Mate Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #3)(7)

Pity nagged at him. Harlan was cussing a string of obscenities outside, all aimed at her, and Tobias imagined she must feel desperate to escape this place. He had been here less than an hour and had been itching to leave the entire time.

“How long have you been here, Vera?” he asked softly.

She swallowed audibly and tried to smile, but it faltered off her face. “Three years.”

His chest hurt to think about a woman putting up with this for so long. To avoid his bear shredding him from the inside out, he needed action. Tobias stood and took her purple bag from her. “Do you have everything? We won’t be coming back here again.”

Vera’s face crumpled, and her pretty blue eyes rimmed with tears. What had he said wrong? He stared at her, too panicked to ask in case it made her cry harder.

She laughed thickly when she looked up at his face. “You look terrified.”

“You’re leaking.”

“I’m happy you said we won’t come back.”

“You’re crying because you’re happy?” Shit, females were confusing.

Vera sagged against him and wrapped her arms around his waist. And now she was leaking those happy tears onto his shirt as he stood frozen, arms out. Unsure of what to do, he patted her roughly on top of her head.

“Geez, Silver,” she murmured, easing back as she frowned at his chest. She poked him right by his nipple. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she looked up at him and grinned. “Come on, McBeefcake. Let’s make tracks before Harlan hits his stride.”

“His stride?”

“Usually after the crying and cursing comes the fighting.”





Chapter Three


Tobias Silver was the sexiest man Vera had ever laid eyes on. He wasn’t just some pretty face either. He was tall as a mountain, built like a brick, and his dominance came off so heavy even her crazy inner animal got quiet around him. He growled more than he probably noticed and had a filthy sailor’s mouth, but oh, when she’d hugged him, she’d felt like everything was going to be okay for the first time in a long time.

Sure, he didn’t know the whole story yet, but he was big enough and his inner grizzly felt gnarly enough that he just might survive what was coming after her. She liked the thought of him surviving the dark parts of her life. It’s why she’d chosen him. Sure, she had drawn up the mate-fur-hire contract sight unseen because it hadn’t really mattered if he was a crater-faced, dirty-diaper-scented ogre or not. She needed him for that apex predator that lived inside of him. This was about survival—or at least it had been until she’d seen him. He was strong, level-headed, and compared to the crying maniac clawing at her door, he was deliciously normal. He smelled like evergreens, spicy, manly body wash, and grizzly. That sexy combo was way better than beef jerky and toots.

Tobias was devastatingly attractive to her, all messy chestnut hair and looking like he’d just gotten out of bed. His serious green eyes had frozen her in place when she’d opened the door. She’d expected Harlan to be knocking again and was ready to give him what-for, but the sight of Tobias on her doorstep had shocked her silly.

He would be a good mate. Probably.

Tobias gave her an are you ready? look over his shoulder as she picked up the box of breakables he’d brought that she would definitely need to cure the Silvers’ hibernation problem. Tobias didn’t even realize how important this stuff was. It was the last thing that rat-finked Clayton had allowed her to order before he cut her off. The misfit who’d pissed him off so bad that he’d stopped supplies for a month? That had been her when she’d tried to escape by sneaking onto one of the delivery planes. The pilot had busted her the second he sat in the cockpit, and apparently tattled to Clayton. Maybe Clayton’s plan had been to remind her how much she needed him. Maybe leaving the misfits starving for a month was his way of scaring her into submission. She’d only become more determined to leave though. Oh, Clayton was going to be pissed when he realized she’d tethered herself to one of his precious enforcers, but screw him. He’d pushed her to this level of desperation. She almost wished she could be there to see his face when he found out what she’d done. Almost—because in real life, Clayton was scary as hell.

Tobias pulled open her door, and she gave one last look around at all the trinkets she was abandoning. No one here would have any use for her lab, and though she was more than ready to leave this place, it was sort of sad leaving with such a rushed goodbye.

Steeling herself, she followed Tobias out of her cabin and stepped over Harlan’s sobbing body. When he gripped her ankle, she gasped and rushed out, “The package!”

Tobias spun so fast he blurred, and in that split-second, he seemed to understand the desperation on her face because he lurched forward and steadied both her and the package. A growl ripped from his throat. “Get your f*cking hand off her.”

When Harlan’s grip tightened, she cried out at the pain and stomped at him. “Let me go!”

With a crazy smile, he released her with a hard shove, and she fell forward into Tobias.

“I told you she was mine!” Harlan screamed, standing. He let off a shrill whistle, then called out, “He’s trying to take our woman!”

And just like they always did, the misfits appeared out of the trees when Harlan, their self-proclaimed king, called them. Shit.