Babysitter Bear

by Zoe Chant

  "He's telling the truth," Ben said quietly. "How does it work?"

  "I can't talk about it to anyone who doesn't already know," Terry said. He grimaced and pressed his other hand over the tattoo. "Ow. Even that much is getting pretty close to what it doesn't want me to talk about. The other person has to say it first, and then—"

  "You're a griffin," Dan said.

  His voice carried through the diner. There was a dead silence. Then Terry slowly, jerkily nodded, and rested both his palms flat on the table.

  "You're a what?" Paula said, her voice rising up the scale to crack in falsetto.

  "Oh, hey," Ben said. "This is why you were asking me about mythic shifters earlier, isn't it, Dan?"

  Terry's gaze darted up from a coffee stain on the cracked plastic table. "That did it," he said. "I can feel the difference. For the first time in years, I can talk about it freely."

  "I don't understand," Dan said. "The tattoo stops you?"

  Terry brushed his thumb across the tattoo and then pulled his sleeve down. "This was given to me when I came of age, before I left the covert. Don't ask me how it works, because I don't know. It's some sort of magic and only a few people in the covert know how to make them. It prevents us from being able to talk about what we are to outsiders."

  Paula swallowed. Her throat was very dry.

  "It's the lair where a flock of griffins lives." Terry's gaze darted around, not quite meeting her eyes. "It's territory, home, nest—all of those things and more. We hardly ever leave."

  "You must not," Ben said. "I grew up around dragons and other mythic shifters, and I've never even heard of you guys being real."

  "I think we should get back to this griffin thing," Paula said. "What is it? What does that mean?"

  "I can show you." Terry got up from the table, causing the men around Paula to tense. Then he glanced at the window. "Uh, if someone could shut the blinds. Shifting in front of a picture window looking out onto Main Street isn't great for the secrecy thing, you know?"

  Ben jumped up and drew the big vertical blinds across the diner's windows. The room grew dim. Ben flicked on the overhead lights and stayed there by the door, a silent, threatening presence.

  "Okay," Terry said. He glanced nervously at his audience. "Uh ... it might take a minute. I don't shift much. My griffin's kind of shy."

  "Just get on with it," Dan growled.

  Terry shook out his hands like he was preparing to play the piano, and all of a sudden he melted and flowed and changed.

  Paula had only the vaguest idea what a griffin was. She wasn't prepared for it to be this big. Terry's body was the size of the Rugers' horse, with powerful muscles rippling beneath tiger-striped reddish fur. His brown-barred wings filled that entire corner of the diner. His head was a hawk's head, bright golden eyes glittering under glowering brows.

  "Oh, hey," Ben said from over by the door. "I thought griffins were a hybrid of eagle and lion, mythologically speaking, but you're some other sort of hybrid, aren't you? Tiger and some kind of hawk?"

  He sounded almost academically curious. Paula was still trying to wrap her mind around the blank astonishment at seeing her ex-husband turn into a creature straight out of a storybook.

  Terry shifted back, his griffin body collapsing into ordinary, everyday Terry, wool topcoat and all.

  "Tiger and red-tailed hawk," he said, almost apologetically. "Yeah, griffins are different. We have people at the covert who are owls and eagles, jaguars and cougars, and a lot more. It doesn't seem to matter what type your parents are. I don't know why."

  "You okay?" Dan murmured to Paula, who was still frozen in shock.

  "Uh ... yeah. I'm fine." She couldn't take her eyes off Terry. How could she have been married to him for all those years and didn't know?

  Because he lied to me about it.

  It was true that he had been stuck with the tattoo—and that was another thing she was currently having to wrap her mind around, the existence of magic tattoos as well as bear shifters and, apparently, other creatures as well.

  But he could have found a way, if he had wanted to. They'd found a way around it already, in just a few minutes of talking to him in the diner.

  It wasn't entirely his fault, but he had still deceived her for years.

  And Dan hadn't. It was true that he hadn't told her about the bear thing right away, but would she even have believed him before getting to know him? He had told her as soon as he felt able to.

