Mate Fur Hire

by T. S. Joyce

  “Are you a shifter?” Lena whisper-screamed.

  Great, she’d been going for normal, and already the other two Silver mates were looking at her like she was an exotic bug. “Yes?”

  “Holy shit on a stick,” Elyse said, eyes round as the full moon. “Wait, what are you two doing in Galena?”

  “They’re staying with me,” Link said. His half-crazy growl was gone, and his eyes looked clear and focused again. Huh.

  “You knew about her?” Elyse asked, sounding hurt.

  Link lifted up his arm, covered in tiny, pink, healed puncture wounds. “We are acquainted.”

  “You bit him?” Lena asked.

  “Not on purpose. Or maybe on purpose, but it wasn’t me. It was my animal, but I haven’t done that in three days, and I already apologized—”

  “Hey,” Tobias crooned, hugging her shoulders against his side. “She doesn’t have control over her animal. That’s why we have been quiet about her. I asked Link not to say anything.” Half-truths, and now Ian was staring at his brother with narrowed eyes like he smelled a rat.

  “Are you crying?” Elyse asked.

  “No?” Vera lied, her voice pitched up an octave. “I have pollen in both my eyes.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Elyse said, approaching with her arms outstretched. She hugged her up tight, and Vera caved against her with how damned good it felt to be hugged. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m just so excited to meet you all, and I’ve been imagining how this would go, and I’d planned on being so cool, you know? And then I get here and I’m a total freak and I’m going to go home so embarrassed, and Tobias will be really nice and tell me I did good, but I’ll replay this over and over in my head and—”

  “You aren’t a freak,” Elyse murmured as Lena wrapped her arms around them. “We were just shocked senseless because your mate is a bit of a beast, and no one could’ve ever called him making out with a tiny woman in public, must less introducing her as his fiancé. I’m sorry we took a second, but Tobias just legitimately smiled at me, and I’m confused on where that came from.”

  Lena squeezed them tighter. “Apparently, it’s from you.” She released her and pulled her hand up again, studying the ring. Her full lips were turned up in a genuine smile as she whispered, “It’s so pretty. Tobias did good.”

  “Link told me you are engaged to Jenner,” Vera said, trying to steady her shaking voice. “Congratulations! And to you, too,” she said, turning to Elyse. “On your wedding to Ian.”

  “Where is Jenner?” Tobias asked in a low, snarly voice.

  Vera cast him a frown over her shoulder, but he was standing even farther behind her now. As far away from Ian as was polite. Ian looked uncomfortable, too, and Vera wondered if she suppressed their bears this winter, would they be able to relax around each other?

  “Jenner’s on a guided hunt out in the bush right now. He and the Dawsons took a big group of frat boys out, and there is only so much bro-time I can handle before I want to duck out. Elyse and I are planning the wedding.” Her dark eyes went wide as she looked at Vera. “You’ll have to come.”

  Vera grinned and got so excited she couldn’t breathe. Years on Perl, and now this. A real life wedding invitation from her future sister-in-law?

  “It’ll be out at Silver Summit Outfitters lodge.”

  “Oh,” Vera said as she realized how impossible that would be.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Tobias stepped in and saved her from fumbling. “Vera isn’t safe around humans yet. Her animal is a biter, and she’s capable of Turning people. We can’t put you two at risk. She’s docked at Link’s place until she can manage better.”

  Lena let off a shocked noise. “That sounds awful.”

  “I’ll be there if it’s safe,” Vera promised hopefully.

  “Well, can we talk to you on the radio while you’re in seclusion?” Elyse asked. “I talk to Link that way.”

  “Yes!” she said too loud.

  Tobias chuckled beside her, and the others grinned.

  “So,” Elyse drawled, “do you think it’s okay to have dinner together, or do you have to go back to Link’s right away?”

