Choose The Bears (Ursa Shifters Book 6), page 23
Well, Kyle and I did.
“Shit, looks like we’ve got a new client being brought in,” Ursula said, looking down at her phone. “I’ve gotta go. I can send someone up—”
“It’s cool.” Kyle was the perfect guy for this kind of thing: endlessly calm and placid. He worked to scrape the paint into a big bin with slow methodical strokes. “We’ve got this.”
“You don’t meet the new clients?” I asked him when Ursula rushed out.
“Not at first.” His focus was on the tabletop, not me, so I started scraping down my own table. “Seeing a big dude when you’ve just escaped a brutal situation.” He shrugged. “Not great for making you feel safe. Honestly, when Ursula first started this place up, she wasn’t sure if we should have any role at all.” His eyes met mine. “Every woman is here because of some dickhead who went out of his way to hurt her.”
Even me, I thought idly, then shook my head.
“So it makes sense that we should steer clear until people feel secure enough to deal with us.”
“But not me.” That came out without thought. “You didn’t do that with me.” I’d finished scraping this table clean and was moving to one of the last ones that needed cleaning. “You three were all over the whole process, getting me out of my old place and into the new one, then protecting me from Phil.”
“That was different.”
He said that so definitely, as if he knew exactly why, but I didn’t.
“Why not send Ursula to install the security system?” I asked. “Change the door?”
“Well, for one, she’s shit with tools. Never seen a person strip a screw faster than her,” he replied, trying to smile but that faded under my steady regard.
“That’s not it.”
How did I know that? I’m not sure, but I was willing to bet it was the same strange impulse that told me to get the fuck away from Phil at the party, that let me know that someone was waiting for me behind my car. The same sense so many women have that they are surrounded by sharks, just looking for a bite.
The same sense men worked so hard to stifle in us.
“No, it’s not.” His acknowledgement was a relief when it came, because I anticipated the opposite. For him to pull the same shit so many guys did, deny, downplaying, and redirecting. I watched his hands shift, his palms face up. “It’s not, Imogen. You are… special.”
How? Why? In what way? I wanted to bark out those questions rapid fire, like bullets from a gun, but a customary reticence stopped me.
One I pushed back against.
This, this ‘special treatment’ was what had me coming up with weird theories to explain it. That he, Asher, and Lucas were not men but shifters, even when I knew the real reason would be something much more prosaic. So I did ask every one of those questions, watching him straighten up.
“You ever see someone and just know?” he replied, a wistful note in his voice. “With one look, you’re hooked. You don’t know their name, their life story, or how they take their coffee, but you want to.” He nodded slowly. “You really, really want to.”
“Yes.” That was blurted out, but as I heard my reply, I frowned. In some ways that’s what it felt like with Mike, but… Was that what it was? He was mysterious, notorious, cool, and remote, so when he spoke to me it was like an alien had descended from the stars to communicate with me only, but just like an alien, we had little in common once that process started. We kept looking for it though, searching for something to build a relationship on when sands kept shifting the foundations, no matter what we did. “No,” I amended, and he nodded slowly.
“Well, that’s what it was like for me, for Lucas—”
“Lucas?”
That shouldn’t have been a surprise because we were pashing earlier this morning.
“And Asher.” I couldn’t help but show the surprise I felt then. “Asher too. All three of us were drawn closer the moment we saw you, Imogen. At first to protect you from Phil, but that wasn’t enough to keep us around. We’d have referred you to the triage team and organised support, but…”
He shot me a rueful smile and I saw the fear, the sadness there.
“That wouldn’t be enough to keep us coming around.”
“Then what would be?” I wasn’t fishing for compliments. This was the moment the other shoe dropped, and I’d been waiting for it to happen for way too long.
“Kyle.” Of course, that’s when Asher walked in the door. “I got news…”
His words and Kyle’s played over and over in my head as he turned to stare at me.
Those pale blue eyes felt like they burned into my skin, but it wasn’t a painful thing. How could it be when it’d happened so many times before? In real life and in my dreams, I couldn’t seem to escape them. I watched him take me in, that cool gaze taking in the paint on my skin.
The way my lips felt overly full and swollen.
I fought the urge to flick my tongue over the bottom one because they felt way too dry right now.
“Mama Lisica got back to you?”
Kyle broke the spell, referencing some woman I didn’t know.
“Yeah, we… we’ll talk about it in the meeting room. I let Lucas know he needs to join us.”
Kyle was leaving. Our conversation was over, something I wanted to protest, but of course couldn’t, not without seeming like a whiny little bitch.
“Right, well—”
Kyle turned to me with an apologetic look. He was going to give me the brush off, but I got there before him.
“You go, I’ll sort out the clean up.”
“No need.” Asher pulled out his phone and made a quick call to the cleaning staff. “That’s what we pay them to do. Also, the morning mail came and this arrived for you.”
Another box was held out, heavier than the last. I accepted it as a substitute to the conversation I needed to have.
“We’ll talk more later,” Kyle said. “At dinner?”
