Barely Bear: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance

by Elsa Jade

  So he found himself telling her, over the sound of his cousins grunting and giggling, “My bear vanished when my father did. I haven’t seen either beast since then.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I’ve heard that you fought him after he made a secret deal with the Kingdom Guard.”

  “We call them the KGB—Kingdom Guard bastards.” He sat up straighter, pulling one knee to his chest. “They wanted to turn shifters into brainwashed supersoldiers, and they were willing to kidnap, poison, and kill us. My father thought he could protect the clan by giving the KGB just parts of what they wanted, like information. But then they demanded pieces and parts—blood and tissue samples. Then they required experimental victims, and my father pointed out vulnerable shifters who wouldn’t be missed right away.” When his voice hardened, he deliberate squeezed his knee, pressing the air out of his lungs and lowering his tone below the carefree sounds behind him. “I discovered the communications between them, and I confronted my father. He told me these were the impossible choices of a king.”

  “And so you fought him.”

  “No. Great bear forgive me, but I hesitated. I thought…maybe he was right. The gravest threat I’d handled before that was two old bears wrestling over disputed hunting grounds. And now we were being hunted.”

  She put her hand on his outstretched knee. “But you moved past your hesitation.”

  He pulled away from her comforting touch. “Not with the strength you say a shifter should have, none of the confidence. When Villalobos and his pack went after the KGB, I faced my father again, told him our complicity was over and we needed to join the battle. He said the threat would only get worse, and if I couldn’t see that, I wasn’t fit to lead. That’s when we fought.”

  “You were right,” she said softly.

  He shook his head. “I lost.” When she sucked in a breath—maybe to offer him some other platitude—he forged on. “He had me on the ground, could’ve killed me.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “My bear left. Just left me there, beaten and bleeding.” His throat tightened at the memory of jaws tearing into his neck. “With the challenge gone, my father backed off. And then… I don’t know. He walked into the desert and never looked back.”

  He startled when Rita touched his knee again, bringing his attention back from the horizon where he’d been staring.

  “You were right,” she repeated. “And he knew it. Maybe his bear couldn’t back down from the challenge, but the king knew he’d made a mistake.”

  He gazed at her. She didn’t know anything about his father—hell, he wondered sometimes if he’d ever known his sire—but maybe he shouldn’t dismiss her outsider clarity too quickly.

  And maybe he needed some of her compassion too.

  The wistful weakness made him stiffen. “Whatever the reason, the rex ursi is gone—with him, from me, doesn’t matter, just gone.”

  She hummed under her breath. “Since you fought your father, you say you’ve tried everything to get your bear back, but last month, you gave up and wanted to force Ben to lead the clan. Would he have automatically become rex ursi by default? Is there some transfer of energy that elevates his bear?”

  “Being the most dangerous predators around, bears don’t have many worthy enemies, so we don’t often deal with unexpected transitions of power. A king steps down and his son or the next strongest bear is ready to step up. I couldn’t come up with a time in our recent history when there wasn’t a next rex ursi already in place.”

  She reached for her crutches. “Well, let’s get ready to make history then.”

  For all her blue gingham country chic, her voice held a regal insistence that sent him scrambling to his feet almost before he’d consciously decided. He reached down to her.

  For a moment, she stared at his open hand. Then she covered it with her own.

  Her skin was warm, the heel of her palm callused from the crutches. Compared to him, she was a little thing, so he lifted her easily to her feet.

  Too easily. He almost pulled her into his chest.

  The hard plastic cuff of her crutch jammed into his sternum, and with a silent huff, he released her.

  Her expression was unreadable as she settled back onto her heels, and the rubber tips of the crutches dug into the picnic blanket. “You gonna be able to handle this?”

  Did she mean…her? Because he thought his hands might be aching for her… Wait, no, no of course not. She meant the bear, hunting the beast. He hadn’t felt this attacked since his father shook him like a ragdoll.

  Margarita Wick might be dainty, but she was dangerous too.

  And unlike some males, he couldn’t even blame the missing bear for his attraction to a lovely witch who held his future in her capable hands.

