Shrew & Company Books 1-3

by Holley Trent

  No matter how much he wanted to do it solo the way the old stories said avenging Bears always did, he needed the Shrew’s help. He just hadn’t known it until she’d snuck up on him and met his stare without flinching.

  Ballsy little woman.

  No time for distractions, though. No matter how much his bear wanted to climb onto her back, or even how much he—Bryan the man—wanted to take her cheeks in his hands and kiss her lips until she shut up.

  He groaned and rolled his eyes as he sifted through the case.

  Tamara was enraptured at the sight of the maps and charts. Must have been some kind of Shrew waking wet dream.

  He pushed up an eyebrow and extended one particularly ragged contour map toward her. “That interests you?”

  She nodded, reverently, and accepted the tri-folded document. “Yes. One of the exercises Dana has me do involves blindfolding me and traveling driving hours away. Then we’ll walk until I encounter someone whose mind is wandering, perhaps in a park, and I tiptoe into their thoughts. I dig around and try to orient myself with things they’ve seen recently and are thinking of, and all I have to go on are paper maps like these. It’s a challenge.”

  “You can get into people’s heads without them knowing it?”

  She shrugged. “Ninety-eight percent of the time.”

  “So why is it that I can see you every time you’re in mine?”

  She quirked her lips up at the corners and turned the map over.

  He groaned and reached for a stack of photographs in the corner of the case. “You do it on purpose to drive me nuts.”

  “I’ll never tell.”

  Of course she wouldn’t. Anything she could do to further his insanity, she’d attempt it. “How close to a guy do you have to be to play with him? To confuse him?”

  She smoothed the pad of her thumb over the creases in the map and furrowed her forehead at a certain expanse of woods he knew very well. “We haven’t really tested the limits of it,” she said finally. “But I do know if there’s a wall or door between us, I can still get in.”

  That he’d discovered while locked in that metal room.

  “How many feet or yards? Now that, I don’t know.”

  “Hmm.” Bryan scraped his palm across the scruff on his chin and mulled over her words. They’d have to test it and figure out just how much distance they could put between the little Romanian and Gene. The better she could hide, the longer Bryan would have to get in and handle business.

  He couldn’t just swoop in with a one-pronged attack. If it were that easy, he would have taken Gene out a long time ago. No. There was a layer of muscle between outsiders and the Were-bear leader. Some were loyal, some were complacent, and some were too frightened to make waves. Bryan had been lumped into that last group before. Now, his biggest worry was that if he did harm to the little tyrant, they’d hurt Drea.

  But now was as good a time as any.

  When Bryan and Drea were abducted by that traveling freak show half a year ago, Gene had shown just how ineffective an Alpha he was.

  All it had taken was two well-aimed sedative darts, and the next thing Bryan and Drea knew, they were in a dank, musty trailer and being poked by an idiot with a cattle prod. The fucker had been trying to force them to shift. But, one couldn’t make a born-Bear shift unless the Bear wanted to.

  They didn’t know that. Most people didn’t.

  Gene hadn’t been the one who’d freed them, or even one of his lieutenants. That achievement belonged to the Shrews, although the rescue was just secondary to the other Shrew mission at the moment. Still, they’d done what no one else had wanted to. The Wolves and Goats would have left them there if they’d had a choice, and probably would have thought good riddance.

  The Shrews had taken the risk, and he didn’t believe in looking gift horses in the mouth.

  Tamara tapped the map with her index finger. “This expanse of woods here, why is it important?”

  He held out his overturned palm and she placed the map onto it for his inspection. “Past year or so, I’ve been collecting information on all of Gene’s hideouts and haunts. He has several, and none of us who work closely with him are supposed to know where more than one is. He was careful that way, and always had the same guys accompany him to the same place. No duplication in tasks.”

  “So he’s paranoid in addition to being a megalomaniac.”

