Oh, Tenlee had wondered about Gunner’s mother. Wondered where she’d gone to. Wondered if she’d abandoned Kurt. In her head, Tenlee had always hated her because she’d left something great. But now things had changed. Kurt’s mate hadn’t left. She’d been killed, and Kurt would’ve belonged to her still had she been alive.
No wonder Kurt felt at home on Two Claws Ranch in a Clan of bear shifters. He’d paired up with one. His son bore the blood of bears.
And who was she? Just a squirrel, and not even a proper one. She was an Origin, fucked up completely, and she would never be enough for a man like Kurt who had known a normal pairing. She would never be enough for Gunner who deserved a fearsome shifter mother. Warm tears rained down her face as she drew her knees to her bare chest and buried her face against them.
She was hurting for herself, yes, but she was also hurting for the man she would never have.
****
Find her. The words echoed from Laney’s lips. You deserve more.
Kurt lurched up in bed, gasping for air. What the fuck? He hadn’t had a Laney dream since he’d first lost her. Completely shaken, Kurt scrubbed his hand down his face and tried to forget the pleading in her voice. Find her? Find who? He needed whiskey. No. No, no, no, whiskey didn’t solve anything. All it had done was dull the pain and make him worthless to Gunner. No, he needed to stay sober and deal with his own shit, not mask it. In the dark, he looked over at his son’s bed, but Gunner was sleeping soundly. Kurt needed to Change. Needed it. His skin tingled, muscles hurt, bones ached. His wounds from the Alpha battle were throbbing, but they wouldn’t hurt if he was a cougar. They wouldn’t hurt until he Changed back, but for a few hours, he could find relief from the pain in his body and in his mind.
You awake? He texted Colt out of desperation.
Now I am, asshole. What do you want?
Need a Change. Can you watch Gunner?
There was a pause before his cell phone lit up again. Karis is coming over.
Two minutes, and Kurt’s sensitive hearing picked up the sound of the front door of the cattleman’s cabin creaking open and then Karis’s soft footsteps splashing through the mud.
Body on fire, Kurt stood and made his way out of the apartment, then out of the sliding door of the barn. Karis met him at the corral. She looked tired as hell, all bundled up in her jacket, bags under her eyes, mouse brown hair all mussed. He could see the scars Trig had talked about on her neck from here, even in the dark.
“I’ll keep him safe,” she promised softly, and Kurt believed her. Karis was a force to be reckoned with, and someday he was going to earn her forgiveness for every scar that painted her body. But tonight, he just needed to be in the wild. He just needed to ease the ache of the dream.
He knew exactly where he wanted to Change—out in the woods in his favorite place where there was a small clearing so the moonlight wasn’t blocked by evergreen branches. He was a creature of habit, and he’d always had a place in the woods to go to when life got overwhelming.
Only something was wrong with his spot. He sensed it way before he got there. Something was off. There was sadness in the woods, an ache in the wind that whipped through the trees.
There was heartache here, and it wasn’t his.
He got quiet before he approached. He walked slower, was more careful. Toes into the soft ground first, and then heels, to soften the sound of his movement. Someone was here in his woods. Someone was here in his Changing place.
He didn’t recognize her scent, but he could hear her…she was crying.
And then he saw her, this stranger in his place. Each vertebrae of her backbone protruded, her skinny arms wrapped around her legs. Her frail shoulders were shaking with her heartache, and he drew up, just watching her. Who was she, this phantom?
There was a small sniffle on the wind, and suddenly, she turned, quick as a cobra strike, but she didn’t look like a snake.
She looked like an angel.
Her eyes were dark and round, like some ethereal creature come to these woods. Her nose was small and was the only thing on her that moved. It twitched as if she were a little mouse. Her cheeks were damp underneath all that wild hair.
She looked equal parts feral and frightened as she scrambled to her feet and stood to her full height.
God…Kurt couldn’t breathe. This must be a dream, but he didn’t want to wake up. She was beautiful. And naked. Perfectly symmetrical little tits. He hadn’t even realized a perfect set of matching tits existed. As if she had no modesty at all, she didn’t cover her thighs. He hovered his hands over his hardening dick and wished he’d worn clothes.
