Chapter One
Carter
“You really think that’s going to last?” I ask Ethan as he deals the cards. “You think you and her are just going to live happily ever after like this forever?”
“Yeah,” he says as he tosses me a card. “I do.”
I laugh as I look at it. Shit, a two of hearts.
“Then you’re even dumber than I thought,” I say with a laugh. “Everything ends eventually. This poker game will end. The sun burning will end. Our lives will end.”
“When will this conversation end?” Rylan asks with a groan.
“And your intense love for your mate will end,” I tell him.
Ethan just shakes his head. I’m trying to prepare him for the inevitable, but I can’t get through his thick skull. If he was smart, he would have ran in the opposite direction when he first smelled his mate, Chloe.
Instead, he’s trapped. They’re living together and she’s pregnant. The poor bear is caught in something worse than a bear trap. He’s caught in domestic hell.
“I’m glad for Ethan,” Westin says as he gets his second card. “I can’t wait to find my mate.”
I sigh as I look at my second card. A seven of clubs. The worst possible hand you can get in Texas Hold ‘Em poker. I’m playing with Ethan, Westin, and Rylan in the fire station while we wait for some action. It’s been quiet for the entire fall and we’re starting to go nuts. It’s mid-November now and the last time we got a call for a fire was in July.
Our Chief, Blake, was playing, but he bowed out when the mayor called about half an hour ago and he’s been on the line with him ever since.
“I’m excited too,” Rylan says with a youthful smile as he picks up his card and frowns. This guy is so easy to read. “I can’t wait to put my hands on her thick curves and just dive in.”
“How do you know she’s going to have curves?” I ask with a grin. “Maybe she’s going to be ninety-eight years old and only weigh sixty pounds.”
“I’d still love her,” Rylan says and my eyes roll so far back in my head that I think I just sprained them.
“You would,” Ethan says with a nod. “Don’t listen to this grumpy old bear. Finding your mate is going to be the most amazing thing to happen to you. I had given up on ever finding her and then bam! she was there.”
“And you acted like a total dick,” I remind him. “Remember that? You were growling at everyone in sight. If anyone even dared to sniff the air around her, you bit their damn head off.”
He looks embarrassed as his cheeks start to blush. “My bear went a little crazy. I’ll admit that. I couldn’t control my primal urges around her. He wanted to claim her and mark her so badly that I couldn’t think straight. But once my mark was on her neck, everything calmed down. Sort of.”
“I can’t wait to find my girl and have someone to protect,” Westin adds.
“Why bother?” I ask. “It’s better on your own. You don’t have to worry about anyone but yourself. Being stressed and worried about another person is no way to be happy. And then what happens when everything falls apart? You’ll be miserable.”
“As opposed to you, Mr. Sunshine over there?” Rylan says with a chuckle.
“Look at Ethan,” Westin says. “He’s happy. I’ve never seen anyone more happy in my life.”
Ethan smiles. “It’s true, Carter. I am pretty fucking happy.”
I let out a long sigh. Why is this so hard to get through their thick heads?
“Because it hasn’t hit him yet,” I explain. “He’s in the eye before the storm. He’s walking on train tracks listening to love songs on his Walkman and he’s too stupid in love to realize there’s a train bearing down on him about to smack him senseless.”
Westin frowns. “What’s a Walkman?”
Another sigh from me. “You don’t know what a Walkman is? You’re a child.”
“I’m twenty-seven!” he snaps back.
“Exactly.”
“What the hell is it?” Westin asks again. “Is it like an MP3 player that plays CDs?”
Rylan, the other young twenty-six-year-old genius jumps in. “No, it plays A-track tapes.”
A-track tapes? Geez, I’m only forty-two. I’m not that old.
“It plays cassettes, you morons.”
Rylan’s face scrunches up in confusion. “Did it at least have a phone on it?”
Ethan is laughing. He’s thirty-six, so for sure he had a Walkman at some point in his life. And knowing him, he probably only listened to romantic love songs on it.
We go through the first round of betting and the flop comes out with two kings and a ten. Not good for me. At all.
“What happened to you, Carter?” Ethan asks as he narrows his eyes and studies me from across the table. “Who broke your heart? Do you have a heart? Are you a robot?”
“Nothing is wrong with me,” I say with a shrug. “There’s something wrong with all of you. I’ve seen what mates do to shifters. They turn them inside out and twist them around like cold spaghetti. I like my life. I don’t want it to change.”
