Bear the Burn

by T. S. Joyce

  “Dade.”

  “I’m so sorry, Dade. This is not at all how this clinic is run. I’m just… I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “Did a pet die?”

  She nodded miserably.

  Dade took off his sunglasses. His eyes were the color of the ocean, blue and green, and gentle as he clutched his dog to his chest. “You’re a soft-hearted little thing, aren’t you?”

  For some reason, it made her stomach lurch to nod her head yes. Dade didn’t seem the type of man who had much use for soft-hearted things. Which was a stupid thought because she wasn’t exactly a part of his life. She didn’t even know the man.

  Petting his scared pooch, she said, “You know, pussies, if you’re speaking of cats, are actually quite tough.”

  Dade’s blond brows lowered. “Huh?”

  “You told your dog to stop being a pussy when you dragged him in here.” She scratched the dog behind the ears. “And you’re not a pussy, are you big fella?” She dipped her voice to the one she used with her own two Yorkshire Terriers at home. “You’re a big tough guy, just like your daddy.”

  “Oh, he’s not my… You think I’m a tough guy?”

  Heat filled her cheeks when he paid her such direct attention. She’d never been good at speaking to people. Chronic shyness made social interaction awkward at best, which was the main reason she worked with animals. She connected with them in a way she hadn’t ever been able to understand people. “Am I wrong?”

  His nostrils flared as he inhaled slowly and studied her. “You have no idea how right you are.”

  Another chill brushed up her skin, and she dropped her eyes, unable to hold his clear aquamarine gaze. He was pointing out how dissimilar they were. She got it. She just didn’t understand why he felt the need to put them on two different planes.

  “Right, let’s get this guy checked out then, shall we? What’s his name?”

  “Tank.”

  She tried to ignore Dade’s attention as she ran a thorough check-up on Tank. The hound relaxed as she petted and talked to him, but when she left and came back with the trio of shots he needed, the dog started whimpering before she even uncapped the needles.

  Dr. Voss opened the door, but as soon as she saw the dog, she nodded knowingly and waved her clipboard at Dade. “Good to see you and Tank again. I’ll be in shortly to do his final evaluation and give you his heartworm prevention.”

  “’K,” Dade said, his focus still on Quinn.

  It was unsettling how intense the man was. Soft one moment and distant the next. She couldn’t get a good read on him.

  She lined up the needle as Dade held Tank, but the wailing was getting to her, tugging at her heartstrings. She didn’t want to hurt him, especially not now when she was emotionally ragged after witnessing the poodle pass away. She hesitated, needle hovering over Tank’s fur.

  “It’s okay,” Dade whispered, encasing her hand in his.

  Warmth flooded her knuckles under his touch.

  “I’ll help,” he murmured, then pushed her hand.

  Tank howled, and she rushed the last two shots without assistance to avoid the strange tingling sensation that had taken over her skin where Dade had touched her. He took Tank off the exam table, and she gave him a couple of dog treats from the jar. The poor hound slunk around the room, chewing his treaties with his tail between his legs.

  Quinn tried and failed to meet Dade’s gaze, then tried again and gave him a smile. “Thanks for earlier. When you covered for me with the other vet tech. That was nice of you.”

  “I’m not nice,” he said, slipping his sunglasses back over his eyes.

  Dr. Voss bustled through the door. With a squeeze of her hand, she whispered near her ear, “You can take the rest of the day off.”

  “But really, I’m okay.”

  “It’s only an hour early, and you’ve earned it. Gertie and I can handle the rest of the appointments today.”

  Disappointed in herself, Quinn nodded. She dared a glance at Dade, and he was watching her with a troubled quirk to his light brows, as if he’d heard Dr. Voss dismiss her, which was impossible from across the room.

  Flustered, she turned and left, closing the door behind her.

  Whether that man was soft or tough, nice or not, Quinn’s instincts screamed that Dade was trouble.

