Bearing Hearts (City Shifters: the Den Book 2) (4 page)

I snorted and shoved to my feet, my stomach a little iffy. The second grilled cheese had not been a good idea. Or maybe it was just the realization that they
had
been chasing Nick. "You let yourself get distracted, big guy."

"You walked into traffic," he said, that hint of disbelief once more on his face. "You almost got hit by a bus
and
a car. Two cars."

"I would have been fine," I said. I hitched my pants up again and debated whether I should just walk upstairs to Josie's apartment to find my clothes and take a real shower. A nap would be nice. Although it was late enough I could almost just go to bed.

"You would have been dead," he said under his breath, straightening from his lean. "Look, Lucy. You have to be more careful. BadCreek is watching us, and if that beta saw you today, he might have —"

"It's fine." I turned to walk out, keeping a solid grip on the pants so I didn't trip. "I'm fine. I don't need your code or a babysitter or anything. Just —"

"Lucy," he said, his voice all low and grumbly, and my breath caught.

I turned but my feet tangled in the too-long pants and I felt myself falling, could see myself smashing face-first into the floor because my arms swam in the too-large sweatshirt, and — I hit something warm and solid instead, and then was held tightly by very muscular arms. Axel. He caught me. From across the room, he caught me. I cleared my throat and tried to get my feet sorted out so I could stand on my own, even though my knees didn't seem inclined to hold me up. He smelled like snow, like that first hint of winter.

"You should be more careful," he said, slow and quiet. He squeezed me, then carefully set me on my feet. He still held my shoulders, though, and kept me close as he looked at me. "Regardless of the code, no one should be anywhere near BadCreek right now."

He seemed particularly interested in my mouth. My heart pounded against my ribs and I couldn't breathe. He looked just like Ragnar but everything else about him was so different. The fox part of me didn't care, just wanted to jump into his arms and curl our tail around him. I stared up at him, waiting, but had no idea what I waited for.

Axel touched my jaw, ran his fingers over my cheekbone, and gently tilted my head as he leaned down. His lips brushed mine, tentative at first, then bolder until he kissed me so deeply I drowned in him. My knees wobbled again and I might have collapsed except he held me tight, pressed me close to his chest until I felt safe for the first time in months. I closed my eyes.

The room spun around me by the time he broke the kiss and retreated, though his arms still held me up. Axel looked down at me impassively, as if he hadn't just tried to suck my tongue out of my head, and touched my cheek. I desperately wanted to know what he was thinking. He even looked like he was about to speak, on the verge of saying something amazing or earth-shattering or just romantic, but a knock on the door made me jump.

Axel didn't look away from me. "We're busy. Not now."

Busy. That was one word for it. Heat crept up my cheeks and his head tilted a little as he studied me, as if he were a puzzled bear.

But the knock came again. Axel made an irritated noise and released me, striding to the door to wrench it open with enough force he damn near took it off the hinges. I held my breath as I saw Josie and Tyler standing just outside. Josie gave Axel a look that promised a world of trouble from the mama bear if he did anything to scare her kid. "Tyler was worried about Lucy. He has something to say to you."

Tyler, short and stocky even for a four-year-old, planted his hands on his hips and scowled up at Axel. "You were mean to Lucy. Don't scare her."

The tendons stood out in the back of Axel's neck as he gripped the door and tried to keep himself together. He managed to sound almost normal as he said, "I needed to talk to Lucy and she wasn't listening, Tyler, it was —"

"That's not okay." The little guy's fierceness only increased, and he kicked Axel right in the shin. "Big men don't pick on girls. It's not fair."

Josie's eyebrows rose and I wondered what Axel's face looked like as the four-year-old braced to kick the polar bear again. I shuffled over to the door, and my heart melted as Tyler caught sight of me and his face lit up. I edged around the Axel mountain that blocked the door, and crouched to hug Tyler. "Thank you for being worried about me. Axel sounded pretty mad, didn't he?"

