Once Upon a Shifter (98 page)

Katie sighed and turned her attention back to her book. No matter how much she might wish for it, this wasn’t a fairy tale, and Jake wasn’t a prince who would sweep her away. She’d turned her back on who was years ago, and for a reason.

***

Jake slouched into one bedroom apartment he shared with Rafe, barely bothering to prop his guitar in the corner before heading to the battered, saggy couch to flop down. The bedroom was his, thanks to a little family assistance with the rent, but the bed seemed too far away. Rafe followed, counting the money from the day’s work. Meanwhile Jake sprawled out and stared at the ceiling, letting one arm dangle onto the colorless shag carpet.

“...barely worth going out there,” Rafe was saying. “We didn’t even make fifty bucks.”

Jake made a noncommittal noise.

“I wonder why?” Rafe continued. “I mean, who wouldn’t toss out a buck or two to hear a stirring rendition of ‘All Out of Love’ or that rockin’ old classic, ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’? People want
happy
music on their street corners.” He stood over Jake and kicked his foot. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, it was a bad day.” Every day had been a bad day since he last saw Katie. She was gone. She wasn’t answering her cell phone. All he could get Anna to tell him was that she left town. She wouldn’t tell him where Katie went, or if she’d be back. Gone.

“You’re killin’ me, man. If you don’t snap out of this, we’re gonna starve.” Rafe put the cash in the canister in the top cabinet and came back to sit on the coffee table in front of Jake. “I know it sucks. I’m sorry.”

“I chased her away,” Jake said. “I shouldn’t have gone to see her at the diner, I should’ve let her have some space.” He’d gone over it a thousand times. If only.

“As long as you’re not taking it lying down—oh wait.”

Jake grunted.

“Look, you don’t know she’s gone forever, right?” Rafe shoved his knee and Jake fought the urge to growl at him. The bear in him wanted Rafe to just leave him alone to sulk, while Rafe’s wolf wanted to nudge and push and try to comfort.

“I don’t know. What if she is?” Jake snapped. He was overreacting. He’d stopped by Katie’s apartment building to try and leave a note, and the building super said she was out of town. He didn’t say she’d moved. He would’ve said if she’d moved away, wouldn’t he?

“All I’m saying is, it’s been a few days. Which, let’s be honest, is like three times longer than you actually
knew
her, man. Maybe you should—”

“You don’t understand!” Jake rolled over on the couch facing the back. He knew he was sulking, but damn it, Katie was worth sulking over.

“Okay,” Rafe said, “maybe I don’t. But you’re throwing a fit for nothing. You can find her literally any time you want to.” When Jake didn’t respond, he pushed on. “If you were an alpha—”

“I’m not. And I’m not gonna be,” Jake muttered.

Rafe huffed out his breath. “I’ve stayed quiet for a really long time here, Jake. What is your deal?” From the sound of things, he was pacing. “Do you have any idea what I’d give to be an alpha? Or at least something other than the very bottom rung? I can’t go home because my brothers will tear me to shreds, but you? You can’t go home because you don’t want to grow the hell up.”

“But I—”

“Don’t bother. I know. You’re not ready. It wasn’t supposed to be you. I’ve heard it all. What it all comes down to is you’re either too lazy or too afraid to do what needs doing.”

“I am not!” Jake rolled over and sat up. If he became an alpha, Katie would hate him more than ever. Whatever had happened to her, whoever had hurt her, she blamed alpha bears. In a way, he supposed that was right. An alpha should have kept her safe.

“Then what?”

“She’d hate me if I did!” He leaned over and scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “That’s why. She’s got some kind of wrong idea about how alphas treat kinfolk, I dunno. She hates them.”

Rafe let out a low whistle. “Is that why she left?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

That seemed to stop Rafe cold. At least he got quiet for a few minutes anyway. Jake heaved a sigh and went to their tiny refrigerator and grabbed two cans of beer and handed one to Rafe before flopping down again. They drank in silence.

“What if you could change her mind?” Rafe said suddenly.

“I tried—”

“No, I mean really,” Rafe said.

