Unexpected Bride: 7 Brides for 7 Bears

by Moxie North

  “You need to tell me everything you remember. Anything strange or unusual? New people that came to where you work? Anyone more interested than usual in what you were doing?”

  Kellan frowned. “No, I mean, I’ve been busy lately. The markets have been really active. With cryptocurrency, you have to be constantly aware of what’s happening and anticipate what the markets will do. I’ve been tired. I swear I’ve been falling asleep during the day sometimes.”

  Eden seemed to be struggling to keep her expression neutral as she replied, “Why do you say that?”

  “You ever drive home from a long day and don’t really remember driving home? That’s been happening, but like I said, I’ve been busy. My routine doesn’t change much, so I figured I was zoning out more.”

  “How often was this happening?”

  Kellan had to think and was embarrassed to say, “Pretty often the last few weeks.”

  “You didn’t think that was something to mention? Worry about? Did you even see a doctor?” Eden asked, agitated.

  Kellan recoiled. “No, do you run to the doctor because you’re tired? I mean, come on, let’s get serious. I just drank a little more coffee and kept working.”

  Eden stood up and started pacing the room. “I need you to go over your normal day. From when you wake up to when you go to sleep.”

  “Why do you care? Obviously the Clan thinks I’m guilty. You think I could prove my innocence by telling my side in court?” He shook his head. “I was tired and have no memory of stealing millions? That sounds plausible. I’m fucking going to prison,” Kellan groaned and dropped his head back to the pillow.

  A low rumbling growl sounded through the room. “You-are-not-going-to-jail,” Eden said through gritted teeth. “Tell me your schedule.”

  Kellan wasn’t afraid of the woman. Bear shifter or not, Kindred didn’t attack humans. The world worked as long as everyone got along. Not that it was that easy. But everyone knew someone that was mated and part of a Clan. No one in Kellan’s immediate family was mated. He had a cousin that was mated to a Kindred, but he hadn’t seen her since he was little.

  “As far as I know, it’s the sixth of November. I remember getting up. I walked to a local coffee shop by my apartment. I go there nearly every day. I grabbed a Lyft. I know a driver and I usually text him to see when he’s going to be working. I get him 90 percent of the time. Then…” Kellan paused trying to remember. “I must have gone to work. I think…” he frowned and looked at Eden again.

  “I had to have been there, right?”

  “They said they found you slumped over your desk after-hours.”

  “I was there all day? I don’t remember being there. I always know what day it is. What happened during the day. I mean I used to. I…” His head hurt as he tried to sift through the fog. It didn’t make any sense. His routine was set. He came in, he worked. He could tell you what the market did from day to day. Most of his job was remembering trends and being able to guess what was coming.

  “Fuck! I can’t remember. I was there, I had to be. I was at my desk. Why can’t I remember?” The distress in Kellan’s voice becoming obvious.

  “I need to see your phone.”

  Kellan frowned and looked around the room with confusion. He glanced back at her like he didn’t have a clue about its location. She sighed and went to the cupboard on the wall. Opening it, she pulled out a patient belongings bag and dumped it on the bed.

  He kept his eyes on her even though they felt like they were on fire. Just talking to her had worn him out, but he didn’t want to fall asleep with Eden still in the room. He had to be able to see her.

  Eden retrieved his phone and found it turned off. Opening the screen she held it out to him so he could open the fingerprint lock. She pulled it back and went through his phone as though he’d given her permission. She took a picture of the screen with her own phone and put it on the table next to him.

  “What’s the name of the coffee shop?”

  “Bean There, Done That. It’s on East Fifty-Sixth and Second Avenue.”

  “I’ve got some work to do. The other KSI guy here is Zion, he’ll be here any minute and will take the next shift. I’ll give you a heads up; he doesn’t talk much. Rest, get your strength back,” she said softly.

  It wasn’t long before the large man named Zion came to take Eden’s place. His skin was dark and his eyes even darker. His frame seemed to fill the room and Kellan felt like he could sleep soundly with this man watching over him.

