Ready to Bear (2 page)

“Will do,” Billy said. There wasn’t a goodbye as they both hung up.

The Dwellers was Billy’s shortened name for the Urban Dwellers. It was a trifecta of men who ran the shifter community in Copper City. Anthony Atwood, Kyle Frost, and Eric Carmichael. Billy had never met them in person, but he had read more than a few articles on each one. Their names were in the press almost as often as Lukas’s. They also represented the largest community of shifters who hadn’t agreed to fold in under Lukas’s leadership and the Greyelf Grizzly Clan.

It was a sensitive topic. Lukas had been working for the last eighteen months to unite all of the shifters together. He believed that by working as one giant voice, they’d finally be able to demand full integration with the humans. It was a lovely vision, but Billy wondered if it would ever come true.

Now Billy was in the awkward position of having to ask the Urban Dwellers for help. Of all the places where his suspect could have gone, it appeared that Joshua Bailey had decided to try to disappear in the big city. Considering Joshua hated all shifters, Billy found it more than a little bit ironic that he set up camp in the city with the largest community of shifters in the country outside of Greyelf and territory around it.

Billy pulled his files from his bag and tossed them on the bed. He looked at his watch. He knew that his destination for the evening wouldn’t get going for at least a few hours. He had time for a shower and a shave. He wanted to be sure that he looked at least somewhat presentable.

Thea Philips was tired both mentally and physically. As much as she tried to enjoy her parents’ company, after more than a few days with them she was ready for her own quiet life back. Of course, after her mother married Robert Carmichael, her life wasn’t quiet at all. It was all relative in some respects.

After the taxi dropped her off outside the luxury apartment building in the center of Copper City, Thea gratefully smiled at Karl, the doorman, and headed inside. Karl would make sure that her bags arrived safely on her doorstep in the next hour. It wasn’t as if she needed anything but the handbag on her arm at the moment anyway.

The elevator began its slow ascent to the penthouse. She knew that being twenty-five years old, she should feel silly for still living under her parents’ roof, but when her parents owned something like ten houses and apartments around the world, there was always empty space available for occupancy. The apartment in Copper City was rarely used now that Robert had retired. Her parents enjoyed the more exotic locations around the world now.

Thea was eager to see her younger brother, Alexander. He was fifteen years old and her pride and joy. After her mother had married Robert, it was quickly apparent that she wasn’t all that interested in being a mother anymore. She hadn’t been that great before Alex was born either. She had clawed her way to the top of the social ladder by getting pregnant with Robert’s baby while he was still married to his second wife. Thea had to give her mother props in some regard; when she put her mind to it, her mother couldn’t be swayed from her goals.

The elevator doors opened into the massive foyer of the penthouse.

“Alex?” she called out. “I’m home!” She expected him to be waiting for her and found that she was disappointed as she began to wander through the rooms. On the counter in the kitchen, she found a scribbled note.

“Went out for dinner with Eric. Be back later.”

She sighed and crumpled up the note before tossing it in the garbage. Then she poured herself a glass of wine and dropped into the luxurious leather couch that was the centerpiece of the living room. She took her first sip and let out a small sigh. She was home, and she had done her daughterly duty by spending a week with her parents. She had purposely chosen to accompany them on their Napa Valley tour so she could see more of the inner workings of the vineyards. Her parents went to drink. Thea went to learn.

Now she was free to do her own thing again without the obligatory guilt for at least another year, and she had piles of notes for her research. Her dream was to have her own vineyard someday.

Alex had gotten off scot-free this trip because of the destination and because he had school. Eric had his quarterly investors meetings to attend to, which meant he was off the hook too. Which reminded her that she was surprised that Eric had been so willing to take Alex out on a school night. Her eyes popped open as she realized the day. She pulled out her phone and checked the date.

“Goddammit!” She punched in Alex’s number. It went straight to voicemail. She furiously dialed Eric’s number. It rang several times and went to voicemail as well.

Pushing to her feet, Thea began to pace the room. It was a Wednesday night, which meant that Eric usually met up with his buddies at the club they co-owned in the warehouse district. Thea probably knew Eric’s schedule better than Eric knew it himself. That was the upside and downside of being someone’s personal assistant.

