License to Shift (11 page)

And while he mulled over that, Julie held up her phone with a grin.

“Plus, I never told her I was recording it.”

Holy shit!
“She'll probably shoot your phone when she finds out.”

Julie grinned. “I won't tell. I like to keep my blackmail material secret until I really need it.”

“Very wise,” he said. Then he fell silent, as did she.

Ticks of the clock grew louder as he looked at her. Just this morning, so many things had felt possible. Now, he was stuck across the room from her, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

And while he dithered, Julie exhaled loudly, folded her arms across her chest, and pinned him with a heavy glare.

“So now that you've effectively killed my buzz, I figure it's time I kill yours.”

Oh, shit.
“Um, what?”

“You're going to tell me exactly what those things were this morning and what the hell they want with my father.”

Oh, goody.
Because it wasn't enough that she got introduced to the shifter world today. Now she insisted on finding out that there were honest-to-goodness sicko bastards in the magical realm, too.

J
ulie watched Mark settle back in her father's recliner, looking like a man facing a firing squad.

“I don't know what they are or why they attacked,” he said. “We have guesses, but nothing for certain.”

“And they are?”

He huffed out a breath. “Complicated.”

She matched him with her own heavy exhale. Julie had one goal this evening: to get answers. At least that's what her tequila-sloshed brain told her. Sadly, that goal seemed to be at odds with what her body wanted.

Her body was all about noticing that Mark had shaved and changed, which made him look kind of dashing. Especially since he'd put on dark jeans and a plain black tee that hugged every ripped inch of him. No tats. Clean nails. And eyes that looked straight at her even as he seemed to be apologizing without even opening his mouth.

Weird. What did he have to be sorry for? Saving her life? Giving her great head? Or maybe it was that other part. The part about being a freaking bear. And since she'd just consumed enough tequila to wash away the filter between her brain and her mouth, questions just spilled out.

“Are you ashamed of being a bear?”

“Grizzly,” he corrected. “And no shame.”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to gauge if he lied. Men were notoriously clueless about their own emotions, but there seemed to be no half measure in his answer. And when she looked at him—evenly shaved and neatly dressed—she could sense the animal just below the surface. It was in the way he moved, she thought, or didn't move. Right now, he sat with an animal stillness, a wary patience broken only by the occasional twitch of his nose. And when he moved, it was smooth and substantial. She'd assumed it was because he was a large man, but now she saw it as more. He carried the bear's weight even as a man. The sheer power of a large predator, raw and untamed.

“Are
you
ashamed?” he asked.

She frowned. “Ashamed? Of what?”

“Going to bed with me? Of letting me—”

“No,” she said, cutting him off. The last thing her semi-drunk mind needed was a reminder of what they'd done this morning. Of how thoroughly he'd gotten her off and how much she really wanted to do that again.

“Repulsed, then,” he said, not even expressing it as a question.

“No,” she repeated more firmly. “I'm freaked, that's for sure.” But still thoroughly aroused. “I mean what if you'd…you know, changed right in the middle?”

He shook his head. “Doesn't happen.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Don't know. I mean, sure, if it's two shifters—usually teenagers—they'll do it simultaneously. I think they feed off each other somehow. But the magic doesn't work when intimate with a human. I don't know why. And believe me, people have tried.”

“Magic?” Not a word she could possibly use as simple fact. And yet, the way he spoke, it was like he completely believed in fairy dust and magic potions.

He arched a brow. “Yes, magic. Energy. Whatever word you want to use. Just the weight differential alone can't be explained by science. I'm a big guy, but I'm not carrying the five hundred pounds I do as a grizzly.”

She would have guessed more, but that was because to her brain, huge was just huge. Five hundred or five thousand pounds made little difference when the creature was stretching up to face her in the tree. And now she sat across from the same creature, only he was a man and he looked uncomfortable perched on the edge of her dad's recliner.

“So you call it magic?”

“I do. It's an easy catchall phrase. Talk to the scientists if you want something more technical.”

On her to-do list, though she doubted she'd understand it. She was not the science type. “And those things that attacked. They were shifters?”

