Chapter 3

When she heard the tub upstairs draining and the shower come on, Rita started the crepes. It had been awhile since she made them—Aster preferred pancakes—so she had to check her recipes. Luckily, no self-respecting witch ever lost a recipe.

Would a self-respecting witch let a half-exiled bear king into her bathroom?

Well, too late now. As the perfectly browned crepes came off the griddle, she piled them carefully under a damp towel and brought out the fillings. Luckily, with two full-grown bear shifters and one little boy in the house, the vintage refrigerator was stuffed. She had enough leftovers for egg, sausage, and potato crepes, a veggie-only version, and a fruit-filled dessert. Hopefully that would be enough to take the edge off the deprivation she’d glimpsed in her unexpected visitor.

His emptiness wasn’t all food-related, probably, but the rest would have to wait until she’d gotten some more details from him and consulted the circle’s collected grimoires.

She had just popped the rolled crepes into the oven’s warming draw to wait when a change in the kitchen air pressure brought her around.

Thor filled the doorway like a solid oak door made of male. Even the lightly refreshing whiff of cucumber and aloe (Mac and Ben refused to shower in the Victorian’s “too breakable” bathroom and always went home to their rental cottage to—Rita wasn’t sure exactly—hose off or whatever, so she didn’t have any manly body washes upstairs) couldn’t diminish his hulking presence. His black hair stuck straight up, shiny and damp, but she hadn’t done too bad a job, if she did say so herself. Maybe a little more asymmetrically runway trendy than was typical for Angels Rest but certainly better than the abandoned stray look he’d had going on before.

She was right that the baggiest clothes Mac and Ben had left in their “shifter shareables” bin were barely big enough for Thor. The gray cotton sweatpants clung to his thighs and calves, emphasizing how thick he was all the way around…

Snapping her gaze higher, she focused instead on his broad chest, partly bared by the buttoned shirt that wouldn’t come together higher than his navel. Unfortunately, removing the dirt only revealed how rough he’d been living. He had scratches on his hands and bare feet and deeper cuts across his forearms. She sucked in a harsh breath at the wound gouged across his pectorals.

In a strangely vulnerable gesture, he spread his fingers over the parallel lines digging into his flesh. Maybe he hadn’t found his bear, but it seemed like something angry had found him out in the wildlands.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?” she scolded. “Sit and I’ll get the first aid kit.”

He sat obediently even as he shook his head. “I cleaned it well. I just need to leave it alone now.”

She stalked closer, letting the thump of her crutches tell him that she’d be the judge of that. But when she peered down—he leaned back at her glare, exposing his chest—she had to admit the wound was dirt-free and showed no signs of renewed bleeding even though he must’ve scrubbed thoroughly. “It looks like it was deep but it’s already healing. When did that happen? What happened?”

“It was right after I left you.” He hesitated. “As you said before, I happened.”

She lifted her gaze to his. “You did this to yourself?”

“I thought… The bear wouldn’t rise so I issued a challenge I thought it couldn’t refuse.”

The bear, she noted. Not his bear, like Mac and Ben and even Aster referred to their beasts.

“You tried to kill yourself,” she said flatly.

“No.” He shook his head hard enough that a little spray of water flung from his hair across her fist, clenched on her crutch. “I couldn’t ever do that, not when it would wound the clan more than me.”

She snorted. “And that’s not wound enough?”

His grimace would’ve been comical if she wasn’t so mad. “I pushed the change as far as I could go without the bear, thinking I might lure it closer. I felt it circling.” His voice hitched roughly when he put his hand over the wound again, his fingertips aligned with where the gashes started. “And I tried to grab hold.” He tightened his fist, miming the inward grasp. “But it wasn’t interested in staying caught.”

Listening to him tell the story, she realized she was holding her own hand over her heart. What would it be like to have her own inner source of strength leave her? She let the weight of her crutch pull her arm down, the cuff sliding neatly into place around her forearm. She cleared her throat. “If I’d known you were such a menace to yourself I wouldn’t have bothered trying to shoot you.”

“I won’t make that mistake again,” he said solemnly. “Either wrestling the bear bare-handed or tempting you to shoot me.”

