by Vivian Arend
White-suited attendants opened doors and took her wrap. Justin crowded close as they were led out of the grand foyer toward open doors at least ten feet tall.
If an attendant had banged a mallet on the floor and announced their names a la royalty, he wouldn’t have been surprised. Their hosts for the evening had pulled out all the stops to make an impression.
The magnificent hall they entered was filled with delicate music, a four-piece ensemble tucked into the corner providing a live performance. The sparkle and shine of jewels twinkled everywhere. He bet Caroline had never seen a setting like this outside of a movie.
He was right. She whistled softly before muttering, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
“What’s that?” Tyler leaned toward her, eager for a closer touch.
Caroline placed her lips an inch from his ear. “This is more elaborate than I expected.”
Tyler rested his fingers on her hand and squeezed reassuringly. “You can handle it. I know you can.”
She was tense, though. He regretted more than ever his screw-up during the planning portion of the evening. His bear snorted, pointing out that so far she hadn’t seemed to fail when it came to going completely on impulse.
“Tyler. There you are.”
Tyler turned them both to face the young man stepping closer, an impeccably dressed redhead on his arm. He spoke softly before the couple could reach them. “Jim and Lillie Halcyon. Our hosts.”
“Got it.” Caroline nodded, her face lighting up with an incredible smile.
Hosts, and his promised supporter. From Jim’s enthusiastic approach, it appeared the positive sentiment was still there. The men shook hands before Tyler introduced her. “Jim, Lillie. I don’t know if you’ve met Caroline Bradley before. She’s also local to Whitehorse.”
Jim lifted Caroline’s hand and kissed her fingers, his gaze pinned to her face. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Caroline remained polite, but her gaze darted between Jim’s wife and Tyler to see their reaction to what must have felt like an over-the-top greeting.
Lillie didn’t seem the least bit concerned, and Tyler made sure his own response remained neutral. Old-world charm was another built-in response bears used to stay in control.
In fact, their hostess clapped her hands in delight. “It’s lovely to finally meet you. I have heard your name. You spend time with the local wolves, correct?”
Caroline’s smile now contained a hint of amusement. “The Takhini pack and I go way back.”
Lillie threaded her arm around Caroline. “Let’s go find somewhere to chat, so the guys can do the political wrangling they are longing to get into.”
“They only just got here,” Jim admonished. “We can’t monopolize them this quickly.”
Lillie sighed dramatically as she released Caroline, and Caroline laughed.
Even as he corrected her, Jim made his words softer by pulling Lillie close and kissing her cheek. The honest affection between them confirmed what Tyler had heard. It also made him slip against Caroline, sliding a hand around her waist.
She tensed for a second before adjusting her stance to press closer. One palm skimmed his chest in plain view of their hosts as she adjusted his tie with familiarity. Warmth spread from where her breast nudged his open dinner jacket.
He wasn’t sure he liked how good she was at picking up clues, or if her astute moves would kill him by the end of the evening.
Caroline turned to Lillie. “Tell you what. After we’ve made our rounds, I’d love to join you.”
Lillie smiled. “I’ll be here.”
Jim motioned to the door. “Here, or somewhere close to here. We have more guests. Tyler”—he nodded briskly—“I look forward to visiting later as well. When you have time for a serious discussion.”
Their hosts stepped away to welcome the next couple.
Caroline allowed Tyler to guide her a few paces farther into the room. “That was both painfully formal and strangely comfortable. Nice people, though.”
“Halcyons? Definitely. They’ve been in the Whitehorse area since February.”
“Strange. I’ve never met them.”
Tyler shrugged. Her hand was warm and soft, and he definitely liked the sensation more than as a political necessity. “Not really. Bears don’t usually spend much time in public places. And that’s part of the reason this event is painfully formal. We know how to be brutes, or we know how to put on the Ritz. There’s not much between the two extremes.”
They were nearly across the wide expanse of floor, Justin dogging their steps as usual. Small clusters of people stood with drinks in hand, conversing in low tones. A quick glance showed everyone had arrived.