  With that thought, she felt like tight bands around her chest and ribs had eased. She could draw a full breath again.

  The only thing Dan and Terry had in common was that they were both shifters. Dan was honest and kind and true. Dan would never have vanished without a word. He would certainly never, ever have gotten them into a situation where thugs were breaking down her door.

  "Okay, so you turn into a winged tiger. Big deal," she said. There was a huffed breath from Dan that sounded like a laugh turning into a cough. "Are your parents really dead?"

  Terry gripped the back of his chair and bowed his head. "No, they aren't. I just didn't know what else to tell you. I couldn't think of a way to explain, otherwise, why I couldn't take you to see them."

  "Was it all lies? What's your real name? It's not Terry, is it?"

  Terry blew out a breath. "No. It's Tyr. Raines is a surname I chose for myself. We don't have last names in the covert."

  "Great. So the last name on my children's birth certificates isn't even your actual name."

  Dan squeezed Paula, a strong arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, drawing a calming breath.

  "So where have you been for the last year?" Dan asked. "Back in griffin-topia?"

  "Some of it." Terry sat down again and twisted his hands around his cooling cup of coffee. "You know how I said that we're not supposed to leave? There's an exception to that, which is that we're allowed out into the human world for a few years when we're young adults. This way we can come back with skills and technology that's necessary for the covert. Sometimes we even come back with mates; it's not unheard of. We're just not supposed to stay gone."

  "Griffin rumspringa?" Paula said, and there was a faint choking sound from Dan. "So your time ran out?"

  "It ran out a long time ago. I didn't plan to go back. You were here, my kids are here, my life is here. And I like the human world. I don't want to go back to living on a remote island in the middle of nowhere where almost everyone is related to me and all anyone ever talks about all day long is hunting, the weather, hunting, and did I mention hunting?"

  "And they eventually came looking for you," Dan said. His protective arm around Paula had loosened a bit, but it was still draped over her shoulders, offering support and staking a wordless claim all in one.

  Terry nodded.

  "I was basically living a double life, staying in touch with my griffin family, meeting with them sometimes, and trying to dodge the enforcers. That wasn't working out so well, so I thought I'd just go back for a little while and straighten it all out, but once I was there, they had no intention of letting me leave again. I would have said something, said goodbye to the kids at least, if I'd known it was going to be as hard to get off the island again as it turned out to be."

  "What, they don't have phones there?" Paula said. Terry was shaking his head. "Mail?"

  "No, it's very isolated. Most of the contact with the outside world is through young griffins who are at the traveling age, as well as between different griffin coverts in other parts of the world. They think of themselves as a world of their own. There's no place for outsiders ... or for people who have family outside. If I went back, I'd have to give up the kids, or take them with me, and I wasn't going to do that to them."

  "So you ran," Derek said.

  "I ran." Terry set the cup down carefully. His hand shook a little.

  "They came here, Terry," Paula snapped. "They came to where our kids are!"

  "I know! I know." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Paula, I
would have done anything to keep the kids safe. Anything. I didn't know they'd come here. I didn't even think they knew about you. I came here as soon as I realized they'd been looking for me by harassing you."

  "You could have called me!" she burst out. "Warned me!"

  "I know," he said quietly. "I could have. I should have. But I didn't." He looked up at the hostile stares from across the table. "I want to make it right. Look, I came back mainly to say goodbye to the kids. The easiest thing would be if I just went back with them."

  Dan gave a sudden, low chuckle. Paula looked up at him in surprise.

  "Maybe you won't have to," he said. "There aren't very many griffins on this island, right? And most of them aren't allowed to leave? How are they sending people after you?"

  "Enforcers," Terry said. "They're specially trained for it."

  "But there can't be too many of them. Right?"

  "What are you thinking?" Derek asked.

  "I'm thinking we've got a bunch of big predator shifters right here in this room. And Ben knows some dragons."

  Paula clutched at his hand. "You can't be suggesting fighting them!"

