Bearing Hearts (City Shifters: the Den Book 2) (3 page)

Sasha tried to take her out of his grip, shaking his head. "Not like this."

Axel shoved him away, teeth bared. "The code, right? She's one of mine, isn't that what you said? If she's one of mine, then she's mine to deal with. Don't interfere."

The Russian's expression darkened but he retreated. His lip curled in a hint of a snarl as he lit another cigarette, pointing the lighter at Axel. "Tread lightly, white bear. She will not forget this."

Then he strode over to the pool to hand towels to the kids and help them out of the water. Kaiser watched with narrowed eyes as Axel shoved past and strode into the gym. He just needed to get Lucy into his den, get her warm and cleaned up and fed, and then they could figure out what the hell to do. He just needed to talk to her. Lucy squalled and wormed around, still trying to get free, and once again the half dozen guys working out paused to glanced over. Luckily they were all shifters and didn't think it was out of the ordinary that he walked in carrying a white fox. One of the wolves sniffed the air as he studied the fox, and Axel growled, loudly enough it vibrated through the ground, and the wolf suddenly grew a lot more interested in the speed bag in front of him.

Axel headed up the stairs, trying to breathe normally, though he gave Lucy a tiny shake. "Cut it out. You're caught. I just want to talk."

Part of him regretted it, that he'd lost his temper and scared her so much she went into a shift, but the rest of him focused on keeping her safe. She walked into traffic without paying attention, tripped all over herself, would have stood out there until she froze solid. The ridiculous girl would get herself killed.

He stopped mid-step and stared at the landing in front of him, Malcolm's door to the side. She would get herself killed, and maybe had gotten Ragnar killed. If she was such a disaster just walking around in her everyday life, maybe her sneaking around on 'errands' got Ragnar caught. Axel shoved away the sudden anger and took the next two flights of stairs at double-time.

He shouldered open the door to his apartment on the fifth floor, ignoring the blood dripping from his hand and forearm from where she'd clawed him, and locked the door behind him. He kicked off his shoes and finally exhaled some of the rage and grief that threatened to consume him. He held the fox up at eye height, though he kept her far enough away she couldn't scratch his face, and struggled to maintain control as the wide blue eyes stared back at him. "I did not mean to scare you. I won't hurt you. I just want to talk to you, then you can go."

She shivered and shook, making adorably angry little snarling noises, and his chest tightened. He felt bad, though. He didn't mind terrifying strangers and friends alike. It was one of the benefits of being the largest land predator in the world. Polar bears were supposed to intimidate and terrify. They lived alone, hunted alone, slept alone. Maybe died alone. The first hint of a knot formed in his throat. And that was exactly why they couldn't have had this conversation anywhere else.

He took a deep breath, a calming breath, and closed his eyes. He needed to know what happened to Ragnar, what their relationship was. And getting her to talk would require patience. He forced himself to look at her. "I'll put you down. Change back. Then we talk. Got it?"

Another cute little growl, then the fox nodded. She blinked at him, more owlish than anything, and her legs churned the air as she tried to run.

Axel gave her one last dark look and she went still. "If you run and hide, I will find you and drag you out again. I will do that as many times as it takes. You will not win."

Then he dropped her on the couch and walked to the kitchen to rinse the blood off his arm. She'd done a number on his hand. He clenched his jaws as he cleaned the wounds, although they'd started to heal already. He didn't mind the pain, but the odd pressure of guilt made his chest hurt. He'd scared her. She remained motionless on the couch, and he wrapped a towel around his hand before heading to the fridge. Kaiser said she'd been hungry. And since she was Axel's, under the code, he was responsible for feeding her. He hoped she liked grilled cheese, because that was all he knew how to make.

I
crouched
next to a pillow on the couch as I watched him move through the apartment to the kitchen, and debated what to do. Turning human right away didn't seem like a good idea, not when Axel was so unpredictable. But when he started making sandwiches, I lifted my head to peer at him. What a weird dude. So enraged he almost shifted to bear form and chased me through the backyard when I didn't do what he said, but then he dragged me into his den and made me dinner. Foxes couldn't really frown, but I gave it a shot.