  Quinn made her way to the small locker where she kept her things, then pulled her satchel from inside and slung it over her chest. With a wave to Gertie, she made her way out the back exit and pulled the lock off her bike. She had a car, but she only lived a mile away from the clinic and liked to bike when the weather was fair. New to town, she was still enamored with how fresh the air smelled here at the edge of the Colorado Rockies. But when she swung her leg over and began to pedal, the bike wasn’t moving as smoothly as it usually did.

  She dismounted and groaned as she beheld the flat back tire. Today sucked. Holding back another wave of pathetic tears, she pushed her jouncing bike toward the small, two-lane road that would lead her home.

  She’d almost made it to Main Street when the sound of a car drew her attention behind her. A forest green Tacoma with giant black rims coasted up beside her. Dade sat behind the wheel and lowered his sunglasses. “Gotta flat?”

  Quinn wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. Timidly, she said, “I don’t usually cry every minute of my life, you know. You’ve just caught me on a bad day.”

  “I can see that.” Dade looked around, and his eyes settled on a black sedan that was parked on the side of the road. The look he gave that car was downright venomous before he turned back to Quinn. “Good luck getting home.”

  His voice had gone cold and empty, and a little noise of indignation crawled up the back of her throat as he sped off. What a jerk. She’d thought he was about to ask her if she wanted a ride home, but nope. He was just stopping so he could kick gravel up at her as he drove away.

  Any nice thoughts about the man flitted away as she watched him disappear in a cloud of dust.

  Chapter Three

  “Dade. Dade!” Cody said, slamming his hand on the table. “Are you even listening?”

  Station 6 was quiet tonight, which was fine because Boone, Gage, and Cody were the only ones on shift. Breckenridge had three stations around the area, but this one was the biggest, and usually the busiest. Not tonight, though. Like the calm before a storm, the quiet had the hairs lifting on the back of Dade’s neck.

  “Yeah, man, I’m listening,” he muttered, setting down the napkin he’d been shredding. Really, he’d been thinking of Quinn and the way Shayna had watched them when he’d pulled up beside Quinn on the side of the road earlier today.

  “Then what do you think we should do?” Gage asked.

  Boone narrowed his eyes at him, but it was Cody’s look of utter frustration that held Dade’s attention. He pet Tank’s head as the dog rested it on his thigh. “I don’t think we should go public. It isn’t just us it affects, Cody. What about the Ashe Crew, the Gray Backs, the Boarlanders? Hell, what about every crew across the world? Our decision to expose what we are puts all shifters at risk. Not just the Breck Crew and not just bear shifters.” Dade shook his head and leaned back in the plastic chair. “It doesn’t feel right. Not right now.”

  “Okay, so we let Shayna rebuild IESA. We do nothing. We leave them with all the cards and start giving into blackmail again. We allow them to use the cubs, Ma, our mates as pawns in a game that will end up with us all dead. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  “No, Cody,” Dade gritted out. “I just think we need to take more time to think about this. About what coming out to the public will really mean. We’ll be shunned or strung up to the nearest tree and burned. How does that make the cubs any safer? How does that make our family any better off?”

  “But if we admit what we are, it takes the power away from IESA and puts our fate in the public’s hands.”

  Dade sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re alpha, Cody. You ge
t to make the final decision, but I’m not on board. It comes down to who we can trust with our safety. IESA or humans. At least IESA has a reason to keep us alive.”

  “Which is?”

  Experimentation, black ops missions, secret weapons. Shit. All of those answers felt like acid in his throat, so he just shook his head and shrugged. “I’ll back whatever decision you make, but I think you need to call the other crews we know and hear advice from them before we go public. If they say no, we should consider their answer. They have a stake in this decision, too.”

  “You realize us going public and outing IESA gives us a safety net, right?” Boone asked. “They won’t be able to push us around anymore. They’ve sent us all to war, pinned us unknowingly against our own kind. How many did they have us kill before we figured out our targets weren’t terrorists? They kidnapped Rory and tagged us with acid-filled trackers, Dade. No one knows the burn of that more than you and Cody.”

