The Bear And The Unicorn (Supernatural Enforcers Agency 6)

by E A Price

  “Awww, that’s adorable.”

  “That’s enough lip out of you.”

  Sky snorted. “Okay, so most boring case?”

  “I had to follow a tortoise shifter. The company he worked for thought he was stealing from them. The guy moved more slowly than a glacier, and I had to go through mountains of financial documents – or at least I had to watch Mercy going through mountains of financial documents. Damn, it’s boring just talking about it.”

  Mrs. Snow Globe put down her book and walked into the kitchen. They watched as she poured a glass of wine and then resumed reading, thankful for the fact that she didn’t bother shutting her drapes.

  “Why does her husband think she’s cheating?” asked Sky, munching on a few raisins.

  They stocked up on munchables before arriving. He had screwed up his face in disgust when she chose raisins – nature’s candy – and pita chips for her snacks, but given that he had already eaten all his chips and candy bars, he was now staring hungrily at the raisins. She relented and offered him some – he took a huge handful.

  “Few things,” he said between mouthfuls. “She’s been taking phone calls out of the room, not at home when she said she would be and lies about where she’s going. He says he keeps asking her if something’s wrong, but she says no.”

  “Why didn’t he just ask her if she’s seeing someone?”

  Zane gave her a look.

  “Okay, yeah, that’s probably the worst question you can ask a spouse.”

  “Especially if they’re innocent.”

  “You think she is?”

  “No,” he scoffed.

  That earned him a double eyebrow raise. “Is it that unlikely?”

  “I’ve done quite a few of these cases – all of them were cheating.”

  “But there’s lots of couples out there who don’t cheat.”

  Zane’s mouth tightened. “Sure.”

  “My parents have been together for forty years, and they’re still embarrassingly touchy-feely with each other. Honestly, I can barely be in the same room with them. Drove me mad when I was a teenager, but now I’m pleased that they’re so in love with one another.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “What about your parents?” she asked tentatively sensing some kind of issue. “Are they still together? You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”

  “Yeah, they’re still together,” he said tightly.

  She could sense his swirling emotions and her unicorn mewled in sympathy. Sky placed her hand on his and his lips twitched.

  “My mom worships my dad and he… lets her. He always backs her up when it comes to me, but he treats her like a doormat. He’s cheated on her again and again and every time it breaks her heart, and she just takes it.”

  Zane’s eyes blackened and claws pushed at his fingers. His beast was close to the surface. This wasn’t something he liked talking about. She pressed her fingers to his hot cheek, trying to soothe him. Then patted his head and called him a good boy. He frowned at her.

  “Sorry, I grew up around horses.”

  “You gonna offer me a sugar cube next?” he quipped.

  “How about we get some ice cream on the way home?”

  His eyes lit up before they took on a wary glint. “Real ice cream? Or frozen yogurt or ice water or sherbet or…”

  “Real ice cream – the sugariest, creamiest, fattiest variety we can find.”

  “Deal.”

  He held still as a car pulled into the drive ahead of them.

  They watched eagerly as a skinny man in his early thirties got out and strode toward the front door of Mrs. Snow Globe’s house. He wasn’t making any pains about not being seen.

  “Who’s that?” asked Sky in a whisper.

  “Don’t know, and he can’t hear us.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Mrs. Snow Globe opened the door, smiled and gave the stranger a hug.

  “Probably not selling Pretty Betty Cosmetics,” Sky teased.

  Zane grunted.

  “But he could still be her brother.”

  Zane grunted again before reaching in the back seat to grab his camera.

  “I’m going to go get a few pictures through the window. Stay here.”

  “Okay.”

  He gave her a meaningful look. “Stay here.”

  “I will – I don’t want to jeopardize your case.”

  “Fuck the case. I don’t want you to get hurt. You see anyone lurking around honk the damn horn. I’ll come running.”

  “I shall honk like my life depends on it.”

  “Atta girl.”

