Page 50 of There’s a Way (Mythic Beast #2)

Micca

When the bikers throw a huge party, people come and go throughout the day. It’s kid-friendly while the sun is up, with some organized games for the kids here and there, and often a bouncy house for them along with other kids’ games.

Things change when the sun goes down. I used to stay for the adult portion of the evening back when I occasionally had my fun fucking Dawg until I could barely walk for days , but I wasn’t interested in staying late anymore.

I arrived with my men around one, when it officially started at noon.

Usually, the men end up around the grill while the women sit at tables and drink while they take turns overseeing the little kids.

Everyone keeps an eye on the older kids from a distance, mostly just making sure they don’t do stupid shit that hurts someone.

But Gabby took me and Horse to the woods, handed me a blanket, pulled Horse down so she could give him a quick kiss, and she left.

“I take it she thinks we need to talk?”

“Nathan thinks your bear needs time with mine. Not necessarily in bear form, though I think we need to plan for that, but he thinks we just need some skin time and talk time.”

We opened the blanket and spread it over what looked like a soft section of ground under the trees, and Horse took his shirt off, sat so he was leaned against a great big oak, and held his arms out to me.

But I hesitated.

He smiled and told me, “Nothing sexual because I know you’re monogamous with your guys. Just some skin time while you tell me where you and your bear are.”

I was wearing a crop top, so my arms and side were skin-on-skin with him, and I had to admit it felt good. Not sexual, but it fed me, somehow. Energy, maybe? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t argue that my bear settled, when she hadn’t really been agitated.

“I go to my place at least once a week and sleep in the woods. I feed her good food, both in bear form and when I’m human.

” I sighed. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember to eat when I’m at work.

I finally set an alarm on my phone to remind me, because I get lost in projects sometimes.

I’m working on that. She gets grumbly at me when I just eat protein bars all day. ”

“Does she get to spend time with your men?”

I shook my head. “I can’t really change at Will’s place because of the risk of someone having a drone up, watching us from outside the property, and I guess I hadn’t thought about inviting them to maybe spend the night with me when I’m the bear.

I wouldn’t want to sleep with them. Bran said it isn’t safe, with humans.

It isn’t likely I could turn them with a scratch, but it’s possible, and I won’t risk that. ”

“You’re the bear inside in your home, though. Right?”

“Yeah, but I have lever doorknobs, so I can go outside if I need to.”

“I know a werewolf plumber who can come put a toilet in that your bear can use. I mean, it’s the same size as a human toilet, but it’ll be able to handle your weight.

Talk to Will about which bathroom you’re mostly likely to use as the bear at his place, and then we can put a toilet into it.

Maybe have Will put a big cushion down in a couple of rooms for you, so your bear can chill in his house.

Everyone who lives there knows about you, right? ”

“Yes. The cleaning crew doesn’t, but his house manager is a lioness, so she knows.

Those are the only people who can come and go.

His manager and producer can get onto the property, through the gate, but they don’t have access into the house.

We know when the cleaning crew is due to arrive, though, so that should be workable. ”

Horse has a huge underground house with plenty of acreage, and he invited me to come spend a day and night as our bears, exploring his property and having general bear-fun. My bear doesn’t often have an opportunity to play in an actual creek during the day, so I was looking forward to it.

Eventually, we went back to the party, and he went to stand around the grill with the men. I noted that Will shook Horse’s hand, and I tuned in to hear what was said. “Micca’s smiling. She wasn’t before. I don’t understand the connection the two of you have, but thanks for being there for her.”

“She’s important to Matty, and Matty is important to Razor, who’s my brother. You’re important to us as well because of your connection to Ghost and Hailey. No thanks needed.”

Matty considers himself an ol’lady in the social structure, which means he was sitting at a picnic table with the women, and Davy was with him. My boy motioned for me to sit between him and Matty, and I greeted the rest of the ol’ladies at the table.

Davy never drinks enough to get drunk, and now that I’m a shifter, I can’t get drunk unless I do a dozen or more shots of serious alcohol one after another without pause, but we had a fun evening just hanging out and talking.

