by J. K Harper
Snow continued to drift from the heavens, adorning her shoulder-length chestnut hair. She was considerably shorter than him, but that was no surprise; Harrison might have loomed at almost seven-feet, but Hudson hit the mark exactly. Still, she was especially tall for a non-shifter. Her miles-long legs were encased in a pair of knee-high boots over black tights. Her dark blue peacoat hid most of her figure, but the garment had been tailored to hug the sharp curves of her waistline.
His hands would look so goddamn good on those curves, he almost reached out and seized her hips. Despite his bear urging him to do just that, Hudson balled his fists at his sides.
With cat-like agility, she rounded him. Furrowing his brow, Hudson turned his head and watched as she walked a full circle around him, scanning him from head to toe.
He supposed it was only fair; he’d just been scanning her, after all.
When she came to a stop in front of him, she appeared as gobsmacked as he felt. He wasn’t sure how witches pinpointed their mates, but she’d clearly registered his potential role.
“We should go inside,” Violet said to the rest of the huddle. Her knowing tone revealed her understanding of the situation. “Now.”
Hudson didn’t look to his sleuth. Thoroughly bewitched, he listened as they filed into the house, still fussing over Beckett, who’d gleefully announced he’d turned into his bear. Once the door was shut, Hollis laughed. Hudson was familiar with his father’s deep, bellowed cackles, but he’d never heard his old man sound so damn pleased.
Blocking out their voices, Hudson squared his shoulders and stuck out a hand. “Hudson Holloway. I’d be honored if you’d shake my hand, Miss—?”
“Fortescue. Hazel Fortescue.”
Their hands connected. Frissons of energy like a static charge sizzled between their skin. In the reflection of her eyes, he saw the bright green of his bear.
“Oh.” Her shoulders trembled. “Wow. You— I mean…wow.”
“Right back at ya.”
“No, you’ve got some serious mojo, Hudson Holloway. I can feel it. Your bear must be huge!”
She started to release his hand, but her skin was so cold, he held fast.
“Do witches feel the cold? You’re freezing.”
“Well, I don’t have a bear to keep me warm, now do I?”
Hudson cocked an eyebrow. “Pretty sure you do.”
“Smooth.” She withdrew and promptly shoved both hands into the pockets on her coat.
“Please, come inside. This isn’t my house, but I speak for us all when I say you are most welcome.”
“I really shouldn’t—”
“I just made coffee. Have you had dinner? If not, please join us. We only just got back. We were out searching all day. Come in. Get warm. Really.”
She hesitated, and he found her pause wounding. Her gaze wandered over his shoulder, surveying the tree line leading into the woods.
“Coffee would be nice. Thank you.”
Sweeping a hand toward the door, he guided her inside. As she passed him, he could have sworn he caught a hint of cat on her hair. Cougar, in fact.
The grizzly bristled at the thought of her with another shifter. Another man, rather.
In the kitchen, his mother was the first to approach. She seized Hazel’s face in both hands, leaned in, and kissed her forehead.
Well, that was something. Hudson never would have imagined his own mother would beat him to a first kiss. Jesus.
“Mama,” he scolded. “Calm down.”
“Oh, hush, Hudson,” she warbled.
Leaving Beckett in Harrison’s arms, Bonnie joined the action. She threw her arms around a rather stunned Hazel and hugged her so tight that the witch let out a squeak.
“Give her air!” Hollis chided. “You’re gonna break her.”
“I’m sorry,” Hazel said suddenly. “I gave him McDonald’s. It was the only place open. Christmas Eve, right?”
“I don’t even care!” Bonnie squeezed her again.
“Did you say your name was Fortescue?” Hollis asked, nodding to the shirt Beckett wore. Hudson noted the company name and recognized the brand instantly.
“I did,” Hazel confirmed. “I’m Hazel.”
“Hollis.” They exchanged a hearty handshake. “I’ve got a bottle of your whiskey back at our place. It’s damn fine. Real smooth.”
“Glad you like it.” She tapped a finger to the side of her nose. “I can hook you up with the really good stuff. The kind that would knock a human into a coma.”