Rylan laughs. “You just microwaved six hot dogs and ate them with hot sauce and bacon that was a week old.”
“So?”
“So, if anyone’s life needs to change, it’s yours.”
I shake my head as they all laugh. “I don’t want it. I don’t want a mate. I don’t want to fall in love. I don’t want any of it.”
“What about your bear?” Westin asks. “You can’t tell me that your grizzly isn’t itching to find his mate.”
“My bear sleeps all day and night,” I tell them. Sometimes I even forget that I have an animal inside me. “He’s been in hibernation mode for the last twenty or so years. I don’t hear much from him. Probably because he doesn’t want a mate either.”
They’re all shaking their heads at me as the Chief gets off the phone and comes out of his office.
“I need a volunteer for safety day at the elementary school,” he says as he stands beside the table and looks at each one of us.
We all drop our eyes to our cards.
It’s silent. No one is even breathing. We’re not doing anything to draw attention to ourselves.
“Anyone?” Blake says. “Bueller? Bueller?”
Rylan suddenly points at me. “It’s Carter’s turn!”
“What? Fuck you! It is not!”
The other two traitors, Ethan and Westin, are nodding in agreement.
“I did the fire safety class at the senior citizen home,” I quickly say. “Remember?”
“Oh, I do,” Blake says as his eyes narrow on me. “They asked you to never come back if I remember correctly.”
Rylan snorts out a laugh. “What did you do again?”
“Nothing!” I say defensively. “They’re all a bunch of drama queens. You set one vending machine on fire during a demonstration and suddenly you’re a public safety hazard.”
Blake huffs out a breath. “Mrs. Henderson broke her hip!”
“That brittle old thing was going to break anyway! And I didn’t tell her to jump out the window!”
“Well, one of you has to go,” Blake says as he crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s at the school so let’s try not to burn anything down, okay?”
“Let’s play for it,” Ethan says and Blake agrees.
“Worst hand on this round gets the luxury of going.”
“What?” I shout. “No!”
I have the worst possible hand.
“It’s already done,” Blake says in a tone that leaves no room for discussion. “Deal the cards.”
Tension hangs over the table as each card is dealt. An ace, then a queen.
I have a two and a seven. I might as well be holding my cock in my hands for all the good these cards are doing me.
Of course, I come in last place.
“You’re going,” Blake says as he points at me.
Ethan is grinning. “Maybe it won’t be all bad. I hear the secretary is pretty hot. Maybe she’ll be your mate.”
“Ugh.” I toss my useless cards on the table and sit back with a groan. “I’d rather set myself on fire, but thanks.”
Chapter Two
Carter
The secretary is not hot. She’s also very mean and probably shouldn’t be around children.
“You have to sign the visitor’s form!” she snaps. “How do I know you’re not a terrorist?”
“Because I’ve been here before. And I have a firefighter outfit on. And there’s a fire truck parked outside that window.”
She frowns as her terrifying eyes stare me down.
This woman might be a troll shifter. I don’t think those exist, but if they do, then I just found the first one.
“You’re in classroom number seven,” she says as she shoves the clipboard with the visitor’s form into my hands. “Kindergarten class with Miss Aubrey Olson.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Of course, she’s late again so the principal is in there now. These young teachers don’t have the respect or sense of responsibility that…”
I tune her out as she rambles on. My throat is all scratchy and my chest is tingling as I sign my name on the form. I put my signature in the wrong spot just to piss her off.
“That’s not where your name goes!” she shouts as I hurry out of the reception area.
The tingling in my chest starts to burn as I move down the hall with all of the crappy artwork on the walls and the small coats hanging in the cubbies.
I clear my throat, but it doesn’t go away. My eyes start to water as the inside of my nose begins to burn with every breath.
What the hell?
I look around for construction workers or a janitor or something. Someone is using some harsh chemicals that shouldn’t be used around young kids.
My grizzly bear growls as he shakes himself awake.
Are you kidding me? Now, you’re awake?
I haven’t heard from him in at least three weeks and now that I need to stand in front of a class, he decides to bug me to let him out.
You’re going to have to wait. I’ll let you wander in the forest later.
Normally, he would just slink back down and sleep for another two days after hearing that, but he just gets even more alert.
He starts pacing around and snorting out breaths.
By the time I reach classroom seven, he’s thrashing around inside me like an angry bull. He starts growling in my ear and I swear that hasn’t happened since I went through puberty.
