Page 56 of Choose the Bears

“Because you’re you.” She turned to face me while I spent undue time picking out the perfect lettuce leaf to put on my bread roll. “Because the wheels of justice are too slow, too flawed for you.”

“That’s because they are,” I replied mildly.

“Because this is personal.” That note in her voice had me facing her. “And when your heart’s involved, your brain stops working.”

I kept my bear down all the time, but sometimes I’d let him ease forward, stare through my eyes, often when dealing with abusive fucks. In some ways that’s what I saw now. Not a bear. Ursula, like most women, did not have a beast to call forth, but instead she had this. Pain, so much pain, the sight of it frankly shocking me. She saw Elodie regularly. She trained religiously in the gym. She worked all day, every day helping people get through that tricky transition from victim to survivor. Yet as I stared back, I saw that she was still very much on that journey.

“Urs—”

“You’ll burn the world down for those you love.” Her finger buried itself in my chest. “That’s a wildly romantic idea, but…” Her smile was like the loose one you found on a bleached skull. “But when the ashes settle, what does she have? A whole lot of destruction.” My sister pulled away then, clapping me on the shoulder before joining the crowds. “You know what you need to do.”

I did.

I loved Ursula. I’d killed a man to stop him from hurting her, so that was never in doubt, but she didn’t know. There was something inside me, something dark as night, twice as dark as any twisted shit that lived inside Phil. It knew the way a man’s screams cut off the moment you tore him apart, the sound of sinew snapping. It rose now.

Phil Jackson made a terrible, terrible mistake.

I would’ve been content to see him go to jail, but by invading Imogen’s space, I needed a more permanent solution. Tonight I’d track him down, drag him out to the same remote national park he and his buddies had been partying at, and then I’d take fur. He’d see exactly what happened when a man faced down a fucking bear.

At that, I took a bite, the taste feeling like it exploded on my tongue. I rarely bothered with food because it all tasted like cardboard to me, but not this. Crafted by my mate’s hands, I caught every herb, every seasoning she’d added. My eyes found her across the courtyard and saw that she was sitting down next to Lucas. I watched the way she smiled and then took another bite of her food, hungry for the details, right up until she smiled. Brighter than the sun and twice as glorious, I knew. I’d do anything to see Imogen smile like that more often.

Including killing Phil Jackson.

I looked down in surprise to see I’d eaten all my food, so I got up to shove the paper plate into the bin. The sun was starting toset, so it was go time. I walked back inside, returning to my room and fishing out a key only I had. It opened a small anteroom where all the tools I didn’t want anyone else to find were kept. Dark-blue clothes that were form fitting and hard to see in the dark. A long knife with a cunning edge. A pistol with a silencer attached. As I started to strip down and get dressed, I heard a sharp knock on the door. Staying perfectly still, I assumed whoever it was would go away after a bit.

How wrong I was.

The sensor light flickered, making clear it was one of my sleuth mates, and in they both walked.

“Going somewhere?” Kyle asked as Lucas crossed his arms.

“Not anywhere you want to go,” I replied.

“To kill Phil Jackson?” Kyle’s slow smile, that cocky look, made clear he didn’t know anything about what he was talking about. He shared a long look with Lucas, both of them staring me down when they turned to face me. “I think otherwise… brother.”

Chapter 30

Imogen

“But you’re paying me?—”

“To do as I ask.”

I replayed that little exchange over and over in my head as I went to eat, barely tasting the burger. It was bad enough that I was having sex dreams about my new boss, but on top of that? He said that to me in this low, raspy voice that had every nerve ending tingling.

What else would he ask me to do? My mind couldn’t seem to leave that alone, able to see more and more scenarios. One’s where I found out exactly what it was like to touch that huge, hard body, not just dream about it. I’d pulled away damn quick, ostensibly to do what my new boss told me to, but… It was just as much to get the fuck away from Asher, to stop myself from seeing that damn dream replay for the umpteenth time. When he got up to leave the courtyard, it was almost a relief, but then Kyle and Lucas did the same.

“We’ve gotta…” Kyle watched Asher way too closely.

“Go.” Lucas said that with a warm smile. “But we’ll be back. Those burgers…” He looked almost mournfully at them, which had me smiling.

“I’ll put some aside for you so you don’t miss out.”

“Could you?” Lucas was like a dog drooling for treats and that had me smiling, getting up to put some on a plate as the two of them followed Asher inside. For some kind of meeting, I rationalised. To work out how to help more women and children, to do their taxes, something.

Something that was none of my business.

They didn’t owe me an explanation, I told myself that over and over as I went to go inside and stash the burgers in the kitchen fridge for later.

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