by Elsa Jade
While she…
Rita shut down that runaway thought with a quickness. She was happy and satisfied too. Aunt Tilda had entrusted her with running the shop while the circle was otherwise occupied, and someday she’d take her aunt’s place leading the circle. In the meantime, she had her own magical studies, and she was an aunt herself, to Aster and to whatever other children-cubs were likely to come from Brandy and Mac’s union. Because she didn’t doubt there’d be more.
Because everyone was soooo daaaaamn haaaappy…
Out of nowhere, Gin kissed her cheek. “Why so scowly, sis?”
“I’m not.” Rita was annoyed at her own annoyance. “I’m just…rethinking my day since you’re taking my place.” She heard the edge in her voice and tried to file it off. “I mean, working for me.”
“For the rest of this week,” Gin reminded her blithely, apparently not hearing the sharp note. Or maybe just inured to it. “We’ve been getting some summer vacationers passing through on their way to the Grand Canyon. Not stopping here, of course. But I swapped flyers with Gramma and Grampa. They have some promo sheets for the shop, and I put up menus for their diners, so maybe we’ll get some cross traffic. Traffic, in Angels Rest, ha.” She shook her head, her Pippy Longstocking braids flapping. “But there’s so much to love here, maybe we can get some outsiders to see that.”
All this talk of love was starting to get ridiculous. Rita shoved her lunch back in the fridge. “Can’t get too cozy with outsiders,” she said. “Witches and shifters aren’t ready for the spotlight.”
Gin shot her a look. “I know how to keep secrets, Ree. I came along only a few minutes after you, remember.”
How could she forget when both her younger sisters were passing her up?
Once again, Rita forced down the unpleasant queasy feeling of being left behind. She’d always known what she wanted and where she was going, and she was well on her way to getting there. Even two crutches and the crossroads to nowhere couldn’t stop her.
She walked out to the front porch to wave to Brandy and Aster as they pulled away in Aunt Tilda’s yellow VW bus and to Gin walking to the shop just off Main Street. And then she was alone.
Good thing she knew what she wanted out of life and had plenty to keep her busy.
She turned and confronted the empty house. The Victorian had always reminded her of a serene face, with its two upstairs bedroom window as eyes, and the scalloped front porch decorations as a mouth. So why did the old house look like it was smirking at her?
Inside, she straightened the kitchen (Gin might claim to be responsible and reliable, but she’d left a dirty butter knife in the sink) and then went outside to tinker in the herb garden because a witch’s garden was vital to her work and the well-being of her community.
Except…there wasn’t much to do. With Mac and Ben employed by the local landscaping company, ever since they’d started hanging around, the overgrown yard looked almost respectable. Not entirely, of course—no witch’s garden was ever actually respectable. But even the moonflower, with its dangerous hallucinogenic properties, was sturdily bound to a brand-new trellis rising up from the back fence, and the vine was thriving at the attention. It had reached out another couple feet at least since June.
She wandered over to guide a few stray tendrils back toward the support. Her crutches moved easily over the fresh crushed gravel path, when before she’d had to watch how she walked. But when she reached out to one of the silky blooms—closed tight until nighttime—she dropped her hand.
Let it run wild for awhile. Maybe respectability was overrated.
Unlike the smooth path, the sullen thought tripped her. Wow, since when did she believe in running amok? This is what came of cohabitating with wild animals. Not that she was officially cohabitating, but her sisters’ lovers left her in close proximity. No wonder the circle was leery of the shifters’ potential influence.
The vintage perfumes of lavender, rose, and jasmine clogged in her throat, and suddenly she felt stiff and stuffy and dusty, like some taxidermied old coot. Which wasn’t true at all. Well, she might be stiff, but she wasn’t old yet. Come to think of it, Angels Rest was the only small rural town she’d lived in where she hadn’t seen a taxidermy shop. Although maybe that made sense considering the place was half run by shapeshifters. It’d be super awkward if an oblivious human neighbor shot and stuffed dear uncle Zeke or whatever.
