Promising Peter (Bad Boy Alphas) (Shrew & Company Book 6) (8 page)

Not being able to sit up and state her demands clearly was hard for Drea, but being nestled in Peter’s arms wasn’t such a bad place to be. She could tell where she was, at least. She had a bit of awareness about what her body was doing, and she could smell his soap and his born-Bear scent. The scent that had always stirred her womanly impulses—made her want to touch and be touched.

She could have never imagined she’d be paralyzed when she finally got what she craved.

“I don’t know of anyone who’s tried to expunge their beast before,” Peter said.

“She wants me to die.”

He let out a sharp breath. The air warmed her eyelids, and feeling that, she tried to send some nervous impulses to them. They fluttered open and her vision focused slowly on the blond man leaning over her.

Afraid to blink now. Won’t be able to see. Need to see him.

“So my father was right,” he said. “You don’t get along with the beast.”

“She’s always been apart from me. I didn’t understand that wasn’t normal.”

“That’s not even normal for made-Bears. They’re not born with their beasts already stirring within. Theirs are shaped during their transition out of bits and pieces of their existing personalities.”

Drea’s eyes were dry and starting to burn. She risked a blink, and fortunately her lids opened again. “What do I do now?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

“Help me.”

“I’m going to try. I’ll ask around, if that’s what you want.”

“Yes. Please. I’m scared.” As much as she hated being slow and weak, she hated being stuck in her own body with that criticizing bear. Maybe that bear couldn’t claw her up, but she could wound Drea all the same, and Drea couldn’t take many more swipes.

She caught his flinch and his grimace.

He looked away and toward the door, it seemed, though she couldn’t tell for sure without turning her head.

He stroked her hair and ground his teeth.

He’s worried. Why’s he worried?

“Okay, sweetheart. Let’s get you some help.”

“Good,” she whispered and closed her eyes. If she couldn’t get them open again, certainly Peter would figure out a way to wake her.

You should hope he doesn’t
, the bear said.
Keep your eyes closed and don’t bother him again. That’d be smart. Just die.

Drea refused. She still had enough strength to refuse.

___

“Allowing me into your lair.” San swished her hand dramatically on the other side of the threshold.

Peter rolled his eyes and closed the door behind the voodooienne after she’d stepped into the apartment.

“You’ll probably burn the place to the ground when you leave to destroy all evidence that you’ve been here.”

“Not necessary,” he muttered. “She’s in the bedroom. Let’s go.”

San put up her hands and gave her head a shake. Her beaded earrings jangled noisily and eyes took on a red flash that immediately disappeared. “You wait right there, Peter Ursu. Don’t you rush me.”

“I’m
trying
to make sure she’s still conscious enough to respond to you.”

“A few minutes ain’t gonna make a difference.”

“What’s the problem, San? You said you come. What’s the hesitation now?”

“Who is this woman to you? You be honest with me. Don’t feed me no lies, I am
warning
you. Don’t get me caught up in no dark mess. I’m not doin’ your dirty work for you.”

Groaning, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and shifted his weight. He generally got through life dispensing information on a need-to-know basis. He preferred not telling people too much—even when the information was benign or seemingly unimportant. Some folks could manipulate even the smallest amounts of information in ways to make others hurt. Peter was an assassin by trade. Information was currency.

But he was dealing with San—not some asshole in the field. San was fair. More importantly, San knew when to keep her fucking mouth shut.

“Her name is Andrea,” he said, dropping his hands. “She’s my mate.”

San’s dark eyebrows practically disappeared beneath her headwrap. “Well, ain’t that somethin’?”

“Yes, well, even men like me get mates sometimes.”

“She must be a real piece of work.”

“No. She’s not. She’s perfect.” He let out a ragged breath and gestured toward the room.

San sucked her teeth and plopped her hands onto her fleshy hips. “If this goes wrong, you gonna pay me two, three times over, Peter Ursu.”

“You know I’ll set you right if there’s a problem.” He gestured to the room again. “Please.”

San hitched her bag up higher on her shoulder, and then strolled to the room.

He followed right at her heels, losing some breath when he stepped into the bedroom and saw, yet again, Andrea lying in the bed looking so small and…
dead
.

