Promising Peter (Bad Boy Alphas) (Shrew & Company Book 6) (10 page)

“I’m so used to seeing you there at the office,” Peter said. “Every time I go in there, you’re busy. Always so busy. You make your own work, don’t you? Figure out what to do and don’t wait on anyone to tell you what needs to be done.”

“Some people are just suited for that kind of work,” San mused.

Peter smoothed down Andrea’s hair at the temples. “I’m not. I wouldn’t know what to do. Wouldn’t know how to organize things or prioritize tasks. My job is easier in that one regard. I do one thing at a time and the order of business is predictable.”

“I couldn’t do a desk job either, but probably not for the same reasons. I don’t have the attention span. I need to be on my feet flitting about, lifting things, touching things. Making messes and cleaning them up, all in a five-minute period.”

“Not everyone gets to be the superhero, huh?”

“I don’t know, I’d say the dispatcher who sends an ambulance to you when you’re ill or hurt is as much of a hero as the man or woman who runs in with the stretcher and stethoscope.”

“True. I don’t know if she’d agree, though. She wanted to do more.”

“Or maybe she just thought she did.”

“Could be. I’m sure she gets lonely in that office when everyone’s gone. I bet she feels like she’s being left out.”

San laughed. “So get her an office puppy.”

He gave half a shrug and settled Andrea between his legs to lean her back against his front. “Not a bad idea. Maybe something small that can use the fenced courtyard behind the building during the day.”

“No. No no. A
bigger
dog. A nice, pathetic mutt that no one can make heads or tails of. A happy dog that’ll look out the window all day and chase a ball around the office.”

“The custodian is going to have a fit.”

“He’s getting paid, right? Give him a big tip at Christmas. He’ll get over the mess.”

“He probably will. He’s a pussycat.” Somewhat literally. He was one of the Were-catamounts from Patrick’s group. They didn’t have very many males, and what few they had were too young for the mate-seeking women. Patrick’s number two priority at the moment was to balance the group’s numbers. His number one priority, obviously, was to do whatever he could to protect his Cats from the fallout from the Bears. He’d been doing that in part by moving most willing cats into the Triangle. They hadn’t wanted to leave their homes in the mountains, but, new alpha, new rules. Most saw the benefit of living closer to their alpha’s home turf and only returning to the mountains during the full moon period each month. The few who didn’t relocate—only three—had moved on to other Cat groups.

San propped her knee onto the bed and leaned in to take Andrea’s left hand.

She turned it over in her palm and rubbed Andrea’s fingers briskly. “I just need a few drops of her blood to personalize this mix.”

Peter had never been the squeamish type, but he didn’t want to watch Andrea get hurt. He nodded, and then turned his head.

Moments later, San retreated.

“Never thought I’d ever see you settling down,” she said.

He shrugged again, but she couldn’t see him. She was on her knees in front of the chair and had her back turned to him. “I hadn’t given settling down any thought at all. Having a job like mine,” he said, “you don’t stop to think about mates and children when you’re as busy as I’ve been. And honestly, no one’s had to lock me up during mating season before this year.”

“Yes, well…a job like yours probably isn’t a good scenario for family men.”

“I
can
do other things, San.”

She stood and shrugged. “I’m sure you can. It’s not my place to say whether or not you should be doing them. Do you have any of her fur?”

Peter couldn’t quite catch on to San’s rapid change of subject. “
What
?”

“Her fur from when she was in her bear form. Some fur would make this poultice exponentially more efficient.”

“
Fur…
”

He didn’t want to give San a quick no, so he tried to think back on all the times he’d seen Andrea in her bear form in recent history.

There’d been a recent gathering in the mountains. Peter had dropped by for a moment to pick up some information from Bryan, and he’d been standing around chatting with the alpha. Andrea had lumbered past on four legs, squeezing between him and a tree, and accidentally brushing his leg.

He’d been wearing the same pants, and he hadn’t gotten around to doing laundry.

“Check the bottom of my left leg,” he said to San. “On the outside. There might be a little fur there, but some may be mine or other Bears’.”

“Won’t hurt anything if it is theirs. As long as I get some of hers, I’m happy. I need a bit of her hair, too. If you don’t mind…”

He let out a breath and ran his hand over Andrea’s hair again. “Would have been easier before she gave herself the haircut.”

“Too short to grip. A good thing in a fight, no?”

He grimaced. “Yes. It’s a good thing…for
that
.”

San scraped some fur off the fabric of his jeans with a small comb and then held out her hand.

He placed a couple of Andrea’s hairs with roots intact into San’s palm.

“This will only take a minute. Open her shirt for me. I need to get to her chest.”

