CHAPTER SIX

Marcella waited for Soren to object, but the complaint never came.

He simply nodded and, after expelling a long exhalation, dragged his tongue across his lips.

She didn’t want to think about the potential of his proposition. If she understood him correctly, she could get what she wanted—or what she needed from him—and he wouldn’t tease her.

She was used to things being difficult, or for men to cling long after she wanted them to go away. She didn’t think Soren would be going away, and she got a sneaking suspicion that he might do some things she asked.

“I’ll be inside.” She slid down from her seat to the ground and shut the door.

Their few minutes of teasing had earned her a reasonable head start. It was going to take Soren at least a couple of minutes to get his body in check. She wished she’d been imaginative enough to have come up with that tactic ahead of time. The strategy would have been an excellent one if she’d ever planned on repeating it. Soren wouldn’t likely fall for the same trick again, and she couldn’t imagine herself grabbing any other man’s cock like that.

She stepped into the restaurant—“restaurant” being perhaps an overly generous description of the tiny place—and took a moment to get her bearings. The place was a converted front porch attached to what was probably a two-room house. Plastic tables covered with checkered oilcloth lined the front near the windows. The floor was a mishmash of exposed cement and laminate tiles. The ceiling fan was missing a blade.

For a reason she had yet to discern, there was a butt in almost every seat. Apparently, she would be facing crowds everywhere she went.

She sucked some air in through her teeth and made her way to the counter at the back.

Soren joined her at the same time the one server working the front of the restaurant returned to the counter.

“Order here, and I bring your food out to you,” the lady said.

“First time,” Soren said, his gaze scanning rapidly side-to-side at the menu overhead.

Curious, Marcella dropped her gaze to the area immediately below his waist. Apparently, he’d gotten his body under control quickly enough. She had to give him props for that.

“What do you recommend?” he asked the server.

The lady shrugged. “It’s all good. If you’re real hungry, get you one of them platters. Two meats, three sides.”

Coronary on a plate.

Marcella suppressed a shudder. A Bear like Soren could probably put away all that food without giving the pile a second thought, but Marcella likely wouldn’t make a dent in it.

“Is there meat in your greens?” she asked.

“Meat in everything, girl. How you think the good stuff get the flavor?”

“Had to ask,” she muttered. She tossed her wallet from hand to hand and pulled some more air through her teeth. “I’ll have the chicken breast sandwich, then.”

“Want me to cut it in half?”

“How big is it?”

The lady pursed her lips and put her two hands together. “’Bout like so.”

Lord, have mercy.

She imagined her digestive system making the quietest ever gurgling appeal to moderation, and she never ignored what her body parts told her, except the ones that paid too much attention to cocky alpha Bears.

“Yes, cut the sandwich, please,” she said already regretting the order, “and go ahead and bring me a leftovers box. And I’ll have chips on the side.”

“I want a platter,” Soren said.

“Of course you do,” Marcella said in an undertone.

“Trust me that you’d prefer me having eaten versus the alternative.”

“Right. Scary beast and all.”

“I can be.” To the narrowed-eyed waitress, he said, “Ribs and brisket. Rice, string beans, and corn.”

“Same ticket?” the lady asked.

“No,” Marcella said at the same time Soren said, “Yes.”

Soren clucked his tongue and wagged his finger at her. “Remember? Andrea and the receipts?”

“I bet you won’t even file them.”

He shrugged and handed the lady some cash. “Can I get a pitcher of tea, as well?”

“Sweet?”

“No,” Marcella said at the same time Soren said, “Yes.”

“Yes,” Soren repeated with extra emphasis. He leaned down and whispered, “You need the energy.”

“I need that much sugar like I need an extra hole in the head.”

He eyed her from head to toes in that arrogantly salacious way of his, and whispered, “At least you didn’t tell me you’re already sweet enough. Then I would have questioned my earlier belief that you’re incapable of lying.” He grinned sweetly.

Rolling her eyes, Marcella grabbed the cups of ice the waitress handed over the counter, stopped at the spindly “beverage bar” to tip the remaining contents of the plastic pitcher of water into one of the cups, and then made her way to a table near the door. She flicked off a few specks of barbecued meat with a paper napkin and settled into a seat.

Soren joined her a moment later and tipped his head toward the other two plastic chairs. “Could you take one of those, please?”

