Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 3)

MATE FUR HIRE

(BEARS FUR HIRE, BOOK 3)

By T. S. JOYCE

This book was not written as a standalone.

The author recommends to read these stories in order for optimal reader enjoyment.

Husband Fur Hire (
Book 1
)

Bear Fur Hire (
Book 2
)

Copyright © 2015 by T. S. Joyce

Copyright © 2015, T. S. Joyce

First electronic publication: November 2015

T. S. Joyce

www.tsjoycewrites.wordpress.com

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Published in the United States of America

Tobias Silver threw open the door of the Galena Post Office and wiped his muddy boots on the mat inside. July in Alaska meant warm weather and sunshine, but it also meant the main drag in town was often a swamp thanks to the summer rains.

The scent of werewolf hit his nose immediately, and he threw a suspicious glance over at a bench along the wall. Half-shadowed by a full coat rack, Lincoln McCall sat there, one leg stretched out as though he’d been waiting a while. His blazing gray eyes followed Tobias to the front desk.

“What the fuck do you want?” Tobias asked in a barely audible voice the humans waiting in line couldn’t hear but Link would pick up just fine.

“Hello to you, too,” Link growled out, striding toward Tobias, his boots echoing across the wooden floor. “Took you long enough to come pick up this package.”

Tobias tossed him a withering look as the tall man stood beside him with his arms crossed. “I have shit to do, dog. Back-to-back deliveries mean I can’t just drop everything to make a trip out here for a single package.”

“I’ve been waiting for two days.”

“What? Why? You should’ve just called me if you wanted something.”

“On the radio?” Link’s dark eyebrows shot up, and his eyes blazed brighter. “That’s what you must mean since you never pick up your damned phone. I know because I called it a dozen times, and what I have to say shouldn’t be talked about over the radio waves.”

Mickey Gunderson, the postmaster, waved him forward as a little old lady shuffled off with a package in her hands. “Tobias Silver, this package is a fragile one.”

When he disappeared into the back room, Tobias leaned heavily on the countertop angled away from Link, who was standing too damned close.

“You’ll want to hear what I have to say,” Link murmured. “It could possibly save your family a lot of grief.”

“What do you care about my family?”

“Are you kidding me right now? I’d do anything for Elyse. Anything for Ian. Hell, if Jenner asked me for a favor, I’d do it.” A long growl rattled Link’s throat, and he shook his head hard to stifle the sound. Crazy wolf.

Tobias narrowed his eyes at him. Link had spoken each word with such conviction he had to be telling the truth. Because of his heightened shifter senses, Tobias could tell a lie. “Why, Link? I honestly want to know why you care about them so much. You remember what happened to your brother, don’t you?”

Link’s face went blank, and red crept up the sides of his neck. “Yeah, I know what happened to Cole, and he accepted it, you snarky asshole. You think he wanted to be hurting people? Ian did him a favor, just like he’ll do for me someday. And I’ll die with honor because Ian is my friend.” Link turned to leave but circled back and lowered his voice. “You don’t even know how lucky you are, Silver.” Link’s glowing gaze locked on his for a moment more before he strode outside, slamming the door after him.

Huh. Tobias twirled a pen between his fingers and frowned. Link had abandoned his pack the day they went after Elyse. The day they scarred up her face and tried to kill Ian when he was mid-hibernation. Link had fought his own family to protect them. Tobias had never understood his reasons, but he did know one thing. Werewolves didn’t do well rogue. They needed packs, and from the way Link talked about Ian and Elyse, it dawned on Tobias. Link wasn’t rogue. He’d just chosen a different pack, albeit a broken one. With a bear shifter and a human, this make-shift pack was one that shouldn’t work by any means, but apparently they were all Link had now, and he was going to stick with them until he went mad, just like every other McCall had done since the beginning of their lineage.

Regret slashed through Tobias’s chest. He didn’t hate Link. In fact, he actually liked the idiot, but someday, Ian was going to be called on to kill his friend, and the unfairness of that was a mighty blow. Tobias might not get along with his brothers much, but that didn’t mean he wanted them hurt. And killing Link was going to hurt Ian.

Tobias muttered a curse and scrubbed a hand down his face. This right here was why he had stalled coming to Galena. Ian and Elyse, and even Link, lived too close. They brought up all these emotions he didn’t know what to do with, pain he didn’t understand, and now his inner bear was writhing in his middle, snarling to be released.

You don’t even know how lucky you are.

Link was so wrong.

“Here it is,” Mickey said, grunting under the heavy weight of an oversize box that had masking tape wrapped around it several dozen times. “I think Ian was meant to take it, but he’s swamped with deliveries right now, and he and Elyse are talking about driving their cattle back early, and they are fighting a war with the mice near their garden, and one of their goats just had twins but she won’t feed one of them—”

“Mickey!” Damn, he knew this was a small town, but did everyone know everything about everyone?

“Oh, right. They’re your family. You already know all this.”

Actually he didn’t, and now he felt even shittier,
thank you, Galena
.

Mickey hoisted the box onto the counter with a great groan, then said, “You ever delivered to Perl Island before?”