  "I don't think we'll have to," Dan said. "I ran off one of their enforcers already. They don't want a big, public fight in a populated area any more than any other shifter does. We just need to make it clear that this town, and Paula and her family, are under our protection. We're not letting them take anyone who doesn't go with them willingly, and we aren't going to put up with them coming around hassling and threatening people in this town." His gaze flicked off Terry's. "Anyone in this town."

  He glanced around the room at the others. "It's like a—what did you call it? A covert of our own. This town is our home, and the people who live here are our friends and neighbors, our family. We'll do whatever we have to do to protect them."

  Paula's fingers laced through his, and he felt the conviction of his own words sink in. This was his home now. He was part of something larger than himself, a place to belong at last.

  "I'm in," Derek said.

  Ben laughed softly. "I'll talk to the dragons. This kind of thing is right in Dad's wheelhouse, and maybe Tessa can cash in some favors with Heikon's clan."

  Astonished, Terry looked back and forth between them. "You'd do that for me?"

  "We're not doing it for you," Dan said. He snugged Paula closer to his side. "I'm doing it for her."

  Dan

  All things being equal, Dan didn't think he'd have chosen to team up with his mate's ex-husband, let alone put his ass on the line to protect the guy. But Paula's kids deserved to have their father in their life. Even if Dan indulged in a few pleasant fantasies of kicking Terry's feathered ass down the street for causing them all this trouble.

  Paula volunteered the diner as the location for their operation. Dan didn't like that, but she pointed out that their plan relied on having the meeting in a public place, where the other griffins wouldn't be able to fight back without revealing themselves. The diner was centrally located in town, and she owned it.

  "I want you and the kids far away when the time comes," Dan told her quietly. They were loading the dishwasher in Paula's kitchen; she rinsed while he put things into the racks. "We can take you out to Gaby and Derek's farm for the day."

  Paula shook her head. "I'm going to be there."

  "Paula—"

  She placed a wet fingertip against his lips.

  "I know you want me safe. I want me safe, too. But this is about me and my family. I need to be there, Dan. And ..." She smiled, and lifted her fingers away with a brush of her thumb across his lips. "You'll be there to protect me. I know you won't let anyone hurt me."

  Dan took a shaky breath. The depth of her belief in him staggered him; he wasn't used to anyone looking at him like that, let alone with the connection of the mate bond to strengthen and heighten it.

  "Okay," he managed at last. "But the kids—"

  "The kids go to the farm," Paula agreed. "I don't want them around this either."

  Dan nodded. She was still looking at him. "Is everything okay?" he asked.

  "You mean besides the fact that we're about to take on a whole gang of griffin enforcers?"

  He cracked a grin. "Yeah, other than that."

  Paula smiled. But it was clear that she had something on her mind. He waited. After a moment, she spoke.

  "Dan ... when you and Terry talk about mates, I got the feeling that it means something. That it's more than just a word for you. What does it mean?"

  Dan hesitated. It was the final thing he hadn't told her yet. But this, of all things, she deserved to know.

  "Every shifter has someone out there in the world for them," he told her, while she watched him with those deep, fascinated eyes, a cereal bowl forgotten in her hands. "Maybe humans do too, I'm not sure. But we know. When we first meet them, our animal tells us so."

  "Your animal. Your ... bear?"

  "Right."

  "It talks to you?"

  "It's not quite that, so much as—well, it's like the instinctive part of yourself. The part that knows things. The part that's sure."

  "And that part knew that you and I were meant for each other."

  Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  "Yes," he said, gently but fervently. "Yes."

  "So Terry ... I'm not that for Terry, am I?"

  Dan was already shaking his head. "No."

  "And he would have known that." Paula turned away, clutching a dish towel in a tight wad. "And he married me anyway."

  "He must have loved you." It was hard to give Terry even that much benefit of the doubt. But if you didn't know what the mate bond felt like, if you'd never experienced it, you didn't know what you were missing out on. Dan wouldn't have known himself, before he met Paula.

