by Anya Nowlan
No longer was he a lone bear, just getting through the days because he had to. Now, he had a purpose. And a great one at that.
Sneaking glances at her was something he couldn’t stop himself from doing after they finally joined the rest of the crew in the house, citing project discussions as the cause of their late arrival. The look of knowing that Jayce gave him the first time he ran into the worker that day told him that they were hardly fooling anyone.
Figures, he thought, not really letting his good mood be spoiled by it.
Christine was all but nonexistent for most of the day, though Finn kept an eye out for her. She kept hanging out in the living room, trying to catch what little cell reception there was, making frantic calls to people Finn could only assume were tied to the wedding. He felt a little guilty about it all, but he wasn’t going to step in to stop her.
No way in hell could he let her go to someone else now. She was his, only his. It was a shame that they hadn’t figured it out – or met, more like – sooner, but no one had ever said that life was supposed to be easy.
He kept his head down and worked as hard as he always did, trying his best to force through the butterflies in his stomach every time he caught Christine’s scent or saw a flash of her blonde hair. She had the capability of consuming his senses completely, and keeping himself on track to not be consumed by her was a battle that could easily be lost.
“You want to talk about it?” Jayce asked suddenly at one point when they were working on the drywall in one of the studies, trying to finish it up so the floors could be finished.
“About what?” he asked, his tone a little bit dazed.
Jayce had caught him in the middle of a particularly good daydream about his life with Christine.
“About you and Christine,” Jayce said with a good-natured scoff. When Finn met his gaze, Jayce just smiled. “Come on, I have eyes. I can see. Spill.”
Finn cleared his throat, not saying anything for a minute or two.
“I can always go ask her,” Jayce offered.
The glare Finn gave him did nothing to make Jayce’s grin waver.
“Fine,” Finn sighed. “We might be a… thing.”
Jayce’s brows shot upwards and his grin was wiped off now.
“You serious?” he asked. “What about her rich fiancé and… well, this house?”
Jayce spread his arms, making to encompass the building in his question.
“I didn’t say we had everything figured out,” Finn grumbled.
“You’re telling me,” Jayce snorted, forgetting completely about his work.
He frowned, looking far too contemplative for Finn. Finn dropped his work as well, squaring up.
“What?” he asked, sounding a tad bit too defensive. “Fate works in weird ways, alright?”
“Sure, I’m not disagreeing with that,” Jayce said, raising his hands in a placating manner. “I’m just saying, you’re going against a guy with some major dough and massive connections. Didn’t you say he owned a bank?”
“I think he owns several,” Finn said reluctantly.
“Even worse. And isn’t she some sort of an heiress as well? Are you sure she’s not just having her last nights of fun with you?”
“I know what I felt and I know she felt it too,” Finn practically roared.
He must have bristled so much that Jayce did the only wise thing available for him. He took a step back.
“Hey, buddy, don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just telling you to keep a cool head here. Things might not be as rosy as you think they are.”
“Can we drop this? We have work to do.”
Finn saw the moment Jayce came up with a comment about the job not being there for long if things went the way Finn wanted them to go, but his glare must have shut Jayce up. Say what you will about shifters, but they all had a very strong sense of self-preservation.
“Alright, whatever you say, boss,” Jayce commented, getting back to the drywall.
It was too late though. Finn’s mood was ruined for good and though he didn’t welcome it, the seeds of doubt had been sown.
I have to talk to Christine about all of this, he thought grimly. Is she making the calls about the wedding, even?
In the midst of their joint happiness, they’d completely ignored the problems they were about to face. Finn just hoped that he and Christine were on the same page about them.
Night was falling and the worksite was getting thinner by the minute. Guys were heading off for the night and saying their goodbyes and while Finn sent them off, Christine was still conspicuously busy on her phone.
“You watch out for yourself,” Jayce told Finn as he nodded his farewell at the door and headed for his truck.
“I will,” Finn murmured in response, letting the door fall shut behind Jayce.
He took his sweet time, trudging through the house towards where he knew Christine to be. He found her sitting on that stepladder that no one had touched since she claimed it that second day on the site, just finishing a call.
“Okay, thank you so much,” she said, relief evident in her voice.
She looked in time to see Finn approaching. Whatever worry he might have felt, it was whisked away immediately when she smiled brightly at him.
“Hey, you,” she greeted, a slight blush rising to her cheeks.
“Hey,” he said in response, the word coming out as more of a sigh of relief than anything else.
Thank the spirits. I think I must be losing my mind today.
He walked over to the ladder and Christine leaned down, giving him a peck on the lips. She tasted sweet as any honey ever could.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so absent all day,” she said, starting to ease herself down off the steps.
Finn would have none of it. He simply put his hands around her waist and plucked her down, getting a big grin in response. It was all he really needed and his heart swelled in his chest, peace blanketing him.
Can’t believe I was worried at all, he mused.