  “He has good reason to be paranoid, don’t you think? He couldn’t have possibly thought the group was sustainable as it was. Eventually, something and someone would break. Anyhow, I’ve been gathering information. Sorting through his mail whenever I had access, noting addresses I didn’t recognize. Sometimes I borrow a buddy’s car and follow Bears when I know they’re going to meet him. Been able to piece together his patterns, though I think sometimes he shakes things up by renting motel rooms.”

  “How many permanent locations?”

  “Six, at last count.”

  “Six?”

  Even without the upturn of her lip, he would have intuited her sense of incredulity from the dip in her voice.

  “And yet instead of letting the Shrews handle this as a team, you want to go commando? You need eyes on those locations if you’re trying to track his movements. What if he catches wind that the heat’s on him, and moves to someplace you don’t expect? You could even get the Catamounts to assist you.”

  “No!” he said, perhaps too quickly and with too much edge to his voice.

  He drew in a long inhale and let it out as he rubbed his eyes. “No. I don’t want the Cats mixed up in this. There’s enough bad blood between the two groups as it is that if this goes badly, they’d be at even worse odds. I’m trying to bring peace to the mountains, not more discord.”

  The pursing of her lips warned him there was probably a rebuttal in store, but he pressed his index finger over her lips before she could voice it.

  “I need to do this my way. No more bloodshed. No more violence. What I do will set the tone for the future, and I’m not going to rip away the reins of a group only to spin it into chaos. Peace, Tamara.”

  She wrapped her fist around his finger and pushed his hand away from her face. “Peace. That’s rich coming from a man who’s bitten a hole through the back of my favorite jacket.”

  Shit.

  He leaned back to assess the tattered fabric and found she wasn’t exaggerating. There was a mouth-sized, oval-shaped gape in the fabric of not only her denim coat, but also of the T-shirt beneath it. He swept his fingertips around the opening, palpating the skin.

  She hissed and drew back, swatting at him. “Quit it, there’s a bruise there.”

  “Where are the punctures? I thought if I’d bitten clean through two layers of fabric, there’d be some teeth marks.”

  She craned her head around to see, and then sighed. Not even a Shrew would be able to see her own back, so she gave up on trying. “Is there blood?”

  He drew his fingers close to his face and rubbed the dried blood off the pads. “It’s already crusty. I don’t understand. Our bites don’t heal up like vamp bites do.”

  “There’s no such thing as vampires.”

  “Says the Romanian.”

  “There aren’t, and I heal quickly. All the Shrews do. I suppose it’s God’s way of paying us back for us nearly having our insides turned into a chemical pulp by those scientists.” She made quote marks with her fingers at the word scientists.

  He’d need to hear that story someday, but today wasn’t it. They’d already been at the townhouse too long, and he’d need to make sure this was the last visit he had to make. He may not have such good luck getting in the next time.

  He tossed the map into the case, latched it, locked it, and stood. “There are a couple of duffel bags in that closet. Get them.”

  She didn’t move. Just stared at him through narrowed eyes.

  He closed his own eyes, and drew in a bracing breath. “Please get them. I’ll be in the living room getting some things o
ut of my desk. There’s a plastic file box in there with a handle. Get that, too and turn off the light.”

  Another stare.

  “Please.” Politeness was more of Drea’s gig. She was like their parents, solicitous to a fault.

  Bryan, on the other hand, was more interested in efficiency than manners. Until now, no one had ever called him on it besides Ma.

  Tamara stood, and when he was sure she was doing as he requested, he strode to the living room and set the briefcase on the table.

  He made quick work of finding his vital records, insurance documents, diploma, credit cards, and the single box of blank checks he’d been slowly working through over the course of five years.

  Tamara came out carrying the bags, and he took one, stowing the new items inside.

  “Can you please take the other duffel and grab every framed photo you can find? The ones on the refrigerator, too.”

  “You’re not coming back?”

  “No. No need to. Almost everything here besides the clothes and linens are leased from the furniture company. I can buy new clothes.”