Nope, it was just her feeling stuck on a wall.
Desperate for a huff of fresh air, she walked to the back fence. The white pickets jutted like teeth in the lower jaw of an animal, and she gripped the wood. Mac, Ben, and Aster had repainted the fence, and the whitewash was smooth under her restless fingers as she stared out to the plain.
The late-summer sun wasn’t anywhere near its daily peak, but already the harsh light had bleached the desert scrub of all its subtle color. The spikes of sage, the juniper berries, the sky itself were white as snow, though the breathless air was hotter than her cauldron fire. In the middle distance, a dust devil swirled up. The spiral rose up in a sprinkling of fools gold until it scattered to nothing against the hard sky.
As her gaze drifted down to earth again, a dark mirage lingered in its place. She blinked once, hard, to clear her vision, but the mirage remained, a shadow on the ghostly landscape.
A shiver traced down her spine. Aster had mentioned a ghost.
Rita squinted, and despite the dry heat, her damp palm slipped on the ergonomic grip of her crutch. She tightened her grasp. It wasn’t a ghost or a mirage or a shadow.
Or maybe it was a little of all those things.
“Thorburn Montero,” she murmured. “Look what the dust devil dragged in.”
The last she’d seen him was squared in the sights of Aunt Tilda’s rifle over a month ago. No one had seen him since then. Mac had gone to the alpha of the Angels Rest wolf pack to warn them that the king of the bear clan might have gone rogue.
While she didn’t understand all of what it meant in shifter mythology to be rogue, the word alone seemed ominous enough. She didn’t want a rogue in her backyard, even if her backyard was all of the Four Corners.
Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. If only she had the rifle in her hands now. Yes, holding the rifle meant she had to put down her crutches, but she’d rather stand her ground—with sufficient firepower—than run away from the king bear.
Or rogue bear, whichever he was. She couldn’t go inside and risk losing sight of him. His cousins Mac and Ben both had looked for him. She, however, didn’t think much of a king who abandoned his clan or a cousin who left his family to wonder if he was alive or dead.
“I’ll make you a ghost bear,” she muttered.
He was too far away for even a shifter’s sharp ears to catch her soft words, but maybe her riled stare had caught him. Or maybe he was coming this way anyway. The dark, massive shape of him angled toward her, getting ever larger and more hulking, but between the sunlight’s glare and the dust she couldn’t quite make out his features. And still her pulse stuttered with some sort of primeval awe. This must’ve been what her shambling, preverbal ancestors encountered with nothing more than a spear and fire to protect them.
Well, she had her crutches, at least, which were relatively pokey at one end. And her righteous disapproval, of course, which was much sharper.
Through the simmering, heated haze, he paced toward her, and she held her ground. She held onto the pickets too, since her knees were shaking a little. Not fear or anticipation, she told herself, just the usual weakness in her legs.
He stopped a stone’s throw from the fence—and she could throw pretty good—but even so, she had to tilt her head up to face him. She’d forgotten how tall he was, how big all the way around. The last time she’d seen him he’d been half shifted to a beast, a terrifying, black-furred grizzly that was somehow even more disturbing with the vestiges of the man still visible. But even that memory was nothing compared to the savage reality of him standing outside her gat
e.
She lifted her chin higher. “You look like hell.”
He’d always been tall, dark, and imposing, even intimidating, but now… His shaggy, dark hair was an out-of-control mane hanging around his face in matted tangles. The flannel shirt she’d last seen him in was shredded, as if by claws. It hung from his thick shoulders more like a ragged cape than a shirt, baring his sun-darkened skin where the dust left shimmering gold highlights. At least the tough, midnight-blue Wranglers were still intact; considering he was completely man-shaped today, it would’ve been awkward if he didn’t have pants.
He closed half the distance remaining between them, an oblique approach angle that she suspected was meant to signal “I’m not a threat” in the animal world. His bare feet kicked up more tiny dust devils that swirled back into the desert, like wild animals escaping.
