I was excited, but scared. I couldn’t help feeling giddy and eager for what was going to happen next, but I had made myself into a pessimist over the past decade. That didn’t vanish with a little attention from a hot guy. Something had to be wrong with the picture. Right?
I didn’t know. I was confused.
The bar was busy and I’d been working for a few hours already. Alexei had already told me he had to work and wouldn’t be able to stop in that night. Yet, I found myself still looking for him.
Stupid? Yep. Could I help it? Nope.
Lord, I had it bad.
When the three women settled at the bar, I felt a shiver of unease as their eyes raked over me. It wasn’t so much judgement as it was curiosity on their part. I knew that they recognized me, though. More than from just around town. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, I recognized one. She had owned a photography shop at the end of the island. The place had been leveled by the hurricane.
I put a smile on my face, despite feeling like I was walking into a trap. “Hey, what can I get you ladies?”
The one I recognized smiled brightly at me and stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Megan.”
Another chimed in. “I’m Hannah. And this is Kerrigan. We’re friends of Alexei.”
After I’d shaken their hands, I just kind of stepped back and looked at them. I didn’t know what to expect. Did they just want to meet me or were they there to warn me away from their so-called friend? Also, why did Alexei have so many female friends?
“We’re all mates to other guys in P.O.L.A.R.—his task force.” Hannah shrugged. “I doubt you’ve met any of the guys yet, though.”
I shook my head. “Um, nope.”
“You have no clue what we’re talking about, do you?” Megan laughed lightly. “Alexei hasn’t mentioned us? Or, maybe you two haven’t had much time to talk.” She waggled her eyebrows.
I bristled. Here come the slut slurs.
“I just mean that it’s a mate thing. It’s not uncommon to meet, screw like rabbits, and save the conversations for later.” Megan nodded to the other women. “We’ve all been there.”
I stared at her. What the hell was she talking about?
Kerrigan nodded. “She’s not wrong.”
“The joys of being mated to polar bear shifters.” Hannah smiled a secret little smile.
My head snapped back like she’d slapped me. What the fuck were they talking about? Polar… I thought of Houdini. Was that a coincidence?
“What’s wrong?” Megan’s face wrinkled in concern. “Are you okay?”
“What are you all talking about?” I gripped the bar top and shook my head. “Why did you say ‘polar bear’?”
Their faces all blanched at once. Kerrigan’s eyes seemed to grow even larger behind her thick glasses. Megan’s jaw dropped and Hannah gasped. It was Megan who spoke, though. “We… You don’t know any of this, do you?”
“Any of what? What about polar bears?”
“Shit.” Megan looked at the women on either side of her and muttered another curse. “I’m so sorry. We just assumed… Alexei has been spending so much time with you and he’s even happier than normal. We just thought the two of you had already mated…”
I had a second to try to digest what she’d said before Hannah piped up. “We shouldn’t have come. We shouldn’t have said anything.”
“He’s going to kill us.” Kerrigan groaned. “And he’ll have every right to. I’m sorry, too. It wasn’t our place to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” I was getting pissed, feeling like I was the outsider in an insider’s club.
“Alexei will tell you everything.”
I stepped closer to them. “The three of you need to spill. You’ve already started, no way I’m letting you walk out of here without an explanation. I especially want to know why you mentioned polar bears.”
Megan groaned. “Promise you won’t be mad at him? He would’ve told you himself if we hadn’t opened our big mouths.”
I couldn’t promise that. I was already upset and I hadn’t even heard them out yet. I had a feeling I was going to be royally pissed at Alexei once I had.
I waved Mimi over and told her I needed to take my break immediately. She covered the bar while I went to a table in the back with the three women. All of them looked stressed and were casing the exits as though they might just decide to make a run for it instead. They didn’t, though. I motioned for them to be seated, and when they were, I took a chair facing the three of them.
I eyed them sternly. “Spill.”
“We didn’t come to ruin anything between you two. We’re not like that, honest. We just wanted to meet you. Alexei has been over the moon and he mentioned it was you he’d been spending time with, so we wanted to...”
“You wanted to see if I was really the bitchy, homewrecking whore from TV? I know you know who I am. I saw it all over your faces when you walked in.”
Megan raised her hands in protest. “No! Alexei is a great guy and he wouldn’t have a mate like that. Really.” She looked at the other two as if wanting one of them to interject, but neither said anything. “We just wanted to welcome you to the fold, so to speak.”
“The fold?” I frowned. “Fine. Explain all of this to me, though. The polar bear talk. There’s been a polar bear running loose on South Beach. I’ve returned him the Sunkissed Wildlife Sanctuary several times now and he keeps getting loose again. I’m suddenly pretty damned sure that it’s no coincidence that you three happened to bring up a polar bear. Is this about him?”
Hannah winced. “Um…okay, unless there is something really crazy happening on this island, that polar bear is Alexei.”
I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “Is this some kind of prank? You all think it’s funny to come in and mess with me?”