He shook his head. “They were wrong people.” He held up a hand before she could question. “They smelled wrong, so that's what I've labeled them. It's like they were half shifted. A muzzle, some fur, weird eyes.”

She hadn't noticed the eyes. She hadn't wanted to look that closely.

“Carl talked to the ME an hour ago. It's preliminary, but she thinks their animal DNA was triggered somehow. But they weren't natural-born shifters. They didn't have the full ability to change and so only parts of them did. It shouldn't be possible.” His shoulders twitched and his face tightened in revulsion. “They were just
wrong
.”

“But why would they come here? Why would they attack my father?”

Mark held up his hands. “I don't know. Maybe they want your father's research.”

“But why? They're fairy tales.”

“About shifters.” He leaned forward onto his knees, but the gesture wasn't casual. Nothing about his movements ever was. “Think. You've just learned that magic is real. What would that mean about all those obscure local fairy tales that fascinate your father? What if they contain answers? Magic spells, incantations, stripping naked and braying at the moon. They're all in those stories, and we have no idea how much is truth and how much is fiction.”

“But Dad just thinks they're silly.”

“And yet he's spent the last decade studying them.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I asked him point blank this afternoon. I said, ‘What if people really could change shape?'”

“And wouldn't you deny it if you were him? If you suspected that magic was real and that shape-shifters walk around with us every day. You've just had a triple bypass, you've got a fever and are hospitalized. Last thing you want is to give anyone the idea that something's wrong with your brain.”

She bit her lip. Okay, so that made sense. “We should tell him—”

“No!”

She recoiled backward from the force of his word. But a moment later, she felt her anger surging to the fore. “You'd let my father spend his life researching stuff and withhold the answer?”

“It's not the answer.”

“It's part of it!”

His fingers turned white where he gripped his knees. That was it. The rest of him was still as if he held himself back by sheer willpower. “Will your father keep this secret?”

“Maybe it shouldn't be a secret!” The world was 180 degrees different from what she'd thought. From what just about everyone thought. Why weren't they shouting it from the rooftops? Why hadn't any of them gone onto CNN and just said,
Here you go. Magic is real.

His eyes narrowed, and his words came out in a careful, measured tempo. “We've existed for thousands of years. Don't you think someone somewhere has talked?”

Um, yeah. Probably.

His hands lifted off his knees to pull tighter against his torso. Almost like he was forcing himself to keep from reaching out. “Magic doesn't want to be found.”

She gaped at him. “Come again?”

“It's a weird mystery of life. Shifter history is filled with people who talked or normals who figured things out. But it ends badly. Witches burned at the stake, magicians convicted of unholy knowledge.”

“Religious fanatics have always existed,” she said. “But we're in the age of reason now.”

He blew out a slow breath. “Science hasn't been so good at stopping ISIS or the religious right. They've only armed the nutcases with nukes.”

She grimaced. “Okay, so you've got me there. But—”

“It's not just the fanatics,” he interrupted. “There have been communities where it's an open secret. Something always goes wrong. Like Atlantis.”

“The island that blew itself up sometime in prehistory?”

“That's the one. Pompeii and Camelot were others.”

She snorted. “You're just making this up.”

He sighed. “I wish I were. There are texts.”

“What? Where?”

“Carl has some.” He flashed her a weak smile. “Alphas have searched for this answer. It's their job to keep the clan safe. Many have revealed themselves.” He growled low, the sound nearly inaudible. “Eventually it goes wrong.”

Was this even possible? It didn't seem credible, but then again, she would have said were-grizzlies were impossible. “You are not going to claim Black Plague.”

He shook his head. A quick twist before recentering. “Not that one. Earthquakes and a couple floods. Little enclaves of knowledge just disappear. Lost in holy wars or we don't know why.” His nostrils flared then steadied. She got the feeling that while his normal mind was sitting here talking to her, the bear in him kept alert, watching his environment even when he was sitting safely inside a cabin. “Best we understand, magic is incredibly delicate. When too many people mess in it, things go boom.”

She stared at him. This was all impossible, especially in this day and age. And yet, wasn't there lots of information on the Internet about magic and the like?
Fairies are real! Get your own pixie dust here!

