Trouble in a Fur Coat (The Fur Coat Society Book 1) (4 page)

Bash showed up with the food, using his fingerprints to let himself in, for once. All around Silver, her friends were talking and laughing as they dished out food and started hungrily scarfing it down. But Silver pushed her noodles around on her plate and barely managed to take a few sips of her wine. For perhaps the first time in her life, she truly wished that she was just a normal, full human. It wasn’t fair that she had to worry about whether her boyfriend was going to still like her or, worse, want to kill her off once he knew she was part bear.

Jack was the first one to notice that Silver wasn’t eating. When there was a lull in the conversation as the laughter from one of Grant’s jokes died down, Jack spoke up.

“Silver, I’ve never seen you hesitate to polish off a plate of Thai food. What’s wrong? Does this have something to do with the emergency you mentioned?”

The room fell completely silent as all eyes turned to Silver. Silver’s heart pounded in her chest as she forced herself to look up and meet the eyes of her friends gathered in the room around her.

“Guys, we have a problem.”

Silver took a deep breath, and forced herself to say the words she had been dreading. She had planned out a carefully crafted speech, trying to word things in just the right way to minimize any connection Joe had to the horrible actions his father wanted to take. But, in the end, Silver’s words came tumbling out in a rambling mess, and she had to admit that there wasn’t a good way to make Joe look good next to the evil plans of his family.

“I went to a dinner party Joe’s parents threw last night. I overheard his dad talking to someone in the library about shifters, and wanting to get rid of them. I don’t know how, but his dad knows that shifters exist. Not only that, but he knows of someone that apparently is working on technology for new eye scanners that will instantly be able to recognize animal DNA. Joe’s father wants to convince the mayor, who is close friends with the president, to implement scanning stations or something like that. I don’t understand all the details, but, in a nutshell, it sounds like his dad knows of shifters, wants to get rid of them, and has a plan for doing so that might actually be plausible in the not-too-distant future.”

Silver stopped talking and looked around the room. The silence hung thick in the air as her friends looked back at her, trying to process everything she had just told them. Then, everyone started talking at once. The chaos and confusion in the room didn’t do anything to ease Silver’s nerves, and she tried to answer the questions that were being thrown at her as quickly as she could, but she could hardly understand what anyone was saying above the din.

“ENOUGH!” Grant yelled, finally bringing the room to silence again. Startled, everyone stopped talking and looked over at Grant. Despite moving away from northern Alaska and giving up his chance at being the alpha of his clan, Grant still maintained quite an air of authority.

“We all need to calm down and think through this rationally,” Grant said. But before Grant could continue with whatever he was about to say, Jack interrupted, asking the question that was burning heavily on everyone’s minds.

“Does Joe know about this?” Jack asked.

Silver nearly buckled under the sharp, intense expression in Jack’s green eyes. She had always thought Jack was handsome, but whenever he got fired up about something and had that certain look on his face, he took Silver’s breath away. Beneath that calm, reserved exterior, Jack hid a fierce, passionate side.

“I told Joe what I overheard,” Silver said weakly, desperately trying to force herself to look away from Jack’s severe gaze. Everyone started talking at once again, but Silver couldn’t hear any of their questions, rants, or exclamations. All she could hear was Jack’s voice, which somehow came across to her louder, stronger, and clearer than all the others.

“You have to get away from him,” Jack said. “He’s wrong for you, and you know it. And this situation is dangerous for you.”

Silver felt like she had tunnel vision, and all she could see was Jack’s face. All she could hear were his words. Somehow, he was speaking deep into her soul. She didn’t want to admit that he was right, even though she knew that he was.

“Guys!” Silver yelled, forcing herself to tear her eyes away from Jack’s and break the strange moment between them that no one else seemed to have noticed. “Guys! Quiet down and let me talk.”

The room quieted again, and Silver started speaking, although her voice sounded even more hollow and unsure than it had before.

