Freakn' Shifters Bundle (3-in-1) (2 page)

Ethan slumped on the bench in the change room, ignoring the ribald behavior around him after yet another foregone win. A hard slap on the rear of his head roused him and he whirled, his lip curled back as he growled menacingly.

“Don’t you dare show me your teeth,” Javier warned with a dark look. He ran his hand through hair, already tousled and sweaty from the match. “What the fuck happened out there? I passed you the perfect shot, and instead of grabbing it and scoring, you crashed into the goddamn arena glass. What are you, a rookie? Been watching too many Bugs Bunny cartoons?”

Heat burned Ethan’s cheeks in remembrance of his mishap before dejection—along with a large dose of disbelief—quickly set back in. “I missed. It happens and besides, it’s not like we needed the point to win.”

“Of course we didn’t,” Javier replied with a scoffing snort. “But it’s the point of it. What the hell distracted you so much? And, why do you look like your best friend died, which, I might add, is an impossibility given I’m standing right beside you.” Javier grinned.

“I think I found my mate,” Ethan muttered. A true beauty with light skin, a perfect oval face framed by long, brown hair and the most perfect set of rosebud lips.

Javier’s face expressed shock, then glee. “Congrats, dude.” Javier slapped him hard on the back, and while the blow might have killed a human or a smaller species, it didn’t even budge Ethan. “I know you’ve been pining to settle down with someone of the fairer sex. You must be ecstatic.”

“Not really.” Although he should have been. Finding one’s mate was a one in a zillion chance given how shifters were scattered across the globe. Most never even came close to finding the one fate deemed their perfect match.

His friend’s jovial grin subsided. “What’s wrong? Was she, like, butt ugly? Humongous? Old? Surely she can’t be that bad?”

“No, she appears perfect. Or did.” Ethan groaned as banged his head off the locker door. “I am so screwed.”

A frown creased Javier’s face. “I don’t get it. I thought you wanted to find
the one
, you sick bastard. Settle down and pop out cubs.” Ethan looked up in time to see Javier’s mock shudder. “Me, I prefer to share my love among as many women as possible.” Javier mimed slapping an ass then humping it with a leering grin.

Ethan didn’t smile at Javier’s attempt at humor even if it happened to be the truth. Javier certainly enjoyed variety where the other sex was concerned. Heck, on many an occasion he’d shared with Ethan. Tag team sessions where they both scored. Best friends who did just about everything together.

Blowing out a long sigh, Ethan answered him. “I do want to find my mate, actually, I’m pretty sure I already have, but I don’t think I made a great impression. She’s the one they took out on the stretcher after the ball I missed hit her in the face.”

Javier winced. “Ouch. Sucks to be you, my friend. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure she’ll forgive you in, like, fifty years.”

Ethan groaned and dropped his head back into his hands.
Now that I’ve found her, how do I discover who she is so I can beg her forgiveness?

And even worse, how the hell do I act the part of suitor?

Raised in the Alaskan wilds by a father who wasn’t all there after the death of Ethan’s mother, his education in social niceties was sadly lacking. He tended to speak with his fists more often than not. Lucky for him, when it came to women, he didn’t usually have to do a thing.  Females tended to approach him for sex so they could brag afterward that they’d ridden the Kodiak and survived. Not that Ethan would ever hurt a female, even if his idea of flirty conversation usually consisted of “Suck me harder” and “Bend over.” 
If I add “darling” on the end, will she count it as sweet talk?

Actually, he should probably preface anything he said with a humungous sorry. Make that a few thousand apologies given the hit she’d suffered proved spectacular enough to make the crowd “Ooh” in harmony.

Perhaps he panicked over nothing. After all, the woman his inner bear chuffed was his mate had attended a lacrosse game. Shouldn’t that imply she knew the risks? That she didn’t mind a bit of blood and violence? Besides, as a shifter, she’d heal quickly. He could only pray and hope his pragmatism ended up as reality.