The wood nymph parted her full lips, and he prepared for her to utter something profound, but when she spoke, all that came out was, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Uuuuh,” he uttered not-so-poetically, “I live on this property? Wait, you’re trespassing.”
“I am not!” Did she just stomp her foot? “I’m no trespasser. This is mine.” She pointed to a log. “And these woods are mine, and those trees are mine, and Colt and Trigger and Ava and Karis and Norman and you and Gunner and everything is mine! Except Harley. He is a jerk.”
“Everything is yours?” Alarm bells were clanging in Kurt’s head. “How do you know Trig and Colt?” he yelled, taking a few steps toward her. If she was what he thought she was, he was going to throttle her. “Are you a fuckin’ crow?” His accusation echoed through the night woods.
The girl flinched back as though he’d slapped her face. “Take. That. Back.”
“Who are you?”
“Take it back! I ain’t no crow! If I was, I woulda offed myself the second I hatched from an egg!”
“They don’t hatch from eggs,” Kurt said.
“Well, whatever! I woulda rolled out of my nest and cracked myself. I ain’t no fuckin’ crow. You say that again, I’ll bite your ankle and your neck and your right index finger.” She pointed to his extremities as she called out the places she would make him bleed. God, this girl was weird. “And I’ll fuckin’ eat your left nut, and I’ll pluck all your perfect eyelashes out while you’re sleeping ’cause it don’t make no sense that boys get the best eyelashes either. It’s a waste! And then I’m gonna bite—”
“Enough, lady!”
“I ain’t no lady!! That’s as big an insult as the crow one!”
Kurt had no more words. He simply stood there with his hands out, palms up, and his mouth hanging open.
Suddenly, the woman looked around the woods, and then up toward the branches above them. “I have to go. I have to go! Stop looking at me like that!”
“I knew it! Crow!” His blood came to an instant boil. The tingling sensation of the Change erupted across every nerve ending. Burn a death oath on his friends, the crows had lost their goddamn minds! And then this spy was here, in bear territory, too close to his friends and way too close to Gunner. She was dead. She was so fucking dead.
The snarling mountain lion ripped out of him before he’d even sprinted three steps to her. With a feral scream, he closed the gap between them in moments and reveled in the look of fear in her wide, dark eyes. Bunching his muscles, he leapt across the log, claws outstretched to end this she-devil.
Only the second his claws touched her bare, pale skin, she disappeared. Just…was gone. Kurt landed hard on the ground, skidded through the mud, and slammed into a tree. When he turned around to search for that phantom, all he saw was a small, gray squirrel scrambling up the nearest tree. Kurt froze.
Genie?
What the hell?
All four legs splayed, Kurt watched the tiny critter run to the end of a branch and go sailing to the next pine, and then the next, until she disappeared into the night.
Holy. Fuck.
Genie was a shifter.
Chapter Seven
Kurt was chasing her now. She could feel him gaining on her. At any moment, he would leap up into the tree and throw her to the ground and eat her.
And tha
t wasn’t even the worst part of all this! He’d seen her. Seen. Her. In her ugly human skin, he’d looked right at her. Tenlee’s stomach turned in on itself as she went sailing into the next tree.
Kurt’s breath was loud behind her. Too loud. “Genie, stop!”
Stunned, she hesitated right as she leapt for the next tree, made a misstep, and missed the branch.
She fell. And when she hit the last branch on the tree, she squeaked in pain as she scrambled to grip onto it. Didn’t work. She hit the mud below with a little splash. Aw, fuck gravity! And fuck the cold wind, the mud, her hideous human form, and fuck this rock in particular! She picked up a pebble about the size of a pea and chucked it as hard as she could at Kurt.
It bounced off his bare foot. Hands on his hips, chest heaving, a very naked Kurt stood there glancing from her to the little pebble missile she’d launched at him then back to her.
She was crying. He couldn’t tell, but inside, she was crying.
He’d really seen her.