An overstuffed pillow, a little smelly and leaking stuffing from a ragged corner, provided a convenient cover as I slid across the couch. I felt safer as a fox, even though I'd never had a problem with spontaneous shifting before. Since Ragnar died, everything felt haywire. My emotions were all over the place, I couldn't sleep, and even my joints and muscles felt wrong. Everything was just — off. It made cross-country travel a real bitch, especially on rattletrap buses or when sneaking onto empty freight trains.

Axel slung a pan onto the stove and I jumped, wiggling farther under the pillow until only my fluffy tail trailed out. Well, my nose and paws and half of my body hung outside the pillow, but I felt safer anyway. He took a deep, irritated breath from the kitchen, but the loud noises stopped. He moved slower, more deliberately, and the scent of grilled cheese filled the apartment. My stomach growled. We'd had sandwiches and soup with the kids before swimming, but that was hours earlier. And I'd excused myself to barf it all up almost as soon as I finished chewing. Something about the tomato soup struck my brain as awful and it wouldn't stay down.

I lay flat under the pillow and closed my eyes, trying to steel myself against a tsunami of grief that welled up inside me. When I thought of Ragnar, it felt like drowning. But I couldn't afford to drown around Axel. The fox might be intrigued enough by him to want to explore the whole chase-me-catch-me game, but the rest of me had other business to take care of. We couldn't be weak. We needed to focus. Which happened to be one of my least favorite things. Ragnar had been good at focusing. He made me better at it, too, even if it was hard to remember sometimes.

I waited until Axel turned his back before shifting to human, and slid off the couch as I tried to wrap myself up in the ragged blanket that was hanging on the back. He glanced at me and his eyebrows rose as I flipped the hair out of my face and struggled to maintain some dignity. "My clothes are upstairs in Kaiser's apartment. I'd like to get them."

He moved across the apartment, lumbering like a bear, and threw open the door to another room. He flipped on a light and started rattling drawers, then returned to the living room and nodded at the door. "Clothes in there. Get dressed."

I waited until he moved all the way into the kitchen before shuffling toward the room, though I tripped on my blanket toga. I might have flashed him some of the lady business. My cheeks heated as I straightened my shoulders. He watched silently from the kitchen, eyebrow arched, and a look of disbelief or maybe concern on his face. I cleared my throat and marched toward the spare room without another word.

He sighed and continued making sandwiches, and I shut the door.

Very little furniture filled the guest room — a bare queen size mattress on a metal frame, a battered chest of drawers with nothing on the top, and a solitary unmatched nightstand next to the bed. A pile of sweats, t-shirts, and sweatshirts occupied a corner of the mattress — no doubt the clothes he mentioned. All his clothes, though. All gray and well-worn, soft and cuddly. But way too big.

Even with him and lunch waiting out in the kitchen, I couldn't walk back out immediately. I needed a little time to gather my thoughts. I folded the couch blanket on the foot of the bed and wandered into the bathroom, hoping to rinse off from swimming and wrestling through snow and muck. And stopped short in the doorway. The bathroom vanity and cupboards held no toiletries, not even a bar of soap, and a single rough towel. I sighed. Definitely a guy's apartment. Maybe I could still escape up to Kaiser and Josie's apartment for a shower later.

I still stood in the shower and let the hot water wash away some of the stress and pain of the first part of the day. Axel remained a mystery, but I didn't know if there was time to solve him on the way to avenging his brother's death. Contacting Smith had to be my priority. Once I knew what the investigator knew, and after we had a chance to make a plan, I could worry about Axel and what it meant that the fox wanted him in our lives. He wasn't Ragnar, but he was close.

But first we had to deal with BadCreek and our contact there. Axel knocked me down before I could speak with Nick. I rubbed my hair under the hot water, frowning as I reviewed the events of the morning. Axel had been watching the park — either me or Nick. If he was hunting Nick, then I definitely couldn't afford to clue him in on Nick's work with Ragnar and me. Unless Nick wasn't the person Ragnar thought he was. Maybe Nick betrayed us. Betrayed Ragnar. Got him killed.