“No! No. It’s nothing like that. Our mates, our men, are shapeshifters. I know it sounds crazy, but they have the ability to transform into polar bears. All of them. So, the polar bear you’ve encountered on South Beach? Probably Alexei.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I thought so, too. Until I saw my mate, Roman, shift before my very eyes.” Megan leaned forward and placed her hand over mine. “I’m sorry we jumped the gun and came in here before giving Alexei a chance to tell you himself. We weren’t trying to judge you or ruin things between you and Alexei, I promise. We were just excited to meet you.”
“And maybe we did want to make sure you were a nice person. We’re sorry for that, too.” Kerrigan smiled sheepishly.
Hannah took my other hand. “Alexei told us that you weren’t like the character you played on Love In An Instant. And we totally believe him. We’re not stupid enough to think reality TV isn’t staged for dramatic effect.”
I felt nauseous. “People don’t shift into animals. You three are pulling my leg. I mean, you all seemed so normal and then you opened your mouths and…” But their faces told me they were dead serious and even a little regretful. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“We could prove it. We could have one of our mates shift for you and show you.” Kerrigan scooted closed, not at all concerned that I might vomit on her. “I feel like your mate is the first person you should see shift, though.”
I stood up, having had enough. “Don’t say anything to him about you coming here.”
“Not a problem.” Megan groaned. “He’s going to kill all three of us.”
“I’m not saying I believe you, but I can’t do this right now. I can’t listen to this.” I held up my hands when they tried to talk. “I’m sorry. Please just leave. Please.”
I didn’t wait to see if they’d leave. I just went to the back and hid in the employee bathroom. I bent over and braced my hands on my knees, completely thrown off by what had just happened. I’d have laughed at them and blown off what they said completely if it weren’t for my prior interactions with Houdini. That was just too coincidental.
It would explain the feeling of familiarity I got when I�
��d looked into Alexei’s eyes for the first time. What was I thinking?! There was no such thing as shapeshifters. People didn’t shift into animals! There was no magic, and no fate. Just bullshit humans and their bullshit games.
Surely Alexei would have told me all this himself if it were true. Wouldn’t he? Wait—what if he was trying to get rid of me? Maybe this was all a ploy. He sent the three woman to Mimi’s Cabana tonight to spread some weird story in the hopes that I’d drop him like a hot potato.
No, that didn’t make sense either because he was the one pursuing me, not the other way around. If he wanted to get rid of me, all he had to do was say so.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I went home early and crawled into my bed. I tried to make sense of everything as I lay there staring at the ceiling. Over and over, my mind sorted through every interaction I’d had with Alexei and with Houdini. Was it even remotely possible? A man who turns into a polar bear? I was crazy for even considering it.
When I finally did drift into a fitful sleep that night, it was only after coming to the conclusion that I would have to find out for myself. I wouldn’t come right out and ask him, but there was another way. A way to test Alexei. I’d get to the bottom of what was really going on.
20
Alexei
I shifted into my bear in the water and hurriedly swam to Heidi that morning. I was eager to see her. I’d told her the day before that I thought we were fated to be together and I was ready to hear her thoughts about that. Maybe, if she was ready, I could explain the whole shifter thing.
She was sitting on the beach, her face blank, when I reached her. Instead of smiling and getting up to greet me with a hug the way she normally did, she just sat there. When I rubbed against her, she absently patted me on the head. She seemed a million miles away and I worried if something had happened. Maybe she’d had another nasty encounter with a diehard fan of Love In An Instant.
As I raged inside at the thought of someone being so rude and mean to her, she started quietly talking.
“You know what I really want, Houdini? I want a dominant man, one who tells me how it is. I’ve been thinking about it and as much as I like Alexei, I think he’s a little too polite and respectful, you know?”
I bit back a growl. What was she talking about?
“I would be so turned on if he just pushed me around a little. If he walked up to me and said something like, ‘Bitch, gimme a beer,’ or grabbed me by the hair, dragged me down to my knees, and ordered me to service him. I need to be dominated—treated roughly. I don’t think Alexei has that in him.” She sighed. “I just feel…bored with him. We’re completely mismatched.”
My pride ached and my heart sank. What was my mate saying? What had changed overnight that I was suddenly boring? Had she met someone else?
She stood up and brushed the sand off her. “I’m sorry, Houdini. I wish I could hang out more this morning, but I’ve got to get to the boys early. Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
I was so thrown off that I just followed her, dumbfounded. I felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me. She didn’t even say goodbye when she knocked on the gate of that asshole Leon Zoo’s place. She just turned and left.
There was something seriously wrong. She didn’t seem like herself at all. Whatever was going on, I had to fix it.
I raced back to the pier, shifted and threw on my shorts before running down the beach to find her before she disappeared. I caught up to her just as she was going towards a small house right off the beach.
“Heidi!” I forced a smile and jogged up to her. “Hey. I was hoping I’d catch you again this morning.”
Her expression was still flat and indifferent when she looked at me, although I thought I detected something else beneath the surface. “You caught me.”
“Are you okay?”
She sighed, making it obvious that she was not okay. “Fine. Everything is fine.”
