Beloved by the Bear: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance (Mystic Bay Book 3)

by Isadora Montrose

  General sniggering burst out.

  Anton turned slowly. His eyes met those of the coyote. The other shifter took an involuntary step backward. “Apologize to Miss Serena.” Anton didn’t specify for what, and his flat, hard voice didn’t precisely issue a challenge, but it was laced with potent authority. His stiff shoulders and inflated chest provided the threat.

  “I didn’t mean nothing, Miss Serena,” muttered the coyote. “I’m sorry if I gave offense.” He accepted his lunch without another word or smile and stayed a respectful couple of arm’s lengths from Anton.

  She supposed she had asked for it, kissing Anton in broad daylight in full view of the inn. No wonder her father was on the warpath. Everyone in Mystic Bay believed she and Anton had begun a sexual relationship after one meeting. The reality was far less scandalous. But where was the fun in repeating dull truth?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Anton~

  The foreman had hauled the coyote who had insulted Serena aside and ripped him a new one. Within minutes everyone knew the new bear on site was the boss’ in-law. At least it gave the crew something else to snigger over.

  Anton still wished he could undo the damage he had done to his mate’s reputation. Who knew a single kiss would get blown this far out of proportion? Mystic Bay had worse gossips than French Town, and that was saying something.

  Small town gossip was one thing. The bawdy innuendo that passed for conversation on a mostly male work crew was something else. If he had asked Serena out to dinner, there would still have been comments, but probably less lewd ones. Probably. He was still the new hire, subject to the usual male hazing. What had possessed him to suggest a swim? And yet it was amazing how revitalizing having a date with Serena was. His whole body was buzzing with joy.

  After Salinas was done with him, Forest the coyote slunk over looking hangdog. “Sorry, man,” he muttered. “I didn’t know she was the one.”

  Anton figured if he wanted to he could get the abject Forest to roll over and piss himself like a puppy. The coyote’s body language was acknowledging Anton’s status as higher than his own, so likely his apology was sincere. As in Forest sincerely hoped to avoid the thumping he deserved. Gotta be civilized.

  “Apology noted,” Anton growled. “Beat it.”

  Forest crept away, head down, tail metaphorically tucked between his legs. Anton took his outrage out on the section he was building with another bear named Bedford, slamming nails in as fast as his power hammer could launch them.

  “This isn’t a race,” protested Bedford.

  “So it isn’t.” Anton forced himself to be agreeable. He slowed his brutal pace to match Bedford’s steady one.

  “It’s just guy talk,” Bedford consoled him as they hoisted the assembled section into place. Anton gave him his best don’t-mess-with-the-sergeant look. Bedford stopped trying to excuse the inexcusable, but his grin didn’t waver. “Let it go, buddy.” Did this fricking badass bear want Anton to wipe that grin off?

  Gabby strolled over just before quitting time. “Knock off now, Anton. You have company in the office.” Her evident amusement was a warning light.

  “As soon as we get this section upright,” he returned.

  She shook her head and clapped his shoulder sympathetically. “Nope. I’ll take over. You, my friend, have an urgent meeting with the Marine Militia.”

  What the heck? Well, his shoulders were broad. The trailer Gabby and Salinas used as their office squatted at the edge of the site. Its wooden steps were covered with mud. Anton scraped some more onto the treads and rapped on the door. He did not wait for a response before opening it.

  Someone had pushed the clutter of blueprints and spreadsheets to the middle of the big round table that dominated the trailer. Four grim men were standing silently around it, arms bulging with muscles folded across broad chests. Anton sniffed. Three mermen and a non-shifter. The only one he recognized was Tom Peterson, Rutherford’s father-in-law. Without a doubt, the others were Serena’s kinsmen.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. “I understand you want to speak to me.”

  “If you’re Anton Benoit, we do,” growled the tallest of the men. Like the other two mermen, his curly black hair was streaked with blue-green highlights. His face a masculine version of Serena’s.

  “Yes, sir, that’s me.”