“Why?”

“I need to be nearest the door.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Whenever people emphasized that particular word, there was something they couldn’t speak aloud. She was too tired to press him for details, so she rolled her hand in a get on with it gesture.

He grunted and leaned down to her. Barely moving his lips, he said, “I can’t control situations if I can’t see them. I’d prefer to sit in a corner, but as none of those seats are available, I’d prefer to be nearest the door with fewer people at my back.”

“Oh. Makes sense.”

The man frustrated her so much personally that she kept forgetting that the man made a living assessing risks and solving particular kinds of problems. He wasn’t in Georgia to drive her bonkers.

Or at least, he wasn’t there to only do that.

Once settled into a seat across the table, she watched Soren pour tea into his glass. Even while doing an activity that required some level of precision, his attention seemed split. He wasn’t only looking down and pouring, but also seeming to capture every person in the room in memory for seconds at a time.

She didn’t see anything interesting, but she usually had to get close to people to learn anything of use about them.

“Well?” she whispered.

He gave his head a minute shake and brought his cup to his lips.

She didn’t know what that shake meant because she hadn’t worked with him before.

His gaze flitted down to the phone in front of her and then up to her face again.

Oh.

She tapped out a message. Anything interesting?

He kept sipping. Keep discreetly scanning the dining area.

No one was paying attention to them. The customers were all too busy shoving food into their faces or licking their fingers.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped in: Two people to watch. Trying to figure out whom.

How do you know that?

Smell one. Sense the other psychically.

Shifters?

One shifter, one something else. Give me a moment, please.

“Okay,” she said aloud.

She might have never known they were there. Not being able to recognize shifter energy may have made the job exponentially more challenging. Soren was using shortcuts she couldn’t fathom.

She wasn’t quite ready to admit that to him, though.

He picked up a napkin and rolled the corners idly, his gaze in her direction, but seemingly not entirely on her.

His nostrils flared, and he drew in several deep breaths.

Oh.

He stopped scenting and picked up his glass again.

She whispered, “We should probably say some things to each other, so we don’t look like we’re having a very awkward first date.” Or so they didn’t look like a pair of thugs casing the place.

“Hmm. Okay, then. So, what do you usually eat when you’re on the road, if not barbecue?”

She shrugged. “I try to be responsible. That’s obviously more onerous in some places than in others. Sometimes, finding good-quality protein is harder than you’d think, especially in food deserts.”

“You feel guilty for splurging?”

She turned her hands over. “I imagine my metabolism is a lot slower than yours. Maria says hers seems to be more sluggish than the rest of the Shrews, so I suspect we share some genetics in that realm.”

“She’s comfortable with her weight. I think she’s even gained some lately.”

“I envy her. She’s comfortable with herself in general.” The woman rarely even wore support garments. Eric seemed perpetually aggrieved by her derision toward bras, claiming she drew too much attention. In Marcella’s estimation, most of that attention was from him.

They had such a cute relationship. Marcella and her sister weren’t close. Not yet, anyway, but Marcella was still glad that Maria had found someone who made her smile. Often, Marcella wondered if that was all that mattered in a lover—that they could chip through a cold woman’s layers of marble and make her lips curve into a smile.

“Why envy?” Soren asked.

Marcella tunneled a straw through the ice in her glass and took a deep breath as she gathered her thoughts. “I’ll admit I needed many years to get anything close to comfortable being in this skin.”

“Why?”

“I was an awkward-looking child. Skinny with bad skin. Thick glasses and everything.”

“I don’t believe you were as pitiful as you make out.”

“Fortunately, there’s very little photo evidence that I even existed during those years.”

“Camera shy?”

“Hell yes. I’m glad smartphones weren’t around back then and that people couldn’t take a picture of you and have it uploaded to social media in thirty seconds. I might have been traumatized.”

“I think you’re probably exaggerating.”

She wished.

She’d anticipated some of her awkwardness. Like her mother, she’d grown tall before she’d developed any curves. At the same time that she’d been trying to come to terms with the normal puberty things her body was doing, the weirder things started. Most teenagers couldn’t dissolve in water or have their skin start rippling at the slightest touch from fingers that were too sweaty. Or at the hint of rain in an overcast sky.

