Chance Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 6) (6 page)

At least she’d had one night of feeling normal.

At least she’d found this respite before she’d hunted the pack and done something she would regret. Something that would’ve poisoned her soul.

At least Chance had saved her from that fate.

But he wasn’t her wolf in shining armor, and she was no princess worthy of rescue.

He was right to cut them off now instead of allowing her to attach to him more. She already felt so strongly it was scary. Terrifying really, to care for someone so much after one good night.

From here on, she would be more careful, as the shifters had to be, with her heart and with who she trusted.

The sound of voices woke Emily from the folds of bottomless sleep. Cracking her eyes open, she stared at the window that allowed the gray morning light into the bedroom. She listened harder. Was someone in here? She sat up in a rush and pulled out the long hunting knife she kept hidden under the edge of the mattress. She blasted out of bed, but skidded to a stop once she reached the living room of her dad’s old house. It was the receiver, picking up conversation between Dalton and Kate.

Shoulders sagging, she squeezed her eyes tightly closed against the monster hangover headache that was pulsing behind her eye sockets. So many bad decisions. They’d been fun at the time and would’ve been worth it if it weren’t for Chance’s complete and utter rejection to end the night.

Dalton asked Kate what she wanted for breakfast.

Uninterested, Emily stumbled over the cold floor boards to the bathroom and washed up. It wasn’t until her teeth were brushed, her face washed, and she was dressed for the day that a more familiar voice came over the receiver. She shouldn’t be eavesdropping like this. Everything was different from yesterday, and now she was riddled with guilt that she’d bugged their house.

She rushed to turn off the receiver, but Chance said, “No, Emily isn’t mine,” in a tired, hoarse voice.

Emily froze, finger hovering over the power button. She already knew this, so why was she hesitating?

“What’s wrong with you?” Dalton asked.

“I didn’t sleep last night.”

“At all?” Kate sounded worried.

The banging of pots and a fork scraping across a plate sounded. “Kate, breakfast looks good.”

“Chance, what’s going on? Is it about Emily?”

“I don’t want to talk about her anymore, okay? She was just a friend. She’s temporary, and I’m not looking.”

“For a mate, you mean, because I know that look, man,” Dalton said. “I saw it every morning in the mirror when I was bonding with Kate.”

“Emily isn’t my mate. Not even close.”

“Why not?” Kate asked. “I liked her. She was really nice and fun and the way she looked at you—”

“Kate! I’m serious. This isn’t up for discussion.”

“Why not?”

“Because she isn’t mate material. I can’t trust her, and what would a relationship ever be worth without that? Huh? She’s not it. Let it go.”

Emily huffed a pained breath and turned off the receiver.
Emily isn’t my mate.
Not even close. I can’t trust her.

Oh, she knew what she was, what she was trained to be, but she’d just cut herself off from the last of her family, even before Chance had given her the night of her life. If that didn’t earn a little trust, she didn’t know what did. He couldn’t see into her mind, though, didn’t know how horrible she felt, so she had to accept it.

She’d thought for a moment that maybe, in time, she could earn his trust, but he’d cut her off early, and she couldn’t blame him. Honestly, she would’ve done the same thing.

Somehow, that didn’t take away the sting of his words, though.

A Hell Hunter and a werewolf. She would’ve laughed if she didn’t feel like her insides were on fire. She’d been so stupid to think they could be anything other than this—worlds apart.

Blinking back the burn in her eyes, she pulled a pair of work gloves off the kitchen countertop and strode into the master bedroom. All of Dad’s things were still in here. She’d imagined going through them and keeping trinkets, then perhaps having an estate sale for his belongings that didn’t hold sentimental value for her.

