Emerald City Shifters (Bundle)

by Kit Tunstall

  It still upset her to be disliked just because she was an outsider, before they ever got a chance to know her.

  It was a short walk to Kade’s office, and she opened the door without knocking, since it was the Sheriff’s Station. Kade was the only one in attendance, just like the last time she had been there, and he looked up from his pile of paperwork when the bell on the door chimed.

  She couldn’t help teasing him. “This was exactly what you were doing last time. I’m beginning to think you’re a paper-pusher, Kade.” She hoped she hadn’t gone too far when she realized how offensive the words sounded, though she’d only meant them in a teasing way.

  Fortunately, his posture remained relaxed, which was a good sign. He had been less stiff with her over the last few days, and he had stopped with his veiled threats that he was going to send her on the next ferry home.

  “Being the sheriff on an island with a population of fewer than five hundred is not an exciting whirlwind. It’s mostly paperwork. I don’t mind it though. I’d much rather everyone be peaceful and get along.”

  She nodded as she approached his desk, since he hadn’t tossed her out of the office. “I really didn’t mean that in an offensive way though.”

  He arched his brow. “I’m aware of that. What brings you by?” He sounded a bit resigned when he asked the question, as though bracing himself for something awful he’d been expecting.

  “Your grandmother sent me to you.”

  “Does she need something?”

  Shayla shook her head. “No, but I do. I need some answers.”

  His expression closed slightly, but he didn’t tell her to get out. “Ask your questions then.” As he said the words, he crossed his arms over his chest, and his body language radiated reluctance.

  “Why is Aislinn growing so quickly? Why did she need different food from a typical infant? And why does my sister insist you’re all part of a cult and call you the bear people?” The words tumbled out one after another, until she was practically tripping on them. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been stewing over the topic, and the words spewed from her.

  Kade let out a long sigh before dropping his arms from his chest and leaning back in his chair. It was as though he’d made a conscious effort to be open to her. “We’re bear-shifters.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him in disbelief. Part of her had been gearing up for some kind of strange revelation like that, but she wasn’t really ready to embrace the unknown just yet. She shook her head. “You mean you think you’re bear-shifters?”

  His eyes flashed with irritation. “No, I mean we can shift into our bear form at will. Would you like to see?” His tone of voice indicated he wasn’t actually receptive to showing her.

  She wasn’t ready to see it anyway. She shook her head emphatically. “How does one become a bear-shifter?” It was an insane question to ask, but it fit right in with the conversation and how she was currently feeling—completely nuts.

  “One is born a bear-shifter,” he said in a slightly biting tone. “It’s not like a magical spell or anything that gets cast on you. Ursa sapiens simply took a different evolutionary path from homo sapiens. That’s all there is to it.”

  She nodded, though she was still struggling to absorb his words. He made it all sound so simple, but it was anything except easy and uncomplicated. Either they were all crazy, or they were all bear-shifters. The rapid changes she had seen in Aislinn, which were outside the norm even for a baby playing catch-up on her growth, lent credence to his assertion that they were bear-shifters. Abruptly, she remembered Aislinn had been born with a thick covering of extra hair that had fallen out within two or three days after birth. It was another anomaly, and another point to support what he was saying.

  “Did Lila know?”

  He grimaced at the sound of Lila’s name. “Not to start with. We don’t go around revealing our heritage to everyone we meet.”

  “You brought her to your island, and she didn’t know what she was getting into?” It was difficult to hide her disapproval, and she was slightly sympathetic to the decisions Lila had subsequently made—though not sympathetic enough to understand how Lila could be so callous to her own daughter though. “When did Lila find out?”

  “First, you have to understand Lila wasn’t happy here on the island. It only took a few days for her to grow bored with our simple way of life, and she started pestering me about adding the island onto the ferry routes and finding ways to expand our contact with the outside world. She didn’t respond to my gentle suggestion that she should learn to adapt, so I firmly told her there would be no changing our way of life. At that point, I hoped she would leave, but she didn’t. She decided to stick it out, I guess.”

  Shayla’s eyes widened. “Why did you hope she would leave? You’re the one who told her you wanted to marry her. She called and told me that before she ever ran off to live on the island with you.” At the time, she had considered her sister impulsive and on the crazy side for running off to elope with a man she barely knew. There’d also been a strong element of envy to her response, because she’d wished she had felt something strong enough for a man to be willing to risk everything to be with him.

  Kade’s mouth tightened, and he ran a hand through his brown hair as though searching for the words for a moment. Finally, he nodded. “I did say that, and I meant it at the time, but I soon realized I had been mistaken. Your sister wasn’t who I thought she was.”

  She arched brow, feeling defensive on Lila’s behalf. “Clearly, you weren’t what she thought you were either. If you’d both tried a little honesty…”

  He glared at her. “I wasn’t going to bite her until she knew exactly what we were. When I first met Lila, my bear whispered that she was ours. I never had that reaction to a woman before, so I assumed it was the mating instinct flaring to life. I’d heard it was all-consuming and intensely passionate, but this was more of a quiet whisper in the back of my head. I figured I just didn’t have as strong a reaction, or perhaps other bear-shifters had exaggerated the pull of meeting your mate. It was a whirlwind relationship, and I already had her back on the island before I realized my bear had been mistaken. She wasn’t our mate. I know now why we thought she was, but she wasn’t.”