  Eden hesitated before leaving. She looked at him and Kellan couldn’t look away from her eyes. He knew Zion was watching them, but he didn’t comment on the silent exchange. There was something happening when she looked at him. His heart beat faster, he could swear. His cock twitched and he had the urge to reach for her. All from the look she was giving him. She finally turned to leave and Kellan didn’t bother to try and strike up a conversation with Zion who was standing against the wall with his eyes on the hallway.

  Letting his eyes close, Kellan tried to find a place where his brain wasn’t fighting his memory, or lack of one. He couldn’t seem to stop searching. There were missing chunks of memory. Even before this incident. He had decided it was exhaustion. There was a small part that worried it was something serious. What if he was truly sick? Then again, maybe he didn’t want to know the truth.

  He was almost asleep when he heard someone else enter the room and recognized Ritch’s voice as he greeted Zion.

  “Nurse said he woke up?” Ritch asked.

  “He did, apparently.” The big man named Zion that Eden had introduced him to had a deep distinctive voice.

  “Wake him,” Ritch ordered.

  “I’m not a medical professional. It’s not my place. Feel free to wake him up if you want. Although, I heard the doctor say he needs time to recover.”

  “So I’m supposed to wait for him to decide when he wants to talk? I’m a busy man. I have people I need to answer to.”

  There was a snort that didn’t come from Ritch. “I’m sure you do. I can only relay what the medical staff said. We wouldn’t want him to relapse, then you’d never get your answers.” There was a hint of sarcasm in Zion’s voice and Kellan almost smiled. He schooled his features and kept his breathing as even as possible. It was easy because he was exhausted for someone who’d apparently been unconscious for days.

  “I need to know the moment he is awake and lucid. He’s not to leave this hospital and I don’t want him interviewed by anyone but me,” Ritch said angrily.

  “Absolutely. You’ll be the first person I call.”

  Kellan wasn’t sure, but there was something strange about the inflection Zion put on the “I”.

  When he left, Kellan opened his eyes to catch Zion staring at him. “Thank you,” he said to the man. Zion nodded, and Kellan waited for him to say something else, but Zion’s eyes were looking out into the hallway again.

  “I’m not trying to avoid him, I just really don’t have the answers he’s looking for. I wish I did.” Zion looked hard at him and nodded again.

  Kellan knew Ritch wanted answers. He just didn’t have any. All he was sure of was that he didn’t steal any money. He took pride in his job and made sure that his best friend’s Clan thrived by doing his small part. Kellan was also paid very well for what he did. It afforded him a nice apartment on the East Side. He took vacations and had a healthy 401k set aside. There was no reason for him to steal from anyone.

  How he was going to prove that to Clan Odal’s elders, he had no idea. If he couldn’t remember an alibi, he didn’t have one. He also felt the need to prove his innocence to Eden. The strange woman was no one to him, but he could see that she wanted him to be cleared of the charges. It could have been that she was just really good at her job, but it felt like more.

  Either way, Kellan was the one that was going to have to convince Ritch and the rest of the Clan that he’d never betray them and that he had no idea where the money went. Stealing cryptocurr
ency wasn’t tangible, it was all numbers on a screen. Even if they did give him a chance, there was almost no way to trace what had happened.

  Letting the pain in his head push him into an unsettled sleep, he hoped that Eden was there when he opened his eyes again. There was a chance he was hallucinating the feeling he got when he saw her. Maybe it was some kind of medication they’d given him. Or maybe it was because he wasn’t a stupid man and she was hands down the most stunning woman he’d ever seen. He was a man after all. But it wasn’t just the way she looked. It was the way she made him feel. Zion was watching him, he’d probably take a bullet for him because it was his job.

  But the woman with the beautiful eyes, the woman that looked at him with a longing that she was denying, she was someone that could keep him safe.

  Chapter 6

  Eden closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the hospital into the noisy chaos of the city.