The polar bear started growling again and I shot him a dirty look over my shoulder before squeezing Tyler's hands. "But we had a good talk and he apologized, and he promised to never be mad like that again. Didn't he?" And I turned to look at Axel.

The vein in his temple looked ready to burst and a muscle in his jaw jumped, but he nodded and took a deep breath. "She's right, Tyler. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at Lucy."

Tyler gave him the stink-eye but smiled at me as he patted my cheek. "Come watch the movie with us?"

When Axel's growl started up again, Josie edged forward and held out her hand to me. "We would like Lucy to stay with us tonight. You can join us for breakfast, Axel, but Kaiser thought Lucy would be more comfortable upstairs."

And she gave him another look that promised dire consequences if he got too aggressive. I made a mental note to ask how she did that. Maybe I needed to practice that in the mirror. I held my breath. I didn't need his permission, of course, but there were strong dynamics at work that I didn't understand and couldn't manage. I didn't want to damage the relationship between Josie and Axel, or Kaiser and Axel, not when I'd be gone in a matter of hours and they would remain together. So I waited, and looked at Axel to gauge his reaction.

He looked almost bereft. Maybe lonely or sad or just tired. My heart ached for him.

As the silence stretched, Tyler eyed the polar bear. "Josie promised pancakes for breakfast. You can come if you want, but I get to sit by Lucy."

Axel rotated his neck, the vertebrae cracking like breaking ice, and he took a deep breath all the way from his toes. His hand landed like a pile of bricks on my shoulder, and he pulled me back to say very, very quietly, "This conversation isn't over."

I looked up at him and wished things were different. I wished his brother was still alive, and that I met Axel first, and that whatever separated them never happened. I wished a lot of things. No doubt he did as well. Without thinking, I touched his chest, right over his heart. He hurt, too. "No, but I think we both need a break."

Something changed in his eyes, in his face, and he softened. I almost thought he would kiss me again, right there in front of Josie, and my heart stuttered at the thought. Then his ears went red and he abruptly shooed me out the door. "Fine."

I blinked, looking around as Tyler scrambled up the stairs to the sixth floor, and Josie sighed. "Kaiser will talk to him about his manners."

"Maybe send Tyler instead," I said. "That kiddo is brave to take on a polar bear."

"He's got a bit of a crush on you, and a well-developed sense of justice." She snorted, shaking her head, and we started up the stairs after him. "But no sense of self-preservation, frankly. I can't believe he kicked Axel."

"I don't think Axel believed it, either." And I laughed, wishing I could have seen the bear's face.

She shook her head again and hauled the door open. "I'm sure he didn't know what to do. But for now, let's find you some clothes that actually fit."

"Thank God," I said. I followed her into the guest room to find better pajamas, then to the couch as the kids set up the movie and popped popcorn and settled in for a cozy night. Even with the kids and the movie and all the distractions, my thoughts wandered back to Axel, sitting alone in his apartment below us.

A
xel paced
through his living room as Lucy's steps retreated up the stairs and faded away. He heard Kaiser's apartment door open and close, and distantly, the sound of an animated movie playing. He stalked the confines of his apartment, a growl building in his chest as he ran out of room. He needed to vent the frustration of her walking away. He should have handled things differently, should have known how to talk to her. Just as his bear reared up and claimed her, kissed her, wanted to tell her they loved her and she needed to stay with him, Josie interrupted, and then Lucy was gone. Before he damaged any of his shitty furniture, he stormed to the door and headed down to the gym. He pulled his hair back and out of the way, but didn't bother to wrap his hands before attacking a heavy bag in the back corner of the dark gym. No one else would dare use the gym after hours except the bears, and that was how he liked it.

He paused long enough to crank up some angry music, indecipherable Icelandic screaming overwhelming whatever demons whispered in his head, and went back to beating the stuffing out of the bag. Lucy and Ragnar. They'd had a
personal
relationship. Ragnar and Lucy. He couldn't get either of them out of his head. He hadn't seen his brother in years, not since the fight, but he'd tried a thousand times to call Ragnar, to apologize, to somehow mend the relationship and make up for all the shitty things he'd done. And he'd never had the fucking courage. Axel snarled and attacked the bag, wanting to tear it apart with his bare hands. Deep down he was just a goddamn coward.