  It was strange and slightly upsetting to hear him refer to himself in the third person as we versus he, and his words were also disconcerting. “If you really are a bear-shifter, how can you make such a mistake?”

  His shoulders stiffened, and he seemed to be bracing himself for something. “It happens occasionally that our bears get confused, especially if there’s a close link between our mate and someone else. It’s usually a biological link, and they share a similar scent.”

  She shook her head, unable to grasp his words. She understood the individual definition of each, but put together, it was a perplexing sentence. “What do you mean?”

  “To be blunt, my bear mistook Lila for our mate because her scent was similar to her sister’s. My bear insists you’re our mate, and Lila never was.”

  Chapter Four

  In a panic, Shayla reared back from the desk, eyes wide as she searched for an escape route.

  Kade let out a ragged sigh. “Relax. I’m not going to pounce on you. I have no intention of acknowledging or acting on my bear’s insistence. After the last disaster, I’ve sworn off relationships, especially with Dalton women. You’re perfectly safe.”

  Why did his words fill her with disappointment rather than relief? She sagged slightly, taking a deep breath. “Thank you for being so honest with me. I’m still not sure I believe everything you’ve said, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “How open you are is up to you completely. For my part, I’m still perfectly happy to send you back on the next ferry, but it’s clear Aislinn is attached to you. If you can blend in with our way of life, you can stay. We’ll find you a little cottage or something, or build you one. You should know though that Aislinn
stays with me.”

  She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and nodded. “Yeah, okay.” She couldn’t really argue with him, and not just because he could supposedly shift into an eight hundred-pound bear. He was Aislinn’s father, and he understood the challenges ahead of his little girl far better than Shayla ever could. That he was willing to allow her to stay on the island and be part of Aislinn’s life was more than she had expected. She wasn’t exactly at the point of gratitude, and was still feeling more resentful than anything that he had co-opted the baby so efficiently, but she could appreciate the gesture and respond kindly. “Thank you. I have no intention of leaving Aislinn.”

  He nodded, apparently satisfied. “We’ll figure out living arrangements soon then. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”

  She tried to tell herself she wasn’t feeling hurt at his abrupt dismissal, and she turned on her heel and strode from the office. Her mind was awhirl at what she’d just learned, and she wondered how she would ever process and accept it all.

  ***

  The words on the papers before him blurred into an illegible mess, and Kade realized he was squeezing the pen tightly enough to break it a millisecond before the plastic yielded, spilling ink all over his hand and the paper, along with embedding a shard of plastic into his finger. With a small curse, he reached out and tossed it in the trash before reaching for a tissue to dab at the small cut. It healed almost instantly, thanks to his shifter genes, and he quickly forgot all about it.

  He was too busy thinking about Shayla, and the way she had reacted to first the news that he was a bear-shifter, and secondly that she was his mate, at least according to his bear. He hadn’t lied to her when he said he no longer trusted his bear’s instincts, at least when it came to mating. He also hadn’t been completely truthful with her. When his bear had mistakenly thought Lila was their mate, it had been a tepid response, not the consuming, compulsive need to claim her as theirs. The more time he spent with Shayla, the clearer that urge became, and the harder it was to resist it.

  He truly had no intention of having another relationship and had decided to remain single even before Aislinn came into his life, with her luscious and curvy aunt along as part of the package. Unfortunately, his bear wasn’t on board with that idea, and it was an internal struggle to keep the animal in check whenever he was around Shayla. His body and his mind were at war with each other, and it was a state that couldn’t persist. One of them had to win and quickly, but he wasn’t confident enough to place bets on whether it would be his human brain or his bear instinct that finally triumphed.

  It had been wise not to share that with her, or she would have run screaming from the office. She hadn’t even seen him shift yet, and she was already terrified of the idea. That should have helped his human side conquer the ursine side, but it simply made his bear insist more urgently in his head that they had to claim her before she could leave them. That wasn’t Kade’s style, and he forcefully roared back at the bear to shut up and let him work. For a change, his bear side calmed down and listened to him, though he felt it sulk even as he immersed himself in paperwork that still remained a blur.

  ***

  It had become Shayla’s habit to get up in the middle of the night when she heard Kade and Aislinn stirring in the kitchen for the baby’s feeding. For a moment, she was tempted to cower in her room and avoid him entirely, but that would do nothing to acclimate her to the differences between herself and the bear-shifters. If she was going to live on the island to be near Aislinn, she couldn’t hide for the next eighteen years in this tiny guest room, or whatever cabin eventually became hers.

  Squaring her shoulders and sighing in resolve, she reminded herself he wasn’t going to eat her. She slipped on her robe and slippers before walking out of the room and finding them in the kitchen.