  Vera wanted to say yes. She truly did, but she didn’t have enough control over her Changes yet to feel confident about spending hours eating and chatting with Elyse and Lena. They were human, and if she bit them, it wouldn’t matter if it was an accident. She would never forgive herself. “It won’t be like this forever,” she apologized. “I’m working really hard to get better at this.”

  Ian had been quiet, but at her admission, he spoke up. “Vera, are you a born shifter?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “Turned?” he asked, his eyebrows arching high.

  She nodded.

  “Did you choose to be Turned?”

  Another shake of her head.

  Ian looked and smelled furious as he swung his gaze to Tobias. “Did you kill the sonofabitch who did this to her?”

  Tobias’s eyes had lost their humor and had gone cold and empty instead. “I did.”

  “Good,” Ian said darkly. He turned to Vera. “I’m sorry for what’s been done. If you need anything, you ask, okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  Elyse squeezed her hand. “You tell us when it’s safe to visit you.”

  Vera smiled brightly. “I will. I can make us beer and moonshine.”

  “You know how to make moonshine?” Lena asked.

  “Yes! The blueberry kind. I’m a bit of a chemist.” She frowned at how close she was getting to the secret of the cure. “I can send a jar of it with Link when he visits if you want.”

  “We want,” Elyse said through a grin. “And someday, you can teach us how to make it. Winters around the homestead sure get long.” Elyse’s smile faded, and she looked up at Ian, her heart in her eyes as he hugged her to his ribs.

  If only Vera could tell them she was going to try to fix that, but Tobias was right. If for some reason the cure didn’t work on grizzlies, she couldn’t get their hopes up. She liked Lena and Elyse too much to hurt them like that. “It was really nice to meet you.”

  “You, too,” Lena said. “Hey, Vera?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you mind if I took your picture?”

  “Really?” she asked, patting her wild hair.

  Lena nodded, then lifted her camera in front of her face and aimed it.

  When Tobias slid his hands gently around her waist from behind, she was warmed to her core that he was willing to take a picture with her. This would be their first together. She snuggled her face against his cheek as he leaned forward and cheesed for the camera. After Lena clicked a picture, Tobias kissed her on the cheek. Damn, what that man could do to her insides.

  “You have the strangest color eyes,” Lena said, canting her head with a frown. “Gold in the middle and blue on the outside. In the sunlight, they look otherworldly.”

  Tobias waved to his family and Link did the same, and as she started to back away from Lena and Elyse, she admitted low, “That’s because I’m a fox.”

  As she turned away from Lena and Elyse’s shocked smiles, her heartbeat raced, and inside her fox made that soft satisfied humming sound she had the other night.

  For the first time ever, Vera was proud to claim her animal out loud.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tobias could see how tired his mate was becoming. How drained she was with everything she had to balance. His woman was strong, but at what point should he intervene?

  Vera and Link worked relentlessly over the long table of vials, jars, flasks, clamps, microscopes, burners, beakers, funnels, and test tubes. Link’s usually clutter-free cabin was now ground zero for organized chaos.

  It had been six weeks since she’d met Elyse and Lena, and while their relationship over the radio had flourished, Vera had missed Jenner and Lena’s wedding because she was stuck as a fox at the time. That had done something terrible to her. It had snowed
for the first time while Tobias was out at the lodge, standing for his brother in a suit and tie, and Vera had been here at Link’s place alone, panicking over the shift in weather.

  To her, snow meant hibernation, and by the time he’d come back, she had Changed back to her human self and was working through the nights on the cure.

  Link had become an assistant for her since Tobias couldn’t pick up on the science of it all. All he heard was long, barely pronounceable names and experiments he didn’t understand, but Link was a good student and had even done a few tasks while Vera was a fox. Nothing big, mostly storage, but at least Link had been good for something. Tobias felt helpless to ease her worries.

  Vera was fighting time, and from the constant wide-eyed panic on her face, she’d already lost.

  “Not too hot,” she murmured as she held a test tube of blue liquid over an open flame. “Slow heat.”