It didn’t make sense, on the surface. He didn’t want to be an alpha, and Katie hated alphas. He remembered what she said, about being a brood mare. Were there still alphas out there that treated kinfolk that way? It was archaic, not to mention barbaric. What if she’d just grown up with the wrong ideas, the wrong type of bears? “You mean, show her. How it’s supposed to be.”

“Yeah! Maybe that’s part of the destiny, Jake. Maybe
you
have to get your own shit figured out before you get your happy ending.”

Jake took a long swallow of beer, feeling the little bit of warmth hit his stomach. “What if you’re wrong? There’s no going back. If I accept the power, that’s it. What if it makes it worse?”

“I told you already, man. If it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t destiny.” Rafe clapped him on the shoulder. “You really wanna spend the rest of your life playing guitar on the sidewalk? Look. Worst case scenario? You get to go home. You get to have your family back.”

“I gotta think about it,” Jake said. Katie was worthy of an alpha, of that much was he was sure. He just wasn’t sure he was worthy of being her alpha, and undoing all of the wrong things she’d learned.

Chapter Six

Gran’s house in Winslow was really more of a cabin, tucked away in the deep woods halfway up a mountain west of Boulder. Katie woke up in the same small cozy bedroom that had been hers whenever she visited since she was old enough to sleep in a bed. Even the quilts were the same. Time stood still here. She closed her eyes and snuggled back into the covers. The light outside her window said her body was on Chicago time and it was too early to get up.

The cabin had always been a refuge for Katie. She’d spent a whole summer here in high school after a particularly bad fight with Mom. She’d learned how to garden, how to can food. As long as she could remember, Gran had been on her own up here. Grandpa died before Katie was born, and Katie didn’t know much about him, apart from a few pictures around the house.

She was just about to close her eyes for a little more sleep when the smell of coffee drifted into her room. Pans rattled in the kitchen. Guess not everybody in the house thought it was too early to get up. Katie sat up and put on her slippers and robe, stopping to make her bed because if she didn’t, Gran would come in and do it when she wasn’t looking.

Early morning sunlight streamed through the kitchen windows and the old percolator bubbled away on the stove. Gran was half-hidden behind the open refrigerator door, muttering to herself and rooting around.

“Morning,” Katie said.

“Thought I heard you moving around,” Gran said. “You sleep good?”

“Always do here.” Katie checked on the coffee and got a blue ceramic mug down out of the cupboard. The kitchen never changed either—everything was always in the same place.

“Thought I’d make us some pancakes for breakfast. Got some fresh blueberries this morning. Sound good?” Gran came out of the refrigerator with eggs and buttermilk. She was a little shorter and stouter than Katie, iron gray hair already braided and wrapped around her head. Katie could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen it down, long and flowing to her waist.

“You don’t have to do all that for me.”

“Who said I was?” Gran gathered the rest of her ingredients on the counter and pulled out the griddle. “You don’t have to eat ‘em, but I need some blueberry pancakes this morning.”

Katie laughed. “Okay. Anything I can do?” She already knew what Gran would say and was reaching for the plates when Gran told her to set the table. They ate in the sun-warmed kitchen and lingered over their coffee. The contentment Katie felt was bone-deep, catching her by surprise.
Only one thing’s missing
, insisted her traitorous brain, supplying the image of Jake taking up the third chair, making Gran laugh with his deep, sweet voice.

“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?” Gran asked, interrupting her daydream.

Katie hid behind her mug and took a drink. “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”

“Cause you always run here when you’re upset.” Gran’s shrewd blue eyes pinned her to her chair. “You hear from your mom?”

“No. I don’t think she’s forgiven me for leaving home yet.” Katie put down the mug, and ran her fork through the remains of the syrup on her plate, watching it form patterns. “I met a guy,” she admitted.

Gran growled. “Did he hurt my little girl?” It was easy to forget that Gran was once one of the biggest, scariest she-bears in the county, and still could be if someone messed with her cubs. “Was he no good?”

“He was great,” Katie sighed. “But—I think he was one of Mom’s finds.”

“Bear?”

Katie nodded.

“Alpha?”

Katie nodded again, then added, “Well, he said he wasn’t, just that he was supposed to be.”