“Deal.” She twisted away toward the stove. “Let me get the crepes.”

“Let me help.”

So quick and smooth she didn’t have time to protest, he was out of his seat and reaching around her for the oven drawer. “Maybe something to drink?”

He was giving her the easy job. She pushed her resentment away. He’d come for her help in finding and capturing his beast—obviously he already believed in her capability.

She mixed up blackberry shrub lemonade for both of them (testily, she wondered would he be strong enough to handle the vinegar bite of the shrub?) and followed him back to the table. He handled the three pans of rolled crepes easily, and she might’ve been annoyed except he was a bear shifter and a landscaper so of course he was strong.

He took his seat and then a mouthful of the lemonade.

And gasped, his dark eyes reddening a bit at the corners.

She smirked. “I made the shrub myself.”

“Shrubbery?” He peered into his glass. “I don’t see any leaves.”

“A shrub is fruit, sugar, and vinegar.”

“Ah. That’s the sting.”

“The sting brings out the sweetness.”

He wrinkled his nose and took another, more careful sip. “The clan has plenty of beekeepers who try to tell me the same thing.”

She laughed. “Are you saying you are the only bear who doesn’t like honey?”

“No, because that’d be a lie,” he said with great dignity. “But I hate being stung. Big, buff bears pretend otherwise, but getting stung hurts.”

Her amusement faded. “Yeah. There’s a lot of stuff we’re supposed to pretend doesn’t hurt.”

He gazed at her steadily. “I hope you’ll come to see that you don’t have to pretend with me.”

For some reason, her heartbeat skipped at the openness of his words. She frowned. “We don’t know each other that well.”

“You cut my hair.”

“Your name is Thor, not Sampson. I don’t want to steal your strength.”

“No. You have your own. And that’s why I’m here.” He dropped his gaze to the table. “And for the crepes, of course. Shall I serve?”

She choked back the urge to continue her thoughts on how they didn’t know each other. “Please do.”

It felt odd to be brunching with a shapeshifter she’d almost shot. Oh, he might be man-shaped now, and agile enough with a serving spatula, but she swore she could still see a shadow of the mutant monster that tore through the Victorian’s yard a month ago.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Or more accurately, she took desultory bites of her veggie crepe and he demolished the entire pan of meat ones and most of the mixed berries. It wasn’t until he reached for the last of the whipped cream that he paused.

A flush of subtle color brightened his deeply tanned skin. “I’ve had more than my fair share.”

“How king-like.” She nudged the berry crepe toward him. “Go ahead. They don’t last anyway.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he took her offering and scooped what remained of the cream too. If she hadn’t already spent a couple months watching shifters eat, she might’ve been shocked. And Thor was both bigger than and more starved than his cousins.

“Did the bear leave you because Ben beat you in the fight? Is that why you ran away?”

Thor’s fork skidded across his plate. “He didn’t beat me. I abandoned the fight when I realized I’d have to kill him to make him be king.”

She squinted one eye. “Yeah, that…wouldn’t really get you where you wanted to go.”

“When I realized he was already bonding to your sister, I left.” He slanted a glance at her. The feral amber tint in his eyes had darkened to richest brown, as if the food—or maybe the conversation—had tamed him. “Rather abruptly.”

“Totally not running away,” she mused.

“Totally not.” He swirled the last bite of crepe through the whipped cream with far more focus than the act deserved. “My problem didn’t start because of the fight. I haven’t been able to summon the beast for awhile now.”

The hesitance in his voice and those under-dark-lashes glances made her realize this ursine dysfunction was much more fraught than she’d understood. In a matter-of-fact tone, she said, “Have you talked to your own doctors about this?”

He shook his head. “Shifters have come a long way from the days where we fought each other for territory, but sharing such a weakness like mine with outsiders is too risky for the clan.” Abandoning the last bite of crepe, he laid aside his fork with a click. “I haven’t even told my cousins. Only you.”

She pursed her lips. “Since Aunt Tilda moved here, she and the circle have been adding to a grimoire on shapeshifters. And of course I’ve been reading up ever since Aster turned into a bear cub after a bath one night.”

Thor huffed out a laugh. “That must’ve been…exciting.”

