Page 2 of Trusting Her Bear

I’ve been putting off going through the hiring process again.

I don’t mind working with Bash. I’ve known many vampires over the years, and he is in the top five that I have liked, which isn’t saying much; the list is just the five. He doesn’t talk much and does what he needs to do.

I can appreciate those qualities.

I open my laptop and open the files we are currently working on. The cases we work on may seem insignificant, but most of them are women who are in toxic relationships. Their spouses or boyfriends are cheating, lying, or, worst case, abusing them. Some women come to us because they suspect cheating, but there is another side of the business. The side that helps women escape these abusive relationships. They don’t always come to us. Most of the time it’s friends or family who suspect the abuse and need our help to influence the victim to ask for help. We reach out a hand, which most of the time they desperately grab, grateful someone gives a shit and can guide them to the next step.

I take pride in being there with the answers. I enjoy sticking it to assholes who think they are getting away with hurting their partners. Human men are the worst offenders. I will never understand how they can do the sick things to women whom they claim to love.

The man we have been following recently is cheating on his pregnant girlfriend. Another man has been beating the shit out of his wife in front of their three children. The woman has been hiding the bruises, pretending everything was fine, and doing business as usual in front of their family and friends. She picks up the kids from school with oversized sunglasses on her face and scarves around her neck, hiding the pain of a limp where he kicked her when she was down on the ground from the blows to her face.

She was willing to take the hits, but she reached out to us when her son got into a fight at school. It’s normal for boys to tussle, but he’s only six and hit a girl he liked. She didn’t know who to turn to or how to get out until an acquaintance who saw the signs gave her my card.

It put her over the edge. She doesn’t want her children to turn out like her husband. We took her from the home and put her in a safe house with the children. The husband is searching for his missing family, even though he knows why they left. He has leaned on his family, putting on the performance of his life—the distraught, loving husband.

The wife and the children have been speaking to a therapist daily. I have hope that she can move past this time of her life.

I almost wanted to inform him that I encouraged his wife to leave. It’s been a while since I had a good fight.

I have restrained myself.

Barely.

As a shifter, the most important relationship is with your mate. Finding your mate is what you hope for, and when we find them, we don’t let go. We will do anything to protect and love them. The universe picks the perfect person for you, and it can’t be denied. If you do, you will forever long for them and never be at peace.

Being a shifter, vampire, or any other supernatural can be lonely. Shifters live for a very long time, and vampires can live forever. Finding a group like the one I have found here can be fulfilling, but from what I have heard, nothing is like having your fated mate.

Life can be boring. You can only do so many new things, and I have tried many things over my thirty-eight years. When I can live at least five hundred years on this earth, more if I am lucky, the thought of living them all alone is frightening.

When I was seventeen, my mother left. There was no explanation, no note, just gone. It wrecked my dad. I thought she was happy. She had a mate who loved her, children she seemed to adore, and a home in which she took great pride. We were shocked and grieving, even though Dad said she was alive and well. When you are mated, you can feel your mate. Dad knew she was alive, so I didn’t understand why she left and why he wouldn’t go after her. He told us that she needed a break. A break that lasts a week, I can understand. Years? How can you give up your family?

He was never the same. He did the best he could, but we could see his pain.

I was angry. Angry at my mom for giving us up, pissed at Dad for doing nothing. My dad had to bail me out of jail many times after I damaged property and got into fights. The last time I walked out of the police station, I was twenty. A man approached me, a vampire, and asked if I wanted to hear about a job opportunity. He said he was looking for someone with my skill set.

At that time, I didn’t think I had any particular skills. I knew how to fight and was big, even at that age. I don’t know why I agreed to sit down with him and hear more. I suppose I was searching for some purpose, sick of going from odd job to odd job, being angry, and getting in trouble.

Looking back, he opened my eyes to a side of life I had not thought possible.

“Brooding, bear?” Bash's looks alone are startling. He is a four-hundred-year-old vampire with white hair, abnormally light blue eyes, and a naturally fierce expression. His body is large, but he isn’t as big as I am. Even though most humans know nothing about our existence, anyone would take pause when they see him coming.

As much as I have been around vampires, I can’t get used to the speed at which they move. They call it walking in the shadows. They can move so fast that their bodies blur. They have no scent. The lack of smell, a void, can give away their presence.

“Bash,” I respond. “Did you come to work or give me shit?” I take a drink of the cold coffee I poured an hour ago.

“What would I give you shit about?” he asks as he leans against the wall just inside the door.

“Possibly about the party,” I hint, setting the cup down.

“I couldn’t care less if you come or not. Marie asked me to be there, so I will.”

“Right,” I say. Marie is the only person that can order the vampire to do anything. “Are you on a case?”

“Yes. Marie will be here soon. We get to follow a young man who is suspected of cheating.” He sighs. “I bet he is, and his girlfriend is paying us money to take a picture of it, to document the worst time of her young life.”

Bash understands humans less than I do. “This is the job.”

“I suppose.”

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