He moved awkwardly in his seat. “After centuries of things going wrong, shifters decided to keep it secret or else.” He leveled her with a steady look. “You should remember that.”

“I'll remember that if only because I hate it when people think I'm an idiot.”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “There's that, too.”

She took a deep breath. “So no telling Dad.”

“Not until Carl says okay. Believe me, we've discussed it. But—”

“He'd want to publish it.” There was no doubt in her mind that her father couldn't keep this to himself. And that left her back where she started: confused and without answers. “But what is this all about?”

Mark shrugged. “We think someone is messing with shifter DNA. Two someones, actually. Mad Einstein as Theo calls him—”

“Who?”

“Theo is Becca's adopted son. Kidnapped a few months ago by Mad Einstein so the bastard could do experiments on their shifter DNA.”

She recoiled in horror. Becca's son went through that? “That's awful!”

“Yeah.” The sound was more growl of fury than word, and she watched Mark struggle for a moment with his anger. His jaw tightened, his shoulders hunched, and there might have been a thickening of the hair on his forearms. But a moment later, he seemed to get himself under control. “The bastard had a partner, too. Crazy Cat Lady.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“A traumatized teenager isn't going to give us the best names. All we know is that she was a woman with cat-slit eyes. Best guess from the description is a cougar.”

“Cougar-shifter, right? Not an older woman who—”

“Yeah. Shifter.”

She raised her hand, cutting him off. He froze and watched her intently while her tequila-sloshed brain reached for whatever it was that teased the edge of her consciousness. “The cat I saw. Right before the attack.”

His ears seemed to twitch. Really. But when she looked closer, everything about him appeared human-man normal except for his abnormal stillness.

“What do you remember?” he asked, his question pressed as a low rumble.

She shook her head. “A cougar, I think. Large cat, golden brown fur, gone in a split second.”

He waited for her to say more, but she didn't have anything else. Just a quick flash before her world turned completely inside out. “Tell me more about her,” she pressed.

He shrugged, the movement obviously forced as he tried to settle his hackles. “Northern Michigan was lousy with cougars until the wolves got pissed off. Skirmish, war, blah blah blah. There's a tentative peace now thanks to Carl, but who knows what's really going on.”

Was he serious? He certainly looked so, but the whole thing just boggled her mind. “There was not a war in Michigan.”

“There was. A little one. The one major battle was reported as a cult massacre.”

She shook her head. “I don't believe it. The cover-up would have to be massive.”

He blew out a breath. “Magic likes to be kept secret. No one does it. It just happens.”

She chewed on that for a while. “But now I'm in on the secret.”

“Yup. But watch what happens when you try to talk to someone about it. There will be a subliminal compulsion to keep mum. Even if you've never lied before in your life, you'll misdirect your own family. You just will.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but then thought back. Wasn't that exactly what had happened at the hospital? She'd started to tell her sister about the attack, but hadn't managed to speak about grown men suddenly changing into bears. And when she'd planned on talking to her father, she'd phrased it as a question and allowed him to laugh her into silence. She hadn't planned to keep silent. She just had.

“I don't like not being in control of my actions,” she murmured.

“Tell me about it.” When her gaze shot to his, he shrugged. “It's something all shifters get used to. Sometimes we just howl at the moon whether we choose to or not.”

She frowned. “I thought you don't do that.”

“It's an expression, but you're right. Grizzlies don't howl. We kind of moan at it.”

She stared at him, trying to decide if he was joking. When his expression turned sheepish, she realized that he was dead serious. He did moan at the moon. She started to laugh, dropping her head back against the couch as she stared at the ceiling. “This is insane.”

“I know. But you're safe. I won't let anything happen to you.”

She lifted her head. The way he said it was extra heavy. Like he was vowing to defend her unto death or something. “Am I really in that much danger?”

He shook his head. “We've got things covered.” He touched his tablet and angled the screen to her. “See? All clear.”

Like she could read anything from across the room. She didn't even bother to look closely. She trusted him to keep her safe. That much, at least, was abundantly clear. “Last question,” she said. “Tell me the real reason you're dying.”