She wasn’t dead, though. He would have sensed that from half a block away, if not more. The longer they were mates, the more solid their connection would be. Tamara could sometimes communicate mentally with Bryan across great distances, and there was no reason Peter shouldn’t have been able to do that with Andrea. The mix of Bear genes was about the same in spite of their clan differences.

San sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on Andrea’s upper arm.

Peter climbed onto the bed and pulled Andrea’s head onto his lap. “Hello, sweetheart. Can you hear me?”

“Mm,” she said almost too softly to hear. In fact, he doubted San heard her. San didn’t have supernatural hearing.

“She’s awake,” he told her.

San rubbed Andrea’s arm tenderly. “She gonna talk to me?”

Peter rubbed Andrea’s hair and passed the pad of his thumb across her chapped lips. He’d been negligent, but he’d try to remember to find her some balm the next time he got up. “Andrea, I’ve brought a friend. Her name is San. She gave me the herbs.”

“Hi, San,” she said quietly.

He looked to San.

San nodded. “See if she can speak up a little. I’d rather hear words from her lips than yours.”

He gave Andrea a little squeeze. “Louder if you can.”

“Okay.”

Better
.

San ran her hand down Andrea’s arm and wrapped her fingers around Andrea’s. “Warm palms. Cold fingers at the tips,” San mused.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Maybe nothing.”

“Everything means something to you.”

San shrugged and took Andrea’s hand more firmly in hers. She grinned slightly and chuckled. “She’s good people. Worries too much.”

“She’s a Ridge Bear.”

“Mmm.” San tipped her chin up and gazed at the ceiling. “I know a little something about them. They took my mother in for a while when she first came to this country. She was a refugee fresh off the boat.
Pregnant
. They collected her and others. Found them places to go.” She flexed her grip on Andrea’s hand and looked down at her again. “It’s in their nature to give too much, and sometimes when they’re not careful, too much is taken.”

“That’s probably why the group got taken over by an outsider. They didn’t fight back. Wanted to trust him, I guess.”

“This is the man you want to kill? And don’t tell me there ain’t one. I feel that urge of yours. The heat’s right there, bubblin’ up.”

Peter didn’t answer. He couldn’t think of a good reason to.

San let out a long breath and moved her hand to Andrea’s forehead. “The dark she got ain’t hers.”

“What do you mean?”

San made a waffling gesture. “The thing is apart from her. She doesn’t trust it. Won’t work with it. Any other woman might have succumbed.”

“Her beast you mean? The energy that makes her a Bear?”

“Mmm. Yeah, there’s an animal taste to the energy. Maybe that’s what I’m sensing.”

“Yes,” Andrea whispered.

“What do you think of your bear?” San pulled her hand back and leaned on it.

“She doesn’t…like me.”

San cut her gaze to Peter.

Guessing what she was thinking, he shook his head. “That’s not at all typical. Both parts of a shifter’s consciousness are generally in sync. Sometimes, we don’t agree, but we learn to compromise and make sure we’re feeding both halves what they need. You said you could help. That you could get rid of the bear.”

San bobbed her eyebrows once more. “I can. I
would
if she asked me to.”

“There’s a ‘but’ coming. What’s the ‘but’?”

“She gotta make damn sure she want to go through with this. You take that energy away, you may be taking everything else with it. Her heightened senses, any magic she has—including her ability to shift—will almost certainly be let out with the dark.”

If the choice were up to Peter to make, Andrea would never shift again as long as he was around. She was a weak Bear and vulnerable in all her forms. He’d prefer to keep her out of the fucking woods altogether—out of the fray during the full moon. But, that choice wasn’t Peter’s to make.

He stroked her cheek.

She forced heavy-looking eyelids up. Pretty brown eyes, pleading with him to
do
something.

“I’m trying to,” he said to her.

“I’ll give you a day to decide,” San said. “Don’t call me before twenty-four hours have passed. I’m warning you, Ursu. Call me in a day, and I’ll come if you want.”

“Another day of
this
? Come on, San. She needs to eat. I can’t feed her like this.”

“She’s used to having the bear starve her. One more day won’t kill her.”

San gave Andrea’s hand a squeeze and took her leave from the room.

The front door opened, and then snicked shut.

He stroked Andrea’s chin and ground his teeth.

Andrea closed her eyes again. “Do what you think is best,” she said.

“This is your decision, sweetheart. I don’t want to sway you.”

“I trust you. You know more.”

“But, we’re talking about
your
bear. It’s been attached to you all your life, so you have to make the decision.”

