by Holley Trent
“Okay, here we go.” Using her fingers as an anchor to Eddie’s dream, Tamara dragged them against the fiberboard around the corner of the house, opening her eyes just before bumping into a rusted central air conditioning unit.
She kept walking, kept projecting those thoughts and it was easier than she’d expected. This was a man unused to hiding things. He never tried to buckle down his emotions or hold anything in reserve, because he didn’t care how he came across to other people. Didn’t care if he bruised feelings or burned bridges.
Bryan had been different. Easy, but intruding had caused her regret. He hid some things in his dreams she likely would never have learned of otherwise. When he wasn’t dreaming of her, he dreamed of scary, dark things. Battered women—no, Bear women. His relatives? Children. People losing their livelihoods. Being forced out of their homes.
His guilt.
Gene’s doing, she understood now. And she understood now that in a way, Bryan was broken just like she had been three years ago. He blamed himself for letting this thing happen to him.
He had to let the guilt go, because guilt fed anger, and anger without an outlet made people reckless.
Tamara could hear the front doorknob rattling before she even rounded the corner. She didn’t want him to get much farther than the stoop. The moment he stepped foot on the bricks, she needed to wrestle him down to the ground while projecting carnal thoughts into his disgusting head.
She lunged toward him, but stopped just short of him because the sleeping Bear was felled by a large figure clad in all black, wearing a baseball cap turned backward.
Bryan pressed the flailing Bear’s face to the grass and ground his knee against his back. Fangs and claws extended as Eddie struggled beneath Bryan’s weight, and Tamara’s rage mounted, hands balled into fists.
She’d had him. She could have gotten Eddie to the truck without having to throw a single punch or so much as a sweep of her leg.
She’d done it right. She’d thought it through the way Dana taught her. No blood.
Bryan had escalated a situation to physical when mental would have done just fine on its own.
As Eddie attempted to shift into his bear form, the snarls from the two men became an eerie chorus that reverberated through the woods.
“Where’s Gene today, Eddie?” Bryan asked with a growl.
Eddie’s only responses were a gnashing of his bared teeth, and another attempt to force out his bear, indicated by his rippling skin and bleeding fingernails.
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” Bryan brought Eddie’s arms together behind his back and gave them a hard pull upward, forcing a loud half-growl, half-scream out of the man’s throat.
Fuck. The woman. Tamara turned on her heel and raced to the back of the house where she checked in at the window screen. Still asleep, for the moment, but her dream had been interrupted and now the slightest sound could probably wake her for good. Tamara could only mold dreams, and perceptions to some extent. She couldn’t control sleep itself, although that’d be a damned useful trick for the Shrews.
She returned to the porch and now found Eddie completely passed out, and fully shifted to his bear. Bryan was winding a length of unbreakable chain around the creature’s wrists and ankles, hog-tying him.
“Was that really necessary?” she whispered, walking as close as she dared so she could tell for certain that there was blood on Bryan’s forearms. Whose?
“I need you to go inside and make it look like Eddie had to leave suddenly. I don’t want that woman waking up and freaking out,” he said.
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“That’s what I need you to do.”
She met that dark, cold stare she hadn’t seen in days, and felt nothing from him. No testosterone. No adrenaline rush. No heat.
Nothing.
Rage coiled inside her, up from the toes curled in her boots to the fists clenched at her sides, to the teeth she clenched and ground. She wouldn’t make this emotional. She wouldn’t take it personally like people always expected her to. She’d just add it to his ever-growing list, and he was on his last line. One more strike, and he was out.
Together, in her book, meant they were equal. They made plans and stuck to them.
He wasn’t supposed to swoop in and start throwing muscle around no matter how possessive his bear was. He hadn’t even given her a chance. Eddie had walked through the door, and boom. There was Bryan.
She uncurled her fingers, relaxed her aggressive stance, and blinked just once. The one blink was permission to herself to stand down and walk away.
Don’t overreact. Maybe wires got crossed somewhere.
What was she so mad at, anyway?
