Chance Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 6) (7 page)

Emily flipped the page on the ancient werewolf history book and scanned down the family trees of each pack until she reached Jeremiah, Luke, and Gable Dawson at the turn of the century. Chance’s ancestors were in here. Gable had fathered a son named Ukiah, and there was a detailed ink sketch of him on the other side of the page. Ukiah was half Ute and besides his long hair, was the spitting image of Dalton Dawson. Ukiah had gone on to marry a woman named Maya Jones, the daughter of a freedwoman and a white man named Trudy and Elias. Together, Maya and Ukiah had four sons. Clearly, Chance’s cousin had inherited more of the Ute looks than Chance had because the man she adored looked like a fair-haired Viking warrior.

There was a short description at a failed attempt by the Hell Hunters to kill off the Dawsons. Luke had born a hanging scar, and a woman named Kristina had burns from the fire the Hell Hunters had set to their cabin, but they’d all survived. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time the hatred of the Hell Hunters had hurt the Dawsons.

The door banged open so hard it banked off the wall and almost hit Chance. Emily startled and froze under the fire of his gaze. Chance opened his mouth, then snapped his teeth shut with a soft clack before striding right back out of the house.

Okay.

She made to stand, but his boots echoed across the porch again, and he reappeared in the doorway. “Don’t get up.”

Hovering her butt above the seat, she murmured, “Right,” then sat back down and folded her hands across the open book.

Chance’s chest heaved like he’d run a great distance. Rubbing his hands through his hair, he paced in front of the door, then left again, slamming it behind him.

The word, “Fuck,” echoed through the yard, and then he was back, pushing the door open more gently and looking a little less psychotic.

“Did you run here?”

“I drove.” He hooked his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes, scanning the living room and kitchen, then back to the table where she sat. “I expected this place to be different. Darker with, I don’t know, flames painted on the walls and dart boards of our faces or something.”

“I burned those.”

Chance growled.

“That was a joke. No dart boards, but he did have an impressive stash of silver bullets.”

“I can’t just date who I want,” he said abruptly. “I have to pick a safe choice for my pack, a mate who will blend in and get along with the girls. One bad member, and the pack goes to shit, you understand?”

“Right. You don’t want to date a bad apple. I feel like we’ve already covered this so don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you.”

Chance looked out the window as if he was judging the merit in an escape attempt. “You’ll meet my alpha.”

“You want me to meet Lincoln McCall? No thanks. I want to live.”

“You’ll meet him and explain who you are, and he’ll know what to do.”

“Know what to do about what? I’m not a threat to you. I just destroyed every last text the Hell Hunters had collected over the centuries.”

“Yeah? Then what is that under your hand?”

Heat flushed her cheeks at being busted. “These aren’t Hell Hunter texts.” She dropped her gaze. “I was researching you.”

Chances boots scuffled loudly as he approached, and he pulled the book out from under her hands. Locking his arms against the table, he went quiet as he read. “Holy shit. Em, do you know what this is?”

“Well, yeah. I was going to give them to your pack after I was done reading them. Between this one and the other two books, it’s a complete history of your kind. And not only werewolves, but each animal shifter. I found your ancestors, and I wanted to…”

“You wanted to what?” Chance said, dragging his gaze away from the book to her.

Clasping her shaking hands, she answered, “I wanted to know more about you.”

“To hunt me?”

“No! God, Chance, I’m not hunting you. Not anymore. I wanted to know more because I like you and I’m confused by all of this. I feel like everything I know about werewolves is a lie, and I was trying to research the truth so I won’t be part of the problem anymore.”

“Oh.” Chance frowned and sat slowly across the table from her. Gently, he closed the book, rested his palms on top of the old hardback and said, “Then ask me.”

“Ask you what?”

“Everything. Ask me what you want to know and hear it from an actual werewolf.”

“Okay,” she said, sifting through the million questions she wanted to ask. “My uncle said you were evolving. It’s what brought my dad to the belief that he had to revive the Hell Hunters. He said your bite used to kill people, but now it doesn’t.”

“Vera and Kate think it isn’t werewolves evolving, but rather humans becoming immune to the venom that used to kill them. Now we use the bite as a kind of claiming mark, like other types of shifters do.”

“What’s a claiming mark?”