She rubbed her arms, chasing away her sudden chill at the thought.

She couldn’t afford overcast skies and sweaty touches. She was working. Needed that job so she could settle.

He picked up his phone. Tapped the screen.

Moments later, her phone buzzed. She turned it over discreetly while sipping her water and read, Black Bear. Made. Gene didn’t lie about that.

That warmed her up quickly enough.

The next message said, Whoever the other non-normal is in here is by him or her.

She turned her phone face down again and leaned back in her seat as the server slid her Georgia-sized sandwich in front of her.

“Lord, help me.”

“Girl, that ain’t nothing but chicken, and it’s not like it’s gonna peck you back.”

Marcella lifted the toasted bread on the top of one half and cringed. “An entire chicken?”

“You’re funny.” The server put Soren’s plate down, and he had his fork into the beef before the lady even pulled her hand back.

“I’ll eat what you don’t,” he said.

“That may be more than I expected.”

“Need anything else?” the server asked. “Hot sauce?”

“Antacids,” Marcella murmured.

“Napkins, please,” Soren said.

“Be right back,” the server said.

As Marcella concentrated on getting her hands around half her sandwich in some strategic fashion, Soren’s phone buzzed on the tabletop.

He hit the speaker button. “Yes, Mamă?”

Oh shit.

Marcella smiled her thanks to the server who’d returned with a pile of napkins and then got busy stuffing chicken into her face. If her mouth were full, she couldn’t talk.

At least, in theory. Bear manners probably didn’t square up with what she knew to be proper etiquette.

“English then?” Soren asked.

“Yes,” his mother returned.

“Fine.”

“No need to speak English for my sake,” Marcella muttered.

“Probably for the best,” Mrs. Ursu said to her.

Already, Marcella had forgotten about the sensitivity of Bear ears. She groaned.

“Are you settled?” Mrs. Ursu asked.

“More or less. Why do you ask?”

“What is that noise?”

“In the background? I’m in a restaurant. Barbecue.”

The noise Mrs. Ursu made was an emphatic verbal shudder. Marcella agreed with her.

“I will send you an email. Your father needs you to run an errand.”

“No.” Soren shoveled string beans into his mouth and dug in for another pile.

“You can’t say no. He’s your father.”

“I told him no myself already. I’m on vacation from that.”

“You can’t take a vacation from your father.”

Soren chuckled dryly. “Maybe you can’t, but I’m not the one who married him.”

She spat something low in what was probably Romanian, and then returned to English. “Do it. Quick job.”

“Quick is relative. Where his favors are concerned, quick could be anything from fifteen minutes to two weeks.”

“This is nothing like that. I promise.”

“Really? A promise, Mamă? Must be something important.”

“Very.”

“Fine. Send the email. I’m not saying I’ll play along, but I’ll at least take a look. Bye.” He hit the speaker button again, ending the call.

Marcella swallowed the food in her mouth. “What do you think the favor is?”

“Could be anything. My parents tend to understate the difficulty level of the errands they ask Peter and me to run. I think sometimes they see us as little more than interns they can demand to do their bidding.”

“Sounds like my grandmother.”

“Yeah?”

Marcella bobbed her eyebrows and took another awkward bite from the corner of her sandwich. “I lived with her whenever my mother wasn’t home, which was most of the time. She used to send me out fetching things no child should have had any business handling. Everyone knew her, though, and so they knew me. If I went to the store and said Granny needed white rum, they’d hand me the bottle, and I’d give them the exact change she’d counted out. ‘Don’t let them charge you more than that,’ she’d always say.”

Gathering odds and ends for Granny’s potions and brews had been particularly humiliating at times, and not because Marcella was the emissary, but because those people knew what her grandmother was.

They knew what Marcella probably was, even when she was a girl.

“Hated being her minion but learned a lot?” Soren asked.

“Of course.”

“Same with Peter and me.”

“So, how did Tamara manage to avoid becoming yet another of your parents’ unpaid employees?”

“Oh, she didn’t know about any of that stuff. Didn’t know what we were.”

“How is that possible?”

“My parents are very good at that—keeping secrets. Peter and I had to learn to do the same. We always knew there was a chance Tam wouldn’t be quite right because certain traits are inherited. There was a chance she’d be like my grandmother, and she is. When she reached puberty and couldn’t shapeshift, all the vigilance became even more necessary.”

