Chapter Two
Another morning when he had to call Jasmine to come in before five in the morning. Eneko spat out the mouthwash and checked his teeth, enjoying the minty feeling that was left behind. It was hard to get his brain working properly before the sun came up, but he had a few tricks to wake himself up. Splashing cold water on his face, coffee grounds mixed in with his breakfast smoothie, stuff like that.
He just wished that he didn’t have to leave home so early in the morning that he couldn’t kiss his children good morning and promise to see them for supper. They were still sleeping, although from the way Maite had chattered about Jasmine as soon as he had gotten home the previous day to when he put her to bed, he was leaving his children in good hands.
The front door opened and Eneko quickly cleaned the toothpaste off his chin and went out to greet Jasmine. Her long green eyes crinkled into a smile and his heart thudded, skipping a beat.
She was beautiful. Tall and curvy, with a strong, solid body. A tad thinner than most female bear shifters, but still with lots of muscle and fat on her body. Not at all like the overly skinny non-shifter women tended to be. All shifters needed extra fat stores, which often gave them a pudgy appearance despite the amount of muscle on their bodies. Shifters who didn’t embrace their beasts often tended to have more fat than muscle, though–something that was clear to see on Jasmine. The scent of her jaguar was also much less pronounced than it ought to be. All signs that she didn’t shift that often.
It made Eneko sad, but it wasn’t really his business. She must have her reasons for not fully embracing her jaguar.
She smiled slightly as she brushed snow off her long, dark hair. “Snow in October. Ugh. Snow should come on Christmas and that’s it. The rest of the time we should have sunny days and beaches. Lots of beaches.”
Eneko immediately pictured her in a bikini. The really skimpy type, with small triangles that barely held in her breasts and with bottoms that had the ties on the side…
He swallowed hard and looked away quickly. Luckily his imagination hadn’t affected… other parts of his body just yet, so he felt no need to hide from her. He gestured her to follow him as he led her to the kitchen. There he offered her a cup of tea before showing her where the landline was and all the numbers she needed in case of an emergency.
“Luken gets out the door for school at eight,” he said. “We wait at the corner, and then just walk Maite to her classes. She has half-days Monday to Thursday and Fridays off. In the mornings you can do a little light cleaning if the house needs it. If you need to do any shopping, just keep your receipts and I’ll reimburse you. Um…”
Jasmine smiled at him, a calm presence as his nerves kicked up even worse. “You haven’t left your kids with a nanny before, have you?”
Eneko grimaced and shook his head. “I’ve always been able to work my hours so I didn’t need one. And if there were emergencies, I’d just take them with me to the clinic. But that’s not working. With the things that are happening right now, I don’t want them to be exposed to that.”
“Of course.”
Jasmine’s face darkened for a moment and Eneko wondered if she was thinking about the way Jana had come to the clinic to attack him.
Why non-shifters insisted that they knew better about what shifters needed and what they could handle was beyond him. Or rather it wasn’t beyond him at all. He knew exactly why they did that. Ignorance, prejudice, and a distorted view on their rights. It didn’t matter if they were at the top of the ladder, didn’t matter if shifters weren’t even allowed on it. If a new one was introduced just for the shifters, they had to cry and complain that they weren’t getting what they deserved. At least, non-shifters like Jana were like that.
“I thought about going to medical school once,” Jasmine said as Eneko led her deeper into the house. “The costs were too high, though. The thought of having that much student debt… I decided that it wasn’t the right call for me. What was it like for you?”
Eneko considered for a moment. “Hard. I’m still paying off my student loans, but I’m applying for forgiveness since I run a non-profit clinic. Right now, Isaias Durant–you know him, right?”
“Everyone knows Isaias Durant. He’s a billionaire and married to one of the best authors out there.”
Eneko smiled. “Well, he’s paying for the clinic and my wages for the most part. Hopefully this mess with the loans will be over soon. And if not, I’m at least helping people. That’s what is most important to me. Making sure that people get the treatment they need and that their pain is eased.”
Jasmine laughed, a high, tinkling sound. “Well, now I just feel selfish for not going to med school.”
“Nah, you’re not.” Eneko glanced at the clock. “I do have to get going now, though. Tell the kids I’ll be home for supper.”
She nodded and he grabbed his cellphone and keys and bolted. Driving with the windows down helped to finish waking him up. As he drove, he let his mind dwell on Jasmine. It had been a while since a woman had gotten the type of reaction she got from him.