Eventually, there were paintball wars, but I just watched and didn’t join in.

I stood with my men and cheered the women’s team while they cheered the men’s team.

Today, the men’s team won, but it was close, down to Harmony and Brain being the last two.

I kind of figured they’d call it eventually, but they didn’t, and Brain finally managed to get behind Harmony and make a big blue paintball splat between her shoulder blades.

“OH! Shoot me in the back!” She lifted her gun and shot him a half-dozen times, so his entire chest was pink, but he only walked to her, leaned her back, and kissed her like she was oxygen and he’d been underwater for days.

When he let her up, she turned to us and shrugged. “I mean, if he wasn’t better than me, I’d have escaped his ass and we wouldn’t be together. So, I guess there’s that.”

Most everyone laughed, but I had no idea what she was talking about.

I made a mental note to ask Matty about it later, and then I went with the group to put together another plate of food.

My bear loves these get-togethers. The bikers always cook a whole pig, and they have people who excel at the process.

We left about an hour after the paintball games concluded, and Davy asked me almost right off the bat, “What did Harmony mean about escaping Brain?”

“I have no idea. We should invite Razor and Matty over one night this week and ask them.” While we were talking about invitations, I said, “I’d planned on going home Sunday night.

Why don’t the two of you come over Sunday afternoon, and I can fix dinner for all of us, and once my food settles, maybe the two of you can spend the evening with my bear?

Ya’ll can have my bed, and I’ll spend the night in the woods, then we can have breakfast the next morning before Davy and I have to go to work? ”

“Oh, I’d love to see your bear again, Sir!” Davy said. “How do you know when to wake up and come inside when you have to be at work early?”

“Outdoor speaker, so if I set an alarm on the kitchen clock, it goes to the speaker. Razor set it up for me, and Matty made it play The Bear Went Over the Mountain the first time, and I guess it kind of stuck. When Matty wants Razor’s attention, he plays When Doves Cry .

Razor often flies too far away to hear it, but when he gets back and hears it, he goes straight to Matty to see what he needs. ”

“I’d like to see Razor turn into a raven,” Davy said. “He’s so big, it’s hard for me to imagine.”

“You should talk to Matty or Razor about that,” I told him. “Because I’m not going to have that conversation with Razor.”

“It’s just, I mean, you’re kind of small and you turn into this thousand-pound grizzly bear, and he’s huge and he turns into a little bird.”

“Bran weighed my bear and she was four hundred and seventy pounds, far from a thousand, but I get your point.”

And yes, that’s about a hundred pounds heavier than most grizzly females, but I was bitten by a fucking huge grizzly who happens to be possibly the most powerful grizzly on the planet.

The bears don’t have an official king or queen, nor are there battles to figure out the hierarchy, but Horse attends this big supernatural meeting because he’s the assumed top of the…

And that’s when it hit me. Horse had to know about the Senatus, and that meant the bikers knew.

But they all had to keep it a secret, probably. It made me wonder how much of the supernatural world might know, and how much keeping it a secret actually mattered, at this point?

I assumed Marco knew everyone who knew. At least the locals, anyway. Likely, each Master Vampire was keeping track of it, and they’d release the news when they were sure the entire supernatural world was ready to hear it.

How would the European shapeshifters react when the news officially went out to the shifters, I wondered?

Also, the lower level European vampires?

In the past, vampires had mostly traveled the world at will, when deciding where to live for their next identity, but I assumed that would change now.

What would happen if most of the vampires came to the Americas for their next identity?

Or maybe the other way around? The Concilio might have to start playing a little nicer, if they wanted to keep people.

“Davy seems to have answered for us,” Will said, “but I’ll confirm that we’d love to spend time with your bear tomorrow evening.

Tonight, however, I’m thinking I want you to myself.

The question is whether we put Davy in the pillory to watch, or whether we bind him on the cross and blindfold him, so he can’t see what we’re doing. ”

Davy had been in his cock cage four days, so he had another six days to go. He’d be in it ten days and then out of it ten days, and then we’d move to two weeks in and two weeks out.