Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (28 page)

Checking In

“If we drive just a bit further down this road, there are some other options.” Squirming in her seat as they pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the fancy schmancy hotel, Mal could only guess the reception they would receive there—not to mention the money she would owe Al. “I doubt they take walk-ins here, especially this late at night.”

“We are here, love, and you’re exhausted. This place will do nicely.” Al pulled the keys from the ignition before turning to face her straight on. “You have been nodding off for the past hour. Let’s just go in and get some sleep.” His hand cupped her cheek and she leaned into it.

“We can try. Deal?” He nodded in victory. “They seriously might not give us a room. They are pretty snobby here. I applied for a job in the restaurant once, and they told me I ‘do not have the look their clientele expects.’ ” That had hurt. Initially she thought it was because of her size, but as she passed a couple of waitresses on her way out, she realized he had meant her lack of manicures and hundred dollar haircuts. They were right. She looked nothing like them.

“Then they have the wrong clientele.” Al closed his eyes momentarily, his jaw clenched.

“To be fair, I had my hair in a ponytail and a discount store watch on.” She put her hand on his knee. “They are just that snobby is all I’m saying.”

“They would have been lucky to have you.” He gave her lips a quick kiss. Yes, they needed to do more of that once they got a room. If they got a room, that was. “Let’s go on in.”

The lobby of the hotel was just as magnificent as she had remembered. There were no bellman greeting them at the door, but given the time of day, she wasn’t surprised. The older gentleman behind the reception desk barely looked up at them as they approached. This was going to be interesting.

“May I help you?”

“We need a room for the evening.”

“Name on your reservation, sir?” The man’s tone gave no doubt that he knew they didn’t have one and his nose crinkled up in a rat-like fashion. Mal quickly diverted her eyes to avoid the giggle she was sure would erupt if he made the gesture again.

“We don’t have a reservation.” Al slid his credit card and license across the counter. “The name is Humphrey.”

“Mr. Humphrey, sir.” The man snapped to attention, but never fully raised his head. It was an odd posturing that somehow fit the rat-like man. “Of course, sir. We have your room all ready.” He slipped the cards back toward Al without swiping them. “Mr. Russel took care of the arrangements, of course. I apologize for my rude behavior. I didn’t realize who you were, sir.”

Apparently code was not exclusive to Cedarville.

Mal just watched the scene unfold before her, not saying a word. As far as she could tell, her new boss had pulled some strings to get them a room. As much as she felt uncomfortable with owing him yet one more thing, it warmed Mal’s heart to know that Luke was such a good friend to Al. She must have missed a phone call between the two of them when she was dozing in the car.

“Never mind that. May we just have the keys? It’s been a long ride.”

“Absolutely, sir.” He slipped the keys across the counter. “My name is Fred, sir. Just ask for me if you need anything. Anything at all. Just put the key card into the slot in the elevator and take it up to the top floor. I will send someone up with your bags presently.”

“No need. I’ve got them.” Al slung the bags over his left shoulder and wrapped his right arm around Mal before leading her to the elevator.

As the elevator closed before them, he dropped the bag and pulled her into a hug.

“I didn’t know we had reservations.” She sunk into his embrace.

“It surprised us both, love.” The dinging of the elevator stopped and she reluctantly stepped out of his arms just as the doors opened.

“That little rat man sure changed his tune quickly. It is sad how people respond to money like that.” As she turned to exit the elevator, she saw just how spot on she had been. It wasn’t just some money. The elevator opened up into a room. Not a hallway. A room.

“More like weasel man.” Al took her hand in his and led her out into the suite, as if it was the most normal everyday occurrence. “And it wasn’t the money. It was my name.”

“Oh, looking around this room, I would say it was the money.” Not that
room
was an accurate description of the place she was now standing. There was a full kitchen and dining area to her left and a full living room to her right. And if she guessed correctly, the hallway led to more than one bedroom.

“Come, love. Let’s go find the bedroom in this hotel room on steroids.”

Before they took two steps, her phone began to ring. “What the…” She reached in her purse and pulled out her phone. Phones ringing after midnight are never good. “Hello?”