Though the rational part of him could very easily justify the mini freak out. There was every reason not to feel entirely secure about what had happened between them so far, and what the consequences might be.
“That’s alright,” he said lightly, believing the words he spoke. “Did the calls go alright? Did he call?”
That core of happiness was dimmed immediately when he thought of the other shifter whose bride he was stealing. Though he knew in his heart that Cisco and Christine were not meant to be, it still felt a little back-handed to him. Something that he would have liked to do face to face, man to man, explaining what had happened.
“He hasn’t taken my calls,” Christine said with a shrug. “But I did manage to get most of the stuff cancelled. I can pay for what I couldn’t cancel out of my own pocket, I think. It’ll be fine.”
The expression she wore didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but Finn looped his arm around her shoulders. If it wasn’t fine yet, he’d work as hard as he could to make it so.
“We’ll figure it out,” he promised, leading her towards the back of the house. “For now, I think we need some dinner. How does that sound?”
“That sounds-” Christine started, but she didn’t finish her sentence.
There was a screech of tires outside and then a car door slamming. Finn frowned, turning to face the direction of the sound.
Who in the hell…
“Are you expecting anyone?” Christine asked.
Finn shook his head, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He’d seen enough trouble in his life to know when it was coming, and whoever was about to crash in through the front door definitely meant trouble.
12
Christine
Christine’s breath caught as a familiar whiff of scent hit her nose as the front door was slammed open. Heavy footsteps headed their way and acting out of instinct, she brushed Finn’s arm off her shoulder and stepped in front of him.
The moment that Cisco wa
lked into the room, looking like he was ready to murder ten times over, Finn grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her behind his wide body.
“Finn,” she gasped, beginning to argue, but not getting very far with it.
Cisco stormed forward, making a beeline for Finn. No sooner than Finn had pushed her behind himself was Cisco on him, grabbing him by the chest and flinging him against the nearest wall.
“So it’s this fucking plebe you’re leaving me for!?” he roared, not looking at Christine but clearly addressing her.
Christine stood stunned. She’d never seen Cisco show so much emotion about anything, let alone her. Her stomach twisted, seeing Finn raise his hands slightly, his expression serious as death. She knew he had to be reining himself in hard right now to keep from decking the slightly smaller tiger shifter.
“Hey, man, relax. We can talk this out,” Finn said.
He got a derisive scoff from Cisco in response.
“Talk it out? Fuck you, scrub. I’m here to get my woman and I’m not about to do any fucking talking.”
He was dressed in a suit and tie, looking as debonair as ever, but this time, Christine saw him for what he was. A possessive, jealous man who couldn’t take no for an answer. He’d always been like that but when it was directed at someone else, Christine had been able to wish it away or ignore it.
Not this time.
The blinders were off for good.
“No,” she yelled, diving in between the two men and shoving Cisco back a step or two. “Don’t touch him! This has very little to do with him. The only thing Finn’s guilty of is that he let me see what our deal was for what it is… something that isn’t fair on either of us. Cisco… you know you don’t love me,” she said, biting down on her lip.
“I’ll love you enough,” he growled in response, his blazing green gaze going back to the werebear standing behind Christine. “My heat will come and that’ll be enough.”
Tiger shifters had the unfortunate biological curse of only being able to conceive young with a mate found during their heat. As such, the whole fated side of their pairings was often on the back burner, or forgotten completely. Some tiger shifters considered it a badge of pride to mate with someone who they didn’t love or have strong feelings for, claiming that it opened them up to experience the rest of life more clearly.
Cisco was probably more like those tigers than he would have publically admitted. On paper, he and Christine were supposed to be the perfect power couple, and now she was ruining it.
“It’s not enough for me, and it shouldn’t be for you,” she said, her voice shaking.
“Christine, just step aside and let us handle this man to man,” Cisco said, obviously growing tired of her.
Before she could respond to that, but obviously showing that she wasn’t about to move, Cisco ran out of patience. He gripped her by the arms and flung her aside, sending her crashing into the stepladder before she could react. She yelped as the metal frame came down on her head and for a moment, her vision blurred.
“Christine!” she heard Finn call through her haze.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Cisco roared.
A moment later, all she could see were flashes of dark brown, orange and black, and the roars of two wild beasts. She backed away, trying to sit up and focus. Her vision swam and she could barely tell what was going on, the two massive shifters going at one another.
At one point, she heard one of them yelp and with how her heart jumped, she knew it had to be Finn, not Cisco. They came so close at times that at one point, Christine felt something splatter all over her and recognized the taste on her lips as the copper of blood.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Please stop!”
They wouldn’t, though.
She closed her eyes, willing herself to snap out of it, to fight the nausea and confusion. Her lynx sprung forward and she felt the power of the animal form fill her to the brink, only an inch away from falling into her shift.
