Page 27

Kieran

Winners are grinners, right? I was grinning right now. Winning a silly race wasn’t enough to have me smiling. Well, not since high school, but right now? I felt like I’d won the one hundred metre sprint on sports day, with the whole school looking on, but no school boy medal could compete with her.

“I think this is the first time I’ve ever won a trophy.” Harper seemed completely transfixed by the gaudy thing. She shot me a sidelong look. “We won.”

“You won.” I nudged her with my hip, right as the dads reappeared with beers in hand. “If you hadn’t let me know Cole was on my arse?—”

“You would’ve won anyway?” Her eyebrow slowly curved upwards. “The bear had it covered. Those wild instincts would’ve kicked in, let you know someone was on your tail.”

“The bear was moving at top speed to impress you.” My arm went around her waist, tugging her closer. “The whole concept of a race makes no sense to him whatsoever. Running around an oval when there’s no prey in sight?” I shook my head. “Not worth the calories it burns. But you…”

I slowly drew her closer because the bear and I were in complete agreement. We would win all the trophies, if that’s what it took to keep Harper happy. My hand went out to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear and her smile faded, something quiet and real replacing it.

“He’s already racking my brain, trying to work out how to get more gold things for you so we can lay them at your feet.”

It was just a joke, so why did she suck in a breath, frown slightly, the expression there and gone again? A blink, then another, her lips parted, ready to explain, when my dad had to come and bust up the conversation.

“Beer.” Dad thrust a bottle between my fingers. “And for the lady.”

“Um… thanks, Jim,” she said.

“Fred,” Dad corrected, “but now you’re a part of the family…” I shot him a frantic look, praying to all the bear gods that he would shut the hell up. “You can just call me Dad.”

“Da…?”

When Harper took a hasty gulp of her beer, I knew what was happening. The bear flexed inside me, forcing me to stand taller. I loved my fathers, the bond unbreakable, but I’d force it to flex, stress, even break, if that’s what it took to win Harper.

“Might be a bit early for that, Dad,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. Not that it mattered, because the rest of my fathers came to join us, with several other bear shifters in tow.

“Harper!” Jim walked over and then clinked his beer bottle with hers. “Well done, winning the race.”

“But I didn’t?—”

“Have you met Dane and Aspen?”

Dad shoved the guys forward, all my fathers’ eyes on the two other bear shifters, watching their every response.

And ignoring mine.

My jaw clenched tightly, my fangs sprouting from my gums, as an unfamiliar feeling rode me.

Dane was OK. We were in the same year at school.

Not friends, but he was definitely a stand up guy, but Aspen?

Ass-Pen was the nickname we’d given him when younger, and damn me if he wasn’t wearing the same cocky fuckboy look.

“Harper, was it?” the dick asked, reaching for her hand.

That had a growl rattling in my chest. My dads, Dane, everyone else fell away as I stepped forward, putting myself in between him and Harper. He did not get to look her up and down, tracing her curves with his eyes. The bear proposed bloody mayhem, no, murder, in more and more violent detail until…

A small hand landed on my back, rubbing small circles there, and that helped dispel the red haze in my head. I sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. That had the bear slowly backing down, helping me regain my cool.

“I don’t think now is the time to introduce Harper to other bear shifters.” Everyone moved aside as Mum stepped forward. “Lovely to see you, boys, but I think this is a family only celebration.”

“Nice to meet you, Harper,” Ass-Pen said with a nod and a sly grin, only beating a hasty retreat when I bared my fangs at him.

“Calm down, Bear Boy.” That voice, that amused tone, had me turning around, only to see Harper standing there, a hand on her hip.

“I mean, if you wanna get all furry again, I won’t complain.

” She looked pointedly at my arms where the blond fur was pushing through.

“Those little ears…” Her hands made a grabby motion. “I could scratch them for hours.”

“He’d let you.” I was trying to keep shit light and fun, make Harper think that every day would be silly races and gold- painted plastic trophies. “He’d let you do any damn thing you wanted and start kicking his back leg as you did so.”

“Like bury my face in that floofy belly?” she asked, her eyes widening. “No, sleep on it. You could stretch out and I could snuggle into all that fur as we stared up at the sky, watching the stars shift in the sky.”

“If that’s what you want.”

Anything, that’s what I wanted to say. Literally anything. I’d fight a polar bear in human form, hold off a million black bears if she’d spare me a second look. Whatever she wanted, needed, I was her guy. I always would be, but I couldn’t say that right now, so I just smiled down at her.

