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  “Yeah,” Lou agreed. “Even though you knew, it’s always good to have it confirmed by simple physiology.”

  I remained silent.

  Carlo coughed softly. “So Lou tells me he has a campsite further up in the mountains. Does he like it?”

  “He told me he does,” I answered woodenly. “He’s never had a real home; he’s been living out of first a camper and now his truck his whole life. The only time he had a permanent address was when he was in college.”

  “What about when he was little?” Lou pried.

  “No,” I said, pulling the blanket tighter around me. “His parents are wildlife biologists or something, and they took him everywhere with them when he was little.”

  “That sounds fun,” Carlo offered.

  “Not if you never had a home,” I said flatly.

  “That’s odd, isn’t it?” Lou mused. “I mean, I don’t profess to know anything about bears, but I thought they had dens and small cozy places and hibernated and stuff like that.”

  “Yeah, but that’s real bears,” Carlo said, sliding his hand up my back, rubbing gentle circles between my shoulder blades. “Maybe bear shifters are different, just like hawk shifters are different from regular birds.”

  “Sure,” Lou replied, “but we’re all still animals half the time.”

  “True,” he agreed.

  I dropped the bomb on them. “Robert never shifts.”

  There was silence for a moment before Carlo laughed.

  Lou scoffed. “Of course he doesn’t, because, you know, that could ever actually happen.”

  “No,” I insisted, turning first to Carlo and then to Lou. “He never shifts.”

  Both their faces held the same expression, like I was screwing with them. I sat and waited until the truth sank in.

  “Are you fucking with me?” Carlo asked sharply.

  “No.”

  “He has to shift, Vy,” Lou chimed in. “That’s nuts.”

  “Well, whatever his reason—his real reason—he doesn’t shift, and he fights to always stay in control so his animal never surfaces.”

  We were silent, and I, for one, was trying to imagine what a life as only a man would be like, what I would lose and gain. For me there had never even been a choice: I was born to be the leader of the ket. But for those, like Robert, without responsibilities, it was probably much easier until, of course, he tripped across his mate without any awareness at all.

  “That’s impressive,” Carlo finally said. “I mean, I guess it is. But that means he’s only living half a life. A shifter needs both parts—that’s why we only take shifter mates, so that both sides of ourselves can be nurtured.”

  I nodded.

  “So if Robert never shifts how does he know you’re… his….” Lou trailed off and long minutes passed before she suddenly gasped. “Oh God!”

  “What?” Carlo yelled, his voice shrill, having risen in alarm.

  “He doesn’t know he’s your mate,” Lou heaved out, scrambling around to face me, her gaze locked on mine. “Oh, Vy… Kuar… I’m so sorry.”

  I shut my eyes tight and tears leaked out from under my lashes as I shivered hard.

  Lou tackled me, put her arms tight around my neck, and held on as I pressed my face down into her shoulder.

  “How do you know?” she cried, angry for me as she shoved me back, her gaze searching my face.

  The night had been long, and only after the first time I got up, when he fed me, did we leave the bed. Twice more I woke, and each time he made love to me with his hands, mouth, and body. Early in the morning, I had woken hard and needy, and instantly he had been there, making me ready, sliding lube-slicked fingers deep before replacing them with the long, hard length of him filling my clenching channel. And I had reveled in how I was claimed and taken, because he was my mate, and I belonged to him and him to me. The submission I had never given anyone else I gave freely and happily to my mate.

  I sucked in a breath. “He left this morning. I got a note, and there were turnovers made and kept warm in the oven for me.”

  “Vy, I don’t care about the food or—”

  “But it’s important, don’t you get it? I thought all of that was his way of taking care of me, of taking care of his mate.”

  “What did you do?” Lou asked, her voice small as it cracked with sympathy.

  “I shifted and flew to his campsite, and when I landed there, in hawk form….”

  “Oh fuck,” Carlo groaned, getting it, understanding, there with me in my horrible moment of discovery….

