by Debra Dunbar
I hoped Ahia was kidding. It was kind of hard to tell sometimes. “What was his father?”
The angel shrugged. “A douchebag?”
“No, I mean he said his mom was a grizzly shifter, but he didn’t want to talk about his dad.”
Ahia slowly shook her head. “Female grizzly shifters sometimes have kids with humans. Maybe his dad was human and never accepted that his kid, or the woman he’d had sex with, transformed into a bear?”
Maybe. But none of that explained Karl’s odd abilities. “You said Karl was a grizzly in his animal form. Have you ever seen him shift into…something else?”
Ahia shot me a puzzled glance. “Like what? I’ve seen him dozens of times and he’s always a human or a grizzly. Why?”
“The first time I saw his bear form, I thought he looked more like a Kodiak than a grizzly, then the second time he was a monster prehistoric looking bear. He said he could shift into any kind of bear form, but that he’s not a Nephilim.”
She grinned. “That’s freaking cool. Any bear? Like, even a Koala bear? A polar bear? Maybe his dad was a Nephilim. Or maybe he’s just some weird genetic throwback.”
I couldn’t imagine Karl as a Koala bear, not that Koala’s were actually bears. “I like him. At least, I think I like him when I’m not terrified out of my skull because he’s some extinct cave bear who looks like he’s ready to devour every living thing in the state.”
Ahia put an arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Just let it all play out, Sabrina. Enjoy the ride—and I do mean enjoy the ride. If things work out, then all the little stuff won’t be a problem. And if not, well have some awesome sex and stop fussing over the future.”
She was right. I hugged her back, then turned to get into my car.
“Is he coming to the barbeque?” she asked.
“Yeah. He said he’s bringing smoked trout.”
Ahia gave me a thumbs-up. “Well, if you see him beforehand, give that fine ass of his a squeeze for me.”
I laughed, then headed home. I was exhausted, and I needed to be at my best tomorrow, so I was planning on sleeping the rest of the day away. Half dragging my purse, I made my way to the porch of my house and stopped. There was a note on my door. And from the faint scent lingering in the air, I knew exactly who it was from.
Karl.
Sorry I wasn’t more awake when you left this morning. Had a great time and hope to see you again before the barbeque. I’m at my Juneau den for the next few weeks. And I now have a cell phone, although I don’t know how I’m going to keep it charged.
I looked down at the number he’d scrawled just above his name and grinned. The wild man got a cell phone. It was truly a miracle. I went inside, dropped my bag, and immediately called him.
“Hey,” I said in response to his signature grunt. “I’m dead on my feet and am probably going to sleep for the next twelve hours, but if you want to lay next to a comatose woman and snuggle, then come on over.”
There was a hesitation on the other end and I realized that the bear might have a cell phone, but he didn’t have a vehicle. “Where is your den? I can come pick you up.” Or just sleep there. I was so darned tired that the thought of driving to whatever remote wilderness Karl had stuck his den wasn’t pleasant. I really wanted him to see my house, though. I wanted to see how he managed with a modern home that included indoor plumbing, plus I needed to be somewhere with a cellphone signal and internet in case Brent needed to call or there was an e-mail response from Hit-the-Mark.
“No, I can teleport.” There was another hesitation, as if he wasn’t sure if he was welcome or not.
“Well then get over here, wild man. Come to my den and experience the joys of a microwave, a pulsating shower head, and a Sleep Number bed.”
There was a knock on my door and I opened it to find Karl standing on my porch, a flip phone in his hand.
A flip phone.
“The twentieth century called and they want their phone back,” I told him.
He grinned. “The guy at the quick-mart picked it out for me. I told him I only needed to call, and maybe text, and didn’t need a lot of minutes. Plus, I only had twenty dollars.”
Oh good, Lord. “Wait, where did you get twenty dollars?” Did Karl have a mason jar at home with loose change for emergencies? From what he’d said, it sounded like the majority of his jobs were cash under the table.