But the truth of it was, she hadn’t ever really known him, and after his death, she’d realized how uninterested in her he’d always been. Sure, he preached about the importance of her carrying on the Hell Hunter line. It was in their blood, after all. But he and Mom had never married, and he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in fighting for custody over her or even asking for more visitation. She spent a few weeks in the summer with him where he spewed hate for shifters and trained her in survival and killing. His hunting trips were always the same. Wolves, wolves, wolves, but that wasn’t what he was really teaching her to hunt. He taught her how to hunt shifters who shared the skin of a man. He’d trained her to be a murderer.

Nothing of his would hold sentimental value anymore.

She pulled the boxes out of his closet, down the steep porch stairs, and to the front yard. This would be the tinder for one hell of a bonfire because today she was saying goodbye, not only to him, but to a big part of herself as well.

She removed his shoes and the clothes on his hangers. She fought the urge to sniff one of his jackets to see if it still smelled like him. She pulled decorations off the walls and gutted the house, leaving only the things that she needed—that she could make her own in time.

The pile outside grew bigger and bigger through the day. She didn’t stop, didn’t slow, didn’t eat. Her forehead was damp with sweat and her muscles fatigued, but still, she cleared out everything down to the bare mattress in Dad’s room.

If she was going to try and keep this place, it couldn’t have any trace of him left behind.

And this fire…this fire would burn the last of the Hell Hunter from her. Determined, she hauled out the ancient anti-shifter books her Dad had read to her like bedtime stories growing up. The pages were full of drawings of Hell Hunters gallantly hanging wolf-like monsters and houses on fire with children screaming at the windows. Sick, sick shit that had never felt right, but she’d assumed was how the world worked. Why? Because the most important man in her life had brainwashed her to accept it.

There were three old, hard-backed texts on the history of shifters that she kept behind. If she ever saw Chance or the Silvers again, she would gift the books to them. She was only interested in destroying the Hell Hunter history books, not theirs.

With the last of the giant texts on top of the pile, she dumped gasoline onto it and stood back. With a steadying breath, she lit a match and tossed it onto his things. Her skin flushed with the instant heat, and she backed away slowly until her ankles brushed the bottom porch stair. She sat down heavily and wrapped her arms around her middle as the flames climbed higher and higher up the pile of her dad’s belongings.

“No more,” she murmured. No more hate, no more vengeance blackening her heart. This was the moment she separated herself from her fucked-up lineage.

The long, haunting note of a wolf’s howl lifted on the breeze, drawing chills up her arms despite the heat. It sounded close. She scanned the woods around the billowing smoke, but nothing moved, nothing stirred.

She hoped it was him—Chance. She hoped it was his song she was listening to with bated breath. That it was his notes calling to her heart and making her feel completely torn up by what she could never have.

The wind shifted, pushing the thick plume of smoke along the ground. And through the haze, a snow-white wolf with icy eyes trotted toward her like a ghost appearing from thin air. He held something in his mouth. His nose was black and his paws massive, but it was his body that held her stunned as he approached. He was much bigger than she’d imagined a werewolf to be with a barrel chest, long legs, head held high off his shoulders, ears erect, and those stunning eyes on her.

He stopped five yards in front of her and dropped her dirty cell phone that she’d left at the bar in the mud. Head low, he searched her face. She didn’t know what he saw there. Maybe her heartache was evident, or maybe it was just streaked with sweat and ashes.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “For the phone—and for everything else.”

The wolf ducked his head and turned away, then trotted toward the tree line. Near the fire, he paused and watched the flames for a moment before he cast a look over his shoulder at her.

She smiled, feeling empty. “I’m saying goodbye.”

A soft whine sounded from his throat as he loped toward her, looking uncertain. But right as he reached her, he changed his mind, turned away, and took off running with long, graceful strides. At the edge of the woods, he skidded to a stop. He stood with his back to her for a long time, but finally, he spun slowly and sat in a pile of remaining snow. Lifting his nose, he let off another howl, and this one sounded sad. She felt the sound down to her bones. She felt the hollowness and the despair. He was singing a song for her because her human vocal chords couldn’t do justice for what she was feeling.

