Ready to Bear

by Ivy Sinclair

  Eric had kept his word so far. Even though she had to do some of the shit work that came along with being his assistant, like picking up his dry cleaning and helping him avoid a million unwanted phone calls, he also was giving her a first rate close-up view of what it was like to run a multi-billion dollar company. He had already hinted at giving her a crack at a position running one of his product divisions if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to build a career inside Eric’s company. Her dream was to found and run her own.

  She smiled a little bit to herself and leaned her forehead against the door frame as she watched Billy and Alex interact. It had been too long since Alex had any kind of normal male role model in his life. Their parents were busy spending their retirement traveling all over the world. Eric was far from what Thea would consider suitable role model material outside of the board room. It made her wonder even more about the man who seemed so at ease in her kitchen.

  “Why don’t you come in and join us instead of lurking out there?” Billy asked.

  Thea was certain that in the entire time she had been standing there, he hadn’t looked in her direction. Yet he knew she was there. She cursed silently. Shifter noses. Got her every time.

  She stepped into the room and made her way to the island. She pulled out a stool and settled herself onto it just as Billy pushed a teacup in her direction. Thea gratefully took it and swallowed her first sip. She almost choked.

  “Apparently you and Sophie are using the same playbook,” she said as he looked at her in alarm. Then he had the grace to look embarrassed.

  “You have a pretty sensitive palate. I didn’t put enough in there that you should even be able to taste it,” Billy said. He held up a bottle of whiskey that Thea hadn’t seen before.

  “I’ve been told I have the palate of a world-class sommelier,” Thea said. She didn’t go into why she had developed it that way. “Plus, I don’t drink whiskey that often. Two shots already tonight is too many.”

  “Loosen up a little,” Alex said under his breath.

  Thea wanted to snap at him, but she realized that would be unfair. His surly tone and teenage attitude weren’t what she was upset about. It had taken her too long to get there, but now she was emotionally unsteady and upset over what happened. Suddenly, she felt the urge to take a shower. She wanted to wash every possible inch of her skin and rub it raw just to erase any memory of Kurt or Ollie’s fingers.

  She stood up abruptly. “Excuse me.” She dashed out of the room and made it to her bathroom just in time. She hadn’t eaten dinner, but what remained in her stomach came up just the same. After the heaves finally calmed, she rolled over onto the cool tile floor and stared up at the ceiling as she felt the tears well up again. She brushed them away. She refused to fall apart.

  There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door. “Thea?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. She barely raised her voice to answer, but it didn’t matter anyway. With his enhanced hearing, he’d be able to hear her just fine.

  “Can we stop pretending now that you’re fine?” His question was direct and to the point. Thea also sensed that he wasn’t planning on going away anytime soon no matter what she said. That made her feel glad in a way that she couldn’t even describe while also feeling annoyed and frustrated. Yes, this man was getting under her skin in a bad way.

  “The door is unlocked,” Thea said. Even as he opened the door, she was pushing onto her feet and moving to the sink. She needed to brush her teeth. She ignored him as she grated the toothbrush hard against the inside of her mouth and tried to forget the alien tongue that had forced its way inside just an hour ago.

  The tremors started then in earnest. She dropped the toothbrush into the sink as she covered her face with her hands. It was as if she was back there again, and nothing she did was protecting her from their onslaught.

  She yelled as she felt hands touch her shoulders.

  “Thea? Thea, it’s okay. Look at me. Look at me.” The words were said in a commanding tone that she couldn’t ignore. Thea looked up into Billy’s cool blue eyes. She saw the worried concern there. “Listen to me, because this is important for you to hear. Those men will never be able to touch you again.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be there,” Thea whispered. “I didn’t do anything to get away from them because one of them had a knife. I should have fought back. Maybe I could have gotten away.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing about that situation that was your doing. Those dirtbags are going to get what’s coming to them.”

  “I have to press charges,” Thea said. Billy looked away from her then. “What? I am pressing charges. I’m not going to let them get away with what they did to me. I would think that of everyone, you’d support me on that.”

  Billy shook his head, and his hands dropped from her shoulders. He rubbed his face, and it took several long moments before his eyes met hers again. “Thea, I’m glad to hear that you would have pressed charges. But those men aren’t going to jail.”

  Thea’s jaw went slack. “What are you talking about?”

  “You do understand who your brother is, right?” Billy seemed to hesitate with his next words. “We shifters take care of our own, and it doesn’t always involve sticking to the letter of the law.”

  “What are you saying, exactly?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about what Billy was implying. Thea wanted the men who had tried to hurt her to pay. It shouldn’t thrill her to think that they might be getting their asses beat, but it did.

  “It means that shifter business is dealt with differently in certain circumstances. Those boys made a gross error in judgment when they decided to go after you. Your brother will remedy the situation so that they never make that error again.”

  They couldn’t come after her again. Which was a silly, irrational thought because they never knew who she was to begin with. But still, knowing that they had been effectively dealt with would help her rest better at night, although she wasn’t sure how she was going to sleep. The real men might have been removed from her life, but the rank memories of their touch and smell would haunt her dreams.

