by Holley Trent
“Where did all the outsider Bears come from? Did the made-Bears turn them?” she asked.
“Gene. He came down from New Jersey as a newbie Bear about twenty years ago and started gradually merging his crop of outsider Bears into our group about ten years ago. He knew the group here was small, and that the older folks wouldn’t fight. They didn’t want word to get out that there’d been spilled blood, because traditionally, we’re not about that.”
“So, what? They just rolled over and let him take the throne?”
“There wasn’t a throne to take. The Bears didn’t operate that way. Born-Bears operate in a sort of extended family structure. It’s not quite democratic, but we do value the wisdom of the eldest, and try to teach the youngest to use restraint with their strength.”
Just like Dana. She was always trying to get Tamara to channel her rage into productive things, but Tamara didn’t have the finesse for it the way Dana and Sarah did. Truth be told, even Maria and Astrid were better at it, and they had the sorts of mercurial moods women in country music songs expounded on. Those singers talked about taking sledgehammers to former lovers’ cars. Astrid had done that. That’s how she’d ended up in the SHREW study. She could be sweet as syrup one moment, and terrifying in the next if some slight were committed that bruised her pride.
“So, which ones should I avoid?” she asked.
He straightened up. “That’s easy. If their skin is brown, leave them be. They won’t fight back. I’m oversimplifying, but use that as a rule of thumb. There’s one African-American guy and one Hispanic guy who were both turned unwillingly, so they tend to cast their lots with the more peaceful amongst us.”
Tamara opened her mouth to rebut, and Bryan put up his hands.
“Look, I did what I had to, okay? It was either I did his dirty work, or he’d torture my sister. I might have killed him, and I don’t want to go to my grave with that on my conscience.”
A sharp spike of energy whipped nasty tendrils at her, making her lungs constrict. Wheezing, she said, “Please, do me a favor and go run off whatever it is you’ve got built up.”
He scoffed. “You really feel that? Not just saying all the right things on cue? Stuff you read about in shapeshifter novels?”
“The last five books I read were about munitions, not furball love.” She curled her legs beneath her bottom and pulled the scratchy comforter up to her neck like a shield.
“I need to shift and run it off as a Bear.” He stood, and nudged the chair back to its former location.
“But you can’t risk it. You’re like a microchipped puppy, huh?”
He was already shrugging his hoodie sweatshirt off as he walked through the open door between their rooms. “Treadmill will have to do.”
Once the hallway door in Bryan’s room opened, then closed, Tamara waited two minutes, and then rooted her phone out of her inner jacket pocket. She was so cold, all of a sudden. Shrews didn’t get sick. Their immune systems worked in overdrive, overpowering any invaders with a lethal efficiency. That was another reason they’d all worried about Sarah’s pregnancy. They feared her body would perceive the baby as an unwelcome guest. A parasite.
“Must be burning off some kind of bug or something. Who knows what I’ve picked up hanging around wild animals.”
She checked the time on her phone and punched in the long sequence of digits few people knew. Her father’s private line. The old diplomat was so secretive, even in his retirement.
“Dumpling!” he said into the line in Romanian, his deep voice practically a boom. “How are you, princess?”
She cleared her throat, and flicked through her mental file cabinet for a language to converse in. The walls were thin, and she didn’t want anyone catching snatches of her discussion or else hearing a woman talk in some odd tongue. It’d stand out in their memories. Something familiar like Spanish, they’d just tune out because it wouldn’t have been out of place. Unfortunately, she didn’t know enough Spanish to attempt a conversation.
German will do.
“I’m fine,” she said, sinking farther beneath the covers. “I have some questions I thought you could answer for me.”
“Of all languages, why German? My German sounds phlegmy.”
“No worse than your Romanian, and I can’t explain right now. Perhaps I’ll write you a letter. You can use Romanian. You’re not on speakerphone.”
“Are you working right now?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Shrews need help? Political stuff? I still have some strings I can pull.”
“No. I wouldn’t get you tangled up in our messes that way. I’m working one-on-one with a client, and I hoped maybe you could give me some background on his kind.”
“Oh. Hold on.” Footsteps sounded on the other end, and then a door closed. “Go ahead.”
“What can you tell me about Were-bears?”
A long silence stretched between them, and if weren’t for the fact that Tamara could hear Tată’s breathing, she’d wonder if he’d hung up on her.
“Tată?”
“Yes. Bears. Well, I… Hold on. One moment please.”
And he literally put her on hold. Folk music droned on for what seemed like an hour, but it couldn’t have been more than five minutes. Long enough, though, that she actually considered hanging up on him. She liked her music to come with bluesy guitar riffs, not balalaika strumming.
The music ended with an abrupt squeal as Tată returned to the line, likely adjusting his hearing aid at the same time. He’d been losing hearing in his right ear for as long as she could remember. It had started going downhill after he’d gotten too close to an explosion.
“What do you need to know?”
“The man I am working with is a born Were-bear. He says being born and not made makes a difference. Anyhow, his behavior is a bit unpredictable compared to the shifters I’ve encountered in the past. It’s like he’s an entirely different species.”
