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

“I go alone. Whatever trap I’m walking into, I don’t want you involved. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

“And the other two?”

Tobias leveled him with a hard look. “You don’t tell anyone about this, and you don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why not?”

Tobias turned and strode toward the edge of town, adjusting the package in his grasp as he went. Over his shoulder, he called, “Because there is no cure.”





Chapter Two


It took Tobias way too damned long to get to Perl Island on account of having to refuel halfway there, and by the time he spotted the landing strip he’d used a couple years ago, the weather had turned.

Perl Island was all mountains, as if she were pointing daggers at the sky, daring any bush pilot to try her. Tobias had been flying a long time, though, and he knew exactly what his plane could and couldn’t do.

The churning storm clouds that hovered right above the island didn’t surprise Tobias at all. For some reason, this place got hit with the worst of Alaska’s weather. While it was a pain in the ass for him when his plane hit some serious, stomach-dipping turbulence, the storms and tsunami threats kept people off the island, and for the most part, the misfits were left alone. Which was probably the real reason he hadn’t been sent out on a kill mission to this place yet. Clayton, the head of the Shifter Enforcement Agency Tobias begrudgingly worked for, didn’t care as much about shifters warring with each other. Not unless they were drawing attention to themselves. Clayton cared if shifters were hurting humans, and since there were zero-point-zero humans crazy enough to make a home on this island, the misfits could likely do whatever they wanted without reprimand. Yeah. That sounded much better than the island was controlled by a witch.

The farther he flew away from Link, the more sure he was that Vera Masterson was just some backwoods shifter mixing herbs in the dirt, smoking copious amounts of weed, and chanting to herself because she was just as crazy as the other misfits. A shifter didn’t get exiled out here for no reason. Hell, if Clayton thought he stood any chance of keeping the crazy McCalls in one place, he’d probably cage them all here and sleep better for it.

Tobias dipped the nose of his plane slightly, lowering under the turbulence as he took a wide turn to square up to the rough landing strip. The edges were overgrown, but the center was covered with short grass, as if there had been other deliveries out this way that had kept the wild foliage from growing too high. Which made sense. He couldn’t be the only delivery here. The island wasn’t huge, and to support the twenty or so shifters, it would have to produce a lot of game, especially in the winter months.

Someone was feeding these people.

The landing was rough, but better than he’d expected. The first time he’d landed here, the runway was dotted with brambles, and he had plowed through a trio of young, knee-high alders which had almost dumped him on his butt and given him his first crash landing. But when he scanned the leftover runway out of the front window of his plane, sure enough, those alders had been trimmed with what looked like smooth machete slices. Thanks to whoever is keeping this runway viable. They’d just saved him damage to his new Cessna 185.

Tobias ripped off his headset and turned off the plane, then pulled the box out of the passenger’s seat. When he saw Vera Masterson’s name scribbled across the top, he froze. Such a strange feeling washed over him, just like when Link had said her name out loud. Déjà vu maybe or…something. Okay, so this package was for her. Maybe this was the lure. Maybe this delivery had to do with whatever she wanted to hire him to do, which shouldn’t make him this wary because people hired him for all sorts of odd jobs and deliveries. It was a product of the kind of work he did in the summers. There was no postal service out in the bush. Just him.

Tobias followed a small deer trail through the thick woods and followed the scent of cooking beef another mile through the wilderness until he came to a clearing. It was lined with tiny cabins in different stages of disrepair, and on the farthest end was a pair of outhouses. In between the two biggest cabins, a man sat, turning a spit that supported an entire leg of beef. Where the f*ck did they get a cow?

The village was abnormally quiet as he made his way over the short grass toward the man tending the food, and the hairs rose on the back of his neck. He was being watched, and when he scented the air, it was full of dominance and all different types of fur.

The man by the fire lifted his head as his nostrils flared, and his dark eyes narrowed to slits. “If he sent you to off us, it’s your unlucky day.”

“Who?”

“You know who, grizzly. Ain’t nobody causin’ trouble here.” The broad-shouldered man stood to his full height as his glance skittered to the package and back to Tobias. He snarled his lips, exposing crooked yellow teeth. “What you got there?”

“A delivery, which is the one and only reason I’m here. No one sent me but the postmaster in Galena. Can you point me to where Vera Masterson lives?”

“She’s mine.”

Tobias cocked an impatient brow and gritted his teeth. “That’s fantastic. I need her to sign for this and pay me the delivery fee, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“I know you.”

“I assure you, you don’t.”

“You’re that prick who delivered the piping to us a couple summers back. Got in a fight with Eustice if I remember correctly.”