  “I’d like to take a shower,” Thea said slowly.

  “Of course,” Billy said. He started to back out of the room.

  “Billy?”

  He paused and turned back toward her. She bit her lower lip as her eyes fell to her feet. Thea wasn’t sure how to ask what she wanted to ask without coming across like some weak-minded girl.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you have to go back to your hotel tonight?”

  Something crossed his face then, and Thea thought his eyes deepened in color. “I can stay as long as you’d like me to, Thea. I don’t have any other plans tonight.”

  A long breath seemed to drag itself out of her lungs. It didn’t even register with her that she had been holding her breath as she waited for his answer. “Okay, then.”

  A shadow of a smile flitted across his face. He looked…pleased. “I’ll make sure that Alex cleans up his mess in the kitchen in the meantime,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  He gave her a short nod and was gone. Thea took a deep breath and found that she could still smell him. It was like a calming salve on her soul. She stripped off her clothes and dropped them into the trashcan. She was tempted to burn them in the fireplace in the living room, but she thought that would give the men who had attacked her too much credit. Thea wasn’t going to buckle or break. It would take more than that to get to her.

  With that thought firmly wedged in her mind, she turned on the water in the shower and climbed inside. She forced the thoughts of the two men from the alley away from her and focused instead on the surprise gift that life and fate had bestowed on her. Billy Miller was someone that she hadn’t been looking for, but she had to admit that she was more than intrigued.

  The warm water sluiced away the dirt and anxiety of the earlier encounter. Thea reviewed what little she did know about Billy. He seemed
to shun the spotlight even as his alpha claimed it. He had to be in his early thirties. The Greyelf Grizzly Clan wasn’t his original clan. He had been with two others before that if she remembered his background correctly.

  A grizzly bear. Kyle also was a grizzly, although he had renounced all shackles of a clan affiliation long ago. Thea hadn’t stopped to think too much about her clanless brother and his friends. It made her wonder if there were any other reasons that Billy was in Copper City, and if perhaps her brother had a right to be suspicious.

  When Billy mentioned earlier that both he and Lukas had left messages for Eric, Thea knew that they had gotten caught in the Thea blockade. That was what Eric called it, anyway. She was exceedingly effective at catching and deterring any outside attempt to reach Eric unless Eric wanted to be reached. She had heard Billy’s voice before, on his multiple voicemails to Eric that had gotten shorter and more curt as time had gone on. It had barely even registered to her. Eric hadn’t wanted a meeting, so she blew Billy off.

  She felt bad about that now, especially hearing the reason that he wanted the meeting to begin with. She wondered about this man that he was tracking, and if he was going to try to cause trouble for Eric. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it was unlikely it would be the last. With his position and his money, Eric was a target for many.

  Thea also knew that Billy wasn’t the first member of law enforcement in his family. The media had made a big deal out of the fact that his father and grandfather were both police officers as well, with over half a century of experience between them. She also thought there was an uncle or two who were in the FBI or CIA. Billy had law enforcement in his blood. That made his reaction to how her attackers were being dealt with all the more strange.

  As Thea dried off, she knew that she hadn’t thought in great detail about what it would be like to date a shifter. Even though she lived in a family of shifters and was affiliated with one of the more famous ones, she still didn’t identify with that as part of who she was. It was something that had crossed her mind more often now that Alex might be one too. She had no idea how to guide him through what she had heard was a rather rough transition. She thought the whole puberty thing had been bad enough.

  As she made her way into her room, she considered her meager clothing options that she could wear now that she was all cleaned up. She wanted to wear something more flattering than sweats and a t-shirt. She argued with herself for a few minutes when she realized that it was stupid. There wasn’t anything that could go on between her and the sheriff anyway. Like Eric, he probably preferred the women he got involved with to be shifters too.

  She pulled her hair up into a tight knot on the top of her head. Throwing on her favorite rock band t-shirt and a pair of leggings, she prepared herself to face Billy again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Billy left Thea with more than a few mixed emotions. He kept reminding himself that not only was Thea related to Eric Carmichael, but she was also human and in a league far beyond his. He came from a middle-class working background. He couldn’t afford the kinds of luxuries that Thea was used to, even if she’d consider going out on a date with him.

  That was a huge rub, but he knew that it was for the best, no matter what his bear was trying to tell him. Billy found Alex in the living room playing a game on his Xbox.

  “Clean everything up in the kitchen?” Billy asked. “Your sister should be out in a bit. She’s taking a shower.”

  “Whatever,” Alex said. “Yeah, I put my shit in the sink.”

  Billy realized with a wry smile that Alex was trying to test the limits of their newfound relationship.

  “Does your sister approve of that kind of language?” Billy asked.

  “She’s not my mom,” Alex said with a frown. He hadn’t looked away from the TV screen. “She might think she is sometimes, but she’s not. While Mom and Dad are away, she and Eric have equal say in what I can do.”

  They had reached the core of the issue. Alex was sore because Thea had taken him away from the shifter fight. Billy understood her reasoning, but he also understood Alex’s curiosity.