  I HAD landed on the roof of Robert’ s weathered truck and waited for him to see me, my stomach aflutter with happiness, watching the long strides of the powerful man who was my mate. Love would come, I knew it would, but for now, I was trembling with lust, wanting the man almost desperately.

  “Oh,” he said softly, reverently, eyes glinting when he saw me. “Hello, gorgeous. What a pretty bird you are.”

  I preened under his appreciative gaze and affectionate words.

  “Are you one of Vy’s or from some other flock? Oh,” he said, chuckling. “It’s ket, right? I have to remember the correct word.”

  The teasing was fun.

  But then he started moving around the truck, slowly, not like he was being playful, but like he was being careful not to startle or scare me, as though he didn’t want me to fly away. I turned my head to keep my eyes on him, and I saw his hand close on a blanket.

  “Not sure why you’re out here so far, but I’ll hold this up and you can shift and tell me if you’re in trouble or what’s going on.”

  Wait.

  Was it possible he didn’t know it was me?

  In increments, he slid the plaid blanket from the back of the truck and held it up, giving it a gentle shake so it unfolded. “The other day I banded some real birds, but I can smell the difference,” he informed me. “You look like you’re a male even though you’re a little small, but like I said, I’m going to get this blanket ready for you anyway, so you don’t have to be embarrassed.”

  My heart started to race. There was just… there had to be some mistake.

  “Is there a pretty lady hawk at home that keeps a nest for you?” he soothed me, moving closer and closer.

  I flew to the ground and shifted, and only then did I realize my eyes were filling with tears.

  “Oh shit,” Robert gasped happily. “Well, I guess I was right, huh? Very pretty bird.”

  I couldn’t breathe, and I started to shake.

  He furrowed his brow as he took a step toward me. “You all right?”

  Taking a step back, I shook my head.

  “Vy?”

  There were words screaming in my head.

  “I love that you flew all the way out here to surprise me,” he said, his voice coaxing. “Maybe you should come sit with me in the tent, huh? I’ve got a lot of—”

  “You had no idea it was me,” I croaked out.

  He smiled sheepishly. “It’s not that easy to tell, you know.”

  “The first day we met, you knew I was a shifter in the street.”

  “And I can tell now,” he explained. “When we’re both men, I can tell you’re not human, but when you’re in animal form—which I haven’t been in for years—I can’t sense any difference.”

  I was terrified to ask the question, but I had an inkling already of what he would say and had to confirm my worst fears. “You…. Robert… can you tell that you’re my mate?”

  He squinted. “What’re you talking about?”

  Oh shit. Oh God.

  “Vy? What’s this about?”

  It was one thing to submit to my mate, it was a whole other thing to simply submit in bed to a man who was a top. I was the kuar of my tribe—he had to understand that what I gave him was a precious gift, and right now, all I was was a conquest.

  I felt like I was going to fly apart.

  “You think you’re my mate?” he asked.

  There was no think in an
y of it. I knew. My body told me with the intense, overwhelming attraction that surged through my blood. My head saw and recognized all the things that I was not that he, in turn, was. I was supposed to learn from him and he from me. And finally, my heart ached for him. The desire to simply be close to him, breathe the same air, share my secrets, and hear his voice was almost painful. Robert Cimino was my mate, and finding him was the single most important moment in my life.

  But he didn’t know that. He had no clue I was his mate. He couldn’t really see me, could not discern the other half of his heart from any other hawk on the planet.

  He didn’t shift, so he was completely out of sync with his animal half, and because of that, the bond, the sacred, powerful, perfect bond that he shared only with me, was lost to him.

  “Vy, you’re starting to scare me,” he said, sounding worried. “Are you crying?”

  He’d told me he didn’t shift. It was not something he did. Maybe, possibly, if he did, he would know me and…. But it was not for me to ask him to, and even if I did, would he? I was just another guy to him, nothing special.