“Hey, babe.”

Crap on a cracker. Why the eff didn’t she look before answering.

“I’m not your babe. What the fuck do you want?”

“I want to know why you are back in town, babe. Don’t you know to…” The phone was snatched from her hand.

“Listen very carefully. You are not to call this number
ever
again or I will end you.”

Mal looked up at the growling man who snatched her phone, the veins on his neck pronounced and his jaw tight. For a moment she was sure she heard the beginning of a chuckle through the phone, but it ended the second the growling increased. Mal stepped in close and put her hand on Al’s chest, wanting to calm him. Part of her thought she should be mad at him for taking her phone, but the need to comfort him was overwhelming. What was it with this man?

“I know what you are, and do not for one solitary moment think that I am going to allow you to get away with what you have done to Mal.” His body relaxed slightly under her touch, but his voice stayed strong. If it had been anyone else, the tone would have terrified her.

“Whoever told you we were here left off one key fact.”

Mal tried to hear the other end of the conversation, but the growling blocked out her ability to do so. She had never met a person who let their emotions out in that way before. Cussing? Sure. Growling? Not so much.

“You are so sure of yourself for a little maggot. You are talking to Al Humphrey, and you just pissed off the wrong bear.” With that he closed her phone with a gentleness she wouldn’t have. She would have chucked it across the room and had yet another issue to deal with in the morning.

“Let’s go to bed, love.” His tone was gentle and sweet, and if for one moment he thought that charm was going to get him out of telling her what the heck had just happened, he had another thing coming.

“Wait, you think I’m just going to ignore the last five minutes and go off to snuggle into bed with you?”

“Maybe?” He gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. “No,” he conceded, leading her to the back set of rooms. “No I don’t, but there is so much to say and it is so very late.” He stopped at the door and waited for her to respond. She gave a slight nod. They were far from done with this conversation, but nothing said it had to happen standing up in an entry way.

“How about we start with how he knew I was here?” The door to the bedroom opened. It was ginormous and looked like something out of one of the architectural magazines she used to read at the library between studying. She walked to the bed and climbed on top. She really was exhausted.

“I don’t really know if I have the exact answer to that. Joshua tried to make it sound like it was his power, but my guess is that someone in the hotel saw.” Her guess was rat man. He seemed the type. “He’s not that strong.”

“Stop and rewind.” She patted the bed beside her. Having a conversation with him standing as she sat felt awkward and the topic was awkward enough. “Power?”

“Yeah.” He sat next to her and she leaned into him. “Power. It seems your ex is a bit more than human.”

That sentence right there should have had Mal either laughing, questioning, or at the very least pulling away, but instead it felt true. He was more than human.

“More than human?”

“Joshua is a druid.”

Mal tried to think of all she knew about druids. Druids were the Fae’s keepers of the earth in a series she loved, but that felt wrong. They were an ancient people who practiced human sacrifice, but that felt wrong too.

“Druid. Like magic and fae and all that stuff?” She knew she was wrong, but at least her voice sounded strong and confident. Well confident-ish. Okay, it sounded not petrified and that would have to do.

“Magic, yes. Fae, no.” He bent down and kissed the top of her head.

“So you are saying I wasn’t just with an ass-hat butt-munch for years.” He stiffened beside her. Al didn’t like her past any more than she did, if his body language was any indication. “I was with a
crazy
ass-hat butt-munch.”

“Not quite. You were with a crazy
magical
ass-hat butt-munch.”

She turned her head to see his eyes. They were more silver than she’d seen before. For a brief moment, it crossed her mind that he too might be a druid, but it felt wrong. She hadn’t had these gut feelings in years, but they had always done right by her in the past. It was nice to have them back and so strong.

“You’re not joking are you?” She knew he wasn’t. “He’s basically like a warlock?”

“No, love, I’m not kidding. I wish for your sake I was.”

She reached up and put her hand on his cheek, the stubble from the day tickling her palm.

“Not really a warlock either. Those are fiction. But I guess it is kind of the same in the most general of senses.”