He worked the buttons loose and splayed the plackets to expose her bony sternum.

He growled, and couldn’t help himself. His fangs dropped, skin pulsed with the drive to shift into his protective bear form, but he fought back the urge. The part of him that was beast wanted to take over the care of her because Peter-the-man wasn’t doing a good job. He was doing the best he could, and as
fast
as he could, but that wasn’t enough for the bear.

“Simmer down,” San said quietly.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.” She sat on the bedside and handed the bowl over to him. “Spread all of that onto her chest. Don’t leave any in the bowl.”

“Does the effectiveness change if I don’t do the application?”

“Doesn’t matter who smears the goop on. I’ve already said what I needed to say to it. Won’t make a difference if the mixture is spread by your fingers or mine, just don’t let it dry. I don’t want to start all over with that.”

With a shuddering exhalation, he got to work spreading the mixture. “What do you do after this?”

“I wait,” San said. “I’ll sit there in that chair. I’ll watch on my phone the television shows I’ve missed this week, and I’ll wait.”

He smeared some of the strong-smelling goop between Andrea’s breasts and up to her throat. “How long?”

San shrugged. “Like with any medicine, that depends on how fast her body realizes it’s there. You’ll know when the change happens. That’s all I can tell you. Are you sure you don’t want to just l—”

“Unless you enjoy getting snarled at, don’t tell me to leave. That’s a
very
unwise suggestion to make to a Bear during mating season.”

“Fine,” San said blithely. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind the next time I find myself doing a favor for a Bear.” She took the bowl from him when he finished spreading the mix and handed him a damp towel to clean his hands with.

Then she spread dry towels on either side of him and waved her hand across Andrea’s chest as if to dry the mud.

“And now we wait.” She took a step back and nodded solemnly. “Maybe you should try to nap. You may need the energy later.”

He grunted.

He didn’t think he’d be getting much sleep—not when he was programmed to keep watch. The actions weren’t compatible.

Drea was used to having some pretty bad luck, so she wasn’t particularly surprised that the next sensation to reach her in her unconscious state was burning. But different than like with the bear’s fire.

Her skin burned from beneath her chin all the way down to her navel. She wanted to scratch and claw at her torso, to get whatever the irritant was off her. She felt like her skin was disintegrating, that her muscles and bones were being liquefied, and she couldn’t even cry out—couldn’t shed any tears—because she still didn’t have dominion over her body. All she owned at the moment was pain.

And the bear was angry.

If you were better at living, they wouldn’t do this
, the bear said.
They’re doing this because you’re weak and can’t cope.

They’re doing this…because you won’t go away on your own,
Drea said.

This isn’t about me, stupid. I am what the goddess intended.

Drea doubted that, but didn’t have the energy to argue.

The Bear lore had always been that Big Bear—the being who’d created their race—made them to be in perfect harmony between their halves. The beasts were supposed to complement what made them human, and the human parts of them were supposed to temper the beasts’ wild urges. The combination of human and animal was meant to make them stronger—better stewards of Earth and the people who lived around them.

Drea was divergent. She was convinced of that, and she wasn’t going to let that anomaly she’d been living with since puberty make her feel otherwise. There was nothing normal about the inner war she was waging.

She dug deep and found a little strength. She had to trust that whatever Peter was doing was to help, not to harm. What was being done to her was certainly something that only the desperate did. Being split apart wasn’t supposed to feel good.

The bear dislodged from the mental doorway she’d been blocking, and suddenly, Drea could draw in enough air to scream.

She hurt.

I freaking hurt.

Every part of her body was a seared ruin, and her gut was so twisted that she retched. That hurt, too. Her body wanted her to expunge what was inside her.

She barely felt Peter’s thumps on her back. Her consciousness was so close to reintegrating with her body, but not quite there. All she felt was pain and nausea.

And…
love
.

That seemed to temper all the rest, so she reached for the love as if the emotion were a tangible thing and tried to spread it over her like a balm.

“Tomorrow, you’ll be smiling again, I promise,” Peter said. “You’ll survive this like every other thing.” He chuckled. “Maybe you’ll even survive
me
. Tamara seems to find that unlikely.”

She couldn’t respond. Her body was preoccupied, and even if it weren’t, her mind was too much of a scramble for her to formulate a cogent statement.

You stop this right now!
The bear was in her face, or at least seemed to be. The bear was stealing her air, keeping Drea from breathing.

You…wanted me dead
, Drea thought at the toxic thing.
Why do you care if you stay or if you go?

She wanted again to claw at her skin—claw out of her
body
if she could. She was really beginning to wonder if Peter
was
trying to harm her. She wasn’t feeling that love anymore—not through all the despair.