“Unpredictable has never been a problem for you,” Tată said, and his voice was unusually flat.
She tried not to get distracted by it. Who knew when Bryan would return, and she didn’t want to be on the line with Daddy Dearest when he returned. He’d probably want to talk to Bryan. “And I would like for it to continue not being a problem. Forewarned is forearmed.”
“Dana teach you that?”
Duh. “What do you know?”
Another long pause, and then he cleared his throat. “I would just avoid spending very much time around him. They get attached. At least, that is my understanding. Might trigger some adverse effects.”
She couldn’t suppress the cackle that rose up from her chest. “I don’t think you need to fear this one getting attached. Right now, I’m a necessary evil to him. I’m the gum on the bottom of his shoe that’s actually holding the sole together.”
Tată sighed. “They are unpredictable. They run hot and cold, especially when they’re around an eligible mate. The man battles with the beast he’s usually at peace with. It would make anyone cranky.”
“Eligible meaning what? Female?”
Yet another long silence. Tamara’s patience was just about tapped out.
“Tată, what are you doing? Looking in your notebook?”
“I’m sorry. Yes. Female. I think any woman with a strong scent would trigger their mating instincts.”
“Shrews included, then.”
“I would say Shrews especially. My friend Emil can’t get around you anymore. Makes him feel like a dirty old man. Says if you’re not careful, you’ll have all sorts of beasts rubbing their cheeks against you.”
Tamara rolled up her upper lip rolled. “Emil? Why would I bother that silly old coot?”
“He’s a Lynx, princess.”
Her jaw flapped a few beats, but no words came out.
“No point keeping it a secret now that you’ve been exposed to that world. Listen, everything I know about Bears I learned from my father. You say this man is a born-Bear, so t
hat means he’s used to solving problems on his own. Born-Bears don’t drag their problems into the clan unless they have to. But where there are born beasts nowadays, you have made ones as well. Those are the free radicals you need to worry about.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What is this case you’re working on, precisely?”
“My own boss doesn’t even know that, so I—”
A cold tingle shot down her spine, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Any normal person would think they were being watched, but she hadn’t been normal in years. She knew she wasn’t being watched. She was being found.
Sarah. Shit.
Tamara popped her palm against her forehead and groaned.
“What is wrong? Is it the Bear? Do you need help? I can fly out.”
“No. I’m being tracked. I need to get my—”
Three sharp knocks, a pause, and then two more knocks.
“Shit.” That woman was scary good, and now Tamara needed to be scary good, too. She needed to work some magic on her friend and sister-Shrew and get her to leave without involving Dana in the scheme. Dana would want to step in and organize the mission, but Bryan had been clear that he needed to handle this on his own. Now Tamara really understood why.
“Tată, I’ll call you soon. Kisses.”
She ended the call without hearing his sign-off.
Kicking off her covers, she blew out a breath and locked down her thoughts. It was probably an unnecessary move, but out of all the odd traits that’d come online following the experiments, the psychic ones were most unpredictable. Dana could project thoughts and give tacit instructions when they were needed most. Sarah could compel people to talk, and the results of her attention lasted long after her interactions. Maria and Astrid had their own neat tricks, though theirs were less organized. There was no such thing as being too safe when around those ladies, though, and lately keeping secrets was impossible.
Tamara stood on her and put her right eye to the peephole. Needless precaution, because she could sense Sarah’s energy from a mile away, especially now with the baby in tow.
The baby! What the hell was Sarah doing off the sofa? That was the condition of her working out of the Durham office while she was on modified bed rest. She was supposed to be keeping her ass on the sofa.
“Let me in,” the gravelly voice said.
“Shit.” Tamara cringed, slid back the deadbolt, and turned the doorknob. She let her gravid friend in without another word.
Sarah, holding her puffy coat closed over her belly, strode to the unoccupied chair by the dresser and sat. She crossed her legs at the knees and fixed her dark eyes on Tamara. “If Felipe knew I were here, he’d drive me home and shackle me to the coffee table.”
Yeah, Felipe probably would. He was overprotective in that way first-time fathers were, and he didn’t even have being a shapeshifter to blame. His supernatural weirdness was practically unheard of. He could literally go unseen, which made him one of Dana’s biggest hiring coups to date.
“Great. Another reason for your husband to hate me.”
“Start talking now, or I’ll call Dana.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Okay, look.” Tamara paced in front of Sarah’s tapping foot and raked her hands through her loose hair. “I promised not to talk, but I can say this is related to the case Andrea Ridge hired us for.”
“Finding Bryan, you mean,” Sarah said drily.
“Yes.”
“Well, he missed a second full moon gathering, and now she’s in a panic. She’s been calling the office twice a day looking for news. I think Gene’s putting the press on her.”
Tamara stopped and turned to the Shrew second-in-command. It was hard to remember that Sarah was a tough ex-Marine when she rubbed her belly like that and wore prissy tennis shoes with pink laces. She couldn’t squeeze her feet into her favorite harness boots at the moment.
“What do you mean, the press?”
