Jade Crew: Forgotten Bear (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Ridgeback Bears Book 3) (6 page)

***

“So Cole, I have a question for you,” Russell said as he and the smaller shifter lugged another heavy load of debris out to the waiting dumpster. The bins they carried were filled to the brim with broken chairs, tables, and drywall. They had only been at it for half an hour, but already they were beginning to see progress. The extra strength and endurance of a shifter really showed as they took heavier loads than any human, and did so at a faster rate.

“What’s that?”

“Yesterday was the first fight to my knowledge that has happened
inside
Ferro’s,” he said slowly.

“Okay, so?” Cole replied, looking at him as if to say, “That’s it?”

“So why did Ferro never fight? He’s a dragon shifter, right? He could have made mincemeat out of these guys, saved himself a lot of damage. But he didn’t. He took Gwen into the back room, and closed the door behind him. Why would he do that?”

“Why are you asking me this? I wasn’t there, I have no idea!” Cole said, exasperated.

“Well, because I figured you—”

“Listen! Just because he talked to me once when I needed advice doesn’t mean he and I are best friends. I don’t know what’s going on in his head. But do you know who does?” Cole asked, sarcastically. “He does. So go ask him.”

Russell watched the closest thing to a friend he had in the Ridgebacks walk back inside. He let him get just far enough, and then…

“So you’re saying you don’t know?” he asked innocently, smiling at the snarl of rage that came through the hole in the siding of the building as Cole reacted. Ever since Cole had told the others about his conversation with Ferro, they had teased him about it constantly, in only the way that a bear shifter crew could. Russell felt it was his duty to continue that.

He jogged after Cole.

“All joking aside though, does it strike you as weird that he did that or am I reading too much into it?”

Cole stopped walking and looked at him. “Maybe dragon shifters have rules as well? I mean, if a bear hurts a human, that’s it. Maybe it’s the same thing if dragons do that to the other shifters?”

Russell blinked in surprise. He hadn’t even considered anything like that. Which would make a lot of sense, actually. Except…

“I could buy that, if it weren’t for one thing.”

“What’s that?” Cole asked.

“He helped carry out the sentence, without hesitation. Hell Cole, he didn’t even shift, he just used his hands to do it.”

“Okay, yeah, that would seem to throw that out the window then,” Cole seemed to be pondering saying something.

“What is it?” Russell pressed, looking around to ensure the dragon shifter wasn’t nearby.

“Well, it’s just that when I was talking with Ferro at one point, he mentioned that everyone in Genesis Valley was a ‘fuck-up.’ Which, fine, I can agree with that. But he specifically said ‘we’ are all fuck-ups here. As in, he is too. Which I didn’t really clue in on until a few minutes later. But now that you mention this, I gotta wonder if there’s something more going on with Ferro.”

“Interesting,” Russell muttered, processing the new information.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door swinging open from an energetic push.

“Morning boys, the party is here!” Emma crowed as she and Gwen walked in, carefully threading their way through the wreckage.

“There’s another mystery,” he told Cole quietly.

“What do you mean?” the other shifter said, following his eyes in the direction of the two women.

“Did you hear that Gabriel was here yesterday?” Russell asked.

“Yeah, that made its rounds.”

“Did you hear that he was here to meet with Emma at her request?”

“I did not hear that,” Cole said slowly, straightening as he dropped another pile of debris into his bucket. “Why would she need a meeting with one of the Stone Bears? We’ve been pretty good lately, haven’t we?”

“I thought so too,” Russell replied. “But clearly, something must be going on that we’re oblivious to.”

Cole looked around the room again, at the various people helping out. “Genesis Valley isn’t
that
big though. Don’t you think we’d have heard a rumor if the LMC was going to crack down on us again? I know they aren’t overly thrilled with Emma and Garrett being together, but shit, we’re finding stones on the regular now, so they can’t be too upset.”

Russell nodded his agreement. It
was
weird.

“What did they talk about?” Cole asked.

