Mate Fur Hire

by T. S. Joyce

  What if he was right? What if she was feeling this incredible connection because he bit her? She didn’t believe in magic much—not as a scientist—but perhaps there was more to a bite from a potential mate than she’d realized. God, this was all so confusing. She felt pulled in a hundred directions and dizzy from the whirlwind day, but the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced it wasn’t just the bite that made her feel this way about him.

  She’d been in love before and knew what it felt like. It wasn’t love with Tobias yet, because it was much too soon, but she was getting the same flutters in her stomach she’d had with Jonathan. A bite couldn’t do that…could it?

  Gritting her teeth at how mortifying this would be, she slipped from bed, pulled the comforter with her, and tiptoed to Tobias’s still form. Her night vision had kicked in, and he was lying on his side, facing away from her. Good. Quietly, she laid down beside him, dragging the comforter over them.

  “What are you doing?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

  Snuggling against his back, she rested her hand on his waist and said, “I’ve cared for a man before, and this feels the same.”

  He let off a long exhale, then pulled her hand around his torso and pressed her palm onto his hard chest. “The man who Turned you?”

  Digging her chin into his back muscles so he could feel her answer, she nodded. “I was always interested in molecular genetics and majored in it in college.”

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “In Anchorage. I wrote this paper my senior year about a two-year study I’d done on GMO foods. I was interested in swapping genetics from one species to another, but more than that, I wanted to study the long term effects on the engineered food sources for human consumption. I landed this job right after graduation—a dream job—and I met a boy. Jonathan. He said all the right things, was so caring, and we worked together, so even with our hectic schedules, there was always time for us. My passion was in food, but his passion was in suppressing certain genetic traits in animals. He said he couldn’t wrap his head around certain things, though, not like I could, so he asked for my help on his experiments more and more, and eventually, I began to become interested as well. I thought we were suppressing violent tendencies in certain animals, but we were actually doing much more than that. Or I was. Jonathan was sitting back, letting me slowly take over. But eventually, I grew bored and wanted to continue on my original path. I was a food nerd, through and through.” She let off a nervous laugh. Licking her lips, she said, “Jonathan lied about who, and what, he was our entire relationship. Not many shifters can Turn a human.”

  Tobias lifted her knuckles to his lips and let them linger there, then said, “From what I understand, not many of them survive.”

  Yes, that. She hadn’t survived by much. “It takes a long time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  God, she was glad he was turned away from her. She wouldn’t be able to talk about this if he was looking at her face. “I mean, it takes a lot of bites over a long period of time.”

  “How long?”

  “He held me in a big cage in the lab for two weeks. I kept waiting for everyone to come to work and save me, but no one ever did. Just Jonathan. He bit me on the arms, and now I don’t like to wear T-shirts, even when it’s hot out. He marked me with a giant reminder of his betrayal.”

  “Why did he do it?” Tobias’s voice sounded strained now, angry.

  “He was hired to. He told me everything one night, right before my first Change. I was so sick, and he kept talking, and none of his words made sense until later. He hadn’t ever loved me. Hadn’t really even liked me, but he was being paid a lot of money to be the perfect boyfriend and to guide me to my ‘potential.’ That’s what he called it. He said that Turning me would redirect my focus where it needed to be.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Ooh, no. Jesus had nothing to do with what happened in that lab. My first Change was the most excruciating experience of my life. And all the while, Jonathan watched me with this proud smile, like I was some kind of miracle. Some kind of success. An experiment gone right. Only I hadn’t Turned right. I’d lived, sure, but I didn’t have any control. My animal was made unwillingly, and she was angry, frightened, and she never settled. And…” Fuck, she would not cry. Blinking hard, she said, “I couldn’t Change back.”

  “How long did your first Change last?”

  “More than a month.”

  Tobias rolled over and hugged her tight to his chest.

  Her voice came out a shaky squeak when she found the words to continue. “Jonathan shoved me in a big canvas sack and tied the top, then smuggled me from the lab to this back road where a truck was waiting with this giant dog cage in the back. And through the wire cage was where I saw the man who’d hired Jonathan. I’d talked to him on the phone before because he owned the lab and had an interest in what I was studying. I recognized his voice. I knew who he was. They talked about how I wasn’t a success after all, but a failed experiment because I couldn’t control my animal. They talked about killing me humanely, but the man who hired Jonathan decided against it. He said he had a place to keep me where I could continue my work, safely away from everyone. By the time I Changed back into my human skin, I’d been shipped to Perl.”

  “Who hired him?”

  Vera wiped a runaway tear on the blanket beneath them and whispered, “Clayton Reed.”

  Tobias went rigid against her, as if he’d been electrified.

  “I know you and your brothers work as his enforcers, but he has his hands in more than you know.”

  Tobias lurched upward and escaped her embrace. Running his hands through his hair, he stared at her, chest heaving. “Clayton Reed had you Turned? He wouldn’t. He protects humans.”

  “Most humans.”

  “No, Vera. You’re mistaken. It wasn’t him.”