  She laughed as she watched him leave, her eyes lingering on his extremely taut backside. Honestly – the thing was a work of art. Her heart stuttered a little as he walked away. Oh, this was bad. Mild flirtation was quickly becoming more – a lot more.

  *

  “Lake,” purred Juliet.

  The arctic wolf shifter stood to attention, and she smiled.

  It was 4 am, and the building was all but dead. There was a night shift, but it was generally made up of nocturnal shifters and vampires – the quieter, sneakier species - unlike the wilder day shift workers. Lake led one of the tactical teams and was generally quiet, but he could be relied upon in any situation. The two of them went on a couple of dates a few years ago. There was nothing there but it quenched each’s natural curiosity about dating different species.

  “Working late?” he asked.

  “It’s quite early for me. You, on the other hand, are here late.”

  He smiled. “I’m early.”

  Four hours early.

  “I was wondering if you could do something for me.”

  His eyebrow arched just the tiniest sliver of an inch indicating he was listening and quite possibly interested.

  “I’d like you to watch Christian Hawk.”

  “Watch?”

  “Watch, tail, stalk, paw through his garbage – anything like that. Call it women’s intuition, vampire’s nose, but I don’t trust him.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next day, Zane collected Sky from work again. He greeted her with a crooked smile and an appreciative glance over her lithe form.

  He was about to ask her something when she quickly cut him off. “So, spill, how’d it go with your client – Mr. Snow Globe?”

  He chuckled. “Actually pretty well. Turns out the guy Mrs. Snow Globe was meeting was actually a designer at the snow globe company; he’s married to another guy, and they have three kids. Mr. Snow Globe recognized him when I showed him the photos. Went to confront her and she told him they were meeting because she wanted to design a special snow globe for his birthday – but they were having creative differences over the size, which is why she was sneaking around so much. Mr. Snow Globe was happy, and he paid me in cash upfront for my hard work.”

  “That’s wonderful!” she gushed, leaning over and pecking Zane on the cheek.

  She flushed as he stared at her in surprise.

  Zane cleared his throat as his cheeks turned slightly pink in pleasure. “Well, I, ah, do like getting paid.”

  “Not that part, I mean about her not cheating on him, right?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, I guess. I mean it’s not like you know them.”

  Sky smiled slightly. “No, but no one deserves to be in pain.”

  “Spoken like a woman who never met my high school Spanish teacher. She was a gym teacher in a past life – made us do laps of the classroom until we got answers right.”

  “Oh, and how is your Spanish?”

  “Let’s just say I can’t even count to five in Spanish but I was the star of the track team. So, hey, tonight, I thought we could get dinner.” He paused for a couple of beats. “If you want to.”

  “That sounds nice, but you choose the restaurant this time.”

  A pained look came over his face, but he quickly dismissed it. “No, no, whatever you want will be fine.”

  She seriously doubte
d that, but if he wanted to play it that way… Maybe she would just annoy him into revealing his true self.

  *

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go anywhere else?” Sky asked again.

  “No, this is fine.”

  Tofu Joy. The restaurant was called Tofu Joy. If he weren’t sitting at the counter in an uncomfortable, plastic chair, he’d swear someone was shitting him. Who on earth would create anything called Tofu Joy?

  He was doing well. Hadn’t blown up once – and he’d certainly had the opportunities. Never mind turning over a new leaf, he was turning over a new freaking tree. They got his order wrong and then refused to bring him what he actually ordered – telling him he should try what they gave him as he would like it. Grrr. The guy sitting next to him spent the entire time talking on his cell phone loudly, elbowing Zane in the stomach and knocking over his drink. The restaurant then tried to overcharge him for the dinner, and it took Sky patiently explaining for twenty minutes that the two of them didn’t order twelve meals and seventeen drinks between them before they relented and recalculated. And then a guy on a motorbike ran over his foot in the parking lot. Didn’t even slow down or look back.