Chance cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the corner of the book he was pulling at. “During sex, if a male chooses a mate and she chooses him back, he marks her.”

Warmth dumped into the apex between her thighs at the imagery. “Marks her how?”

“By biting her on the back. It’s a mark that says no other shifter can go after her.”

“And do females mark males?”

A wicked smile spread across his face. “Sometimes.”

“Right.” She clamped her thighs tightly together, but her sex pulsed once, the little beggar. “And how do you choose a mate?”

“The animal handles that part. He starts a bond that is hard to ignore.” Chance’s eye ticked. “It doesn’t always work out. Dalton bonded to a human mate before, and she didn’t choose him back. She lost a baby and bailed.”

“Lost a girl baby?”

Chance nodded.

“Because girls don’t survive. Or at least they didn’t until Vera fixed that.”

Another nod.

“Chance, in my dad and uncle’s eyes, Vera was part of the problem. She was on the list.”

“Vera was? Why?”

“Because she’s fixing every single thing that kept your numbers low.”

“Wrong. She’s fixing the things that keep us miserable. Our numbers will never be a problem. We’re resigned to stay secret. It works best for us this way, so we are careful with who we tell. Shifter law says we keep the knowledge of what we are to mates only, on pain of a kill order, given by Clayton Silver.”

“He worked for my dad. He works for my uncle still. My family has been funding him.”

“Yeah, we figured that out after he tried to manipulate Dalton into a Hell Hunter trap set by your dad last year.”

“The hanging scar on his neck?”

Chance looked sick. “It was close. Your dad had shifters helping him. Traitors. They hung Dalton, and I was a wolf, trying desperately to keep his feet propped up enough to let him breath through that fucking rope.” His voice shook on the last word, and he clenched his jaw, staring at his hands. “I had a cougar shifter on me, and I had to give my back to him and take his claws and teeth so I could save Dalton.” Chance leaned back and lifted his shirt to reveal his ribs. He exposed his chiseled chest and washboard abs, but it wasn’t his strong physique that ripped a gasp from her throat. Long red claw marks and puncture-wound scars decorated his torso.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, horrified. She couldn’t even imagine the pain he’d endured.

Chance dropped the hem of his shirt back into place. “Vega, your dad, had dragged Kate inside the house, and one of his men was pouring gasoline on the outside. They were going to burn her alive if Link and the Silvers didn’t get to us in time. Dalton had been through so much, and I thought he would have to watch his mate burn with the last few breaths of his life.”

“That’s when you killed my dad.” The taste of the word
dad
was bitter against her tongue.

“Yeah. Dalton Changed and slipped the noose, and Link allowed him revenge for what Vega had tried to do to our family. To our pack. To Kate.” Chance lifted his lightened gaze to hers and murmured low, “Your dad went quickly. I don’t know if you need that for closure, but Dalton didn’t make him suffer. He just ended it.”

“Well, that’s good.” Emily pursed her lips and tried to wade through the wash of emotions roiling through her. Anger. Sadness. Regret. Relief.

“That’s good? Em, he was your father. You’re allowed to have feelings about it.”

“Feelings,” she murmured softly. “I spent the last year training to disable wolves with traps, to tie a hangman’s noose, to use knives to maim the main tendons of both animals and men, and the proper techniques on burning houses with people in them. Not
monsters
like my
dad
called them, but
people
. I have spent the last year feeling nothing but hatred, fueled by my ailing uncle so that I could get a job done. A job I am now realizing was a pretty word for murder. So I guess I should feel pity that my dad died alone and with a bitter heart, but all I really feel is that the bastard deserved what he got.” Her voice hitched, and her shoulders sagged with a sob she didn’t stop fast enough. “And I guess I feel like I’ll never be good again because I let Vega blood taint me when I should’ve stood up to the men in my life and told them none of this felt right. I’m the worst one for that.”

And Chance was there, standing beside her, hugging her to his hips and stroking her hair as her tears darkened the blue fabric of his jeans. “Shhh. You aren’t the worst one. You listened to what was fed you your whole life. You’re not bad.”

“I was going to kill you, Chance.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I wanted to because that was the only way to avenge my father. I thought your death was the only thing that would make me okay again. That’s insane! How can you stand to touch me?”