“Executive assistant,” she corrected herself out loud. She still couldn’t believe that she was wasting her time and her degree catering to her stepbrother’s every whim, but the insider experience she was getting couldn’t be matched. As much as it killed her to admit it, she was learning the business of running a successful company from the inside out from one of the best.

Eric Carmichael was the CEO of one of the largest technology firms in the world. The part that was most admirable was that he had built it entirely on his own. His father was a billionaire in his own right, but there had been an unknown falling out around the time that Eric graduated from prep school, and he had never taken another dime from his father.

When Thea graduated from school and needed a job, Eric offered to show her the ropes if she’d be willing to do some grunt work for a few years as his assistant. Apparently, Eric had finally figured out that business and pleasure didn’t mix. One of her first duties had been working with the legal department on a settlement after his last assistant decided to sue him when he broke things off with her and fired her to get rid of her.

They had the strangest family interactions. Thea and Eric got along well enough. Thea loved Robert like he was her own father, who had been a man she had never known. Eric and her mother, Rebecca, hated each other. The only member of the family who everyone adored was Alex. If there was one thing Thea figured her mother got right, it was giving birth to Alex.

Of course, since then, Thea had been the one to look after him. Eric dove in and out at the most inopportune times wreaking havoc with Alex’s schedule, which naturally meant that Alex adored him in return.

Which led Thea straight to the reason she was so agitated in the first place. It was the 23
rd
of the month, which meant that it was fight night at Urban Dwellers, which was the name of the club that her brother owned with his buddies from prep school. Alex had been begging her for the last year for permission to go see the fights, but she was vehemently against it. She had made Eric promise that he wouldn’t take Alex behind her back.

She stopped pacing long enough to try both their phones again. The result was the same. Voicemail. She glanced at her watch. It was going on 7pm. The fights didn’t start until 9pm. She still had time to intercept the play that her brothers were making on her. She made her way toward her room. Urban Dwellers definitely wasn’t the kind of place for her casual attire; at least, not if she wanted to blend in.

Thirty minutes later, Thea exited the building and let Karl hail her a cab. She gave the driver the address that she knew by heart. She knew the locations of all of Eric’s various real estate holdings. She knew where he kept his money, including his several offshore accounts. She knew more about Eric then she probably knew about herself when she thought about it seriously. The crazy thing to her was that Eric didn’t seem to mind.

“You’re family,” he’d say whenever she uncovered another unsavory detail about his life that she’d wish he’d kept to himself. Apparently in Eric’s world, that meant that you let your dirty laundry all hang out. She wasn’t as forthcoming with him about the details of her personal life, not that she really had one.

She tried calling Alex and Eric’s phones again. She practically growled at her phone as she heard Eric’s voice brightly request that she leave a message.

“Eric, it’s Thea. If I find out that you have Alex at the club, I’m going to cut your balls off. Consider yourself warned.” She hit the off button and threw her phone into her clutch with an exasperated sigh. She saw the cab driver look at her in the rearview window with wide eyes and felt heat rise in her cheeks.

It wasn’t like her to lose her cool. But after a week with her mother she was on edge. She stared out the window. For some reason, the image of the guy at the airport popped into her mind. She had seen him moving through the throngs of people quickly and with a grace that told her immediately that he was a shifter. He had been strikingly handsome, and there was something about him that made her feet follow in his wake. They were going in the same direction after all.

She had been surprised to find him looking as if he were on the verge of a panic attack outside on the sidewalk. Then she realized what had probably happened. Shifters weren’t big fans of flying. Eric had a private jet and still popped a couple of Valium before every trip. She hadn’t even stopped to think that the man might consider her a crazy lady for asking about his well-being.

Their exchange had been brief, but she had found herself mesmerized by his eyes. She had felt as if she were drowning in them. There was something about him that made her heartbeat speed up, which was nutty. She wasn’t the kind of woman who felt that kind of hot instant attraction to a man, even if he was handsome. Yet she had been oddly disappointed that he hadn’t asked her for her name or phone number. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had random guys ask her for her info before. Thea wasn’t so self-centered to think that she was God’s gift to men, but she knew that she was reasonably attractive.

