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  “Because of you.”

  “Because of me and Cassidy and Iona, and others helping out. I’m not some Lady Bountiful. Like I said, I’m just doing my job.”

  “Sure you are.” Cormac grinned at her.

  Nell growled, the rumble of an annoyed she-bear, before she turned her back on him and kept walking.

  Cormac followed, chuckling to himself. Nell was prickly, but he’d get past her spines. He’d made the promise. Just because his old clansman was in the Summerland—the afterlife—and couldn’t hear him didn’t matter.

  Nell headed for a house that didn’t look much different from any of the others around it. The house had a long back porch with a sliding glass door that looked into a kitchen and family room. A cluster of kids—six, seven?—were sitting around a table in the family room. One of the cubs jumped up when he saw them and slid open the patio door.

  “Aunt Nell!” the cub shouted, and flung his arms around her waist.

  Nell rumpled the little boy’s hair as she hugged him back. He was a bear cub, brown bear possibly, though Cormac found it hard to tell bears other than grizzlies until they shifted.

  “How are you, Donny?” Nell asked.

  Donny started to open his mouth and eagerly answer, but then he caught sight of Cormac behind her. The other cubs at the table, who’d been digging into a pile of breakfast, also froze, forks and spoons halfway to their mouths.

  Donny ripped himself from Nell and fled blindly to the kitchen, where he dove into the small space between refrigerator and kitchen wall. He squeezed himself as far into the shadows as he could and cowered there, making whimpering noises.

  Two of the other kids started to yowl, the remaining three sitting motionless with terror.

  Nell raised her hands. “No, it’s all right. He’s not—”

  A female bear Shifter, as tall as but not as curvaceous as Nell, ran into the room, her eyes wide in a fear not far removed from Donny’s. A man followed her—a tall, thin man with black hair and eyes so dark they looked as though they’d sucked the blackness of every moonless night into them. His scent slammed its way into Cormac’s nose and triggered a primal and long-buried instinct.

  Cormac snarled, his hands sprouting the razor claws of his grizzly. He had to fight to keep himself from changing to the beast, the best form in which to fight the . . .

  “Fae,” he spat. “You have a Fae here—with cubs?”

  “Dokk alfar,” the tall man said immediately. “Dark Fae. Not high Fae.”

  “What the hell is the difference?” Cormac’s rage surged. He shouted at Nell, “What is he doing here? Why hasn’t someone killed him yet?”

  “This is Stuart Reid,” Nell said, cutting across his words. “It’s his bedroom you’re taking over, so show some gratitude.”

  “This is the Reid you said was living in your house? Are you insane?”

  Nell put her hands on her shapely hips. “You are the one terrorizing the cubs at the moment, not Reid. Stifle it.” She turned to the kids at the table, her body language relaxed so they’d calm down. “It’s all right. This isn’t Miguel. He won’t hurt you. I promise he won’t, because if he does, I’ll smack him over the head with a frying pan.”

  The girl cubs at the table started to giggle. The males, more wary, didn’t laugh, but they settled a little, forks moving back to pancakes. Only Donny stayed wedged beside the refrigerator, the scent of his terror sharp. This feral bear—Miguel—must have scared the shit out of him.

  Poor kid. Sympathy made Cormac withdraw his claws, shutting away the in-between beast. Whatever nefarious reason had brought the Fae here wasn’t as important as reassuring the cubs. Cubs came first.

  “You see what you’re doing?” Nell said to Cormac as the other female Shifter went to coax Donny out from behind the refrigerator. “You charge in here unannounced and scare the cubs half to death. Where did you learn to be Shifter?”

  “From myself,” Cormac said. “I had to raise myself in the wilds of northern Wisconsin. Been alone since I was about an eight-year-old cub.” Not much older than these kids.

  The female Shifter looked around. “Since you were a cub?”

  “Yep. My parents were killed by hunters, and it was just me left. I had to learn to get by on my own. Never even saw another Shifter for almost a decade and a half after that.”