“Oh, I like her, Hud.” Hollis grinned. “Keep her.”
“Let me get her a coffee first, old man.”
“I’m keeping her,” Beckett announced. “She can sleep under my bunk bed. I’ll share all my toys. I really, really will.”
As he poured a cup of coffee for his mate, Hudson shot his nephew a look. “Hey, watch it, fuzzbutt.”
Beckett stuck out his tongue and then dissolved into a fit of mischievous laughter. Overjoyed to hear that silly little laugh again, Hudson ruffled the cub’s hair.
“Big brother has serious competition.” Shifting Beckett to one arm, Harrison approached Hazel and offered a hand. “My sincere apologies. I got too growly out there.”
“It’s cool,” she said, shaking his hand. “I get it.”
“Thank you,” Harrison said with the utmost sincerity. “‘Thank you’ isn’t even enough.”
“Happy I could help.” Hazel took the cup of coffee when Hudson offered it, and his bear rumbled when their fingers brushed. “I think I could help a little more, actually. Would you mind if I wandered through your woods?”
A line formed between Harrison’s eyes, accompanying his frown. “Why?”
“She’s gonna get the monster, Daddy!”
“Monster?” Smoothing down Beckett’s hair, Bonnie went stiff with alarm. “What monster?”
“The one that lured him to the river,” Hazel said, pensive.
Perplexed, Hudson pulled out a chair and urged his mate to take a seat. He sat beside her, scooting closer. “Maybe we oughta start from the top and work our way to that ad you mentioned.”
Chapter 4
The Woman in White
“He’s been seeing a ghost?” Reclining in his chair, Hudson crossed his arms. He was clearly unaware of the utter distraction he created whenever his biceps flexed, straining beneath the short sleeves of his white t-shirt.
Witch I may, witch I might, have the strength to not go ass-over-tits for this bear shifter tonight.
“She’s a type of spirit,” Hazel said, sipping her second cup of coffee. “Women in White are often drawn to the things that were taken from them in life. Usually under tragic circumstances.”
“I’ve lived on this ridge all my life,” Hollis said with no small amount of incredulity. “I’ve never seen a ghost.”
The patriarch of the sleuth was as imposing in stature as his two sons. Smile wrinkles lined his hazel eyes. He’d been the alpha of this group of bears once, but this wasn’t a hardened, battle-weary gathering of predators.
The Holloways were simply a family. A tight-knit, unbreakable force that would protect and defend their own at any cost.
Their auras were magnificent.
“Spirits are particular about who they approach. It’s a considerable drain on their energy to manifest. Appearances are also conditional, in some cases.” Hazel gestured to Bonnie. “You have a newborn girl. I would bet my grimoire that the spirit who sang to Beckett was a woman who lost a five-year-old son and a baby daughter.”
“That’s familiar, actually.” Violet pushed her long, wavy brown hair to the side. Her sons had mostly inherited their father’s good looks, but Hudson shared his mother’s sharp cheekbones and green eyes. “Hol, remember that thing at the bridge?”
Hollis scrunched his forehead as he leaned back in his chair, inadvertently miming his son’s posture. Or, perhaps, Hudson had been miming his father this whole time. “That was a boar’s age ago. Mid-eighties,
maybe. Hud was a cub.”
“Do you recall any details?” Hazel pressed.
“I only remember it because there were children,” Violet said. “There was a baby involved, for sure. I’d just had Hudson, so it struck a chord. The mother was driving. She went over Tellico Bridge. All three of them drowned, I believe.”
“That’s right where Beckett fell in the river.” Harrison grew agitated. It was a decidedly milder agitation when compared to how he’d reacted to Beckett’s account of his time in the junkman’s basement.
“But I don’t understand.” Bonnie nuzzled her nose through Beckett’s dark hair as he slept against her chest. “Why did she call him out there? What did she want?”
Hazel attempted to conjure up a nice way to answer, but there really wasn’t one. “Women in White are often looking for what they lost. What was taken from them in life. Most of the play-by-plays I’ve heard usually revolve around the spirits attempting to replace those things that were lost.”