Sarah raised her shoulders a hair. “She wouldn’t elaborate. She’s such a goddamned martyr that she’ll suffer in silence when other people would have broken a long time ago. Gene’s keeping a pretty close watch on her, though. Been having his helpy-helpers escort her to and from the dry-cleaning store and then seeing her home. Making sure she doesn’t go much farther than the grocery store and back.”
“They’re idiots. If they were smart, they’d give her some space and see if she runs to Bryan.”
Sarah turned her hands over so they were palms-up and deepened her shrug. “We’ve never accused them of being smart, but I’ll tell you this. Something about Bryan scares the shit out of Gene, and that’s probably why he’s kept him at his right hand for so long. We sent you out to find him. Have you?”
Tamara swallowed.
Sarah had never given her a psychic whammy to make her talk, and she didn’t want right now to be the first time, either. She had to give her something, though, to make her stand down. To convince her that she could handle this on her own.
The senior Shrews had never let her take cases on her own before, and after this one, they probably never would again. She was a wildcard.
“Tam?”
“Yes,” Tamara said. She slumped onto the end of the bed, reached for the rumpled covers, and wrapped them around her shoulders. “Yes, I found him.”
“Why didn’t you didn’t check in?”
“This is complicated. You have to trust me.”
Judging by Sarah’s unusually discomfited expression, Tamara thought that would be a long shot.
“Is he here?” Sarah bobbed her head toward the adjacent room.
“He’s in the gym downstairs.”
“When did you find him?”
“Last week, right around my last check-in. I pulled my stun gun on him, and after some taunting back and forth, we came to a truce.”
“What’s he up to?”
“I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“You’d better say. We need to know if we’re billing this case to Andrea Ridge, or if we’ll end up Fed-Exing a fat invoice to the Buncombe County Sheriff’s office.”
“You can bill Andrea Ridge through last Monday if you’re comfortable with it, but as of right now there’s no case as far as Shrew & Company is concerned. Sarah, please, you have to trust me.”
Sarah’s expression softened a bit, and she stood. As she leaned into the doorway between the two rooms, she seemed to take inventory of Bryan’s room, and folded her arms over her belly.
“What’s happening, Tamara? Just tell me if this guy is trustworthy, and I’ll pacify Dana.”
The knot in Tamara’s gut unfurled, and she allowed herself her first deep breath since Sarah had crossed the threshold. Brawny men with big guns didn’t scare her, but this slip of a woman who wore pink shoelaces and had bags the size of small nations under her eyes did?
She swallowed. “Trustworthy, yes, I think so. But he’s a jackass of a Bear.”
Sarah huffed. “Is what you’re doing going to make our situation with Bears better or worse?”
“Both.”
“Shit. Make sure you toss out some breadcrumbs. Leave a trail so we know you’re okay.”
“I’ll call for backup if I need it, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. At least not now.”
Perhaps at the next full moon. That’s when everything would come to a head, according to Bryan.
Sarah leaned down and gave Tamara a maternal sort of hug that reminded her that although Sarah, who at thirty was only six years older, had a certain poise and maturity that would always make Tamara feel like a child in her presence. Tamara hoped that she’d have the same sort of presence one day.
“You know the codes. Use them,” Sarah warned as she rested her hand on the doorknob.
“I will. I promise.”
“Daily from now on, or I’m pulling you personally.”
“Okay. Drive hom
e, or I’ll call Felipe.”
After one more narrowing of her eyes in warning, Sarah was gone.
___
When Bryan returned from his run, the door between his room and Tamara’s was still ajar, but her side was quiet.
He grabbed a towel from the bathroom rack and rubbed sweat out of his eyes as he walked to the door.
She was barely a lump beneath the covers, especially with the way she had the blanket pulled over her head. He stepped in to turn off the muted television, and was immediately struck by how hot the room was.
He took the long way around to the bed and peered at the thermostat.
Seventy-eight.
“Jesus Christ,” he murmured, and nudged it back down. No wonder his room had seemed so stuffy, too. He’d thought at first the exercise was to blame. He’d run for nearly an hour and a half on that treadmill, and the only reason he stepped off was because some stuffy yuppie in designer sweat-clothes demanded Bryan relinquish it. Bryan hadn’t wanted to fight, so he let him have it.
Well, actually, he had wanted to fight, because although his run had burned off some adrenaline, it couldn’t replace letting his bear roam. Normally, he did just fine going from one full moon to the next without forcing a shift, but because he’d been penned up during the last full moon, his bear hadn’t gotten the exercise he’d needed.
He needed to resolve this shit with Gene and soon, because no way in hell was he going to live his life hiding out in bunkers when he should be roaming the woods. The woods were his birthright. His grandparents would be ashamed if they were alive—that they’d let the group fall to this, to crumble around to a man so desperate for a throne to sit on that he took over a domain that hadn’t needed a ruler.
Sighing, Bryan reached for Tamara’s remote control. Maybe he could get up early and run some more before he and Tamara had to start their work. They had lieutenants to take out, and needed to be discreet and systematic. They had to do things in the right order, or word would spread too fast. Once that first warning rippled through the group, the big waves would come shortly after.