“You decide. I’m tired.”

“Because you’re starved.”

“Maybe. Talk to me in a little while. Okay?”

“In a little while. Yes.”

Her breathing slowed, and scent altered subtly. Asleep again.

He was left alone with his thoughts, and that wasn’t always a great place to be.

She’d given him the decision to make, and his immediate reaction was to make San strip the bear away so he could get his woman upright and functioning again, in spite of what she’d lose. But that was selfish of him.

He couldn’t make the decision unilaterally. He needed input, although he hated to have to consult the obvious sources.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He fished his phone out of his shirt pocket, opened his contacts list, and had the device call Bryan.

“Fuck.” He didn’t feel any better for having repeated the word, but swearing seemed to be all he could do.

At around five the next morning, Peter looked out the peephole, spotted the two Bears in the hallway, and let out a long growl.

He tapped his forehead against the door several times, and then went to work undoing the chain and locks.

A fight was inevitable. They weren’t going to let him get away with what he did without some censure but, for Andrea’s sake, he hoped they’d save the scuffle for later.

He pulled the door open and barely had time to register the pale flash before he felt the sting to his cheek.

“You
fucking
idiot,” Tamara spat at him in Romanian and pushed past him. “Where is she?”

While Peter tried to lock his jaw back into place, a growling Bryan stepped up to the threshold.

Peter’s hands balled reflexively and chin tipped upward. He wasn’t going to lower his head to the alpha.
Couldn’t
, no matter how much he respected the man, and he hoped Bryan didn’t push for adherence to formalities at that moment. He was generally relaxed about traditional greetings and gestures of respect, but when he was in certain moods, he pushed for them.

But Peter wasn’t going to back down about something he knew he wasn’t in the wrong about. He hadn’t done anything Bears with mating fever hadn’t done in the past, and Andrea had given her consent.

“If you want to fight, one alpha against another,” Peter said low, “I suggest we set a time and place.”

Bryan closed his eyes and laid his head from one side to the other, cracking his neck. He opened his eyes again and took a deep breath. “Fine.”

The energy roiling off of him receded slowly and Peter tamped his down as well. It wasn’t a good time for a fight.

“She’s in the bedroom,” Peter said. “Don’t panic when you see her.”

“If that warning was supposed to make me feel calmer, you picked the wrong words.”

Peter closed and locked the door.

They joined Tamara who was already in the bedroom. She was leaning over the bedside with her ear close to Andrea’s lips.

“She says not to kill you,” Tamara said, frowning. “She must be delirious.”

“She’s not delirious. Why would my mate doing a little better than simply enduring me be so unfathomable?”

Tamara retreated to the chair at the side of the bed and sank into it. “Because I know you. You’re an insufferable piece of shit.”

“I love you too, little sister. I’m so glad to see you.”

Bryan moved to the bed and sat, his substantial weight making Andrea’s listless body roll a bit to the right. “Damn,” he said. “Seeing her like this… I can’t even process this. Her being in mortal danger is one thing. I know what to
do
about that. My body reacts the way it should without too much thought.
Instinct
. But fixing things after someone’s already hurt…” He gave his head a hard shake. “That’s just not something I know how to do.”

“You don’t have to be able to do
everything
,” Tamara said. “You just need to know who to put into place to fill your gaps.”

“Can she hear us?” Bryan asked.

Peter moved slowly to the bedside so as not to arouse Bryan’s inner bear and sat beside the concealed lump that was Andrea. “Depends on whether or not she’s awake. I imagine she’s awake since she was just talking to Tam.”

He would have preferred her to be asleep. He’d expected that Bryan and Tamara wouldn’t waste any time driving up, but he didn’t think they would drop
everything
. Andrea would have been fine until sunrise, and he regretted not having a few more hours alone with her. His inner bear was being as patient as could be expected, but he wanted to finish claiming his mate. The half-done nature of their relationship was contributing to the building burn around his heart. The situation was making him anxious, and that wasn’t a state Peter was used to dwelling in.

“There’s nothing we can do for her right now, anyway, is there?” Bryan asked.

Peter shook his head. “My friend told me not to call for twenty-four hours.”

“Then let Drea sleep for a few more hours.” Bryan tipped his head toward the door in an obvious
Let’s go
gesture.

