Chapter 1 #2
“Everyone’s compatible at sixteen.” And back then, they had “compatted” as much as possible for a hot, horny month. But even at sixteen, he had grown tired of the constant power play.
“You’re Maximus now, but you need a strong wife at your side to hold the position. Merkel openly defied you. Unless you do a massive show of strength, more will follow. The last thing we need is a civil war inside the clan.”
He knew this. It had been burning through his brain ever since Merkel had refused to fix his platform.
Carl had tried to sic the EPA on the man, hoping that human justice would help him out, but the organization was overloaded and undermanned.
The earliest they could get someone out to check on violations was three weeks away. Hence his morning rampage.
“We’re short on numbers as it is,” he growled. “I’m not going to murder my own people.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I will.”
“Tonya!”
“I’m a cop and the strongest she-bear in a hundred miles. Get me pregnant and my brothers will line up to support you.”
“They could line up without me knocking you up.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how it works and you know it.”
True. Family loyalty trumped clan groupings all the time.
It was the reason Merkel’s wife and sons hadn’t taken care of Nick themselves.
That kind of betrayal was nonexistent within shifter communities.
Tonya’s family was large and powerful, and there were rumblings of them splitting off to establish their own clan.
Or of them taking over his. That would all end the moment he impregnated Tonya.
If she became his Maxima, then that would fold her family into his, locking up the leadership for generations to come.
But he just couldn’t do it. They’d drive each other insane inside a year. Besides, he had a better idea, but first he had to end any romantic ideas between the two of them.
“I think of you like a sister,” he began, and it was the God’s honest truth.
She didn’t argue. Instead, her gaze drifted down. The shift was slow and deliberate, and he forced himself to let his hands go lax, opening up his entire body for her perusal.
Flat. Flaccid. And absolutely uninterested despite the fuck-me pheromones she gave off.
She didn’t speak. There was no need to. She simply lifted up the car key fob and pressed a button. The trunk popped open, and he finally got his hands on his clothes.
They didn’t speak as he dressed. He didn’t even want to look at her.
He’d hurt her, and the guilt weighed heavily on him.
Maybe the others were right. Maybe there just wasn’t enough bear in him to effectively lead the clan.
His uncle had been so much bear he was almost feral.
When he’d been Max, he’d killed with impunity, destroyed at random, and taken the most powerful she-bear by force.
It had been human cops who had killed him—with Carl’s father’s help—opening up their clan to another way to rule.
Logic and law—human concepts that the Gladwin shifters desperately needed.
Ten years later, Carl had stepped into power, but everyone seemed to think he was more man than bear.
He couldn’t kill without exhausting all other possibilities.
And he couldn’t fuck the most powerful she-bear around just because she was in heat.
Which left him with a fracturing clan and his best ally hurting as she answered a call on her radio.
Some drunk teens were cow-tipping a few miles to the east.
“I have to go,” she said as she climbed into her cruiser and shut the door. But the window was still open, so he leaned in.
“Tonya, you’re still a valuable member of the clan. Maybe my most—”
“Save it. I’ve heard it all.” They’d had this argument in one form or another since they were old enough to marry. The only sop to his guilt was that she wanted the power of Maxima way more than she wanted him.
“I have a better idea,” he said. “Be my beta.”
She froze, her eyes widening in shock. “Alan’s your beta.”
His brother, Alan, had served as his second from the very beginning.
It kept the power in the family, but Alan had never shifted.
The grizzly DNA had missed him, and the man couldn’t hold the position for much longer.
Privately, Carl believed that’s what had sparked Merkel’s latest round of disobedience.
The idiot hoped to force Carl into making a compromise and giving him the beta honor.
Never going to happen. He needed someone he could trust as his second.
“I know it’s unorthodox,” he continued, “but I can’t think of anyone better.”
“Unorthodox? A female beta is unheard of! You think you have problems with Merkel now? Every shifter in the state will be calling you a pansy-assed human.”
A big insult in the shifter community. Everyone seemed to believe that the animal side was the power center. The male animal. But if any female could change their minds, it was Tonya.
“A female beta makes the clan look weak. Those Detroit bastards will be on us in a split second.”
“The Detroit clan has their own problems. They’re not looking to start a war with us.” He hoped.
“You should ask one of my brothers.”
He’d thought of that, but he didn’t trust them like he trusted Tonya.
He’d known her since they were children.
Everyone expected them to marry, so they’d been shoved together from their earliest moments.
He knew the way she thought and which way she would jump.
In most things their opinions aligned, though she tended to more of a black-and-white rule of the jungle, while he tried to think a problem through.
All of that added up to her being an excellent beta.
“I choose you. Swear unwavering loyalty to me, and we can hold the clan together without marriage. That’s what you really want, anyway.”
She arched a brow. “You underestimate your attraction as a mate.”
“Bullshit. You want the power.”
“And the hot sex.”
Carl rolled his eyes. “So get a gigolo and be my beta.”
She shook her head slowly, not in denial but in stunned amazement. “You’re trying to drag the shifter community into a modern mind-set. It’s going to backfire on you. We’re just not as logical as you.” To her credit, she didn’t sneer the word “logical” like most shifters would.
“Will you do it? I can announce it at the next clan meeting.” He needed time to tell Alan, and that was not going to be a comfortable discussion.
“Yes,” Tonya said, being typically decisive. Then she pushed the car into drive, but she didn’t move. “One more thing. You had a message. That’s why I came out here to find you.”
He frowned. Damn it, she should have told him that first thing instead of trying to trap him into mating. “What?”
“There’s trouble in Kalamazoo.”
“What?” The word exploded out of him, but Tonya didn’t hear it. She’d already hit the gas and was roaring away.
Just as well, he thought as he sprinted for his truck. Even clothed, there was no way to hide his reaction at the mention of that place where she lived. He hit the freeway with his erection lying hard and heavy against his thigh.