Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Kyle

It took Kenny an hour to get us out of the city and to the safari park, so when we rolled up to the gates, my bear was stamping his feet.

He'd been denied too much today.

A chance to take fur, then to claim our mate just as he knew we needed to, followed by the identification of the threats Imogen faced. Usually he was relatively chill and allowed me to take the lead. But right now, three hundred of kilos of pissed off Kodiak simmered inside me.

"How's it going, fellas?" Billy was one of the keepers that lived on site. A Kaurna man, he was special even amongst other First Nations people. His animal was a big arse red kangaroo, and living out here was a way to still be on country while bringing in a wage. We'd made contact with him once on a job, and after a while, he offered us run of the safari park if we were desperate. I put a call in as we headed out to the park.

"Not good."

That's all Asher said, but Billy nodded in response, his dark eyes taking the two of us in with one look.

"Take ‘em up to the flats near the kangaroo exhibit," Billy told Kenny. "I'll take fur, direct the mob away from there. You two can let loose, then Kenny and me can have a beer."

"I love my job," Kenny enthused.

"No, he's not?—"

"Turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago, boss," Kenny told Asher with a grin. "You were at my birthday party."

Asher might have been there physically, but mentally? As always, his brain was racing ahead, looking for threats, trying to have a fully fleshed plan in place for every possibility and losing his shit when he didn't. Now he needed something to turn that head of his off.

"Have a beer or two," I told Kenny, "but go easy. We'll be heading back to town after we've let the bears out for a bit."

"Not much moonlight left." When Billy looked up, there was a strange kind of longing in his expression. Some shifters preferred to be in fur than skin, and I often wondered if this was the case with him. "Better get moving."

So we did.

The minute my feet hit the ground, I felt it, the shove from the bear. He wanted out way before this, but he'd settle for right now. I had to argue with him, bargain, as I tore my clothes, my shoes off, but the minute I was naked, there he was. A transplant, no animals like mine evolved on this land, and yet here we were, in the only country I'd ever known. Eucalyptus trees and mallee scrub rather than cedar and pine, but the bear didn't care. He let out a massive roar, one that found its twin in Asher's. A massive polar bear faced me down, right as he started to move towards the gate.

Asher shouldn't have grown up the way he did.

The orphaned son of a sleuth that died in an accident, the bear community hadn't been alerted to his existence because his family hadn't really remained a big part of it. Living on their own in a remote property, no one knew his family had passed. Instead, this one boy had been bundled up and placed in the foster system when no family members came forward. My family only found him after he killed his abusive foster father. When police found a juvenile polar bear standing over the corpse of the man, they knew what they were dealing with and made sure he was returned to our community.

But it was too late.

Asher was ten, not fourteen or fifteen, when his bear came forth for the first time. Trying to save Ursula from the horrors being inflicted upon her, he'd shifted far too young, before he developed the skills to control his bear. As a man he was good, too good, at it. He kept every part of himself locked down tight to keep the bear back, but when he took fur… All bets were off, and that was what was happening right now. Polar bear Asher knew where his mate was and where to go to return to her side, so that's what he started to do right now. Nothing else mattered but Imogen.

Protecting Imogen.

I had to fight hard to get my bear to step into his path. The instinctual nature of apex predators was to avoid each other unless some crucial issue was at stake. Food, access to water, mates… My bear wanted to take Asher's lead and march back to town and her apartment block, forming a furry barricade around it. Only visions of being tranqued or worse, shot and killed, stopped him. The best way we could protect Imogen was in human form, so my bear placed himself in Asher's way and reared up.

Over seven foot tall, that would've been impressive to pretty much any other creature but him.

Those blue eyes met mine, staring implacably as I heard the frantic thud of kangaroos in the nearby enclosure head away from the fence. Lions roared and hyenas chuckled as I faced my sleuth mate down. Asher chuffed, making clear he was thinking about his response, but that didn't prepare me for this. Bears fight in a strangely human way, paws flying like fists punching, a combination of boxing and wrestling. When his paw hit me, I felt it down to my bones.

