Southern Shifters: Inked By The Bear (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Black & White Series Book 2) (7 page)

“She is and she will be. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

“And you know that’s not what I’m saying. She’s going to need some time to adjust and since we’re not done with the wolf and his pack sniffing around, you know he’d feel better if there were more than just one of us here. Besides, no reason I can’t strike out on my own. I’d like to spend more time with you anyway.”

“You would?”

“We’re brothers, Gus. We have been since Mom brought you home. You’ve traveled so much over the last ten years that you hardly come back. You’re my family as much as Mitch and Malik are. So, yeah. I’d like to spend more time with you. I know how to work on bikes. I can’t tattoo anyone, but I can be tattooed.”

“I’d like that, man. I’d like that a lot.” He’d said the words before he thought about them, but they were true. He’d pushed himself away from a family who’d loved him because he wasn’t sure he really fit. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to fit. Maybe he’d wanted more than anything to be told he belonged because sometimes the words were needed.

Then again, maybe he’d just been a horse’s ass for too long.

“Good. I’ll go clear it with Bex about me staying around and helping get the inn ready. I’d like to see about ripping out that wall in the room I decided to stay in.” Michael stood and headed for the door with Gus on his heels. Lights from inside the house glowed warm and welcoming and in his mind’s eye, Gus could see it full of people and Bex happy.

“I’ve sanded, but the stair railing needs some shoring up, too,” Gus added when they passed it. “And a few of the risers could use new boards.”

“I can look into that.”

“Oh, and the upstairs landing. I heard Bex say something about refinishing the wood.”

“All right.”

“Let’s see… You already know about the walls and the —”

Michael stopped and Gus bumped into him. “Wait just a second,” he said after he pushed Gus back. “Are you planning on helping out at all or are you just making me a Honey Do List?”

“Do you need one? I can make one up for you.”

“I’m not your honey and you’re not the reason I would do any of it.” Michael turned on his heel and continued into the kitchen.

“But I’m your brother. You said so, out on the porch.”

“I can take it back.”

“Nope. No you can’t.” The last was said with a cough and a wheeze. The fumes from the paint stripper hit them both hard. When she heard the sounds, Bex looked up. A surgical mask was affixed to her face. She pointed to her stash on the counter to Gus’s left.

“After putting one on, Gus told her what Michael planned to do. “He even said he’d take care of it all.”

“I did not say that, but I will take care of whatever you’d like me to take care of.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not,” he said, picking up a paint scraper and setting it to a cabinet door that was ready to have the old paint removed. “I’m offering.”

“But… Why? You don’t know me and, it’s a lot of work.”

“I know it’s a lot of work and I’m offering because we’re family. That’s the only reason that matters.” Her eyes widened and Michael grinned beneath his mask.

“You’ll get used to it, pretty girl,” Gus said. “We’ll both get used to it.”

Chapter Seven

Bex glanced over her shoulder. “What are you going to do?”

“Turn back around.”

“But, Gus…,” she whined.

“I said no peeking. Turn your head around.”

“You’re no fun.” She crossed her arms, stuck her tongue out at him, and turned around, pouting.

“I’m a lot of fun. Last night should’ve shown you that.”

He had a point. “Okay, but right now, you’re not being fun.”

“You agreed to let me do this and make it a surprise. If you don’t like surprises, you shouldn’t have agreed.”

“I just want to know what you’re planning to do.”

“I’m planning to tattoo you.”

“I know that. What are you planning to tattoo on me?”

“Something you’ll like.”

“Which is?”

“Do you want me to do this or not?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Then let me work. I need you to sit still so I can transfer it to your skin.”

“Will I like it?”

Gus trailed kisses up her spine and she shivered. “You’ll love it.”

“Was it really necessary for me to sit here naked with only a sheet covering my front?”

“Do you want to remove the sheet? The people of Dandridge might like to see you. I know I do.” Bex colored and looked toward the window. Gus was right. If she lowered the sheet, she’d be on complete display from the waist up. “I asked you to strip so I could see where the best place was to put my ink.”

“And where are you going to put it?”

“Here.” His hand settled on her outer thigh and slid up to her hip. “I’m going to ink you, right here, and this is what I’m going to do.”

He handed her a thin piece of paper. “Paws?”

“Yes.”

“Why? And why do you want to put them on my hip?”

“Traveling to your heart. You’re mine. You’re my mate. You’re a bear.”

Bex smiled and stared at the drawing. “Can you add claws?”

Gus laughed. “You want claws?”

“I don’t want little baby paws that are cute. If I’m going to embrace this bear thing, I want the claws.”

“I…” An SUV turning the corner in front of the house drew his attention. “I think you’re going to need them, pretty girl. It’s time to get dressed. The wolf is back.”