  Kade had gotten more adept with bottle preparation, and by the time she joined them at the table, he was already holding a full bottle for Aislinn, who was sucking it down greedily and with an occasional murmur that sounded like approval. She took the seat beside them, watching Kade’s large hands as he tenderly cradled the baby and held the bottle.

  He was clearly strong, and if he could change into a bear, his strength was beyond what she could ever imagine. He was gentle too, and it was obvious in each touch and word directed at his daughter. The juxtaposition of strength and gentleness moved her on a feminine level, but not one that was purely maternal. She enjoyed watching him take care of the baby, but it wasn’t strictly because she knew he was carrying for Aislinn.

  She blinked when she realized she was imagining his large hands moving with that same care and dedication over her soft curves. Shayla cleared her throat, searching for something to say, but drew a blank. Finally, she said, “You’re really good with her.”

  He looked up, seeming startled at her words, though his expression softened. “She’s mine. I take care of what’s mine.” His words were protective, but also slightly ominous. Or perhaps too strong, with a hint of warning.

  But what was he warning her about? Was he telling her he would protect Aislinn from everything, including Shayla? Or was he giving her a warning that once he claimed something as his, he took care of it? The idea of being claimed by Kade should have been abhorrent, but instead, it sent a surge of warmth through her, and her nipples tightened against her pajama shirt. She was glad to have the thick terrycloth robe hiding proof of her sudden arousal.

  “You never questioned that she was yours. I expected you to want a DNA test.”

  He shook his head. “I knew she was mine as soon as I held her. She has my scent.”

  She nodded, reluctantly fascinated, though it meant accepting what he was saying as the truth. “How does that work for you? Do you see something when you…scent?”

  He shook his head. “It’s more of just an instinctive understanding about things. It’s difficult to explain if you don’t have the shifter instinct, but it’s… I suppose like really strong intuition. You quickly learn not to ignore your bear instincts, because they’re usually spot-on.”

  She bit her lip, debating about whether to call him on that, since he had said earlier today that he had no intention of acknowledging his bear’s insistence that she was their mate. Finally, feeling cowardly, she let it go for the moment. “Does Aislinn have that already?”

  He shrugged. “She probably has a keen sense of instinct, but it’s not fully developed yet. She’ll gain the ability to shift at puberty, and with it will come a more defined sense of her bear and instinct. If she’s in danger before then, or extremely emotional, it’s likely she’ll be able to connect with her bear side, but it won’t be a common occurrence for her until puberty.”

  “Isn’t it strange sharing your head with another presence?”

  Kade let out a laugh. “It’s not quite like that. I don’t hear voices exactly. It’s just a sense of what my bear wants. Usually, we’re in agreement, and it only becomes like a screaming pulse in my head when we are at odds with each other.” He held up a hand. “I know how that sounds, but it’s not as crazy as I imply. It’s kind of like being torn between logic and emotion. Like I said, it’s difficult to explain, but there’s usually only strife when the human side doesn’t want to follow a course the bear side thinks is correct.”

  “Like claiming me as your mate?” She was surprised at the words, having decided not to face that topic of conversation in the near future, if ever. Yet the words had slipped out without her permission. “You don’t have to answer that. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  His tone was gruff, and his eyes had darkened. “My bear doesn’t care about logic and reason, or all the reasons why a relationship between us would never work. He just smells your scent and knows you belong to him. The human side of me knows it too, but I’m not going to surrender to my animal instincts, especially not with this.”

  She blinked, disconcerted by the burning sensation behind her eyes. “Is there something wrong with me?
” She barely bit back a snort as she asked the question. Of course there was something wrong with her.

  Besides being just a human, she was on the average side, with generous curves, and she was certainly not what a man like Kade would be used to. He was a perfect physical specimen and could have any woman he wanted. He’d easily attracted Lila’s attention, and her sister was usually selective about her partners, only gravitating toward those who were rich and could take care of her. That Kade could convince her to come to his island and live a completely different lifestyle was testament to how compelling he could be.

  He let out a small growl, and it sounded more animalistic than human. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I just can’t trust my own judgment, and it’s far too complicated to get involved with Lila’s sister.”

  She winced at the words. “Yes, because that’s all I am. I’m just Lila’s sister.” With that biting response, she pushed away from the table and hurried back to her room, closing the door and leaning against it as she successfully conquered the urge to cry. He was a jackass, and he didn’t deserve her tears. So why was she still yearning for him after his rejection?

  She slipped off the robe and forced herself back into bed, but she didn’t actually think she’d get any sleep. She was still wide awake with her door opened a half-hour later, the hinges squeaking as they did every time the door opened or closed. She stiffened, but didn’t turn to look. There was no need, because he circled around the bed and came to stand in front of her, and she couldn’t force her eyes to remain closed.

  They popped open of their own accord as he knelt down beside her, his knees probably pressing into the floor to get to her height. He wasn’t on the bed with her, and he wasn’t touching her, but her skin was suddenly alive, and she was convinced there was an electrical current flowing between them, though she couldn’t see it. “What are you doing in here?” She tried to make the question sound angry and unwelcoming, but it came out more like a timid shiver.