Page 54 of Choose the Bears

I liked her attention, the way her eyes seemed to measure my chest, taking in the span of my shoulders, my arms. If she just kept on looking at me, we’d get through this, somehow I was sure. As if to prove that wrong, Lucas and Asher came walking in through the door, Lucas holding a sheaf of papers.

“You’ll need to stay here for a while,” Asher informed her, and I sighed. No hello, no hi Imogen, how are you? He seemed unable to maintain politeness at the best of times, but around our mate, he was a mess. Her head jerked up and she frownedas she stared back. “I’ve been in contact with the police. They’re looking for Phil in all his usual haunts?—”

“At Mike’s?” Her lips thinned as she said that. “He’s just as likely to be protecting him at our… his place.”

“I mentioned Mike, and he’s down as a person of interest,” Asher replied.

“So…” I watched Imogen struggle with something a lot of people who didn’t have much to do with the police did. “He’s just out there. I saw…” She straightened up, her jaw firming. “I saw what he did to Scott and Mary.”

“He was released on bail for that.” Asher’s voice sounded like his name, grey and colourless. “It was his first offence as far as the courts were concerned, so bail was deemed a reasonable option. He’s breached the conditions of it, but…”

But to enforce that the police needed to find him. Who the hell knew where the weaselly prick was in a city this size?

“They’ll find him,” I said with all the confidence I didn’t feel. “They’ll bring him in and he’ll rot in a jail cell waiting for his trial.” Hopefully forever, if we had anything to do with it. “You just need to sit tight until he’s found.”

“I can’t go to work.” She dropped the ball of meat she was rolling into a burger. “I can’t go back to my place. I can’t?—”

“It must seem like all your choices are being taken away from you right now,” Ursula said, and who would know about that more than her? “But all you can do is make the best choice from the options you do have.”

“Right.” Imogen snatched up some meat, rolling it and placing it on the tray like it personally offended her. “Is the cook job still open, because apparently I’m going to need a new position.”

“Of course.” Asher’s voice was far softer now as he crept closer. He wanted to touch her, hold her close, I could see thatin the way his fingers flexed. I wanted the same damn thing, but Lucas stepped forward.

“In some more positive news, I’ve found a bunch of the books that need replacing and a few more.” He set the pages down on the table beside her.

“Vixen’s Pleasure?” she said, craning her neck to peer at it. “Wolf’s Heart?” She went to the sink and washed her hands clean before picking the paper up. “How the hell did you find these? They’ve been out of print for ages.”

Yeah, how did he do that? Lucas hid away in his little geek den, but suddenly I was keen to learn his ways. That same look of pleasure I saw when our mate was in the art room rose.

“You can get these?” she asked him, as if barely able to believe it.

“All of them.” Luc started to smile. “If you confirm that you want these, they’ll be with a courier and expedited over here as fast as possible.”

Oh yeah, I was jealous. The look she was giving him was everything I wanted, but I knew. Together we would make our mate’s dreams come true, and if he started with this, I wasn’t going to hate on him.

“I…” She wanted to say thank you, to throw her arms around him, but the sling quickly made clear that wasn’t possible. She stepped back with a flush and then turned back to the meat. “I better make you all the best burgers possible if I’m going to keep this job.”

I picked up the ice cream scoop and grabbed another ball of meat and got rolling.

Chapter 29

Asher

“Well, this went well.”

My sister came to stand beside me, watching the barbeque take place. In the end, Kyle had suggested we eat outside. There was a largely unused barbeque area at the back of the property, but once word went around what was on the menu, almost everyone came outside to eat. Kyle was manning the grill, because apparently he knew the art of cooking the perfect burger. I burned some sausages one time and that disqualified me forever. Imogen wasn’t content to just stand around and wait for her food. She was dishing up salads and refreshing bowls of toppings for people to add to their burgers. I don’t think I’d seen her stop the entire time, and I was just about ready to make her.

“She’s found her feet very quickly,” Ursula continued, “your mate.”

Imogen had with an ease I frankly envied. When the police placed me with Kyle’s parents after I was returned to the bear community, I’d just sat in my room, my back pressed against the wall, not coming out for days. My adoptive parents had to coax me out like a wild animal, and Kyle was there, staring wideeyed at his new ‘brother.’ Not Imogen. She chatted away with the mothers and smiled for the children before helping everyone get their food.

But not her own.

Every minute she went without eating forced my fangs to grind together.

“Too quickly,” I growled. “She thinks she needs to prove herself to be here, to serve others to deserve a place here. That if she isn’t paying her way somehow, we’ll…”

I didn’t finish that sentence. I couldn’t, striding forward, moving between the crowds.

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