“What the fuck?” I hiss under my breath at him. “Knock it off!”
I grit my teeth and walk into the classroom as he just gets even more hyped up.
There’s a collective gasp when the twenty or so kindergarteners see me. “Wow,” they all say as they stare up at me with wide eyes.
The chemicals are extra strong in here and they nearly stagger me with every step. My chest starts searing like I just drank a glass of lava and my nose is burning and tingling like I just snorted some Anthrax.
How is this intense smell not bothering any of the kids?
“Hello,” the principal says as she shakes my hand. “I’m the principal, Mrs. Covey. Miss Olson should be here soon, but you can get started in the meantime.”
I turn to the kids as my bear continues to huff around. I still don’t know what’s gotten into him, but I have a presentation to do, so I do my best to ignore him.
“Are you a fireman?” one of the boys in the front row asks. He’s still got strawberry jam on his cheek from breakfast and his hair is standing straight up in the back.
“I am.”
“Like Marshall in Paw Patrol?” he asks.
“What the fuck is Paw Patrol?”
Mrs. Covey coughs loudly and I wince. “Sorry about that!” My bear has got me on edge and I’m not thinking straight. “What is Paw Patrol?”
“It’s a cartoon,” she says. “But we’re not talking about Paw Patrol, Matthew. Mr. Lamb is here to talk about fire safety. Does anyone know what to do when there’s a fire?”
“Blow it out!” a strange-looking kid in the back says.
“That’s a horrible idea,” I answer. “The fire would literally melt your face off.”
Mrs. Covey is staring at me with a horrified look on her face.
“I mean, your face would be fine,” I lie. “Your hair would probably catch on fire, but… how about I just get started on my presentation?”
Oomph. This is not going well. I can’t think straight with my bear jumping around like an excited puppy and with these cleaning chemicals burning my throat.
“Did you just do renovations in here?” I ask as I unbutton my jacket and wipe my sweaty forehead. She shakes her head. “What is that smell? Did someone just paint?”
“I don’t smell anything.” She turns back to the class. “Does anyone know which numbers to dial when there’s a fire so that Mr. Lamb and his other fireman friends can come and put it out?”
“411,” a girl says.
I shake my head. “That’s directory assistance.”
“406-555-3939”
“That’s the pizza place.”
“Aqua blue.”
“That’s a color.”
My bear turns from excited to angry and begins thrashing around inside. He starts snarling in my ears and I can barely hear all of the horribly wrong answers being thrown at me.
I stumble and choke through my presentation as best I can with my bear distracting me every two seconds and with my chest smoldering from the inside out.
Finally, I finish up and get to the question round. “Does anyone have any questions?”
A little hand shoots up. “Did you ever shoot anyone?”
“No! That’s the police. Firefighters help people. We don’t shoot them.” Even if we really want to.
“Do you carry an ax?” another kid asks.
“Sometimes.”
“Have you ever cut someone’s head off with your ax?”
“Does anyone have a question that doesn’t involve killing people?” I ask, looking around as sweat drips down my back.
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“How many tattoos do you have?” the chubby kid asks.
“A lot.”
A cute little blonde girl in the front row raises her hand. She has an innocent smile on her face and looks like she’s going to ask a real question. Finally…
“My mom has a calendar of fireman on the fridge,” she says. “Are you in it?”
I sigh. This is going worse than I thought.
The door suddenly flies open and Miss Olson bursts in, apologizing continuously for being late.
“Sorry! My car broke down again and I couldn’t…”
I can’t breathe as I stare at her in awe. My lungs are on fire, but it’s a sweet burn that feels so good. I suck in another delicious breath and it makes my bear go deathly still. He’s on full alert as we watch her walk over to her desk and drop her bag on it.
“I’m really sorry, Gwendolyn,” she says to the principal as she starts unbuttoning her fall jacket.
My eyes are wide fucking open as I openly stare at her. I shove my hands into my pockets when I realize they’re shaking. My whole body is trembling with the need to be closer to her. I want to grab her, throw her over my shoulder, and teach this sexy teacher a few things of my own.
“Oh… shit…” I say when it hits me.
The two women and the entire class go silent as they turn to me.
“You said shit,” the weird-looking kid says as he points at me.
My stomach drops and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
This girl is my mate.
That fact hits me like a speeding cement truck with no breaks. It slams into me and nearly brings me to my knees.
I found my mate. It’s her.
My mind begins swirling as I squeeze my eyes shut and lean against the blackboard.