As for the whole courting thing, if fate deemed the woman his perfect match, then surely his intended wouldn’t let something like his lack of manners deter her from giving in to the inevitable.
Then again, I could always resort to my dad’s tactics which involve throwing her over my shoulder and dragging her back to the woods for some loving, mountain man style.

He was getting ahead of himself though, because for all he knew he worried over nothing. Chances were she couldn’t wait to meet him as well. Most female shifters—or so he’d heard—lived for the day they encountered their mate.
And lucky her, she’s found me.

His inner pep talk didn’t entirely banish his unease as he stripped out of the rest of his equipment. The after game ritual, though, calmed him and a plan formed in his mind.

“I need to find out who she is,” he told Javier as he entered the shower room with the rest of the team. “If they had to take her out on a stretcher, then chances are someone knows her name.”

“Good for you, my friend, for not giving up in the face of obvious adversity. And because I am such a good friend, I shall come with you when you visit her so I might laugh when the female retaliates against you for messing up her face.”

Javier flew backward with the force of the punch Ethan laid on him. Rubbing his jaw, his friend glared up at him. “That wasn’t very nice.”

Ethan snarled. “Maybe if you hadn’t thrown the ball so damned hard, I wouldn’t be in this position in the first place. I’m glad you find my situation so goddamned funny.”

Jumping to his feet, Javier raised his fists. “Alright, my friend. Let’s go. You obviously need to work off some tension, might as well do it now. Think of your coming beating as a courting favor because I’m going to give you some black eyes to match those of your mate.”

“I’d like to see you try.” With a feral grin, Ethan lumbered at his friend, paws swinging as the other players in the shower room scattered.

Old habits died hard
,
and when it came to working out frustration, the easiest route still involved violence. Ethan refused to view it as stalling out of fear. Kodiak bears feared nothing, especially not one fated female. But just in case, perhaps once he de-stressed, he would pick up flowers, or buy a whole damned floral shop for her.

*

Naomi, ensconced on the sturdy family couch, held the ice pack to her throbbing face and listened with only half an ear as her family fought. Francine—the crowing and snickering bitch—had escaped and left her to the
tender
mercies of her family.

“I’ll teach that fucking lacrosse player to not pay attention to the game and let our sister get hurt,” Derrick ranted punching his fist into the palm of his other hand.

“I say we hunt bloody forty-four and sixty-nine down. Let’s tie their asses up and whip some rubber balls at their face and see how they like it,” yelled Stu. “Who’s with me?” A chorus of cheers met his plan.

“Naomi should have been paying attention to the play.” That came from Chris who followed up his statement with an “Oomph” as someone took offence at his criticism.

Chris, only a year older than her and most often the victim of her mood swings as the slowest brother, always held the least amount of sympathy for her. And yet, despite his words, he would stand first in line to kick the ass of anyone who ever intentionally hurt her.

On and on the bickering went, peppered with the occasional shove and slap.

When the noise level began to make, her already throbbing head, ache even worse, she lobbed the ice pack at her nearest brother with unerring accuracy, clocking him hard upside the head. Instant silence settled on the room as six pairs of eyes swiveled to look at her.

“If you’re all done arguing, I’d like to go home now,” she stated quietly. Her looming brothers and father all took a step back, her calm words a warning they knew all too well. She rose from the couch, her short and curvy, five foot four frame taut. The room spun and nausea made her stomach roil.

“Now, baby girl,” her father began in a placating tone. “You should lie back down. The doc said you’ve got a concussion.”

“Which is already healing,” she interrupted. “Shifter blood, remember?” One of the advantages of owning Lycan blood was the ability to heal quicker than humans. Of course, quicker didn’t mean instant, so while she waited, she’d still suffer some discomfort.

“Still,” her father continued bravely. “The doctor said we should keep an eye on you, just in case you faint or something before your body has a chance to fully cure the problem.”