  Tobias crossed his arms and leaned against the kitchen counter, then stared at the full plate on the table that had gone cold long ago. Getting Vera to take a break long enough to eat was a challenge these days. He couldn’t even recall the last time she’d slept for more than an hour, and last night he’d woken up to her crying. She had tried to be quiet about it, but the sound of her soft weeping had broken something inside of him.

  Avoiding hibernation wasn’t worth this. It wasn’t worth watching her deteriorate.

  A small explosion of shattering glass sounded.

  “Shit!” Vera yelled, holding half of the jagged vial in her tongs.

  Link backed away and sank down into a chair, hands running through his hair in a steady rhythm. He hadn’t been sleeping much either.

  When Vera looked back at Tobias, her face had crumpled and her eyes were rimmed with tears. “I need more of your blood.”

  “Okay,” he murmured. “Whatever you need.”

  Her shoulders shook with her quiet sobbing as she set the broken vial on the table. She pulled off her safety glasses and latex gloves as tears dripped from her jaw to the white lab coat she wore.

  Vera strode for the door and threw it open, but just before she disappeared into the night, she turned and said, “I need you!”

  The door slammed so hard it rattled the small cabin.

  “She can’t keep going like this,” Link said, voice hoarse. “You’re eating so much now, Tobias. I know what that means. You’re getting close. Too close.” He lifted tired eyes to him and leaned back in the chair. “We’re too late, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah. Too late. Listen, when I go down to hibernate, you can’t follow me, Link. You can’t wake me up. I’m not like my brothers. I turn Winter Bear and go crazy. I almost killed Jenner that first hibernation, and there is a reason I den out on Kodiak Island with the rest of the monsters. I’ve been woken up twice since then, and I had no control over my bear. If she suggests waking me up, you have to stop her. You have to keep her safe from me. Swear it.”

  Link’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He looked ill. “I swear I won’t let her wake you up. Now, let me get the blood sample so you can go check on her.”

  Tobias sat at the table in the same chair where they always did blood draws. He rested his elbow on the smooth wood and clenched his fist, and within a few minutes, Link had two vials of his blood. As Link withdrew the needle, Tobias said, “You won’t need those. She won’t have time to do anything with them.”

  Link’s gray eyes went wide. “That soon?”

  “Yeah.” He gave Link a sad smile, then stood and left to find his mate.

  Vera’s scent was easy to follow. Fur, salty tears, peppermint moisturizer, rose hips, and mango body wash led him through Link’s quiet woods to a clearing. His chest constricted as he saw her leaning against a tree, knees drawn up like a shield, head on her arms. Her body shook like a leaf in the wind, and no wonder. It was freezing out here.

  “I think you should let me hibernate,” he said low. She would hear him, even over the whipping wind.

  “I can’t,” she said thickly.

  “You can. I’m telling you, you can. We’ll try again next year.”

  “You don’t understand!”

  “Are you scared of Clayton? He won’t bother you anymore, and besides, he’ll be going down for winter at the same time as me and my brothers. Jonathan’s gone, and Link will be here if you need anything. You’re safe, Vera.”

  She lifted her devastated gaze to his. “Can’t you see?” she whispered brokenly. “I can’t live without you anymore. I’m not strong like Elyse and Lena. I never mentally prepared for this. I went into this pairing knowing you would always be with me.” She slammed her back against the tree and let off another sob. “When you go down for hibernation, you are going to take the best parts of me, the ones I’ve worked so hard to find again.”

  Her words cut him like an ax blade. “Maybe you need to Change again.”

  “I don’t! My fox doesn’t even want my body now. She’s as desperate as me to finish this cure in time.” Vera’s tawny hair whipped around her shoulders, and she looked so frail in the moonlight. So thin. He’d noticed the changes over the past weeks, but now, even the blue in her eyes had dulled with exhaustion. He’d done that. She was pushing herself to the brink for him.

  He loved her for the effort, but he hated himself for her pain.