  At the mention of the capsule Krueger had detonated in his neck, the one meant to end his life, the skin on his throat seared. He dropped his gaze to Cody’s ruined hand. His older brother had been trying to rip the tracker out of his neck when Krueger hit that kill switch, and they’d both been marred. Yeah, the price the Keller family had paid was great, and he didn’t want to be at IESA’s mercy again, but every generation of shifters since the beginning of time had remained hidden for a reason.

  Humans couldn’t be trusted any more than IESA.

  Dade rubbed his forehead to ward off an oncoming headache. “You have my answer on it. I vote no. I vote we wait and see if Shayna is as efficient at killing as Krueger was. We already wiped out most of IESA once. We can do it again.”

  “They’re cockroaches, and you know it,” Cody said softly, eyes on his clasped hands resting on the table in front of him. “We killed a few, thanks to Damon Daye and Bruiser. Sheer dumb luck on the timing because we should all be in a shallow grave right now or penned up in some cage enduring God knows what.” He lifted his clear blue gaze to Dade. “We can’t let an agency control our destiny like that anymore. At some point, we have to own what we are and make our stand. That time feels like now.”

  “Cody, you’ll have the eyes of the whole damn world on us. On Aaron and Rory. On Ma and Gage’s mate and cubs. Not just IESA. The world.”

  “I’ve heard your piece,” Cody said, his face stern as if he’d already made up his mind. “I’ll talk to the crews we know and see what they think, but we can’t let Shayna rebuild IESA. We can’t wait around to be killed off when we don’t do what they want.”

  Dade ran his hands through his hair and settled the frustrated rumble in his throat. “I’m out of here. I’ll see you later.”

  “Later,” Boone and Gage muttered in unison.

  He strode out of the station, past the fire engine and the ambulance, and out into the cool evening air. Linking his hands behind his head, he stared up at the half moon. For some stupid reason he didn’t understand, all he wanted to do right now was go see Quinn at the little cabin he’d followed her scent to earlier. Quinn. Just her name warmed him. Which didn’t make any damned sense because he didn’t even know the woman. And what he did know of her should’ve had him running in the opposite direction. She was mousy. An easy crier with a too-soft heart for his world. If she knew the things he’d done, she’d run and hide from what he was. She’d had trouble giving a dog a shot today. What chance did she have in his world?

  None. She would be a casualty of what he was, especially if Cody was going to take the Breck Crew public.

  What he needed was a good Lisa fuck to get Quinn off his mind, but when he thought of the woman he occasionally hooked up with, his dick deflated completely. This wasn’t like him. The women he went out with knew the drill. No commitment, no attachment. Fun only and leave emotions at the door. Quinn had him all mixed up inside. Probably because she’d been all frail and needy. He’d always had a weak spot for vulnerable things. Tank included.

  He couldn’t talk to his brothers about Quinn or his inconvenient feelings for a stranger. They’d go straight to Ma and wouldn’t ever let him live this down. But he felt crazy inside, all churning and volatile, as if his bear was going to rip out of him without warning. He’d always maintained perfect control over his animal—through two tours of service, through a dozen black ops missions, even when Krueger had hit that kill switch. But now, his beast was snarling to escape, and he didn’t understand it. He was the brother who didn’t feel. That was his gig, and it had served him well. In this life, survival depended on the ability to weather anything. He’d gone years without feeling a damned thing, and now some human was turning him into a half-crazed, protective-as-hell lunatic.

  He sauntered to his pickup, slid behind the wheel and slammed the door beside him. Behind the wheel, he opened his phone and listened for the subtle clicking sound that would tell him if he was being monitored. Silence had him hitting speed dial for someone who might give him good advice. For someone who could settle him down and tell him to get ahold of himself and forget about Quinn in light of the shit storm that was about to barrel down on the Breck Crew.

  The blare of guitar and a steady country song blasted through the phone a split second before Bruiser answered, “Hello?”

  “Hey, man.”

  “Dade? Hang on.” Bruiser’s voice lowered as he said, “I’ll be right back, D. It’s my brother.”

