as he and Xander headed to the tour bus that was waiting to take them back to Broken Hill. And he put the gutsy, auburn-haired human out of his mind, not beginning to imagine the effect she was about to have on his life.

  2

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nbsp; Neve Vincent pulled into her parking spot outside her trailer and turned off the engine. But she didn’t get out of the car. Instead she stared blankly through the windscreen, gripping the steering wheel so tight that her fingers began to ache.

  The moment she’d been dreaming of for so long had finally happened: she’d come face to face with her hero – the drop-dead gorgeous, black-haired, blue-eyed shifter god, Braxton Quentin of the Broken Hill Bears. And then her boss had totally humiliated her in front of him.

  “Just a temp,” she muttered. And she gave into the yell of fury that had been bubbling below the surface ever since her A-hole employer had so carelessly disrespected her and made her look like an idiot. She didn’t care if anyone heard her. Around her neighborhood, people yelled and screamed all night long. Everyone was so used to it that no-one would react if you were hollering that you were being murdered.

  When she was done, she felt a little better. She might be working the stupidest job in the universe right now, taking notes for a sexist, arrogant pig, but she wasn’t ‘just a temp’. She happened to have a law degree. Okay, it was a degree from the lowest-ranked law school in the entire United States. But she was still a qualified lawyer, licensed to practice. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been taken on by a law firm yet, which was why she was working a temp job at Help U Win Event Management to make ends meet.

  The bears hadn’t liked her idea, but at least Braxton had stood up for her. She gave a short, sardonic laugh. Everyone was terrified of shifters, but they’d acted far more dignified than anyone else in the room. And Braxton had even spoken to her! When she thought about the way his sparkling blue eyes with the little crinkles at the corners had locked onto hers with such a hypnotic intensity, her tummy flipped. She was a big fan of all the bears. She’d been obsessed with them ever since she was small, and she’d been to as many matches as she could afford. Most people had a clan that they rooted for, and she was no different. There was just something about the Broken Hill Bears. They were very tough fighters – very strong and ruthless – but they didn’t go in for dirty tricks. They just fought hard, and she sensed that they were good and decent. She was so excited when she found out that Help U Win Event Management worked for the bears, and she’d begged the boss to let her attend the meeting. At first, he’d said no, but then he’d looked her up and down with a nasty gleam in his eye and said that maybe having her there would “help everyone relax”. As long as she kept her mouth shut. When Xander and Braxton had walked into the room, she thought she was going to pass out. She was completely star struck. Up close, with only a sheet of bullet-proof glass separating them from her, they were even more stunning than when she watched them on the big screens above the wrestling ring. They were both very tall, with muscles bulging all over their powerful bodies. Braxton was wearing a black v-neck t-shirt, his hair and chest seductively damp from a post-match shower.

  He had always been her favorite. She loved the way he moved in the ring, his huge bulk so light and agile, always keeping him a step ahead of his opponents. He was such a calm fighter, taking his time, letting his opponent get all his aggression out before he made his killer move. And those eyes! They were incredible – so deep blue and wide set, with thick black lashes. When he was yelling to the cameras, they looked fierce, but there was always a moment when he relaxed, as the camera was pulled away, and the little crinkles showed at the outer corners, and she knew that he had a kind personality. His skin was deeply tanned and brought out the whiteness of his straight teeth. He had black hair, which was short at the sides and tousled on top, short sideburns and a sexy covering of stubble along his broad jaw. And when he smiled, right at the cameras, it was as if he was smiling only for her. Xander was hot too, with his intense brown eyes and serious expression, but for her, he couldn’t compare to Braxton.

  She’d been so nervous to speak to him after idolizing him for so long that she was surprised she managed to get her words out. And then she was amazed that he’d listened to her so attentively, his cornflower-blue gaze full of intelligence. What would it be like to be his girlfriend, to wake up to him next to you every day? she wondered.

  She shook herself out of her reverie. What was the point of dreaming? Least of all since she wasn’t available anyway. She let out a long sigh.

  Part of the reason why she was continuing to sit out there in her car was that she needed a few minutes before she dealt with whatever her boyfriend had been up to in her absence. There was always something. He might have trashed the place in a drug-fueled search for cash. He might have invited his deadbeat friends over, and they’d be lounging all over her stuff, in a mountain of beer and pizza. Or he might just be in a foul mood, and waiting to make her life hell. She couldn’t take any of it right now. Even the sight of him lying around playing video games might just flip her out.

  At last, she climbed out of her rustbucket of a car, slamming the door, and trudged up the steps of her trailer. Holding her breath as she always did, she turned her key in the lock and prepared herself for all eventualities.