  Nell stared at him in shock that Cormac pretended to ignore. He didn’t want to win her on the pity card. But it had been rough, a bear cub wandering by himself not sure whether he was beast or human.

  “The blessings of the Goddess on you,” the female Shifter said. “I’m Peigi. This Fae, as you call him, helped rescue me and the other females Miguel had stolen, plus all our cubs. So Stuart’s welcome in my house.”

  Hmm. The Fae man looked defiant, and Cormac decided to let it go for now. Weird shit happened in Shiftertowns, and Shane had indicated that Reid and Peigi were now a couple.

  “In case everyone was wondering, this is Cormac,” Nell said. “He’s a grizzly, he moved to this Shiftertown, he thinks he needs a mate, and he thinks that mate is me.”

  The whole room perked up. Donny finally came out from his hiding place, though he stayed behind Peigi.

  One of the girls at the table said, “Are you going to have a mating ceremony, Aunt Nell? I love mating ceremonies. I can’t wait until mine.”

  “That’ll be years from now,” Donny scoffed from behind Peigi’s legs. “Aunt Nell is much, much older than you, so she’ll have to have hers right away.”

  “Do we get to dance in the inner circle?” the girl-cub asked. “I know Aunt Nell’s not our real aunt, but she takes care of us, and we’re practically family.”

  Shifters formed two circles at rituals and ceremonies—immediate family and close friends on the inside, the rest of Shiftertown on the outside. The slow dancing, each circle moving the opposite direction, called the Goddess and the God to be present at the festivities. Or so it was said. The stately dancing usually degenerated into a raunchy party within minutes of the mating.

  “Fine by me,” Cormac said. “You can all be in the inner circle. Maybe even the Fae.” Cormac’s nose wrinkled. Reid’s slightly acrid scent was stirring his killing instincts.

  “Uncle Stuart is okay,” the girl said. “Even if he stinks.”

  “Excuse me!” Nell lifted her hands, and everyone stared at her. “No one’s doing any mating here. Cormac barged into my house this morning declaring he wants a mate—that he wants me—and he still hasn’t told me why.”

  It was time to tell her the truth. Cormac caught and held Nell’s gaze. “Magnus sent me.”

  Cormac watched the shock course through Nell’s body, her pupils swiftly contracting to pinpricks. He knew he’d dealt her an unfair blow, but he didn’t have time to woo her gently. Eric had said Nell would be tough, but Cormac saw that unless he broke through, and broke through quickly, she’d shut him out forever.

  He’d broken through all right. Nell came for him, claws sprouting from her hands. Her body met his with an audible slam and took him backward through the open sliding door.

  The two of them tumbled off the porch to land in the dirt and dried grass below, Nell’s huge claws going for Cormac’s throat.

  Chapter Three

  Nell pummeled him blindly, old anger and grief surging from the past, wrapped in Magnus’s name. Cormac couldn’t have known him, had no business saying he had.

  She was shouting that as she bashed at his face, but Cormac blocked every blow with rapid efficiency.

  Finally Cormac grabbed her wrists and rolled over with her, pinning her against the cold ground with formidable strength. His blue eyes had darkened into near-blackness; Shifter eyes, willing her to be still.

  Nell scented the distress of the others on the porch, Reid’s Fae scent heightening as he debated what to do. Cormac held Nell down withou
t quarter, but his hands on her wrists were surprisingly gentle.

  “You never knew Magnus,” Nell snapped at him. Her mate had never mentioned anyone called Cormac—not that he’d mentioned many people from his past. Magnus had liked isolation.

  “I didn’t say I had,” Cormac said. Damn him, he wasn’t even breathing hard. “He was of my clan, but he was gone from them by the time I found them. He’d abandoned them.”

  “I know.” Nell couldn’t stop growling.

  Shifters, especially bears, could live apart from their clans, and often did in the wild, but they still had deep ties, and the clan leader could call on them when he needed to. Clan leaders even had a spell that could drag clan members to him in times of desperation—useful in the days before cell phones.