The mother of his children, Sadie, had been a bear shifter like him. Their life hadn’t been perfect together but he loved her. Then one day he came home to find the children alone in front of the TV. There was a note on the fridge saying that Sadie had left. A few years later she returned and told him that she wanted a divorce. She never asked about the children and he hadn’t seen her since. It had been a hard, hard time. He thought that she was his mate and they’d be together forever. His bear still growled and howled in mourning whenever he thought of her. But maybe his reaction to Jasmine meant it was time to move on…
When he got closer to the clinic, he saw a group of people standing in the parking lot. Many of them had large signs. His bear growled at the sight, and Eneko pushed it down as he pulled into a nearby parking lot. It didn’t take him long to figure out these were protestors. But protesting what? The clinic?
He groaned when he saw Jana with them. She stood with her boyfriend, Andy, and had a loudspeaker at her side. She had worked with him for a few months, until she had made the mistake of complaining to him about their clinic providing services for a mostly shifter clientele. When she found out that he himself was a shifter she had nearly flipped her lid. Before that, however, he’d had to escort Andy off the property several times as he kept refusing to leave Jana alone, even when she told him to leave.
Of course, once she had quit all of a sudden he was the bad guy, driving off the love of her life for a chance to get her in bed. She told everyone how he had ‘harassed’ her. Sometimes Eneko wondered if she believed it, too.
Eneko pulled out his cellphone to phone Marcus, who the matriarch of the clan had set in charge of security and shifter pride marches. Before he had even dialed, though, there was suddenly a lot of screaming from the protestors. He looked up in shock.
“Stop stealing our resources!” Jana chanted into her loudspeaker, over and over again. “Stop stealing our resources!”
Eneko got out of his car. The person they were screaming at was Rachel Higgins. She was one of his most timid clients. Eight months pregnant, married to a non-shifter though she was a bear herself. Her eyes were wide as she wrapped her arms around her stomach and inched away from the clinic while looking around for someone to help her. Eneko’s bear snarled.
How dare they terrorize a pregnant woman?
With his bear still snarling with the desire to protect Rachel, Eneko rushed over. The crowd’s shouting quieted slightly as they saw him coming and a few of them started to back away. Eneko was aware that he had an intimidating presence. He was big, even for a bear, and his facial features were less Hollywood hunk and more mob boss’ muscle man. It normally bothered him a little when people were immediately afraid of him, but in this case he was grateful for his intimidating presence.
He got to Rachel and put an arm around her. “Let’s get you inside for your checkup.”
Rachel nodded, eyeing the protestors with terror in her eyes.
Eneko led her towards the clinic, being sure to have a ferocious scowl on his face. A few of the protestors tried to stand in his way, but they quickly chickened out when nobody else backed them up.
“He sexually harassed me!” Jana suddenly shouted. She grabbed one of the ‘resources for humans’ signs and marched towards him. “Every dollar spent here is a dollar that could be spent on someone who needs it. Sick children. Humans who have been in accidents. Not to this sexual predator!”
Going with the sexual predator story? Eneko ignored her as he unlocked the door. Even when she jabbed him with her sign. But when Rachel gasped and he looked up to see Andy roughly grabbing her arm, he couldn’t stop himself. With a snarl, he seized the man by the throat. The crowd gasped, somebody even screamed. Andy’s eyes widened as Eneko dragged him from Rachel and pushed him away. Andy stumbled and went down, landing on his butt.
There was a moment of shocked silence before Jana started to scream profanities. She came at him with the sign again and Eneko dodged the attack.
“You’ll pay for that, you animal! You beast! I’m going to sue you for everything you have! You’ll be in jail for the rest of your life—"
“Inside,” Eneko muttered to Rachel. He ushered her inside and quickly locked the door behind them.
Rachel rubbed her arm, shivering. “Will they really send you to jail for that?”
Eneko’s heart pounded from the adrenaline, but he tried to shrug it off with a smile. “I have cameras. He laid his hands on you first. The matriarch has a good legal team, if anybody tries anything they’ll be in for an uphill battle. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just shaken up.”
The protestors started to shout and rattle the door while banging on the windows. Eneko quickly ushered Rachel into a back room before calling Marcus. It was bad enough that they didn’t have half of the equipment and resources they actually needed to properly give medical services for the people around here. Bad enough that women like Rachel were coming to him, a general practitioner, for checkups with the pregnancies because non-shifter OB/GYNs turned them away because there was the pervasive notion that pregnant shifter women always isolated themselves before giving birth. This had to stop, before they scared off any of his other clients that needed his help.
“Marcus, I need you to get to the clinic,” Eneko said once he got hold of him. “And maybe bring some of your biker friends. I have a feeling that I’m going to need them today.”