Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(49)

“Oh, I had myself convinced Lena and I misheard you or misunderstood. I thought I dreamed your voice on the radio, but you’re really here. You aren’t hibernating. This is really happening. Tell me it’s happening.”

“I’m really here, and we’re really going to wake up Ian.”

Vera handed Elyse a jar of moonshine. She’d tied a pretty bow on this one for Elyse as a congratulations gift. “No more waiting.”

Elyse nodded her chin and hugged the jar of clear liquor to her chest as if she was nervous. “Ian’s down in the root cellar. He talked about hibernating somewhere farther away, but after last year, I couldn’t stand the thought of not being able to protect his body. I put lots of food down there for him. And warm clothes.”

“You did good.” Vera hugged her tight. “I’ll take care of him. Everything will be all right, but you should wait outside just in case he goes Winter Bear before we get him all the way awake. I’ll come out here and wait with you.”

“The medicine won’t hurt him, will it?”

“Elyse, he’ll be fine,” Tobias said. “Vera figured out a way to suppress the animal. One shot a month, but the side effect is that Ian won’t be able to shift during the winters. He’ll go back off the injections in the warm months so his bear gets time out. Vera has used this type of medicine on herself long term, and she’s fine.”

Elyse inhaled deeply and nodded. “Do it then. I trust you. And Tobias, I want him back.” Her voice squeaked at the end as her eyes rimmed with moisture.

“Give him half an hour to wake up,” Tobias murmured. “I’ll stay with him the whole time.”

“But what about your bear? You can’t be around each other without fighting.”

Tobias smiled sadly. “My bear sleeps now, remember? It’ll be okay.”

Vera followed Tobias into the house and through the living room, then down into the cold root cellar where a giant grizzly took up most of the floor space. Ian was so still, he didn’t even look like he was breathing.

“Our bodies slow down a lot in hibernation,” Tobias whispered. “He’s okay.”

Vera clenched her cold fingers to steady her hands and pulled out the case with the sterile needles, filled with the right dose for each Silver brother, from Tobias’s backpack.

“Ready?” she asked.

Tobias only had eyes for his brother as he nodded. “Give him the injection, and then I want you outside with Elyse.”

Vera pushed the needle into Ian’s massive shoulder and emptied the syringe, then pulled it out and kissed Tobias before she crawled up the ladder and made her way outside.

Elyse was huddled on the seat of the snow machine, cradling the moonshine like a baby as she stared off into the woods. The long scar down her cheek was stark and red against her porcelain skin. Tobias had told her all about how she’d gotten that. Elyse was a warrior.

“Want to help me get the sled ready?”

“For what?”

“Ian will be tired and a little numb for a bit. It’ll be hard for him to move around easily, but we need to go wake Jenner up, too. Unless you want to stay here?”

“No. No, we’ll come. It should be a family affair.” Elyse’s face stretched into a smile, and she squeezed Vera’s hand. “I’m glad you found Tobias.”

“I hired him,” Vera said lightly as she made her way over to the sled hooked to the back of the snow machine.

“Wait, you hired Tobias?”

“He’s my mate for hire.”

“Ian is my husband for hire! I needed someone to help me with the homestead. And Lena hired Jenner to take her to photograph the brown bears.”

“But he is a bear.” Vera giggled. “Bear for hire. These Silvers didn’t even know what hit them.”

“No,” Elyse said laughing as she helped Vera unfold blankets onto the sled. “I guess they didn’t.”

A soft noise brushed Vera’s oversensitive ears, and her inner fox drew to attention. Vera snapped her gaze to the house and listened harder. Two men were talking low. One was Tobias.

“Elyse,” she whispered through a smile. “I can hear him.”

“Ian?”

“He’s asking where you are. If you’re okay. Tobias is trying to get him to hurry up and eat.”

Elyse leaned heavily on the snow machine and clasped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes looked so full of hope and joy it stole Vera’s breath away. She laughed thickly and said, “Ian just said ‘Fuck eating. Where is my mate?’”

Elyse laughed and set the moonshine down in the sled, then wrung her hands, waiting.

The door opened and Elyse gasped, frozen in the snow like some beautiful garden angel statue. Tobias came out first, but he had Ian’s arm over his shoulder. The second Ian’s eyes landed on Elyse, he let off a long sigh of relief and stood straighter. By the time he was down the porch stairs, Ian shoved off Tobias and wrapped Elyse up in his arms. “I love you. I love you,” he murmured over and over as his mate cried against his shoulder. The dog went crazy, crying and yipping and rubbing all over Ian’s jeans like a giant cat.

Ian cupped Elyse’s cheeks and kissed her, and Vera’s cheeks flushed with heat at witnessing such an intimate reunion.