Ready to Bear Page 11

  When his mouth pulled away, she stared at him. She could see the heavy waves of desire on his face. “You are amazing,” he said. “And while I’d love nothing more but to continue this, we’re here.”

  Thea blinked. Then she looked out the window over Billy’s shoulder and saw the bellhop approaching Billy’s door. She squeaked just as the door was pulled open. She saw Billy’s wink at her.

  “You going to wait here?” he asked. His voice was low and husky. “Or did you want to come up and wait in my room?”

  She should say that she’d wait in the car, but she nodded. “I’ll come up. Somebody’s gotta keep an eye on you.”

  “I like the idea of having my own private nurse,” he said, and Thea flushed as she caught the innuendo.

  He moved out of the car and then held a hand back for her. As soon as she was out of the car, she moved to straighten her hair. She wondered if she looked as if she had been thoroughly kissed. Judging by the look on Cal’s face when he came around to close the door behind them, she did.

  “We’ll be back down in twenty minutes,” she said to him.

  Cal didn’t look too certain about that, which almost caused Thea to laugh. As much as she’d like for her and Billy to spend the next twenty minutes getting to know each other a whole lot better, she knew that they had more important things to be concerned with. Like finding his cure.

  His hand slid into hers as they walked through the glass doors into the lobby. Thea knew they had crossed a threshold in their relationship in the car. It was wildly exciting. She felt as if she was doing something naughty, but she was an adult for Pete’s sake. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t ever been with a guy or in a relationship before. It was just all of those had felt ultimately boring in the end. Thea was searching for something different, and that was what she thought she might have found with Billy.

  She didn’t want to question it or make too much of it. She just wanted to enjoy it. After getting a new room key from the front desk, they moved to the elevator. Once they stepped inside, Billy’s arm slipped around her as he pulled her in. She was surprised when she felt him rest his chin against the top of her head.

  “This is crazy,” he whispered. “You should be running as far and as fast away from me as you can.”

  It was an unexpectedly tender gesture after the heated passion of the car, and Thea found that she was equally enthralled with it nonetheless. There was something deeper than simple lust growing between them. It was sweet and comforting.

  “You think that I’m such a treat?” she scoffed. “Ask any of my exes, and they’ll tell you a whole other story.”

  “I’d probably deck them,” he said.

  The words carried a fierce kind of possessiveness that sent a thrill straight through her core. Thea usually didn’t go for the whole alpha male thing, but the thought of being possessed by Billy in all kinds of ways made her feel giddy.

  “They’re not so bad,” Thea said. She looked up at him even as she wrapped her hands into a piece of his shirt. She felt wickedly bold. “But they just didn’t excite me.”

  “I think I can help in that department,” Billy said. His hand slipped down to her butt, and he pulled her against him. There was another part of his body that greeted the closeness of their forms, and she knew without a doubt that she couldn’t wait to get to know Billy a whole lot better.

  “I look forward to it,” she said with a small grin.

  The doors slid open, and Thea heard a cough. She flushed as she saw the older couple standing there waiting for the elevator. Billy took her hand and pulled her out of the elevator waving at the couple with a wide grin.

  “Everybody gets a turn. Enjoy it!” he called behind him.

  Thea hit him on the arm. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “In many ways,” he said. She chuckled as he led her to the door at the very end of the hallway. He cracked the door but stopped short just as she was ready to follow him.

  “What is it?” she asked trying to peer around his arm.

  He pushed her back into the hallway. Then he pulled the door shut. “We’ve got company,” he said in a hushed tone.

  “What?” Thea was alarmed. All thoughts of possibly getting a little more action fell away from her mind.

  Billy cursed. “I had my room key with me when I went out for my run. They must have found it.”

  “Why would they be in your room?” Thea asked.

  Billy looked down at her even as he propelled her urgently back toward the elevator. “It wasn’t a random attack, Thea. I think someone deliberately set it up so that they could poison me.”