“Helped a guy pull his truck out of a ditch. He gave me twenty bucks.”
I had a vision of Karl literally grabbing the frame of a truck and hauling it up to the pavement, shoulder and arm muscles bunching as he dragged the vehicle out of the ditch. Shirtless, Karl. Pulling a truck with one hand. It was a pretty hot vision.
“Come in.” I stood aside and ushered him into my home.
“Nice place.”
I was proud of my home. It was a little Cape Cod style with white paint and dusky blue trim. There were rockers on the front porch, a big two-car garage out back, and neighbors shouting-distance over a little wooden fence. Neighbors. I loved having people nearby. I loved sitting on my porch with a mug of coffee and my laptop, listening to the Brecking kids playing with their new puppy, or Mr. Staley mowing his lawn. I’d wave when the couple that lived across the street headed off to work. I’d greet the mail lady when she brought a stack of flyers, bills, and the occasional package in the afternoon. I lived in a bustling neighborhood, and Karl lived in the middle of the woods down a barely accessible dirt road.
I remembered what Ahia said and pushed the it’s never going to work out thoughts away.
“Kitchen is in through here. Help yourself to anything you want. TV remote is over there if my snoring keeps you awake, or you want to catch up on the news. Come on upstairs. Let’s get naked and figure out what your sleep number is before I pass out.”
As tired as I was I realized something was wrong. Karl stood awkwardly at the foot of the stairs, staring at me as if I were a creature from another planet. Surely he’d encountered a modern house and appliances before? Was there something about me that was different? Was he regretting this? Were the it’s never going to work out thoughts running through his head, too?
I suddenly wanted to retreat to my usual casual attitude, my it-doesn’t-matter-because-this-is-just-a-booty-call attitude. Act like it doesn’t matter and you won’t get hurt. Well, I’d get hurt, but at least he wouldn’t know that and my pride would remain intact.
“Brina, when I teleported to Juneau, I didn’t go to my den.” There was something in his voice that made me think this announcement had earth-shattering significance.
“Where did you go?” I almost didn’t want to know. Had he killed the guy whose truck he’d pulled out of the ditch? Had he gone to rob a bank first? Had he gone to see a wife and kids? Because somehow in my mind, that was even worse than killing someone or robbing a bank.
“I came here.”
Thank God it wasn’t the wife-and-kids scenario. Although I should probably double check that.
“Okay?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Brina, I don’t know where you live. I can only teleport between my dens. I had no idea where I was at first. I had to wander around the outside of your house before I caught your scent and realized what happened. I’m surprised your neighbors didn’t call the police on me.”
“Okay?” I still didn’t understand where he was going with this.
“Your house is now one of my dens. I’ve never been here. I didn’t even know this was where you lived, but somehow your house is now…mine. But not mine in that way. Mine as far as a location I can teleport to.”
And now I understood. His hesitation made sense. If my house was now considered one of his “dens” then something inside Karl had labeled what we had together as important. This was far more significant than having a toothbrush in my bathroom, or a designated clothing drawer in my bedroom dresser. Or a programmed setting on my Sleep Number bed.
The idea made me happy, but did it make him happy?
I eyed the bear, realizing that he was eyeing me back, the same expression on his face that was, no doubt, on mine.
“That’s cool. It means I won’t need to drive out to pick you up. Now if only you could teleport me to your house. Think of what I’d save in gas costs and wear and tear on my car.”
Relief slid like a wave over his face and body, and I heard him suck in a deep breath.
“You’re okay with this? I promise I won’t come here unless I’m invited. I mean, I might accidently come here if I’m distracted and not concentrating enough on which den, or if I’m thinking about you, but if that happens I’ll leave right away. I don’t want you to think I’m some weird stalker guy who’s going to be lurking outside your house at night.”
I smiled and extended my hand. He took it, twisting his fingers around mine. Then I tugged him up the stairs behind me. “I don’t want you to be that stalker guy lurking outside my house at night. I want you to be the hot bear shifter in my bed at night.” I stopped at the landing so I could face him. “I like that you think of my house as your den.”
