by T. S. Joyce
Tobias was devastatingly attractive to her, all messy chestnut hair and looking like he’d just gotten out of bed. His serious green eyes had frozen her in place when she’d opened the door. She’d expected Harlan to be knocking again and was ready to give him what-for, but the sight of Tobias on her doorstep had shocked her silly.
He would be a good mate. Probably.
Tobias gave her an are you ready? look over his shoulder as she picked up the box of breakables he’d brought that she would definitely need to cure the Silvers’ hibernation problem. Tobias didn’t even realize how important this stuff was. It was the last thing that rat-finked Clayton had allowed her to order before he cut her off. The misfit who’d pissed him off so bad that he’d stopped supplies for a month? That had been her when she’d tried to escape by sneaking onto one of the delivery planes. The pilot had busted her the second he sat in the cockpit, and apparently tattled to Clayton. Maybe Clayton’s plan had been to remind her how much she needed him. Maybe leaving the misfits starving for a month was his way of scaring her into submission. She’d only become more determined to leave though. Oh, Clayton was going to be pissed when he realized she’d tethered herself to one of his precious enforcers, but screw him. He’d pushed her to this level of desperation. She almost wished she could be there to see his face when he found out what she’d done. Almost—because in real life, Clayton was scary as hell.
Tobias pulled open her door, and she gave one last look around at all the trinkets she was abandoning. No one here would have any use for her lab, and though she was more than ready to leave this place, it was sort of sad leaving with such a rushed goodbye.
Steeling herself, she followed Tobias out of her cabin and stepped over Harlan’s sobbing body. When he gripped her ankle, she gasped and rushed out, “The package!”
Tobias spun so fast he blurred, and in that split-second, he seemed to understand the desperation on her face because he lurched forward and steadied both her and the package. A growl ripped from his throat. “Get your fucking hand off her.”
When Harlan’s grip tightened, she cried out at the pain and stomped at him. “Let me go!”
With a crazy smile, he released her with a hard shove, and she fell forward into Tobias.
“I told you she was mine!” Harlan screamed, standing. He let off a shrill whistle, then called out, “He’s trying to take our woman!”
And just like they always did, the misfits appeared out of the trees when Harlan, their self-proclaimed king, called them. Shit.
“Tobias?” She should really warn him.
“I see them.”
“No, you don’t underst—”
Her throat closed up as Harlan gripped her neck from behind, strangling her. Tobias turned at her choked noise, and his face went feral, eyes darkening to the color of tar. Fear dumped into her system as she fought for breath, sandwiched between two terrifying brawlers.
He can shift! She just needed to tell him that and warn him about Harlan’s animal because Tobias was going to feel some serious pain if he engaged. And for some reason, she really, really didn’t want this almost stranger to get hurt on her account. She already felt protective of him. Can’t breathe!
Tobias dropped her bags in the dirt by the porch. “Let her go.”
“I can do whatever I want with my witch.”
“She isn’t yours, Harlan. She’s mine. My mate. If you don’t let her go, I’m going to rip you limb from limb.”
She didn’t doubt it from the savage look in his face, but the corners of her vision were starting to spark, and Harlan was lifting her off the ground now. “Tobias,” she choked out.
Harlan yanked the neck of her shirt to the side. “She don’t have your bite mark, so she don’t look like your mate to me.”
“Don’t!” Tobias roared.
Fuck, Harlan was going to mark her. Desperately, she flailed and caught him in the shins with the heels of her thick-soled hiking boots. Harlan grunted in pain and eased his grip on her throat, and as soon as she connected with the porch floorboards, she pushed forward, yanking them both off balance. She fell down the stairs, gasping for that beautiful oxygen in the absence of Harlan’s strong grip. Holding her throat and sucking at the air like a landed fish, Vera lifted her gaze to Tobias who didn’t look like Tobias at all anymore. Standing a few feet away from her was a form she couldn’t understand. Twelve feet tall with dark brown fur sprouting from his massive body, Tobias was in the final moments of his Change.
“Holy shit,” she choked out, arching back to look at his terrifying face. Big block head, lips curled back over long canines and death in his eyes, Tobias was a much bigger monster than Harlan was.
Behind her, she could hear rustling and then the sound of Harlan’s animal chirping. Harlan’s non-terrifying battle cry would be comical if she wasn’t lying frozen right beneath a freaking enraged grizzly bear right now. Tobias roared a deafening sound that shook the earth under her, and in a flash of self-preservation, she made like a log and rolled away, sure at any moment either Tobias or Harlan would attack her.
She sat up, windpipe feeling like it had been crushed, and fumbled for her little weapon in her pocket. The medicine that suppressed her animal was still lingering in her system, and she wouldn’t be able to help Tobias that way, but she was about to pepper spray the shit out of Harlan the giant porcupine.
Stupid Harlan wasn’t like wild porcupines that turned their back on their attackers and tried to survive. He was six times the size of a wild one, and on the attack, charging Tobias. The dumb fuck was going to die, but his quills hurt like a mother trucker. She knew. She’d been at the wrong end of Harlan’s anger before.