  “HOW DID you leave it?” Lou asked, breaking into my thoughts.

  I turned to look at her. “I left. I need some time to figure out what I’m supposed to do.”

  She nodded. “Yes, you do.”

  “In the meantime,” Carlo said. “Can we go back to your place and get you some clothes and something to eat? I’m starving, and Lou didn’t let me eat because she was so freaked out about you.”

  I nodded.

  “Good,” he grunted. “We’ll meet you there.”

  Standing, I dropped the blanket, ran down the side of the roof, and leaped. I fell for only seconds before I shifted, flapped my wings, and rose on the current. I circled them once and then headed for home. It was nice to be back alone in the sky.

  IT WAS stupid, but because I knew Robert was a vegetarian, I purposely went to Carvers and had a steak. Carlo had one, as well, while Lou stuck to an apple-walnut chicken salad that looked more like a dessert than a meal.

  “Oh,” I said after a few minutes of eating in silence. “I need to talk to you about the other night.”

  “What?”

  “The accident with the kids that the ket was all up in arms about Robert helping out with?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was those wolves from White Springs.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded between bites, always hungry after shifting because it burned so many calories. “And I know you can’t legally do anything until the kids speak up or, heaven forbid, something bad happens, but I can.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Vy.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Carlo offered, his voice dripping with revulsion. “The only good wolf is a dead one.”

  “Oh, dear Lord, you did not just say that,” Lou choked out, her eyes huge as she shot her husband a scalding look.

  “C’mon, Lou,” he grumbled at his wife. “Your father always says how he beat up those three wolves in the—”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard that story a million times too, but, Carlo, wolves are just as much people as we—”

  “No,” he cut her off belligerently. “Look at all this shit Vy’s dealing with ’cause his mate isn’t ket. Same thing. We stick with our own kind. That’s how it should be.”

  “That is so racist.”

  He shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “No, you don’t get to just do that. This is just as bad as any other kind of prejudice. You don’t give a damn when it comes to humans. Black, white, red, green—you could give a damn. But with shifters, you’re so narrow-minded, C.”

  “What?” he snapped. “For all we know, you could get a disease from one of them.”

  She gasped. “Shifters can’t get human diseases, Carlo, that’s why we don’t have to worry about condoms or—”

  “Guys,” I tried to interrupt.

  “I ain’t talkin’ about no human disease. What if wolves carry like some bullshit lycan crud and they can give it to hawks? That could happen.”

  Mouth open, shaking her head, it was obvious that to Lou, her husband was being ridiculous.

  “No, it could happen,” he pressed before taking a big gulp of his beer.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay. So, Carlo, I really don’t think that we have to worry about some weird outbreak monkey virus in wolf form. I think we’re in the clear on that front. But that being said,” I sighed, giving my attention to Lou, “I am going to drive over to White Springs today and talk to their alpha.”

  “Why? He’ll just deny it if you tell him some of his wolves were in our territory.”

  “I don’t care. It needs to be said, and he needs to be warned. That pack put members of my ket in danger, and I won’t have that.”

  “Then let me go with you.”

  I shook my head. “No, and, Carlo, you can’t come either. I’ll go alone so it’ll be seen as peaceful. I just want to talk to him.”

  “Vy, you could end up exacerbating the situation.”

  “I need to make sure they’re warned,” I insisted, not backing down. “I’ll go alone, Lou. It’ll be fine.”

  She didn’t look convinced.

  “Stop worrying.”

  “It’s what I do,” she explained. “I’m your second. I take care of you.”

  And that was really nice to hear, since apparently my mate wasn’t interested in doing the job.

  “Fuck you, Vy.”

  I swiveled my head to Carlo.

  “I know you’re the kuar, but the hell you say you’re going alone,” he barked at me.

  I waited for whatever else he had on his mind.