“They didn’t get a chance. Things blew up pretty much the instant Emma and Gwen walked in.”

He watched as Gwen walked away from Emma, heading to the table that had been set up with equipment. While she was grabbing gloves and such, Russell decided he would go for it.

“Emma,” he said, coming up alongside her at the bar itself.

“Yes Russell?” she replied politely, if not warmly. The two of them were polite and respectful to each other, but they weren’t outright friends, which he did regret. He knew anyone who could get Garrett’s attention had to be an interesting person.

“Have we done something wrong?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, turning to look at him, confusion written on her face.

“Well, it’s just that you were meeting with Gabriel yesterday. And since you’re the Ridgeback liaison, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with us.”

Emma’s look of confusion turned to one of suspicion, before relaxing into a soft smile. “Nothing for you to worry about Russ,” she said, using the short form of his name for the first time that he could recall.

Obviously she was trying to get her point across that she was telling the truth, but he was still unsure about it all. He opened his mouth to press her for more information, but she kept talking, her steely-eyed liaison persona pushing through. Her shoulders straightened, her chin came up a bit, and any remaining warmth left her eyes.

“And also nothing that I can discuss with you,” she said, all professional. “LMC internal business.”

“Okay, thanks Em,” he said, hoping she would catch the reference.

“No problem,” she replied, the liaison gone, replaced simply with his Alpha’s mate.

With a sharp nod he turned. Then something else occurred to him.

“Hey, did you ever find out anything more about what caused all of this?” he said, arms wide, encompassing the damaged building.

“Not much,” she said with a grimace. “Head office confirmed that they were the Opal Crew, obviously brand new. I asked how come no one had heard of them, but I couldn’t get a straight answer from Layla, the head liaison.”

Russell frowned. He didn’t like hearing that. The formation of a new crew was usually something to be celebrated and announced ahead of time. The fact that they had not only founded a crew, but put them to mining
and
they had found a stone, all without anyone knowing, was very odd indeed.

“I even called up Michael and Marcel,” she continued, naming the heads of the Diamond and Ruby Crews respectively. “Neither of them were aware of it either.”

“I’m not surprised with Marcel,” Russell replied. “He and his polar bears avoid everyone if they can. But Michael? I mean, how does he not know about it?”

Michael was the Alpha of the Whitepines, the preeminent mining crew in Genesis Valley. They had been around the longest, and were by far the most successful and well-polished crew. There was very little that happened that he didn’t know about.

“So other than that,” Emma said, “little else to report. The survivors have been labeled as Unfound. That’s probably it.”

“Unfound, really?” Russell said, his eyebrows arching in surprise. “That’s a pretty serious label to be applied, don’t you think?”

“I suppose. But they were all involved in it, and those six remaining bears could quite easily cause an unbelievable amount of damage and death if they decided to.”

“But still, Unfound? Setting every shifter in the Valley on them with a license to kill? With that many shifters on the loose, someone is going to get caught in the crossfire, don’t you think?”

“I hope not,” Emma said, though she didn’t argue his point. “We’ll just have to ensure that that doesn’t happen then, won’t we?”

“Right,” he said, though his mind was still elsewhere. To be labeled “Unfound” meant that you weren’t considered part of any crew in the valley, and thus you were a rogue. It also meant that every shifter in Origin and its surroundings was given the ability, and the directive, to kill them. It wasn’t a title that was applied lightly, and to see it given to six individuals at the same time was unheard of.

“So,” Emma said, changing the topic. “How did things go with you and Gwen last night?”

He snorted. “Trying to play matchmaker already?” he teased, trying to play it off.

“Hey, if it works. It would certainly be nice to have a third female hanging around the Lodge.”

“You just say that because you two are best friends. Give her the guest room if you want her around,” he said, holding his hands up innocently to show that he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Oh please, I saw the two of you laughing about that. But then I heard you told Garrett this morning that you didn’t think seeing her again would be a good idea.”

Russell winced. He hadn’t thought that Garrett would tell Emma about that, but he should have known better.

