Ready to Bear Read online

  “Shit,” Eric said. He grabbed the flyer out of Tony’s hand and looked at it. “This is going to have every shifter within a hundred miles on our doorstep.”

  “A much wilder bunch to control, which is exactly what he wants,” Billy said. He wasn’t surprised that Joshua had chosen to bring the match out into the open. Still, he felt his stomach roll at the idea. He hadn’t fought in front of people in… a long time.

  Thea stood up and put her hand on his shoulder. “We can find another way.”

  “What are you talking about?” Eric said. “This asshole has called the good ole sheriff out to the carpet. Even if he didn’t have the incentive of getting what he needs for his cure, if he didn’t show it would look like he was a pussy.”

  “You should watch your mouth,” Billy said. “Especially around your sister.”

  Eric rolled his eyes. “She’s heard me say a lot fucking worse.”

  “That’s true,” Thea said with a shake of her head.

  “Doesn’t make it right,” Billy said. He didn’t like the casual manner in which Eric seemed to demand the attention of the room. He felt tired suddenly, and he knew that wasn’t a good sign. His anxiety levels were higher than normal, and that brought his bear closer to the surface. That would also mean that his metabolism would start to burn through the medicine keeping the poison at bay faster than he needed.

  “I need to call Lukas,” he announced. “If he finds out about this before I tell him, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  “You can use the phone in the back office.” Kyle pointed to another door toward the back of the room.

  “Thanks,” Billy said. He made his way into the back office and shut the door behind him. He ran a hand through his hair and prepared himself for the conversation to come. Lukas wasn’t going to be happy about being interrupted in the middle of Maren’s delivery, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be happy to hear about what was going on in Copper City. Billy wished for the calm of the day before, when all he had to worry about was the noise and crowds of the city.

  He went to the phone and dialed Lukas’s cell number. It took three rings before the man answered, which was unusual. “Kasper.”

  “It’s me,” Billy said.

  “I’ve been trying your cellphone all day,” Lukas said. “Those Urban Dweller assholes spring you from jail yet?”

  “Yes,” Billy said. “But we have a situation here, Lukas.”

  “What…hang on a second,” Lukas replied. Billy could hear a hushed voice in the background.

  A moment later, Maren’s voice filled the line. “Billy! Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay for now,” Billy said.

  “Thank God,” Maren said. “I just wanted to tell you before Lukas messed it up. It’s a girl.”

  Billy could hear the pleasure and excitement in Maren’s voice. He smiled. It was nice to hear some good news. “That’s great, M. I’m happy for you guys. What’s her name?”

  “Ella. After my grandmother. She’s beautiful, Billy. I can’t wait for you to meet her,” Maren said. Then her voice grew serious. “Do you need him, Billy?”

  “No,” Billy said. He kept his voice firm. He knew if he said the word, Maren would let Lukas come to Copper City, but there was nothing the alpha could do for him. “In fact, it’s better that Lukas stay as far away from this place as possible.”

  “Okay. I want you to know we’re here if you need us,” Maren said. Billy heard the shuffle as she handed the phone back to Lukas.

  “Congratulations, Lukas,” Billy said. “You must be proud.”

  “As long as she takes after her mother, I’ll be happy and lucky,” Lukas said. “I can be on the first flight out in the morning.”

  “There are more of them here, Lukas,” Billy said. He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if Lukas came to Copper City and then something happened to him. “And Joshua is the one who poisoned me.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Lukas’s voice was incredulous.

  “I’m afraid not.” Billy spent the new few minutes giving Lukas the rundown of what had happened since that morning.

  “I expect to hear from you as soon as the fight is over,” Lukas said. “I don’t envy what you have to do, but I know you’ll get it done.”

  “Yes, I will,” Billy said. He chuckled as he heard Maren’s voice again in the background asking for the phone.

  “Billy, a shifter match? You give that guy hell,” Maren said. Joshua and his crew had kidnapped Maren before the Shifter Summit, and even though Billy didn’t think Maren had it in her to hurt a fly, she didn’t look the other way when something needed to be taken care of. In that respect, she had grown into her own as Lukas’s mate and the wife of the alpha inside the clan.

  “I’ll do my best,” Billy said. They said their goodbyes, and then Billy hung up the phone. He turned and was surprised to see Thea standing just inside the doorway leaning against the wall. He hadn’t heard her come into the room. It was yet another sign that although he was feeling okay, things weren’t right with his senses and his body.

  “How long have you been standing there?” he asked. He moved toward her. His fingers ached to touch her skin.

  “You said you were calling Lukas, but it sounded like you were talking to someone else,” Thea said.

  “Maren,” Billy replied. He closed the distance between them. “Lukas’s mate. Their baby was born today.”

  “Your voice sounded different when you spoke to her,” Thea said. Billy realized that Thea was far more perceptive than he had given her credit in reading the situation. “Like there was something else there.”

  Billy bent down so that he met her eyes. “Maren and I went out a few times before she and Lukas got together. They were basically high school sweethearts. I didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Oh,” Thea said. He saw her draw her lower lip into her mouth. It made him want to kiss her, but with all three of the Urban Dwellers on the other side of the door, that didn’t seem like a wise idea.