“Fur holds way more water than bare skin. Chasing him around the apartment was quite the thrill.” She smiled to herself at the memory. “He’s always hated baths.”

“He’ll grow out of that.” Running one hand over his newly shorn head, Thor sat back. “I haven’t had this little control since I was younger than Aster. As rex ursi for the clan, I knew before I could speak that I had to be perfect and in control always.”

“It’s hard enough for the circle to enforce its secrecy rules on wise women who are always just one shape, more or less.” She flicked her fingers through the ends of her bob. “After a few bath times with Aster as a cub, I can’t imagine trying to control young shapeshifters.”

“The influence of shifter adults helps youngsters hold the change, as I’m sure you’ve seen with Mac and Ben being around.” Thor looked at her for confirmation, and when she nodded, he went on, “So you can appreciate how important it is to have a strong, stable leader for an entire clan or pack. The rex ursi masters all the other bears, just like a father guides his cubs.”

She sat back with her drink, the lemonade and the vinegar leaving a touch of sourness in her throat. Many of the women in the circle chose to remain childless, focusing on their magical studies and their community work instead, and being responsible for her sisters had given her enough of a taste of maternal obligations. She loved every minute with Aster—even the soapy wet ones spent chasing his furry butt around the apartment—but it seemed wrong to equate leadership to parenthood. Children were meant to find their own way, eventually, just as she was learning to let her sisters live their own lives. If Thor thought he had to maintain that sort of control and command over his clan forever, no wonder he was desperate to get back his powerful beast.

And no wonder he seemed so despairing.

“You say this isn’t a recent development,” she prodded. “When did you lose your bear? And how?”

His jaw angled to one side, as if he were crunching on something much less tender than her delectable crepes. “Does it matter? I just need it back.”

She didn’t want to admit she was partly just nosy. “There’s some friction between the circle’s mindful magic and the intrinsic preternaturalness of shifters. If I’m going to come up with a spell to help you lure and bind the beast, I need to know what I’m getting into.”

After another tense grind of his jaw, he nodded stiffly. “Fair enough. I’ll tell you everything. But I need to see my cousins first, and your sister, to apologize for what I did, just in case this doesn’t work.”

What would happen to him if he couldn’t capture his bear? He’d seemed ready and willing—too insistent, actually—to turn over leadership of the clan to Ben, so it couldn’t be too bad. “Gin is covering my aunt’s shop for me today, and your cousins are on an out-of-town job.” She considered the depleted state of leftovers still in the fridge. “Everyone usually ends up back here at the house. If you want to stay until tonight…”

He was already shaking his head. “I should go. I need to put some things to right before… Could you bring everyone to the huckleberry field on the mesa tomorrow evening?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “The field where you gave my sister snowberries for her spell and almost froze the town in the middle of July?”

“The snow hardly lasted even as long as the whipped cream,” he muttered.

With a reproving look, she clicked her tongue. “That attitude isn’t giving me a lot of confidence in our collaboration.”

He grimaced. “I’ll bring a picnic. Huckleberry wine for us, and Aster can play in the field.” When she didn’t answer right away, he pointed out, “You trusted me enough to let me in the house when you’re here alone.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “I can take care of myself. Also, I have bear spray duct taped to the bottom of the kitchen table on my side.”

He froze. “Really?”

She gave him a smile sweeter than the berries and sharper than bear claws. “Wanna peek?”

With a slow shake of his head, he rose and started ferrying dirty dishes to the sink. While she watched, he cleaned up at least as well as Gin would have.

When he turned back, drying his big hands on one of the suddenly small white towels, she said, “Fine. We’ll meet you up there. And you can tell me everything I need to know about catching a bear.”

Once he’d gone—out the back gate and disappearing into the desert—she took the handful of his shorn hair down to the Victorian’s workroom.

After the bright warmth of the small kitchen, crowded by Thor’s presence, she felt momentarily lost in the cavernous basement. Which was strange. She loved the spellatorium, as Brandy called it.

Tucking the coarse black locks into vellum envelope, Rita went to the bookshelf where all the circle’s grimoires were neatly arranged. She had a lot of studying to do.

But she wondered if most of what she needed to learn would be found out on the mesa under the September moon.