“Listen, it’s complicated. There are a lot of things at play here.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Don’t you mess with her, Russell Warne. You will regret it, I promise,” she said evenly, her voice filled with steel once again.

He felt his own guard come up. “Don’t threaten me,” he said equally softly. “That’s not what I meant. I have no intentions of hurting her, and I certainly do not have anything going on the side, which is where I can see you were going.”

“So what is going on then?” she asked with a slight nod, respecting the strength of his reply as her body relaxed again.

“Between me and Gwen? I don’t know. As for the rest, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that,” he said as gently as he could. It wasn’t something he wanted to upset her over.

Emma looked at him, then nodded slowly. “Okay Russell, just don’t hurt her. She’s been through enough.”

He glanced over at Gwen, admiring her from afar. He loved the way she kept having to flick her long hair out of the way as she worked. It clearly annoyed her, but she must love having it so long to keep it. It was a cute little internal battle that she probably didn’t even realize she was waging.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he said softly, before turning and heading back to his bucket of debris.

No, it wasn’t Gwen that was going to get hurt, he thought regretfully.

Gwen

“Hi Ferro,” she said as the bartender walked by her for the first time since she had arrived.

“Hello Gwen,” he said politely, a smile on his face. “How are you today?”

She smiled back. He was so kind, she thought, though she still didn’t know who he really was. She had seen him snap a bear shifter’s neck with ease the day before, using only his hands. Clearly he wasn’t a normal human either, though nobody had yet told her just
what
he was. A part of her shuddered at how nonchalantly she could think about the day before already. She had witnessed five people
die.
Wasn’t she supposed to be traumatized about that?

Except that’s not how anyone else sees it. So if they aren’t freaking out, then you naturally wouldn’t either.

There was some truth to that thought. It had actually triggered a memory of hers, of being around one of her friends who already had children. One of them had been running across the floor, and fallen rather hard. Gwen had started to move, to get up and run to the child, but the mother had held her back and told her just act normal, like nothing was wrong. So Gwen had sat back, keeping her cool as she looked over at the child.

The kid, who couldn’t have been more than three or so, had looked ready to explode into tears. But as the two women sat back, acting like it was nothing, she saw the child shrug it off, get back up, and keep going. It had been an eye-opening insight into the way that one’s emotions were affected by those nearby.

In her mind at least, it seemed to help explain her lack of stress over the incident. She knew she would have some time before it came across as completely normal to her, but at least she wasn’t having nightmares about it. In fact, her dreams had been rather on the opposite side of the spectrum, if she was honest…

Giving herself a mental shake, she brought herself back to the conversation. “You know what? I’m actually much better today. Yesterday was one hell of an interesting welcome to Origin, but I think I could go without another for, oh, let’s say at least a few years?” she said with a small laugh.

Ferro looked around his ruined bar, then back at her. “You know what, I’m sorely tempted to agree with you,” he said with a laugh. “Though if it’s okay with you, I’d prefer to stretch that out to at least a decade.”

“Deal!” she said, sticking out her hand to shake on it. Ferro looked at her in surprise for a moment, then grabbed her hand and shook it vigorously.

“So, Ferro—which by the way is an
awesome
name—what are your plans for this place once the structure’s back together?”

“What do you mean?” he said. “And thank you.”

“Well, you know, the other place was a little…um, rough around the edges, no?” she said, suddenly embarrassed. Perhaps Ferro hadn’t been aware that it was in need of some updating and touchups.

“It was? I thought it was pretty good.”

“Oh, it wasn’t
bad
,” she assured him. “But I mean, I was only here once, and I noticed that a lot of the chairs were broken or the padding was ripped, the light out front was broken, and a lot of the decorations would have looked more appropriate to say, a hundred years ago?” she said with a forced smile, hoping he wouldn’t get mad.

“They were?” the bartender looked around at his bar, as if trying to understand.

“Listen, I’m not saying you need to go with an ultra-modern look here. That would just be a horrific idea, trust me. But it could use a female’s touch,” she finished.