“Shit.” Mal wanted to kick herself for missing the obvious. “He really is a druid.” She thought back to their time together. So much had changed about her since the day they met. She had told herself it was simply her growing up, but looking back on it, it was so much more. “That explains some things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing big, really. Just sometimes he seemed to know things before he should and almost make preemptive strikes so I wouldn’t get all mad. At the time I assumed it was guilt, but after what he pulled, I doubt he is capable of remorse.” His pulled her onto his lap and she snuggled in close. “And some things about me changed too. Like I used to have a gut feeling about people. You know, if they were telling a truth or a lie. As a kid I thought I was going to grow up and have psychic powers. It went away after I met him. I thought I just outgrew my imagination with all the grown up responsibilities and such … but it’s back now.”

“That is why you didn’t freak out during this conversation?”

“I knew you were telling the truth. I also knew which of my thoughts about what you were saying were true. That is a new one for me, though. It might just be that I’m overtired.”

“Possibly, but it might be that your powers grew even when he repressed them.”

“He did it on purpose.” Fucking arse took more than her money. She was going to kill him.

“He did. Now to find out why.” That was the million dollar question.

“Because he is an ass-hat butt-munch.” She knew there was more to it than that. So much more, but calling him names was a childish way for her to have some control over this quickly spiraling situation.

“We will find out tomorrow.” Her phone began to ring again and she ignored it. There was no way she was giving him the pleasure. “Does he have any tattoos?”

“No. None.” He’d tried so hard to be the bad boy when they first met, his lack of tattoos had actually shocked her. She always loved tattoos, and her mind wandered to Al and where he might be hiding some ink. Down girl.

“Fuck,” Al mumbled more to himself than her.

“What?”

“Tattoos would mean that he was trying to protect himself from the repercussions of using black magic. No tattoos means that he is embracing the dark.”

Truth.
Double fuck. She really did pick a winner.

“Wait.” The day played out before her. “Lunch, the weird guy called me a druid, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“I’m not.”

“No, but you must have had some residual magic around you he could sense.” Residual magic. Brilliant. Even after she left him, he was still there.

“Sense? How can someone sense magic?”

“He was more than human too.”

“You called him … and he called you … he called you a …”

“Bear.”

It came out as barely a whisper and the honesty of it slapped her in the face. She was sitting on the lap of a man-bear. The growling was more than a weird sexy habit. Al was a bear.

“Time to explain all things, I would say.” The calmness her voice held was not mimicked by the racing of her heart. Her life had already changed so in such a short period of time and Mal had a feeling it was going to change far more with this next conversation.

“Yeah, it really is,” he conceded as he helped her off of his lap so she could look at him as they spoke. It was time to break the code.

Code

Mal let Al tell her
all
things without interrupting. Not that it was easy. She had so many questions as he went along. The part that struck her the oddest was that she never once questioned his honesty. As crazy as it all sounded, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was true.

“The guy downstairs actually is a weasel part of the time.” Rat-like had been close. She shook her head in amusement at that thought. “You are a bear shifter and Luke is a panther and Cedarville is a shifter town.”

“Pretty much sums it up.” He kept his eyes glued to hers, examining them oh so closely. “Why are you so calm about all of this?”

“Calm?” Was she calm? No, calm was not the word she would use. She just wasn’t quite sure how to respond to any of this yet. “Not so much calm as in shock.” Mal pulled at a loose string on her jeans, trying to piece together what all of this would mean in the long run.

“But you believe all of it.” He stopped her hand from its idle picking and she squeezed it tightly.

“Because it is the truth.” How would her life have been different if she hadn’t met Joshua when she did and she had been able to use her newfound ability for the past ten years? Would she have graduated earlier? Would she have had an amazing job in a NY firm? Would she have spent the last ten years happier?

Did any of it really matter? It was not like she could go back and change anything, and if going on that rocky path led her to Al, maybe it was worth it. Al seemed to be the reason for all of this. As crazy of a thought as that was, it felt right, and she was going to hold onto it. Hold onto him.

“It is the truth.” He intertwined their fingers, and as she peered down at them, she saw just how perfectly they fit together.

“But …” She could feel the
but
hanging in the air. She wanted to ignore it. She really did, but it felt too important.