Grunting, Peter followed. He’d planned on curling up beside Andrea and keeping her warm. Holding her close and assuring himself she was fine, really. He thought he might die if she weren’t.

He closed the door gently and joined Bryan and Tamara in the little kitchen.

“How long have you had this place?” Tamara asked.

“A few years.”

“And Soren doesn’t know about it?”

He shrugged and planted his palms atop the spindly table. “I imagine Soren has his secrets as well.”

“You have other hideouts like this?”

Peter made a noncommittal grunting sound. He couldn’t think of a single good reason to confess that.

Of
course
he had other places he could go to at the drop of a hat—in case he needed to run and hole up until dust settled and law enforcement agencies decided to withdraw the warrants they had out on him.

They usually did. Most of the time, they figured out that Peter was just doing a public service and that the people he dealt with were ones they couldn’t legally touch. Evidence disappeared pretty quickly when cops realized the folly of charging a man for murdering someone who’d killed ten or more innocents—especially when those men didn’t seem quite human.

Bryan pulled out a chair and sat. He flicked the donut box open and took out one of the slightly stale confections. “Tamara and I wondered if we should divide and conquer—if I should come here and let her deal with Soren.”

“What, precisely, is Soren doing? I haven’t spoken to him.”

“He’s taken a shine to Maria’s sister, Marcella. We need him out chasing Gene, but his brain is so scrambled right now, he’s of no use to anyone.”

“Sister? What sister?” Peter knew all of the Shrews and also any local family they had. The hippie didn’t have siblings, the last he heard.

Tamara chuckled and fished a chocolate-covered donut out of the box. “Long story. All you need to know is that she has a half sister, that she’s a natural witch of some sort, and that she thinks she might be able to lure Gene, if push comes to shove.”

“You just threw too much information at me at once. Wait—she’s imprinted on
Soren
?”

“Mm-hmm. Just that quickly. All he needed was one glance. Funny the way magic works.”

Peter shoved his hand through his hair and gave it a tug. “
Shit
. A witch? That’s surprising. He’s never gotten along with them. Where is he?”

“For a while, we had him locked into the walk-in refrigerator at the lodge. We let him out so he could help us track you and Gene—who we believe may not be so far from here, by the way—but Soren was useless. He was too distracted and too distract
ing
. We locked him inside the shifter bunker and left him with enough food for a couple of days.”

“No guard?”

She narrowed her eyes. “The last time we put an Ursu in the bunker with a guard, that Ursu sweet-talked a woman into getting that guard to let him out to…what did you tell Drea?”

“That I’d gotten locked in accidentally. Would have been more suspicious if Marty hadn’t left the main bolt unturned after bringing me breakfast.” Peter shrugged. “Did what I had to.”

“As will we,” Bryan said. He grabbed another donut and scanned the counter behind the table. “Got coffee here?”

“I’ve got a kettle and some instant crystals.”

“Why don’t you go out and get some real stuff?”

Peter scoffed and folded his arms over his chest. “And leave you here with my mate, right? Then come back to find you’ve taken her? I’m not that stupid.”

“Actually, I hadn’t considered that. I just wanted coffee.”

Tamara grunted and snatched the kettle off the stove. “Instant will do for now, but what I really need is a nap. I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours.”

“Sounds like a typical Shrew schedule,” Peter said.

Tamara gave him a long blink that might have in fact been her briefly nodding off. “We’re trying to get better about that.
All
of us.” She carried the kettle to the sink and filled it. “Our staffing shortage makes establishing any sort of regularity difficult. First, there was Sarah getting pregnant and taking maternity leave, and now Astrid is being restricted for possible pregnancy complications. Three Shrews would have probably been just enough two years ago when we were taking less urgent cases, but we’re stretched too thin now. Dana is looking to add some permanent staff members as soon as the mess with Gene settles down and she’s not having to drive back and forth between Durham and the mountains several times per week. That drive is a huge time suck.”

“I think you’re busy now, but you’ll be even busier once you bring new folks onboard,” Peter said. “You’re going to have to shadow those new hires. Also, I have it on good authority that certain types of people who need the kind of investigation work you do are waiting for opportunities to get on your client list.”