“Hmph.” Gran reached out and lifted Katie’s chin to make her look up. “Too old for you? That’s your mom’s style.”

“No, he was... Gran, he was too good to be true. He’s
beautiful
, and funny, and he’s a musician. And he tried to tell me he loves me, but...”

“Good lord, Kathleen Marie, what are you doing in my kitchen then? Go get him!” Gran got up and started clearing the table, muttering something about youth being wasted on the young.

“But—Gran, if he’s an alpha, you know what means. Babies every year until I’m worn out and done for. I don’t want to be a second-class citizen again. There’s too much I want to do with my life!” Tears stung her eyes and she opened them wide to keep the tears from falling.

Gran shut off the water and turned around, leaning against the sink. “Katie, I have done my best to stay quiet about how my daughter raised you, out of respect for her and your dad, wherever he is. I can’t do it anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I never should have let her go off to live in that little backwater, backwards shithole of a town, is what I mean.”

Katie’s eyes widened. Gran never said anything stronger than “damn.”

“I’m sorry,” Gran said. “I love Sarah, but she made a lot of bad choices, and dragged you right along with them.” She came over and sat down. “Remember when you were little, you used to ask me about your granddad?”

Katie nodded. “Mom yelled at me once about it, she said you didn’t want to talk about him.” She’d stopped asking, but had always wondered. There was just one thing she knew, that her mom had told her “All she said was that he was an alpha.”

“They didn’t get along so well, Sarah and Henry. Made the same stubborn stock, I suppose.” Gran sighed. “Your mom thought I didn’t want to talk about him because I was angry, but she was wrong. I didn’t talk about him because it hurt too much. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.” Katie reached out and covered Gran’s hands with hers.

“No, I do. You need to know the truth.” Gran turned her hands over and clasped Katie’s. “Your granddad was an alpha bear, and I was his mate, you know that much. Your mom never understood what it really meant, though. We were a fated match, do you know what that means?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think you do,” Gran said. “We were a part of each other, right from the start. I wasn’t a full shifter then, Katie. I was kinfolk, just like you and your mom.”

“But I thought—but you’re—”

“I am now. Henry loved the bear part of him, of his life, and it like to broke his heart that I couldn’t share it with him. So when he asked if I wanted to join him, I said yes. Never looked back, never regretted it, but I think it made Sarah feel shut out. That much, I do regret.

“Thing is, Katie, he didn’t turn me because he thought I was something less than he was. I know that’s what your mom thought, and I know that’s what that trashy den full of scavengers in Boone think too.” Gran squeezed her hands then let go. “I should never have let you grow up thinking that. I should have interfered. I’m sorry.”

Katie tried to wrap her brain around everything she’d heard. “I don’t understand.”

“You and your mom both oughta be treated like princesses. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Deep down your mom knows that. I suppose that’s why she figured getting you mated off to an alpha—since she couldn’t do it herself—was the best way to manage that. But she picked the worst town in Colorado to try it.” Gran’s lip curled up.

“Jake thinks—” Katie swallowed and stared at her hands. “That’s his name, Jake. He thinks we’re destined to be mates.”

“What do
you
think?” Gran asked.

“I don’t know! What does it mean, if we are?”

“I loved your granddad more than anything in the world. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for him, and I know he felt the same about me. You’ll know. There’ll be a voice inside of you that says, ‘Him. That one.’ Some of the stories say you’re two halves of the same soul, maybe that’s true. I just know it’s as deep a love as there is, and nothing can stop it.” Gran stopped, her eyes overbright before she looked away. She cleared her throat and shook off Katie’s concerned hand. “If this Jake is meant to be with you, then you’ll work it out. Whatever you want to do with your life, that’s what he’ll want, traditions be damned.”

Katie couldn’t help but smile a little at Gran’s boundless optimism, but was she right?

***

It was like he’d been living in a dim twilight and someone reached inside and switched on a light.

Everything in Jake’s world was bigger, brighter than it had been before. His senses, already keen, were so amped up he thought he was going mad at first. He had a faint awareness of all of the shifters and kinfolk in his vicinity, like fireflies in his consciousness. And if he tried, really focused, he could tell what direction Katie had taken: west. And a far distance, given how weak his perception of her was.