by Bianca D'Arc
TALES OF THE WERE
GRIZZLY COVE
THE LUCK OF THE SHIFTERS
BY
BIANCA D’ARC
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2017 Bianca D’Arc
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Tales of the Were – Grizzly Cove #8
Seamus O’Leary was abducted from his home in Australia and imprisoned for months in the Pacific Northwest. He arrived in Grizzly Cove with his spirit broken from being forced to stay in his animal form for months. Human again, and unable to shift without the crutch of alcohol, he is trying his best just to get through each day…until a chance meeting changes his life forever.
Moira Kinkaid came to Grizzly Cove with a dual purpose. First, she is supposed to give the bear shifters who live there all the information her powerful Clan has collected about the sea monster known as the leviathan. Second, she’s checking the place out for her cousin, the Kinkaid Alpha. If the place is as promising as it looks, some of the Kinkaid billions might be invested in the up-and-coming town. But, when Moira stumbles across a handsome, drunken man on the beach, suddenly her mission changes to something much more personal.
Drawn to each other, the two very different shifters share a highly magical Irish ancestry—and a passion unlike anything either has ever known. From the moment they meet, they are nearly inseparable. Something about their relationship seems almost inevitable, but they are both hiding things. Moira is a covert business operative and Seamus fears his inner animal is broken forever. Can these two find middle ground and healing in the safe harbor of Grizzly Cove?
DEDICATION
With many thanks to Peggy and Dave for hunting down the typo fairies, as well as my awesome editor, Jess, who keeps all the commas in line.
Much love to my family, especially Dad, who cheers on my word counts, though he’ll never read any of these books.
And special thanks to my late bff Mary, who taught me all I know about the Emerald Isle and those who trace their ancestry to it, but were born elsewhere.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Excerpt from Badass Bear
About the Author
Other Books by Bianca D’Arc
CHAPTER ONE
Moira Kinkaid liked what she’d seen so far of Grizzly Cove. She had arrived the day before and had met with the mayor and town council straight away. They were all strong bears, with lots of “real world” experience, according to her cousin. She knew that meant they were Special Operators who had been proven in battle time and again.
She respected strength and wisdom equally, and these bears seemed to have both.
She’d been around lion shifters most of her life. Clan Kinkaid was an odd one—half lion, half selkie—through an odd circumstance of fate. One of the Kinkaid ancestors had traveled to Africa and fallen for the daughter of the lion Alpha. Their children had turned out to be lions, for the most part, but the selkie side of the family had reasserted itself in recent years.
Moira was a selkie, with more than her fair share of magical power. In fact, she was one of the most powerful of the Clan’s selkie shifters. Cousin to the Alpha, she was used as a troubleshooter in all sorts of situations where delicacy was needed. Both in business and in magic, she had a way of flying under the radar of her opponents and coming out the victor. She was also really good at untangling difficult situations without drawing blood on either side. It was one of her many talents.
When she’d arrived in Grizzly Cove the day before, she knew she’d been a bit of a surprise to the bear Alpha. No doubt he’d been expecting one of her burly male relatives. The ones who’d been the driving force behind the US Navy’s development of the SEAL teams back in the 1960’s. They’d thought it was both ironic and fitting that the Navy would call the teams SEALs, never really knowing that the men they employed—especially those chosen few back in the early years—had really been seal shifters.
Now, of course, there were small groups of Special Forces soldiers all under the command of Admiral Morrow, himself a magical water sprite. He ran interference between the human side of the armed forces and the special teams of Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Force Recon and other commandos who had a little something extra in their arsenal of talents and abilities.
Few people knew about it, but Moira was highly placed in her Clan, and her cousin kept her informed. He was a good Alpha, even if he was a lion. He treated everyone with equality and promoted based on skill and ability rather than nepotism or favoritism.
The bear Alpha of Grizzly Cove seemed to be cut of the same cloth, and she knew from her pre-mission briefing that he had led the Special Forces team that had retired and chosen to settle together here, in this cove. They were mostly bears of different types and had invited other bear shifters to join them.
Bears, being more magical by nature than most other shifters, usually didn’t congregate in one place, so this entire town was something of a social experiment. The unprecedented concentration of magical power had attracted Others too. Both good folk—like the vampire Master of Seattle, Hiram Abernathy—and bad things, like the leviathan that now threatened the coast.
It was the leviathan that had caused the influx of merfolk into the cove. The bear Alpha could have turned them away, but had instead opened the floodgates, welcoming them with open arms. Three of his bears were now mated to mermaids and very happy, from all accounts. The mer pod was setting up housekeeping in the waters of the cove, and the bears were building special accommodations for them on land, as well.
