Page 36 of A Bear's Secret

The cop shot Trevor a glare, then turned to Sloane.

“Can you behave if I don’t cuff you?”

“You need someone to lead you up the hill?” she asked.

They glared at each other for a moment. Then the cop gestured at the hill, and Sloane started up it, much more nimbly then the men following her.

Austin and Trevor stood at the bottom, watching Sloane climb. Austin felt like someone had his heart in a vice, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The second cop started up the hill, and the third walked over to them. He looked Trevor up and down, as if he was trying to establish dominance over Trevor, but Trevor stood to his full height and crossed his arms, not about to take shit from some human with false swagger.

“You’re Buck Reynolds’s boy, right?” the cop asked.

“That’s right,” Trevor said.

The cop just nodded. Then he looked from the very naked Trevor to the very naked Austin and back, a slight smirk forming on his face.

“Well, have a nice day,” he said.

Then he climbed the hill behind Sloane and the other two cops, until all three were out of sight.

“Fuck,” said Trevor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

In seconds, they were walking back toward their clothes.

“I’ll call my lawyer cousin,” Austin said.

“I don’t even know who that cop was,” said Trevor.

“Julius will know what to do. He used to work for the district attorney. Sloane will be fine, she obviously didn’t try to kill anyone.”

Trevor grabbed Austin by the shoulder, and both men stopped for a minute, Trevor’s gray eyes boring into Austin.

“They know about us now,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Austin said. “You’re right. This was stupid, we should never have done this.”

Trevor looked down, and Austin could see a slow smile forming on his mate’s face.

“I’m glad we did,” he said. “Besides Sloane getting arrested, this was the best time I’ve had in years. I always wanted to act like you were mine in public.”

Austin leaned his forehead against his mate’s.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” he said. “No more pretending after this. We’ll leave Cascadia, move somewhere else where no one knows or cares about the differences between shifters.”

Trevor bit his lip.

“I’ll have to leave Lizzy and Tim,” he said. “I wanted them to have a different upbringing than I had, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” Austin said. Now his heart felt like it was being squeezed from both sides at once, by Sloane hiking down to the police station and Trevor going back to the home he’d been kicked out of once already.

“It’s not your fault,” Trevor said. “I just wish I could help them.”

Austin planted a kiss on his mate’s lips, long and firm. Then they pulled apart.

“Midnight tomorrow?” he asked.

“If everything goes well,” Trevor said.

“I’ll wait for you,” Austin said.

Trevor just nodded once.

Then, in the blink of an eye, a wolf stood where Trevor had, and the wolf gently scooped his clothes up in its mouth and set off at a run.

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