Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(30)

“Bossy,” she murmured, sliding her fuzzy sock-clad foot up his leg under the table.

Tobias tensed the second she reached his thick erection, standing at attention behind the seam of his jeans. He gripped his fork and knife, seemingly determined to ignore her, but he jerked and scraped the knife hard across the plate when she stretched her foot up his shaft.

She swallowed a giggle as he leveled her with a calculating look. “I don’t think this rickety old table would hold my weight, much less yours.”

“Mmm,” he rumbled, rolling his eyes back in his head as she pulled her foot back down him.

“I’m wearing my llama pajamas tonight for you.”

Tobias chuckled and linked his hands behind his head, leaning back in his creaking chair. “Don’t tease me, woman.”

Vera slid from her chair and crawled around the table, stifling a grin. “Bark, bark, I’m a sexy fox.”

“Foxes don’t bark.” Tobias was biting back his amusement. “You’re going to get splinters in your knees.”

“I will not get—ow!” she said, feigning pain. Tobias didn’t even flinch. “No reaction?” she asked.

“I’m onto your tricks.”

With a dramatic sigh, she rested the back of her hand on her forehead and murmured, “Take me to our shed now, lover. I’m ready for you.”

Tobias’s shoulders shook with laughter as he scooped her up. “Well, Thistle,” he said as he kicked the door open and walked out into the night air with her cradled to his chest, “I have a feeling life with you will never be boring.”

“It will if I stay a fox.” She hadn’t meant to sound melancholy and ruin the moment. After he strode around the cabin in silence, she murmured, “I’m sorry.”

Tobias pushed the door of the shed open and settled her on her feet. Cupping her face, he said, “Your animal let you out when I needed you. She’ll do it again.”

“I’m scared of Changing back. I’m scared I’ll lose myself forever.”

He shook his head, his eyes pooling with sympathy and understanding. “You won’t.”

“But how do you know, Tobias? How can you be sure? I lost two weeks like it was nothing. And where was I? Sleeping? Did I just not exist? I hardly remember anything, and I’ve tried. I wasn’t present, Tobias. I was nothing.”

“It won’t be like that forever. Your animal just blocked you, like you blocked her with those meds. But you suppressed her for years. She only took two weeks from you.”

Vera sat heavily on the cot against the wall. Now she felt awful. Her “cure” had done that. Made her animal feel non-existent. Her face fell, and her eyes burned with tears. She couldn’t meet Tobias’s gaze anymore.

“Talk to me.”

She shook her head because she couldn’t. Talking hadn’t ever solved anything for her. He would only pity her, and she didn’t want him feeling sorry. She wanted him to care for her as much as she cared for him. He was a big, strong, mentally capable bear shifter—the king of their kind—and she was nothing but a broken fox.

“Vera,” he urged, kneeling down in front of her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m breaking apart. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster I can’t get off of. One minute I feel fine and safe, I can laugh and smile like I used to, and the next, my life feels like it’s drowning me. I think about all I have to work through, and it feels impossible. I’m going to lose you, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to be too heavy for you to carry, Tobias.”

“You aren’t.” He wiped her tear and scooted closer, gripped her upper thighs. Lowering his voice, he repeated, “You aren’t too heavy, Vera. You think you’re the broken one, but you aren’t. I don’t see you like that. I see you as a survivor, as a badass. You were Turned, and you fought to live, woman. You lived. That’s so rare. You are one of the only female shifters on the f*cking planet, and you feel like the broken one? Jonathan tried. My dad tried. They didn’t break you, Vera. They made you stronger by giving you the animal. I don’t blame you or her for struggling to figure this out. And you’re right. It’s hard. It’s so f*cking hard. You could’ve taken the easy way out. You could’ve suppressed her forever, but look at you. A month off the meds, and don’t pretend that was easy. You went every day off that injection knowing what was coming, and you didn’t chicken out.” Tobias lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “You’re funny, wild, headstrong, vulnerable, and scared, and all of those are important parts of you and nothing to be ashamed of. Those emotions are what give you texture. They make you different. They make you real. You’re still here, Vera, fighting. I’m not going anywhere. I get to be in your life, watching you come into your own. It’s okay to feel fear about what’s happening to you, but you don’t have to be scared of me hurting you.” Tobias pulled something from his back pocket. It was a leather pouch, and gingerly, he lifted the top flap, then upended it. Onto his palm fell a simple diamond ring with a white gold band.

“Oh, my God, Tobias!” she cried, tears falling in earnest now as she clapped her hands over her mouth.

“It’s not a princess cut—”

“I don’t care—”