“But there is more.” Wasn’t there always? Le sigh.

“More? I don’t think I can handle more tonight.” Mal looked to the clock. Her brain needed a rest as much as her body did. “It’s nearly four AM and I’m exhausted. Pretty much everything I knew two days ago is completely wrong and …”

“Enough said.” Al got up from the bed and pulled the covers down on the left side before retrieving her bag of items. “Let’s get you into bed, and we can deal with Joshua and all else later.”

That sounded good to her. She grabbed her toothbrush and a pair of old sweats from her bag and padded off to the bathroom before turning her head to ask, “You staying with me?”

“Do you want me to?” Want? Yes, she wanted him to, but it was more than that. Every step she took toward what she hoped was the bathroom door felt like she was going the wrong way. Like she needed to stay with him.

“Honestly, I kind of think I need you to.”

He gave her a single nod of understanding.

“Is that weird or needy or both? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Will you?”

“Of course I will, and it is neither weird nor needy. It’s natural.”

“Because you’re a bear?” No, that didn’t sound completely right. But not wrong either.

“No, because I am yours.” He was hers. She loved the sound of that.

“You are too sweet.”

“I wasn’t being sweet; I was just telling it like it is. I am yours, and I hope that you will open yourself to being mine.”

“I feel like you are supposed to be.” The words were out before she fully processed them. He was supposed to be hers. She remembered how upset she was when she thought April was his wife.
Mine
was the first thing she had thought. She had somehow known he was hers from the very first moment.

“I am.” He smiled brightly. “Now go get ready for bed, woman. It’s past my bedtime.” He couldn’t even keep a straight face as he spoke. The tension of the day seemed to break with that one bit of silliness.

Just as she was about to close the bathroom door, she said, “Then you
will
be mine.” She couldn’t be sure he heard her, but that was all right. She was more affirming it to herself.

Looking in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, Mal was shocked by how ragged she looked. Oh well, there was nothing she could do about it other than sleep. Al had looked at her like she was the most beautiful woman in the world all evening. The man either needed glasses or he was as smitten as he appeared.

Mal walked back into the main room ready for as much sleep as she could squeeze in. The bank wouldn’t open until nine, so she had at least four hours. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up. She had never felt sheets as welcoming as these. Part of it was probably her exhaustion, but she was pretty sure they cost more than she made in a week at her old job, too. The door to the main hall opened and Al returned, toothbrush in hand. Mal was not surprised there were multiple bathrooms in this place. Too bad they didn’t have the time to enjoy it.

Al climbed into bed beside her, paused as if asking permission, and then wrapped his arm around her, spooning her into him. She couldn’t remember a time she felt as safe as she did in that very moment.

“Now sleep, love.” She felt the warmth of his breath on her ear as he whispered. “There’s much to be done in the morning, and now that Joshua knows that not only are we here, but who I am, he has a head start on us.”

Crap. She hadn’t thought of that.

“How does he know you are a bear?” It felt odd to say it out loud. Bear. Her new beau was a bear.

“He probably knew the second he heard me growl, or I more accurately
huff
, but let’s just call it growl.” His growl was very animalistic, but she hadn’t thought of it as particularly bear. She had so much to learn about this new world that seemed to coexist with the one she had always thought of as
normal
. “But I could almost hear him shake when I told him my name.” Oh, she would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that one. Joshua shaking in fear was something she would love to see.

“Al isn’t a scary name.” In fact, it was much more sexy than scary, but she wasn’t about to go down that road. They truly did need sleep.

“No, but Humphrey is a name that still gets a lot of attention in the supernatural world.”

“Why is that?” Come to think of it, the rat man downstairs
had
changed his tune once he heard it, too. She had assumed it was because of the Russel connection and the possible fortune her boss had spent on this room.

“Let’s just say my family is pretty well known.” He yawned as he spoke. It was the first time she had any indication he was as exhausted as she was.

“I’ll stop asking questions right now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have more or that we are finished.” Her yawn followed suit. There was time in the morrow for all of this. Right now she just needed to sleep.

“Night, love.”

“Night.”