Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

“ G raaaw!” The bear cub on Paige’s bed waved his paws, shedding clouds of brown fur over her sheets. “Grrrr graaaw grrr!”

“Archie, if you want to tell me something, you need to calm down.” Paige hung up the last of her camp staff t-shirts in the small closet. Her housing assignment had turned out to be much nicer than she’d expected. As staff liaison, she apparently rated a private cabin with its own bathroom. “You know I can’t understand you when you’re shifted.”

The bear wrinkled his muzzle at her.

Paige knew that look: Yes, you can. After two years of living with a brother who spent half his time on four paws, she’d become something of an expert in bear body language.

“Well, I’m still not having a conversation with you in that state.” She put her hands on her hips, frowning at him. “What did you do with your clothes?”

The bear looked down at himself. “Graw?”

Paige sighed. “We’ll go and find them later. Now, can you shift back?”

The bear set his paws, claws digging into her sheets. His ears flattened in concentration.

Nothing happened.

After a moment, the bear let out a huff. He looked up at her with sad, teddy-bear eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’ll get there. Just try to keep thinking human thoughts.” Paige fished in the pocket of her jeans for the spare pair of Lycra shorts she always kept somewhere about her person. “Here. Put these on. Maybe getting dressed will help.”

Her brother grumbled, but let her wrestle his fuzzy body into the shorts. The effect was, as always, both endearing and somewhat ridiculous, like a children’s cartoon brought to life.

“I think you’re getting bigger. We’ll have to get Mom to make you some new shifting shorts soon.” Paige tugged the waistband up as best she could around the bear cub’s round belly. “There. Now you can shift back without flashing me. Try again, okay?”

The bear scratched fretfully at the shorts with a back paw. He wriggled as though trying to get comfortable—and then Archie was back, scowling.

“I hate the shifting shorts,” he muttered, plucking at the stretchy fabric. “They make me look stupid. None of the other kids wear anything when they’re shifted.”

“The other kids are able to remember where they left their clothes.” Paige moved her now empty backpack to the floor so she could sit next to him on the bed. “Now, what were you trying to tell me?”

Archie drew up his legs, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I changed my mind. I don’t wanna go to camp this summer. Let’s go home.”

“Archie, you’ve spent the past year talking non-stop about Camp Thunderbird.” Paige nudged him with her shoulder. “Look, is this still about Conleth? Because I told you, there’s no need for you to worry. I have to work with him in my role as staff liaison, but it’s purely professional.”

It was perfectly true, yet a strange pang went through her chest as she said the words. She couldn’t stop picturing that breathless, terrifying moment when she’d thought he’d been about to tell her she was his mate. Or imagining what might have happened if the conversation had gone another way…

Which was ridiculous. There was no point daydreaming about something that could never happen. If anything, she should be grateful she wasn’t his mate. That would have been a disaster for everyone. There was only room for one shifter in her life, and it wasn’t Conleth.

“We’re work colleagues, that’s all,” she said firmly. “And we’re lucky he is still my colleague after the stunt you pulled. We should both have gotten thrown out of camp.”

Archie fidgeted with the edge of the sheet. “My bear was only trying to protect you.”

“I understand you can’t help your animal’s instincts. But you could have really hurt Conleth.”

He was trying to look defiant, but his lower lip trembled. “I don’t mean to be bad, Paige.”

“Oh, Archie.” Paige pulled him into a hug, his small body rigid against hers. “You’re not bad. But sometimes you need to think before you act, okay?”

She felt him swallow a sob. “I try, Paige. I really do.”

“I know.” She rubbed his back in gentle circles. “Most of the time. But can you honestly tell me you were trying your very best to control your bear today?”

“N-no.” Archie pulled away, scrubbing his wrist across his nose. “I was so mad, I couldn’t help myself. But I promise I won’t do it again.”

“That’s all I ask.” She found a tissue in her pocket, handing it to him. “Why don’t you like Conleth, anyway? He seemed…”

She stalled, searching for a word. Charismatic? Understanding? How could she sum up the intense, alarmingly attractive shifter with such unnerving eyes?