“I told Joe what I overheard his father saying, but the conversation didn’t really get very far. Joe didn’t even know what shifters were, so I had to explain it to him. And I didn’t tell him that I was a shifter. I just told him that his dad wanted to get rid of shifters and that I thought that was pretty awful. Joe brushed it off, saying that his dad was just a crazy old man spouting off crazy ideas that didn’t really mean anything.”

There was a long pause, and finally Bash spoke up.

“But, Sis, you must think that this is more serious than a crazy old man spouting off crazy ideas,” he prompted. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have called an emergency meeting.”

Silver nodded slowly. “I think his dad is serious. I don’t know how close eye scanners are to being able to detect animal DNA, or whether Joe’s dad really has enough influence to convince the mayor and president that shifters need to be eliminated. But I would say this is a pretty credible threat that we need to be aware of.”

“I haven’t heard anyone at the mayor’s office say anything at all about shifters,” Storm said.

“That’s not surprising,” Grant said. “I would guess that Joe’s dad won’t talk to the mayor until the scanners are ready. And, even when he does talk to the mayor, it will probably be kept in top secret files. At least at first.”

“Silver, you have to break up with Joe,” Jack said again. “How can you even think of staying with someone whose family wants to kill us off?”

“You can’t judge Joe by his dad’s actions,” Silver protested. “That’s not fair. Joe is a good man, and he would never go along with getting rid of an entire group of people, no matter what his dad says. He’s not taking it seriously because he doesn’t realize that shifters do exist and that this isn’t a joke. And the only way I know of to convince him that shifters exist is to show him my shifter side, which I think we would all agree is not the best idea right now. Besides, don’t you think it’s better if I stay with Joe and stay close to his family? I can keep an eye on things and have an insider’s view on what’s going on.”

“She has a good point there,” Storm said. Silver smiled gratefully in Storm’s direction. She knew Storm was doing her best to defend Silver’s desire to stay with Joe.

“I don’t think she has a good point at all!” Bash said. “I think staying with Joe is a horrible idea! That family is dangerous and weird and you need to get the hell away from them before something happens to you.”

“You’re just being an overprotective brother,” Silver protested.

“I’m just being realistic,” Bash said. “Dad would freak out if he knew you were dating someone whose family was anti-shifter. I can’t believe you’re even debating this.”

“But Joe isn’t his family,” Silver protested. “It’s not fair to judge him based on their actions.”

“Life’s not fair, Sis,” Bash said. “Besides, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Joe isn’t his family. That family is wound tight, and he doesn’t stray too far from what his parents want. He likes to think he’s his own person, I know. But, at the end of the day, he always jumps when his parents tell him to.”

“Bash is right,” Juno said gently, jumping in to the conversation for the first time. “Joe has a hard time standing up to his parents. Even if he doesn’t actively support what they’re doing, he’s unlikely to support you over them. If he finds out you’re a shifter, you’re not safe in that family. It’s better to just let him go. Weren’t you thinking of breaking up with him anyway?”

“I thought about it a few weeks ago,” Silver admitted. “But I decided to stay. He’s a good guy, and he takes good care of me.”

“Because you do what his family wants right now,” Jack pointed out. “Silver, you have to let him go.”

Silver crossed her arms and looked down at the floor. “I’ll think about it,” she said. But she felt betrayed by her friends. She had wanted them to support her decision, and to tell her that just because she was a shifter didn’t mean she had to walk away from a life she loved. She had a sinking feeling that they were right, though. She had always wanted to believe that society had moved past the point where they judged people for things that were just innate parts of who they were. Apparently, she had been wrong. Her youthful optimism was being crushed and replaced by the hard truth of life experience.

“What about the threat to shifters overall?” Juno asked, her voice breaking into Silver’s thoughts. “Even if Silver breaks up with Joe, we still have to worry about these eye scanners and a potential attack on the entire shifter community.”

“I think we should tell our parents and the other elders back home,” Storm said. “They’ve lived through attempts to get rid of shifters before. They’ll have some experience with what to do.”

“No!” Jack said, his voice strong and forceful. “If we tell the old folks, they’re going to rush in here and make things worse. The best thing to do is to just let things be and make sure that we don’t let anyone here know that we’re shifters.”