Dana, an ex-cop, might have started Shrew & Company as an outlet for her professional skills, but the agency had gone at least six months since they’d worked a mundane private investigation or bodyguard job. Word had gotten out that the ladies had a touch of the supernatural about them and that they always ended up on the right side of a fight. Shapeshifter groups and witch covens needed their kind of discretion on the jobs they couldn’t take to the police, and that didn’t necessarily require a bunch of Peter’s or Soren’s bullets, either.

“You might, at the very least, be able to keep a more structured schedule,” he added when Tamara sighed.

“I shouldn’t complain,” she said. “The money’s good. Gotta feather the nest and all that. So.” She opened the cabinets behind her and pulled out several mugs. Looking inside them, she cringed, and plunked them into the sink. She rolled up her sleeves and then squirted some soap into the cups. “About Drea. I believe we need to make a decision. That is why you called us, right?”

Peter grunted. “I already know what I want, but I realize I may not be thinking forward enough. I may seem calm right now, but the part of me that’s beast will obviously pull my reasoning strongly in one particular direction.”

Bryan leaned his chair onto its back legs and jutted his chin aggressively. “And what did your
beast
decide?”

Peter stood and rooted in the cupboards for the instant coffee. He needed to be doing something—not just sitting still and being glared at. “My beast would prefer that she dispense with her bear.”

Tamara slammed one of the mugs onto the counter.

Given her profound strength, he was surprised the ceramic didn’t shatter on impact.

“You would take that from her?”

He unscrewed the lid from the coffee jar and rooted a clean-enough spoon out of the drawer. “If the choice were ultimately left up to me, yes.”

“You would take away the only means she has to protect herself?”

He tamped down a growl and scooped an extra spoonful of coffee into his mug. “There are some people who shouldn’t even bother shifting, and she’s one of them. If she and her inner bear are in constant conflict, being able to shapeshift is a useless ability. She’s too tentative to fight back. If anything, being what she is
gets
her into trouble she wouldn’t be in otherwise.”

“You can’t seriously mean that.”

“I agree with him,” Bryan said quietly.

Tamara turned briskly on her heel and stormed over to him. She bent so she was nose-to-nose with her mate and said in a low, growly voice, “Are you telling me you’d strip away everything about her that makes her a Bear? And a
born
-Bear at that?”

Letting out a breath, he wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist, turned her, and plopped her onto his lap.

She pouted and, as always when he was so close, composed herself. She seemed to melt into him a bit. There was no dispute whatsoever that their mate match was a sound one. They were a puzzle with just two pieces that fit perfectly together.

“Yes. I would,” Bryan said. “You weren’t there when we were locked up in that circus trailer and being burned with silver for even looking at Jacques’s guards the wrong way. I was so
angry
with her for so long because she couldn’t fight back. The burden was all on me to get us out, and I didn’t understand how I could get so mad and she couldn’t. Her reflexes are
garbage
, Tam. Her instincts are way more human than they are Bear.”

“Her nose isn’t so good, either,” Peter said.

Bryan grunted. “I know that. She’ll never be able to track by scent or discern when someone’s gotten too close before she can see them. In her bear form, she’s not particularly powerful and not especially aggressive. So, what good is being a Bear for her? She’d be better off if she weren’t one.”

“But at least she can
shift
,” Tamara whispered and shook her head. “I can’t even shift.”

Peter massaged the bridge of his nose and let out a breath. “Stop thinking of yourself as defective. You’re a Bear who lacks a particular genetic trigger, but you’re still a Bear. You have the same instincts as Soren and me, and the same motivations. Andrea has the trigger, but she doesn’t have the instincts, sissy.” He poured the hot water into the mugs and looked over his shoulder at Tamara and Bryan.

“I think you know,” Bryan said to her, “deep down, you know. Andrea won’t get to be a part of the club? So what? I’d prefer her to be calm and sure of herself in the body she’s in than to keep trying to make allowances for the one she dreads shifting into. If she loses the shifting trigger along with that beast component of her personality, so be it. We’ll take care of her just like we always have.”

“
I’ll
take care of her,” Peter said low.

Bryan grunted.

Tamara scoffed and scrambled off Bryan’s lap. “He’s not going to tell you, but I will.” She took two of the mugs and handed one to Bryan along with a spoon. “You’re not the kind of mate any reasonable man would want for his little sister.”

“I could say the reverse is true of you,” Peter said calmly. “I’d venture to guess that you’re
just
as trigger-happy as Soren and me, but you get away with being reckless because you’re small and cute.”