I went still in the shower, staring at the mildewed tiles but not seeing them. It would have been quite a promotion, after all, if Nick handed over a couple of free-lancers spying on the pack. And from what he’d said, they were always looking for new genetic input. BadCreek didn’t have any bears or foxes, according to Nick.

The water went cold before I forced myself to move, to turn off the spray and pat myself dry with the sandpaper towel, though I felt like everything moved out of sync. If Nick betrayed us, then revealing that I survived would just draw another attack to me and possibly to Axel and Josie and Kaiser and the kids. And that would be poor repayment for their help.

I rolled my hair into a bun to keep it out of the way and frowned at the pile of too-large clothes. No underwear. Typical. Like any girl wanted to go commando in giant, borrowed sweatpants. I fished through the dresser drawers for anything small enough to be decent, and came up with a ragged pair of stretchy pants and a pair of briefs. Then I layered the stretchy pants with sweatpants and a couple of t-shirts and sweatshirts until I felt like a marshmallow man. Awesome.

When I finally screwed up the courage to shuffle back into the living rom, Axel blinked when he caught sight of me. I flushed and hitched up the pants every third step so I wouldn’t trip on the trailing cuffs. "You need more guest towels."

"I don't have guests," he said, unmoving as he watched me. I stood there and watched him a little warily, waiting for him to say or do something. But he just stood there, a skillet in one hand and a spatula in the other, as he studied me.

I fussed with the sweatpants, trying to tie the drawstring a little so the pants wouldn't sag quite so much. "So, what the hell is this code you guys were talking about?"

He frowned a little. "What?"

"The code. You and the Russian said something about a code." I wandered over to the table so I could at least sit down and not worry about mooning him. "And since it sounded like it had something to do with me, I'd appreciate an overview. If you don't mind."

Making demands of a polar bear probably wasn't the smartest thing I'd done that week, but it wasn't the dumbest by a long shot. He finally started moving, putting the skillet and spatula in the sink and carrying two plates over to the table. He put one down in front of me and just looked at me, still frowning, then went to the fridge and retrieved juice, protein shakes, beers, and a bottle of water. Apparently all of the beverages he owned. I had to hide my smile with a hand as he fished for clean glasses in the cupboard, and finally gave up and used two red plastic party cups instead.

He finally eased into the chair across from the lawn chair I occupied, and he pointed at the three grilled cheese sandwiches on my plate. "You eat. I'll talk."

I nodded and picked up a triangle, glad he at least knew enough to cut the sandwich diagonally and not vertically. "Okay. But no getting mad if I have questions, right?"

Axel made a grumbly bear noise, part irritation and part acquiescence, but pointed a beer bottle at me. "Fine. But I have my own questions for you, and you'd better be honest. Agreed?"

We frowned at each other for a long time before I finished chewing and gave up. "Agreed. But there may be some things I can't answer."

The polar bear took a deep breath and rubbed his face. "The code. The bears have a code that outlines acceptable behavior, as well as obligations, toward family and clan and friends. There aren't many bears left in the world, and we have enough honor to look after our own. When Sasha brought you back here to feed you, he invoked the code because I didn't."

I started on the next half of the sandwich, picking off the crust. "But I'm not family or a friend or anything. I'm just a stranger, and I'm not even a bear."

"You were Ragnar's," he said. Axel tripped over his brother's name, as if he hadn't said it in so long he'd forgotten the sound of it. My chewing slowed as a knot formed in my throat. Axel frowned at his hands where they rested on the table. "You belonged to my brother, so you're family. You'll always be family. It's my job to protect you, take care of you, make sure you're safe. Sasha reminded me of that. So did Kaiser."

"First, I didn't
belong
to Ragnar." And I stumbled over his name, too, but not because of unfamiliarity. Grief worked the same, and my voice cracked. I cleared my throat. "We worked together, yes, and we were... close. We had a personal relationship as well. That's none of your business, however. And that was between Ragnar and me. So don't feel like you owe me anything or need to follow me around."