She let herself into the kitchen and found Eddie’s cell phone in the discarded jeans that hadn’t made it as far as the bedroom during what looked like a very passionate homecoming. Scanning the room some more, she found a second phone—lavender with a little rhinestone bear charm dangling from the case.
She rolled her eyes and scrolled through the menus until she found the woman’s name, then scrolled through a few days of text exchanges between the two lovebirds.
Disgusting. If the woman had any idea what sorts of things Eddie dreamed of sticking his dick into, his saccharine-sweet professions of adoration would make her vomit or worse.
From Eddie’s phone, Tamara sent a text to the bear groupie, trying to capture Eddie’s essence in brief.
Had to go out, babe. Don’t wait up. May have to do some shit for Gene. I’ll call ya.
Tamara wiped down the woman’s phone with the hem of her shirt and left it where she’d found it. Eddie’s phone, she tucked into her pocket.
On the way out, she grabbed Eddie’s pants and the boots he’d kicked off by the door.
When that Bear came to, he’d be naked, and from the brief snatches of skin Tamara had seen, she wouldn’t want to see an encore.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Drea hadn’t expected the head Shrew herself to drive out to help her, but there Dana was, leaning across the counter at the dry cleaning store and staring at the moving rack of shirts, slacks, and dresses as calm as she pleased. She twirled a Ridge Cleaners pen between her nimble fingers and worked her jaw left to right as she stared.
Drea had been afraid to talk, knowing she was probably being recorded, and Dana was too smart to force the conversation. She just stood, waiting quietly, enduring one customer after another as they came in to request service or else to pick up waiting items.
At noon on the dot, Dana hung the OUT TO LUNCH sign on the suction cup hooks attached to the glass door, turned the lock, and bobbed her head toward the back of the shop.
Drea swallowed, nodded, and said—for the benefit of the camera—“I’d really like to try the new Chinese place on Broadway.”
Dana didn’t respond until the alley door slammed shut behind them and they’d climbed into Dana’s big, black, beast of a Chevy Suburban. Drea had always felt small sitting in the front of Bryan’s pickup truck, but at least that thing seemed to be designed with the size of average human beings in mind. The Suburban made Drea feel like a child finally graduating to the front seat. Dana, who had to be at least two inches shorter than Drea’s five-four, had the driver’s seat pushed as close to the steering wheel as it could go. The position should have made her look childish, but due to her larger-than-life presence, she just looked as if the truck was supposed to be driven that way.
“I stopped by your place before coming here,” Dana said as she eased the SUV onto the side street. “Picked up some things for you. Hope you don’t mind.”
Drea’s forehead furrowed. “My place? I mean, I don’t mind, but how’d you get in?”
“There isn’t much I can’t get into. I used to be a cop, remember?”
Dana’s tone was so bland, Drea truly believed that casual breaking and entering were everyday occurrences for the Shrew.
“Anyhow, I’ve got a few changes of clothes for you and your import
ant paperwork. Birth certificate. Passport. That sort of thing.”
“Uh…” Hadn’t those been in the safe in Drea’s closet? Seemed pointless to follow up. Dana had already said there wasn’t much she couldn’t get into. “Why would I need those things?”
“Because we’re going to move you around a bit. I doubt you’ll need to leave the country, but it’s always a good idea to have more than one form of identification on you when you travel.”
“Move me around? Why?”
Dana passed Broadway, and angled the vehicle toward the highway, lunch be damned. When she didn’t respond immediately, Drea pressed, “I can’t leave. There wouldn’t be anyone here to work the cleaner’s.”
“Maria is going to take care of customer service until things settle down. Gene has never laid eyes on her, so if he walks in, he won’t immediately connect her to us. Folks can pick up the items you’ve already cleaned, but Maria won’t accept any new items. Hopefully, this’ll only take a couple of days.”
“What is the this you’re referring to?”
Dana pulled her lower lip between her teeth and worried it as she eased the SUV onto I-40 West.