“Nice,” she finished, somewhat lamely. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Everything!” Archie bristled, regaining more of his usual energy. “He’s got stupid hair.”

Paige resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. “Archie, you can’t assault a man because you don’t like his hair.”

“It’s too shiny,” Archie said stubbornly. “And it’s never messy, not even when it’s raining. I bet he dunks his whole head in a bucket of hair gel every morning. And he’s always going around in that stupid suit, like he thinks he’s so cool. He literally wears it all the time. He probably wears it in bed .”

Paige thrust down an arresting mental image of Conleth, that suit, and a bed. “He’s the camp manager, Archie. He must have a lot of important meetings. And I doubt he wears a suit all the time.”

“He does!” Archie insisted. “I’m telling you Paige, I’ve seen him! And he’s always walking around looking at his phone, like he’s too important to say hello or smile at anyone. He never joins in any of the campfires or games or anything. Not even the big welcoming ceremony or the end-of-summer celebration, and literally everyone goes to those! It’s like he doesn’t even want to be at camp. And when I had detention with him?—”

Archie froze.

“A detention?” Paige’s big-sister instincts tingled. “You mean, last summer, at camp? You didn’t mention anything about a detention.”

“Because it wasn’t a big deal,” Archie said quickly. “And it was ages ago. Not worth talking about, really.”

“Archie, what did you do?”

“Nothing!” At her glare, he reluctantly added, “Well… I kinda got pushed into the lake.”

“You got a detention because someone pushed you into the lake?”

Archie squirmed, avoiding her eyes. “I miiiiight have deserved it. But Ig was being a real jerk. And none of us knew back then that he was really worried he might not be a shifter. Though Rufus says he is, even if he can’t sense his dragon yet, so that’s okay.”

Paige tried to unravel that with her limited knowledge of Archie’s friend group, and failed.

“Leaving aside the matter of exactly what you did for now—though don’t think we’re not going to talk about it later—why would you have a detention with Conleth?” she asked. “He’s not a counselor.”

“Buck said it was the most awful punishment he could imagine,” Archie said triumphantly. “See? That proves he’s the worst. Conleth, I mean. Not Buck. Buck is cool.”

Paige was starting to wonder if Buck had some kind of grudge against the poor camp manager. “And what did Conleth do that made this detention so horrible?”

“He said that if he was stuck with me for a whole hour, he might as well get some use out of me. So he gave me a laptop and a big pile of papers, and I was supposed to type all the numbers into the computer. Only it was so boring. Even worse than school.”

Paige had a sinking feeling she knew where this was going. Even before he’d started shifting, Archie’s grades had always ranged from ‘bad’ to ‘dismal.’ In a way, it had been a relief to discover he had a bear in his head. At least it explained why he struggled so much in the classroom.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Rather than doing the assigned task, you decided to enter random numbers instead.”

Archie fidgeted guiltily. “Well, I mean, they were just numbers, right? Nothing important.”

“And Conleth noticed?”

“Noooooooooooo,” Archie said, drawing out the word. He kicked his heels against the side of the bed. “Not straight away, at least. But then I thought, since I was making up stuff, I might as well make up funny stuff.”

Paige could imagine all too easily what ‘funny stuff’ Archie might have made up. “I assume Conleth noticed at that point.”

“Yeah,” Archie said glumly. “I mean, it would have been kind of hard for him not to notice when the computer blew up.”

“The computer blew up?” Paige repeated, nonplussed. “You mean, it crashed?”

“No, I mean, it literally blew up.” Archie mimed an explosion in the air with his hands. “There was a big bang and smoke came out the back and all the lights went out.”

Paige stared at her little brother. “ How?! ”

“That’s what Conleth said,” Archie agreed. “I mean, once the power came back on and I was able to turn back human and he got my underpants down from the ceiling fan.”

Paige made a mental note to send the camp manager a gift basket. “Please tell me Conleth kept you away from the computer after that.”