And there it was. The final rub of this shit-tastic trip. Perl Island, one of the most dangerous places on earth. The Alaskan weather liked to dump all of her violence right over the island. If he was lucky enough to land safely, then he would have to deal with the natives. That strip of land was known in his world as the Island of Misfit Shifters.

“Yes, I have.” Once, and it didn’t go well.

“Well, good luck to you.”

Tobias grunted his thanks and pulled the package off the counter. It was light as a feather to him, but he’d learned long ago that people don’t like seeing his shifter strength. It made humans uncomfortable. So he acted like it was heavy, gave Mickey Gunderson a polite smile, and made his way out the door.

Link was waiting outside, leaned up against the log wall of the post office. “I’m going with you.”

“What? No.” Tobias sauntered right past him and down the porch stairs.

“The lady you’re delivering that to…she’s a witch.”

Tobias barely resisted the urge to growl at him as he turned right onto the main road that led out of town toward the landing strip where his bush plane was waiting. He walked faster, but Link lengthened his stride and kept up.

“Why do you think Perl Island works so well for the misfits? Huh? Think about it. Clayton hasn’t given you a kill order on any of them, and they’re all crazy.”

“Not McCall-level crazy.”

“Maybe not, but maybe so.”

Tobias cast him a quick glance. He hadn’t thought about it before, but Link was right. Clayton Reed, his handler, had never sent him out there to even punish a shifter for stepping out of line. And to his knowledge, Ian and Jenner hadn’t been given orders on Perl Island either. “Tell me what you’re talking about quick before I lose my patience.”

“There’s a lady on the island who has them all in line. They don’t need outside intervention because she’s managing every one of those crazy shifters. All of them, Tobias.” Link gave him a significant look. “How is one woman doing all that?”

“Hell if I know.”

“She’s suppressing their animals.”

“Oh, come on, Link. That’s just a rumor. That shit has been flying around for years. She isn’t a witch, and she’s not suppressing animals. The misfits are just staying in line so people stay off their land and leave them alone.”

“I thought so, too, but then something changed.”

“What changed?”

“I found her.” Link’s voice was growing more and more excited. “I tracked her down—her name and how I could reach her—and I made a call. Tobias, I talked to her, and you know what she told me when I asked her if she could help shifters with out-of-control animals?”

Fine, out of curiosity, he would play along. “What did she say?”

“She said she won’t talk to anyone but you, but that I wasn’t wrong.”

“Me? I don’t know anyone on Perl Island. What does she want with me?”

“To hire you. She said she needs you for an important job.”

“Fuck, Link! You’re getting sucked into this elaborate hoax, man!”

Link jerked Tobias’s arm and squared up to him, eyes sparking. “If you were me and you had a shelf life because your animal was taking over. If you knew you were going to die at the claws of one of your friends. If you knew you would want to hurt people because you’re going mad, wouldn’t you try? I need this, Tobias. I need to make sure I tried everything before I just give up and give in. And I know that sounds selfish, but I didn’t just contact the witch for me. You weren’t there when Elyse was bleeding and standing over Ian’s body. Your brother’s body! I could see it in her eyes. She knew she was going to die, and still, she popped round after round into my pack to protect him. That should’ve never happened. You Silvers shouldn’t be hibernating. You want to know why I really care about your family? Elyse is good, Tobias. I mean really good to her marrow, and I’m lucky enough to get to be around someone like that. And Ian is a match for her. I’ll stay saner longer just for knowing them. I was part of the pack that hunted her. Hunted. Her. And then she took me in, gave me a place to live on her property, fed me when food got low at the end of winter, and she told me I’m good. No one has ever said that to me! I’m not just asking you to go meet with this woman because I want to live. I’m asking so we can rule out any chance of Ian staying awake this winter so Elyse doesn’t have to be alone. Because when I die, and oh, I can feel the madness coming—when I go, who will watch her while Ian sleeps?”

Tobias shook his head over and over in denial of what Link was saying because it did Link no good for Tobias to build up his hope. There wasn’t a cure. It didn’t exist, but Link was staring at him with such desperation and, dammit, Tobias owed him since he’d been a part of saving Elyse and Ian last winter. Link had talked about how good Elyse was, but Link had kept her safe, patrolling her property all winter to make sure the remaining McCalls didn’t come back for her and her mate’s hibernating body. Elyse was right. Link
was
good, or as good as a half-crazed werewolf could be.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “What’s this lady’s name?”

“Vera Masterson.”

At the sound of her name, a strange, warm feeling unfurled in Tobias’s chest and made it hard to draw a breath. “Doesn’t sound like a witch name to me.”

“So you’ll do it?”

Tobias let off a long, irritated sigh. “On three conditions.”

“Name them.”

“I go alone. Whatever trap I’m walking into, I don’t want you involved. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

“And the other two?”

Tobias leveled him with a hard look. “You don’t tell anyone about this, and you don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why not?”

Tobias turned and strode toward the edge of town, adjusting the package in his grasp as he went. Over his shoulder, he called, “Because there is no cure.”