  “I’m Roger Merryman, Serena’s father.” He pointed to the other two mermen. “My brothers Mark and Cliff. You know Tom Peterson.” No one offered a hand.

  It was time to take control of this lynch party. Anton inclined his head and gave them his toothiest grin. “Glad to know you.” He pulled out the nearest chair and hauled out his folksiest drawl. “I’d guess you’re here because you want to know my intentions.”

  Their hard, narrow-eyed faces didn’t soften, but the men followed his lead and sat down.

  Roger spoke in a low growl. “We know your intentions, Benoit.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, sir. I haven’t asked Serena to marry me yet – I don’t want to rush her off her feet. But I hope to do so before too long.” Anton met Roger’s intense green glare. All the men had squared their shoulders and re-folded their arms. No one had come prepared to listen to him.

  “Do you know who you’re talking to, Benoit?” Roger hissed.

  The guy who sent a rapist to pick up his daughter, seemed an impolitic reply. “King of the mer-people,” He kept his response polite. “I never figured to marry a princess, sir. But for certain if your daughter honors me with her hand, I’ll treat her like one.”

  Tom Peterson cleared his throat. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, Roger.” His voice was calm and deep. Rational.

  Roger’s brothers nodded, but they held their tongues, and didn’t look at the sorcerer. Clearly they were backing the mer-king. Anton was screwed before he started. He sat a little taller and got out his best poker face.

  “That’s right,” Roger said. “We want to know what you were doing hanging around the inn’s back lot waiting for Bock to attack Serena.”

  “Not my finest hour,” Anton admitted. “I have to say it’s a good thing that Serena knows how to defend herself, because it took me a good few seconds to realize he was trying a snatch. Fortunately, she laid him out with one kick and then Deputy Babcock arrested Bock, so no harm done.”

  “And just what were you doing back there in the first place?” demanded Mark Merryman just shy of a roar.

  “I hoped for a glimpse of my mate,” Anton confessed wryly. “Just a lovestruck fool.”

  “Your goldanged mate,” sputtered Cliff.

  “Seems a damned strange thing for a grown man to do,” Roger sneered.

  Anton could feel the heat in his face. “Yes, sir.”

  After that confession, the interview went to hell in a handcart. The three mermen took his service record to pieces and stomped on it. Only Tom who had also served in the Marines kept that from becoming a total FUBAR. The others were Navy vets and unimpressed. As for Anton’s volunteer work with the shifter police, they sneered at the Fuck Alls as a pack of hunter vigilantes. Which was rich coming from this posse.

  It didn’t do his cause any good when Anton protested he needed to get going because otherwise he would stand Serena up for their swim date.

  Roger pushed his chair all the way back and stood so he could lean over the table. “Swimming,” he bellowed. “You’re not swimming anywhere near my daughter in bear. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.” Politeness dictated that he should rise but he guessed that would seem aggressive to the enraged mer-king.

  “Serena has already given me her word that she won’t marry you without my permission,” the mer-king continued. “Which you have a snowball’s chance of receiving.” By now he was breathing so heavily and was so red in the face that Anton feared he would explode. Literally.

  “I won’t encourage her to go back on her word,” Anton vowed. “But I would like to be allowed to change your mind, sir.”


  “I’ll change my mind around the same time you recover my greatest treasure,” Roger bellowed.

  Huh? Roger’s greatest treasure? Was the mer-king issuing a challenge or just spouting some mer curse that Anton couldn’t grasp?

  Cliff stood up and patted his brother’s shoulder. His eyes shot green fire at Anton. “You want to court Serena? You court her where we can see. Tell her that swim date is off. Take her to the Crab Hut for dinner instead.”

  Anton was a Marine. He had completed his missions for Special Forces under fire. He could eat his dinner while King Roger shot daggers at him. He grabbed at this slender olive branch.

  “Be my pleasure, gentlemen,” he lied.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Serena~

  It was beyond mortifying to have her father meddling in her private life. Mom and Dad had greeted them at the door of the Crab Hut with the stink-eye for Anton, and a glare for herself. No handshakes. No kisses. Anton had been civil. Dad had spoken through his teeth. Pearl Merryman’s stiff smile had barely acknowledged Anton.

