Alpha Bear (5 page)

“Nope.” He smiled at her, feeling his heart
lighten for no discernible reason. “Turns out, one of my guys is
very well acquainted with one of your people.”

“A Ricoletti?”

“No, but she is a
strega
. From Italy.
We talked long distance about you and your family, and she vouched
for the Ricolettis.”

“You don’t say?” She looked impressed, and
pleasantly surprised.

“I asked this lady about our little sea
creature problem, and she suggested I ask you and your sister to
cast some magical protections around the cove, if you’re willing.”
He squinted, realizing he was asking a lot of her on short
notice.

Ursula slumped against the desk, leaning back
a bit, just looking at him.

“Look, I know it’s a big ask, but you’ve seen
what we’re up against. The
strega
I just spoke with said it
might be a leviathan—an evil, magical creature from another realm
that cannot be killed, only contained. I have some specialist help
coming—eventually—to try to banish it, but for now, we need some
strong magical protections around the cove to try to prevent more
attacks on land.”

“More? This has happened before?”

“Not quite as dramatically,” John replied,
smiling a bit. “But yeah. Tina Baker was accosted a while back by a
smaller version of what came after you just now. It reached out of
the water and twined around her leg. Zak went bear on its ass and
ripped the tentacle off. We sent it off for analysis, but we kept a
chunk on ice, if you want to see it.”

Ursula made a face. “That’s probably more my
sister’s domain, but we should both probably take a look.”

“Why would your sister be more interested?”
John asked, surprised.

“Oh.” She blinked a few times. “Yeah, well,
we’re all a little…uh…individual in our talents. I’m better at
spoken or chanted spellwork. Mellie does potions. She could
probably use a little bit of that frozen piece of yuck to work up a
counter-spell. I’m your girl for casting wards. In fact, I plan to
start as soon as I recover. That thing isn’t getting its suckers
near anyone else on my watch.” She sounded determined, which John
respected.

“How about we start tomorrow?”

“We?” She sent him a narrow-eyed look.

“I’d like to be present. We know this thing
goes after magic. I didn’t get a chance to tell you yet, but the
master vampire of Seattle washed up on our shore a little bit ago.
The thing that went after you chomped on his yacht and killed his
crew. He was really messed up when he got here, but Zak saved
him.”

“Zak again?” She chuckled wryly. “Seems the
deputy gets around. And here I thought he was the little guy in
this crowd.”

“Never judge a bear by his size. Zak may not
be a grizzly, but he’s got a heart as big as the world and the guts
to match.” John believed every word. He’d seen Zak outfight bigger
guys and outshoot every man in his battalion. Zak was a dangerous
man to underestimate.

Ursula nodded. “Understood. But you don’t
have to defend him to me. I’ve been a fan of the deputy’s since he
welcomed us to the town and asked if we’d be able to find him a
first edition of the Silmarillion. The man has discerning tastes.
Mellie’s been green with jealousy that Tina got to him first.”

John laughed outright at that.

“So you want to watch me work?” she asked,
shooting him a sideways grin. “I don’t mind, I guess. And to be
honest, I’d be happy to have backup in case this thing is more than
I can handle.”

He saw it then—the real terror that must have
filled her as she ran from the monster. John followed his instincts
and leaned against the desk, by her side. He put one arm around her
shoulders and gathered her close. He felt the fine tremor that
hadn’t left her body and realized she was still feeling the
reaction high of running for her life.

“I’ll guard you with my life, Ursula. It’ll
have to go through me if it wants you, and that won’t happen
easily.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt either, John,”
she whispered, turning toward him.

He couldn’t resist. He gathered her into his
arms, hugging her tight against his chest.

“Ssh. It’ll be okay. There’s nothing that can
touch us if we work together, right? Your magic, my claws. We’ll be
okay.”

“You promise?” The small whisper floated up
to him as he stroked his hand down her back, trying to offer what
comfort he could.

“You have my word,” he replied in a gentle
voice.