  Chapter 5

  While the adult males packed up the remains of the picnic, Rita helped her sisters get Aster back into his damp clothes.

  “That’s a bath,” he insisted.

  “Was there soap?” Brandy asked.

  When he stuck out his lower lip, Rita mused, “I think there are enough huckleberries left over for pancakes tomorrow. At least for baby bears who listen to mama bears.” She glanced at Ben. “You up for making breakfast if I’m not back yet?”

  Brandy interrupted. “Where will you be?”

  “Bear hunting.” Rita held up one finger when her sister took a breath. “You found yours. This one is mine.”

  Huh. That didn’t come out the way she meant.

  With the promise of pancakes winning over the horrors of hygiene, Aster squirmed to be put down, distracting his mother. For which Rita was grateful.

  She wasn’t getting herself a bear. She was just finding one for Thor.

  Glancing surreptitiously his way, she found him backed away from their little group by his cousins. Mac with his dark hair and Ben with his pale blond were like a picket and its shadow, their bodies a fence holding the wildland at bay. But Thor was taller than both of them—no fence, no vigilant brothers-in-law would keep him out.

  They were obviously having the same vaguely annoying conversation her sisters had imposed on her. Ridiculous. Rita shouldered between them, not so accidentally jabbing their shins with her crutches.

  “Aster is ready to go home,” she said. She wasn’t above throwing her little nephew under the VW bus.

  Mac and Ben made low noises under their breath, somewhere between growls and grumbles, and she ignored them.

  Gin, of course, was the last to let it go. “How are you going to get home?”

  Thor cleared his throat. “I have my bike here.”

  “What, are you just going to coast down the hill in the dark?” She frowned disapprovingly.

  “Motorcycle,” Thor corrected. “I have a helmet.”

  “Oh, well then,” Gin sputtered. “Of course you can take our sister if you have a motorcycle helmet.”

  Brandy handed Aster over to Mac, and the little boy rested his head on his father’s shoulder. “Ride safe,” she said. “Watch out for that midnight magic. We’ll have the huckleberry pancakes before we leave for outdoor school in the morning, so you’re welcome to come for breakfast.”

  Gin rolled her eyes at her unflappable middle sister. Rita smirked at Gin, who had apparently forgotten which of them got accidentally impregnated by a werebear; Brandy couldn’t really quibble about a ride on a motorcycle.

  Rita gave the sleepily blinking Aster a goodnight kiss on the nose.

  “Be gentle with him,” Mac murmured.

  “I like butterfly kisses,” Aster protested.

  “Everybody does, bud.” Mac’s dark eyes—exactly like his son’s—crinkled at the corners but he didn’t laugh aloud as he slanted a sly glance at Rita.

  She lifted one eyebrow. “I’ll update our shifter grimoire with this special announcement.”

  But for all her confidence and her reassurances to them that this was what she intended to do, as their voices faded away through the huckleberries, the mesa sudd
enly seemed much bigger. And lonelier, even with Thor right beside her.

  Was it just her overactive imagination, or had the temperature dropped? She clamped her elbows to her side to restrain a little shiver. If it was colder, it was only because the sun was dropping toward the horizon, and the cool waters of the creek and deepening shadows were winning their daily battle against the blistering last-of-summer sun.

  She startled when a soft weight dropped around her shoulders. Thor stepped back, leaving an overlarge flannel shirt—one of his, obviously—draped around her like a country-western cloak.

  “I brought my own layers,” she said, not wanting him to think she was unprepared. “I know the desert gets cold at night, even in the summer. I also brought some tools from the spellatorium that I think might get us started.”

  “Spellatorium?” He made no move to take back his flannel as he followed her over to the bag she’d left by the picnic blanket. Since his flannel was very snuggly, she decided to just keep it.

  “That’s what Brandy calls the circle workroom,” she explained.

  “Rather irreverent.”