  “I’ll always care about Maren,” Billy said. He took a piece of Thea’s hair and twirled it around his fingertips. “As a good friend,” he emphasized the word ‘friend.’ “Assuming I have a future after tonight, that’s all I care about.”

  Thea’s face turned up toward him then. “This is serious stuff, Billy. Life and death.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said softly.

  “You should come back to my place and rest,” Thea said. She placed her hands flat against his chest. “You’ll need your full strength for the fight.”

  Billy couldn’t have agreed with her more, but he thought she might have an ulterior motive for telling him that. The sexual tension in the air between them was practically palpable.

  “You are reading my mind,” he said with a grin.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Thea was feeling even more reckless than she felt earlier. She opened the door and realized with a start that all three of the men in the office outside stared at them as they exited.

  She had made some excuse about needing to remind Billy about something in his diagnosis that he needed to share with Lukas, but she sensed that no one believed her for a second. Then she listened to him speak to the people on the other end of the phone. It didn’t take shifter senses to hear the difference in Billy’s voice when he spoke to Maren Kasper.

  She was glad that he had been honest with her. He could have lied, and then she would have questioned her ability to trust anything that he told her. But it didn’t seem as if Billy had a dishonest bone in his body. It made her wonder all the more what Eric had been referring to when he said that she needed to be careful around him.

  “Lukas sends his regards,” Billy said to the men as he came up behind her.

  “Is he on his way?” The way Kyle said the words let Thea know that he hoped nothing of the kind.

  “No,” Billy said. “Especially if there are more Osten Clan members roaming the streets. The last thing we need to d
o is expose Lukas to that kind of threat. Right now, this is between me and Joshua.”

  Thea wondered how she had ended up in this mess to begin with, and she had started to cobble together bits and pieces of different questions that Billy had been asking. He didn’t believe that her attack had been random, just as his hadn’t been, either. It made her anxious about Alex.

  “Can you send a car around for Alex after school?” she asked Eric.

  “Already on it,” he said. “I thought you might want to go get him, though.”

  “I’d like to take Billy back to the apartment,” she said. “It isn’t safe for him to go back to his hotel for obvious reasons, and it’s important that he rests before tonight.” She was amazed that she managed to say the words with a straight face. Eric’s face, on the other hand, told her that he didn’t believe her innocent excuse.

  “He can rest here,” Eric said.

  “Nonsense,” Thea said. “Kyle needs to work, and you and Tony no doubt have things you need to do, as well, to get the club ready for tonight. There’s no way he can rest here.”

  Eric looked as if he wanted to spit nails. “A word, Sheriff?” he finally said, looking at the man behind Thea. “Thea, why don’t you go see if Sophie needs anything from the vineyard for tonight?”

  Thea wanted to argue, but she felt Billy’s hand briefly touch her waist. “That’s fine, Thea. How about I meet you downstairs in a couple of minutes? I haven’t had the chance to see the inside of this fine establishment yet. Maybe you can give me a tour before we go, so I have a good lay of the land before tonight.”

  “Okay,” Thea said. She wasn’t happy about leaving him alone with Eric, Tony, and Kyle, but she could see that she had been outmaneuvered.

  She reluctantly moved toward the door that led to the staircase down to the club’s main floor. She looked over her shoulder as she moved through the doorway. Billy gave her a small smile and a nod of confidence. She wished that she felt the same way. Instead, she felt as if she had just left him in a den of wolves.

  The irony of that thought wasn’t lost on her as she quickly made her way downstairs. The one thing that was true was that she was the primary wine buyer for the club. It was a random task that Kyle had asked for her help with a few months ago, knowing that she had more than a passing interest in it. It was something that she was surprisingly good at, and solidified what she wanted to do after she learned what she needed to know from Eric. She had sat down a month ago and sketched out the whole business plan to start detailing what she needed to do. She hadn’t been confident enough to show it to Eric yet, though.

  Eric operated a small vineyard outside the city, and when she wasn’t working, Thea had found herself spending time there with the winemaker. It was an education that seemed far more difficult than the business degree that she spent four years obtaining.

  Thea emerged from the back of the large room and crossed the dance floor that would be filled with writhing bodies soon enough. She saw Sophie behind the bar drying glassware.

  “Hey there,” Sophie said as she caught sight of her.

  “Hey,” Thea said as she moved to the bar. She sat down on a stool and found a glass of wine in front of her a moment later. “It’s crazy how fast you move,” she chuckled. “But it’s barely noon. Doesn’t it seem a little early for a drink?”

  “If even half of the shit I’m hearing is true, you should go ahead and take the bottle,” Sophie said as she set the bottle in front of her. Today, Sophie wore a fitted t-shirt and skintight jeans that made Thea wonder how she was even able to breathe. Her long blonde hair was caught up simply in a high ponytail on the back of her head. The effect was stunning. Sophie made looking drop dead gorgeous appear effortless.

  Thea didn’t bother arguing any further. Sophie was right. She took a long sip of the wine and savored the way that it immediately warmed the back of her throat. “So, what have you heard?”

  “That your new boyfriend got himself poisoned by a werewolf and is fighting some old clan foe tonight.”

