Page 17 of Choose the Bears

“We need to get a domestic violence order,” Asher gasped, still sucking in breaths as I went back to skin beside him.

“I know.”

“We need to secure that bloody apartment or move her into headquarters.”

“Right.”

“We need to start a dossier on this boyfriend and look deeper into Phil Jackson. Fuck!” Asher stared at me, blue eyes full of accusation. “I should’ve anticipated that he’d escalate, try and find another victim if he couldn’t get to Mary. How many other perps have we missed, Kyle? How many?”

“I don’t know, Asher.”

When he was like this, there were no easy answers. I’d be called upon to provide cited sources or data sets if I tried to give him anything definitive. So I did what I always did and waited him out.

“Why don’t you know?”

His anger, the way his eyes blazed bright blue, it wasn’t directed at me, even as he reared up from the ground, snarling. I watched his fangs lengthen, saw this for what it was, a threat display. Asher hated the whack-a-mole nature of what we did, that no sooner had we helped one woman or one family, then yet more were being hurt. Australia had a systemic issuewith domestic violence, and Asher wouldn’t rest until that was stopped.

But hurt people could hurt people, that was something Elodie had told me early on. Abuse was about power, and it was an inherent part of both bear and man to want to grab whatever you could. All we could do was use that which we had to make as much of a difference as we could.

“Why don’t you know, Kyle?”

The heat was gone from his voice, revealing what was there the entire time: pain. I wanted for us to meet our mate on the street one day, or maybe at one of the bear shifter events, for her to have been well cared for, even pampered, before we came along. But the fact that Imogen no doubt contained a pain that matched his made a strange kind of sense.

“Nothing will hurt Imogen going forward,” I told him in a low, even tone. “Nothing. We’ll keep her safe, make sure those pricks don’t come within ten feet of her. We got her out of that fucking apartment, Asher. We got her out, and Lucas is watching her.” He wavered then, the intensity, the emotion of the day starting to beat him down, and I rushed to catch him when he began to fall. “Luc’s got her, and I’ve got you, mate.”

“We need to get back to the city,” he rasped into my shoulder. “We need to start securing her apartment, putting things in place…”

“Sleep first, brother, then all of that and more. Luc’s got her for now. He won’t leave until there’s someone else to take over.”

At that, I was able to direct him back to our clothes, the two of us getting dressed in silence.

“Ready to go?” Kenny asked, setting down his beer. “Billy’s off for a hop, but?—”

“Home,” I told him. “Let’s get Asher home.”

Chapter 10

Imogen

There’s a whole lot of stuff that makes sense in the dark of night that come morning will have you cringing.

Waking up next to a stranger that helped you move out of your ex’s shit hole place and carry a pathetically small amount of belongings into your new apartment was one of them.

Make that waking up to him staring at you.

My eyes flickered open and I blinked, not really processing what I was seeing. Just a flustered looking Lucas who jerked his eyes down, his cheeks going a very cute shade of pink. I rolled over with a groan, turned off my alarm, and remembered the oh so awkward conversation we’d had last night.

“We can’t. I want to. Fuck, how I want to.”

Was that me now? In my defence, I hadn’t had sex in months, but was I going to start jumping on guys the minute they showed me a tiny scrap of kindness? I wanted to bang my head against the pillow, but instead I looked back at Lucas. My eyes searched his face, looking for traces of revulsion, but I didn’t find them. He just looked worn out and… curious.

“Did you want a coffee?” he asked.

“Um, I’d kill for one, but where are you gonna get one from?” I scrubbed at my face. “I can’t even remember if I packed the kettle.”

“You didn’t.” That shy smile was back when my eyebrow jerked up. “I went up to the local servo to grab you one.”

“Is this what you do for all of your security clients?” I asked, waving a finger around. “Because I gotta say, this is pretty incredible service.”

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