“Turn her over onto her side so she doesn’t choke,” came the stranger woman’s voice.

Peter must have because suddenly the tightness in her torso abated. The sting was still there, though. Pain coiled around every part of her, digging in and rooting out what didn’t belong.

The magic is coming after me
, she thought, but then she remembered it wasn’t the woman they meant to expunge, but the bear she’d never connected with.

You’ll regret this.
The bear’s admonition was weak, but the beast wasn’t giving up without a fight. Drea’s control over her body remained tentative, but she could open her eyes.

There were Peter’s legs stretched out on the bed. A towel covered with vomit.
Mine?
A dark-skinned woman kneeling beside the bed and peering at her.

Safe.
Drea read her quickly as neutral.

“Don’t let her make you think she’s gone,” the lady said quietly. “When the pain goes away, you’ll think we should stop, but she’s not gone until you feel the rip.”

“Rip?” Drea whispered.

The lady nodded. “You’ll know when you feel it, I suppose. She won’t be gone before that. If she were the type to quickly cut and run, she would have been gone an hour ago.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Damn shame she couldn’t have lent you some of that fortitude when you needed it, huh?”

Drea let out a breath and curled her fingers into the covers when another wave of pain crashed into her.

She felt like thousands of grappling hooks had notched into her skin and were being tugged from every possible direction. She hurt too much to even scream. All she could do was writhe and flail.

Peter yanked her up by the waist and clamped his arms around her torso, pinning her arms.

Still, she kicked her legs reflexively. Her nerves were overloaded and body moved on its own accord.

She didn’t understand why she wasn’t bleeding out because she certainly felt like her skin was being ripped from her body. There was no blood. Just puke, and she felt the compulsion to make a little more of that, too.

“Hold her as still as you can,” the lady said. She hurried across the room and from her bag, withdrew some herb—
sage
—and a lighter. She lit the stick and wafted the smoke toward Drea. She walked the smudge around the room, letting the scent pervade every corner.

“Why sage?” Peter asked.

“Whatever that thing is, it isn’t right,” the lady said. “I’m just making sure the being knows not to come back.”

“Come…back?” Drea asked. The thing hadn’t even left yet.

But then came the rip, breaking apart her head, neck, and torso, leaving her too broken to holler or even sob. All she could do was fade, because she had nothing left.

“Good riddance to you,” the lady said.

Drea didn’t know if the lady was talking to her or to the bear, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore, because she was certainly dead.

___

“Oops. Sorry.”

Drea opened her eyes to find herself in cool bathwater and Tamara pressing a washcloth toward her.

“Didn’t mean to splash you.”

Drea gripped the tub rail and tried to straighten up a little, but she didn’t have the strength. “What happened?”

“Um…” Tamara cringed and sat back onto her heels in her squat. “When Bryan and I returned with dinner, Peter was gripping you against his chest like a rag doll and staring blankly, and San was cleaning up around him. I think he’s in shock.”

“Why? Buyer’s remorse?”

Tamara snorted and popped the cap open on a bottle of shampoo. “Sit forward a little if you can.”

Drea leaned forward and let Tamara pour water over her head.

“I don’t imagine there are very many things that could frighten my brother, but I think for a moment, he worried they’d killed you. You were so limp and hot.”

“That’s why you have me in cold water?”

“You’re running a fever. Bears generally run hot, but…”

Drea pulled in a deep breath and closed her eyes as Tamara scrubbed her head. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” Drea scoured every corner of her brain checking for signs of her more animal side, but there was nothing there. No resistance, no hostility, no
nothing
. The bulk of her anxiety was gone, too. She could breathe. Really, truly breathe. She laughed. “She’s
gone
.”

Tamara cringed and rested her forearms atop the tub side. “Are you…
okay
?”

Drea nodded. She could even smile without crying for the first time in longer than she could remember. “Don’t worry about me. I think we did the right thing.”

“There’s no way to know what this means for you now. Genetically, you’re a Were-bear, but you don’t have a beast half anymore.”

“I’m sure Doc will figure out what’s what.”

Doc’s mission in life seemed to be figuring out what made the Shrews and their associated weirdoes tick. She’d been caring for Dana and her girls since they’d been involved in the drug trial that caused irreversible mutations to their DNA. The Shrews were honest-to-goodness super-heroines, though they tried as hard as they could to keep the public from finding out that their unique ability to problem-solve was because of supernatural skill sets.

Drea tipped her head back and let Tamara sluice water over her soapy hair.

“San seemed very mystified by what happened,” Tamara said.

“San?”

“The voodooienne. Witch, I guess.”

“Oh. Which part? Obviously, she knew what she was doing.”