And right now, she could see every inch of him. Hellooooo, big dick. But as gloriously distracting as he was, his six-pack flexing with every breath, his perfect pecs and muscular arms, chiseled jaw, hot-boy dark scruff on his face, and bitable lips—focus, Tenlee—even more distracting was the angry red gashes across his torso. They were long and in groups of fours. Claw marks from his fight with the Darby Clan’s Alpha, Chase. He’d been favoring injuries for months, but he’d been careful to keep them hidden. Now Tenlee could see the extent of what he’d actually done for the Two Claws Clan. He’d betrayed his cougar people, and the consequences of that decision were etched into his skin in gruesome crisscross patterns. And they didn’t look months old, either. They looked brand new and smelled like blood. One gash near his collar bone was even seeping red in a slow trickle down that perfect pec, and then down, down his six-pack.
He winced, and she wished it was her in pain…not him.
And then, as he stood there in the blue moonlight, shuffling his feet and failing to meet her eyes, he admitted something that spoke to her crying soul. “I don’t like people seeing me like this.”
And this was the moment she was supposed to be brave. This was the moment she was supposed to Change into her human and tell him the same. I don’t like people seeing me like this. Because it would make him feel not-so-alone. And it would make her feel not-so-alone.
But Kurt had always been braver than her. It’s part of why she cared so deeply for him. She looked up to him. Wished she could be more like him.
“Genie, people make wishes on you, and I always thought you had some magic power. But now I think you’ve been making those wishes come true on purpose…haven’t you?”
Yes.
Tenlee twitched her nose, because the wind was tickling her little whiskers. Smelled like blood. Kurt smelled like blood, and she wished it was her.
“I wish,” Kurt murmured, taking a step forward, “that you would Change into your human self and tell me why you’ve kept this secret for so long.”
She needed to be brave, but she couldn’t. She was a runner. She was a hider. She was a secret wish-granter, but now he saw her for what she was. He was asking a monster to explain how she’d become a monster, and then he would start to treat her just like everyone else who knew. Just like everyone else.
And inside, she cried a little harder.
And then Tenlee-Genie-Tenlee-Genie did what every good little secret-keeper did. She ran away.
****
“You okay, man?” Trig asked from behind him.
Kurt startled and spun around, covering his dick with his hand on instinct. “Holy shit, Hairpin!”
“Didn’t mean to startle you. Just heard you yelling, so I wanted to check and make sure everything was okay.”
Kurt looked off toward the tree Genie had scrambled up. He should tell Trig, right? He was Alpha here and should know if he had an extra shifter in his territory. Especially one pretending to be just an animal. Trig had the right to know if he was being tricked.
But…
Genie hadn’t shown her human side for reasons Kurt didn’t understand. And he had a feeling from her tears and the heartache in her eyes, the way she’d run when he’d asked her to explain, that the reasons for her pretending to be just an animal were complicated and personal to her. And it didn’t feel right outing her to Trigger. Genie should be the one to tell the Clan that she was a shifter.
Kurt ducked his gaze as he lied, “Everything’s fine.”
“Bullshit. I could smell you bleeding from the house.” Trigger was studying Kurt’s ruined chest now with a deep furrow to his dark eyebrows. Kurt wanted to pull a Genie and throw something at him, then run away, but that’s not what dominants did. Giving a bear shifter his back when Kurt smelled blood was a horrible idea. So he straightened up to his full height, lifted his chin, crossed his arms over his burning, aching chest, and looked down his nose at Trig. “If I say everything’s fine, I mean everything’s fuckin’ fine. I need to get back to Gunner.”
Trig’s gold-flecked animal eyes ghosted from Kurt’s chest to his face and then to the tree Genie had used to run away. His face twisted into something fearsome for a moment before it relaxed again. “Suit yourself. Keep your secrets, Cougar.”
The use of his animal, flung at him like an insult, stung in ways he would never admit out loud. The bitter scent of anger hit Kurt’s nose just as Trig gave him his back and sauntered away.
He’d disappointed his friend. Kurt huffed a breath as the pain outside and inside his chest burned on.
Disappointing people was kind of his gig.