“Okay,” Ferro said without argument. “You do it then.”

“What?!” she yelped in sudden surprise.

“You’re hired. I want you to make the place look like it fits with the times.” He was nodding along as he talked, as if he thought the idea was a fabulous one.

“Um, surely you’re joking, right?” Gwen stammered, completely taken aback. She barely knew anything about Ferro, his bar, or the townspeople that frequented it!

“Not at all,” he said seriously, as if he didn’t understand why she was so surprised. “You obviously took an interest in the place, enough to imagine it looking differently. So, make it look different. You have a blank canvas,” he said with a small smile.

“Okay,” she said slowly, still trying to process what had just happened.

“Excellent,” Ferro proclaimed. “I look forward to seeing what you do with the place.” He turned to go.

“Wait,” she said. “You don’t want any say in it?”

“No, I think you’ll do fine. You’re going to be around a lot from here on out anyway, so it’ll be a good way for you to start to fit in,” he said with a knowing look.

She felt that if he was the type to express things with his body, he might have winked at her. But she was overwhelmed and confused, and without thinking about where it might lead, the next question just slipped out.

“Why do you seem so sure that I’m going to be around?”

Ferro looked at her, then over at Russell, who was busy manhandling pieces of junk into a trash bin to take outside. Sweat was streaming down his forehead and soaking the shirt he was wearing. It also had the side effect of making plaster adhere all over his skin, making him look like a ghost of sorts.

“What was that look for?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I think you know,” he said, “but if you don’t, I’m going to let you figure it out on your own. It’s much more fun that way.”

Gwen sighed and shook her head. “You’re as bad as one of the shifters!” she exclaimed.

Ferro looked at her strangely before speaking again. “Gwen, I
am
one of the shifters,” he said, as if he had just told her a big secret.

“You are? Why did nobody tell me?” she asked, not understanding.

“I’m a dragon shifter,” he said, pausing to let her gasp and stare at him anew. “Most humans get a little silly when they realize that, so the others don’t share my secret with anyone. But we’re going to be working together, so I may as well tell you now.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “A dragon shifter.” Then she caught herself. “Yeah, I see what you mean. I was just about to go down that path myself. Sorry if I weirded you out there,” she said, feeling awkward about the whole situation.

“I’ve had much worse, trust me,” he said wryly.

“You know, I have no problems believing you on that one,” she said with a reciprocating chuckle. “Last question, and one I
need
to ask, though I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“What’s that?”

“What sort of budget am I working with to do this? I hate to bring up money like that, but…I kind of need to know,” she winced, completing the sentence, hoping he didn’t freak out.

Instead Ferro smiled. “Whatever you need,” he told her.

“What?”

“Unlimited. Money is not a factor,” he said, repeating his original answer.

When she continued to stare at him as if he wasn’t making any sense, Ferro relented and explained it to her.

“I’ve lived a long time, Gwen. I’ve spent forever collecting a fortune in gold and jewels. That’s hard work, let me tell you! But this paper money thing you humans have? That was quite easy to accumulate a large amount of. So spend whatever you need to,” he finished, this time turning and heading off to do other things.

“Whatever it is dragon shifters do, I guess,” she said to herself, trying to process what had just happened, all because of one offhand remark.

As she was standing there, Garrett called a break. The shifters stopped their cleaning and began to file outside. She envied their ability not to feel the cold. She was wearing a warm jacket with a hat, and had gloves in her pockets if she needed them. Every bear shifter she saw was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. It was a great look, she had to admit, but part of her wondered if they kept it up once winter arrived in force. They would look really silly otherwise, she thought, before a voice interrupted her.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Russell said, coming up to her, having lingered behind while the others filed outside. She had noticed earlier the way he would smile at her, but this was the first time he had actually come up and said anything to her now that they were alone.