I just nodded, then watched the two of them walk out the door.
Sure enough, a team of people walked in the door and took in the mess with a smile.
“The kids look like they had a lot of fun,” an older lady said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “It always seems to be in proportion to the mess they’ve made.” I offered to stick around, but she shook her head. “We’ve got this.”
So instead, I walked down the hall to the library, slinking between the quiet stacks to find an armchair and a table in a corner. I opened the box and there they were, my favourite series. Hard male bodies and roaring bear shifters were on each cover as I shuffled through the contents, realising this.
This place seemed to do a lot for the women and children they housed here, but buying expensive books and freighting them from overseas? I was willing to bet they’d never done that for anyone else. I’d check when I made sure to catch up with Kyle later this afternoon, but right now, I sank into the chair and opened the first book to page one.
Chapter 37
Asher
“Word came in from one of the fox colonies. A man matching Phil’s description has been sighted in several small towns on the way north,” I told my sleuth mates.
“He’s heading to the Northern Territory?” Kyle asked. It was the least populated of all the Australian states, with a reputation for being a bit wild. Most of the movie Crocodile Dundee was shot there. “Fuck, that’ll make him hard to track.”
“Or we just let him go.” We all stared at Lucas. “I mean, if he’s nowhere near Imogen—”
“That’s not enough.” I snapped, not meaning to but the bear wouldn’t allow for dissension here. “Phil, dead, that’s the only way forward.” I stared him down until he looked away. “So, how goes the examination of his hard drive?”
“Badly.” Kyle snorted at Lucas’ response, and the look they shared was intriguing, but I couldn’t allow it to distract me. “Or good, depending on which way you look at it. The guy was into some sick fucking shit.” That was self-evident and I didn’t need an internet search history to confirm that. “But from what I can tell, none of the videos are homemade.”
“He just trawled some of the shittiest places on the dark web to find them.” My jaw muscle twitched as my fangs ground against each other. “What do we know about the time stamps? When did he download them and with what frequency?”
Lucas shook his head slowly.
“More, much more since Mary came to us, and their content… It got worse after she left.”
“So he’s escalating.” I walked over to the map on my wall, blue pins used to track the places Phil had been sighted. “Any other details I need to know?”
“He really seems to like slim brunettes.”
That admission was dragged out of Lucas, probably because we all stared in response.
“He’s not the only one.” Kyle tried for humour and failed, but his knowing look at Lucas made clear there was more to that statement.
“What happened?”
“I—”
“Luc—”
The two of them glared at each other before Lucas replied.
“Imogen came to find me in the server room. I clicked out of the shitty video I was inspecting, and she thought…” He looked at the two of us sheepishly. “I was looking at porn.”
“You were,” Kyle replied.
“To get off, not make me wish brain bleach was a real thing. She saw the thumbnails—”
“She what?”
I was moving forward, claws snicking out without a thought, the bear pressing hard. We did not want our traumatised mate watching shit like that.
“I explained what I was doing, and she… Imogen’s the one that pointed out all the women in the video looked alike.” Like Mary, like Imogen, like any number of women. None of them were special to Phil. Just stand ins for his sick fantasies, dolls for him to break like a wanton child. “Then Kyle—”
“Oh, you’re missing a really important part of that story.” Kyle smirked at Lucas. “Tell Asher.”
That flush across my sleuth mate’s cheeks told me everything I needed to know, but I waited patiently for the details.
“I told Imogen she was safe and held her in my arms, making clear we’d do anything to protect her.” That part I approved of heartily, so I nodded. “Then she… She kissed me.” Kyle waved a hand, indicating that more detail was needed. “She kissed me and I kissed her, and we were making out until this fucker decided to walk right in.”
“The door you left open,” Kyle said. “So that anyone could walk in and catch you guys dry humping.”
“Dry… humping?”
I barely choked those words out. Not because I didn’t want just that. If Imogen initiated sexual contact with one of us, we were free to respond, but… At those crude words, I saw it, felt it. Her scent in my nose, her body bare under mine, right as I eased myself inside her. The volcanic hot suck of her drawing me deeper. My cock throbbed like a sore tooth, demanding attention, but I was forced to forge on.
“So you responded appropriately to her overtures? Good. Close the door next time, but… good.” My focus shifted to Kyle. “It seems like we’re making progress with Imogen. I obviously walked in on something today.”
“Oh, so you kissed her as well?” Lucas shot him a dark look. “Did you close the door?”
“Not kissed.” Kyle shook his head. “I… I was about to tell her the truth.” We all went quiet and he began to move restlessly under the constant scrutiny. “She’s worked out that something is going on with us, that we’ve treated her differently to other women that come to the shelter. She wants to know why.”
So we needed to tell her.
Hiding what we were was something every single one of us had been taught from a young age, but at some point, we had to confess to her what we were.
“OK, we’ll work out how we’re going to explain the situation to Imogen together.” The look of relief on each of their faces was a mirror of my own, though I would never dare express it. “But first, we need to deal with Phil. Lucas, any mention of family in the area on his hard drive?”