She popped the cap of the pepper spray and aimed, but someone yanked her arm and spun her.
“I don’t think so, witch,” Grady growled out, his eyes blazing bright blue. Grady was cougar shifter and apparently his meds were wearing off, too. With a squeak, she lifted the mace and sprayed. He howled in pain and fell backward, just as she inhaled the cloud.
“Ow,” she moaned, rubbing her eyes. They watered so badly she could barely see, but she could make out the blurry forms of Tobias and Harlan locked up. And if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a wolf headed into the fight. “Dammit, Ewen, you country-ass son of a cockchafer!” she screamed. “Mind your own business!” She bolted for the snarling battle and aimed the pepper spray, but everyone was fighting now, and she didn’t know where to shoot that wouldn’t get Tobias. Just as she was about to push the little button on Harlan’s face, Tobias turned on her with murder in his gaze. There was a moment between them when they both locked eyes, and she could see it. She could see his plan and oh, it was an awful one. “No!” she screamed at him, only able to stumble back a step before he opened those massive jaws and came for her.
Tobias’s teeth sank into her, two on her front and two on her back shoulder. She screamed a bloodcurdling sound of pain as his teeth clamped deeply into her flesh. The bite lasted a moment, and the second he released her, she fell backward.
As she looked down at the two puncture wounds on her front in horror, the woods grew eerily quiet. Even Harlan had stopped his attack and was staring at her with those wide, stupid porcupine eyes of his. And out of sheer madness, she pulled the trigger of the pepper spray on him until he ran away and hid under the porch. This was all his fault.
“I thought you would be romantic when you claimed me!” she screamed, worked into a proper fury now. She stood and wished her animal would come out now so she could bite the shit out of Tobias’s eyeball or his bear dick or somewhere else super sensitive because, “You bit me in the tit!”
Tobias stood frozen on all fours in front of her, and now her anger was so great she rushed him and bit his neck. She couldn’t pierce his tough hide, and now her mouth was full of fur. Tobias didn’t act like he was affected it all, which pissed her off more, so she clamped down harder until her teeth felt like they were coming loose from her head. Releasing him, she shov
ed him instead. There. “You deserved that, mate.” Stifling a sob, she stooped and picked up the package, then lifted her chin primly and addressed the misfits. “I will not miss any of you asshats.” Then she marched off into the woods toward the runway she’d been manicuring for her knight in shining bear-fur to come rescue her.
Ignoring the trickling warmth that tickled her boob and her back, she stomped this way and that through the alder brush.
About halfway to the runway, Tobias asked from behind her, “Are you okay?”
She went to toss him an angry glare over her shoulder, but stopped dead in her tracks. He was back in his human form, naked as a jaybird, and oh my! She tripped on a tree root, lurched forward, and landed on top of the package with an oomf.
Tobias yanked her upward then spun her in his arms. Hands on her shoulders, he hunched down to look at her eye level. “Are you hurt?”
Her boob and back, yes. Her pride? Definitely yes. Her eyeballs? Hell no, but he was still in trouble. “Your dick is showing,” she said grumpily. “And just so you know, it’s ridiculous of you to have a boner right now.”
He straightened up and hooked his hands on his hips, eyebrow arched. “Well, I’ve never claimed anyone before.”
“Biting me while you’re a bear gets you off?”
“And fighting.”
“I’m traumatized. And your dick is the size of my arm. You should’ve told me that before you signed the damned contract.” She gestured toward it, palms out, fingers splayed. She couldn’t stop staring. “I mean, how do you even—”
“Oh, enough. You aren’t mad at my dick. You’re mad that I bit you like that, but what was I supposed to do? Your entire village was shifting and yeah, I can take them, but I was worried about you. I saw that asshole touch you and I lost my head, okay? It’s not how I imagined biting someone either!”
Grumpily, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at his bleeding body. He was covered in Harlan’s quills. “You look like a pin cushion.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t know your backwoods boyfriend was a freaking porcupine. A porcupine? Really? I didn’t even know they existed.”
“Island of Misfit Shifters, Tobias. Always expect the unexpected with us.”
He winced as he shifted his weight off the leg that had long black quills sticking out of it. “What are you?”
“Rude.” She turned and picked up the box, then continued her angry march toward the plane.
“You know what I am,” he said from behind. “And we’re mated now, officially, so I don’t see what the big deal is.”
Ignoring him, she gritted her teeth against the pain in her teat and high-kneed it over a tall patch of grass. The storm clouds were beginning to open up, drizzling rain over them. “If you have pliers, I can get the quills out of you before we take off. The idiots won’t follow us anymore. They’re dumb as bricks, but they love their traditions. You bit me. I’m yours. They lost.”
“I’d appreciate you taking these out,” he said in a strained voice. “And I’m sorry about where I bit you. I was aiming for higher up, but you moved.”
“I thought I would have a pretty scar, Tobias. One I could show off to my friends when I wear tank tops in the summers.”
“Do you have a lot of friends?”
“No. Have you seen Perl Island? Inbred weirdos only. I thought I could latch onto your brother’s mate like a barnacle and make her be my friend.”