  “Why?”

  Billy stabbed at the button to call the elevator frantically. “I have to get you out of here,” he said. “Hopefully whoever is in my room was distracted and didn’t hear the door open.”

  Thea thought that was highly unlikely. That was when she saw the door at the end of the hall slowly begin to open. It was like she was watching a scene from a horror film, except this was real life. Her heart sped up as she saw two dark forms cross stealthily into the hallway.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. She tried to keep her tone even. “Billy, they’re coming.”

  “I know,” he said.

  The shapes materialized into low slung forms. Wolves. The idea of seeing wolves moving through the hallway of one of the poshest hotels in town wasn’t clicking in her brain.

  Billy turned and swept his t-shirt up over his head. He stood in front of her.

  “You aren’t supposed to shift,” Thea said. “Remember what Dr. Clarkson said.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I might not have any choice.”

  “Billy,” she said urgently.

  “What are you waiting for?” Billy called out. His voice was hard. Thea watched the ripples of the muscles down Billy’s back. She had never been up close to witness a shifter phase before. She knew that Billy would do what he felt he needed to do, but she couldn’t let him risk his life.

  She pulled out her phone and stabbed a text to Eric even as she heard the warning snuffs floating down the hallway to her ears.

  “This seems stupid,” Billy said. “You’ve already poisoned me. I’m already halfway dead. Why bother with the ambush? You could just go on your merry way and let me die.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be nearly as much fun as this big reveal.” Thea looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway leaning against the doorframe behind the wolves. She didn’t recognize him, but by the way that Billy tensed up, she knew that Billy did. She felt certain that this was the man that Billy had come to Copper City to find.

  “It’s been awhile, Joshua,” Billy said, confirming what she had suspected.

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me, Sheriff,” the man said. “You and your alpha. I’d like you to stop.”

  “You know that Lukas won’t do that, and neither will I,” Billy said. “You crossed too many lines with the Greyelf Clan. You have to pay for that.”

  Joshua sighed a long, belabored sigh. It sounded drawn from his lungs for dramatic effect. “I had a feeling you’d say that. That was why I wanted you to know that I was serious about this. You’ve caused me a lot of annoyance over the last eighteen months. I’ve been stalked and hunted like a dog.”

  “Sounds about right. Glad to hear that my efforts were effective,” Billy said.

  “Well, it also required me to make some new friends along the way.”

  “Friends of yours aren’t friends of ours,” Billy said.

  “No. Definitely not.” Joshua chuckled as he shook his head. “I learned a lot of interesting things, as a matter of fact. It made me realize that my vision when I was with RAC was too small. I hadn’t been focusing on the right things.”

  “Change of heart against the shifters, huh? How touching,” Billy said as he motioned to the two wolves who flanked Joshua. “It seems like every time I see you, you’re hanging out with the kind of people that you said you hated.”

&nb
sp; Joshua shrugged. “I had a limited view before. But now I see.”

  “What is it exactly that you see?” Billy asked. Thea could see that he rolled his shoulders forward. He was ready to phase. He was ready to fight.

  “I see a man who has shown up acting like the hero who is going to have to delve into his past if he wants to live. And by doing so, I see a way to salute Lukas Kasper with a big ‘fuck you’ flag before I go after his ass next.”

  “What are you talking about?” Billy snarled.

  Joshua laughed again. Then he stared at Billy. Thea watched in horrified fascination as the man’s face elongated into a furry snout before snapping back into his human face again. She heard Billy’s gasp mingle with her own.

  “Look familiar?”

  Billy started to move, but Joshua put his hand up. “This was a courtesy call. Nothing more. I just wanted you to know who it was who will be the cause of your death today, one way or another.”

  “I doubt that,” Billy said. Every muscle of his body was wound up to strike.

  “You will meet me tonight at Urban Dwellers. We’re going to have us a little shifter fight. Winner takes all,” Joshua said.