  “And I get Lou not going ’cause of her official title and shit, but not me. I can go, and if you think you’re leaving here without backup,” he scoffed, “boy, you are seriously fucked in the head.”

  “So eloquently put,” I huffed irritably.

  Lou crossed her arms, daring me to say a word to her, and I relented because, really, truthfully, just because I was mad at Robert, hurt by his inflexibility, that was no reason to put my life in danger.

  “Fine,” I groused at them.

  “Atta boy,” Carlo said, flashing me the smile that made all the girls hot. It was too bad he had no interest in being his charming self around the wolves.

  THE NIGHT before, Robert had treated me gently, taken care of me. I could have gotten used to such treatment. But with Carlo, having him slap a bag of frozen peas against my right eye was painful. Having him as a caretaker until Lou reached my house with dinner was not conducive to healing. What also wasn’t helping was consciously thinking of Robert as just Robert and not my mate. My heart hurt, which made everything worse.

  “Vy?”

  Even drunk and only seeing out of one eye, even then I still knew my ma—Robert when I heard him.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Carlo demanded as Robert stopped before he reached the porch.

  “I could ask you the same question,” he said, his tone icy.

  It might have been my imagination, though, the coldness in his voice, wishful thinking on my part. The idea of Robert reaching my little house and finding a walking, talking wet dream there…. If that made him jealous, I would have liked that. But the fact of the matter was, we hadn’t been going out long enough to merit any jealousy on his part, and since he had no idea I was his mate… it was probably no big deal. Had he known I was his mate, Carlo’s scent on my skin should have sent him into a frenzy of anger. It would have me if the roles were reversed. But that wasn’t the case, and he wasn’t my mate, anyway.

  “I’m Carlo Maberti, the mate of the ahir and the husband of the deputy sheriff, so I ask again… who the fuck are you?”

  “S’Robet,” I managed to get out, trying hard to form words, the bottle of Jack we’d emptied chased down by six beers apiece having hit my system hard. Lou was right; it was time for some food to sop up the alcohol in our stomachs.

 
; “Oh,” Carlo said before he burped, “the bear that doesn’t shift. That’s such a good plan, man, since you can’t even tell who your fucking mate is since ya don’t.”

  Robert stood there, moving his gaze between us before settling it on me. And I knew he was pissed, I could feel it, but I knew it had nothing to do with what I wanted and everything to do with what I didn’t. He wasn’t mad that there was another man staggering on my porch with one hand on my shoulder; he was upset because I’d told Carlo he didn’t shift. That was private, a secret, and I’d shared it. It was betrayal but paltry in comparison to his. He didn’t even know who I was.

  “I came over to talk to you, but I can see that was a mistake.”

  “Yep,” I said, pissed at him and furious with myself, all of it a big fat mess I clearly didn’t need. He was a complication, and instead of being focused on him, I needed to concentrate on leading the ket. I had wolves, literally, at the door, and that had to be my focus.

  “I’ll leave you, then,” he said as he turned away and headed for his truck.

  Everything in me screamed to call out, to go after him, to beg him to forgive me, but all of it—my desire, my submission—was meaningless if the man didn’t see me for what I truly was. The reality was, I was a shifter first, man second, and since Robert didn’t shift, he wasn’t actually a bear, only a man. And a man could never be the true mate of a kuar. It killed me to have been so close to finding my other half only to have the dream slip right through my fingers. I should have known it was too good to be true.

  Eight

  Robert

  LYING ON a bed of pine needles and staring up at the night sky with a six-pack of Budweiser was comforting in its familiarity. I looked at the stars and reminded myself that the world was huge and filled with millions of people who had their own joys and sorrows. Whatever problems I had paled in comparison to the beauty of the earth and the cruelty of the creatures who walked it.

  With a beer can tilted against my lips and the constellations keeping me company, I felt the anger that had shot through me when I saw Vy with another man melt away. Emotions weren’t a useful way to solve problems. I needed to think.