“That’s an awful idea,” Storm said. “Just because you ignore a problem doesn’t mean that it’s going to go away.”

“I’m not saying ignore it forever,” Jack said. “I’m saying to ignore it right now. You know why? Because it’s not really a problem right now. From what Silver told us, it sounds like these scanners aren’t actually developed yet. By the time they are, a lot could change. Maybe the mayor is different. Maybe Joe’s dad isn’t even around anymore. All I’m saying is, don’t make a big deal out of something when it isn’t a big deal.”

“But you told me to leave Joe, and he hasn’t expressed any personal vendetta against shifters,” Silver said. “Isn’t that telling me to make something into a problem before it’s actually a problem?”

“Joe is a problem,” Jack said, his voice tight. “He’s no good for you, regardless of his feelings about shifters.”

Silver crossed her arms and didn’t say anything. She didn’t feel like arguing anymore, and she was beginning to wish she had never called this meeting. Maybe Jack was right about one thing—the scanners weren’t even invented yet, so there wasn’t much to worry about at this point. Right now, there’s no way anyone would know she was a shifter unless she told them. As long as she didn’t tell Joe or his family who she was, she would be safe. And as much as Silver hated to side with Jack right now, when he was being so insistent that she needed to break up with Joe, Silver had to admit that she didn’t want to get any of their parents involved. Calling her dad to tell him anything about someone hating people because they were shifters was a virtual guarantee that he would flip out. Silver thought he was always making mountains out of molehills, but she supposed she couldn’t blame him. After all, he had lived through some pretty awful stuff decades ago, when everyone in the room right now had been either a tiny cub or not even born yet. Between clan wars, epidemics, and attempts by scientists to kill shifters off completely, it truly was a wonder that shifters had not only survived, but thrived. Still, Silver didn’t want to deal with an angry Papa Bear swooping in to confront Joe’s family, and she wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if her dad did something like that.

The conversation around her continued to debate the pros and cons of telling the elders back home. Silver let her mind wander. She had a feeling that this argument was going to end without any definite conclusion, and that nothing would be done in the end. Grant and Jack didn’t want anything to do with the old style of clan life. They had come to Chicago to escape the laws and structure of clans, and to live like “normal” humans. Juno and Storm still felt a sense of loyalty to their families back home, and thought they were being dishonorable by not at least making them aware of a potentially dangerous situation. And then there was Bash, who just loved a good argument. Silver was pretty sure that her brother didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other, but that didn’t stop him from jumping in to stir the pot at every possible moment.

Silver withdrew into her own head while everyone else talked. She had told everyone here that she would think about breaking up with Joe, and think about it she did. But the more she thought about it, the more she didn’t want to end things with him. Sure, their relationship had its issues here and there. But, overall, he was a good guy. And it couldn’t hurt to be around to keep a close eye on his dad, could it? That’s what she would do. She would keep dating Joe and see where things with him went, and she would keep an ear out for any more details on what Joe’s dad might be planning with regards to shifters. To Silver, this seemed like a reasonable plan.

But, even as she made the decision, she couldn’t keep a small shiver of dread from running up and down her spine when she remembered the intense look in Jack’s eyes when he warned her that Joe’s family was dangerous.

Jack stood in front of the large coffee machine and tried to focus on the buttons. He just wanted a black coffee, but there were so many damn options that he couldn’t figure out which one was plain old coffee. Why couldn’t the hospital spring for a machine that wasn’t twenty years old, and that used voice commands instead of these old-school buttons?

Jack glanced at the digital clock that lit up the hospital wall. Time had just crept past two in the morning. Joe rubbed at his eyes again, and finally decided to choose a button on the coffee machine labeled “Americano” and hope for the best. To his relief, the liquid that came out looked black and strong. Maybe this machine wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.

Jack loved coffee, but he never drank it here at work. He didn’t want to become reliant on it for energy during his long work days, like many of the other residents had. He wanted to subsist on brute strength and power of will alone. He was a bear, after all. Shouldn’t he be able to muscle through?