She grimaced. He was a shifter, though. No doubt he wouldn’t be attracted to her because she was a full-bred human. She had watched Eric chase the skirts of what seemed like every shifter female in Copper City. He had told her one day when she noted his preference that shifters were a lot wilder in bed. The idea of Eric in bed with anybody was repulsive to her. She hated how comfortable he was oversharing every part of his life, but then again, she also had a first-hand look into what it was like living as a shifter in a predominantly human world. For Eric, it was probably a lot easier than others. He was handsome and wealthy. That put him two steps ahead of almost everyone else in the world, shifter or human.

Her thoughts had come full circle. She brushed the memory of the guy at the airport away. She’d never see him again, so it was pointless to waste any more energy on the idea of him. She had bigger things to worry about anyway. Like the fact that her dumb older stepbrother had probably taken her sweet, innocent little half-brother to a shifter club to see a bunch of shifters fight. She was going to strangle Eric when she found him.

Thea’s eyes focused outside the window again as the taxi came to a stop. She looked around in confusion. “Where are we?”

“Thirty-five Seventy-Second Street,” the taxi driver said. He was staring at his phone. Thea could see some kind of notification on the screen. He probably was already booking his next fare.

“I asked for Thirty-Five Seventy-First Street,” Thea said with a low groan. She could see the gridlock of traffic out the windshield. Although she was just a block off her destination, she knew in traffic it was going to take another ten to fifteen minutes to go around the block. “You know what? Nevermind. I’ll walk from here.” She thrust cash for the fare into the driver’s hand and got out of the cab.

She stood on the curb for a minute assessing her options. She could walk around the block to the front entrance of the club. She looked down at her feet with a grimace. She should have known better than to wear heels, but they looked killer with her skinny jeans and the black slinky blouse that rode low on her shoulders.

Her attire was actually on the conservative side for a night at Urban Dwellers. It was the hottest nightclub in the city and was probably nearing full capacity even though it was barely after 8pm on a weeknight. That was because of the fight, of course. The humans didn’t know anything about it. They partied on the dance floor on the main level while below their feet in the basement arena, there was an equally rousing group bursting at the seams, screaming for their favored opponent in the ring.

The whole thing left Thea with a bad taste in her mouth, but Eric’s logic along with that of his partners was that it would happen regardless of whether they sanctioned it or not. This way, they were able to keep an eye on it and control it, if there was such a thing. Of course, what they didn’t say was that they also profited a bundle from it. It wasn’t anything that Thea condoned, and she certainly wasn’t going to let Alex watch it.

Alex was fascinated by shifters. The jury was still out on whether he had gotten the shifter gene. She knew that Robert and Eric would be thrilled if he did, her mother less so. Thea didn’t know yet how she was going to react. She was more focused on trying to create a normal life for Alex despite everything in their family that pointed to the contrary.

She bit her lower lip as her eyes came to rest on an alley almost directly across the street from where she stood. She knew it ran the length of the city block between her and her destination and came up next to the building that was next door to the club. It was a shortcut that would save her feet and some time. But the sun was already low on the horizon, and long shadows fell inside the alley. Even during the day, it would be dim in there. Now it looked like the doorway into the pit of darkness.

Thea stood there for another moment and then stood up straight and threw her shoulders back. There was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t even full dark yet. She’d keep a good clip and be back on the sidewalk on the other side in no time flat.

Having convinced herself that this was the right plan, she strode across the street narrowly avoiding the front fender of three cars that were trying to advance in their lanes despite the traffic. Ignoring the cursing from the interior of the cars, she stepped up onto the sidewalk and plunged into the alley before she could talk herself out of it.

The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees once inside the alley. She was tempted to pull out her phone and use the flashlight app, but she gave herself another stern talking to. She could see the light from the end of the alley in the distance. It wasn’t
that
far.

She made out the silhouettes of large garbage bins, and she gave them a wide berth. Still, the odors emanating from them made her nose wrinkle. She hoped that the smell wouldn’t cling to her clothes. Her heels made a tapping noise on the concrete as she walked, and it seemed as if the sounds echoed loudly at her from all the walls. She quickened her pace.