  A Shifter who cut all ties, including the blood bonds that made the spell work, was unusual, and the clan declared said Shifter dead to them. Magnus had cut ties, because he disagreed with his clan leader’s very old-fashioned and rather severe form of ruling.

  Nell had been young and so soppily in love she’d thought it romantic that he’d decided to strike out on his own. She’d had no trouble traveling with him until they’d found a place where they could be utterly alone—herself and him—to start a new clan.

  The problem was, when a Shifter severed himself from his clan, he lost part of himself. Magnus had regretted his action almost at once, but hadn’t known how to undo it. He’d certainly have been punished if he’d gone back, maybe even with death. He hadn’t been wrong that his clan leader had a cruel side.

  If Magnus had lived long enough, he might have found a way to reconcile and bring Nell with him, but he’d grown more and more remote and depressed. Nell had seen the signs, but hadn’t really understood them until too late.

  “They didn’t know about you,” Cormac said. His hands softened on her wrists, his eyes returning to the deep blue. “Magnus never told anyone he’d taken a mate or had cubs. No one knew until about six months ago. Then I knew I had to find you.”

  “What do you mean, you knew you had to find me? If Magnus never told anyone, how did you know?”

  “He wrote a letter before he died, all about you, but it was lost. Not until a Shifter I knew in Canada found it, in a museum in Winnipeg of all places, and sent it to me, did any of the clan know of your existence. Magnus confessed he’d taken you as mate, and asked one of us to look after you when he was gone. So I decided to find you and carry out his wishes. Better late than never.”

  “So that bullshit about searching for a mate was just . . . bullshit?”

  “No.” Cormac’s smile came back. “But it was a good excuse to get transferred out here. I didn’t tell my clan leader about you or the letter, because he’s still old school. Now that Shifters are civilized, he might not try to kill a cast-off Shifter’s cubs and mate, but he might make life very hard for you. If I take you under my protection, that won’t happen. And I didn’t lie about wanting you as mate. After I read that letter, and Magnus’s description of the incredible woman you are, I knew you’d be the perfect one for me.”

  “You are so full of . . . Get off me.”

  Cormac climbed to his feet so quickly that Nell was left, stunned, in the dirt, on her back. Then he reached down with his big hand and pulled her up, strengthening the tug at the last minute so she landed against him.

  He was warm, solid, comforting. Her emotions were in turmoil—Magnus, abandoning her as he’d abandoned his clan, but permanently. Magnus writing a letter, telling his clan all about her, begging someone to come and take her as mate so she’d be cared for when he was gone. The letter lost so no one had come, and Nell had been alone. Now Cormac was here, proclaiming he’d come for her. A hundred years after she’d needed him.

  But it was tempting to lean against him, to let him take her weight. She’d carried so much weight on her shoulders for so long.

  Nell started to pull away. Cormac tightened his arm behind the small of her back and pressed her closer, his mouth coming down on hers for a searing kiss.

  Cormac knew how to kiss. Knew how to tease her lips open, how to soften on the corners of her mouth. He gently drew her lower lip between his teeth, tugging it a little, a hint that he could take her with wildness if he let himself go.

  The cubs on the porch cheered. Nell jerked away. She took a step back, missed her footing, and started to fall. But Cormac’s arm was there, keeping her on her feet.

  Peigi looked a little more concerned than the kids she took care of—none of them hers, because she’d never conceived with Miguel. Reid simply watched with his enigmatic expression.

  “Do you and Cormac have the mate bond, Aunt Nell?” Donny asked.

  Nell suppressed another growl. She didn’t want to talk about the mate bond, or mate-claims, or mating at all.

  She yanked herself away from Cormac. “Don’t even try to follow me,” she said, and marched away down the green.

  Behind her, she heard the cubs asking questions in concern, and Cormac’s rich voice rumbling in answer.

  He didn’t try to follow her. Now why was she disappointed?

  Screw this. Nell kept walking, going nowhere, her feet taking her there fast.

  ***

  Joe started stalking the bear Shane by going to another bar. This one was called Coolers, popular with Shifter groupies—humans who wanted everything from the opportunity to gaze at Shifters to multiple-partner sex with them in the parking lot.

