Husband Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #1)(2)

Ian was hungry—starving, in fact—and the last thing he wanted to deal with after six months of hibernation was an enforcer job.

With a growl and a glare for the damning envelope, he dressed as quickly as his sore muscles allowed. Thick sweater, jeans, warm socks, and hiking boots on, and he was up, stretching his aching joints. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Gaunt face, emaciated body, clothes hanging off him, hollow eyes, and one gnarly beard. Even the blue of his eyes was dull. He always hated the way he looked after hibernation—as weak as a dried twig, and just as ready to snap.

Ripping his gaze away from the reflective glass, he reached for his jacket draped over the dresser and beat off a healthy layer of dust. It was dark in his one-room den, but his night vision was impeccable, so he didn’t have any problems finding his way around. This place was for sleeping only and lacked the amenities he needed to refuel his depleted body. Tonight, he would stay in a hotel in town and eat until he was glutted. Whoever’s file that envelope contained was going to eat him for breakfast if he didn’t build up his strength.

Ian pocketed his wallet along with all the money in the safe that shadowed the corner, then picked up the envelope. The weight was too substantial for a warning order. Clayton had definitely sent him something big.

He’d planned on eating before he opened the envelope, but it had been a couple of years since he’d done a thick-packet kill order, and one of the shifters around here must’ve f*cked up royally if Ian was being called to hunt them.

He took one last glance around his den before shoving open the door, allowing the dim cave light to filter in. Even as muted as it was, the brightness hurt his eyes after sleeping so long. The envelope crinkled in his hands as he pulled the stack of papers and pictures from it. A strange jolt blasted through his body as his gaze landed on the first image. It was a color picture of a woman. Honey-colored hair tied back, long neck, pursed lips, and troubled, hollow eyes that looked eerily similar to his right now, except she was human and hadn’t been asleep for the past six months. She had a hoe in her hands and was working a garden, and the look on her face said the photographer had caught her at a moment when she’d only just glanced up from her work, then likely returned her attention right back to it. Her eyes were a strange gold-green color, and she didn’t wear a stitch of make-up.

Ian shook his head and gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. Clayton knew better than this. He knew better than to give him a kill order on a woman. Ian spat on the ground and pushed the picture aside. Cole McCall stared back at him with wild eyes that said his inner wolf had taken the last of his sanity. That was more like it. Ian scanned the paperwork to make sure it was McCall he was supposed to hunt and not the pretty woman in the photograph.

An unreasonably large wave of relief washed through his chest as he read the name. The lady was an innocent. Elyse Abram. Pretty name for a pretty woman, and not his intended target. She was just Cole’s bad decision to try and hold a mate while his inner wolf slipped into madness. The McCall boys were all the same, descended from a long line of crazy werewolves. And man-eaters, every last one of them. Dumb f*ck had involved a woman in his final year of sanity. Cole was even stupider than Ian had thought.

When Ian looked at the picture of the woman again, a strange warmth tingled in his fingertips where they connected to the glossy paper. Any man with eyes could see a woman like her was fine-bred and beautiful. Much too good to couple up with a McCall. Troubled by his sympathetic thoughts, Ian shoved the entire file back into the folder and slammed the door of his den closed, then strode out of the stone-encased tunnel and crawled through the small opening in the rocks and out into the sunlight.

Inhaling deeply, he closed his eyes and tilted his face up toward the sun. Even with half a foot of snow still covering Afognak Island, he’d never felt anything better. The woman was safe from him, and soon she’d be safe from Cole McCall and whatever idiot thing he’d done to get a price on his head. He was about to eat for the first time in six months, and he’d survived another winter. Life wasn’t all peaches and berries, but this was the best a grizzly shifter could ask for.

Getting off Afognak meant uncovering the boat he’d hidden at the start of winter and dragging it to the beach. Not many came to this island, especially in this season. Hunters and hikers mostly, but no one lived here except him. There were a few cabins dotting the island that weren’t made for permanent residence, but provided temporary protection for visitors from the wild brown bears that called this place home. Only the bravest hunters, or the most desperate, went after black-tail deer at the risk of running into a grizzly. Afognak was also said to be haunted, a rumor probably started by his ancestors and one he fueled if anyone asked because he liked his peace and quiet. The untamed land felt like home to a half-feral shifter like himself.

The boat engine was frozen and needed work and new fuel, so getting the dinghy in the water and hearing the whine of the little motor took a couple of hours. And all the while, his stomach growled.

The waters of the Marmot Bay were passable, but there were still ice chunks everywhere, so he had to be careful not to damage his hull as he maneuvered toward Kodiak Island. By trade, he was an Alaskan bush pilot, like one of his brothers and father before him, but he kept his plane in Pilot’s Point to keep the werewolves off his trail when he went to sleep for the winter.

Damn, he was hungry. The second he set foot on land, he pulled his boat out of the frigid waters and tracked down his traditional post-hibernation restaurant to tuck into. It was an old inn that didn’t get much traffic outside of tourist season, and the wait staff never commented on how much he could eat in one sitting.