Moira had been pleased to see the way the two very different shifter populations were blending and working together in the town. She was very used to that sort of thing in her Clan, but it wasn’t common anywhere else.
She was taking her time getting to know these people. It wouldn’t do to ride into town and try to take over. Moira knew better than that. She had to see what she could contribute here, first, before she let loose with her selkie viewpoints and knowledge—which were usually quite different from those held by land shifters…even those in her own Clan.
So she was walking the beach, trying to get the lay of the land. She’d never been to this part of the Pacific coastline before, and she was enjoying learning the timing of the tides and the personality of the waters here. It was a lovely place.
Except for the drunk passed out on the beach a few yards away.
Moira sighed. It never failed. There was always one drunkard in the group—even though it took enormous amounts of alcohol to affect a shifter. Their metabolisms made it difficult for mo
st drugs or other substances to affect them, so a person really had to be dedicated to get and maintain a stupor.
She knew many of the residents here were veterans, so she felt a little pang of compassion, even though she didn’t know this particular shifter’s story. Yet.
She couldn’t just leave him where he was. The tide was coming in, and he was face down on the beach. If he didn’t wake up soon, he’d most likely drown. Even this far away, she could catch a faint bit of his scent. What wasn’t soaked in alcohol was furry, not fishy, so leaving him where the water would cover him wasn’t a good idea. With a resigned cadence to her feet, she marched over to the unconscious man.
Moira wasn’t sure how he would react, so she prodded him with her toe first, hoping to wake him. When he didn’t respond, she pushed a little harder, flipping him onto his back.
Her breath caught when she saw his face for the first time. Hard, angular features were slack in sleep, but he was a handsome devil. His hair was unruly and naturally curled. It was dark now, with moisture absorbed from the sand, but she saw hints of gold in the tousled curls.
He wasn’t a giant of a man like the other bear shifters who lived here. No, he was built more like a muscular, fit, totally hot human, which suited her just fine because she was rather petite for a selkie.
And why in the world was she thinking about this strange man’s stature in relation to her own? Moira shook herself. She’d come here to do a job, not get mixed up with some sad case shifter who drank too much.
Now that she was closer to him, the scent of alcohol and fur mixed with…eucalyptus? Just faintly, but it was there. Maybe he liked cough drops? Though, as far as she knew, shifters didn’t really get casual colds the way humans did. The good-looking guy on the sand at her feet was a puzzle, that was for sure.
She touched him with her toe again, trying to nudge him awake. She didn’t want to get too close in case he woke up disoriented and took a swipe at her. She’d startled awake a few lion shifters from her Clan in the past and had learned to approach cautiously.
A faint groan was her reward. Maybe he was waking up.
“Hey, mister, you’re going to get hit by the tide if you don’t get up soon.”
Another growling moan sounded, a bit louder this time. She nudged him with her toe again.
“Oi! Leave off,” he growled, the few words tinged with a thick accent. She couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t sound like one of her cousins from County Kerry in Ireland. He didn’t sound American, either.
“Hey, mister, get up or you’re going to get wet in…” She looked at the approaching line of sea foam. As a water shifter, she was a good judge of the tide, and it was coming in fast now. Yeah, the drunk guy was going to get wet. She almost sighed. Here it came… “Three, two, one,” she counted down, watching the inevitable as the water sloshed over the man’s sneakers and up to mid-thigh.
“Shite, that’s cold!” The man skittered away from the retreating tide, suddenly mobile. Moira wanted to laugh, but refrained, merely following his progress with a smile she couldn’t repress.
He ended up a short way up the dune, sitting on his butt with his knees drawn up and his arms resting over them, his head hung low as he dragged his hands through his shaggy hair. His jeans were wet from the middle of his muscular thighs down to his scuffed sneakers, and he wore a denim jacket over an Army green T-shirt.
“Do you need me to call anyone?” she asked tentatively, moving a bit closer. She didn’t want to leave him out here like this if there was something she could do to help. He was in sorry shape for a shifter.
Bloodshot blue eyes met hers. Then, they narrowed as he took her in.
“You’re not a bear, and you’re not a fish,” he said, looking her up and down. “And you’re not human or witch. You’re a shifter, but what sort?” He sniffed in her direction—rather rudely, she thought—and then, his face went even paler, if that was possible. “It can’t be…”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she couldn’t help but remark.
“Maybe I have. Or maybe the selkies have sent you to take their revenge on my worthless hide once and for all.” He lowered his gaze, dipped his head, and she thought maybe she’d glimpsed tears in his eyes before he’d hidden them. His words were troubling.
“I’m a selkie, but I’ve come here at the invitation of the Alpha to consult on the leviathan problem. Who are you that you recognize my kind? And why do you think we’d seek revenge against you?”