“Yeah, he said my new detention was to clean up the office, and I couldn’t leave until everything was back in order.” Archie’s face creased into a disgruntled expression. “And then about five minutes later Conleth said he’d changed his mind and my new new detention was to sit silently in the corner without moving while he cleaned up the office.”

‘Sit silently in the corner without moving’ was about as much within Archie’s capabilities as flying to the moon. “I take it that didn’t go well either.”

“I tried . But after the third time I accidentally broke Conleth’s chair, he said he’d been punished enough and he was taking me back to Buck.” Archie folded his arms, with the air of a prosecution lawyer resting his case. “Anyway, that’s why he’s horrible and I hate him and you can’t be his mate.”

Paige groaned. “For the last time, Archie, I am not Conleth’s mate!”

Archie glowered at her, but whatever he might have said was interrupted by the cabin door banging open. A young girl stood in the doorway, beaming at Paige as though she was her new best friend.

“Hi!” the girl announced. She was a tiny thing, with pale skin and startling mismatched eyes; one blue, the other green. “You’re Conleth’s mate!”

“Estelle!” A much taller girl hurried in after the first. “You can’t just blurt it out like that!”

“Why not? It’s what she is.” The tiny girl whirled back to confront Paige, her silvery hair whipping around her. “I’m Estelle, by the way. That’s Beth. And you are absolutely, definitely, positively Conleth’s mate. So that clears all that up. Can I be a flower-girl at your wedding?”

“Uh…” Paige searched for a response. All she could come up with was a less than eloquent: “What?”

“I told you!” Archie exploded—not at the newcomers, but at Paige. He jumped to his feet. “I told you Conleth’s your mate!”

“He’s right,” Estelle confirmed. “But since you didn’t seem to believe him, we thought we’d better come in and tell you so ourselves. We’ve been listening to your whole conversation.”

The tall girl—Beth, apparently—flushed as red as her hair. “ Estelle! ”

“You were the one who said we had to do something, Beth.” Estelle turned back to Paige. “It’s a good thing we were listening. This could have been a disaster, otherwise.”

Red to the ears, Beth elbowed Estelle aside. She fixed Paige with serious green eyes, her posture as stiff as a soldier at attention. There was something strangely familiar about that young face, though Paige couldn’t quite work out what.

“I’m so sorry about her, ma’am,” Beth said. “And for bursting in like this. We couldn’t help overhearing.”

Archie narrowed his eyes at the two girls. “Especially not with your ears pressed to the door, I bet.”

“Oh, like you’ve never snuck around anywhere,” Estelle retorted. “You want me to tell your sister here about the frogs?”

“What frogs?” Paige asked.

“No frogs,” Archie said, far too quickly. “Who said anything about frogs? There were definitely no frogs last summer. And you pinky-promised not to ever tell anyone, Estelle.”

“We were in Archie’s pack last year, ma’am,” Beth said, shooting both other kids a warning look. “That’s why we came over to say hello, and introduce ourselves.”

“It’s nice to meet you both.” Paige had heard about these two, though Archie’s tales hadn’t quite prepared her for the full reality. “Archie mentioned you might be at camp early as well.”

She was about to ask if their parents were staff members, when she realized why Beth looked strangely familiar. Though her hair was poker-straight rather than wavy, it was precisely the same bold, rich copper as Conleth’s. Her eyes were the same shade as his too; that intense, vibrant green.

“Beth, is Conleth your dad?” she blurted out, startled.

“No, ma’am.” From the slight hint of resignation in Beth’s tone, this was not the first time she’d been asked this question. “He’s my uncle. He and my dad are brothers. But please don’t treat me any differently to other campers. I don’t want any special privileges just because I’m related to the camp manager.”

“I didn’t mean to imply anything like that,” she reassured Beth. “I was just startled by the resemblance, that’s all. And you don’t have to call me ma’am. Just Paige is fine.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Beth said, with both total respect and complete lack of obedience. “Anyway, we heard you and Archie talking about my uncle. I know we shouldn’t have been listening, but please don’t be angry. I had to make sure everything was okay between you and Uncle Conleth. Your first meeting didn’t seem to go so well.”