Gwen decided to ignore that for a moment and just live in the now. There would be time to ask him that later. Perhaps it was just a thing when it came to being a shifter that they didn’t like to flirt in front of others. She looked him up and down before responding. “Yes, well, I think I have. Though I never expected him to be that good-looking.”

You’re just killing it with saying things you shouldn’t be today, aren’t you?

“Well, if we’re admitting things like that today, then I’ll let you in on a secret too,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially.

“Oh, what’s that? I love secrets!” she teased.

“When they told me who I had to go haunt, I didn’t think I’d get sent to someone so pretty.”

She had the good graces to blush at that comment. She liked knowing that he thought she was pretty. It did all sorts of wonderful things to her ego when tall, ripped men showed sexual interest in her. The fact that he seemed to be about more than that was just fine with her.

“They?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. The Ghostly Hauntings Unit. It’s one of those lame little society things you have to attend when you’re a ghost. They make you take training classes in saying ‘Boo!’ and going “Ooooooooooooooooooh,” he said, exaggeratedly waving his hands around.

“Stop!” she said, sputtering with laughter at his descriptions.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, ceasing his motions immediately.

“That’s right. I’m glad you realize that I’m now the boss of all of you,” she said with a grin.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You say that like you mean it more than just the typical ‘Crazy Woman Thinks She’s the Boss of Men’ type of thing,” he said.

“Did you just air quote that?” she asked in disbelief, laughing off his obviously sarcastic misogynistic line.

“Yes, I did. I won first place in Air Quotes Club in senior year of high school, thank you very much,” he said haughtily, as if hurt by her teasing.

“Wow,” she said, at a loss for words. “Okay, I have nothing in reply to that.” She laughed as he mock-bowed in front of her, proclaiming his victory. “But going back to the original point, yes, I am the boss. Ferro put me in charge of redecorating once you slackers have finished building it back up.”

“Slackers? Who? Us?” Russell asked innocently, looking around. The others were still outside, leaving him the only shifter in the room. Even Ferro had disappeared into the back.

“Actually, just looks like you.”

“I’m the only one
working
!” he protested half-heartedly.

“Now
there’s
a story if I ever heard one,” she said dismissively, raising a hand to stop his further protests.

Russell laughed, throwing up his hands in defeat. “So you get to redesign the place do you?” he asked somewhat more seriously.

“Yeah, I told him it could use a touch of updating, and he just said ‘Okay, make it happen,’ and that was that,” she told him.

“Cool. It’ll be nice to have some new stuff in here, I can’t lie.”

“I wasn’t here for all that long, so I’m going to be soliciting some advice on what should change, starting with you,” she told him.

“Okay, sure. Couple of easy things. Bigger and sturdier chairs. Those rickety wooden things he had were notorious for falling apart without warning.”

“New chairs, designed to support you unnaturally large folk. Got it,” she said, jotting her notes down on an imaginary clipboard.

“Rude,” he said, sticking out his tongue. “Anyway, a bit brighter lighting as well. I always felt like his lights were some of the first ones ever invented, they were so dim. I’m not talking super-brilliant, but bringing it up a level or two.”

“Yeah, I do recall that. I was also going to make his windows larger and slightly more see-through, to allow more daylight in. Speaking of which, I need to talk to whoever’s going to handle the design of the walls to change the window layout too,” she said, her brain starting to click into gear as she talked about her new responsibilities.

“That would be Ajax, from what I understand,” Russell told her. “And I would support that as another change.”

“Good to know.” She smiled up at him. His cheeks dimpled slightly as he returned the smile, but as soon as he heard Garrett’s voice coming back inside it disappeared, back under the façade he seemed to construct around his Alpha.

He had shaved this morning, which added a bit more strength to his jaw, but it also allowed her to more clearly see his jaw muscles clench.

“I need to get back to work Gwen,” he said more formally.

“Okay. I should probably go look around town, see what I can find for furniture. But,” she told him, “don’t think you’re going to get away with this for much longer.”

“Get away with what?” he asked, picking up his bin.

“This whole not wanting to be seen with me around others. You owe me an explanation.”