“Because,” he growled, kneeling in front of her and gripping her arms too tight. “You aren’t a Hell Hunter anymore. Do you hear me? Fuck your Vega blood. You did what your father and uncle and all the Hell Hunters before you failed to do. You really looked at us, and you made your own choice. You bucked that awful tradition. The Hell Hunters end with you.” He jammed his finger at the book lying on the table. “We can write you your own fucking page in our history book because today is the day you ended the plague on our people. No more hanging trees, no more burning houses.” Chance cupped her face. “You’re better than all of them, Emily.”

She could see it there in his eyes and hear it in the inflection of every syllable. He believed the words he was saying, and a huge part of her wanted to believe in her goodness, too. She didn’t, but she wanted to.

Chance was absolving her of everything.

“I know I haven’t earned your trust yet,” she whispered, holding his palms against her cheeks just to keep his warmth there. “But I will. If it takes my whole life, I’ll make up for what my father did to your pack. I’ll protect you.”

A slow smile spread across his face and filled his eyes. “Truth.”

Chance skimmed through the last few pages of text of the biggest werewolf history book. He was still a little dumbfounded on how the Hell Hunters had come to possess it, and also, how they’d managed to provide such a detailed account of shifter history. He snickered at the second to last page and spun it around on the table, showing Em a pen and ink drawing of the genital structure of a “real werewolf.” It looked like every other dude’s dick. So interesting.

Her eyes went round, and the lingering smile dropped from her pretty lips. “That’s lewd.” She jammed her finger at the other page, a drawing of a wolf-man hybrid standing over a sleeping woman with his huge dick pointed at her butt like he was about to impale her. “Please tell me it’s not really like that!”

“What, a monster about to fuck an unknowing human in her sleep? You’ve seen my wolf. I look nothing like this, and sex in animal form is taboo for my people. This is the evil imaginings of a fanatic. Sex with an actual werewolf would bore the shit out of you if this gets your vagina shop open.”

Her cheeks were flushed with a pretty pink color he’d seen on flowers at a store once. So fucking beautiful. “You don’t like me talking like that.”

“Or maybe I do,” she said, arching her delicate brows primly.

“Mmmm,” he said through a satisfied growl.

Clearing her throat, she cuddled her steaming mug of coffee closer to her chest and crossed her legs under the table, brushing his shin in the process and just about driving him mad. Pheromones and flowers—his new favorite scent combination. Did she realize she was putting out a smell meant to draw him to her? Humans didn’t have the senses he did. Pity for the males who couldn’t smell when a woman was aroused.

“I have plans for today.”

“Oh, yeah? You kicking me out?”

“No.” She blushed again. “I was going to invite you to go for a walk on my dad’s land.”

God damn, his boner was never going to go down. “You mean your land?”

A tiny frown took her brows, and she sipped her coffee, a stall tactic. “I guess it is my land now, huh? Dad isn’t here, and I’m paying for it.”

“His belongings are turning to ash in the yard. Too close to the house, by the way. Next time you go building a bonfire like that, push it out farther, and don’t make it where you’ll have to see that burn mark on the grass and think about the reasons they’re there for months to come.”

“I did that on purpose.”

“To torture yourself?”

“No, to deal with it. Finding out how close I came to losing all of the good in me is something I need to accept. It hurts…thinking about all the lies my dad and uncle told me, but it’ll hurt me worse if I don’t deal with my feelings and drag everything out for the rest of my life.”

“Poison,” he murmured.

She twitched her startled gaze to him. “Exactly. It’ll be poison.”

He inhaled a long breath, inflating his chest completely. He didn’t like the thought of her being so hard on herself every time she looked at that scorch mark, but if she needed this to deal with letting her past go, then more power to her. The more he got to know Em, the more he liked her and the more his wolf quieted. Dalton said this was how it would be. The animal would go quiet and pliable around his mate. Oh, sure, his protective instincts were up to Level Ridiculous, but right here, when there was no danger, looking at Em’s pretty blush, he could enjoy clear thoughts.

“I’ll go on a walk with you,” he said low, then chugged the last few sips of the coffee she’d made him. He hadn’t even sniffed it for poison before he drank, and if that didn’t say something about his growing trust for the woman, he didn’t know what did.