Owen was the first to show up in the gym, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He lived just above the gym, and no doubt the angry music woke him up. He silently held the bag so it didn't swing off the hook as Axel boxed, and Axel couldn't find the words to even thank him. Then Mal wandered in and worked on a little kickboxing against the stand-up dummy in the corner, knocking the thing over again and again until sand spilled out of the base. Axel didn't want to feel grateful for their presence, but he did. Bears were solitary beasts normally, though he didn't mind sharing his den with Kaiser and his guys.

Sasha shuffled down the stairs next, smoking, and leaned against the ropes of the boxing ring next to Axel's heavy bag. The Russian didn't bother pretending to work out; he just smoked and eyed Axel, occasionally making a face at the music and muttering about bourgeois capitalist bullshit. He wore only sweatpants, his entire torso covered in dark tattoos of Cyrillic letters and weird religious iconography, and still looked ready to brawl.

It wasn't until Kaiser arrived that anyone spoke. The alpha bear turned down the music and took over for Owen, holding the heavy bag as Axel aimed a vicious right hook into the vinyl. He knew what they wanted to hear. They wanted him to spill his guts about the girl and his twin and everything. Wanted him to explain all the pain and anger and everything that kept him from sleeping at night. Everything that told him to drive the girl away, even if she made him feel whole again.

Sweat stung his eyes by the time Axel backed up, breathing hard. His hands were a bloody mess of hamburger, but he didn't feel it. Owen, the medic, made an exasperated noise and retrieved the first aid kit from the wall, dumping saline on Axel's battered hands until the breath hissed in his teeth.

Kaiser folded his arms over his chest as he watched Axel submit to the saline wash, antibiotic cream, and gauze of Owen's doctoring. "You want to start, Axel?"

He shook his head. "Nothing to say."

"I disagree." The alpha's eyes glinted gold for a moment. "You scared Lucy into a shift and then dragged her upstairs."

Axel grumbled and tried to turn away, though Owen kept his hands captive. "I needed to talk to her. I still need to talk to her, since your mate interrupted us and we couldn't get to the bottom of what the girl is in the city to do."

"Josie was concerned about the girl." Kaiser's teeth showed with just enough threat that Axel looked away and shrugged a half-hearted apology. He should have known better than to bring Josie into the argument. Kaiser supported everything Josie wanted with single-minded determination, and would knock Axel stupid if he said anything against something Josie said or did. Which was what a proper mate did. The alpha took a deep breath and worked his jaw until his voice came out normal. "You didn't hold up your end of the code, Axel, so we did on your behalf. If Lucy loved your brother..."

A growl escaped and Axel pulled out of Owen's grasp. He turned away, needing distance from all of them. All those watching eyes. He didn't want to talk about Ragnar with them. The four men in that room — they'd been his brothers for the last couple of years. The closest thing to family he had left in the world, now that Ragnar was gone. He concentrated on wrapping the bandages around his knuckles. "She worked with Ragnar, from what she said. They had a personal relationship. They worked for Smith, were on a project for him when Ragnar was killed. She won't say anything else."

"Smith," Sasha said, drawing the name out until it sounded Russian and strange and dark. Kaiser growled at him and Sasha looked up, irritated, then made an exasperated noise and strode over to flick his cigarette ash into a box on the wall near Kaiser's office. The alpha hated smoking but tolerated it as Sasha's primary vice, when the Russian could have had so many other, more destructive ones. "The fae? What work she does for the fae?"

"Information. Errands. I don't fucking know, because we were interrupted before I could finish getting to the bottom of it." He pulled the bandages tight and bit off the excess with his teeth, throwing the roll back at Owen for him to put away. "But she also prevented us from grabbing that BadCreek enforcer, and she hasn't been entirely honest about why she's here and what she's doing. I don't know if I trust her."