  “The circle doesn’t get too hung up on patriarchal concepts like respect or status,” she told him as she knelt on the blanket. “We’re more interested in making lasting change for the good.” She opened up the bag and pulled out a triangle of black velvet that she unfolded into a circle. “I suppose it helps keep you humble if shouting your accomplishments to the world would get you locked up in the loony bin or burned at the stake for witchcraft.”

  He crouched next to her and settled back on his heels.

  “Shapeshifters run the same risks,” he noted. “But that doesn’t seem to stop us from being a loud, arrogant bunch.”

  She smiled at him. He was the first shifter she’d met who saw—and admitted—the foibles of his kind so readily. Her smile faded. Maybe that was just because his beast was missing. Once they’d recaptured his bear, maybe he’d go back to being a maddeningly manly male like his cousins. Which was too bad in some ways; she was enjoying her time and talks with this guy, whatever parts of him might be AWOL.

  “In some ways your father wasn’t entirely wrong.” She laid out a silver-backed mirror. It reflected the darkening blue sky like a small pool of still water. “When most of the world can’t know you exist, he truly believed he was keeping you all safe.”

  With a sigh, Thor scraped one hand over his shorn hair. “But in the end, his fear of our vulnerability made things worse for all shifters and, if the KGB had been able to weaponize us, for the rest of the world too.”

  “And yet he was your father, and your king. No wonder fighting him and losing to him has left you conflicted.”

  He braced both hands on his knees. “You’re implying that I lost my bear on purpose.”

  “I’m a witch, not a therapist.” She nudged the mirror toward him. “But…what do you think?”

  He stared down at the mirror, his fingers digging into the denim over his thighs. “Am I supposed to be seeing something?”

  “Witch,” she reminded him, “not special effects wizard.”

  He glanced at her, one corner of his mouth curling up, and her pulse kicked up the same way. As big as he was, when they were side by side like this, he didn’t seem quite so overwhelming.

  And now she had butterfly kisses in her mind.

  She looked down at the mirror. “There’s nothing inherently magical about a piece of glass over a reflective backing, but it’s a way to focus your intent.”

  “I want to find the beast,” he said in a low voice, almost a growl.

  “You said you’ve tried hunting it for the last month, with no luck,” she reminded him. “The beast is yours, right? Your bear. It’s been a part of you, always. Instead of hunting it, what if you just…opened the way for it to return to you, to fill you again.”

  While he frowned down at the mirror, she quietly assembled her other materials.

  Finally, he stirred. “I don’t know how to lure it to me.”

  “Does Lake Angel lure the creek?” She placed her tools next to the mirror. “The water flows there because that’s its rightful place.”

  He looked at her accouterments warily, as if any one of them might bite him. “Are you saying it’s all downhill for me?”

  She chuckled. “Don’t be so literal, Thorburn Montero. Magic is almost never that simple.”

  He shifted his weight from one knee to the other. “What is all this?” He gestured at the collection from her bag. “They look like things your sister brought up here for her anti-love potion.”

  “Not anti,” she said. “This is for a classic love spell.”

  He stiffened, his broad shoulders hunching. “A love spell? Why?”

  “Because of all the forces that bind us together—physical need, community allegiance, even negative forces like war against a shared enemy—the strongest of these is love.”

  “We’re not here for love—”

  “Love is the only reason we’re here. And it’s the reason your bear isn’t.” She raised her voice over the almost subliminal grumble of his disagreement. “You loved your father and you love your clan, and it tore you apart. Apart from the beast. Love is the path to bring your bear back to you.”

  She handed him a fluted crystal flask. “This vessel represents how you hold your intention to guide your beast home: clear, but fragile too. It needs your care.”

  He stared down at it. “Couldn’t we use, like, a stainless steel thermos or something?”

  She bit back a smile. “Steel might look a little too much like a bear trap, don’t you think?”

  With a reluctant nod, he took the next element she passed to him.

  “Pure gold,” she said. “From our most ancient days, it has represented riches and the luxurious brightness of sunlight. Much like love.” In his big hand, the hammered coin looked even smaller than it was. “Pure gold is fragile in its own way, so soft you could dent it with your fingernail. A claw would go right through it.” She gestured for him to put the coin in the flask then handed him a roughly heart-shaped piece of pink quartz.