“She wanted to keep him?”
Hazel flicked her focus to the cub in question. He slept on, oblivious to the conversation. “She likely wanted to drown him so that he’d stay with her.”
This time, Bonnie growled. Hazel had entertained just a moment of fear outside when Harrison had appeared seconds away from shifting into whatever giant he hid beneath his skin, but she had a feeling that Papa Bear’s fury would pale in comparison to Mama Bear’s.
“Perhaps she would have succeeded if she’d not gone for a bear,” Hazel added, trying to inject some semblance of levity. “I’ve heard you’re quite good swimmers.”
“We have our moments.” Hudson’s wry smile dinged her middle. Lashes of his golden aura licked out, reaching for hers. Hazel tried her very best to avoid glancing down at her own chest, knowing her light stretched to meet his.
He was just so damn gorgeous. With his sandy-brown hair all tousled from his long day out, and his days-old stubble forming the start of a beard that accentuated the sharp lines of his jaw, she was sure she’d never seen such a beautiful man.
His eyes, though.
Woo.
Hazel could wander every forest on earth and not find another shade of green as stunning as the color of his eyes. And his bear made them even greener.
As if his seven-feet of glorious, muscular masculinity wasn’t resolve-breaking enough, she’d just about lost her heart when he’d pulled Beckett into a sturdy, loving hug.
“What can we do?” Harrison asked, clenching his jaw. “She’s not welcome.”
“I can find her. I’ll get rid of her.”
“How?” Bonnie raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I’ll talk to her. Usually that’s all it takes to push them along to the other side. I can banish her if necessary, though they sometimes manage to return. In that case, there’s always a good old-fashioned salt-and-burn.”
Hudson cocked his head, appearing cautiously curious. “A salt-and-burn?”
“I find out where she’s buried, sanctify her remains, and set them alight to sever her connection with the physical realm. You’ve never lived until you’ve gone scaling over graveyard fences in the dead of night.”
He scrunched his nose but did not seem entirely horrified. That was a plus.
“Anyway, if you want to ward your house, you could burn dried sage. Line all the doors with salt, but that’s a mess to clean up later. There’s also iron. Place it over all the entry points, windows included. It bars entry, but it would also block spectral voices.”
“We can do iron,” Harrison said with a growl, though it wasn’t directed toward anyone in particular.
“Hell yeah we can,” Hudson agreed.
“You’re amongst a family of blacksmiths, dear,” Violet said when she noticed Hazel’s polite but confused smile.
Shit. A man who could forge iron. Hazel was a goner.
“You’re all set, then,” she said, trying to hide her glee. “On that note, I should go find that ghost.”
Hudson stood immediately. “I’ll go with you.”
“Yeah, okay.” She shot him a small, playful smile. “You don’t have to, though.”
“I want to.”
“I’m going to see if I can manage some magic of my own,” Bonnie said, carefully standing with Beckett still in her arms. “I need to give this one a bath and keep him asleep. Please come back after, Hazel. I have to hug you at least thrice more before you leave.”
A low, rumbling clatter rose from Hudson’s side of the room.
If the growl was any indication, his bear was a damn leviathan. And he apparently didn’t like the idea of Hazel’s inevitable departure.
They left Hollis and Harrison to a discussion of how to fix iron over Beckett and Hannah’s respective windows.
Outside, Hazel buttoned her coat. She stopped by her car and grabbed her phone from the front seat. Checking the screen, she noted four missed calls and a bevy of text messages from her mother, father, and one of her cousins.
“Were you supposed to be somewhere tonight?” Hudson slid his hands into his pockets, affecting a casual composure that sat awkwardly on his broad shoulders.
“Is that your roundabout way of asking if I had a hot date?”
“Maybe.”
“Family dinner.” She quickly drafted a text to her mother. “Ever sat down with half-a-dozen tipsy, mouthy witches? And then there’s my mother’s side. Things get catty fast. Christmas Eve almost always ends with someone hexed. Super fun.”