  Outside, away from the magnetic pull of that human, she should have felt free. There should have been a moment of clarity for her to realize that she hadn’t just looked into the eyes of her mate. That lack of sleep or possibly a hallucination was the cause.

  Eden wasn’t attracted to humans. She was rarely attracted to anyone. She wasn’t looking to set up housekeeping with a dozen kids running around and a dog getting into the trash. A nuclear family was never something she had ever dreamed of.

  She was a bodyguard, a security professional. Throwing herself in front of a bullet would be done without thought. You couldn’t do that if you had a mate to think of. Or children, she thought with a shudder. Eden liked kids, she just couldn’t imagine doing her job every day knowing that if she screwed up she might not make it home.

  Van, one of King’s crew and a friend of hers, was already going to have to face that. His mate was expecting. How was he going to walk away from her every day knowing how dangerous his job could get? She had almost died at the hands of her ex, and Van had been shot at. So many things could have gone wrong and a mate would have been left brokenhearted for the rest of their lives.

  With her eyes closed, Eden tried to hear that music again, that call that had passed over her body and then traveled through it. It was almost indescribable. There was no sound now; there was just the memory of it.

  If she would have ever guessed that she would find a mate, she was sure it would have been another Kindred. Then there wouldn’t be children to worry about. Kindred pairs couldn’t reproduce. Their genes were too dominant to find a balance to create life.

  But Kellan was her mate. It was such a fact that she could barely pretend to deny it. Her heart and mind, and especially her bear, weren’t interested in playing that game.

  She opened her eyes and blinked against the glare of cars and people that were scurrying around. The humans walked around her, not wanting to bump into her. The Kindred passing just nodded in her direction.

  She shook off the urge to rush back to Kellan’s bedside, and pulled out her phone to double-check the number for the Lyft driver. She opened her app and scanned the downtown area until she found the name and area of Kellan’s usual pick-up location. Requesting the car, she had to cancel twice when others picked up her ride. Finally, she found the driver named Chris and waited in front of the hospital.

  A small four-seater sedan pulled up and she got in.

  “Hi, I’m Chris. Where are we heading?” he said, not looking back as he tapped on his phone.

  “I’m actually just visiting. You mind driving me around? Showing me some sites?”

  “Oh, that’s difficult. I need an endpoint.”

  “Then I’ll put in addresses and stops along the way. You keep accepting, how does that sound?”

  “Sounds good to me!” he said jovially.

  Eden reset the request to have him take her from the West Side of Central Park down to the Statues of Liberty. That should take a long enough chunk of time with traffic. She’d only ever seen the statues on TV, the female representing liberty for all, and the human and Kindred clasping hands. A female in armor and a human male holding a shield. It was to represent the partnership of the species.

  “So, where are you visiting from?” he asked. He probably asked that a dozen times a day. He seemed genuine and Eden was examining everything she could about him.

  There was nothing personal in the car. It was clean and the temperature was comfortable. Chris was somewhere in his forties. Clean-cut with a little extra weight on him.

  “Seattle. I’m actually working here for the week then I’ll be heading home.”

  “Wow, you must get some good frequent flyer miles. What do you do?”

  Eden noted even as he talked, he was constantly checking his mirrors, deftly avoiding the taxis and delivery trucks all fighting for space on the sometimes narrow streets.

  “Private security.”

  Chris’s head almost whipped around. “Seriously?”

  “I was flown in for a job. It’s pretty sad. Some guy was poisoned, or at least it looks that way. His employer wants him guarded,” Eden said, making sure she added a little drama to her words to keep him intrigued. It wasn’t the smoothest method of gaining information, but playing dumb worked too often to not try it.

  “That sucks. It sounds like something you’d see in a movie.”

  “I guess it’s not a hard gig, watching a guy in a coma. Poor Kellan, I just met the guy, but it still sucks, you know?” Eden paused to let the wheels click through Chris’s mind.

  “Kellan, I know a Kellan. Pick him up every week. Nice guy, couldn’t be the same person, of course. How many Kellans are there in New York,” Chris said with a laugh.