The late afternoon shadows stretched across the porch, so he grabbed Em’s jacket off the hook by the door and helped her into it. Did she need his help? Hell no. Likely, Em didn’t need anything from anyone, but he liked that she let him dote on her in his own way. She’d done that at the bar last night, too—let him lead her inside, let him buy her a drink, let him help her down off the bar. Emily Vega was one sexy, little boner-maker.

As she pulled on her rubber boots by the door, he could tell Em was excited. Her eyes were a clear blue, dancing just above her smile, and she didn’t even zip her jacket before she strode out onto the porch and bounced down the stairs with a graceful step. From the wood pile, she grabbed a long walking stick as Chance practically floated behind her, drunk on her scent. He had to get his crap together. If Em figured out how hard he was falling, she would run like prey.

Chance cast one last glance back at the cabin before he broke the tree line. Emanuel Vega had bought himself a right fancy home with a roof that pitched all the way to the ground. On the second story was the front door surrounded by a sprawling deck, accessible by a set of steep porch stairs. The wood on the house was stained a rich chocolate brown, while Alaska usually bullied every other wood into a beat-up gray color. Even the roof shingles looked fancy. The mortgage on this place must be crazy.

“What do you do for work? I mean besides killing evil creatures of the night.”

“Don’t tease.” She pouted. “I never took a life.”

Wrong. She was stealing his right now without even knowing it. His heart thumped erratically as she slipped her hand into his. So small, but with a grip strength that said she was a calm exterior with weapons on the inside. She had perfect little callouses on the meat of her palm, probably from knife training, and she was a study in opposites that had him hooked, wanting to know everything about her. Every secret, every wish, every memory.

“I can’t pay on this place much longer. It only has about five years left on the bank note, but it’s kind of extravagant. I was fine when I was living in my apartment in Anchorage, but I’m blowing through my savings here. And I’m a—” She stopped and glared up at him. “Swear not to laugh.”

“I would never laugh,” he lied through a grin.

Em narrowed her eyes and pursed her sexy lips into a thin line. “My dad was a doctor, and I really looked up to him when I was a kid,” she said, continuing her hike beside him down a worn ATV path.

“Before you knew he was evil,” Chance joked.

“Yeah, before that,” she said, shoving him gently. “I was raised by my mom, but I came here to visit my dad for weeks at a time. Not often, mind you, but it was something I looked forward to. Being Galena’s only doctor, he couldn’t take that much time off work, so he would take me to the med clinic when I got older, and I would watch him take care of people. I thought he was the greatest. Just…a hero. I mean, looking back he wasn’t really nice to anyone, but to a kid, he was awesome. So I was going to grow up and be a doctor just like him. Only I wasn’t that good at school, so after high school, I did a two year program. Don’t move another step,” she said nonchalantly as she pressed her hand on his chest and halted his forward motion. Without a single hesitation, she jammed her walking stick down into a pile of dry leaves. A bone rattling snap sounded as metal hit metal. A trap.

Chance stared in shock at the sharp metal teeth that had snapped the thick stick like it was little more than a toothpick.

“A walk on your land,” he murmured.

“To de-booby-trap it,” she said with a bright smile.

Dangerous little hunter. If she hadn’t stopped him, his leg would be snapped in half like the stick in her hand. With a little human growl, Em yanked the metal peg from the base of the tree and toted the heavy trap, the metal bouncing against her leg as she walked on.

“How many traps have you set?”

“Loads. I wasn’t going to go out the way my uncle said my dad did, hunted in the night.”

She disarmed three more traps and a snare before he recovered enough to speak again. “You’re terrifying, you know that?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re soft-spoken, fun, and you seem totally normal, but you’ve learned a skill set that would probably put most hunters in Alaska to shame, haven’t you?”

She shot him a troubled look. “That wasn’t really my choice. If I didn’t train, I was made to feel like a failure. It was the only way to please the Vega side of my family.”

“Okay, tell me. Tell me what you did for work back in Anchorage. I’m prepared now. Assassin? Mercenary? CIA? Martial arts trainer? Butcher?”

“Veterinary technician,” she said through an amused grin.

Well, that drew him up short. “Monster killer by night, animal hero by day? You are a surprising woman, Em.”