Opening her eyes, she could see clearer now. It was exactly in time for her to roll out of the way as Cisco drove Finn into the ladder, making his massive body stumble where Christine had just been. Finn roared with rage and then charged forward. She caught the moment when his paws pushed the tiger over and his jaws went for the tiger’s soft belly.
Cisco yowled in agony.
“Finn, no!” Christine begged, stumbling to her feet. “Don’t! He’s not worth it!”
It took a second for Finn to stop, but when he did and he looked up at Christine with rage still in his eyes and blood on his maw, Christine was not afraid of him. She knew exactly why he did what he did.
It was for her. Not because he looked at her as something that belonged to him, but because he loved her.
As she loved him.
“I love you,” she whispered, feeling tears in her eyes that definitely weren’t just because of the concussion.
The anger dissipated from the bear immediately and he let the shift take him, the tiger still writhing and yowling on the ground. Finn looked at Cisco and then stepped over him.
His shirt was torn up and his chest revealed several deep cuts, along with others on his arms and legs. But he pulled Christine against him regardless and she swung her arms around him, hugging him tight.
“I love you too,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “We’ll make it work. It’ll be fine,” he told her, reassuring her.
She heaved a few dry sobs before nodding her head and gently pushing him away, clearing her eyes.
It is going to be okay… I’ll make sure of it, she decided, choosing dealing with the situation instead of hiding from it.
“Cisco,” she said as the man returned to his human form, clutching his mangled stomach. “I’ll call for someone who can help.”
“You fucking bitch,” he spat.
“Watch it,” Finn growled. “I only stopped because she asked me to. I might not be that understanding if you keep up your bullshit.”
Christine’s heart ached. She hated that she’d created this situation. At the same time, she knew that the outcome of it would be better for all of them.
Sometimes fate didn’t work the way one wanted to. Looking at Finn, standing tall and proud, she was certain of one thing though.
Fate had brought her exactly where she needed to be. And she was with the man meant for her.
Epilogue
Finn
“You sure about this?” Jayce asked Finn, standing next to him in front of the abruptly cleaned up house that less than a week ago was supposed to be Christine and Cisco’s.
“You’re really testing your fate here,” Finn commented wryly, tugging his suit slightly.
It fit him fairly well, considering it was cobbled together from pieces found in Shifter Grove. The good thing about Shifter Grove, or at least one of them, was that there were plenty of weddings, and plenty of guys Finn’s size who’d done the whole altar thing.
Between two shifters, it wasn’t a necessity, but Christine had her heart set on it and Finn was more than happy to give her what she wanted. Especially since it meant that he could call her his wife by the end of the day… and just in time for Christmas.
A bride for Christmas… who would have thought, Finn mused with a chuckle.
“What are you laughing about?” Jayce asked as the sun was beginning to set and the front yard, snow-filled as it was, slowly lit up with the twinkling Christmas lights he and the crew had set up during the day.
“I was just thinking what a lucky man I am,” he said nonchalantly, receiving a grin from his friend in response.
“I think you’re right about that,” Jayce said, nodding in the direction of the house.
The front door was opening and Christine stepped out a moment later. She was absolutely radiant, dressed in a warm, velvety white dress, with a thick, fluffy shawl around her shoulders – not rabbit, this time! Her blonde hair was put up with white pins that looked like snowflakes and her blue eyes had flecks of gol
d swirling in them.
She was as breathtaking as she ever had been.
And she’s all mine.
There weren’t that many guests gathered, but those who were there, gasped with Finn at the sight of Christine, bathed in the light of the Christmas lights. She grinned wide, her eyes meeting his, and walked down the steps of the front porch, meeting him in the middle of the front yard.
It had hastily been converted for the small ceremony, with benches having been brought in, and Warren of the original Shifter Grove founders presiding over the ceremony. He cleared his throat slightly, but Finn only had eyes for his bride.
“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Christine said as she put her gloved hands in Finn’s big palms.
He squeezed them gently.
“Are you having second thoughts?” he whispered in response, smiling.
“Don’t you dare say that,” Christine gasped, and then giggled, her cheeks getting pink as Warren gave her a kindly look.
They were misbehaving at their own wedding ceremony. But what better time to do it, right? You couldn’t be too serious all the time…
With Cisco out of the picture, first carted off by the local sheriff, Diesel, and then sent back to Los Angeles, everything had been going Finn’s way. After Cisco had been patched up, he begrudgingly admitted his defeat and gave his word not to cause any more trouble for Christine and Finn.
He even ended up paying for the house, in full, and signing it over to Christine’s name. While Finn wasn’t exactly happy to accept a bitter gift like that, Cisco had made it clear that his generosity was not some sudden bigness of heart. No, it was so he wouldn’t get a criminal record, and to keep the incident out of the press.
With the Shifter Grove Shovelers doing well last season, there was always a reporter around, looking for a new scoop. Cisco didn’t want to be one.
“Your folks are crying,” Finn whispered to Christine.