  “How do you know I’ll show up?” Billy asked, his voice grating in the air.

  “Because, my dear sheriff, I am the one who poisoned you.” Joshua laughed a harsh and angry laugh. Then he shot through a door next to him that Thea hadn’t noticed before.

  “Billy, don’t!” Thea cried out as she saw Billy spring forward. The two wolves growled fiercely in their direction before catapulting themselves through the same doorway where Joshua had just disappeared. “They’ll trap you in there!”

  She could tell Billy was on the precipice of shifting, but she was relieved to see him stop in his tracks. Her words had gotten through. No matter what Joshua had said about waiting until that evening to try to exact whatever vengeance he had in mind on Billy and the Greyelf Clan, she had no doubt that he’d take advantage of an opportune time to move his timeline up more. Psychotics were like that.

  Just then she heard the ding of the elevator behind them. The doors slid open.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she heard Eric’s voice demand.

  “Oh, good. The cavalry has arrived,” Billy said sarcastically.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You aren’t seriously considering going through with it, right?” Eric said the same words for the tenth time. They had congregated in the offices at Urban Dwellers. Billy had availed himself on the shower and a set of fresh clothes from the supply that Eric kept at the club. It wasn’t exactly ideal, but the button down shirt and slacks were a nice change from the lost and found clothes he had been wearing all day. Although, he could tell by the fabric and the way the clothing breathed against his skin that the clothes probably cost more than his monthly salary on the force.

  “I don’t think I really have a choice,” Billy said. He sat on the couch where they had sat just the evening before. Billy wanted to pull Thea closer to him, but he knew that Eric wouldn’t think highly of seeing that their relationship had entered a new stage. He thought that he should probably pull Eric aside at some point and confess to his feelings for Thea before the man figured it out on his own. The last thing Billy needed was a pissed off werepanther on his hands.

  “I never expected that Joshua would have chosen to become a shifter. From everything we knew about him previously, his hatred of our kind ran as deep as it got,” Billy said. “It’s a beautifully executed ploy, when you think about it. He caught me totally unaware, and I’m at his beck and call.”

  “Exactly, which is why this stinks to hell,” Kyle interrupted. They were waiting for Tony to make his appearance. Eric seemed to think that the more shifter minds they had on the case, the sooner they could figure out some other way out of the current situation. “He’s goaded you into a fight. He knows that you’ll enter it in good faith, and then that’s when the other shoe will fall.”

  Billy felt Thea shiver next to him. The situation at the hotel had scared the shit out of him. He thought that there was a chance Thea could have gotten severely hurt, either from Joshua and his wolf buddies or by his own bear that he barely managed to keep in check.

  “Speaking of shoes falling, how did things work out with Clarkson?” Eric asked. Billy had caught the other man watching him carefully during their trek from the hotel to Urban Dwellers. He’d insisted that no one talk about anything until they were safely ensconced within the club’s walls. Apparently, he thought there was a chance that they were being followed or eavesdropped on. In any other situation, Billy would have rolled his eyes and thought it was silly. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Did you know that the Osten Clan was here?” Billy asked. It wasn’t a random question, but something that had been on his mind ever since the legend about poisonous injuries from enemy bloodlines had become a reality.

  “We get outcasts from practically every clan here,” Eric said. “We don’t require them all to check in and register with us, you know. That isn’t how we do things here in Copper City.”

  “So you really have no idea who or what shifters reside inside the city limits?” Billy found that hard to believe. The three men who formed the core of Urban Dwellers were as smart as they were secretive. They ran a crew inside Copper City that spoke to organization and structure. It wasn’t the willy-nilly kind of operation that Eric was trying to sell him on now.

  “They aren’t bound to us, and they don’t have to agree to anything other than playing by a few simple, established rules as long as they choose to reside in Copper City,” Eric said. He paced the room. “One of those rules is no fucking around and bringing old clan issues into the city. That bullshit needs to be kept out. Everyone gets along, or you get out.”