  Yeah, his gears were officially ground. Feathers completely ruffled. Goat definitely got.

  But did he growl and run after the biker to give him a piece of his mind and a bigger portion of his fists like his bear demanded? Nope, he gritted his teeth and flexed his claws, but he didn’t do anything.

  Helped that Sky fluttered to his aid and propped him up by dragging one of his arms over her shoulder. It wouldn’t have helped if he really were injured. She was so slight that he would have toppled on top of her… actually, that sounded quite enticing. But maybe not in the parking lot. Sky wasn’t a grope in the parking lot type of girl. No, he limped slightly and put a little pressure on her, pretending he wasn’t pulling her body tightly against him.

  “Are you okay? Should we go to the hospital?”

  “Nah, I’m fine.”

  She tried to raise a few more objections, and yes his foot throbbed. But then he angled her against him, so her breasts rubbed against his chest and her hardened nipples grazed him, and that made him forget about everything else.

  What? He just got run over by a motorcycle. He really couldn’t be held accountable; he was probably in shock or something.

  *

  At 3 am, Sky awoke to find a bear in her kitchen inhaling pizzas. A huge brown bear, all shaggy fur, teeth, and claws.

  “Zane?”

  He looked up, a bear caught in headlights. A bear caught in headlights wearing nothing but a lot of pizza sauce around his mouth.

  “What on earth?”

  He growled and let out a few howling sounds.

  Sky covered her mouth to stop the laughter. “You better shift – I don’t speak bear.”

  Slowly he did. Hair receded, claws retracted, and he morphed into a very buff man – with pizza sauce around his mouth and no underwear. Yes, her gaze drifted down. How could it not? He was practically waving it in her face. Almost made her gasp when she saw him in his full glory. Almost - she wasn’t a girl who was impressed by size. Or at least the issue had never come up before. Almost made her forget what they were talking about.

  No, bad unicorn.

  She forced her eyes to his guilty face. Hand in the cookie jar moment and all that.

  “Zane, what are you doing?”

  “I can’t live on tofu!” he snarled.

  Her mouth dropped open at his vehemence.

  He started pacing her small kitchen. “Look, I was pissed about the guy who ran over my foot and couldn’t sleep, so I went out looking for him.”

  “You actually started searching the streets for him?”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry, I got a friend to come by and watch you while I was out – called in another of my poker IOUs.”

  “You must have a lot of IOUs.”

  “Yeah, the trick is to cheat. Anyway, I couldn’t find him, and I was starving so I kind of stopped by a pizzeria and ordered twenty pizzas, but I didn’t want to leave you alone so I brought them back here, and that’s when you caught me… Okay, I have a problem with anger, I can’t let things go, and I have to eat meat, and I can’t stand agave nectar or herbal tea and…”

  “Zane.” She stood in front of him and placed a hand on his rapidly expanding chest.

  He stopped and looked down at her in interest. Her touch soothed the rage she saw in his eyes, giving her both relief and pleasure at the effect she had.

  “Zane, I… I like you. And I don’t expect you not to eat meat or to like the things I do. I don’t eat meat because my animal doesn’t like it, but I don’t expect to turn you into a vegetarian bear. And for the record, you really don’t hide your temper as well as you think you do.”

  His face drooped like a five-year-old boy on discovering Santa wasn't real. “But…”

  “I saw the throat-slitting motions you were giving to the guy sitting next to us at dinner. Not to mention the stabbing motions to the waiter. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that he was trembling in terror?”

  Zane looked a little put out. “But you said that Edmund was an asshole and…”

  “Ethan and you’re right. He was and is an asshole. I mean, you know that ‘cause you met him, right?”

  “Uh…” He looked around shiftily.

  “I know you did. Why else would you have run off and left me in the care of a gator shifter with a grudge against vegetables? And I did hate it when he lost his temper, but for you… I don’t know; I kind of think you’re cute when you’re all growly. Mostly, you’re not like him.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, yeah, I’m a lot more handsome.”