Drea’s gut knew where they were headed even if her ears hadn’t heard the words. Toward home in Swain County. Where the Bears roamed and gathered. Where the Bear and Catamount territories abutted. Where all this shit had sparked in the first place.
The Shrew cleared her throat. Her fingers tightened around the leather-wrapped steering wheel, causing light from her diamond engagement ring to reflect off the side view mirror.
Drea looked down at her own hands and studied their nakedness. She’d never thought she was suitable for anyone long-term. There were a few men who’d gotten close only for her to run away when talk of commitment was broached. They didn’t know what she was, and she feared most of all that if they could see her as Bear, when she was woman again they would be disappointed at the contrast. As a woman, she was absolutely un-phenomenal.
Dana, though? Drea understood why a man would want to tie her down, stake his claim with platinum rings and precious stones. Patrick knew what he had, and Drea wished she could have one-tenth of Dana’s verve.
Dana didn’t need Patrick’s approval to know she was worth something. And that was probably why Patrick wanted her so much.
“Here’s the deal.” Dana’s sultry voice roused Drea from her mental wanderings, and when she looked at the woman, she caught the tail end of Dana’s assessing brown gaze.
“I’m taking you to a good friend of the Shrews. His name is Eric. He’s actually Astrid’s brother. He owns a ski lodge and tavern. Sometimes puts people up for us. A woman named Isadora heads his housekeeping staff. You may remember her.”
“Yes.” Drea straightened up in the seat, excited now. “The Roma fortuneteller from the circus.”
“That’s right. Most of her crew moved on, but she and a few others stayed put. Too tired to keep roaming. Isadora will keep you under her wing for a while. She’ll know if Gene or any of his inner circle gets too close because she happens to be that kind of psychic, but for the most part, the Bears steer clear of the inn. May have something to do with all the Catamount markings. Shouldn’t bother you, though, since you’re born and not made. At least, that’s what Patrick claims. He didn’t know for sure because the way y’all spawn is a bit different.”
“No, it shouldn’t bother me. Born-Bears are wired to keep the peace, so other animals don’t inflame us that way. Now, can you tell me why this is necessary? It can’t just be because I made one pitiful phone call to Sarah. I’ve been Gene’s punching bag a long time, long before Bryan ran off, so it can’t be that.”
“It is that.” Dana’s voice had taken on a dark, foreboding timbre that indicated that perhaps Drea had stumbled onto a sore spot for the Shrew.
“We understand you not wanting to fight, Drea. We really do. You’re wired to look for peaceful solutions rather than heed a call to arms. That makes you a diplomat, I guess. We’re not going to berate you for not fighting back when you don’t have the skills or reflexes to do it well. Sometimes, people need to let other people look out for them. We’re not going to let you be that little freak’s punching bag anymore. What is his obsession with you, anyway? Did you refuse his romantic advances or something?”
Drea lowered her head and rubbed her hands up and down her arms, suddenly feeling very cold. The thought of that man trying to force himself on her killed the appetite she thought she’d had when Dana suggested lunch back at the shop. If it weren’t for Bryan always being there, stepping in, Gene might have had his way. There were far too many close calls, and Gene seemed to know Drea’s schedule far better than her brother did.
“That’s all right. You don’t have to answer,” Dana said. “But hear this. Your brother is shaking things up. Trying to force Gene out.”
Ah.
Drea had suspected as much. Predicted it would happen when he’d freed himself from the group energy. He may not have been up on all the Bear lore, but Drea made it her business to know.
Someone had to know. To remember.
“With Bryan doing what he’s doing right now, Gene’s going to get angrier, and he’s going to want to get his pound of flesh any way he can get it. That’s why we’re making you cross the battle line. Once Gene sees that video with me on it, he’s going to freak the fuck out and treat you like a traitor instead of a victim of circumstance. I wanted him to see my face, because I want him to know that I see him, and he knows I don’t fuck around. If that means breaking the truce between the Cats and Bears, so be it. The Cats are taking you in for the time being.”