* * * * *

“Damn.” Gus peaked inside the back of the older model SUV. “You weren’t joking about the cabinet full of files.”

“And this isn’t even half of it.”

“What about donuts?”

“What?”

Gus crossed his arms over his chest. “What about donuts? Did you bring any from that little shop?”

“Have you lost your mind, Bear? None of this is about donuts.”

“It could’ve been if you’d brought some.” Luke continued to look at him as though Gus had lost his mind and Gus didn’t understand what the problem was. Donuts made everything better, even all the shit they were about get into.

“Maybe he doesn’t like donuts,” Bex added.

“Ah, shit.” The wolf shifter rolled his eyes and unlocked the back of his vehicle. “Not you too.”

Bex simply gave him her sweetest, fake smile, that had Gus biting back a smirk. “I might have liked you better if you’d brought some.”

“Are you alone?” Gus asked as they began to unload the back.

Luke snorted. “I’m not stupid.”

“You sure? You went all the way back to Deal’s Gap and came all the way back without those maple bacon donuts. I’d say stupid ranks right up there.”

“Will you get off the damn donuts?”

Gus shrugged and backed away when his parents drove up and parked next to Luke. They, too, had files with them.

“Aren’t you going to ask them?”

Gus’s mom got out on the passenger side. “Ask us what?”

“Food.”

“Not food,” Gus corrected. “Donuts.”

“No, we didn’t bring any.”

“Are you going to give them grief, too?” Luke asked.

“Why would I? They weren’t coming from Deal’s Gap. You were.”

Martin stepped up to Luke, holding two broken arrows in his hand. “These like the one’s you found?”

“Identical.” Luke took out the ones he’d brought with him as well and the two shifters compared them side by side. “Thank you for bringing them.”

Bex slid her hand into Gus’s and gripped his fingers. “This ought to be interesting.”

“It should.”

“My other sons and Mary’s son will be arriving tomorrow,” Martin informed Luke.

“You didn’t have to invite everyone,” Luke said dryly. “I only brought myself and three of my lieutenants.”

“It’s still your party,” Gus reminded him. “And see, this is why you should’ve brought —”

“Don’t you goddamn say it again.” Luke got in Gus’s face and Gus struggled not to laugh at the anger in the wolf’s eyes. “Not another fucking word about those damn donuts.”

“Oh, are we fighting? Bears against wolf?”

Luke backed away from Gus and snarled at Michael, who’d joined them on the driveway. “Aww. You came to greet me. Did you miss me?” Luke taunted.

“Like the plague.”

“Such a tired phrase.”

Michael flipped the wolf off and grabbed a box from the back of Luke’s SUV. “Let’s get all this inside and see what we’ve got.” The two shifters bickered as they walked around to the front of the house, each carrying boxes of papers and maps.

“You’d think they were married,” Bex muttered.

“Don’t say that to either one of them or you’ll need to bring those claws out.”

Bex turned a brilliant smile up to him. “Promise?”

“Bad girl.”

“I wonder what the neighbors think about all this activity lately?”

“I don’t know, pretty girl, but as long as we all don’t shift at the same time, we should be safe from any of them calling animal control.”

“Gus?”

He looked up and smiled. “Hi, Mom.” He pulled her into his chest for a hug. He was happy to see her, happy to have Bex standing next to him, happy to have his family around him. He missed them. He’d talked himself into believing he was happy on his own, happy being on the back of his bike, traveling away from the only family he’d ever known.

He’d been right, he was happy.

He’d been wrong, too. He’d missed the hell out of his brothers, his father, his mother.

“It is so good to see you. It’s been too long, son.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He kissed the top of her head. “Mom, this is Rebecca. We all call her Bex.”

“Oh, it is so lovely to meet you, Bex. My name is Meryl. Mary and Martin couldn’t stop talking about you when they got home the other night and with the smile on Gus’s face, I can tell you’re a bright spot in his life.”

Bex looked up at Gus. Her eyes were wide and beautiful and happy. She turned her gaze back to his mom. “I… Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

She wrapped an arm around Bex’s shoulders and walked her in the direction the rest of the family had gone in. Gus had no choice but to fall in behind them after grabbing a couple of boxes from the back of Luke’s SUV.

* * * * *

“This has all been so much for you to take in,” Meryl said. “If there’s anything I can do or any of the family can do to make it easier, we’re here for you.”

Bex nodded and smiled at Gus’s mother. “I appreciate that. It has been a bit overwhelming and I’ll probably take you and Mary and everyone else up on it.”

“I’m also going to be very forward and ask for a jar of apple butter. Mary wouldn’t share except one small, one very, very small spoonful with me. It wasn’t enough and until that night, I never realized just how selfish she could be.”

