Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)

Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)

T.S. Joyce




Chapter One


Tobias Silver threw open the door of the Galena Post Office and wiped his muddy boots on the mat inside. July in Alaska meant warm weather and sunshine, but it also meant the main drag in town was often a swamp thanks to the summer rains.

The scent of werewolf hit his nose immediately, and he threw a suspicious glance over at a bench along the wall. Half-shadowed by a full coat rack, Lincoln McCall sat there, one leg stretched out as though he’d been waiting a while. His blazing gray eyes followed Tobias to the front desk.

“What the f*ck do you want?” Tobias asked in a barely audible voice the humans waiting in line couldn’t hear but Link would pick up just fine.

“Hello to you, too,” Link growled out, striding toward Tobias, his boots echoing across the wooden floor. “Took you long enough to come pick up this package.”

Tobias tossed him a withering look as the tall man stood beside him with his arms crossed. “I have shit to do, dog. Back-to-back deliveries mean I can’t just drop everything to make a trip out here for a single package.”

“I’ve been waiting for two days.”

“What? Why? You should’ve just called me if you wanted something.”

“On the radio?” Link’s dark eyebrows shot up, and his eyes blazed brighter. “That’s what you must mean since you never pick up your damned phone. I know because I called it a dozen times, and what I have to say shouldn’t be talked about over the radio waves.”

Mickey Gunderson, the postmaster, waved him forward as a little old lady shuffled off with a package in her hands. “Tobias Silver, this package is a fragile one.”

When he disappeared into the back room, Tobias leaned heavily on the countertop angled away from Link, who was standing too damned close.

“You’ll want to hear what I have to say,” Link murmured. “It could possibly save your family a lot of grief.”

“What do you care about my family?”

“Are you kidding me right now? I’d do anything for Elyse. Anything for Ian. Hell, if Jenner asked me for a favor, I’d do it.” A long growl rattled Link’s throat, and he shook his head hard to stifle the sound. Crazy wolf.

Tobias narrowed his eyes at him. Link had spoken each word with such conviction he had to be telling the truth. Because of his heightened shifter senses, Tobias could tell a lie. “Why, Link? I honestly want to know why you care about them so much. You remember what happened to your brother, don’t you?”

Link’s face went blank, and red crept up the sides of his neck. “Yeah, I know what happened to Cole, and he accepted it, you snarky *. You think he wanted to be hurting people? Ian did him a favor, just like he’ll do for me someday. And I’ll die with honor because Ian is my friend.” Link turned to leave but circled back and lowered his voice. “You don’t even know how lucky you are, Silver.” Link’s glowing gaze locked on his for a moment more before he strode outside, slamming the door after him.

Huh. Tobias twirled a pen between his fingers and frowned. Link had abandoned his pack the day they went after Elyse. The day they scarred up her face and tried to kill Ian when he was mid-hibernation. Link had fought his own family to protect them. Tobias had never understood his reasons, but he did know one thing. Werewolves didn’t do well rogue. They needed packs, and from the way Link talked about Ian and Elyse, it dawned on Tobias. Link wasn’t rogue. He’d just chosen a different pack, albeit a broken one. With a bear shifter and a human, this make-shift pack was one that shouldn’t work by any means, but apparently they were all Link had now, and he was going to stick with them until he went mad, just like every other McCall had done since the beginning of their lineage.

Regret slashed through Tobias’s chest. He didn’t hate Link. In fact, he actually liked the idiot, but someday, Ian was going to be called on to kill his friend, and the unfairness of that was a mighty blow. Tobias might not get along with his brothers much, but that didn’t mean he wanted them hurt. And killing Link was going to hurt Ian.

Tobias muttered a curse and scrubbed a hand down his face. This right here was why he had stalled coming to Galena. Ian and Elyse, and even Link, lived too close. They brought up all these emotions he didn’t know what to do with, pain he didn’t understand, and now his inner bear was writhing in his middle, snarling to be released.

You don’t even know how lucky you are.

Link was so wrong.

“Here it is,” Mickey said, grunting under the heavy weight of an oversize box that had masking tape wrapped around it several dozen times. “I think Ian was meant to take it, but he’s swamped with deliveries right now, and he and Elyse are talking about driving their cattle back early, and they are fighting a war with the mice near their garden, and one of their goats just had twins but she won’t feed one of them—”

“Mickey!” Damn, he knew this was a small town, but did everyone know everything about everyone?

“Oh, right. They’re your family. You already know all this.”

Actually he didn’t, and now he felt even shittier, thank you, Galena.

Mickey hoisted the box onto the counter with a great groan, then said, “You ever delivered to Perl Island before?”

And there it was. The final rub of this shit-tastic trip. Perl Island, one of the most dangerous places on earth. The Alaskan weather liked to dump all of her violence right over the island. If he was lucky enough to land safely, then he would have to deal with the natives. That strip of land was known in his world as the Island of Misfit Shifters.