  She sat up, pulling the comforter more firmly over her to hide how vulnerable she felt after sharing that with him. With anyone. “He owned the laboratory, Tobias.”

  “No.”

  “He’s the one who put all the misfits on Perl. He’s the one who sends us food and supplies so we can survive there because we’re his pets. His experiments. He wanted the McCalls fixed.”

  “Stop it.”

  “He did! As long as I continued my work, Clayton let me live and continued to send us supplies. He even paid me a monthly allowance. Eustice McCall was my patient. He was going insane, and Clayton wanted me to suppress his animal, only it didn’t work for him. It worked on every other shifter on Perl, but Eustice got worse. It isn’t just an animal problem with the McCalls. It’s a problem with their human sides, too, and my medicine just made him deteriorate faster. He hanged—dammit!” A sob wrenched from her throat, and she clapped her hand over her mouth as her shoulders shook. Tears streaming down her face, she slammed her fists on the ground and whispered, “He hanged himself. I found him. He was my only friend, and my medicine had made him worse. He was the only one who didn’t call me a witch, and I killed him.”

  Tobias’s eyes were like glowing green flames in the dark as he paced in front of her. She couldn’t even bring herself to tell him the rest. Already, he looked at her with suspicion, as if she’d made it all up. Anger burned through her, and she wiped her eyes. How stupid she’d been. Tobias didn’t trust her. She was just a misfit, and he’d lived a charmed life in the warmth of Clayton’s approval. Vera stood and dragged the comforter to the bed, then snuggled under it completely so he wouldn’t see her cry.

  This was why she told jokes when things got too serious. This was why she made light of things instead of digging her heels into the memories. The things she’d been through were too big to share with other people. She’d been normal once with a family and friends, a good job and her own apartment, but then she’d been strapped with an animal side that hated her almost as much as she hated it. Two warring beings sharing the same body, and if she couldn’t learn to control the an
imal and make peace with that awful part of her, she would be no better off than Eustice. He’d told her she owed it to herself to try to wean off the meds and try to live again. That had been the last thing he’d said to her, like he was already planning to leave her alone on that godforsaken island. And here she was, a month off the medicine and preparing for the worst because she didn’t just owe it to herself to try. She owed it to Eustice.

  A long, feral grizzly growl rumbled through the room, and then came the echo of the slamming door.

  Another betrayal, another man gone.

  She’d thought Tobias was different, but he was just like everyone else.

  Chapter Six

  Clayton better have a good fucking explanation for all this. Tobias ripped his satellite phone from the back of his plane and punched in the number. He rarely answered, but Tobias couldn’t go the whole night feeling gut-socked like this. His mate was in there crying her eyes out for what Clayton had done to her, and Tobias wanted answers.

  “Do you have her?” came the answer. The voice was disguised and robotic, just like it always was.

  “Explain this shit away, Clayton.”

  “Tobias, you don’t understand what is really going on. She can’t be trusted. She’s sly and conniving, and she’ll get in your head through your dick. Don’t claim that woman.”

  “Too late,” he growled out. “Explain to me why she was on Perl. Why you had her Turned. Give me anything so I don’t lose faith in everything we’ve done from day one. Do it now!”

  “She will cure the McCalls if you just give her time, but she isn’t safe off the island. Vera is volatile, and her animal is out of control. Harlan called. She hasn’t been taking the injections. Tobias, put her back where you found her and butt out of things you don’t understand.”

  “She’s a person, Clayton. You get that, right? You stole her life for your cure. Am I wrong?”

  Silence.

  “Am I wrong?” he yelled into the phone.

  “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the greater good of our people.”

  “Our people, Clayton. Ours. She was human! You’ve told me and my brothers all along that enforcing our laws and killing problem shifters was for the good of humans, but you killed her. Do you understand that? You had a vibrant human life, and you put an animal in her and shipped her to Perl Island. I don’t even want to imagine what she went through with those shifters you’ve collected, Clayton. I can’t even fathom what she went through, and your explanation is that her sacrifice is for the good of our people.”

  “If you don’t bring her back, I’ll have to put a kill order on her.”

  Tobias shook his head as he stared at the green and teal northern lights behind the plane. “Fuck you, Clayton. She’s mine, and she’s not going back to Perl. Not ever. I dare you to send an enforcer after her. Who will you choose? Ian? Jenner? Me? If you want any shot in hell at us ever taking a job for you again, you’ll let Vera go.”

  “Don’t take her medicine.” Clayton’s robotic voice sounded desperate.

  “Is that what this is really about? You don’t want me around her so she doesn’t cure me.” Tobias drew back and blinked hard as it dawned on him what Clayton was really scared of. “Are you afraid you’ll lose your precious guard dogs if our animals are suppressed?”

  “You’re better than that! Better than humans, and she’ll turn you human. She was supposed to suppress the misfits and improve the medicine. She was supposed to fix the McCall curse, not turn our damned species into humans! Vera will dull your bear, dull your senses, and you’ll be worthless to me. I want you and your brothers to figure out everything on your own, but this is too much. That witch is already in your head.”