Silence from the others. The bear raged at what Axel wanted to say, but he knew it was for the best. Lucy didn't plan to stay in the city, she didn't want anything to do with him, and he couldn't force that. Didn't want to force that. It would be better for them both if he ended the connection now. He held up his hands. "I want her out of here. If she didn't deliberately fuck up our mission against BadCreek, fine. But she still managed to get in the way."

"Owen gets in the way and we keep him around," Malcolm said, his Appalachian drawl taking some of the sting out of it as he smiled and slapped the younger bear on the shoulder. "And your girl smells better."

Axel snarled before he could control himself, turning on the other bear to grab his shirt in both fists, ready to throw him through the wall. "Don't you fucking smell her, you —"

He cut off abruptly as he caught the smiles on Mal and Kaiser's faces, and shoved Mal away. She wasn't his girl. He didn't care if Mal liked the way she smelled. It wasn't his business. But the polar bear knew differently. The polar bear liked the way she smelled, and the only reason he didn't want to march straight back to his apartment and go to sleep was because she wasn't there. He knew the moment he kissed her. She was his.

And Ragnar got there first.

"Just breathe, dude." Owen didn't get any closer, though. "You can send her away once we get the shit figured out with Smith. If you turn her loose in the city, BadCreek will find her anyway. They'll probably capture her and drag her back to the compound and do God only knows what to her. We haven't had any foxes around for a while, so they'd need to use her DNA. Experiment on her, maybe try to breed her."

"
Enough
," Axel said, lurching toward Owen with his hands out, wanting to shut the kid up. Just the thought of Lucy being tormented by BadCreek nearly drove the bear into a frenzy. He couldn't control himself as it was, but throwing in the mental picture of some BadCreek fuckhead trying to
mate
her... He made a strangled noise and stared at Kaiser, desperate for guidance and advice but too proud to ask in front of the others. He was Kaiser's beta, damn it. He couldn't look weak in front of the others, even if none of them cared about rank.

Kaiser knew him too well, though, and cleared his throat. "Guys, just give us a sec."

The other bears grumbled and mumbled as they shuffled toward the stairs, though Mal paused next to Kaiser and held out a glass bottle full of clear liquid. "This might help."

Half the time, Axel couldn't understand a fucking word that guy said. He came from the mountains, made moonshine in his bathroom, and thought he was possessed by demons. And it was a bottle of moonshine he handed to the alpha and that Kaiser offered to Axel as soon as the others disappeared upstairs. Axel would have thanked them both if his mouth worked right and he trusted himself not to blurt out that Lucy was his mate and he needed her to stay close or he'd lose his mind.

Instead he took a swig of the liquor, astringent and strong, until it shot right into his brain. It must have been a thousand fucking proof. Straight rubbing alcohol. But it tasted a little like peppermint. Apparently Mal was experimenting with flavoring his moonshine.

Kaiser frowned as he took the bottle back and sipped, making a face. "I hope we don't end up blind from drinking this shit."

Axel didn't speak. He just let the liquor burn down his esophagus and into his guts, landing like a cold rock in the pit of his stomach. Like regret. Or grief. They sat there in silence for a long time, passing the bottle back and forth until the moonshine did its job and everything grew a little wobbly, a little easier to say.

The alpha sat on the edge of the boxing ring, leaning back against the ropes as he studied the bottle of moonshine. "Look, man. I don't know what happened with your brother. I don't know what happened between your brother and Lucy. But I know what I saw happen between you and her. There's something there. Whether you want it or not, you're connected."

"I don't want her." The booze let him say it, even as the bear snarled at him. His life would be simpler without her. Emptier, maybe. Darker, probably. But definitely calmer. He'd have to follow her around with pillows every day just to make sure she had something soft to land on. The bear really liked that idea, making sure everything she touched was soft and smooth and gentle. Making sure she never met a rough patch or a sharp edge again.