  Here in the dark, as her shoulders sagged in defeat, he couldn’t help but regret the time they’d wasted avoiding his hibernation. Now it wouldn’t matter. He would sleep until April, and he’d missed all of that bonding time with her while she’d juggled lab work and constant Changes into her animal.

  “Come to town with me?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I want to take you on a date. A real one.”

  “I don’t have time, Tobias.”

  “You do. Vera, I have to leave soon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not safe when I hibernate, and I can’t go to sleep around here. Not around people. You know how your fox used to be dangerous around humans? That’s how my bear gets in winter. I have to fly out to Kodiak Island soon, and I don’t want to waste our remaining time together watching you drive yourself into the ground to avoid the inevitable. I want to be with you.”

  “Tobias, no,” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “You can’t leave me. You can’t.”

  He was to her in three long strides. He fell to his knees in the dirt beside her and pulled her hard to his chest. “Listen to me, Vera. You are strong. Look what you’ve done! You compromised with your fox, and you’re present every time you Change. You have control, Vera. I can see it. And I’m so fucking proud of you. You will get through this winter, and hopefully it’ll be our first and last apart. I can’t watch you wither anymore, though. Do you understand? It’s not worth it to me. I’m going to sleep this winter, and that’s okay.”

  “But your family—”

  “Our family will hold another winter. You know why?”

  She shook her head against his chest. “Why?”

  “Because Lena and Elyse are strong just like you. Go on a date with me, woman. I want to talk about wedding planning and girly shit.”

  Vera laughed a surprised sound and wrapped her arms around his neck. Then with a heartbroken sigh, she said, “Okay, McBeefcake. Take me somewhere fancy.”

  The relief Tobias felt at hearing that nickname after so long was almost as tangible as the soft breeze through the trees. He would take her out, and they would have a good night, and in the morning, he would leave to fight the bears on Kodiak Island for his den. He didn’t tell her how close he was to hibernation but the first tendrils of sleepiness had already begun, and his time was out.

  He had one last night to spend with the woman he loved before he left her alone, and he wanted to give her a night she would remember. This date would have to keep her warm for the next six snowy months.

  Tonight would be the memory Vera would have to draw on when things got hard because as much as he ha
ted it, come tomorrow morning, he wouldn’t be here for her anymore.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vera was nervous, but for no good reason. There was a shift in the air between her and Tobias. Over the last couple of months, she’d grown to adore him. To love him. But there had always been this underlying feeling of panic. From the day she’d met him, she was losing time and had been helpless to stop it. She’d never suppressed an animal as big as a grizzly bear, and it had been a brutal awakening. If her serum wasn’t strong enough, it could hurt Tobias. It had been much easier figuring out how to suppress her own animal. If she died, or got sicker, who would care? Not her at the time. She had been half-dead inside already.

  But Tobias was hers to protect, and his life meant everything.

  As she’d dressed for their date, he’d asked her to do one thing, just for tonight. “Let time go. Just be with me.”

  As hard as it was to flip that switch from sheer panic to letting something so important go, she had to accept she hadn’t made the cure in time. And she had to give him this—his last request before hibernation. She had to spend time with him while she could.

  Tonight, she wouldn’t cry or fight what was happening anymore.

  Tonight she would show him how loved he was so he wouldn’t go into the inevitable winter slumber upset and worried about her.

  Tonight, she would be the strong mate he deserved.

  Tobias looked over at her from the driver’s side of the Bronco. His arm was hooked over the steering wheel, relaxed as he drove them into Galena. And despite their impending separation, his smile was smooth, easily transforming his face to a thing of beauty. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his jaw sported that designer scruff she found so damned sexy on him. A soft ballad played at low volume. Tobias lifted her hand, kissed her knuckles, then intertwined their fingers as he settled their hands on top of her leg.

  Vera had dressed in her favorite dark gray, body-clinging sweater dress, tights, and black snow boots. Her hair was loose on her shoulders because Tobias liked to play with it. He did it absently, when he was thinking or when he was hugging her. He played with it late at night when they stayed up talking on their palette on the floor.