  An involuntary smile took Dade’s face. He’d never heard Bruiser call him family without specifying he was only his half-brother. Damn, he was glad Bruiser was back on speaking terms with the Breck Crew. The music faded in the background, but he winced as a blast of static wind hurt his sensitive ears.

  “Sorry, man,” Bruiser muttered. “We’re out at Sammy’s watching Denison and Brighton play a set.”

  “Oh, you want me to call you back later?”

  “Nah, no reception up at the trailer park. Besides, it’s good to hear your voice. How’s things?”

  Dade screwed up his face and traced the steering wheel with his fingertip. “Not awesome. Shayna is back.”

  “Shayna?”

  “IESA agent. And she’s come back begging a cub. Someone has Changed her, and she’s agreed to be part of some reproductive research project Krueger was going after before…well…you know.” Before Damon Daye ate his stupid ass.

  “Shee-yit.”

  “Yep.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Cody wants to go public. Take the power from IESA and out the agency along with us. It’s a desperation move.”

  “Or it’s time.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Listen, I have a question I need to ask you. I can’t bring it to Gage, Boone, or Cody because they’ll go straight to Ma with it and—”

  “Hey, how do you know I won’t go to Ma with it?”

  Dade frowned at the row of streetlights that lined the road in front of the station. “Are you and Ma talking again?”

  “Yeah, but your secret is safe with me. Shoot when ready.”

  Wait, Bruiser was talking to Ma again? He was the half-dragon, half-bear result of an affair between his dad and Bruiser’s mother. Ma hadn’t found out about Bruiser until he was ten when Dad had died. She’d raised him to adulthood, but she’d struggled with it, and unfortunately, Bruiser had felt the chill of her inability to get over Dad’s betrayal. If they were talking again, hell was probably starting to freeze over. “Damn, okay. Sorry, that just shocked me to my feet. You and Ma?”

  Bruiser chuckled and said, “Yeah, my mate won’t let me hold grudges on family. She’s been good for my relationships.”

  Dade smiled, feeling better as his bear settled. “Dang, man, that’s great. You don’t even know how happy that makes me. We felt broken when you weren’t talking to us. It just felt like something was missing, you know?”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “For me, too.”

  “Okay, I have a question about women.”

  “Women
or a woman?”

  “Maybe one woman. You know me, know how I operate. No commitment and all that.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Dade inhaled deeply and switched the phone to his other ear. “Look, I met this girl today when I took the station dog to the vet, and now she’s filling my head, making me feel out of control. I hate it.”

  “But you don’t hate her.”

  “She’s soft, Bruiser. I mean, submissive, easily wounded. She’s like a damned hummingbird.” Beautiful with her soft auburn locks and wide, gray eyes. Fragile. Too delicate for a man like him to protect.

  Bruiser chuckled into the speaker. “Did your bear perk up around her?”

  “My bear and my dick. Which doesn’t make a lick of sense because she was crying the whole time I was with her. What kind of man gets a boner around a sobbing woman?”

  “She pulled at your heartstrings?”

  “Every damned one of them. I can’t stop thinking about her. How do I turn this off?”

  “You don’t, brother. You dig your heels in and get ready. Your bear just chose his mate. Good luck trying to forget her.”

  Dade’s mouth dropped open, and he clacked his mouth closed again. “That’s it? I’ve chosen and I’m done for?”

  “Not done for, Dade. You’re lucky. If your bear chose her, then she’s a good match for you.”

  “Yeah, well the timing couldn’t be worse. Shayna’s after me, tailing me, and I can’t have Quinn in her sites. And the bigger problem is that Cody is about to take us public. I can’t drag her through that. She wouldn’t survive it.”

  “Maybe she’s stronger than you think,” Bruiser said in a soft, thoughtful tone. “You chose her for a reason.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in fate.”

  “Yeah, then I married my mate sight unseen, and she’s it for me. She came into my life at just the right moment to set everything right again. Trust your animal. Trust your instincts.”

  “I’ll hurt her.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”