Drea’s head seemed to snap up on its own accord at the words. A Bear? Adopted by the Cats? Unheard of. They’d been enemies for so long, Drea couldn’t think of a single Cat she was on a first-name basis with.
“But, why?” she asked. “Why would the Cats do that?”
“Patrick thinks the mess your brother is making may someday bring solidarity to all the shapeshifter groups in the mountains. Unity. He wants that. Remember, Drea, our home is in Durham. We’re not always going to be here. We want to be able to go home and not worry that shit’s going to keep hitting the fan in our absence.”
“Where is Bryan?”
“Last I heard, he was with Tamara, corralling Gene’s lieutenants to leave the little guy vulnerable.”
Drea’s hand went to her chest, and she imagined she looked like a delicate Regency-era debutant. Smelling salts she did not need, but she could probably do with a stiff drink. She dropped her hand to her lap and twined her fingers with those of her other hand. “I worry he’s going to split the group,” she whispered as if the air vents had ears she didn’t want listening. “It’ll be a big mess, and it’ll take a while to sort out the flotsam and jetsam.”
“Honey, you make it sound like we should go build an ark or something.”
“Maybe,” Drea rasped, trailing her fingers down the throat that had suddenly gone tight. “Bears are an unusual bunch, Dana,” she said when she could take a deep breath again. “Bears form intense loyalties because of a sort of psychic binding. Once you integrate into a group, you want the group to stay whole, even if there’s a bad dynamic.”
“That explains why so many of you haven’t left.”
Drea nodded. “Bryan pulled back from the group energy some time ago. It’s a hard thing to do. Requires a certain character that few people possess. We don’t traditionally have leaders, but when the group dynamic is unhealthy, I think the Bears—the born-Bears—subconsciously seek out a guardian. The guardian is always separate so he can see the forest for the trees. Know what’s wrong and fix it.”
“And Bryan’s it?”
“He is a Ridge.”
And that meant something, even if Drea couldn’t put it into words.
What she did know was that if Bryan did what needed to be done, there’d be a sort of civil war in the mountains, and the fur would fly. Hopefully Gene’s.
/> She closed her eyes and sank lower into the warmth of the heated leather seat. Oh, She-bear. What kind of shit have we gotten ourselves into?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bryan didn’t know how long the ruse would hold together, but hoped Tamara’s get-up would be convincing for as long as it took to lure John Malloy out of his work building.
She’d strode off, blonde hair scraped back into a high bouncy ponytail and wearing clothes the Ridges would have grounded Drea for life over. Apparently the things that passed for clothing in the contemporary era were far out of sync with what could pass the dress code during Bryan’s high school days. Given he was only twenty-eight, he feared the sorts of juvenile indecorum the next ten years would bring. Visible side-boob? Butt cleavage?
He pulled his hood down a little lower over his brow and crammed his hands into his sweatshirt pockets, agitated by the setting.
Eddie G. had been easier to wrangle. They’d gotten him at home where Bryan didn’t have to worry about exposure or collateral damage, but John was harder to access. He lived in a gated community, and the only other convenient place to grab him was at work.
Problem with that was John was a public official: the fucking public school district superintendent. Even if he were dirtier than a bottom-dwelling catfish in his private life, in public, he maintained an image of pristine piety.
“Anything for the kids,” was the sound bite he always fed to the evening news reporters.
“Bullshit,” Bryan spat, even thinking it.
He’d seen the things John had done to the orphaned Chauncey, and those were without Gene’s orders. John was a mean son of a bitch, and expended all that pent up vitriol gleaned during the school day on weaker Bears.
Disgusting.
But now there was the matter of Tamara getting the man out of the Department of Education building without causing a disruption. She’d walked in looking like a student, bearing a camera and her phony school newspaper credentials, but although Tamara exuded youth and vitality, no one who paid her more than five seconds of attention could possibly believe she was an eighteen-year-old high school senior. Her stare was too hard, and she had the bearing of a fighter. Her strut was sexy as all get-out, and with each switch of her hips, there was a warning: look, but don’t get too close.