This was about the time things went to hell, at least historically. Sure enough, the next person to catch his eye was not really who he wanted to inflict upon Caroline.
“This will be unpleasant,” he warned. “That’s Todd Ainsworth waving at us. Wife is Amanda.”
“The enemy,” Caroline whispered dramatically. “Dun-dun-dun duhhhhh.”
Her smart-ass comment meant he wore a far wider grin than he usually could muster in Ainsworth’s presence.
The men shook hands and exchanged greetings, Caroline waiting politely. She smiled at Amanda opposite her. Tyler wasn’t shocked to see the other woman jerk her gaze away and ignore Caroline, all attention focused on the men as they spoke.
Caroline’s smile faded to be replaced with intense concentration.
Tyler debated breaking in and making introductions, but what would be the point? This was a great opportunity for her to witness the Ainsworth charm firsthand.
It wasn’t forever, not nearly as long as it must have felt to her, but the wait was a hell of a lot longer than it would be in normal human society before Todd turned his gaze toward her.
Even then he didn’t give Tyler an opportunity to introduce them. Todd kept talking, his gaze examining every inch of Caroline as if she were the arm candy she’d accused Tyler of wanting.
Tyler figured any second her fuck-it-all meter should kick in.
And there it was. Caroline shot her hand out. “Nice to meet you.”
She stood, hand suspended in midair, waiting for Todd to respond. Tyler figured the only possible thing that could motivate the ass to act out of character would be guilt at confusing the poor human.
Nope. Todd stared at her fingers as if she’d offered him a dead fish.
Caroline glanced at Amanda. Mrs. Ainsworth had pasted on a smile and was looking anywhere but at what was happening right in front of her.
Damn it all. Knowing what he did of Caroline, she was probably ready to stand there like a statue until Todd was forced to deal with her, but Tyler didn’t give her a chance.
He caught her hand and tugged it back to his side. “I see the others have all arrived.”
Todd mysteriously returned to life. “Yes, they’ll call us to dinner in a few minutes. We’ll talk later.”
Todd and Amanda vanished, the swirl of formal clothing gliding away as if jet-propelled.
Caroline sniffed before turning to Tyler. “That was weird. Do I have cooties or something?”
Tyler slowly led her across the floor toward a second set of doors, ignoring all the other couples murmuring madly together. “Todd Ainsworth at his finest.”
“The woman looks like a robot. Amanda isn’t nearly as happy as Lillie,” Caroline whispered. “Who is a more typical clan leader, Todd or Jim?”
“About half and half? Before you ask, it’s not a generational pattern, as far as I know. My father would never have treated my mother that way. Rumour has it Ainsworth makes his woman’s life hell.”
She glanced around the room, her expression thoughtful as she eyed the ladies clinging to their men. Tyler analyzed them as well, noting which of them were smiling mindlessly like a freaking bunch of Stepford wives.
He’d known the way some of the bears treated their ladies was an issue, but it had never register
ed this hard before. Not only because a bear gathering like this was a rare situation, but because he seldom had anyone on his arm.
Caroline made him more aware. Brought forward exactly how twisted the situation had become.
Caroline jerked Tyler to a stop, reaching down to fidget with her shoe. She leaned a hand on his chest to keep her balance, but the edge of her fist made contact harder than a casual balance situation would require.
He caught her elbow, both to help her and to stop her from repeating the thump. “What’s wrong?”
There could have been steam coming from her ears, but from a distance she probably looked as if she were staring at him in adoration, not one step away from ripping him a new one. “When this evening is over, I am so going to kick your ass for not telling me the things I needed to know. Like that you bears are a fraternity of misogynists.”
“I don’t hate women,” Tyler argued. He definitely didn’t hate this one, even though she made his blood pressure rise and fall like a roller coaster. He opened his mouth to say something else, but his chance was lost as they were summoned by a call from across the room. “And I apologized for not preparing you.”