“San?” Tamara called out.

The witch popped her head into the doorway. “You called?”

“You want to tell Drea what that
thing
was?”

Maybe Drea was a little wobbly, be she would have sworn her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. The woman had actually shuddered. That couldn’t have been a good sign, so Drea braced herself.

“Something that didn’t belong,” San said. “I felt the darkness when it started to claw you. Me and my mama, every lady on up the line of us—we’re all sensitive to them.”

“Sensitive to what?” Drea asked.

“Spirits and ghosts.”

“You think—”

“I
know
,” San said. “What I don’t know is whether or not that’s normal for your kind—if all your inner animals are just spirits that have attached to you. That thing you had was a nasty piece of work, I’ll tell you that. Be glad that it’s gone.”

“Could she ever come back?” Tamara asked.

San grunted and, crossing her arms, leaned against the doorway. “I don’t think so. She’s got to know that if she does return, we’ll get rid of her again, and I’m convinced she felt as much pain as Drea did. That thing won’t want to repeat the experience.”

“So, she’ll find some other shifter to inhabit?” Tamara asked.

“No way of knowing. If I’d been prepared, I could have done some things to banish it for good, but I’ve never worked this closely with a shifter.”

“I’m pretty sure my father would like to collect your thoughts on this,” Tam said. “He’s a bit of a scholar on these sorts of things.”

“Have him call me. I have plenty of questions of my own.”

Drea took the cloth and scrubbed her face. “I’m so hungry.”

“Good.” San chuckled. “Peter told us before he left to make sure you ate.”

Drea dropped the cloth. “Where’d he go?” She didn’t want to believe that after everything, her mate had given up on her.
Maybe he changed his mind about having mate who’s no longer a shifter.

Tamara groaned and muttered something in what was probably Romanian. “He and Bryan went after Gene. We’ve been canvassing his known family members and associates, and got over to his mother and put the fear of Jesus into her. Kindly, of course. She didn’t give us a whole lot of information, but that small connection helped one of the psychics we work with to finally get a read on him. Our sources in the area confirmed he’s there.”

Drea pulled the stopper from the tub with her big toe and looked around the small bathroom for a towel. “I gotta go.”

“Um,
no
. You stay here and rest, or I’ll drive you back to North Carolina and you can rest at your own place.”

“I can’t just—” Drea gripped the tub rail futility.

Tamara had her hands on Drea’s shoulders and was keeping her firmly in place.

“You
can
,” Tamara said. “Just like I can. Sure, I’d prefer to be assisting Bryan. I’m not an easy woman to kill, after all, and I certainly have no affection for Gene whatsoever after all he’s done. But sometimes, you have to divide and conquer. Soren and Eric are meeting them up there.”

“But you don’t understand. Peter’s my
mate
, and he left before—”

“Ah.” Tamara took her hands away and let her breath out in a sputter. “Spare me the details. We’re talking about
my
brother. But…I imagine you’re feeling a little feral, perhaps?”

Drea grimaced. “Maybe more than a little.”

“Well. You’ll have to wait. You’ll be a distraction.”

“I don’t want to be a distraction, and I don’t want to get in the way.”

“I seriously doubt he’s going to forget about you in a couple of days. If anything, he’ll work faster so he could get to you.”

“And how do you feel about him
getting
to me?”

Tamara shrugged. “I already slapped him once. I’ll probably slap him again. I’m not going to get in your way, Drea. We just wanted him to wait.”

“I don’t know if he could have. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to. I think I feel what he was feeling now. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s the truth. Me knowing where he is right now scares me. I need to be near him.”

Tamara grinned and leaned sideways a bit so Drea could reach the towel San was holding out. “More power to you. Just let him do his job and don’t think too much about what he had to do when you see him again.”

Drea stood with Tamara’s help and tucked the towel around her torso. “I don’t want to think about what they’re doing, but I hope they make Gene hurt. I hate feeling like that—so petty and vengeful, but…”

She stumbled a little as she stepped over the tub side, but San was there to grab her arm.

“You’re entitled to feel like that,” Tamara said. “All of the Ridge Bears are. Gene ran roughshod over the entire clan and left few people unscathed. He took a special interest in you and punished you for every perceived slight because he couldn’t have you.”

Tamara and San led Drea out of the bathroom and gave her some clean clothes. They looked new. Perhaps Tamara had brought them back along with food.

“Don’t feel guilty about being angry,” San said. “There’s nothing inherently bad about anger. Anger gets a bad rap sometimes. What you have to be careful of is becoming consumed by the anger.” She tapped Drea’s temple lightly. “Don’t let it cloud your thoughts or impel you to act without consideration.”