We all sat down around the table as he retrieved his laptop, mirroring the screen on the data projector. That’s when the long, slow, shitty process of combing through our copy of Phil’s device started.
Let Imogen lead the conversation, I thought that as we walked towards the dining room, lured there by the smell of good food being cooked. Let her decide how much she wanted to know. I wouldn’t initiate anything, but I also wouldn’t hold anything back; and while that decision was arrived at through logic and reason, that wasn’t what I felt right now.
Anticipation.
My heart was beating faster, the bear this fucking close. He wanted, needed, to get out to meet her. The dreams had been enough to keep him at bay, but that was no longer working. He wanted more.
He wanted her.
Her fingers in his fur, her hand smoothing over his head, an indication that she recognised what we were to her, but that’s not how it worked I told him firmly. Imogen making out with Lucas, so readily coming to my bed in my dream could be anything. Lust, boredom, a need to just feel something. Hell, if Elodie were to speak on it, it could be that our mate was simply seeking something to fill the hole Mike left behind.
No, not that, my brain rejected that entirely.
This was fucking killing me, but as I walked into the crowded dining room, I realised that I wasn’t in control here. I couldn’t plan my way through this, meticulously preparing for every step I took towards her. Instead, I was forced to join the line, grab a plate, and shuffle forward with the rest, waiting for her to notice me.
“Lamb…”
Imogen had looked up with a well-practised smile, her tongs at the ready when she saw who she was serving. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, and I sucked her reaction in hungrily. I wasn’t the same as everyone else here. She didn’t stare at them like she did me, and as much as I wanted to just let that happen, restless sounds from the people behind me meant I had to break that spell.
“Yes, please.”
I held out my plate and she deposited a heap of meat on it, blinking the entire time.
“You’re going to want more than that.” Without bothering to get a confirmation, she added more meat to the plate, the smell filling my nose. Roast lamb was tolerable, but when my mate prepared it? It was amazing. She shook her head and then went back to her well-practised patter. “Um, the sides are all here. Help yourself and let me know if there’s anything you’re missing.”
“What about you?” She flushed then, making clear the unintended innuendo. “I meant, when are you getting something to eat?”
“I’ll grab something to eat after everyone else.”
Imogen said that in such an offhand way, and that had my fangs grinding together. Her needs came last, that was maddening enough, but to be so blasé about it meant this was her normal.
“Plate,” I demanded, looking at my sleuth mates. Kyle apologised to the people behind him and reached across, plucking one from the pile, before holding it out.
“You’re what…?” She stared down at it. “Saving me a plate?”
“You need to eat,” I replied with a shrug. “And if you cooked, you deserve more than scraps.”
“You can come and eat with us.”
Her focus shifted then to Lucas, and I caught the moment her gaze softened.
“OK.” She nodded to herself. “Some roast potatoes then, please. They’re really good if I say so myself.”
“They look good.”
Kyle reached out to pluck one from the bowl, but she smacked the back of his hand with her tongs.
“Don’t touch the food with your hands like an animal…” This was it, the moment when she realised, because on some level she already did. I saw it in the way she straightened abruptly, her eyes flicking from me to the rest of my sleuth, but whatever instinct was kicking in, she shoved it back down. “Using the serving spoons like a civilised person.”
But we weren’t civilised. Underneath this skin suit lurked an animal, one whose heart beat for her and only her, and I hoped… I hoped she wouldn’t run screaming when she met him.
As we walked over to an empty table, I couldn’t help but remember. The bear shifter community told its history via stories because the gods knew we couldn’t write it down. There were tales of the trials we went through to earn our mates, the lengths we would go to, and most had a happy ending.
Most.
But at the end of the night, when the shadows grew long and strange things shifted in the darkness, the elders might speak. Of women who rejected the mate bond, who saw what was on offer and shook their head, or worse, left screaming, never to return. They were cautionary tales, ones each boy was told to make clear that nothing was certain. I’d been able to live with it then, the idea that someone I cared about being taken from me a familiar one. But having my family torn from me was different to this. I barely remembered them, and what I did was largely confined to the photographs I’d been given. Imogen, though…
When I looked across a crowded dining room to watch her at work, she stopped mid conversation with one of the workers, somehow sensing my attention. Our eyes locked, and we shared something then. Something complex, a tangled mess of curiosity and fear, wariness and pain, and a whole lot of other things I couldn’t decipher, not without talking to her.
“Tonight,” I said, to my sleuth mates, to myself. “We tell Imogen what we are tonight.”
Chapter 38
Imogen
Care Bear stare, that’s what my friends at school used to call dudes who’d stare at you across a crowded room but never actually approach. I was getting that from Asher right now, his gaze almost as tangible as physical touch. It dragged me away from my job, from what I was doing, stopping me midway through a conversation with one of the clients, having me pause when I was depositing meat on people’s plates.
Making me constantly aware of him.
As if that wasn’t always the case.