  Mom and Dad had Serena’s baby sister Charlotte, who was the hostess tonight, show them to the worst table in the house. Charlotte’s wide and fearful green eyes were not the welcome Serena expected for a guest. Charlotte was shaking like an aspen in a gale. She smelled of raw terror. She was only seventeen and she clearly thought that dating a hunter was on the insane side of wild.

  “I’m sorry,” Serena whispered across the table.

  Each time someone bustled out of the kitchen, the swinging door bumped Anton’s chair, and noise and steam wafted over them. Behind them the busing station was unusually busy and stinky.

  Anton chuckled. Outwardly he seemed to be relaxed, and aside from turning scarlet when her mother had refused to shake hands, he wasn’t acting as though her family’s hostility was anything out of the ordinary. He leaned towards her. “I figure I’m just lucky not to be served up on the half shell tonight.”

  The image of naked Anton curled up on an enormous clam shell was hard to dismiss. Her dreams of the night before had left vivid images of his big, hairy, aroused body. She felt blood wash over her face and fresh heat bloom between her legs. She pressed them together, which didn’t put out the fire. “I think you’re safe. The Crab Hut only serves seafood.”

  “Aside from the fact that I’m the wrong species, does your family have some other kind of objection to bears?” he continued. “Because your kid sister is about to spontaneously combust, and so are half the other diners.”

  The Crab Hut was doing a roaring business. Things hadn’t been this good since the evening that Quinn Drake shared a table with Moira Fairchild back in May*. Not even during the summer season. An assortment of sensitives – at this time of the year hardly any out-of-towners stayed overnight – was watching Anton as if they hoped to watch him ravish Serena before their eyes.

  She could have done without being the focus of so many hostile eyes. But she straightened her back and kept her eyes fixed on Anton’s face. Let them stare. She had done nothing wrong. “West Haven has a complicated history with bears. Back in the nineteenth century a grizzly terrorized the entire island.” She leaned even further forward. “He and his family were cannibals.”

  “For real?” The whites of Anton’s eyes popped. Now she had frightened a bear!

  “Yeah. Owen Haverstock started with the non-sensitives and was working his way through the sensitives before he was finally stopped.”

  “For heaven’s sake.” He swallowed hard. “Well, I’m not a grizzly, but I’ve known a good few. All decent fellows. And I’ve never heard of any shifters of any kind who went rogue to that extent.” He gazed around at the chatterers as if he half expected them to demonstrate a taste for human flesh.

  “Doesn’t matter. The town council of Mystic Bay, which FYI governs the entire island, still has a lot of regulations on its books about hunters and who they can and cannot marry.”

  “Including mermaids?” he asked. “Because your daddy and uncles didn’t mention that. Just that it didn’t sit right with them. They yammered some about hybrid vigor, but I don’t see what’s so wrong with stronger babies.”

  She already knew that Anton had been waylaid and their swim date canceled. Just as if she had been a child. She tried to explain. “There are no specific rules on West Haven about mermaids marrying other shifters, although non-hunters don’t usually marry hunters. But my father is the king, and he expects his daughters to marry mermen. And on West Haven when folks talk about hybrid vigor that’s code for psychopathy.”

  “Oh.” He thought for a moment. “Since when are mer-people non-hunters?”

  “We don’t hunt!” she said indignantly.

  He rolled his eyes. “Seafood doesn’t count?”

  She shook her head.

  “Huh?” He looked around at the restaurant full of the curious and nodded casually to one or two of the most openly nosy who immediately averted their eyes. “So what about my friend Ryan Rutherford marrying Claudia Peterson? Cougars are hunters. Claudia is a sorceress.”

  “That was a special case. And let me tell you there was a huge fuss. Before she and Ryan announced they were married, the council was about a minute away from throwing Claudia off the island for having a hybrid-hunter kid out of wedlock.”

  “Can the council do that? Is that even legal?” he asked incredulously. “Because the last time I checked West Haven was still part of the US of A. You folks ever hear of the Bill of Rights?”