Little by little, her shaking stopped as she
calmed under his touch. Her head fit nicely under his chin, and her
warm, curvy body seemed like it was made for his arms.

A dangerous thought.

“You okay now?” he asked, feeling the
intimacy of the moment curling around him. It was a pleasant
sensation, but one he had to resist.

She had admitted to being a witch. A magic
user. Someone he should be wary of, not want to take in his arms
and keep…forever.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

John let her go, hoping she would move away
before those even more dangerous thoughts of his took hold and
moved in to stay. He swatted mentally at his bear half. They could
not keep her. She was not for them. She was magic. A witch. Not a
shifter. Not even a human. She was a woman of power in her own
right, and he had no idea if she could commit to a shifter the way
a shifter needed her to commit to build a future.

Shifters needed the bond. If not the sacred
and profound mating bond that formed between shifters, then the
deep love bond that could form between a shifter and a human mate.
But John had no idea what would happen if a mage was added into the
mix. Could they feel the bond? Any bond? And could it last a
lifetime, or could a magic user walk away, leaving a broken shifter
behind, likely to die, all alone and heartbroken?

John did
not
want to be the one to
find out.

Urse was having a hard time calming her
racing heart—not only from her run-in with the leviathan, but from
the mayor’s close proximity. For a moment there…just a moment…she’d
thought maybe he was going to kiss her. And then, he backed
away.

Was that disappointment flowing through her
veins alongside the continued excitement from being so near him?
Nah. Couldn’t be. Could it?

She decided she could be an adult and handle
this calmly.
Right?
Okay, maybe not completely calmly, but
at least not running around screaming, the way she had entered the
town hall. Even if a small part of her wanted to keep on
running.

She banished the nerves. They had no place
here. Not if she was going to be casting spells and using her magic
against…a freaking leviathan! Her knees wanted to give out again,
but she hid it by casually leaning back against the desk.

“So. Leviathan, you said?” She pretended to
consider, trying to project calm instead of the bone-deep fear that
hit her just speaking the word.

“That’s what the
strega
in Italy said.
There have been rumors of attacks up and down the coast of Italy by
smaller versions of what came after you today. Just like what tried
to drag Tina under. Baby sea monsters, if you will. But the big
daddy seems to be parked here, attracted by the concentration of
shifter magic—and your magic too, I guess.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she agreed, thinking as
fast as she could. “I should phone my grandmother. She could help
me figure out what might work best,” she said aloud, thinking
hard.

“I’d like to listen in, if you don’t mind,”
John came straight out and said.

Her gaze shot over to him. He was standing
several feet away now, looking as grim and unapproachable as she’d
ever seen him. If he’d been in bear shape, he would have been
bristling at her, she was sure.

Well, she didn’t like that one bit. And she
wasn’t going to back down. He might be a big-ass grizzly shifter,
but she was a
strega
, from a proud and ancient tradition.
She could take him on any day of the week. Probably.

“You don’t trust me to talk to my
grandmother?” she lashed out, the whip of aggravation in her
voice.

“I don’t trust you at all,” he countered,
knocking her back with the verbal assault. “You’ve already lied to
me—to the entire town—once. You’re not the simple humans I thought
you were, so forgive me for being wary. In the shifter world, being
cautious helps you live longer, and I plan to live a good long
time.”

“With no friends,” she grumbled under her
breath as she fumed.

She busied herself by sitting back on the
desk, uncaring if she dislodged the pencil cup or the blotter. Her
knees were shaking too bad. She couldn’t stand, and she couldn’t
walk over to a chair, so the desk would have to do.

“Fine,” she snapped finally. “Let’s call her
now, before I get any angrier at you. Depending on what she tells
me, I may have to make preparations for the spellwork required. The
sooner we start this, the sooner we let loose the spells of
war.”

“I thought that quote was supposed to be
let loose the dogs of war
.” He thawed out enough to quirk
one side of his mouth into a tiny grin.

“Dogs. Spells. Whatever. It works for me. My
spells have teeth when I want them to.” She smiled a false smile.
“Just you remember that, Mr. Mayor.”