If this was any other time, I'd give ground to Asher. He needed to win, but I didn't. I needed the sleuth to stay strong, the bond between us making it possible for three big predators to be in the same space. Male bears kept clear of each other, but men… We needed connections to make sense of the world, and it was that I leaned into now. I fell back and out of reach of his paws, forcing him back down onto the ground, but as he roared his dismay, I stood in his path. He couldn't go to her, he couldn't. Not yet, maybe not ever. After what Imogen had been through, perhaps seeing the other side of us would always be too much. Facing down a lifetime of pretending to be only one half of my soul was crushing, but that was a problem for the future, when I had to deal with this one.

When he charged forward, I was in his way. When he changed tack, I was there as well. That innate need to avoid each other, to stop burning all the many, many calories fighting in such huge forms used kept coming into play, stopping him in his tracks until finally Asher let out a god-awful roar. Every bird, every creature went silent then, the perfect stillness of night greeting him in response. My bear moved forward slowly, carefully, shrinking back when Asher chuffed, but before too long, I was scenting him, moving in close. My massive bear head bunted into his shoulder, not met by aggression, but by a rough nuzzle.

We were good.

The fire seemed to go out of his bear, making clear that Asher was back in control and faced with limited options, the bear chose this. To lope across the massive plain of the safari park as if it was an ice floe, me at his side, to feel the wind on our face and through our fur, to feel the earth that belonged to other creatures under our paws as we raced each other. It didn't take long to exhaust him, the massive weight of his body not made for long sprints. The polar bear finally came to a stop, and when he dropped down to the ground it was in skin, not fur.

"We need to get a domestic violence order," Asher gasped, still sucking in breaths as I went back to skin beside him.

"I know."

"We need to secure that bloody apartment or move her into headquarters."

"Right."

"We need to start a dossier on this boyfriend and look deeper into Phil Jackson. Fuck!" Asher stared at me, blue eyes full of accusation. "I should've anticipated that he'd escalate, try and find another victim if he couldn't get to Mary. How many other perps have we missed, Kyle? How many?"

"I don't know, Asher."

When he was like this, there were no easy answers. I'd be called upon to provide cited sources or data sets if I tried to give him anything definitive. So I did what I always did and waited him out.

"Why don't you know?"

His anger, the way his eyes blazed bright blue, it wasn't directed at me, even as he reared up from the ground, snarling. I watched his fangs lengthen, saw this for what it was, a threat display. Asher hated the whack-a-mole nature of what we did, that no sooner had we helped one woman or one family, then yet more were being hurt. Australia had a systemic issue with domestic violence, and Asher wouldn't rest until that was stopped.

But hurt people could hurt people, that was something Elodie had told me early on. Abuse was about power, and it was an inherent part of both bear and man to want to grab whatever you could. All we could do was use that which we had to make as much of a difference as we could.

"Why don't you know, Kyle?"

The heat was gone from his voice, revealing what was there the entire time: pain. I wanted for us to meet our mate on the street one day, or maybe at one of the bear shifter events, for her to have been well cared for, even pampered, before we came along. But the fact that Imogen no doubt contained a pain that matched his made a strange kind of sense.

"Nothing will hurt Imogen going forward," I told him in a low, even tone. "Nothing. We'll keep her safe, make sure those pricks don't come within ten feet of her. We got her out of that fucking apartment, Asher. We got her out, and Lucas is watching her." He wavered then, the intensity, the emotion of the day starting to beat him down, and I rushed to catch him when he began to fall. "Luc's got her, and I've got you, mate."

"We need to get back to the city," he rasped into my shoulder. "We need to start securing her apartment, putting things in place…"

"Sleep first, brother, then all of that and more. Luc's got her for now. He won't leave until there's someone else to take over."

At that, I was able to direct him back to our clothes, the two of us getting dressed in silence.

"Ready to go?" Kenny asked, setting down his beer. "Billy's off for a hop, but?—"

"Home," I told him. "Let's get Asher home."