Then he glanced sidelong at her.
Completely human? Not a threat? All lies. His eyes were a wild amber, glittering brighter than the golden striations in sunstone.
Now she understood why shifters loved the pretty but not particularly valuable gems. Not just because of the enticing sparkle but the glimpse into the primal beast.
She sucked in a sharp breath. She needed the gun, her strongest protection spell, maybe a clove of garlic and/or wolfsbane. Did any of those work on werebears?
Thor took a few more steps forward, slanting toward her this time, but he halted at the fence, centering one palm on the white picket. Like he was just another neighbor, casually stopping by to chat about the weather.
“I feel like hell,” he said.
The pause had been so long, she’d almost forgotten her admittedly rude comment, and she almost couldn’t make sense of his reply, his voice was so low and hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken aloud even once since he fled from this very garden with her crosshairs between his shoulder blades.
“Where have you been?” She sounded like a nagging shrew. Because she was nagging.
“Out there.” He gestured vaguely behind him.
“Your cousins were worried sick.” Definitely nagging.
Thor looked down, tracing one finger over the fresh paint. “Yeah. I could tell how worried everyone was. Especially when Ben grilled up those steaks, and when Mac and Aster were playing wiffleball.” His gaze swung back to hers, that amber stare piercing. “And when you made that pineapple upside-down crockpot cake with the whipped cream.”
He’d smelled their little backyard bbq party last week? From how far away? It must’ve been far, because even his shifters cousins hadn’t seen or smelled him. Although maybe even she could’ve smelled him if he’d been upwind…
“It was upside-down cauldron cake,” she informed him. “And I didn’t say I was worried.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, and she thought he would growl. But instead he almost…smiled. “Yeah,” he drawled, his voice a little smoother now. “Shot anyone in the back recently?”
He must’ve felt her aim. “Not anyone who didn’t deserve it,” she said tartly.
That knocked off his tentative smile. And she almost felt bad about it. Except before he’d run off, he’d sabotaged her sister’s anti-love spell with what could have been dire consequences and attacked his own cousin in his half-animal fury, trying to break through the mating bond weaving between them.
Maybe in addition to his powerful senses he could read minds too, because he lowered his head until the ragged black hair hid his eyes. “I’m sorry for what happened.”
She studied the weary droop of his shoulders. “I’ve had to come to peace with a lot of trouble in my life,” she told him. “And you know what I’ve found? With the exception of these”—she thumped the heavy rubber foot of one crutch against the fence—“almost all the rest of it was someone else’s trouble that I dealt with because…because that’s what I do.” She huffed out a scornful breath. “‘Sorry for what happened’? You happened.”
She wouldn’t have blamed him if he ran off again, but instead he nodded. “There is no excuse for what I did, or could’ve done if Ben and your sister—and you—hadn’t stopped me.”
He was making this too easy. He should protest so she could yell at him some more, release this tension twisting inside her.
With a frown, she thunked her crutch against the ground again as if she could discharge her agitation into the forgiving earth. “So why are you back now?”
“Can I…may I come inside?” He averted his face, staring down the row of backyards. “I’d rather not be seen like this.”
He was going to be family once Brandy and Mac got married; really, he was already family, considering he was her nephew’s cousin.
And he was right enough that she didn’t want anyone to see him lurking at her fence looking like a monster even in his mostly human shape.
Without answering, she released the latch on the gate and stepped back.
“Thank you,” he said softly. With the slow, deliberate movements of a man who was painfully aware of his hulking size—and more painfully aware of the hulking of the beast he sometimes was—he angled through the gate and pulled it closed behind him.
She didn’t blame herself for taking another wary step backward. Once inside the recently groomed garden, his wildness seemed even more intrusive. Maybe he felt it too because he winced and hunched his shoulders. Or was that because of the crushed gravel under his bare feet? Now that she was watching for it, she recognized the cautiousness of his steps. She moved that way when she was trying not to limp, trying not to show her weakness.