  “Well, there has to be a few. Anyway, either Mr. Huntley wakes up, or I go back to Seattle to the next job,” Eden said with a dramatic sigh.

  The car jerked as Chris slammed on the brakes then realized he almost caused an accident and accelerated. “Kellan Huntley? That’s the dude I pick up!”

  “What! You’re kidding me,” Eden said shocked, fluttering a hand against her chest. Fuck, she hated acting this way.

  “Yeah, he’s a great tipper! That would suck if he died.”

  Eden didn’t feel the need to tell him Kellan was awake. She needed more information and she didn’t have many options on where to get it.

  “Chris, you could really help him out. I mean you saw him often enough. Was there anything strange that you can remember? Did his schedule change? They said he may have had some memory lapses. Did you notice anything?”

  Chris frowned and Eden kept eye contact with him through the rearview mirror. She batted her lashes over her bright eyes and let her bear flash over her lenses to encourage him to be honest. He might not have realized he had a Kindred in his car. She wasn’t opposed to playing on a human’s fear of the unknown. She wasn’t the Kindred Welcoming Committee, after all. Public relations weren’t that important to her.

  “Man, I guess the last few weeks have been a bit different.”

  “Weeks?”

  “Yeah, I mean if I really thought about it. Sometime last month he forgot my name a few times. I chalked it up to him not having his coffee yet. He’d remember and laugh about it.”

  “Anything else? You’d really be helping him out. I know the police don’t have any idea how he got sick. You could be the break in the case,” Eden said dramatically.

  Chris puffed up his chest and frowned as though he was thinking hard. “He fell asleep a few times in the car. I mean that’s not unheard of. But then he did get a little more… zombie-like.”

  That’s what she wanted to hear about. “Zombie-like?”

  “Yeah, like he was running on autopilot? Not as friendly. He’d stare out the window, not really talk to me like he used to. I try to just give the customer what they want. Chatting driver, silent driver. I’m usually pretty good at figuring that out. Even last week he acted like he’d never met me before. His schedule didn’t really change though. I’d pick him up near his coffee shop every
day.”

  “When did you notice him start to act differently?”

  “About four or five weeks ago? I know it was last month.”

  “Did you ask him about it?”

  Chris grunted. “I did try to bring it up. Jokingly, of course. I asked if he needed to be dropped off at the hospital. See if they could test him for the zombie virus. He laughed it off and said he wasn’t feeling himself. But he had so much work to do, he couldn’t have a doctor tell him to stay home. He seemed extra worried about not being able to go to work. He was a pretty happy, carefree guy. But he seemed… not scared, but cautious.”

  The car was pulling up to the park near the terminals for the Statues of Liberty. “Why don’t you just let me out here?”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I think I want to walk around for a bit. Stretch my legs. You’ve been very helpful. If Kellan wakes up, I’ll tell him you said hi.”

  “Please do, he’s a nice guy.”

  Eden stepped out of the car and then paused. “Chris, do you know anyone that works at his coffee shop?”

  “Nope, never even drank there myself. Their coffee is too fancy for me. I like a cup of black coffee from the corner store. Gets me moving without all that foam,” he said with a shudder.

  “Thanks. Have a good day, Chris.”

  “You too,” he said brightly. He waved as the car pulled away and Eden nodded in his direction before turning back to her phone.

  Eden tipped him well through the app and checked the rest of her messages. Nothing else from King, no updates from Zion. That meant everything was quiet at the hospital. Eden didn’t think there was any connection with Kellan’s poisoning and Chris the driver. Guy was pretty straight and just worked his job, but knowing how long Kellan was possibly being poisoned was crucial information.

  She stared across the water to the twin statues in the harbor and began to wonder if this whole thing was a simple theft, or if it could be something bigger. A lot of effort had been put into hurting Kellan. Hurting her mate. It was so much more than personal now. Eden gripped the railing and ground her teeth together. She’d kill whoever tried to hurt her mate. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t her mate at the time. They’d still pay.