  Sky grinned as she clasped his biceps and shuffled closer to him, aware of the weapon he was packing downstairs. “Much more modest, too.”

  “But I know I told you I lost my job at the SEA because my boss had a grudge against me…”

  “For being too handsome?” Sky teased.

  “But really it’s because of my temper.”

  She stroked his skin. “I won’t deny that relaxing a little wouldn’t hurt you, but you’re not like Ethan.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, for one thing, he never really cared about my safety.”

  “Asshole.” His huge hands landed on Sky’s waist, and her unicorn whimpered.

  “Even after I got mugged one time he wouldn’t come and pick me up after work – still had me riding the bus even though I was still scared.” She was maybe exaggerating just a little bit. The raccoon shifter in question stole a bag of oranges from her that she dropped on the ground. It really wasn’t that traumatic. But at the time she really wanted to eat them.

  “Fucker,” he breathed with feeling.

  She smiled. “But the moment I met you, I felt safe, I felt secure with you. I knew that you… that you’re important to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to label it, but I know I want to get to know your cute meat eating, tea hating bear a little better.”

  “You don’t mind that I’m basically a dick?”

  Her eyes flickered down, and he grinned.

  “I’m not even touching that comment.” You could touch something else her perverted unicorn suggested. “But no, I don’t mind, as long as you don’t mind this.”

  Sky took a deep breath and backed away from him. Confusion turned to excitement as she stripped out of her pajamas. That soon became wonder as she allowed her shift to take over.

  “Holy fuck, you’re a unicorn!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Nellie Draper grasped her purse tightly as she jogged through the streets.

  Stupid cab driver. Oh no, sorry, doll, I’m now off duty. The guy just stopped and kicked her out of his cab. What kind of man leaves a woman to fend for herself in the middle of the night? What kind of man actually tells his girlfriend he thinks she should get a boob job right in the middle o
f getting a blowjob? She almost choked. It was her useless boyfriend’s fault she had to get the cab in the middle of the night anyway. No way was she staying at his place after that argument. Ugh, men were all awful.

  Her animal bobbed her head in agreement slowly. She did everything slowly. Nellie wasn’t built for speed. The unending joy of being a Pinta Island tortoise shifter. Rare and large and slow.

  She shivered slightly as she heard some footsteps behind her. Probably nothing. She took out her phone ready to call for help, just in case, ignoring the twelve missed calls and fourteen text messages from her douchebag boyfriend.

  “Probably nothing,” she muttered again.

  The city was full of shifters who preferred the nighttime to the daytime. No reason to expect they were specifically out looking to attack her. Just because she made a very slow, big, easy target.

  Nellie could sense someone getting closer. She dialed nine and then one and made an effort to speed up. Not an easy feat. Her natural instinct was to take things slowly.

  She rounded a corner running smack dab into a hard chest, squealing as he grabbed her and roughly pushed her up against the wall. Nellie squirmed against his steely grip and let out some muffled curses as he slapped a hand over her mouth.

  Another huge, ugly brute joined them. “This the one?” he sneered.

  She screamed against his hand, trying to bite him.

  The first brute smirked. “Yeah, scraping the bottom of the barrel, right?”

  She didn’t understand it, but she assumed it was an insult to her and tried to knee him in the groin. He moved out the way, laughing at her.

  The other joined in as she grumbled against his hand, wishing they’d just take her purse and piss off. The longer they didn’t do just that, the more worried she became.

  “Get the needle,” said brute number one.

  The second pulled out a hypodermic needle, and she shook her head, increasing her struggles. It had no effect on him. Bastard didn’t even move an inch.

  “Jab her; she’s starting to piss me off.”

  “I don’t think so,” declared a growly voice behind them.

  Both attackers and Nellie looked up to see a man in a black costume and a mask. The men burst out laughing while Nellie cursed her luck at the local nut house for not having better security.