“Elyse?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know about her?”
“Because I did my research before I hired you, McBeefcake. The fact that you have a built-in family was one of the pros. I wrote them down.”
“Pros and cons?”
She made her way around a giant pine tree. “Yep.”
“What were the cons?” His voice was sounding more and more pained, and she got it. Harlan’s quills had barbs that dug deeper and deeper the longer they were left alone. Tobias didn’t know it yet, but pulling them out would hurt worse than when they went in. He probably didn’t actually care about this conversation. More likely he was trying to take his mind off the pain.
“Uhhh,” she stalled, trying to remember what she’d written down. “All of my research was done via radio or satellite phone when Harlan-the-guard-porcupine was passed out drunk, so I hadn’t seen your picture. Therefore, I assumed you were probably hideous, or why wouldn’t you be mated already…”
“Because hibernation,” he muttered.
Ignoring him, she continued. “Probably likes doggy-style, eats a lot, probably snores. Also, I assumed you were dumb.”
“Why?”
“Because you are a bear.”
Tobias snorted an offended sound. “Bears aren’t dumb.”
“Hey, I was fine with dumb. Pros—biggest animal shifter, naturally protective instincts, family, good job, probably doesn’t smell like beef jerky.”
When she hesitated at a fork in the trees, he walked past her and pointed toward the left. “This way.”
Ooh, he looked bad from behind. Good in that he had a muscular back and a great ass, a confident stride, big powerful legs that were lithe when he moved—focus—but bad that the quills were in a solid pattern across one of his shoulders and hurt just to look at them. Tiny streams of crimson covered that side of his body. And bless that man, he was still dragging her luggage without complaint.
“Thank you for defending me back there,” she said. “I mean, no thanks for the tit-bite, but I appreciate the rest.”
Her voice was still raspy from Harlan choking her, she was blinking constantly to try to rid her body of the burning pepper spray, and her puncture wounds hurt like someone had burned her with cigarette lighters, but that could’ve gone a lot worse. And thanks to Tobias, she was really going to get off this island. Clayton was going to flip his lid when he found out. It would be interesting to see how the old codger reacted to one of his enforcers breaking the cardinal rule of this place—don’t take the crazies off the island.
Tobias was practically jogging toward his plane now, so she picked up the pace behind him. She didn’t think Harlan and the others would follow, but she felt safer sticking close to Tobias the Monster Grizzly. She shuddered when she thought about him in his animal form.
“Have you killed people before?”
“Why?” he asked, more growl than word.
“Just curious.”
“I’m an enforcer.” He spoke it like that should be answer enough.
“How many?”
“Rude,” he said, repeating her early retort back to her.
“Fine.”
His plane was a white and blue four-seater that looked newer than any she’d seen make deliveries on Perl. “New ride?”
“She’s one month young.”
“But you know how to fly her, right? I mean, you’ve been flying longer than a month.”
An impatient growl rippled through him. “I thought you did your research.” He yanked open the door and rummaged around in a small toolbox, then handed her a set of plyers. Bracing his hands on the edge of the passenger’s seat, he twitched his head at his shoulder. “Do the back first. I swear they’re getting deeper.”
“This is going to hurt.”
Tobias answered with a rippling, fully animalistic growl. Okay then.
“Don’t bite me. Again.”
Tobias winced with each quill she pulled out, and eventually, her hand began to tire and ache. It wasn’t until she made her way to his front that she saw his eyes. There was no human in them at all. She should distract him. “I hear the first year of marriage is the hardest one.”
Tobias snorted and stared at her, his eyebrows jacked up. Oh, she could imagine what she looked like: eyes red from the pepper spray, tears still rolling down her cheeks from the burn, mascara everywhere, bloody shirt, and her perfectly curled hair was probably now a tangled mess. She cracked a grin at the absurdity. The first year was the hardest? This was day one, and they were already
bleeding.
A deep chuckle filled Tobias, and he angled his head toward the clouds above. She laughed, too, because his was infectious. They bantered back and forth with answering laughs until they were doubled over, cracking up. Maybe they were both in shock. They were mated now, complete strangers, and even though she’d known what she wanted and had written out the contract, they’d actually gone through with it.
Tobias’s chuckle finally tapered off, and he leaned back on the edge of the seat and took a long, steadying breath before she began de-quilling him again.
Because he’d been so nice about all this, Vera felt awful leaving here without him understanding at least part of what was wrong with her. “I have to tell you something. It’s kind of big.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched as she jerked another quill out, and the lingering smile fell completely from his lips. “Tell me.”
“Do you know anything about Turned shifters?”
“Not much. Only certain kinds of shifters are able to do it. It’s pretty rare.” He glanced at her and then away. “And they don’t Turn well.”
She gave him an empty smile and pulled another Harlan-dagger. “I didn’t Turn easily. I’m here because I have no control of my animal. Never did. Likely never will. Just so you know, that is something we’ll have to deal with.”
“Then why don’t you keep taking your medicine if the animal scares you.”
“I’m not scared of anything.” Lie.