  He slanted a glance at her. “Really?”

  “I suppose your bear would be more drawn to a bloody hunk of raw venison, but I told you this isn’t literal, it’s representative, and it’s my spell, so you get a pink heart.”

  With a grumble, he held up the quartz to the last of the daylight. “It’s cracked.”

  “Most hearts are,” she said, “at one time or another. Love is rarely flawless.”

  He gave her a look. “Magic might not be literal but it seems pretty pointed.”

  “Well, we don’t want to accidentally summon a frog spirit instead of your bear.”

  He rumbled under his breath again.

  “Next—and you’re going to love this since you liked the pink heart so much—a rose.” She carefully unveiled the tiny bud floating in a small, stoppered vial. “Maybe you recognize it since you work on the landscaping crew. This is from the new rose your cousin is cultivating. The diablo rose.”

  Thor frowned. “I don’t do flowers, that’s Ben’s job. I just lift rocks and dig dirt. But this doesn’t look like a normal flower to me.”

  “Well, you are a shapeshifter, so not what you’d expect is perfectly appropriate.” She popped the cork and tilted the mouth of the vial toward him. “It’s a wild rose, but from a witch’s broom—a mutated offshoot that has its own special characteristics.”

  Peering at it more thoughtfully, he reached out one tentative fingertip toward the tightly furled bud though he stopped before he touched it. “It’s so small. I don’t think even a bear’s sharp nose could find it on this mesa.”

  “The fragrance is stronger than you’d guess, but it will take a few days to open all the way.” “Take the rose.”

  With another wary glance at her that made her feel strangely if perilously powerful, he followed her instruction. “What do I do with it? I’m not a witch.”

 
As if she needed that reminder. And too bad, really. Though no circle had ordained a man in ages, he would make a lovely witch.

  She shook off the thought. “You are the rose.”

  He blinked. “I don’t smell that good, do I?”

  He really was lovely. “I brought some of your hair that we cut the other day. Tie each lock around the stem, not too tight.” She peered over his arm as he tentatively bound the black strands to the stem. For all that his hands were very big, his knots were fine. He had such a light touch, she almost shivered. “This is what your bear will follow back to you.”

  “Maybe a trap would’ve been—ouch!”

  She winced. “Ooh. Yeah, watch out for that. The flowers on the diablo rose are small, but the thorns are mighty.”

  He exhaled like a man much put upon. “That felt very literal and very pointed.”

  She snickered. “I was going to say we didn’t need a blood sacrifice for this spell, but since you offered… Hold your hand over the rose.”

  “It’s not really that bad—hey.”

  “I thought you were a strong bear.” Grabbing his hand, she turned it palm up to find the little pinprick in his ring finger. He hadn’t been kidding about lifting rocks; heavy calluses, worse than hers, marred every pad on his hands. Or maybe those came from running around barefoot in the desert. But the diablo thorn had gone right through his skin. She milked the tip for another drop of blood. “C’mon. Gimme some more.”

  “Didn’t my cousin tell you to be gentle?”

  “You heard that?” She realized she was clinging to his hand a little too tightly and released him with a huff. Even the waft of the evening breeze couldn’t cool her cheeks.

  “Apex predator with preternatural senses, remember? Also, nosy.”

  “Magic is rough sometimes.” Why did her voice sound so husky?

  “You make it look graceful.”

  She glanced up at him in surprise. Since they were working side by side, she’d thought his hulking size and the memory of his spat with Ben didn’t seem so daunting. But now…

  It wasn’t just her cheeks that were hot.

  This time aware of every movement, she took his hand again. His skin was warm, almost scalding actually, even though the sun was dropping behind the ponderosas on the other side of the creek and shadows were lengthening all around. She wasn’t a student of the shadow path, but she had no fear of the dark. And yet her heartbeat pounded in her ears like it wanted to run away, and her pulse stuttered to keep up.