Naomi crossed her arms over her chest, resisting an urge to sit before her trembling legs gave out. “Are you trying to tell me I can’t go home?” She arched a brow and her father swallowed.

Chris rolled his eyes. “Oh, let her go. If she wants to cause a car accident and maybe kill some hapless pedestrian by being pig headed and driving herself home, then let her.”

The heated glare she shot Chris’s way made her head spin. Worse, her brother stuck his tongue out knowing she didn’t feel well enough to make him hurt for it. “If I weren’t a lady, I’d kick your scrawny little ass,” she muttered. She ignored the snickers and the whispered, “Since when is she a lady’ comment that followed her words only because of her throbbing head.

A sigh escaped her as her brother’s truthful words battled her stubborn nature. Much as she hated giving in to their no driving order—well-intentioned or not—she wouldn’t operate a motor vehicle if she could prove a danger to others. “Fine, so if I can’t drive myself, then who is taking me home?”

Six pairs of eyes found the ceiling suddenly intensely interesting.

Irritation made her lips draw tight. “Oh, come on. Surely one of you idiots can handle my car?”

Kendrick cleared his throat before speaking. “Um, the last time Mitchell drove your car, you almost castrated him because he didn’t shift it to your satisfaction. You told us never to touch your car again, or else.”

Naomi blew out a breath.
Pussies.
How could they blame her for taking offence at the brutish manner with which they drove her baby? They’d deserved each, and every, smack.  And then, they had the nerve to wonder why she wanted to get away from the shifters and their violence. They bloody well drove her to it.

“I am not staying here.” Not with her mother due home within the hour from work. Once her mom walked through that door, Naomi would be lucky if she got to leave a bed within the next three days. The men in her family might fear their baby sister even as they coddled her, but everyone obeyed their mother. Nobody owned the balls not to.

The doorbell rang and as one, her family dove to answer, leaving her alone. Naomi shook her head.
Afraid of little old me? Good.

Not interested in the caller, Naomi walked with ginger steps so as to not jostle her aching head into the kitchen to look for some alcohol. The Tylenol she’d taken, twelve pills so far, had done almost nothing for her pain. Banned from driving and lacking a chauffeur, she might as well get a little drunk, a plan forgotten as the snarls started from the front of the house.

“Now what?” she grumbled as she stalked toward the fracas, lancing pain rousing her temper.

A wall of brothers stood between her and the menacing growls of her daddy, which ran counterpoint to some unknown deeper rumble and a more feline yowl—both which sent shivers skating down her spine, and not the unpleasant kind.

A few well-placed elbows and she’d shoved  her way to the front of the crowd to find her father facing off, nose to nose,  with non-other than the behemoth from the lacrosse match. She’d have recognized him anywhere seeing as how not too many Kodiak bears chose to live near civilization. And damn, but up close like this he appeared even larger than expected, completely towering over her and wider than logic dictated a male should be.

Seven foot and a bit of bristling bear stood at her front door, and not just any bear, but one who’d injured her. No wonder her canine family acted so agitated. Actually, so was she for that matter and not just because of the ball she’d almost swallowed, her wolf started spinning in circles inside her head with excitement and Naomi didn’t like it one freakn’ bit. It didn’t help that this close to the behemoth, awareness lit up all the nerves in her body, and an inhalation of his scent sent moist heat to her cleft.
Oh, like hell is this hulking bear my bloody mate.

Squeezing herself between her father and number forty-four, she jabbed her finger into his chest. She might as well have poked a brick wall because the flesh of his chest didn’t give one iota. On the other hand, that brief contact sent a sizzling bolt through her system.

Failed poke or not, it did, however, catch his attention. Brown eyes broke off their staring match with her father and rotated down to peer at her. He inhaled deep as he stared at her, increasing the tingle that ran through her body like an electric jolt. It fired up more than her cleft—it sparked her ire.