  Not all groupies dressed up with fake Collars or wore fake cats’ ears or whiskers, thank God. Many looked normal, and Joe pretty much blended in.

  Joe was good at blending in. He’d observed the people who came here, and had bought clothes they’d wear—in this case, jeans from a higher-end shop at the mall and a Harley T-shirt.

  He knew from careful observation that Shane came to this bar quite often. Sometimes Shane left with a woman; sometimes he left with his brother or Shifter friends; sometimes he worked here as a bouncer. Only a matter of time before Joe would have the chance to corner Shane, maybe when the bear snuck out for a bit with one of the groupies. A drunk groupie woman could be taken out with a mild tranq before Joe tackled the harder job of tranquing and hauling away the bear.

  Hardest of all would be lugging the bear carcass someplace out into the desert to dump it after the kill. He’d slay the bear in one of his cabins, which he’d already prepared, complete with plastic for keeping the blood off the floor and walls.

  The Shifter paying the bounty said he’d take the head as proof of death. Joe would make sure Shane was in bear form when the bullets went into him. He knew a taxidermist who didn’t ask questions, so he could get the bear head stuffed before he tried to drive it across the border into Mexico. Less messy.

  Shane walked into the club while Joe was going over his plans for about the hundredth time. He’d come with his brother, plus another bear Shifter Joe hadn’t seen before and a dark-haired Shifter woman who didn’t look too happy.

  The table next to Joe’s had cleared out moments ago, and Joe kept his gaze on his beer bottle while Shane and friends approached that very table. Shane’s brother peeled away to go to the bar, and the Shifter woman sat heavily on the chair that the third Shifter man pulled out for her.

  Joe took up his beer and concentrated on two sexy human women in tight red dresses gyrating on the dance floor, pretending not to notice the bears at all.

  “I don’t even know why I’m here,” the Shifter woman was growling.

  “Because Cormac wanted to see the place,” Shane said, sitting down. His back was about three inches from Joe’s chair. “You like Coolers, Mom. You come here all the time.”

  “Sure, to talk to my friends. Not to get all dolled up like I’m just past my Transition. Why did you want me to wear this? You wanted to see if a large woman could stuff herself into a tight dress?”

 
She was glaring at the Shifter who must be Cormac. If she was Shane’s mother, Joe’s research put her as the bear Shifter Nell.

  Nell didn’t look bad in her black, slinky dress. She called herself large, but she meant she had breasts the stripper he’d watched early this morning would envy, and hips that drew attention to her nicely shaped ass. If Joe were into Shifters, he might give Nell another look.

  Nell’s entire attention was on Cormac, and Cormac’s on her. Shane got to his feet. “I’ll just go help Brody with the drinks.”

  “You stay right where you are, Shane,” Nell said, in the tone of a person using anger to cover fear.

  “If Brody has to carry more than two drinks, he’ll spill something. Better this way.”

  Shane shoved his chair aside, backed up a step, and ran straight into Joe. Joe’s beer jolted, but Shane grabbed the bottle out of Joe’s hand in a swift move and set the beer down before it could spill.

  “Sorry, man,” Shane said. “Want me to get you another?”

  Joe shook his head, waving to indicate everything was fine. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to give the bear too many points of recognition. Shane shrugged and went across the floor in search of his brother.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Nell said, as soon as Shane was gone.

  The blue-eyed Shifter leaned back and sent her a smile. “Having Shane and Brody get the drinks?”

  “Don’t pretend to be obtuse. I’ve been thinking about this all day, while you and my sons made so much noise in my kitchen. You felt some kind of obligation to find me when you read Magnus’s letter? It’s irrelevant now. He’s been gone for more than a century, and I didn’t even know about the stupid letter. It doesn’t mean you need to be my mate. Even if you are good at putting up shelves.”

  Cormac listened to her adamant words, his expression one of interest and concern. When she finished, he casually draped his arm over the back of her chair. “When he died, why didn’t you go back to your own clan? You must have been out of your mind with grief, and scared witless.”