An unwanted twinge of sympathy softened her disapproval. Wherever he’d been, whatever had happened to him this last month and a half, it hadn’t been easy. She took a steadying breath—and then took another small, surprised sip of air when she smelled only sage and stone and salt.
Another twinge—shame this time—chipped away at her censure. She’d been judging him as much by his looks now as by his behavior the last time they’d seen each other. Although she’d always known she’d inherit her aunt’s place as her due, she’d planned to use her undergraduate courses in psychology and her master’s in social work as a basis for guiding the circle and being a force for good in her community. Judging Thor wasn’t how she’d been taught, wasn’t helpful, and wasn’t right.
But if he tried to hurt her sister or her nephew, she’d shoot him for sure this time.
“Come inside,” she said grudgingly. She’d be closer to the rifle, anyway, and maybe he’d seem less feral if he was contained within the Victorian’s elegant confines. “I think there’s some leftover cake.”
He followed her—and yes, he was definitely limping—up the back step to the kitchen. “Just some water, please. I haven’t… I think the cake would be…too much right now.”
Gesturing him toward the table (on the side away from the pantry with its gun safe), she retrieved two glasses from the cabinet and filled them with cool tap water. She hesitated a moment then grabbed a bowl of huckleberries from the fridge. Ben had said he wanted to show Aster how to make huckleberry pancakes, but maybe taming a rogue king bear should be their first line of business.
She pushed the glass and the bowl in front of Thor where he took up more than his fair share of the drop leaf table. “Drink. Eat. Talk.”
“Would you settle for two out of three?”
Was he trying to be funny? She gave him a hard look. “The only reason I can walk is because I push myself. You think you can’t flap your tongue a bit to make some words?”
It was an effort, but she managed to pitch the question sincerely. Maybe he didn’t deserve the same care as a runaway teen or a struggling addict, but everyone had wounds, and only some were visible.
Even on sun-kissed bare skin.
He drank half the glass of water in one gulp and chewed a fistful of berries as if he’d been starving this whole time. Finally he cleared his throat. “I need…help,” he said, his voice rougher than when he’d first walked up. “The bear is missing, and I ne
ed your help to find it.”
Chapter 2
Missing. As if the rex ursi was a wayward cub.
Thor would’ve laughed at the image of his once mighty beast stuck up a tree like Aster had been just a couple months ago. But even when the circumstances then had been most dire, his littlest cousin had always known his loved ones were searching for him.
Thor’s bear didn’t want to be found.
And what a king bear wanted, a king bear got.
Across the delicate table, Margarita Wick stared at him with the same furrow between her thick, dark brows she got when she was studying one of those arcane, illuminated texts down in the Victorian’s basement.
He should probably tell her anybody could peep through the ground-level windows and figure out she was a witch.
But then he’d have to admit he had been peeping through her window.
He’d only been watching her to figure out if she could do what he needed. And to make sure she didn’t keep that rifle too close at hand. He’d broken her sister’s spell, hoping to break Gin’s hold on Ben, so he didn’t kid himself that Rita—protective older sister that she was—would be eager to help him.
But she was also a leader in her own right, or would be once she took her aunt’s place at the head of their circle of witches. Indebting the king of the bear clan would be a coup for any witch, and he had seen the ambition in her.
And the kindness. He’d seen that too when he watched her with his littlest cousin. Maybe that would sway her to his side.
The only question remaining was whether she was strong enough. “Do you have the power to tame the bear?”
When she tilted her head thoughtfully, the sleek undercurve of her auburn hair brushed her jawline. A muscle twitched there, but only to draw her lips into a smile, and he realized if he’d hoped to tweak her ego into joining him, he’d failed.
He had so many failures.
“A tamed bear?” she mused. “Witches these days don’t always have a familiar, although I suppose a dancing bear might be fun.”
“I only two-step. Maybe a bit of swing, if the music really moves me.”