She patted his cheek in a loving-like gesture that somehow also promised pain and suffering. “If that was your best shot at apologizing, you need to work on the art of the grovel. Don’t worry, I’ll give you plenty of time to practice. After we get through the rest of this oh-so-fascinating evening.”
Oh, shit. He could hardly wait.
Caroline kept hold of him as they moved toward the dining room. So far she’d said an official hello to four people and she was ready to go home.
Bears? Were crazy. Give her a nice wolf rumble any day. All this extreme politeness was getting on her nerves, because other than Lillie at the start, everyone was so painfully fake she was ready to gag.
Her sense of humour tweaked again, and part of her wanted to ignore the fancy setting, the upscale hairdo and outfit, and do something outrageous like pull a cartwheel down the middle of the high-gloss parquet flooring.
Of course the outfit she wore meant handsprings were damn near impossible without spilling tits and ass everywhere, and that wasn’t quite the what-the-hell image she was going for.
Only the prospect of actual food made the next portion of the evening palatable. Caroline was starving. It was hours past her usual dinnertime, and with the chaos of the day, she just remembered she’d skipped lunch.
Lillie caught her arm, snuggling in close and pulling her from Tyler’s grasp. “Come with me until they seat us?”
Tyler smiled indulgently at Lillie, the young woman obviously not considered a threat. “You’re stealing my dinner partner.”
“Only for a few minutes.” Lillie dimpled sweetly. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay.” Caroline answered for herself, winking at Tyler in a fit of forgiveness.
He startled upright, blinking hard for a second, then this wonderful smile spread across his face. Anticipation? Hope?
Caroline turned her back and ignored him.
“We really do only have a minute, but come, visit with me.” Lillie led her to a corner of the room where an oversized couch filled the recessed space. Even in her formal gown, the woman curled up elegantly, legs under her. “I thought it would be entertaining to host one of the events, but Jim was right. They’re all boring. And stuffy. Except you and Tyler.”
Caroline’s cheeks warmed at the praise. “Well, I’m glad you like us.”
Lillie caught her by the hands. “Will you live in Whitehorse after you get married? I hope so. I’d love to have—”
Caroline shot up a hand to stop Lillie’s flood of words, because she couldn’t seem to speak through the knot in her own throat. “Married?” she croaked.
Lillie blinked. Then frowned. “Umm, did I make a mistake? I thought that’s what Jim told me…”
What was the correct response here? Caroline was caught between a rock and hard place. Neither response that sprang to mind, i.e. what the fuck? or hell, no! was the right one, not if she was going to knuckle down and help Tyler in spite of himself.
So she didn’t answer. Just took her cue from her new friend’s earlier enthusiasm and damn near instant bear hug. Caroline cuddled into Lillie’s side and looked over the room. “They are a stuffy lot, aren’t they? Here I thought wolves were pretentious at times.”
“The Takhini pack is funny.” Lillie laid her head on Caroline’s shoulder. “I heard the lot of them turned to wolves once and had races down Main Street. Someone had to get them out of the dog catchers after that.”
Yeah, that would have been Caroline, but Lillie didn’t need to know details. “Wolves like dares and bets far too much.”
“Bears like bets,” Lillie added. “I suppose it’s a little like this silly voting thing. It’s safer than people getting clawed to bits.”
She said it so plainly, not as if the alternative was a bloodthirsty option.
Caroline adjusted position so she could examine her new best friend. “You’re a shifter, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” Lillie rubbed her cheek on Caroline’s. “Black bear. Jim wasn’t expecting that, since he’s a grizzly, but for an arranged marriage, I think things have turned out marvelously.”
Caroline’s tongue was tied in a knot. Oh, the things she was learning—the curve balls kept coming. “You two do seem to be compatible.”
Lillie glanced over the room, sighing contentedly when she spotted her husband. “I adore him. And he’s been incredible. And the sex. I mean, bears have that ability to just keep going and going.”