Bex laughed. She couldn’t help it. Meryl talked about the apple butter so with such an earnest and serious face that it caught Bex off guard. “Well, I tell you what. I’ll send two jars of of each home with you and we won’t tell her.”

“Deal.”

“What’s a deal?” Mary asked, walking in the back door and joining them in the dining room where Martin, Luke, Michael, and Gus had started emptying the boxes they’d brought in.

“Nothing,” Meryl added, still with a straight face. Bex needed to learn that skill. It would come in handy with Gus. As it was, he could tell everything she was thinking and feeling. Hell, he knew when she wasn’t sleeping even if she wasn’t laying right next to him.

“Where was this taken?” she heard Martin ask, holding a picture up.

“The woods behind my mom’s inn in Bryson City,” Bex answered, joining him at the table. “If you’d taken the picture from the woods, you’d have seen the back of the house. There was a trellis with trailing roses, a fire pit where we’d sit when it was cold out with warm cider or hot chocolate. Who took this?”

“I don’t know exactly. One of the wolves from my pack took it years ago, not long after Rex stopped appearing on any radar, when it was assumed he was dead. Lorac was the name of the wolf. He was in my pack, orphaned. No one adopted him, as Gus was adopted. No one took him in. He didn’t want to be taken in. He was angry and defiant.”

“What happened to his parents?”

“His father was killed in a fight with a cougar. We don’t know what happened to his mother. She disappeared one day and never came back. There was no trace of her ever found that I’m aware of.”

“I know I’m the new kid on the shifter block here, but it seems that shifters disappear without a trace an awful lot. You say you can scent me? You smell me, smell things that trigger something you smelled before? Why can’t you smell and scent those who’ve gone missing like that wolf’s mother?”

All eyes were focused on her, and Bex started to shrink back, but caught herself at the last second. They told her she was a shifter and she knew she was different than she was a few days ago.

They were in her house, she was involved with a bear shifter, and she was one. She deserved to stand up and have her say.

Of course, she was also scared shitless. Scared about this new direction her life was headed in, a direction she couldn’t change now if she wanted to, and truth be told, she didn’t want to. She did want to know she wasn’t alone and as she looked around the table at Gus, his parents and his brother, his aunt, she knew she wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be alone again.

“Because I never knew her,” Luke said. “I never came in contact with her. Only with Lorac’s remains after he was killed and they brought what was left of him back. His mother is likely long dead. What brought me here was the scent that emanated from this one,” Luke said, pointing at Gus. “I knew I’d smelled something on him before. It was a scent I couldn’t place at first, but when you came out of the donut shop and stood next to him, it started to fall into place. I just needed some time to put a few things together in my head.

“You’re the first woman I’ve met who was born from the mating of a human and a shifter. You have shifter blood. You’re alive and healthy and from what I understand, your mother was alive and healthy throughout her pregnancy. She gave birth to a full-term baby carrying shifter DNA.

“Normally, I’d have just looked the other way, but this time I couldn’t. It gives me hope for my pack, but we need access to other areas near our home. I’ve traveled all through the woods around the old diner and behind your mother’s home. I’ve traveled all through the woods and followed the scents everywhere I could from where Lorac was found. I’ve been looking for clues and answers. We need to mate with humans, but we need to be wary of them, too.”

“As a whole?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I mean, okay, I understand individual cases such as the reason you’re here with all this stuff taking up space in my house, but we’re talking isolated instances, right?” Bex was struggling to understand the fear and the need.

“No,” Michael stated, joining in the conversation between her and Luke. “The more we’re around humans, the more we’re open to being compromised. Shifters are such a small part of the population. We’re not even supposed to exist.”

“Not supposed to exist? What do you mean?”

“Shapeshifters are supposed to be legend,” Michael continued. “Myth. Folklore. Spirit animals from Native American belief systems. We’re not supposed to be real. But we can’t live separately, either. The world is too populated. The cities are too crowded and people move out and into our spaces.”

“Then,” Luke added. “There’s the fact of needing to breed with humans. I know I keep harping on this, but it’s a fact. If we want to survive, we need the new blood or we just continue bringing weakened babies into the world.

“And,” Luke continued,“If we have humans killing us for sport or for revenge, which, if the human’s father did and does, then we have a serious issue that needs to be resolved. The more we’re around humans, the more humans that move into our spaces, the more vigilant we need to be. We can’t let them take us out and we need to find the leaders of this group. Hunters are one thing. Poachers are another. I don’t want any shifters killed for sport. No animal or half-breed should be. Poachers skin us. We’re not used for meat or warmth from our fur. We’re to hang on walls and make rugs out of. Animals and shifters alike.”