  Good thing he wasn’t picky. He could get blue jeans and ringer tees damn near anywhere.

  She nodded and went to work, plucking up frames and a few other odds and ends she probably thought he thought were important.

  Crazy woman.

  He smiled, though, at the fact the woman had a whimsical bone in that killer body. If she didn’t have one, she wouldn’t have picked up that glass bear figurine Drea had thought would look “So cute!” in front of that rented lamp.

  He laughed, wondering if all the Shrews were so quirky.

  Didn’t seem likely.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tamara could feel the Bear’s anxiety. The air was so thick that it seemed palpable. Even after a week in Bryan’s company, she still hadn’t gotten used to the energy he put off. It ebbed and flowed. Stayed mostly at even keel, but when it spiked, it knocked her back.

  The vibe seemed familiar in some way she couldn’t put a finger on, but at the same time, foreign. The Shrews had strong psychic auras because of the way they were wired, so Tamara was used to wading through them. Mostly, she ignored them. Tuned them out.

  She didn’t know much about Bear auras, but context clues hinted that his psychic output wasn’t intensified by fear in the same way as other not-quite-human beings. Hell, she doubted the man was afraid of anything, beyond losing control. More likely, his bear wanted out. He hadn’t had a good run in the five weeks since Bryan had gone rogue. He’d said he didn’t want his scent picked up by anyone who knew it.

  She leaned back against her flimsy hotel pillow and laced her fingers together behind her head. “Why don’t you go down to the gym? Use the treadmills?” she called through the open door that provided passage between their adjoining rooms.

  He filled the doorway wearing his usual tight-lipped expression and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

  If he thought that glare was going to do anything beyond making her inner schoolgirl giggle, he had another think coming.

  Her father had a glare that could strip wallpaper, and she hadn’t withered beneath that one, either. Nor had her mother. That was one of the reasons her father had married her mother, after all.

  “Why, got a hot date you want to bring up?”

  Flexing her toes and rolling her ankles, she moaned at the pleasurable freedom from footwear. She loved those scruffy combat boots, but they were hell on her arches at times. Probably overdue for some new insoles. “I don’t date casually.”

  That was an understatement. She hadn’t dated at all since the experiment, and that’d been almost three years ago.

  Her words seemed to interest him, though, seeing as his tight, stern expression eased. Perhaps they were building an If I’m miserable, you should be miserable, too, sort of camaraderie. Better than outright hatred.

  “You know, in the wild, bears don’t mate for life. They pick whichever partner seems compatible at the time, and after they’ve done the deed, they go their separate ways.”

  “That’s a nice story.” She crossed her legs at the ankles and reached for the remote control. “And what of Were-bears? Are you so promiscuous?”

  He shifted in the doorway so his left shoulder pressed against the frame. His eyes swiveled toward the ceiling. “Depends on breeding.”

  The press of his lips indicated he wasn’t likely to elaborate, but she was genuinely curious about the ins and outs of Bear social graces. The Were-catamounts were more or less monogamous, although women vastly outnumbered men in the local group. She was unsure of the Goats, but the Were-wolves, she knew for sure only took one mate at a time.

  “I’m interested in breeding,” she said, bobbing her foot. “You can spare some words to tell me.”

  His lower jaw shifted from one side to the other before his gaze met hers. An entire commercial played before he responded, and his dark gaze on her was calculating and inscrutable. He probably didn’t want to tell her, but couldn’t think of a compelling reason why he shouldn’t.

  “There are two different variations of the gene that makes Were-bears. One is passed on from parents to children. We call those gene-holders born-Bears. The other allele is spawned by genetic contamination.”

  “Acquired by people who are attacked, you mean.”

  His nod was slow. “We call those made-Bears. Doesn’t matter whether the Bear who mauls you is a made-Bear or a born-Bear, you’ll get the former allele.”

  “So, if two made-Bears procreate, you get what?”

