Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(29)

Tobias ran his hands over her knuckles. “I think you need to Change again.”

Dread dumped into her system, and she tried to let go of him, but he held her in place with a strong grip on her hands. “What do you mean? I just Changed, and I lost two weeks. Two weeks making your medicine, two weeks living away from Perl.” She swallowed hard, then whispered, “I lost two weeks with you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did!”

Tobias moved the pan to another burner with a bang, then spun around and gripped her shoulders. “I can’t go into this winter and a possible hibernation if you don’t have control. I can’t. If this medicine doesn’t work—”

“It will!”

“If it doesn’t, I can’t stand the thought of you out here unable to control you shifts, Vera. You aren’t Link’s responsibility when things get bad. You’re mine. And right now, I think you need to Change.”

“And then what?”

“And then Change again.”

Defeated, her shoulders sagged. “And then what?”

“And Change again and again until you and your fox trust each other enough to know you won’t be locked in one form forever. Right now, you hate each other, and until you build some kind of relationship with your animal, you have no shot at a normal life, Vera. And I want that for you. I want it for us.”

“But the medicine is important. Not just for you, but for your brothers and their mates.”

“I know. But you’re important, too. We have to find a balance.”

Vera crossed her arms over her chest and dropped her gaze to his scuffed boots. “This is hard.”

Tobias hugged her close and murmured into her ear, “No one ever said this would be easy, and you don’t seem like the type of woman to take the easy way out. You’re brave and tough, and we will figure this out.”

“We will?”

He chuckled deep, warming her from her middle out. “I’m still in this. I saw your animal, and she’s stubborn, just like you. But she’s also good. We’ll get through this. If the medicine doesn’t happen this winter, then we’ll try for next winter.”

But Tobias didn’t understand. Eliminating his hibernation wasn’t just for him and his family anymore. It was for her as well. She couldn’t imagine going an entire six months without him while he slept in some den on Kodiak Island. Pain slashed through her chest just thinking about the aching loneliness and how dark her life would be without him, just waiting day after snowy day for him to wake up again. He didn’t understand, but arguing with him was pointless. He wanted her to Change and fix herself first, but she couldn’t. That’s not how love worked. Just like he was putting her first, she had to put him first, too.

Love? Her cheeks flushed with heat, and she punched him in the arm. “You ready to bleed for me, McBeefcake?”

“Woman, I think I’ve bled enough for the time being. Go sit down, and I’ll get you fed. You can poke me with your needles after I stop that rumbling in your stomach.”

“You like to take care of me,” she accused as she sat in the old ladder-back chair at the two-seater table. “Big, tough, brawling grizzly shifter likes to cater to his mate.”

“I’m buttering you up,” he teased as he set two steaming metal plates on the table.

Steak and cubed potatoes and carrots, and now her mouth was watering, too.

“You trying to get lucky tonight?”

“Hell yeah, Thistle. It’s been two weeks, and I’ve finally got you back. Eat fast or I’ll jump you right here on this rickety table.” Tobias’s eyes twinkled with amusement as she gulped and nodded.

They ate in silence as she tried to build up the courage to voice her fears. In the bath earlier, when she’d scrubbed her skin to shining and washed the leaves from her matted hair, she’d worried over how Tobias would see her now. They’d been so good together before the Change, but now she didn’t know where his head was at.

Gulping her last bite of carrots, she set her silverware down gently and admitted, “I was kind of nervous you wouldn’t want me intimately anymore.”

Tobias reared back as though he’d been slapped. “Why?”

“Well, because I’m not in heat anymore, and you saw me as her. My fox isn’t exactly a sex-pot, and if I remember correctly, she killed and brought you three rabbits. Poor little limp bunnies. I just assumed that wasn’t a turn-on.”

“Nah, you’re looking at it all wrong. One, your heat doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m attracted to you, not what you smell like, and two, you see it as killing a bunny and making a pointless gesture. But do you know how hard it is to pull yourself off a kill when you are an animal?” He dropped his attention to his steak and began to cut it up. “It’s nearly impossible unless you have a really good reason not to eat your prey. And your fox stopped herself from eating just so she could bring her catch to me. That is the biggest gesture of devotion for our kind, so no, I didn’t see it as a turn-off.” He lifted steady green eyes to hers. “It made me care for you more.” His pupils contracted just before he ripped his gaze away and gritted out, “Now finish your potatoes, woman. I can’t stand thinking you’re hungry.”