She tried to put a bit of firmness into her voice. Her brothers were so much better at intimidation than she would ever be, but she’d learned a thing or two growing up with them.
“Because of the boy,” he whispered, lifting his head to stare into the approaching waves as if they held the answer.
“What are you talking about?” she asked when he hadn’t said anything further for a while.
She’d waited to see if he would go on with his cryptic words, but he seemed to be stuck in a memory, staring straight ahead. Perhaps he was reliving something or seeing something only he could see.
Or perhaps she’d had the misfortune to run across a loony-tunes bear shifter on this stretch of desolate beach. Well, she could always run into the surf and disappear under the waves if he turned violent. Bears might be good swimmers, but she’d bet they could never out-swim a seal shifter.
“My name is Moira. What’s yours?” She tried a different tack when he didn’t answer.
That seemed to get a response. He blinked and turned his head to gaze up at her as if seeing her for the first time. Maybe the alcohol he’d soaked his head in was starting to burn off a bit. His glassy eyes seemed to take a moment to focus.
“I’m Seamus,” he answered, a little bit of a twang to his words that didn’t sound Irish to her trained ears.
“Sure and with a name like Seamus, ya aren’t from the old country?” She put on the best imitation of her Irish cousins’ brogues she could manage.
His eyes narrowed. “Neither are you, sheila, though you claim a name just as Irish as mine.”
“You’re an Aussie!” She snapped her fingers, smiling. It was the use of the term sheila that had given him away, though she suspected he’d done it on purpose.
He tapped his nose, then pointed at her, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. Her breath caught. When Seamus smiled… Whoa, momma. And that had been a weak smile at best. She wondered what a full-wattage, all-out smile would do. Maybe cause an earthquake? Some sort of seismic shift?
She shook her head at her own fancifulness and crouched down to be at eye level with him. Seamus seemed to be in trouble, and she wanted to help. She’d help any being who needed it. The fact that he was drop-dead-gorgeous really had nothing to do with it. Nope. No, siree.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee, Seamus?” she asked gently.
He rubbed a dirty hand over his scruffy face. He hadn’t shaved in a bit, and his strong jaw was covered with fine golden bristles.
“I look that bad, eh?” He looked left and right, seeming to assess the situation in which he’d awoken and then shook his head. “I probably smell worse than I feel. I’m sorry, Moira. You’re not catching me on a good day.”
“That’s okay,” she assured him. “We all have bad ones every now and again.” She stood, and he followed suit, a little unsteady on his feet. “The offer of coffee stands. There’s a bakery in town that serves hot drinks and sandwiches. I was just heading back that way.” She lied about her destination, but it was a socially-acceptable white lie, so she figured it didn’t count.
“I appreciate the polite fiction,” he said with quiet dignity and a rueful twist of his lips. “But how about I buy you the coffee, Moira? I don’t need charity.”
“It wasn’t—” she protested, but he cut her off.
“I thank you for the offer, and if you really want to help, you’ll do me the favor of going into the bakery and getting my order to go for me. Those women don’t like me, and I try not to d
arken their door any more than necessary, but they do make some fine grub.” He seemed to be sobering up right before her eyes.
He fumbled in his pockets for a moment before pulling out a wad of cash. He peeled off a fifty and held it out toward her. Who carried that kind of cash around with them? Her suspicions rose again. Was he some sort of criminal, dealing in large denomination bills?
“I’m on the level.” He seemed to read her hesitancy for what it was. “You can ask the Alpha bear. He knows my story, and they’re letting me stay. I’ve been out of circulation for a while, and I want to stay under the radar, so Big John helped me access my bank account as anonymously as possible, and I’m using cash-only for the next few months, until I’m sure I got away clean.”
“Away from what?” They started walking back down the beach, toward town. She kept a couple of yards distant from him, just in case she still needed to make a run for it.
“I suppose you’ll hear it from someone in town, so I might as well tell you myself. I was being held prisoner in a private zoo in my other form. I managed to break out, but I’m not sure if the people who were holding me will come after me or not. Big John has agreed to give me sanctuary.”
“That’s…pretty awful,” she told him, her heart going out to the stoic shifter who had to have gone through some pretty horrific times, if what he said was true. She’d check with the Alpha before buying the entire sob story, but she was willing to give Seamus the benefit of the doubt for now.
“Yeah, well…” He cleared his throat as if uncomfortable. “I don’t need any sympathy. I’m out now, and so are the others, as far as I know. We got out and split up. The others probably had families to go back to in the States, but I’m not from around here. I didn’t want to chance getting on a plane. There’d be a trail of my identity leading back to Oz…and my family. Plus there’s the little matter of not having a passport. They didn’t bring me into the country legally, so I don’t have any I.D. to help me get back home.”