“It’s very sweet of you to be concerned about your uncle, Beth, but it’s okay,” Paige said. “There’s nothing going on between us.”

“Yes, there is!” Beth’s fingers twisted together anxiously. “Ma’am, I know you’re not a shifter, but you must still have felt something when you met him. When you first looked into his eyes, didn’t you have a sense of profound attraction?”

Oh, God. She was not about to admit her wholly inappropriate—if understandable—reaction to Conleth’s magnetic sex appeal to a couple of prepubescent girls. Especially not in front of her little brother.

Paige did her best to assemble her face into an expression of mild reproach. “Conleth’s my colleague, Beth. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to have those sorts of thoughts about him.”

“Oh, trust me, he really won’t mind,” Estelle reassured her. “He’s totally having those sorts of thoughts about you. Probably right this very moment, I bet.”

“Will you please let me handle this?” Beth hissed at her friend.

Estelle rolled her eyes. “She’s not a shifter, Beth. Of course she’s not going to recognize him as her mate at first sight. She’d have to, like, actually kiss him or something to feel it.”

“My sister doesn’t want to feel anything!” Archie protested. He swung around to get her support, full of righteous indignation. “And she’s definitely not kissing stupid Conleth, ever . Right, Paige?”

“My uncle isn’t stupid!” Some of Beth careful, adult-like poise deserted her. She clenched her fists, glaring daggers at Archie. “This camp wouldn’t even exist without him. He’s smart, and successful, and everything an alpha should be. You’re just jealous.”

Archie flushed a deep, angry red. “You take that back! You take that back or I’ll — graaaaaaw!”

Paige caught the growling bear cub by the scruff of his neck. “Archie! What did you promise me about keeping control of your bear?”

The bear cub subsided, though the fur bristled all along his back. He plopped sulkily onto his haunches, grumbling under his breath.

“Not one peep out of you until you’re human again,” Paige told him. She turned back to the two girls, letting some steel show in her tone. “And you two. I don’t know where you kids have been getting these crazy ideas, but it stops right now. Why on earth would you think that I’m Conleth’s mate?”

“Helloooooo?” Estelle waved her hands. “Come on, did you see the way he looked at you?”

“Uncle Conleth’s never looked at anyone like that, ma’am,” Beth said earnestly. “I mean, I’ve seen him turn on the charm when he’s showing people around the camp, but even then, he only smiles with his mouth. Not with his whole soul.”

“Oh.” Now she understood the confusion. “He was just welcoming me to camp, girls. That’s all. I’m working with him this summer as staff liaison.”

The two girls looked at each other.

“Yeah,” Estelle said. “About that.”

“There’s no such thing as a ‘staff liaison,’ ma’am.” Beth made air quotes around the word. “It’s only ever been Uncle Conleth and Director Zephyr in the office. If they’d been planning to have someone else doing admin work, I’m sure I would have heard them discussing it.”

“And I know you were definitely down as a pack counselor last night, when I snuck into the office to read all the staff files,” Estelle said cheerfully. At Beth’s look, she shrugged. “What? If Zephyr doesn’t want people logging into his laptop, he shouldn’t keep his password on the back of a receipt stuck in the middle of an old journal hidden under a load of paperwork in the bottom drawer of his desk.”

“But—I’m not assigned as a pack counselor,” Paige said, bewildered. “Conleth showed me on the computer. Paige Brown, staff liaison. And Leonie knew about it too.”

Though she had sounded surprised, now that Paige thought about it. She remembered the strange vibe between Leonie and Conleth in the office, like he’d done something to piss off the head counselor. And Leonie had been pretty vague when Paige had tried to ask her what specific duties a ‘staff liaison’ was supposed to do…

She tried to shake off the sudden cold feeling of doubt. “I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. Leonie said it was a last-minute change.”

Estelle snorted. “Yeah, really last minute. Tell her what you sensed, Beth.”

“Um.” Beth hesitated, eying Paige. “I don’t know if I should.”

“Grrrrrraaaaw,” the bear said, emphatically. Well, now you have to tell us.

