Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 3) (8 page)

Vera was happy—or as happy as she could be laying territory right alongside a wolf’s.

Eat, sleep, hunt. This was the cadence of her life during the day, but at nights, Tobias returned home. It had been fourteen sunrises since she’d finally become herself again. Since she’d finally become the fox she was meant to be. She was perfectly happy except for one thing.

Tobias looked at her differently now, as if he was waiting for her fragile human body to come back. And with each passing day, the worry in his eyes grew deeper. He even smelled sad. She didn’t want him to be sad. She loved Tobias. He was her mate, and she wanted to please him.

She trotted through the mud along a creek bank in Wolfland. She knew she was still in his territory because his smell coated this place. She didn’t understand a word he said—Link—but Tobias’s words were clear. He had told her she was to stay in Wolfland or be locked in the shed behind the big cabin where Tobias slept at night. She hated cages so she minded the rules.

Splaying her legs, she lapped water from a wave on the bank. Her hackles rose when she smelled him. Link. Dominance and fur. If her sense of smell didn’t pick him up, her sense of hearing sure did. Crazy growler.

With the soft slap of his paws against the mud, he loped along the bank on the other side of the creek and took a drink right across from her, his bright gray eyes on her. He did this a lot. Checked on her. She used to attack, but it did no good and only exhausted her. Nothing seemed to hurt Link. Head lowered, he gave her one last look, then trotted back the way he’d come.

It was late in the day and the sun was setting on the horizon, so Vera made her way through the trails she’d been creating back toward Link’s cabin, and more importantly, to the shed beyond. That was home. Oh, sure, the woods should’ve been home for a wild thing like her, but Tobias slept in the shed, and he was really the meaning of home.

Winding around the lush greenery, she inhaled deeply and was rewarded with the faint scent of her mate. A sharp human smell collided with fur and dominance, and while the human in him had scared her at first, now she adored it. That human part of him had hunted
Jonathan
. The thought of the evil man curled her lips over her teeth. Tobias had avenged her and punished that monster for what he’d done. Tobias was a good mate.

She froze when she saw him. Tobias was sitting in the old chair in front of the shed, removing his muddy boots as if he wanted to keep the inside of his den free of dirt. Silly human. The dirt smell was the best part of a den. But when she lifted her gaze to his face, she flattened her ears back and hunched low to the ground. His eyes looked sad again. His brown hair was mussed on top, as if he’d been running his hands through it like he did when he was stressed, and the vibrant green in his eyes had dulled. He was a big, brawny human, but he kicked his second muddy boot off, rested his elbows on his knees, and hunched forward, looking utterly exhausted. He didn’t look at her, though he had to have known she was there. He had big senses for a human. Instead, he stared off into the woods beside the shed with a troubled look.

She slunk forward, tail and ears low. Poor human mate. If he pet her, he would feel better, and so would she.

But when she rubbed her back under his limp fingertips, he flinched away and leaned back in his chair instead. He dragged his gaze to hers, but where they usually sparked with greeting, they were hard and cold.

“Vera, I’ve been patient. I have. But you’re hurting me.”

Hurting him? No, no, no, she didn’t want to hurt him. Not Tobias. Not the man who kept her safe from Jonathan.

She tried to rub her back under his fingertips again, but he crossed his arms over his chest.

“It’s been two weeks, and you haven’t Changed back. You haven’t shared your body with your human side, and I get it. You were on that medicine for a long time, and your fox needed time out in the open after being suppressed for so long.” Tobias lifted a dark eyebrow. “But we have work to do.”

She cowered on her belly. Work?

“You have to make medicine for me and my brothers.”

Oh. Disappointment slashed through her chest and drew a small whimper of pain from her lips.

Tobias leaned forward, elbows on his knees again. “But more than that, you have work to do with me. I just got you, and I need more than your animal. Do you understand?”

No, she didn’t understand. This was all she had to give. She was a fox. What else could he possibly want from her?

“Change back, Vera.”

She skittered back a few steps and perked her ears. Perhaps she’d heard wrong or misunderstood.

“Change back,” he repeated in a stern voice.

That word sounded familiar as it brushed across her ears. Familiar and terrifying.

“You aren’t just a fox, and deep down, you know it. You’re human, too.”

Vera snarled at that insult.

“Can’t you feel her? You aren’t my mate, fox. Your human side is.”

She huffed at the stabbing pain in her chest. Not his mate? She was clever and brave and would defend him. She had brought him two rabbits already as a gift, and he’d been happy. He’d smiled. His eyes had lit up at how well she’d done. She was worthy, so why was he saying she wasn’t enough? Human side…Vera narrowed her eyes at him. He was the one hurting her now. She was no fucking human. Humans were horrid creatures with dark hearts. But not Tobias…

Confused, she backed toward the brush. “Please,” a weak voice whispered. Vera made a panicked sound and turned around, scanning the woods for the woman who’d said that. “Let me out.”

Vera bolted for the woods. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t true! Tobias had messed with her head. She was a fox. Fox, fox, fox, nothing more because she didn’t need to be anything more. She was enough!

Anger blazed through her that he’d done this. Her mate had rejected petting her, rejected that she was his mate. Rejected her! After everything! She’d gotten rid of that weak human side for him! So she could be good enough and strong enough for a mate like Tobias. Share? Share herself? Share her skin?

He was asking her to tuck herself back, to suppress herself so the mewling human she had finally ridded herself of could come back. It wasn’t fair.

Churning emotion washed over her in dark waves as she fled. Fled the cabin, fled Wolfland, fled
him
.

How could Tobias ask her to do something so painful? Vera wanted to please him and take care of him, but this was too much. She would hunt a rabbit for him, and he would smile again and remember how important she was, just like this.