His dark eyes searched mine. “I’d like it if you thought of my dens as yours as well.”
I remembered the cozy cabin with the woodstove, the loft, the books stacked everywhere. It would be roughing-it for me to spend half my time in a rustic one-room house with no indoor plumbing, but he was committing to make similar adjustments for me. He’d bought a cell phone, for crying out loud. And he was about to be subjected to the electronic wonder that was my mattress.
“I’d be happy to call your dens home. Just warning you, though. I’ve got a lot of makeup. And I’ll need more than one dresser drawer.”
He grunted. “Brina, for you, I’d build an extra dresser and a whole damned closet for your makeup.”
I led him the rest of the way to my bedroom. We got naked. We figured out his ideal setting on the mattress. Then I felt asleep with his arms around me, my head resting on his shoulder. And although our sleep numbers were miles apart, it was the most restful night I’d ever had.
12
I got an o’dark thirty text from Brent that Kennedy had been delayed in Anchorage. Since it had woken me up, and since I’m obsessive about my e-mail, I checked my messages. Karl grumbled next to me, putting a pillow over his head to block out the light of my phone.
There were three from new clients, another six discussing changes to some ads I was running, one from a graphic designer I was subbing work to, and one more from Hit-The-Mark.
It was a vague response from some guy named Dutch, stating that they did sell a variety of fishing supplies as well as ammo. They didn’t yet have a catalogue or an online list of products, but if I knew exactly what I wanted, he could check availability.
Cautious. Careful. Just as I’d been when e-mailing my request. But Dutch hadn’t been cautious enough because he’d attached pics of some items they carried sitting on top of a box. And in the corner of the box was an address for Hit-The-Mark.
I zoomed in on it and entered it into my map app. Karl muttered something about “could I type a bit quieter,” so I slid out of bed and headed downstairs. Ugh. This place was out in the middle of nowhere. Not ideal for a retail location, but their website was horrible for internet traffic and sales. How the heck did this guy make any money? I glanced out the windows at the tinge of pink and gray on the horizon. Four in the morning was too early to head to this place unless I planned on breaking and entering, and I wasn’t quite there yet.
I set my phone down on the table and headed up the stairs, determined not to let anything else disturb our lazy morning sleep-in, and hopefully lazy morning sex, only to run back down and scoop it up, putting it on vibrate. Just in case. Because there might be an emergency with the Flying Fish Excursions campaign, or Brent might need me, or that graphic designer might be burning the midnight oil.
Then I hid it under my pillow to further muffle the sound, and wrapped myself around a very warm bear shifter, dozing off with my face against his back.
It was nice to wake up next to someone, to go through a morning routine with them, to have the kind of sex that rocked the bed against the wall and made the floorboards squawk.
Yeah, I’d slept almost sixteen hours. Yeah, it felt really, really good. But it hadn’t felt nearly as good as sex in the morning. Oh, yeah.
“I like your shower,” Karl told me as he walked into the kitchen, his hair wet, his clothing clinging to his damp skin. He’d popped back to his house while I’d started to make breakfast to grab some clothes and now had them in a drawer upstairs. He also had a toothbrush in my bathroom. And I was well aware that this was moving too fast, but I was going to take Ahia’s advice and just ride it out. What happened, happened. And I hoped it happened.
Karl walked over and kissed the top of my head, stealing a piece of bacon from the plate. “I wish your tub was big enough for my grizzly form.”
“I don’t.” I swatted his hand as he reached for another bacon piece. “I have to dig enough hair out of the drain as it is. Cleaning bear fur out of my tub isn’t my idea of a good time.”
“Just as well. I don’t think I could hold the shower massager with my paw. You’d have to get in with me and wash me,” he teased.
I envisioned a dog-wash type scenario, only with me squashed into the tub with Karl’s giant bear shape, rubbing shampoo into his fur. I’d need a whole lot of shampoo. “I’m more than happy to wash you as long as you’re in your human form.” Mmmm, now that was an image.