"It's the code," he said, no expression crossing his face. "It's the only thing that gives us order. I can't break it."

"So the code told you to chase me around the backyard and yell at me?"

Red rushed into his cheeks but he only frowned more. "The code also says you should listen to me."

"I don't believe that for a second." I snorted and shook my head. "Let me see a copy of this code."

"It isn't written. It's tradition. That's just how things are." He scowled at one of his sandwiches, demolishing it in two bites. "So I shouldn't have lost my temper, and I'm sorry that I did, but you were standing there in the cold and snow, soaking wet, half-
naked
, and Kaiser and Sasha could
see
you, and —"

"So?" I rested my elbows on the table and wondered what the hell had happened in my life to get me to that moment. "I was in a bathing suit. Playing with the kids in a pool. And the only reason I had to stand there so long was because you blocked the door. Me being in a bathing suit isn't justification for you to be an asshole, even if you're —"

I cut off as my heart stumbled and the fox went still. Everything he said sounded like a jealous mate. And the fox thought he smelled a little like a mate, too. Like
my
mate. So I took a deep breath and chose my words carefully. "I'm not looking to stay in this city. I have a little bit of business to finish up with the guy who contracted Ragnar and me, and then I'll be on my way."

His blue eyes darkened but he only pointed at my plate and the remaining half sandwich and pile of crusts. "Are you finished?"

I nodded, studying him as he finished off the sandwich and even ate the crusts. His eyes were darker than Ragnar's, and his nose a little more crooked. He had a single dimple in his cheek that appeared when he chewed and frowned, and maybe when he smiled — although I hadn't seen him smile yet. The fox suggested a few things we could do to change that, and I banished the thought, concentrating on the bottle of water so Axel wouldn't see me blush. He wore his hair longer, a tangled mess almost to his shoulders, while Ragnar had shaved his head. I wondered if Axel had the same kinds of tattoos, or as many of them.

He glanced up and caught me watching him. Axel pounded one of the beers and reached for a second. "Why are you here?"

"Like I said, I have some business to wrap up with the guy who hired us. That's it." I sat back in the lawn chair but froze as the legs wobbled and the plastic mesh creaked. If it collapsed under me, I would absolutely die of shame. I'd gained a bit of weight in the past month, but not enough to justify breaking furniture. Even if it was shitty lawn furniture.

"Who hired you?"

"A private investigator. He's based out of here."

"What's his name?"

I picked at a loose thread on the borrowed pants. "That's not really relevant."

"It is to me." Axel peeled the label off the beer bottle as he frowned at me. "There's a lot of weird shit going on in the city, and you might end up in the middle of something dangerous without realizing it."

"I figured it was dangerous enough when Ragnar was killed." The moment the words escaped, I regretted them. He didn't need to be reminded that his brother was killed. Just like I didn't need to remember how Ragnar died. I scrubbed my face and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry. But I know that it's dangerous. Believe me."

"Who are you working for?" Axel ran his hand through his hair, his expression difficult to read. He wasn't nearly as open or expressive as Ragnar had been.

"His name is Smith, and that's all I'm going to say." Something in his eyes told me he knew the guy, and my heart sank. So maybe Axel would be smack dab in the middle of the same business I needed to wrap up. The less time I spent around him, the better. When Axel started to ask something more, I held up my hand to cut him off and tried to mimic Ragnar's decisive, no-bullshit tone. "Smith pays me for my discretion."

His left eye started to twitch. "Something to do with BadCreek, I'm guessing."

When I said nothing, he picked up the empty plates and carried them to the sink, dropping them in, and turned to face me as he leaned back against the counter. The hem of his t-shirt rode up and I spotted a shadow of ink on his side and abs. So definitely tattooed. Axel waited until the silence stretched and I wanted to jump out of my own skin before he spoke, studying his nails without interest. "We work with Smith a great deal. We've had a lot of experience with BadCreek recently. Josie and her kids were nearly kidnapped by them. And we were right in the middle of trying to capture one of their betas this morning when you distracted me."