  “Why do you want to see the fights?” Billy decided to let the language issue go. He had been saying a lot worse and then some to the adults in his life when he was Alex’s age. It was a time in his life that Billy wished he could wipe away altogether. He didn’t want to see other young shifters make the same mistakes. It was the reason he volunteered at the high school and mentored several of the younger shifters in the clan.

  “Because they’re cool,” Alex said. He punched at the buttons of the control more fiercely. He was playing a combat game. “Eric said that people from all over the country come to see them because the fighters they book are so good. The shifters who fight make a ton of money too. It’s cool.”

  “Cool and violent are two very different things,” Billy said slowly. He sat down on the couch next to Alex. He let the pause between them go on for a few minutes. “Why do you think those men agree to be in those fights?”

  “Make some quick cash. Kick the shit out of somebody for fun. I don’t know,” Alex grumbled. “Eric said that I could stay for the first fight even though it was a school night. Thea never lets me do or see anything that has to do with shifters.”

  That gave Billy pause, and he wondered if Thea had something against shifters. He corrected himself. If she hadn’t before, she probably definitely did now after what happened that night.

  “When you’re a shifter, it can sometimes be difficult to keep a handle on your animal self,” Billy said.

  “Yeah, Eric has already told me that,” Alex said. “But that’s why you get lots of training after your first phase. So you can control it.”

  “The animal self is different just like everyone’s individual personality is different,” Billy said, trying to find the right words to explain himself. He decided to try a different approach. “There are bad people in the world.”

  “Like the guys who attacked Thea,” Alex said. His game had finished, but he hadn’t started a new one yet. He wasn’t looking at Billy, but Billy sensed that he was listening intently now.

  “Like the guys who attacked Thea. They were shifters too. So you find bad apples in shifter communities just like there are in the human community. Except when it comes to shifter fights, guys like that get to let the beasts inside of them free and go for blood. They enjoy it. So the fights give guys like that a perfectly legitimate excuse to be as bad as they want, plus they get some fringe benefits. Money. Maybe even a little bit of fame.”

  “That’s messed up,” Alex said. “I get doing it for money. But I can’t believe that anyone enjoys it like that.”

  “Yeah, those are the guys who would fight even if they didn’t get paid,” Billy said. “I’ve known a lot of them in my time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Of course, there are other men who get into the ring because they have a much sadder story. Those men are looking to get away from the pain and trauma from something in their past. I knew a man like that too,” Billy said, hesitating because he didn’t want to say too much and give something away.

  “So there are a lot of reasons that men fight,” Alex said thoughtfully.

  “Yes, but most of them are not honest or valid reasons to put yourself into that kind of situation,” Billy said. “It’s dangerous to allow your animal to potentially take complete control. That’s when you become dangerous to the people around you.” Billy knew that better than anyone. He pushed those thoughts away. He was letting things that he had buried in the past come to the surface because he saw so much of himself in Alex’s earnest face.

  “What are you two doing out here?” Thea moved into the room. Billy hadn’t even heard her coming. Maybe she had a little bit of panther in her, after all.

  “Alex was just showing me his game,” Billy said. Alex looked grateful that he didn’t mention the real topic of their discussion. “But, I think it’s about time for you to hit the hay.” He
pointed at his watch.

  “Sure,” Alex said. He turned off his game and got up. Billy was surprised when he saw the kid plant a kiss on Thea’s cheek when he passed by her. Billy thought Thea was equally surprised, judging by the expression on her face.

  She touched her cheek as she walked further into the room. With her hair pulled up on top of her head and her casual attire, Billy thought she could have easily passed for being fifteen herself. “What’s gotten into him?” she wondered out loud.

  “I think what happened tonight was a wake-up call for both of your brothers,” Billy said. He wanted to kick himself for bringing up the attack as he watched her face fall. He patted the seat next to him on the couch. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wasn’t going to say anything else about that.”

  Thea sat down on the couch and pulled her knees to her chest. “It’s okay. I can’t expect that everyone is going to treat me like I’m made out of glass. It happened. It’s over. It could have been a whole lot worse than it was. I need to move on.”

  “That’s a brave thing for you to say,” Billy said.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been taking care of myself for most of my life, so I couldn’t get too wrapped up in any of the bad stuff.” She must have caught Billy’s incredulous stare. “I haven’t lived in luxury my entire life, you know. My mother married Robert when I was ten, and she was already pregnant with Alex. Before that, every dime she had went into clothes, hair, jewelry, and all of the trappings, perfecting the image of the perfect socialite. There was enough left over for Ramen noodles most nights for dinner for me. She went off to her events, and I stayed home locked in a small one-bedroom apartment in the less than savory end of town.”

  “I didn’t realize,” Billy said.

  “She was determined to climb the social ladder, and she did a fine job.” Thea chuckled, but there wasn’t any humor in it.

  “What about your dad?” Billy usually didn’t like to pry into a woman’s personal life having just met her, but Thea had opened the door by talking about her family.