Cael (Were Zoo Book 11) by R. Butler (best e reader for academics .txt) 📗

the hem of the shirt which brushed the tops of her thighs, she smiled at her reflection. Her brown eyes flashed to blue, and she whispered to herself in the mirror, “I see you, she-bear, and I’m so happy you’re part of me.”

Her chest vibrated with a growl that sounded a bit like a purr.

She was the happiest she’d ever been, and she wasn’t even planning to have sex with Cael tonight. She couldn’t imagine how much happier she’d be once they were tangled together as lovers, and mated, and she was his and he was hers.

She opened the door to the bedroom and saw him sitting up against the pillows and leaning against the headboard.

“Come to bed, sweetheart,” he said, patting the space next to him with a sweet smile. “Tomorrow’s going to be a great day.”

Keir Montague leaned back in the chair and looked at the report from his polar bear celebration’s tracker. After nearly two years of chasing dead ends and rumors, Brandon finally found the bitch who’d consistently thwarted his attempts to right a wrong. His alpha had been pissed at Keir for two decades and refused to allow him to move up in the celebration and take his rightful place as second-in-command. And perhaps worse was that he wasn’t allowed to take a mate until the mistake that had been born twenty-two years earlier was eradicated. No female would mate him while he was a marked male, and no alpha would support a mating between a female and a male like himself who’d made one grievous, drunken mistake.

He should’ve simply killed the human female when she’d sought him out with news of her pregnancy and been done with it. Then he wouldn’t have suffered all these years, kept at a low-rank, refused even the basic right to take a mate and start a family. Keir had made a mistake, however. The protection he’d used had failed and the resulting child was part polar bear shifter and part human, and couldn’t be allowed to live.

He had no parental bond with her, no familial attachment. He simply wanted the child and her mother dead so he could move the fuck on.

“You’re certain it’s them?” he asked, staring across the kitchen table at Brandon.

“One hundred percent.”

The tablet showed a map with a star on the location of a house where the two were living. They were in New Jersey now. He’d lost track of them two years earlier. They were exceptionally good at staying off the radar. But now, fucking finally, he’d have the upper hand.

“Do you want me to put a crew together?” Brandon asked.

“I’ll do it. You’re dismissed.”

Brandon nodded and left Keir’s trailer, leaving him to his thoughts. He sent a text to his brothers—Donovan and Dorian. “It’s finally time to set the past right. We leave in one hour.”

His brothers replied they’d be ready.

Keir stood with a growl in his chest. He was so fucking ready to nail the coffin of his past shut so he could move the hell on to better things. Once the females were dead and his alpha had proof, Keir would finally take a mate and start a proper family. It was all he’d been wanting the past two decades, and it was all within reach.

He just needed to kill two people to make it happen.

Novi woke the next morning in Cael’s arms, feeling more rested than she ever had in her life. While it had been tempting to take things all the way with him physically, they’d decided it was best to keep things as they were for now. They’d kissed and held each other several hours once they were in bed before drifting off to sleep with her tucked close against him.

She felt closer to Cael now that they’d shared so much. There was a freedom between them to talk about anything, because she knew his secret and he knew hers. She’d also learned that the park shifters lived in a huge underground compound with each group having their own private living quarters.

“Morning sweetheart,” Cael said, kissing her shoulder.

She turned her head back to look at him with a smile and kissed him. “Morning.”

“You look like you’re thinking about something serious.”

She turned to face him, resting her head on his biceps. “I was thinking about living arrangements.”

“What about them?”

“Well, I guess more specifically I was thinking about living arrangements and my mom.”

“I’ve had some thoughts about that as well.”

“Oh?”

“I need to speak to Alistair, but I think that the alphas would be willing to let your mom move into one of these apartments. Since we can’t tell her the truth of your father—or that shifters even exist at all—you and I could move in here. Then you’d still be close to your mom—we’d have our place and she’d have her own. That way we don’t have to explain you live in the park but she can’t come visit.”

Novi let that roll around in her head. “Do you think she might someday figure out about shifters?”

“It’s possible. She may already think it but feel it’s too crazy to say out loud.”

And Novi couldn’t help her along with that knowledge. Cael had stressed to her how important the secret of shifters was. While she trusted her mom and knew her mom would never say anything to put anyone else in danger, Novi understood she was simply forbidden from telling her the truth in this matter.

“I like the idea of all of us living in the same complex. Can I see your real place, though?”

“Sure. Maybe after we meet Alistair I can show you around, and then you can help me with the norms if you want.”

“Norms?”

“Normal, non-shifting animals.”

“Is Tank really a shifter?”

“No, he’s just a cranky, real moose.”

“Are there moose shifters?”