He wrapped his arms around me. “Let’s eat. Then we can take another shower. This time together.”
My phone beeped. It had been beeping all morning. Karl had announced repeatedly that he was going to throw it out the window or flush it down the toilet. This time he pulled away and glared at the device.
‘I know I know.” I turned and put a hand on his chest, grabbing my phone. “I swear when it’s your turn and I’m at your den I’ll leave it locked in the car.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And be running out every five minutes to check on it?”
Maybe. If I could get a cell signal, that is. “Once an hour?”
“Once a day,” he growled. “Otherwise I’m going to take my ax to it.”
Crap. I was going to suffer some serious withdrawal in this relationship. “Okay. Once per day I get to check my phone at your place.”
I looked down at said phone and grimaced. Kennedy was assisting with injured from a building collapse and wouldn’t be back for another three to four days at the earliest. I couldn’t wait that long. None of us could wait that long. If Kennedy couldn’t help me check out Hit-The-Mark, then I’d just need to do it myself and hope they didn’t have some sort of magical doorway that identified me as a shifter.
“I take it from the look on your face we won’t be taking that shower together?” Karl asked.
“No. I want to. I really want to, but I need to visit this outfitter and see if I can figure out who is manufacturing the tainted bullets. When I get back, we’ll do some shower action, I promise.” I handed him a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, and shooed him over to the table.
Karl scowled. “I don’t like the idea of you going after these guys. Let the humans handle it.”
We’d been over this twice already this morning. “We need to find a way to negate the self-defense excuse and show the police that what’s happening can be classified as a murder, and to do that we need to not be forced to shift when we’re shot, and not go rogue. That’s a magic thing and it’s going to take a while to find something to counter the spell on the bullets. In the meantime, we need to make it so every human on the planet isn’t packing these things. If that happens, we’ll never be safe shifting. We need to cut off the supply and we need to do it fast.”
Every time we were in our animal form and came across a human, we’d be vulnerable. There were penalties for hunting without a license, so very few humans could use the mistaken identity claim, but with the videos online and those fi
ve dead scientists in Ketchikan, there would be enough fear flying around that anyone could claim self-defense.
“I really don’t want to be out eating berries and get shot,” Karl admitted.
“Exactly. And it wouldn’t just be ‘crap, that hurts’ shot either. It would be death—right away or eventually depending on how good of a shot the human was and if we could get to help in time.”
Karl leaned back and fixed me with a hard gaze. “I went back to that rogue corpse after you left Ketchikan. I don’t like this, Brina. I know you’re strong and capable, but that bear was three times your mass and that bullet was killing him, driving him mad. I don’t want that to happen to you. And I’m scared that if you take a bullet like that, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.”
I didn’t really know how to respond to that, so I tried to address his fear. “I’ll be careful.”
“I’d rather you wait for this Kennedy human,” he grumbled.
Me too, but sitting around while other shifters could be dying wasn’t going to happen. “She won’t be back for days.”
He scowled. “You said she saved Brent and Leon when they were shot.”
“Saved them by operating and getting the bullet out of them. She’s a trauma surgeon. And we wanted her to go in because she’s human and she’s new to the pack. It’s not likely they’d recognize her, either as a local member of the pack, or a shifter.”
Karl grunted. “She probably smells like Brent. There’s just as good a chance she’d get shot too.”
I didn’t want to think about that. “Brent would skin me alive if I let anything happen to his mate.”
“Well, I’m gonna skin him alive if something happens to you,” he grumbled.
“I’ll be careful.” I repeated. “And all this is moot because Kennedy isn’t here to go, and I’m not waiting for her to come back. I’m going to go check it out, then head to Brent’s to brief him and do some research. Then I have my marketing work to do, which I should be doing right now. I’ll be back later tonight.” I eyed my phone. “I’ll call you and let you know when I’m finished. Maybe I’ll come over to your den tonight so I can see your place.”