  “You get a human. That gene doesn’t convey during fertilization.”

  “Huh.” That made her sit up straighter. “Is that the case for all Were groups?”

  Another slow headshake. “I can’t say for sure. I’m a Black Bear, so I know Black Bears. I’d guess we’re unique in a lot of ways.”

  “How many of the Bears in Gene’s group are made-Bears?”

  A pop of cartilage sounded in the room, and she scanned down Bryan’s chest to his belly, where his hands were laced, cracking his knuckles.

  “Shit. That many? Certainly not. That would mean you’re really two fairly disparate groups mashed together.”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s keeping you all together, if not solidarity?”

  “Other than Gene’s silver knives, you mean?”

  She nodded. He had a point. Gene liked to tie up and torture his own Bears, and the occasional intruder, with silver. Silver was poison to creatures driven by the moon. It burned flesh, and sometimes the cuts didn’t heal.

  He took a step into her room and pulled the armchair near the dresser closer to the door. He sat.

  Why he thought he needed to sit so far away, she didn’t know, but she was beginning to feel a bit bruised by his kid gloves handling of her. She wasn’t exactly a China doll. China dolls couldn’t get shot and have their bodies force the bullets out without assistance from a second party. China dolls didn’t have super-charged immune systems. Tamara hadn’t had so much as a cold in three years. The downside to having a perfectly calibrated weapon of a body was that she couldn’t get drunk. Most painkillers, should she need them, were ineffective. She doubted she could even get a tattoo without it healing over as soon as she left the shop.

  “I suppose this is as good a time as any to debrief on the group structure so you know which Bears not to harm if this mission goes pear-shaped.” He closed his eyes, forced air through his teeth, and rolled his head on his neck a few moments before straightening up.

  That thickness in the room seemed to intensify, congeal further, with each strained movement. He needed to expend that energy soon, or Tamara wasn’t going to be able to be around him. It would choke her, steal her air. She’d never witnessed such a thing. Dana had certainly never insinuated having similar problems around Patrick. Maybe it was a Bear thing.

  How much power was the Bear keeping in check? Perhaps Tamara would need to make a call soon. Her father was not
only a diplomat in human matters, but preternatural ones as well, given their hunter ancestry. He would know the Bear lore, including Were-bear legends, so maybe he’d heard of some solution that would help Bryan siphon off the energy.

  Bryan slumped in his borrowed chair and hung his head over the back. He cleared his throat, and said, “Drea and I, a couple of first cousins about our ages, some more distant cousins including three we’ve absorbed from a Florida group that pretty much died out, and a couple other wildcards are the only Bears remaining in the group with the inherited genetics. There are maybe fifteen of us total. All of the older folks, my parents included, eased out before Gene got as crazy as he did. They saw the changes coming and wanted to distance themselves. They can’t fight anymore the way we do, nor should they have to. They only shift during the full moon about half the time. Not a necessity for them anymore. Besides, made-Bears have an unspoken rule that elders are off limits. If they don’t cause trouble, we leave them alone.”

  Tamara mashed the down arrow on the remote to kill the television volume. “Go on.”

  “Technically, they’re still ensconced in the group. You can’t leave your animal group unless you’re a member of another one. It’s not a rule so much as a shared energy thing. Energy has to link up with something.”

  “And I’m guessing your folks didn’t want their energy muddled too closely with Gene and company.”

  He held up a thumb, confirming her suspicion. “Sometimes they call me when the group energy feels a bit weird. They don’t live so far away, just over in Murphy, so they know when Gene is up to his tricks.”

  “Do they know that you’re one of Gene’s lieutenants?”

  He laced his fingers together atop his lap and his jaw twitched. “Yes.”

  Tamara didn’t know the extent of his involvement in Gene’s reign of terror, but she sure as shit intended to find out. She wanted to know just what sorts of sins she’d need to have absolved when all was said and done. Wanted to know if the clean-up guy was dirtier than the guy who’d made the mess.