Chapter Eight
Ramsey was here.
Tenlee could feel his presence. As she slowly crossed the room toward the front window of Colt’s cabin, she knew without the shadow of a doubt that she reached that window sill, she would find a crow in the trees just outside, staring back at her. She shook as she crawled up the logs of his cabin to reach the sill. Be brave, little squirrel.
Trig, Colt, Ava, and Karis had taken a group out for a trail ride this morning on a last-minute booking, and the only ones left at Two Claws Ranch were her, Kurt, little Gunner, and the livestock.
And the crow.
Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she reached the window and saw him.
Even if she hadn’t felt him, she would’ve recognized that crow anywhere. How? Because he had a white mark on his chest in the shape of a diamond. Sometimes crows had white markings, but none like Ramsey’s.
He wasn’t in the tree she’d expected though. Instead, he was across the clearing in a tree near the barn. And when she followed his gaze and saw what the crow was staring at, terror seized her. And then rage.
Ramsey was watching Gunner play with a yellow toy truck by the corral.
She would fucking kill that rat bastard if he touched a hair on Gunner’s head. Fueled by fury, Genie moved to blast off the window and out the little squirrel door Karis had made, but she skidded to a stop when she saw Kurt. He came out of the barn with long, confident strides, old pistol at his side, and smooth-as-you-like, he came to a stop beside his son, lifted that gun, aimed it at the crow, and said something too soft for her to hear through the window glass.
And then he pulled the hammer back on that old pistol and waited.
Ramsey spread his huge wings and lifted into the air, but Kurt didn’t ease the hammer back into a safe position until Ramsey was a black speck on the horizon. Kurt looked down at Gunner, and then his bright silver eyes landed on Colt’s cabin. Tenlee swore he was looking right at her. Right at her. He sees me.
With a twitch of his head, Kurt gestured for Gunner to follow him to the barn. The little boy bolted upright, toting his yellow truck, and he slipped his hand into Kurt’s. He was so small next to his dad. So cute. A perfect miniature of him.
Those boys didn’t know it, but they were Tenlee’s. Even if Kurt had seen her ugly, hairless skin and hated her now, in her heart, they would alw
ays be hers.
She was being a chicken. It had been three days since Kurt had seen her Changed, and she’d avoided him like the plague. But now it was just them on the ranch. Ramsey laying eyes on Gunner had scared and enraged her, and she wanted to sneak over to the barn to make sure they were okay. That was all. She would go in through the hole in the back wall, climb up to the rafters unseen, and then watch them for a while. Like a creepy stalker. God, what was wrong with her? Ew, never mind that thought. There was a list a mile long of what was wrong with her. Basically, everything.
Quick as lightning, she bounded over to the barn and, quiet as a mouse, she snuck through the back hole.
“Been waitin’ on you to show up again,” Kurt said.
With a tiny banshee screech, Tenlee startled hard and spun on him. He was sitting in a chair, his cowboy hat over his eyes, his boot positioned in front of the hole she’d just come through, blocking an easy escape. Son of a biscuit eater.
Heart pounding a mile a minute, Tenlee couldn’t decide whether to run or bite him. The instincts to do both were warring with each other.
“Change,” he demanded, pushing his cowboy hat back from his face and leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees. He cocked one dark eyebrow. “I wished for it, so make it happen, Wishing Squirrel.”
Tenlee looked around for Gunner.
“Gunner’s watching his favorite cartoon and won’t move off the couch for the next half an hour. Three days, Genie.” Kurt held up three fingers. “Three days I waited for you to come to me on your own accord, but you chickened out, and I’m tired of waiting. Change!”
There was force behind his command, one like Trigger had when he was riled up and giving Alpha orders to the Clan. The word brushed across her skin and made her want to obey him.
Fuck that. She wasn’t just some submissive—squeeeaaak! Her body revolted against itself, and she broke, bone by bone, muscle by muscle, until she was panting on hands and knees in her ugly human skin.
Shoulders heaving, she looked up slowly. Kurt was staring at her tits with wide eyes. “Oops,” he murmured. The jackass didn’t sound sorry at all.