“Go on, Beth,” Paige said, though the knot in her stomach was getting bigger. “It’s all right. I promise you won’t get in trouble.”

Beth folded under the pressure. “Well, I’m a pegasus shifter, ma’am. Like Uncle Conleth. And our type of shifter tend to have certain powers. Only, we don’t all have exactly the same abilities. Uncle Conleth can do things I can’t, and I’m better at some other things. That’s how it works, for pegasi.”

“Get to the point, Beth.” Estelle turned to Paige, jerking a thumb at her taller friend. “She can sense people. Tell where they are without looking, I mean. And she sensed Conleth in the dining hall.”

Thanks to her little brother, Paige was used to random conversations, but this was challenging even her ability to follow kid logic. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“It is, because of when I sensed him there,” Beth said. “It was while Archie was chasing him.”

“But Conleth didn’t go anywhere near the dining hall. Archie tackled him behind a cabin.”

“Graw,” the bear agreed with deep satisfaction.

“Yeah, which only proves that Conleth was up to something,” Estelle said. “There’s no way Archie should ever have been able to catch him.”

The bear bristled. “Grrr.”

“Chill,” Estelle told him. “I’m not insulting you. No one can catch Conleth. He’s faster than anyone. That’s kind of his whole thing.”

“I was paying attention to Uncle Conleth’s location because Archie made such a scene, ma’am. Otherwise I would have missed what he was doing.” Beth bit her lip, then blurted out, all in a rush, “I think he realized he needed to change your assignment, ran to the dining hall to find Leonie, altered the information on her clipboard, darted to the office to modify the computer records to match, then finally ran back to Archie.”

Paige stared at her. “In less than a minute? ”

Estelle shrugged. “We said he was fast.”

“He’s very fast, ma’am,” Beth confirmed. “Though he can’t maintain that level of superspeed for very long, and it leaves him drained for hours afterwards. That must be how Archie was able to catch him.”

It was preposterous. Even a shifter couldn’t move that fast, surely.

Except… Conleth had looked unwell, during their conversation in the office. Pale and twitchy, as though he was strung out with exhaustion…

She shook her head, even more bewildered. “But—why would Conleth do that?”

“That’s what we keep trying to explain, ma’am,” Beth said patiently. “Because you’re his mate.”

Archie growled, showing his teeth.

“I can’t be his mate.” Her brain felt like a jigsaw puzzle that the girls had merrily upended, and were now shaking. “If I was, why wouldn’t he have told me?”

“Gee, I have no idea.” Estelle shot Archie a pointed look. “It’s not like he might have been worried about getting attacked by a bear or anything.”

“I expect he wanted to tell you, ma’am,” Beth said loyally. “He just couldn’t in front of Archie. I’m sure he would have said something if he’d had an opportunity.”

“But he did have an opportunity!” Paige protested. “Conleth and I were alone. We were even talking about mates. He didn’t say I was his.”

Estelle cocked her head. “Did he say that you weren’t?”

Paige opened her mouth to say yes, of course he had… and stopped.

Because he hadn’t. Not in so many words. He’d let her draw that conclusion, but now that she thought about it, he’d been very careful never to say that directly.

And there had been the way he’d looked at her when they first met. Those green, green eyes, fixing on her with such utter focus, as though she was the only thing that mattered in the entire world…

“No,” she said slowly. “He didn’t.”

“See?” Estelle said to Beth. “If we hadn’t come in here and explained everything, we’d have ended up with another disaster like Honey and Buck. You can’t rely on grown-ups to do anything right.”

Beth twisted her hands together. “I’m sure Uncle Conleth is planning to tell her soon. He’s probably just… taking some time to figure out the best way to do it.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Conleth,” Estelle agreed. She turned back to Paige. “He’s pretty much the world’s biggest control freak. And if he is planning a big romantic reveal, he’ll kill us if he finds out we tipped you off in advance. So make sure you act surprised, okay?”

The door slammed back against the wall again. Conleth practically flew into the room, moving so fast that he almost slammed into the opposite wall. His wild eyes met hers.

And Paige knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was true.

It was all true.

She was Conleth’s mate.