Usually, he could. He was in his final year of residency, and in a few months’ time his long journey to become a fully licensed anesthesiologist would be completely done. Jack could hardly believe that the finish line was in sight. Who would have thought that a bear shifter from the backwoods of Alaska could make it this far, to be working at one of the best hospitals in North America, with a job offer in his back pocket to continue on after his residency? Dreams did come true.

But all of Jack’s actual dreams this week had been of Silver Rowe. He couldn’t get her out of his head, and his sleep had suffered tremendously. Which is why he now found himself standing in front of the coffee machine, downing shots of caffeine and praying for the clock to speed up until it was time for him to go home.

He had another six hours.

Jack had long kept his feelings for Silver buried, only allowing himself the occasional longing glance when they were at parties together. But two nights ago, when he’d watched her sit there in her apartment and casually mention that her boyfriend’s dad hated shifters, it had taken everything within Jack to force himself not to run out the door and over to Joe’s house right then to beat him up. Not that Jack would have been able to get in past their state-of-the-art security systems, but still. He would have at least done some damage to their computer screens while trying, that’s for sure.

Jack had never liked Joe. He’d met the guy once, at some big charity event put on through Silver’s job. Silver had convinced all of the Fur Coats to go. Apparently, she had been under a lot of pressure from the ballet company to get people to show up, and none of her friends had wanted to let her down. Joe had been there, too, and he spent the whole night talking to Jack about the best stocks to invest in. Joe hadn’t paid much attention to Silver, which blew Jack’s mind. Silver had looked ravishing in a slinky red cocktail dress and black, strappy, sky-high heels. If Silver had been Jack’s girlfriend, he would have spent the whole night swooning over her. Jack had shrugged it off, figuring that everyone eventually reached the point in their relationship where they just weren’t as excited by their partners anymore. Still, he couldn’t fathom ever taking a woman like Silver for granted.

Jack had known Silver for years. The alphas of their clans back home were close friends, so a couple times a year Silver would show up in Northern Alaska with her dad and a few other families from her clan. He’d never thought of her as anything other than a childhood friend, though, until she’d shown up in Chicago to dance at the ballet here. All of a sudden, the little girl who loved to dance had grown up into a woman who was a star on stage. Jack had been tempted to ask her out on a date, but he’d decided against it at the last minute.

He had been trying to leave behind his life in Alaska. He wanted to live among full humans, as a human. Connecting with a piece of his shifter past would only drag him backwards. He already had his best friend Grant here in the city. One shifter friend was plenty.

But Jack’s plans to stay away from Silver, and the other shifters, were thwarted when Grant dragged him to a party at Storm’s house one steamy August afternoon. The humidity had been unbearable, and Jack, who had a rare day off, had wanted to just lie in his apartment under the A.C. unit all day. Grant insisted, though. Jack suspected that Grant had a little bit of a thing for Storm, even though Grant denied that to this day.

At the party, Jack had reconnected with Storm, Juno, Silver, and Bash. The group had hung out several times since then. Storm and Silver had even nicknamed them the Fur Coat Society, which Jack thought was a little silly but he went along with it since it seemed to make Silver happy. As much as he tried not to think about Silver, he lived to see her smile. The thought of her being in the arms of someone whose family wanted shifters dead was too much for him to bear. He knew Silver had a stubborn streak, and he’d seen the hesitation in her eyes when she’d said that she would think about breaking up with Joe. Jack knew she had already made up her mind to stay with him. Why she would put herself through the torture of being part of that family was incomprehensible to him, but Silver had always been difficult to figure out.

Jack’s pager beeped, causing him to jump and spill some of his coffee. From across the room, a cleaning robot whirred to life and zoomed across the floor to suck up the spill. Jack stepped over the robot as he started walking toward the break room’s exit. He quickly scanned the text on the pager’s glowing screen, and then started running like hell for the labor and delivery floor.

