“Don’t need it, or don’t want it?”
Nell made an exasperated noise. “Goddess, this is why I don’t go out with bears anymore. All of you think you’re so big and strong, so you expect everyone to do what you say. I have news, grizzly.” She tapped his chest. “I’m plenty strong myself. Plenty strong without you. Without anyone.”
Cormac looked down at the fiery woman poking his chest. She truly believed what she said.
Eric had told him, Nell’s been alone since she got here, finding every excuse not to connect. She’d gone out with other Shifters and a few humans, but nothing had come of it, no matter how hopeful the male might have been.
Cormac had searched the country for Nell and her cubs, and he wasn’t about to stop now that he’d found them. He had a mission to fulfill, one too long in the making.
“I can see that you’re a big, strong woman on your own,” Cormac said. “Where are you heading, by the way? Or are you just walking around in a snit?”
The flash in her eyes could have burned down a building. “I’m doing my job. I look in on the females and cubs we rescued to make sure they’re all right. They went through a rough time.”
“Shane said something about them being taken from a Shifter in Mexico?”
“Yep. An un-Collared Shifter mate-claimed these females and kept them sequestered in the basement of an abandoned factory. Trying to set up his own little Shiftertown. Eric’s sister Cassidy with her mate Diego, Diego’s brother, and Reid and Shane, rescued them. The poor cubs the Shifter fathered on the females never saw the light of day until they were brought here. They’re still traumatized.” The lines around her eyes relaxed. “But getting better.”
“Because of you.”
“Because of me, and Cassidy, and Iona, and others helping out. I’m not some Lady Bountiful. Like I said, I’m just doing my job.”
“Sure you are.” Cormac grinned at her.
Nell growled, the rumble of an annoyed she-bear, before she turned her back on him and kept walking.
Cormac followed, chuckling to himself. Nell was prickly, but he’d get past her spines. He’d made the promise. Just because his old clansman was in the Summerland—the afterlife—and couldn’t hear him didn’t matter.
Nell headed for a house that didn’t look much different from any of the others around it. The house had a long back porch with a sliding glass door that looked into a kitchen and family room. A cluster of kids—six, seven?—were sitting around a table in the family room. One of the cubs jumped up when he saw them and slid open the patio door.
“Aunt Nell!” the cub shouted, and flung his arms around her waist.
Nell rumpled the little boy’s hair as she hugged him back. He was a bear cub, brown bear possibly, though Cormac found it hard to tell bears other than grizzlies until they shifted.
“How are you, Donny?” Nell asked.
Donny started to open his mouth and eagerly answer, but then he caught sight of Cormac behind her. The other cubs at the table, who’d been digging into a pile of breakfast, also froze, forks and spoons halfway to their mouths.
Donny ripped himself from Nell and fled blindly to the kitchen, where he dove into the small space between refrigerator and kitchen wall. He squeezed himself as far into the shadows as he could and cowered there, making whimpering noises.
Two of the other kids started to yowl, the remaining three sitting motionless with terror.
Nell raised her hands. “No, it’s all right. He’s not—”
A female bear Shifter, as tall as but not as curvaceous as Nell, ran into the room, her eyes wide in a fear not far removed from Donny’s. A man followed her—a tall, thin man with black hair and eyes so dark they looked as though they’d sucked the blackness of every moonless night into them. His scent slammed its way into Cormac’s nose and triggered a primal and long-buried instinct.
Cormac snarled, his hands sprouting the razor claws of his grizzly. He had to fight to keep himself from changing to the beast, the best form in which to fight the . . .
“Fae,” he spat. “You have a Fae here—with cubs?”
“Dokk alfar,” the tall man said immediately. “Dark Fae. Not high Fae.”
“What the hell is the difference?” Cormac’s rage surged. He shouted at Nell, “What is he doing here? Why hasn’t someone killed him yet?”
“This is Stuart Reid,” Nell said, cutting across his words. “It’s his bedroom you’re taking over, so show some gratitude.”
“This is the Reid you said was living in your house? Are you insane?”
Nell put her hands on her shapely hips. “You are the one terrorizing the cubs at the moment, not Reid. Stifle it.” She turned to the kids at the table, her body language relaxed so they’d calm down. “It’s all right. This isn’t Miguel. He won’t hurt you. I promise he won’t, because if he does, I’ll smack him over the head with a frying pan.”
The girl cubs at the table started to giggle. The males, more wary, didn’t laugh, but they settled a little, forks moving back to pancakes. Only Donny stayed wedged beside the refrigerator, the scent of his terror sharp. This feral bear—Miguel—must have scared the shit out of him.
Poor kid. Sympathy made Cormac withdraw his claws, shutting away the in-between beast. Whatever nefarious reason had brought the Fae here wasn’t as important as reassuring the cubs. Cubs came first.
“You see what you’re doing?” Nell said to Cormac as the other female Shifter went to coax Donny out from behind the refrigerator. “You charge in here unannounced and scare the cubs half to death. Where did you learn to be Shifter?”
“From myself,” Cormac said. “I had to raise myself, in the wilds of northern Wisconsin. Been alone since I was about an eight-year-old cub.” Not much older than these kids.
The female Shifter looked around. “Since you were a cub?”
“Yep. My parents were killed by hunters, and it was just me left. I had to learn to get by on my own. Never even saw another Shifter for almost a decade and a half after that.”
Nell stared at him in shock that Cormac pretended to ignore. He didn’t want to win her on the pity card. But it had been rough, a bear cub wandering by himself not sure whether he was beast or human.
“The blessings of the Goddess on you,” the female Shifter said. “I’m Peigi. This Fae, as you call him, helped rescue me and the other females Miguel had stolen, plus all our cubs. So Stuart’s welcome in my house.”
Hmm. The Fae man looked defiant, and Cormac decided to let it go for now. Weird shit happened in Shiftertowns, and Shane had indicated that Reid and Peigi were now a couple.
“In case everyone was wondering, this is Cormac,” Nell said. “He’s a grizzly, he moved to this Shiftertown, he thinks he needs a mate, and he thinks that mate is me.”
The whole room perked up. Donny finally came out from his hiding place, though he stayed behind Peigi.
One of the girls at the table said, “Are you going to have a mating ceremony, Aunt Nell? I love mating ceremonies. I can’t wait until mine.”
“That’ll be years from now,” Donny scoffed from behind Peigi’s legs. “Aunt Nell is much, much older than you, so she’ll have to have hers right away.”
“Do we get to dance in the inner circle?” the girl-cub asked. “I know Aunt Nell’s not our real aunt, but she takes care of us, and we’re practically family.”