  “If no one will rent to you, or employ you, you have to leave,” she explained. “No one forgets about those grizzly hybrids.”

  “If Haverstock’s mate wasn’t a grizzly, what was she?” Anton asked.

  “A fairy. If you can believe it!”

  “Huh? So what happened to them?”

  “Cuthbert Rutherford rounded up a posse of other hunters and ran Owen and his family off,” she explained.

  “Takes a hunter to catch a hunter,” Anton said knowledgeably. “So all of West Haven has cause to be grateful to the cougar shifters and other hunters, and yet you’re scared to death of us. While your mayor is a fairy. You do know that is totally illogical?”

  She shrugged. “Mostly people are afraid of hunters going bad. They aren’t thinking it through. Haverstock and his whelps raped and pillaged and killed without opposition for over twenty years. Fairies feel safe.”

  Anton nodded. “But all the same, those half-breeds were dealt with by a cougar and his band of hunters, right?”

  “Right.”

  He frowned. “Sounds like hunters saved your collective skins.”

  “I guess people worry that if one gang of hunters was stronger even than a rogue, what’s to keep another one under control if they decide to take over the island.”

  “Common decency?” He laid down his menu. “You don’t think I would go on any such rampage, do you?”

  She was honest. “Not really.”

  He looked hurt. “I see. It’s not just your kinsfolk I have to convince I’m worthy of you.”

  Their server appeared. Like all the Greenes, Marlene was a gazelle shifter. She was a middle-aged woman and ought to have been more sensible than Charlotte. But she stood as far away from their table as she could. “What’ll it be?”

  Serena ordered oysters to start and crab cakes to follow. Anton seconded her order. Marlene disappeared into the kitchen at speed.

  His jaw clamped and his lips barely moved. “What the heck does she think I am going to do to her in public?”

  Serena shrugged. “She’s just having a primitive reaction to your smell.”

  “What smell?” He was mock indignant. “I just had a shower. Besides, I don’t eat sensitives.”

  “I hope you’ll make an exception for me,” she purred.

  Her flirtatiousness turned him a nice rich purple. Even though the server was still skittish, he seemed relieved when Marlene brought their appetizers.

  “Go ahead.” Serena waved a hand a
t the platter of oysters on the half shell sitting over ice.

  “I’m not sure how to eat these,” he admitted.

  She raised one to her lips and drank, smiling at him over the rim of the half shell. He followed suit. “Different,” he said. “Tasty.”

  He put one to her lips instead of his own. She imitated him. Despite the bustle of the restaurant and the flow of people in and out of the kitchen, the intimate sharing of food wrapped them in a sensual cocoon. He didn’t speak, but his warm brown eyes held hers. Heat pooled in her belly and sparked along her veins.

  Oysters were supposed to be an aphrodisiac. She had never noticed before. But then she had never been fed them by a man who plainly wanted to feast on something else. Her body grew warm and damp.

  Anton’s broad forehead gleamed under the lights. Gasps and whispers from the other diners followed every time either of them fed the other. All too soon the platter was empty and the shells were piled on their side plates.

  Dad brought their main course himself, sweeping away the shells and empty platter and plunking down crab cakes with none of his usual affability and finesse. “Behave yourselves.” He stomped away. The swinging door dealt Anton’s chair a hefty whack.

  He was left holding the last empty oyster shell. He shook his head. “I guess we weren’t very discreet,” he said. “And I did promise your kinsmen that I would be discreet.” He dug a clean handkerchief from his pants pocket and carefully wrapped the shell in it before tucking it into his pocket.

  “You can just leave it on the table,” she said.

  “I think I’ll keep it as a souvenir.” He twinkled at her.

  Whatever for? It was just an oyster shell like a million others. The Hut sent tons of them every year back to the ocean where the waves would grind them up and turn them into sand.

  “I wonder,” Anton said after he had paid for their meal, “If I’m allowed to see you home?”

  “I have my own car. You walked.”

  “I know. But I’d like to know you’re safe.”