She pressed send on her message.
‘Don’t worry. Home later. You will never believe who I just met.’
Pocketing her phone, she grabbed her bag, which had a few supplies that might come in useful. “Lead the way?”
“Only if I can take your arm,” he said, offering his left elbow. “It’ll keep you warm.”
Hazel considered the prominent swell of his biceps. She was in so much trouble, it was almost funny. But if she was going to jump into the fire from the metaphorical frying pan, she might as well make a conscious decision to cook herself until she was extra crispy.
Taking his arm, she felt another jolt. His energy wasn’t just strong, it was utterly devastating. He was good. He was loyal. And he was hers.
His skin was hot and pleasantly warmed her bare hand even as the snowfall grew heavier.
“I reckon you can’t see in the dark like me. Do you need a flashlight? Harris might have one somewhere. We don’t have much need for them, though.”
“I have my own.” Her airy tone lilted as she manifested a ball of light. A glowing blue orb appeared in the air ten feet ahead.
Hazel felt the instant he flinched.
Bewildered, Hudson huffed out a strained laugh. The sound rang hollow to Hazel’s ears.
“That’s…something.”
“Good something or bad something?”
His forehead pinched, and Hazel adjusted her weight from one foot to the other.
“So you do more than just hop graveyard fences and scout Craigslist for stray shifters?”
“I do lots more.”
“I’m suddenly hyperaware of the fact that you’re made of magic.”
“So are you, technically.” She laughed a little. “You got something against witches, grizz?”
“Never met one before tonight.”
She supposed that was a no, but he didn’t exactly say, ‘no,’ either.
He led her to the backyard, guiding her into a thicket crowded by tall oaks. He noted the spot where Beckett’s tracks had first ventured into the forest, then steered her a mile into the dark forest. All the while, he continued to eye the orb of her light, seeming troubled by the way it sparked and flared with wild abandon.
He didn’t speak again. Perplexed, she fought the urge to worry at her bottom lip.
“So you’re the strong, silent type, eh?” She tried on a smile, half-hoping he was just keeping quiet while they were still within eavesdropping distance of his family.
“Not
especially,” he replied. “I’m processing. I guess I’m just surprised you’re a witch. I always imagined my mate would be a bear.”
Hazel slowed her steps, letting his words penetrate. She didn’t know him well enough to gauge his disappointment levels, but he certainly sounded addled. After a moment, she withdrew her hand from his and returned it to her pocket.
“Ah, shit, I didn’t mean that to sound bad,” he said quickly. “I really didn’t.”
Choosing to focus on the task at hand, she assessed the air. There were no particularly strong currents of energy to indicate spirit activity, but they still had quite a trek to the river.
She wandered off a few feet to the left, darting her eyes to one of the oaks. Long, thick gashes trailed down in perfectly straight lines. From the height of the marks, she knew the bear who’d marred the bark had been standing on his hind legs at the time. And he was tall.
She wondered if they were from Hudson’s bear.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she didn’t check the message that was most certainly from her mother. Perhaps it would be wiser to keep her good news to herself for now. Maybe it wasn’t even good news, if her being a witch was some sort of a stumbling block for Hudson.
“Are all witches as beautiful as you?” he asked after a moment, donning a charming smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Are all grizzly alphas as pandering as you?” She cocked an eyebrow as she came to another stop. “Don’t pay compliments you don’t mean.”
“I ain’t pandering. You are beautiful. You’re the prettiest lady I’ve ever set eyes on.”
“But I make you uncomfortable.”
“As you just pointed out, I’m an alpha grizzly.” From the way his register dipped, she knew she’d struck a nerve. “Not much makes me uncomfortable.”
“So you’re just disappointed, then.”
“I didn’t say that.” Despite his swift response, his aura told a different story. Though his light continued to reach for hers, it was like he’d slipped a set of reins over himself. The center of his energy appeared slightly more contained.
“Fun fact about witches: we can see what’s going on under the hood. Your aura betrays you, Hudson Holloway.”