Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(39)

It had been six weeks since she’d met Elyse and Lena, and while their relationship over the radio had flourished, Vera had missed Jenner and Lena’s wedding because she was stuck as a fox at the time. That had done something terrible to her. It had snowed for the first time while Tobias was out at the lodge, standing for his brother in a suit and tie, and Vera had been here at Link’s place alone, panicking over the shift in weather.

To her, snow meant hibernation, and by the time he’d come back, she had Changed back to her human self and was working through the nights on the cure.

Link had become an assistant for her since Tobias couldn’t pick up on the science of it all. All he heard was long, barely pronounceable names and experiments he didn’t understand, but Link was a good student and had even done a few tasks while Vera was a fox. Nothing big, mostly storage, but at least Link had been good for something. Tobias felt helpless to ease her worries.

Vera was fighting time, and from the constant wide-eyed panic on her face, she’d already lost.

“Not too hot,” she murmured as she held a test tube of blue liquid over an open flame. “Slow heat.”

Tobias crossed his arms and leaned against the kitchen counter, then stared at the full plate on the table that had gone cold long ago. Getting Vera to take a break long enough to eat was a challenge these days. He couldn’t even recall the last time she’d slept for more than an hour, and last night he’d woken up to her crying. She had tried to be quiet about it, but the sound of her soft weeping had broken something inside of him.

Avoiding hibernation wasn’t worth this. It wasn’t worth watching her deteriorate.

A small explosion of shattering glass sounded.

“Shit!” Vera yelled, holding half of the jagged vial in her tongs.

Link backed away and sank down into a chair, hands running through his hair in a steady rhythm. He hadn’t been sleeping much either.

When Vera looked back at Tobias, her face had crumpled and her eyes were rimmed with tears. “I need more of your blood.”

“Okay,” he murmured. “Whatever you need.”

Her shoulders shook with her quiet sobbing as she set the broken vial on the table. She pulled off her safety glasses and latex gloves as tears dripped from her jaw to the white lab coat she wore.

Vera strode for the door and threw it open, but just before she disappeared into the night, she turned and said, “I need you!”

The door slammed so hard it rattled the small cabin.

“She can’t keep going like this,” Link said, voice hoarse. “You’re eating so much now, Tobias. I know what that means. You’re getting close. Too close.” He lifted tired eyes to him and leaned back in the chair. “We’re too late, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. Too late. Listen, when I go down to hibernate, you can’t follow me, Link. You can’t wake me up. I’m not like my brothers. I turn Winter Bear and go crazy. I almost killed Jenner that first hibernation, and there is a reason I den out on Kodiak Island with the rest of the monsters. I’ve been woken up twice since then, and I had no control over my bear. If she suggests waking me up, you have to stop her. You have to keep her safe from me. Swear it.”

Link’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He looked ill. “I swear I won’t let her wake you up. Now, let me get the blood sample so you can go check on her.”

Tobias sat at the table in the same chair where they always did blood draws. He rested his elbow on the smooth wood and clenched his fist, and within a few minutes, Link had two vials of his blood. As Link withdrew the needle, Tobias said, “You won’t need those. She won’t have time to do anything with them.”

Link’s gray eyes went wide. “That soon?”

“Yeah.” He gave Link a sad smile, then stood and left to find his mate.

Vera’s scent was easy to follow. Fur, salty tears, peppermint moisturizer, rose hips, and mango body wash led him through Link’s quiet woods to a clearing. His chest constricted as he saw her leaning against a tree, knees drawn up like a shield, head on her arms. Her body shook like a leaf in the wind, and no wonder. It was freezing out here.

“I think you should let me hibernate,” he said low. She would hear him, even over the whipping wind.

“I can’t,” she said thickly.

“You can. I’m telling you, you can. We’ll try again next year.”

“You don’t understand!”

“Are you scared of Clayton? He won’t bother you anymore, and besides, he’ll be going down for winter at the same time as me and my brothers. Jonathan’s gone, and Link will be here if you need anything. You’re safe, Vera.”

She lifted her devastated gaze to his. “Can’t you see?” she whispered brokenly. “I can’t live without you anymore. I’m not strong like Elyse and Lena. I never mentally prepared for this. I went into this pairing knowing you would always be with me.” She slammed her back against the tree and let off another sob. “When you go down for hibernation, you are going to take the best parts of me, the ones I’ve worked so hard to find again.”

Her words cut him like an ax blade. “Maybe you need to Change again.”

“I don’t! My fox doesn’t even want my body now. She’s as desperate as me to finish this cure in time.” Vera’s tawny hair whipped around her shoulders, and she looked so frail in the moonlight. So thin. He’d noticed the changes over the past weeks, but now, even the blue in her eyes had dulled with exhaustion. He’d done that. She was pushing herself to the brink for him.