  Tobias’s heart pounded so hard against his sternum, his chest ached.

  I want you and your brothers to figure out everything on your own.

  With shaking hands, Tobias ended the call and dropped the phone onto the ground at his feet, desperate not to be touching it anymore.

  His mind skittered away from the possibility, but with each racing thought, every enforcer mission began to make sense.

  Horrified, he felt like retching as he realized something awful.

  He knew who Clayton was.

  Chapter Seven

  The door opened, letting in a draft, and Vera squeezed her eyes closed, feigning sleep. Tobias clicked the door closed quietly, and the soft rustling of clothes sounded over the drone of the air conditioner. She could feel Tobias standing at the end of the bed.

  “I know you’re awake, Thistle.”

  The mattress shifted and sank under his weight, and he pulled the covers back, then slipped into bed beside her before covering them both up.

  Still angry, she rolled away from him and glared at the blue light that filtered through the space between the blinds in the hotel window.

  “I believe you,” he murmured.

  Shocked, Vera twisted around to see if he was serious.

  “Vera, what does Clayton look like?”

  Baffled by his question, it took her a few moments to answer. “Tall, broad shoulders, probably mid-fifties. Silver hair.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. He has three long scars down the side of his face, like something clawed him.”

  Tobias let off a tiny, painful sound. “Clayton is my dad.”

  “What?” She sat up and leaned back on her locked arms.

  Tobias looked ill in the blue light. “He said something when I called him just now. Something he used to tell me and my brothers when we were kids and curious about how our first Change would be or what we should do for our first hibernation. He wouldn’t tell us anything, and he would always say the same thing when we asked—that he wanted us to figure everything out for ourselves. That’s part of what being a bear shifter is, right? Relying completely on instinct.”

  “That sounds awful. Instinct doesn’t work like that. You aren’t all animal.”

  “He didn’t get that. Still doesn’t, I guess.”

  “When was the last time you talked to your dad, you know, as your dad?”

  “I’m thirty now, and the last time I talked to him on the phone was the spring after my first hibernation. He’d been wrong. I didn’t know what to do and neither did my brothers, and we were so scared, huddled in this shallow den, not even understanding we had to Change into our bears to hibernate. I attacked Jenner.” Tobias swallowed hard, over and over. In a steadier tone, he continued. “I almost killed my brother, and I couldn’t stop myself. And now I can’t stop having dreams about his face when I was killing him.”

  “But you didn’t kill him. He’s okay. I researched your family. Jenner is alive.”

  “He’s scarred up, Vera.” Tobias’s voice broke. “It was all I could do to get off him and let him live, and I left Ian to try and put him back together with almost no medical supplies. I was hungry and confused and so mad at everything that was happening. And I hurt him. You didn’t kill Eustice, Vera. He was doomed the day he was born a McCall. I actually went after my brother and tried to kill him.”

  “Not you. Your bear did, and you said it yourself—it was confusing, and you had no guidance.”

  “I wanted to blame my dad, so I called him when I woke up that next spring and lit into him. Yelling, cussing, telling him I hated him, and I did. I think I still do. He didn’t even defend himself. He was just like, ‘Lesson learned, boy. Grizzlies don’t get along. Do your brothers a favor and move on from them.’ And I did because I thought he must be right. This was the way it was supposed to be for grizzly shifters. No relationships, no mates, just a solitary existence so we don’t hurt other people.”

  “Do you still feel like that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said on a sigh. “Ian got married to Elyse, and I thought he was so stupid. I went to that wedding because Elyse begged me, but then I saw it. They really love each other, and they’re making it work. And then a couple days ago, I dropped off a woman from Silv
er Summit Outfitters—a photographer. Dalton Dawson left me a message saying Jenner’s after her as a mate and that I need to intervene. I won’t, though, because I get it. If Jenner wants the woman and he’s ready to claim someone, it’s his choice. Being with a mate wasn’t like I thought. It wasn’t like how dad said. And now tonight…Vera, he’s just as cold and remorseless as he was when I was a kid, and I don’t think I can live my life thinking I have to be empty like him. He's been manipulating me and my brothers this whole time.” Tobias pulled her down onto his chest and brushed her hair away from her face. “I don’t want to be like him.”

  “Then don’t. You don’t have to live alone, Tobias. You have me now, and you have your brothers, and Elyse, and the photographer—”

  “Lena.”

  “Right. Lena,” she said through an accidental smile.

  Tobias looked down at her in the dark with a slight frown. “Why does your voice sound like that—all hopeful?”

  “Don’t laugh, but now I have a chance at making friends with Elyse and Lena. Your family is growing. I mean, our family, kind of. I can’t be around my parents or brother until I get my animal under control, but if Lena and Elyse are tough enough to manage grizzly shifters, maybe they’ll be able to handle me, too.”

  “It was really lonely out on Perl, wasn’t it?”

  Vera rested her hand on his stomach just to feel it flex with each breath he took. “After Eustice died, it was the loneliest place in the world. Tobias, I’m really sorry about your dad and that you had to find out that bad stuff from me. I didn’t know.”