She doubled over the pain in her middle and squeezed her ribs tighter, just to keep her heart from escaping as his song lifted and fell, then lifted again.

He was giving her a gift, and maybe it was the most meaningful one she’d ever received.

Chance’s wolf-song was the perfect goodbye.

Emily hadn’t even been afraid of him.

Chance turned his cell phone in his hands, end over end.

He’d approached her as a test, trotting closer and closer, and Emily hadn’t even smelled scared. She hadn’t flinched. She’d just sat there, smelling of sadness, her eyes full and her shoulders hunched like she was carrying the weight of the world.

Chance gritted his teeth and leaned back onto the wall behind his cot. He had to stop this obsessing. She was a Hell Hunter.

But…she burned her father’s things. And she swore not to hurt you. She swore.

Chance laughed harshly at his wolf’s ability to justify a relationship with a trained werewolf killer. If Kate and Dalton knew what she was, they wouldn’t be pushing a relationship with Emily. They would be just as wary as him. This wasn’t about his happiness, but about what was best for the pack. Link would back him up.

But you heard her last night. She called her trainer a liar on the phone. She said fuck his mission, like it was never a mission she chose. She was born with bad blood, just like us. Just. Like. Us. Not her fault.

Chance shook his head hard to punish the wolf. If he gave her an inch, she would take a mile. He could feel it, the elusive bond he thought he would never feel with another person. It was there in that first shock when their skin had touched at the gas station. Giving into the urge to connect with her could kill not only him, but the people he loved. His pack. The Silvers. Elyse’s boy cub and Nicole’s girl pup, the baby Kate was growing.

Emily could destroy everything, and he would have no one to blame but himself for letting her in.

But you saw her eyes. When she was burning her father’s belongings, you saw the look in her eyes. So sad. So betrayed. She isn’t a Hell Hunter. Not anymore. She’s ours instead. One of us.

As much as he hated admitting it, and as much as he wanted to fight it, his wolf was telling the truth about the look on her face.

She wasn’t just giving up the memory of her father.

She was giving up a part of herself.

What was he supposed to do? She was the biggest risk he’d ever encountered and he was actually considering this?

She’d done that fucking adorable dance on the bar top, then asked if he was falling in love with her. Those words had scared the shit out of him. In that instant, he’d felt the honest question, and his own answer was terrifying. Yes. With every moment he’d spent with her, watching her tease and laugh with the people who meant the most to him, he’d imagined her as his. He’d been proud to have her looking so devotedly at him all night. She was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen, and her attention was drawn back to him time and time again, like a paperclip on a magnet. And he’d bathed in that feeling, the sick fuck that he was. He’d reveled in her attention and the affectionate pets and brushes of her hand. They made him feel special and cared for. They made him feel stirrings in a heart gone cold long ago when he’d watched Dalton wither under his ex’s poisonous love.

Emily made him
feel
.

Chance pushed the speed dial number he’d saved into his phone. Yeah, he’d stolen Emily’s number before he returned her cell phone, but she’d probably done way more reconnaissance on him, so he didn’t feel a single ounce of guilt.

It rang twice, then, “Hello?”

“Hey.”

Silence spanned three breaths. “Chance?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re terrifying, and I can’t trust you—”

“There are bugs.”

“What?”

“I put bugs in the big house and in the picture of you and Dalton you keep near your cot. You should take them all out. I heard…” She swallowed audibly.

“You’ve been spying on us?”

“Yeah. I just thought you should know.”

“Where are the other bugs?” he asked angrily as he ripped at the back of the frame of him and Dalton. There it was, a small bug taped to the back of the picture. Mother fucker.

“There is one in the back of the little cabin, underneath a rafter, directly in the middle.”

Chance felt around and ripped it off, then dropped it to the floor and crushed it with the toe of his boot.

“That’s all in your place. Now go to the big cabin.”

Without a word, he strode to Dalton and Kate’s cabin and removed the bugs one-by-one as Dalton and Kate stared at him in horror.