A mother up there was in danger of losing her baby. An emergency c-section was needed, and there was no time to mess with the finesse of local anesthesia. The doctors wanted her put under full anesthesia—the quickest way to knock her out—so they could perform the surgery quickly and hopefully save the baby’s life. Jack was being called in to help with the emergency. As he bypassed the slow-moving elevators and sprinted toward the stairs, Jack threw his coffee cup into the nearest trash bin, which quickly sucked it in and crunched it down. Jack had five floors to travel up, and he took the stairs two at a time, barely breaking a sweat. His powerful leg muscles flexed as he climbed faster and faster, in a race against death as it tried to claim the life of that innocent baby.

Jack didn’t need caffeine anymore. He was filling up with adrenaline, and he thrived on this kind of high. Time to save some lives.

* * *

As the sun peeked over Lake Michigan, lighting up the water with a beautiful pink-gray sunrise, Silver sat on her patio and stewed. She had a hot coffee mug in her hands and a cold ice-pack on her knee, but none of these temperature sensations even registered in her mind. All she could think about right now was the argument she’d had with Mrs. Astor last night about proper footwear for a charity ball that Joe’s family would be attending tonight. Mrs. Astor was once again insisting on high heels, even though Silver had been given doctor’s orders to stay off her feet as much as possible and to only wear flat shoes with arch supports when walking. Silver had already missed several performances in her latest show, but she was hoping to make it back for the finale weekend that was coming up in a few days. There was no way in hell she was going to jeopardize that to appease a weird, unhealthy devotion to high heels.

Joe had tried to be a voice of reason with his mother, too, but all of his arguments had fallen flat. She would not be reasoned with. Silver had stormed out and headed for her hovercar in a fit of anger. Well, hobbled out was more like it, but she had made it clear that she wasn’t amused by fashion being placed above her own health. Joe had tried to follow Silver out, but she had told him to go back. She hadn’t wanted to hear his long, tired monologue about how his mother was just a bit eccentric and had a few weird quirks. Silver had heard some variation of this speech from Joe hundreds of times over the course of their relationship, and she was getting tired of it. She had to face the truth. If she wanted to marry Joe one day, she would be marrying into quite a bit of crazy. And the high heels part wasn’t the worst of the crazy. Silver’s thoughts were constantly haunted by the idea of Mr. Astor one day discovering she was a shifter. She had briefly convinced herself that she could handle Joe’s parents, but she was beginning to doubt her own abilities. And, besides, even if she
could
handle them, did she really want to?

Silver sighed and pulled the ice-pack off her knee, glancing down at the large red circle the freezing cold had left on her skin. At least the swelling had gone down significantly. There was still hope for her to be able to dance this weekend. Silver shivered as a cool morning breeze hit the frozen skin on her knee. She loved early mornings—especially early mornings like this, when the sunrise was brilliant and the air was fresh. In a small way, it reminded her of Alaska. Silver didn’t think she’d ever move back home, but she did miss the wilderness out there. It had been a good place to grow up as a bear cub.

Silver frowned as she looked out over the gently lapping waves on Lake Michigan. From her vantage point, eleven stories up, the lake looked calm. But every now and then a big whitecap would hit the sidewall and send a huge spray of lake water into the air, giving away the fact that everything wasn’t as serene as it looked on the surface. Silver felt like the lake this morning was a good metaphor for her life. She looked calm enough on the outside, but, deep within her, a nervous, anxious churning was growing stronger. She wished she could call Storm to talk, but her best friend was not an early riser at all and wouldn’t appreciate a six a.m. wakeup call.

Silver closed her eyes and leaned her head back, breathing in the morning air again and wishing she had someone she could talk to that understood. Then it hit her. Jack worked weird hours at the hospital. Maybe, just maybe, he was awake right now and not working. He always seemed willing to hang out with her. True, he could get a little annoying with his judgments about Joe being a rotten boyfriend. But Silver was willing to put up with a few snide remarks right now if it meant she could have a buddy for morning coffee. She pulled out her phone and stared at the screen, hesitating for just a moment before speaking.

“Text Jack Tanner.”