  “He’s not here,” she murmured. She strode up and down the trailer, poking her head into the living room, the bedroom and the kitchen, unable to believe that she had the place to herself. He’d made a mess in the kitchen, opening most of the packets in the cupboards and abandoning them half-empty on the counters. But she didn’t care. Kevin had obviously gone out for the night, and was unlikely to return before morning. She went through the packets, looking for anything that was still edible, before finding some dried pasta and tomato sauce. She put the pasta on to cook and went through to the bedroom to get changed.

  Her suit was still badly creased, she observed, stepping out of it and holding it up to the light. Earlier that evening, she’d gone to her closet, expecting to find it on a hanger, freshly dry cleaned, but instead it was crumpled at the bottom with some of Kevin’s socks and underpants piled on top of it. It could’ve slipped off the hanger by accident, she told herself as she picked it up. And Kevin just didn’t notice when he was dropping his underwear in there. But it was unlikely. He hated the thought of her being a lawyer. Thinking you’re all high and mighty, just because you went to college and I didn’t, as he was fond of saying. She’d ironed the suit on the coolest setting, which hadn’t made a lot of difference. “As if those douchebags care what I wear anyway,” she muttered, changing into a pair of gray sweatpants and a black racer-back tank top. They wouldn’t take her seriously whether she was wearing a business suit or a bikini.

  Back in the kitchen, she heated up the tomato sauce and poured it over the pasta, topping it with some mixed herbs and grated parmigiano. She was just about to bring it through to the living room when she realized that something important was missing. She ran back to her closet and grabbed an umbrella with a long, curved handle, picked up her phone, and ran down the steps of her trailer. She squatted down and inserted the umbrella underneath it, handle first. With the aid of the torch on her phone, she poked about for a minute, before the handle caught on something and she maneuvered it around until she had a good grip. She pulled smoothly and a small cardboard box came out, tied with a piece of string. It was reassuringly heavy, she noted with a smile. At least there was one thing that Kevin hadn’t managed to ruin. She brought it inside and opened it. The bottle of red wine was still intact. She unscrewed the lid gleefully and poured herself a large glass. The first gulp took the edge off her anger. She settled down on the sofa in the living room, the wine right beside her, the bowl of pasta on her lap, and flicked on her favorite TV show, Chicago Law.

  As usual she watched the antics of the high-powered, highly-paid lawyers with a combination of fascination and envy. I must be the only lawyer alive who lives in a trailer park, she thought, seeing their plush offices and the sleek bars where they hung out discussing their latest exciting case. She’d love to live in a big city like Chicago, full of bright lights and excitement. Nothing interesting ever happened in Rayville. She’d been born there and lived ther
e her entire life, and she knew everything there was to know about it. Kevin was the reason she’d never left. She’d wanted to go to a prestigious law school out of state, and she’d worked her ass off at high school and college to give herself the best shot at being accepted. But Kevin had bullied her into staying with him, and when the school wrote her offering her a place, he threw the letter away, and she didn’t even know she’d been accepted until it was way too late. So she’d gone to school in Rayville. It wasn’t a great course, but she’d worked her hardest, and graduated top of her class, far ahead of the second-ranked student. Now she despaired of ever becoming a lawyer. There were a lot of apprentice lawyers in the state, and it turned out that no-one wanted to employ someone who’d graduated from Rayville. She couldn’t even get an interview. Law offices saw her school on her resume and filed her application straight in the trash. It made her mad. Beyond mad. But she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

  Today was actually the first time she’d given her legal advice to anyone. And she’d liked it. She knew what she was talking about. Braxton drifted into her mind again. The way he’d looked at her, listened to what she was saying. She just wished he hadn’t disagreed with her so vehemently. If she’d had the opportunity to speak for longer, she could’ve explained exactly why they needed to protect their brand. She poured herself a second glass of wine. Damn, he was so gorgeous in the flesh. His skin glowed and his lips were so full and perfect. Just the thought of him made her heart beat fast. She registered that she should feel guilty about this, but she didn’t. Who the hell knew where Kevin was right now anyway? Even calling him her boyfriend was a stretch. They hadn’t had sex for at least two years. They never kissed, or hugged. He never comforted her when she was sick or sad. They just happened to live together in the same small trailer, and she paid for almost everything. They’d been together since they were 14 years old, and for a long time, she hadn’t questioned their relationship. But recently, she was coming to realize what a drag he was on her life and self-esteem. She’d always thought she needed him because she’d grown up an orphan and he was her closest person. But she was beginning to wake up to the fact that he was the one who needed her. And when she did need him, it was a one-way street. He didn’t have a job, ever. He smoked pot all day long and played video games. He made out he was suffering from a chronic illness, and he was always guilt tripping her into giving him cash to visit the doctor. Still, he represented stability, of a kind. He always came home at some point, told her he was sorry. Said he loved her.