  Paula let out a long breath and then turned and stepped into his arms.

  "Enough talking about my ex." She tipped her head back. "Mate, huh?"

  "Mate," he murmured.

  He ran his thumb up her long neck, tracing the fine line of her jaw. When he moved in to nuzzle at the side of her face, she had a light lemony scent of dish soap where she'd swept her hair back with wet hands. It was astonishingly hot.

  "Mmm," she breathed, as he brushed his lips lightly across the soft skin along her hairline. "Ooh. Wow. You know, we still have dishes in the sink."

  "And kids to pick up from school," he agreed, and moved on to nibble at the lobe of her ear.

  Was this really his life? He couldn't shake a sense of unreality. Was this really him, talking about ordinary domestic chores with a woman he adored?

  The family he'd always wanted, dreamed of, had landed in his lap fully formed. And not just Paula and the kids, but also the Rugers and the entire town, a ready-made home and family and community, just waiting to embrace him.

  "What is it?" Paula asked, her lips a whisper against the side of his face, and he realized that he'd paused.

  "Just thinking," he murmured, and moved down to nibble at her neck, while her hair tickled his nose. "We don't have to pick up the kids from school for a little while yet. And I'm thinking the dishes can wait."

  Paula gasped as he hit an especially sensitive area at the nape of her neck. He made a note of that for later. "Dishes?" she got out. The dish towel hit the floor at her feet. "What dishes?"

  "That's what I'm thinking."

  A moment later, her blouse and his shirt joined the dish towel on the floor, followed by a trail of other clothing, all the way to the bedroom.

  Dan

  The diner was closed, and as prepared for the confrontation as it could be, with the tables moved back to the sides of the room, the blinds closed to hide any shifting that might occur, and breakable items put away. None of them were sure how violent this was likely to get.

  Terry had sent a message to the griffins, telling them he wanted to meet. Now he paced the room, rubbing his hands nervously together.

  Dan hated having Paula this close to the action, but she
had promised to stay at the back of the room, where she could easily duck out the back door if she had to.

  While they were waiting, she passed cups of coffee around to the waiting shifters lounging in the dining area. Derek was sitting on the edge of the counter, while Dan leaned against the wall. Ben had just gone out to do a quick sweep of the alley and check on the electronic sensors he had set up to signal them if anyone tried to sneak in from behind.

  "Thanks," Dan said, giving Paula a kiss. "Are you sure I can't talk you into heading over to the house while this goes down, at least?"

  Paula shook her head, determined. "I feel safer with you."

  A warm feeling rushed through him.

  "Alley's clear," Ben reported, coming in through the kitchen doorway. "Has anyone else shown up yet?"

  "How many people did you invite, exactly?" Dan asked.

  "We've got a couple more coming." Derek checked his watch. "If they ever get here."

  "Or if they come at all," Ben muttered.

  But as if in response to his complaint, the bell on the door tinkled and then it opened to admit a man and a woman.

  The woman wore a long coat with a fur ruff around the neck, and beneath it, a pair of bright yellow stretch pants, dotted with sunflowers, showing off her curvy legs. Her extremely curly red hair, shot through with silver, emerged in a floof from beneath a fur hat.

  She was somewhat tall, but the man with her was much taller, and broad-shouldered, filling out his black overcoat in a way that suggested a kind of fierce strength. His hair was black, shot at the temples with silver. He surveyed the diner with a cool gaze.

  "Hi, Dad," Ben said. "Hi, Loretta. You came."

  "I believe it was made clear to me that I didn't have much of a choice." The tall, dark-haired man glanced at the woman, and Dan had a brief, sharp awareness of a mate bond between them. It wasn't a metaphysical sense; it was just the way that they seemed in perfect communion, as if each knew what the other was thinking.

  Ben and the older man clasped forearms and traded a slightly awkward one-armed hug. Then Ben turned to the woman and they shared a friendlier greeting. She gave him a firm hug and kissed him on the cheek.