“Sold.” She clinked her beer with mine, which apparently had us formalising an agreement.

Just not the one I wanted. “Now, is there a little bear’s room around here?

” Harper glanced around the tent, looking over the heads of half the bear shifter community.

“All this excitement is a bit much for my bladder.”

“This way.”

Getting Harper away from the tent, away from the noise, was a relief.

My dads watched us walk away, thoughtful looks in their eyes, but I’d deal with them later.

Out here there were plenty of families having a good time at the fair, but their presence was far off, giving us a little space.

The quiet needed to be filled though, which was perhaps why I opened my mouth at the same time as she did.

“So—”

“Did—?”

I snorted, and she smiled at me as we stopped halfway between the tent and the toilet block.

“Did you have fun?” I asked.

“I did.” Her hands went to her hips. “But are you going to explain why your dads were trying to pimp me out to those bear shifters?”

“I…”

There was nothing stopping me from confessing what the dads were up to. I wasn’t about to cover for their hang ups, but right as my lips started to move, a strange scent had my nose whipping up, scenting the wind.

This was a shifter school, so the air was filled with the scent of bears, foxes, big cats, even dragon shifters, but this…? Not all wolf shifters stunk. Mack smelled like motor oil, the expensive sandalwood cologne he wore, and some other ineffable thing I associated with home.

But them…?

My arm shot out as I saw dark shapes move in the shadows. I had Harper behind me moments later, the bear already pushing forward. Not to lope around the oval, but in my fangs and claws, each one ready to tear them apart.

“That you, Kieran?” Joker, that wasn’t the name his mother had given him, but the sly smile, the way his eyes showed way too much white, made clear the nickname fit him. “And all by yourself?” He looked around conspicuously. “Where’s Mackie boy?”

“Home, licking his nuts until you come home to take over, right?”

Vinnie talked big for a weaselly looking fucker. He was a wolf shifter, just, but that narrow face, the way his eyes twitched as they tried to look everywhere at once, made him look more like a rat than anything.

“Not here.” Gray was the really scary one, stepping out into the light and then smiling. “Plenty of bear stink, but no pussy cat.”

I stepped forward, arms crossed.

“Pretty sure there’s plenty of pussies here,” I replied.

There was a reason why Mack was reluctant to join our sleuth, and it was standing right here in front of me. The wolf shifter community weren’t all arseholes, but his family and their circle sure as hell were.

“The fuck you say—” Vinnie said, rushing forward, but Gray threw out a hand, stopping him from getting any closer.

“One in particular.” The way his eyes shone in the artificial light had me snarling, every muscle tensing. He breathed deeply, scenting the air like a snooty guy might a glass of fine wine. “Smells ripe… fertile.”

This was the moment when I lost control.

What was splendid isolation moments before was a vulnerability now.

The bear, he was sizing everything up, the way he had the competition in the race.

But now he was assessing each wolf shifter, the buildings around us and the distant passers-by, working out what he had to take out to keep Harper safe.

Only for her to shoulder forward.

“I’m sorry, but who the fuck are you?” No one she needed to worry herself about, but no words came out of me, just a strangled growl. “And are you smelling me?”

“Ohh… now I see why Bear Boy is all hot under the collar.” Gray’s grin was sharp as he scanned Harper’s form. Too close, my heart beat. Too intent. “And who are you, pretty?”

No. The bear and I were one, picking Harper up and throwing her over our shoulder before we faced the lot of them down.

“The minute anyone finds out you’re on school grounds, every fucking first responder who sprouts fur will converge here to get a piece of you.” I forced myself to grin slowly. “If there’s anything left.”

“The fuck?—”

Joker lunged forward, but Gray and Vinnie held him back.

“Leave Teddy with his play thing.” I fucking hated the way he stared at Harper’s butt as her heels kicked at my chest, trying to get down.

“We’ll be around when Mack rejects her. Girl that smells like that.

” This is why I needed my sleuth around me.

Together we would’ve smashed these idiots into the ground, plucking out their eyeballs for daring to look twice at Harper. “She can be real useful. C’mon.”

The fact they turned tail and ran off was the only reason I didn’t lose control completely. Instead, I placed Harper on the ground, taking in her flustered face and outraged expression right before I pulled her close.

“I need to get you out of here, now, Harper.”

“After I pee.” She stabbed a finger in my face. “Then we are going to talk about what the hell that was. Smell me…”

As she strode over to the toilet block, I was forced to follow hot on her heels. Mack was going to lose his shit when I let him know what happened tonight, but right now, he’d need to get in line.