“I don’t know if my family would be able to hide a secret like that. Where I grew up, there were no secrets. Not really. Around there, secrets spread like the common cold. Not having any is easiest.”

They’d all known she was a witch, but Marcella had managed to keep one secret—her not-quite-human nature. She didn’t talk about what she was, nor did her mother or her grandmother. Their makeup was a personal thing they didn’t bring up around others, and a thing they didn’t let other people see them do. Her people understood witches, but they couldn’t possibly comprehend beings who were flesh and bone one moment and liquid the next.

“How’s the chicken?” Soren asked.

“If you’re asking if there’s going to be any left for you, I believe that’s a safe bet.”

“Tamara got used to me eating her food.”

“I’m sure she had to.”

“Got to the point where she’d order food anyway even if she didn’t want any. Either Peter or I would relieve her of the responsibility. Buffets were our favorite.”

“Because she was your extra plate.”

“Fewer trips that way, and fewer nasty glares from the managers. I’m sure you’ll learn plenty about our particular kind of appetite through Maria. Eric’s not immune to the cravings in spite of his…” Soren glanced around the room, probably to determine whom, if anyone, was listening too closely. He shrugged. “His late conversion.”

“Ah.”

Although she’d spent some time with a variety of shapeshifters in Jamaica, Marcella didn’t understand all the nuances of what made born ones different from made ones. Apparently, though Eric was a made-Bear, he had the instincts, power, and psychic aura of a born one. He’d hand-flapped the subject of his nature away over dinner one night, saying he couldn’t exactly boast about his strength. He didn’t believe he’d have his power if not for his tight enmeshment with Bryan and his inner circle.

Maybe he was right. Bryan didn’t think so, though.

Marcella slid a potato chip between her lips and chewed thoughtfully. Learning everything there was to know about freaky people on a small island hadn’t required a great deal of mental endurance, but the world was so much larger than Jamaica, and she was living out in it.

Or trying to be, anyway. Marcella’s permanence in the country was predicated on her getting hired by Shrew & Company. That wasn’t an opportunity she was willing to let slip through her fingers.

“Soren.” She picked up another chip, but didn’t eat. She stared at it.

“Hmm?”

“I really need this job. This audition isn’t a game for me. I don’t have a safety net to fall back in like you do. Every gig I get paid for finances my travel to the next place. I’m barely scraping by, and I’m tired of living like that. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” With a great deal of effort, she looked up. Looking at him was always a trial because he pulled triggers in her without even trying. She wanted to either slap him silly or climb onto his lap.

Can’t work like this.

He set down his fork and rested his elbows on top of the table. “I think I do.”

“I don’t know if I believe you. Will you stay out of my way?”

“No.”

“You just said—”

“No, I’m not going to stay out of your way. That would go against both Bear and human common sense. I’m going to help you.”

“This is my audition, not yours. The Shrews already know you can do the work.”

“But they sent you down here with a partner. What do you think they assumed I was going to do? Stand a hundred yards away from you at any given time and swoop in to assist when you’re in danger of getting hurt? No.” He shook his head hard and picked his fork back up. “My father taught me to be proactive, and that’s how I do my solo jobs.”

“You being proactive could cause the dismantling of any plans I make before I even have a shot at implementing them.”

“Are you so averse to communicating with me?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“The fact that I choose to work solo most of the time doesn’t mean I’m not entirely proficient at working in teams. Peter and I work together fine when we have to.”

“But you know each other’s quirks. You can predict how the other will behave and know each other’s thought processes. I don’t know you.”

“So get to know me.”

“A little late for that. The time for that was yesterday. We’re already in the frying pan.”

“Unfortunately, you didn’t want to get to know me yesterday.”

“I’m not so sure I want to get to know you today, either.”

He chuckled and stuffed the last of the beef into his mouth. “Of course you do. You can’t pull the wool over the eyes of the Bear the goddess has made your mate. I can read you like a book.”

Grimacing, she worried he actually could. She wasn’t dealing with a regular asshole like she did in her usual line of work. Soren Ursu was an alpha Were-bear sort of an asshole, and there was a small—or maybe huge—chance she was out of her depths.

Not knowing what else she could do, she took a bite of her sandwich and scoffed.