I caught her hand. “Something’s off. You seem different.”
“I’m fine. I’m just…bored.” She shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
Desperation can do crazy things to a man. I had no interest in pushing Heidi around or treating her “roughly”, as she put it, but if that was what she wanted, hell, I’d do anything to make her happy. “If you’re so bored, get on your damned knees and service me….uh…bitch.”
If she’d seemed quiet, indifferent, and even bored before, she suddenly did a one eighty and her temper flared like a raging wildfire. Her features contorted and she turned a deep shade of red before her hand shot out like a cannon and connected painfully with my face. When I jerked back, shocked, she followed me, punching me in the chest.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
I was so confused. “I-I’m sorry. I thought that’s what you wanted! I’m sorry. Jesus, just stop punching me before you hurt yourself.”
“You thought that’s what I wanted? Why would you think that? Huh, Alexei? How would you know that? I didn’t tell you, did I? I told a fucking polar bear!”
She was in full freak out mode, practically foaming at the mouth. When she slipped in the sand and I caught her to keep from falling, she just exploded even more. She ran down the beach still hollering.
“I’ve told a fucking polar bear lots of things! Lots of personal things! About how I wanted to get to know you more and then you showed up, demanding we get to know each other. I told him how hot I thought you were and how I wanted you, but I was afraid. I told him everything!”
I’d caught up to her by that point. Somehow, she’d found out I was a shifter and set me up. “Heidi…”
“Fuck you. You want to be with me, you think it’s fate?” She taunted. “Bullshit. You were just feeding me what I wanted to hear. What do you really want? Just to make a complete fool of me? To fuck me and then laugh about it later? What was the point?”
I tried to grab her arms to stop her and make her listen to me, but she just smacked my hands away. “Heidi! Stop and listen to me. I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to—”
“I thought you were different. I thought you liked me.” She angrily wiped away a tear. “I thought a polar bear was my friend. So, I guess this is really my fault. I was the idiot spilling my heart out to a damned bear.”
“Fucking stop and listen to me. I didn’t mean—”
“Go to hell.” She turned and ran up the steps to her house, slamming the door so hard that the walls rattled.
I stood there, looking up at that door, feeling the pieces of my shattered heart fall to my feet. I’d fucked up. Royally.
I stayed there for a while, trying to come up with something to say, something that she’d actually want to hear, but nothing came to my mind. I’d been an idiot. I’d let her tell me everything under false pretenses. Then, I’d used that information to get closer to her.
I’d be lucky if she ever spoke to me again.
21
Heidi
I was on day two of calling in sick to work. Hadn’t showered. Hadn’t brushed my teeth. Had no motivation to do either again. All my anger had faded and I was left with a terrible, depressive sadness. It just hung over my head like a cloud of doom that rained mopiness on me. I wanted anger back, because at least with anger came motivation. Motivation to lash out at Alexei, or spend time visualizing kicking him in the balls, but still. With sadness, I just wanted to lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Or worse, cry.
Alexei was exactly why I’d stayed away from men since moving to Sunkissed Key. The whole situation was. Dreaming of something I couldn’t have sucked. I hadn’t felt so lonely before Alexei. I hadn’t stayed in bed all day long and cried over the realization that no one was ever going to touch me again. Alexei. Alexei was never going to touch me again.
It was awful how I still wanted him. The anger had faded but thoughts of him were still driving me crazy. I didn’t understand how he’d managed to get past all my defenses so thoroughly, but he had.
He was well and truly u
nder my skin.
I missed Houdini… who was really Alexei. The whole concept was still insane to me. Alexei turned into a bear and…what? Sat and listened to women talk so he could find out their inner thoughts, and then use them to lure the women into bed? No, that made no sense. Alexei didn’t need any tricks to get a woman into bed. He probably got propositioned daily. Well, whatever his reason for doing it, I did miss stroking his fur while I chatted away. I missed curling up against him and watching the ocean roll in over the sand and then back out.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew I sounded like an idiot, crying over a lost friendship with a bear. Was I so lonely and pitiful that I thought a bear was my friend? The answer was sad.
I hadn’t even begun to process what it meant that he could shift from man to bear. I just wasn’t there.
I was still feeling hurt over the betrayal.
Had Alexei been laughing the entire time he’d been using what I told him to lure me in? Had I been such an easy target? I felt like I was going to be shamed and ridiculed all over again, even more. I’d dragged him into the back of the bar and had an orgasm against an old rickety desk. People were going to know I’d done that. They were going to feel like they were right in their judgements of me.
I was really working myself into a big crying spell when someone knocked on my front door. I cringed.
I knew it wasn’t Maria. She’d asked her mother to step in and look after the kids for a couple days after I’d given her a brief rundown of why I’d gone into hiding. She knew better than to come over until I asked her to. Maria was the only person who ever stopped over, so…was it Alexei? I wasn’t ready to face him. Especially not all smelly and gross and in the same clothes I’d worn for the past two days. I didn’t want him to know how he’d affected me.
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