  “That’s working well so far today, don’t you think?” Billy couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  “It was working just fine until you got here,” Eric said.

  “That’s enough,” Kyle said. His voice, although quiet, carried a tone that didn’t broker any argument. Billy had to wonder again, for all the bluster of not running with an alpha in Copper City, if there wasn’t one among the triad nonetheless. “Arguing and bickering isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

  “The Osten Clan. That was on the diagram that Dr. Clarkson showed you,” Thea said. Billy knew that although she was quiet, she was taking everything in and processing it. Thea was quick, which was yet another thing he liked about her.

  “Yes,” Billy said. “The Osten Clan is as old as the Greyelf Clan. They are southern state werewolves. Practically the opposite of the grizzlies in northern Minnesota in every way. We don’t often cross paths, and we give each other a wide berth when we do. The alpha of the Osten Clan not so respectfully declined to attend the Shifter Summit last year. The bad blood between our clans runs deep.”

  “Why?” Thea asked.

  Billy shrugged. “It has always been that way. I don’t know if there even is a true reason. It’s a hatred that is bred into the bones of the clans at this point. Which is why I ask if there are any Osten converts running around Copper City. Joshua obviously found them somehow on his own, and he’s had plenty of back-up both times I’ve seen him today.”

  “That’s a problem,” Kyle said. “We don’t need any clan wars in Copper City. We are explicit about that rule.”

  “Those two that you picked up last night that attacked Thea,” Billy said. “They were shifters.”

  Eric looked at him. “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  Eric blinked. His face turned grim. “Werewolf.”

  “I don’t suppose you bothered to ask which clan they belonged to before they got to the city, did you?”

  “That’s irrelevant,” Eric said. “Once they’re here, they’re part of the Urban Dwellers. We don’t force them to expose where they came from because their reasons for leaving their clans in the first place are usually pretty fucked up.”

&nbs
p; “Runaways come here,” Billy said. He stood up. “You take in those who are running from problems and those that are problems. I told you that Joshua has a nose for mischief, and he was babbling something about not thinking big enough. I think he’s got a much bigger plan in mind, and what’s happening with me is just the start.”

  “Is this guy really that confident that he’s just assuming he’ll win the shifter match?” Kyle asked. “Even on a good day, a match between a grizzly and a wolf is a match that is likely to swing in the grizzly’s favor.”

  “That’s why he poisoned him first,” Thea said. The three men looked at her, and Billy saw the flush across her cheeks. He didn’t think that she meant to say the words out loud. She cleared her throat when he motioned for her to continue with her thought. “Dr. Clarkson said that whatever he gave Billy wouldn’t be able to hold up under the strain of a phase. So it isn’t a fair fight. Add in that we have no idea how long its effects are supposed to last anyway, and Billy stands at a distinct disadvantage, bear or not.”

  “He could have just let him die,” Eric countered. “Why bother with all the dramatics? Why put his own skin at risk?”

  “Well, he’s a lunatic,” Billy said. “But I think we’re still missing part of the picture. He had to assume that I would have asked you for help. I can’t help but think that as long as he’s pulling the strings on what we’re doing, that keeps our attention away from something else.”

  “So he’s fucking with us,” Eric said, crossing his arms over his chest. He leaned back against the desk. Billy wasn’t fooled by the man’s casual stance. Eric was as wound up as he was but was doing a much better job of keeping it under wraps.

  “It would appear so,” Kyle said. He stood up as well. “I need to get security up to speed on what’s going on tonight. We’re going to have to get organized.”

  “Why would he want to have it here?” Thea asked suddenly.

  “Because he wants a ready audience.” Tony appeared in the doorway that led up from the club. He held out a flyer in his hand. Billy could read the screaming red font from across the room. “Aside from this littering the streets, I also saw the announcement being shared on every single social media outlet and the underground network that we use to announce the fights.”