She giggled and bumped his shoulder, then handed him the heavy traps as she set off another one. The cold metal chains and wire snares against his palm sent a ripple of chills zinging up to his shoulder, and he had to focus not to cringe away from them. He’d come here as a wolf to return her cell phone and, about now, he was feeling pretty damned lucky he’d missed all the hidden dangers.

“I told my dad it was because I was learning about the arteries of animals and a bunch of other bullshit, but truly and secretly, I love animals. I like them better than people, I think. If he knew the truth, he would be rolling over in his grave right now.” Her voice dipped low and troubled. “Wherever that is.”

Mmmm, it was best she didn’t think about that. Ian and Jenner had been on body stashing patrol the night Vega had attacked. They probably flew him out into the wilderness somewhere and buried him in a shallow, unmarked grave that asshole didn’t even deserve. A memory of Dalton standing on Chance’s back, bucking against the taut rope, struggling for air, slithered across his mind, and he swallowed down the bile that had risen in his throat. He would’ve been less kind about Vega’s final resting place if he were the one hiding bodies that night.

“I should tell you I have to go back to Silver Summit Outfitters tomorrow.”

“You have a tour booked?”

“Not specifically. Sometimes our clients like to pick the guides when they get there, and we have three groups coming in this week. But along with that comes a lot of prep work. There is a ton of work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure each guided tour runs smoothly.”

Em leaned into him, cornflower blue eyes brightening. “Like what?”

Unable to keep from touching her, Chance switched the traps to his other hand and draped an arm around her shoulders. He sniffed her hair quietly just to get a whiff of the flowery shampoo she used, then explained. “Firewood is a constant. Dalton and I are always chopping because the lodge is huge and hard to heat. Caring for the horses is a never-ending job. Packing is a learned skill, so we are constantly checking and re-checking our packs, making lists, and figuring out the best way to pack the horses. And Lennard is a perfectionist, so we’re always trying not to kill him when he goes behind us and makes sure we have everything. Even if I had a hundred years’ experience, he’d still be in that barn making sure I have everything for my clients to have a good trip.”

“Lennard is your boss?”

“He and Jenner Silver. They’re co-owners of the lodge. Lennard almost lost it a while back, but Jenner believed in it and dug his heels in. He put up the money to keep the lodge running. Between him, Dalton, and myself, we have a certain…skill set…that sets us apart from other outfitters.”

“You mean sensitive noses, animal instincts, impeccable hearing?”

Chance snuck a kiss to her temple. “Exactly.”

She responded to the affection by wrapping her arms around his waist and smiling up at him. He stopped and dropped the traps into the mud beside him. Cupping her cheeks, he stared at her just to put this moment to memory. This was the first time that Em had first looked at him like this, like he was everything. Rosy cheeks in the speckled sunlight streaming through the evergreen canopy, bright blue eyes, strands of wavy chestnut hair tumbling over her shoulders, and a smile that made his heart stop. Slowly, he leaned down and sipped her lips. She responded instantly, leaned into him, and clutched at his sweater, like she didn’t want him to stop touching her ever. Like she wasn’t scared of him at all.

Chance combed his fingers through her silken hair and cupped her neck as he angled his face and slipped his tongue just beyond her parting lips. God, she tasted divine. And the second she let off a sexy little helpless moan, as though she was feeling the weight of this moment like he was, Chance was gone. He didn’t care about who she was yesterday. Hell Hunter blood ran through her veins, sure, but she was so much more than that. Every attribute he learned about her made him like her more. She was a lightweight drinker, a people pleaser, and a secret badass. She was an outsider looking for connection, and she owned her mistakes. She was a decent person trying to figure out who she was, and he was in it now, completely ready to walk beside her as she discovered herself.

Whatever Link said, whatever his alpha decided, Chance would stick by Em and defend her because she was everything he’d wanted for so long. She was everything his wolf wanted—his match in every way.

Em gave him a gentle, soft smack of her lips and eased back, eyes tightly closed.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, afraid he’d pushed too hard, too fast.

“I’m scared.”

“Of me?”

She shook her head slightly and rested her cheek against his chest. “Of how much I like you.”

Chance’s heart thumped against his breastbone. As he held her tight against him in the saturated afternoon sunlight, he understood her completely. She now held the power to hurt him infinitely, and apparently he wielded the same strength when it came to matters of her own heart.