****

Tobias chucked his mud-covered boot into the woods. “Fuck!” he barked out.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He’d never imagined Vera’s fox would take over completely. She had an entirely different personality than Vera, as if they’d been broken apart. Or maybe that’s what happened to Turned shifters. Turning humans had been against the law until Clayton thought he was above the rules and had a fox put in Vera.

Her fox was loyal and strong, ferocious, and would attack anyone or anything no matter how dangerous they were. Hell, Link had been bitten a hundred times at least that first week she lived here, and he was a freaking half-crazed werewolf, three times her size when he was Changed. She was brave like Vera, but that was where their similarities ended.

He lay on the cot inside the shed every night, trying to imagine how it was for her. One person with two beings battling for one body. He and his bear were separate but compromise was easy. They could both see the advantage of being both human and animal. Vera’s fox was denying her human side completely.

Link sauntered out of the cabin in front of him, pulling on a threadbare gray sweater. “Anything?”

Tobias gritted his teeth and shook his head. “She won’t respond to me being harsh. She runs as soon as the conversation goes there.”

“Maybe lock her inside until she Changes.”

“She’ll shred your place.”

Link’s chuckle morphed into a snarl, then dipped to a chuckle again. Crazy. “She’ll shred my shed. That’s funny right there.”

Tobias let off a warning growl and snapped a twig in half between his fingers. Nothing was funny right now. “Link, what am I supposed to do? I didn’t know it would be like this. I miss her so fucking bad, and I know it doesn’t make sense because she was only human with me for a day, but fuck it all, I’m burning, man. Every night is worse than the last.”

Link crouched and subtly turned his chin, exposing his neck. Tobias swallowed hard and stifled the growl he hadn’t realized he was still emitting.

“I hear it’s different when you claim a woman. Every time I visit Ian and Elyse, you can almost see their bond. And I saw Lena and Jenner together at my old cabin. Their bond is the same damn way. They ache when they’re apart, you understand? It’s normal.”

Tobias huffed a humorless laugh and glared off into the woods where Vera had disappeared. She was stuck as an animal, hibernation was six weeks away, Link was going mad, Ian was going to have to put him down, and Tobias’s own damned father was running experiments on Perl Island on shifters he’d sworn to protect. “Nothing about this is normal.”

“Maybe we should tell your brothers about Clayton,” Link said low, as if he could read the train of Tobias’s thoughts.

“What would that solve? They already know our dad is an asshole, and that would lead to more questions. And with Vera Changed, possibly permanently, there is no guarantee we can even get our hands on the medicine. I need more time before I involve them.”

“That’s not how family works, Silver. They could help you through this.”

“Link, you come from a family of psychopaths. You have no gauge on normal family dynamics. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“And I get what you’re saying, man, I really do, but what’s broken between me and my brothers won’t be fixed with a phone call.”

“Well, what will it take to fix it?”

“The cure. If I can do this for them, they can forgive me for all the shit.”

“And you can forgive yourself.”

Tobias inhaled deeply and sat back in the creaking chair, gaze steady on Link. “Yeah. That too.”

“Well,” Link said, standing, “I don’t know what to tell you. Vera seems like a hard-headed vixen, and if she doesn’t respond to you ordering the Change, then it’s got to be her decision.”

“And if she decides never to go human again?”

Link lifted one shoulder with a sympathetic look in his eyes. “Then get used to the ache.” Link turned and strode for his cabin. “I’m going into town. You’re on shift with Vera.”

“Work?”

“Not this time. I caught some fish, and I’m going to repay a debt.”

He was onto Link. He had been replacing the food his brothers had stolen from the good people of Galena when they’d been alive. “You know,” Tobias said to his back, “you don’t have to make up for every wrong thing your brothers did.”

“I’ll leave this world easier if I do,” he called over his shoulder. Just before Link disappeared around the corner of the house, he skidded to a stop on the loose fallen leaves and lifted his chin. His nostrils flared as his eyes zeroed in on the woods. “Tobias,” he whispered, warning in his voice.

At that moment, the wind shifted and Tobias smelled it, too. Fur and man and a scent that he would never forget in this lifetime or the next.

Clayton.

Tobias pulled his shirt over his head as he jogged toward Link, who was doing the same. Together, they bolted around to the front of the cabin just in time to see Tobias’s father slip silently from the woods.

He wore only a pair of loose, black sweatpants. His hair shone silver in the fading sunlight, matching the silver sheen of the scars on his face. Scars he’d gotten when he was an enforcer many years ago, before Tobias and his brothers took over the family business.

“Clayton,” Tobias ground out.

“Ah, you have figured it out then.” He had the same deep gravelly voice Tobias remembered, same careless tone.

“Why have you called yourself Clayton Reed all these years when your name is David Silver? Or is that just what you told us it was? You weren’t very good with sharing details.”

“The Clayton is a high ranking position, not a name. Someday, a long time from now, I’ll retire as the head of Shifter Enforcement, and one of you will take over as the Clayton. And then your name will no longer matter either.”

His torso was gnarled with muscle and crisscrossed with scars, and if there was any doubt about why Clayton was here, well, his lack of clothes put those questions to rest.

Tobias wanted to hear him say it out loud, though. Wanted to hear the betrayal with his own ears. “What are you doing here?”

Clayton canted his head. His narrowed eyes were the exact same color of Tobias’s, a fact that he hated every time he looked in the mirror. “I’m here for her. I told you if you didn’t bring her back, I’d issue a kill order.”

Link snarled behind him, but Tobias shook his head, then leaned against the side of the log cabin. “She’s not here.”

Dad came to a stop ten yards away. “Of course she is. I can smell her scent on everything. She’s saturated this place.”