  “Bad news travels fast,” Thea said as she raised her glass into the air. “So much for that poison thing being a secret.”

  “So he is your boyfriend? Because that’s the part I was most surprised about quite honestly,” Sophie deadpanned.

  Thea burst out laughing. Sophie always knew how to take a dark situation and find something to lighten the mood. She looked around furtively to see if anyone was within earshot. Although she didn’t see anyone close by, she lowered her voice just the same. “We kissed.”

  Sophie squealed and came around the bar to sit down next to Thea. Another glass had magically seemed to appear out of thin air, and Sophie poured herself a glass. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning. Where did it happen? Is he as good a kisser as he looks? Did his bear growl to let you know you were the sexiest thing he’s ever seen? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

  “You have to stop asking me questions so that I can,” Thea said with a grin. It was nice that she had someone to talk to about Billy because the emotions she felt were confusing in their intensity. Being able to compare notes with another shifter was helpful. “He kissed me in the back of the car on the way to his hotel. He is an amazing kisser.” Thea closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to those few stolen moments. Even now, the memories made her toes curl. She opened her eyes to find Sophie unabashedly looking her up and down.

  “Damn, girl. It must have been good. I’m getting all hot and bothered just sitting next to you.”

  “His bear didn’t growl,” Thea said, trying not to blush. “Is it supposed to? He and his bear don’t seem to be on the best terms at the moment.” She decided not to tell Sophie that Billy had almost lost control of his bear twice since that morning. She had told Billy that she wouldn’t be afraid of it or him if it happened, and she was going to force herself to keep thinking that way.

  “The way that we express our appreciation and arousal in the company of the opposite sex is often very primal,” Sophie said. “That’s part of what makes it so hot.”

  Thea felt her face fall. “Eric has always said that he prefers shifter women to human women in bed.”

  “Your stepbrother is a dick and not nearly as manly as he’d like to think,” Sophie said. She reached over and stroked Thea’s arm. “Don’t listen to anything he says. If the sheriff is into you, take it as the huge compliment it is, and don’t be afraid to go for it.” She gave Thea a lewd wink.

  “So it’s supposed to be a compliment to have a shifter interested in me?” Thea was thoroughly confused.

  “It’s just that there has to be a spark, just like any kind of attraction,” Sophie said. “Any old boring human isn’t going to cut it because it’s like I said – we run primal. That’s just the way we operate. So it’s going to be a special human who’s going to be able to rev our engines.”

  Thea laughed as she could practically hear Sophie purring. “Keep your cat under control,” she said.

  “Oh, I was just thinking about this hot guy I met on the beach in Puerto Rico two years ago. Yum,” Sophie said. She was practically licking her lips. “One of the best vacations I’ve ever had, and probably one of the best fucks of my entire life. And he was wholly human.”

  “Probably a bit on the TMI side,” Thea said, blushing at Sophie’s word choice. She took a sip of wine to cover it. She didn’t think she was a prude, but being around shifters always had a way of making her feel inadequate.

  “My point is, human or shifter doesn’t matter one bit,” Sophie said. “When that spark is there, you grab onto it with both hands and don’t let go. Personally, I think the link between shifter and human can easily be far more powerful than it is between shifters alone. As long as there’s no ‘you’re my mate’ bullshit.” Sophie shuddered.

  “Why is that a bad thing?” Thea wrinkled her nose. The word ‘mate’ still didn’t quite feel as if it belonged as part of her world. “Don’t you want to settle down someday?”

 
“Not if I can help it,” Sophie said. She downed the rest of her glass of wine and stood up. “You only get one life girlfriend, and I’m far too young to get caught up in just one guy.” Sophie made her way back around the bar.

  “That just sounds lonely,” Thea said.

  “Spoken by the woman who prefers a book, a glass of wine, and a roaring fire by herself over coming out to the club any night of the week,” Sophie said, rolling her eyes.

  “I just didn’t think that I was going to meet the man of my dreams dry humping random strangers on the dance floor,” Thea said.

  “Don’t knock it till you try it,” Sophie said. She cocked her head to the side. “I think your sheriff is on his way.”

  Thea did envy shifters their supersonic hearing. “Can you hear anything else?”

  “You left him up there with the three amigos?” Sophie asked. Thea nodded. “Well, if the door that just slammed was any indication, the conversation went extremely well.”

  Thea swung her stool around just in time to catch Billy emerging from the back door. He walked across the dance floor looking more as if he was more on the prowl than just coming to meet her. His eyes lasered in on her, and it seemed like mere seconds later he was beside her.

  “Nice to see you again, Sophie,” he said. His eyes didn’t leave Thea, though.

  “Nice to see you too, Sheriff. Can I get you anything?”

  “I’ll take that shot of whiskey now,” Billy said. He let his arm slide around Thea’s shoulders, and she let herself rest against him. It was strange how natural it felt to be that close to him. She had noticed that since they had shared that kiss, Billy innately seemed to want her next to him all the time. She didn’t mind.

  The whiskey glass was in his hand before Thea had completed her full turn to face the bar again. He held up his glass to her, and she raised her wine glass.