"You made that clear." Kaiser took another gulp of the liquor. "And that's what I don't understand. She's cute. Kinda funny. She knew your brother. And she's a fox."

He waggled his eyebrows as he said it, and Axel shot him a dirty look. "Mostly because of the inevitable jokes like
that
, boss."

Kaiser snorted and offered him the bottle again. "Right. Either way, man. We need to know what she was working on with Smith. Not just to figure out what the fuck else that old man is doing, but so we can understand her connection to BadCreek, if any. Maybe BadCreek killed your brother. There aren't many things that can kill a polar bear, but a pack of wolves with the kinds of weapons they have... I hate to say it, Axel, but it's possible."

Axel had to take another deep drink from the bottle. The thought had occurred to him in a bright flash when the girl first mentioned Smith. A sliver of hope that maybe Ragnar wasn't dead but held captive by BadCreek — an awful fate, to be sure, but better than dead. Axel couldn't rescue the dead. He squinted at the bottle and frowned. "You know, this doesn't taste half bad."

"That's usually the sign we should stop drinking." Kaiser pushed to his feet and staggered, looking around as he held his arms out for balance. "Well, fuck a duck. I think I might be buzzed off of that shit."

"Yeah." Axel swallowed another mouthful, then handed the mostly empty bottle back to his alpha. "Kill the bottle, boss."

Kaiser shrugged and tipped it into his mouth, then left the bottle in his office for Mal to find later. He threw his arm over Axel's shoulders and headed for the stairs. "We'll call Smith tomorrow, set something up so she can talk to him. I'll go with her, or Sasha."

"I'll go," Axel said, focusing on where he placed each step. Maybe Mal put roofies or some shit in his moonshine. Normally Axel could knock back a fifth of vodka and barely feel it, but half a flask of that witch's brew and all he wanted was to curl up some place warm and sleep. "I should go with her to talk to Smith."

"You might scare her." Kaiser paused on one of the landings and looked around, searching for something, then shook his head and headed up the next flight. "Or him."

"I won't scare her again, boss. I need to hear his answers. If he knew Ragnar and Ragnar worked for him, why the fuck didn't Smith recognize me? Why didn't he tell me?" The last came out a desperate whisper, Axel's voice cracking. There weren't so many blonde polar bears in that part of the world that Smith wouldn't have connected them. Maybe Smith asked Ragnar if he wanted to contact Axel, and Ragnar said no. Maybe Smith kept them apart on purpose. Axel clutched his head and paused on the landing next to his apartment, crouching to sit on his heels as he tried to think through the grief.

"Hey," Kaiser said, and gripped his arm. He dragged him upright, then pulled him up the next flight of stairs. "Stay in the family den tonight."

"I can sleep in my own —"

"Stay up here," he repeated, and used his alpha voice. Kaiser nudged the door open and peered into the darkened living room. The television still flashed, another cartoon, but only Josie dozed on the couch. She smiled as she sat up, and Kaiser beamed.

Axel envied and hated the alpha for his bond with Josie, the way Kaiser seemed lighter, more at ease, when his mate was around. Josie eyed him as she leaned against Kaiser's side. "You sleeping up here tonight, Axel?"

"Yes," Kaiser said, and kissed the top of her head.

"Okay. Lucy's in the guest room, so I'll make up the couch." She moved to retrieve clean sheets and pillows and whatever, but Axel waved her off.

He picked up one of the myriad blankets they kept in the living room and lay down, kicking off his shoes. "This is fine."

She started to ask him something else but Kaiser was already dragging her into their room, so Axel shut off the television and lay in the darkness. Alone. Even in an apartment full of people, he felt alone. He couldn't take the silence, the thoughts, or the questions racing through his mind. Before he even knew what he was doing, he walked over to the guest room where Lucy slept. He could hear her breathing on the other side of the door. He knew he shouldn't wake her up. Knew she needed to rest. She wouldn't want to continue their conversation about Smith and Ragnar and everything, particularly that kiss, in the middle of the night, with her half-asleep and him mostly drunk.