Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(6)

“Because I can cure you. Just in the winter months, and you can Change and roar and eat honey until your heart’s content in the summers. And diddle me because I’m serious about that being part of the contract.”

“I’m sorry…you can cure me?”

“I don’t earn enough to hire you with money, but I can barter with you. Bite me, claim me, protect me, and I’ll make sure you don’t hibernate if you don’t want to. And not only you, Tobias. Your brothers, too.”

Tobias sat heavily in a creaking chair near the door.

“Vera,” Harlan said in a whiny voice from outside, “can we talk alone?”

“Fuck off, Harlan,” Tobias and Vera both said at the same time. It would’ve been funny if he hadn’t been utterly dumbfounded over the situation. Mate this woman for a cure?

“Are you a witch then?”

Vera gave him a sad smile and knelt down in front of him, her duffle bag slung over her shoulder. “More like a mad scientist. I wasn’t born a shifter, Tobias. Someone I loved Turned me, and I’ve worked for years to learn how to fix myself. I can fix you, too.”

He narrowed his eyes and tried to guess what kind of shifter she was. Not many could Turn a person with a bite. “Fix me?” he asked, the words bitter on his tongue.

“Not like that. I need your bear as much as you do. I want to feel safe again. Living here wasn’t ever my choice, and I’ve been dealing with that shit,” she said, jerking her head toward the door where Harlan sounded like he was scratching at it, “for way too long. I need out, but Clayton won’t let me off this island unless I’m with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and your brothers are his prized possessions. I’m unnatural and expendable.” Her voice sounded odd though, as if she was telling a half-truth, but whether she was lying about being unnatural or expendable, he couldn’t guess.

Tobias ran his hands through his hair and shook his head over and over, staring at her as he mulled over what she’d said. A cure? A real cure?

“Can you guarantee my brothers won’t go to sleep in the winter?” Because Tobias owed them both so much and, dammit, he was actually considering this contract pairing. Not for him or Link, but for Ian. For Elyse. For Jenner, the brother he’d almost killed because of what he was.

“I suppressed every animal on this island for two years.”

“They all smell like animals to me.”

“We stopped taking the meds almost a month ago when supplies stopped coming in. One of the misfits pissed Clayton off, so he punished us all by depriving us of deliveries. This island is a beast to live on without outside help. Harlan and the others decided they needed their animals to survive this place in case deliveries get patchy again. Some of us can Change already. And trust me when I say I won’t live through what’s coming. I’m the only female on the island.”

“Fuck,” Tobias gritted out. He couldn’t even imagine what the others would do to her if Harlan was already acting like this. Was he crying on the porch? Yep, and now he was chanting, “She’s mine. She’s mine,” in a deranged voice.

“Bite me, and I’ll spend the rest of my days helping you and your family. It’s a fair trade.”

“I don’t want cubs. That should be out in the open right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because of…hibernation.”

She arched her eyebrows and gave him a significant look. “I’m going to take hibernation off the table if you’ll let me. I want cubs. Doesn’t have to be this year, but I’ve always wanted a family. I didn’t have a shot of that here. Didn’t want it, but I’ve thought about this, and you should know going in it’s what I’ll want with you.”

“But you’re asking for a family with me, Vera. Me. You don’t even know me. I could be abusive or a shit father, and I’ll definitely be a shit mate.”

“Will you protect me if someone tries to hurt me?”

Tobias sighed and stared at her for a long time, then nodded once.

“Will you ever lift your hand to me?”

He shook his head. That one was easy. He would never hurt a woman.

“Good.” She handed him a thin stack of papers with handwriting scribbled across it. The contract was simple and straightforward. Vera would come up with the medicine to stop hibernation and, in exchange, Tobias would be her mate and protector. He did scratch out the number of cubs though and penciled in 1 eventually in shaky scrawl. He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but the contract would be null and void if Vera failed to deliver on the cure, and as stupid as it was to build hope like Link had done, Vera wasn’t going at this hibernation problem like a witch. She was some backwoods scientist whose every word about the cure had sounded honest. She wasn’t lying about this, and for a shot at securing a solution to their hibernation problem, well…he’d do just about anything—including hiring himself out as a mate.

Sex, and no emotional strings, and he could just leave Vera somewhere safe to play with her test tubes while he ran his deliveries, so how much would he really see her? As little as he wanted. This could work.

With a sigh that tapered off in a growl, Tobias signed his name along the bottom. Vera sagged against his knee, smelling of potent relief, and now she was shaking. What a confounding woman. She’d been so confident when she spoke earlier, funny even, but she’d been hiding how nervous she’d really been.