“Are there any more? No lies, Em. I can hear it.”

“No,” she said cool as anything. “There aren’t any more. I burned the receiver, too, in the pile of my dad’s stuff.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard you and Dalton taking care of Kate when she was having morning sickness. It confused me. It made me angry because you weren’t how my family had described you all my life. I felt tricked and hurt, so I went for you at the gas station after you promised Kate to pick her up those pickles. That was as far as I got in my hunt.”

“Why did you ask me out for a drink?” he gritted out, escaping from Dalton and Kate’s confused stares. “Was it a trap? Were you baiting me? Seducing me?”

“I was supposed to, but I failed from the first moment I saw you.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. A few loaded seconds later, she murmured, “I asked you out because I was curious, I was drawn to you, and I told myself it was for the job, but it was because I liked you. And when you were late, I was hurt that you were standing me up, not because my trap wasn’t working, but because I thought you didn’t like me back. And this morning, when I woke up hungover as hell, the receiver was still on and I heard you telling Dalton and Kate how you didn’t trust me, how I wasn’t your mate. Not even close. And it’s okay,” she said thickly. “Really it is. I understand. I don’t even know myself anymore, and I feel like a complete monster who got sucked into this awful plot to hurt people. Actual. People. And I know I don’t deserve a second of your time. I just wanted to say that. I thought I wouldn’t get the chance to, but I wanted you to know, I understand.”

Chance ran his hand down the day-old scruff on his face. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this, Em? It was one thing when I found out you were a Hell Hunter, but you bugged my freakin’ den. Dalton’s den.”

“Chance, I’m sorry. For everything, I’m so sorry.”

He hung up in a rush and barely resisted the urge to chuck his phone into the woods. Sorry? She was a much better hunter than he’d given her credit for. Who knew what kind of kill skills she’d amassed over her lifetime. He was suffocating. Linking his hands behind his head, he heaved breath, desperate to get enough oxygen into his lungs.

“Chance?” Kate asked quietly.

“Not now.”

“She’s a Hell Hunter?”

He ghosted a glance over his shoulder at Kate and Dalton, who stood pale and shaken on the porch behind him. “Yeah. I sure know how to pick ’em, don’t I?”

“Was it her who told you where the bugs were?”

“Kate, not now. I can’t have you up in my head, too. I have to make the safe decision for our pack.”

“Oh, Chance.” Kate’s hand was gentle on his shoulder, and he barely resisted the urge to flinch out from under her. He didn’t deserve the comfort right now. “Love isn’t safe, and it’s never a decision.”

“She’s Vega’s daughter, Kate,” he croaked out, feeling like the sky was crushing against his shoulders an inch at a time. “He trained her to be like him.”

Kate stood beside him with Dalton on her other side. “Chance, the woman I met yesterday was nothing like Vega. I would know. I worked with the man for years. Emily was nice. She watched us, was polite, and I could tell from the genuine smile on her face that she was having fun with us. If she is a Hell Hunter, well, I hope they are more like her and less like her father.”

“She’s denouncing her lineage. After last night, she’s up at Vega’s house burning all his stuff. I heard her tell her trainer she’s done with his mission.”

“Well, that sounds like hope to me, Chance.”

“And what if she flips sides again?”

Kate glared up at him and shoved the side of his head. “Then don’t let her, dumbass. I’m going to go barf and then eat some crackers and pickles. Quit being a chicken shit and pull Emily in close so she doesn’t want to hurt us ever again.”

“But—”

“Bye.” Kate gave a half wave over her shoulder.

Chance rubbed his head where she’d pushed him and yelled at her receding back, “You cuss a lot now.”

Dalton followed his mate’s escape with his eyes and grinned like she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. “It’s the hormones.” His cousin adjusted his dick.

“Fantastic. I’m leaving now,” Chance said, pointing to Dalton’s truck. “I’m going to borrow that.”

“Yep,” Dalton called, jogging inside after his wife. “Don’t get killed!”