That wiped the small grin from his face. One
part of her was sad to see it go. Another part wanted to slap him
for being such a beast to her. So they hadn’t told the complete
truth, but then again, neither had the residents of Grizzly Cove.
They were pretending to be a group of human artists, for goodness’
sake. Although, the art she’d seen in the galleries in town was
very pretty. Maybe they really were artists, but John definitely
had warrior stamped all over his impatient, very fit, handsome
bod.

Urse had always figured there would be a few
shifters in a place as wild as this. That was to be expected.
Shifters lived among humans all over the world. She’d thought
nothing of the few townsfolk she’d met on her one and only scouting
trip to the area. They’d been shifters. Big deal. She figured the
rest of the town was human, and that was good enough for her.

Only upon moving up here lock, stock and
barrel had they realized that there were only
three—
THREE
—humans in town. The three Baker sisters, and
they were all in the process of marrying shifters, so they had to
be in on the secret already.

There really was no solution to the problem.
The shifters probably couldn’t tell they were
strega
, and
therefore weren’t obliged to tell people they thought were clueless
humans about their true nature. By the same token, the Ricoletti
sisters had thought this was a
normal
town, with just a
higher-than-average number of shifters because of the ruggedness of
the locale. That was a logical conclusion to have drawn on such
short acquaintance with the place, so they’d done nothing wrong in
not telling anyone about their powers.

Only after they’d gotten here and realized
where they’d ended up…well…that was when Urse should have overruled
Mellie and sought out the mayor to come clean. But she’d been
enjoying being in Grizzly Cove. The place was beautiful. The cove
was so peaceful… Except for the little sea monster problem that had
cropped up today.

Which she was going to do something
about.

Steeling her resolve, she reached for the
phone. “I’m calling Nonna. You already have her number down as our
emergency contact, so I don’t mind inputting it into your phone
system. Nonna is a better witch than me and Mellie put together, so
if any of you go after her, you’re going to regret it,” she warned
as she dialed.

John looked affronted. “What in the world do
you take me for? I don’t go after grannies with intent to kill. Not
unless they’re grannies who work for the
Venifucus
. Yours
doesn’t, does she?” He was almost shouting at her.

Urse made the sign of the cross when he said
the V word. It was an old habit from growing up with a very
Catholic Nonna. “Don’t you dare say that about my Nonna!”

“I didn’t say she was one of them,” he
insisted. “I said she only had to worry about us if she was.”

“Well, she’s not!” Say anything you like
about Urse herself, but don’t attack her Nonna. That’s when the
claws came out.

She punched in the final number, and the
phone started to ring. She was shaking, she was so worked up.

“How do you put this thing on speaker?” she
grudgingly asked John, practically slamming the phone back onto the
desk. He came over and punched a button, and then, the electronic
ring tone sounded through the office.

She glared at him while it rang, and then
finally, on the fifth ring, the line was picked up.

“Hello?” Nonna’s heavily accented voice came
over the speaker.

“Nonna, it’s me, Urse. I’m in the Grizzly
Cove town hall with the mayor, John Marshall, and you’re on
speaker, okay?” She tried to speak clearly. Nonna’s hearing wasn’t
as good as it used to be.

“Oh! You’re with Johnny,” Nonna replied,
sounding for all the world as if she knew the mayor already, though
Urse was pretty sure she’d never laid eyes on him in her life.
“Good. So. You have a problem up there,
si
?”

“Nonna…” Urse wasn’t sure how to tackle this.
Nonna often knew more than she should. Then again, she was a
powerful and very old
strega
. Who knew what sorts of gifts
she really had? Nonna hadn’t revealed everything to her
granddaughters. Not yet. “I was attacked today…”

“By the leviathan,” Nonna said knowingly.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” John broke in,
“but how could you know that?”

“Just as I saw your face, Johnny, I saw the
creature that haunts your coast. It is why I sent my granddaughters
to you,” came Nonna’s mysterious reply.