Caroline was glad they were in the shadows to hide her flushed cheeks. She might be used to wolves talking all sex, all the time, but this was different. The way she felt about Tyler changed things, and she hadn’t had a real chance to find out any details for herself yet.
Lillie’s nose wrinkled. “Poor Amanda. I tried to rescue her, but she’s trapped with Mr. Stick in the Mud.”
Caroline followed the bear’s gaze to discover Amanda was indeed, stuck. Clutching her husband’s arm and gazing glassy-eyed around her as he controlled yet another conversation. For a second, their eyes met, hers and Amanda’s, and the utter hopelessness in them made Caroline’s heart ache.
Damn bastard. Tyler hadn’t lied when he’d said the man was a tyrant. His wife looked miserable, beyond being bored to tears.
“She’s on a tight leash, isn’t she?” Caroline asked, staring harder as Amanda’s half-jacket shifted position, and what appeared to be a dark shadow became visible on her arm.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
“We’ll try to rescue her again after dinner. We might have a better shot while the men go off and smoke. Or whatever they do in Jim’s man-cave.”
“That sounds like a good idea—”
The rest was lost under a roar. The doors that had been partially closed slammed open on one side, an enormous ball of fur flying across the room toward the main gathering.
Holy shit, it was a bear. Caroline scrambled upright, sticking to the shadows.
Lillie sighed.
“There goes dinner.” She turned to Caroline even as she stripped off her shimmering black dress, totally ignoring her nudity. “You should probably stay here and hide, okay? I need to go help my husband.”
“No problem.” Caroline reached under her skirt for the knife holster she’d insisted Monsieur Fancy Pants find a way for her to wear. A switchblade against a full-grown bear wasn’t much help, but it was better than nothing.
Plus, her sister the vet had taught her a couple of good moves.
Lillie shifted, her bear form smaller than the one who’d stormed across the room, but a hell of a lot bigger than Caroline. Somehow even in her other form she was still Lillie, an adorable tilt to her head as she nudged Caroline gently with her shoulder before racing into the room.
Below her, grown men seemed at first to be backing away from danger. Only a closer inspectio
n revealed they were creating distance between each other to rip off the tracings of sophistication. Clothes were abandoned everywhere in the race to shift.
The bear who’d started the violence had a human form under his paws. Caroline waited, her heart in her throat, as she recognized a familiar-looking suit being torn to shreds. Only the flying fabric wasn’t from the attacking bear doing the damage, it was from Tyler shifting. He roared in anger and flipped his attacker to the floor.
Chaos reigned in the elegant room. A mass of furry bodies swiped razor-sharp claws at each other, howls of pain and snarls of rage filling the air.
The servants had retreated to the edges of the room or vanished altogether, fleeing through smaller doors and closing them firmly behind themselves. Caroline eyed the still-open grand entrance and estimated how long it would take for her to sprint the distance. Calculating if it was worth the risk.
So far the fighting remained focused far from her, but she had no guarantees it would stay there. A couple clasped together in a ball of bloody fur rolled toward her escape route, and Caroline’s hopes fell.
A flash of fur appeared to her right, and she swung her knife hand instinctively, jerking the blade back as she recognized the smaller-than-a-bear silver coat.
“Shaun, you idiot. I nearly skewered you.”
He grinned briefly, his sharp teeth flashing white, then turned and stood as a sentinel between her and the bears.
Great. If the bruins did decide to come her direction one of her favourite wolves could get hurt. There had to be another solution. She spotted Tyler systematically working his way through a mass of fighters, headed in her direction.
He’d promised to come for her, and he was keeping his word. In the meantime? She wasn’t sitting on a tuffet and waiting.
The beautiful dress she wore was about to become an issue, as would the shoes. She kicked her heels off then grabbed the skirt of her dress, wrapping the material around her waist to get the long swath of fabric out of her way.
“Once I make it to a safe spot, you get out of here,” she ordered Shaun, returning her knife blade to the holster.
