Read Online Southern Shifters: Bearing the Ink (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Black & White Book 3) by Lissa Matthews - Free Book Online

them here. Trust us enough to take care of them.”
    Gus blushed at his mother’s praise. He also understood Luke’s concerns. He could do what needed to be done. He could do the task at hand.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Gus stood at the window in the attic, overlooking the street. “What’s going on?”
    “What do you mean, pretty girl?”
    “I don’t know. Something in the air, something going on around us. I feel it. I smell it. I don’t understand it. It’s making my skin crawl and making me restless.”
    “I know. Your senses are heightened still from shifting earlier. The more you do it, the more some of those heightened senses will stay with you even when you’re in your human form.”
    “You feel it too then?”
    “I do. We all do. It means your animal instincts are working. The bear is feeling danger. It’s your gut telling you that something is wrong. It’s survival mode kicking in.”
    “Why is it so strong?”
    “Humans call it intuition. We’re part animal. We call it survival instincts.”
    “Going back to Bryson City wasn’t a good idea, was it?”
    “No. But we learned things we didn’t know before. We know we’re on the right track. And we may be in a position to help someone else before a member of their family turns up dead.”
    “Do you think he knows? The Mayor? Do you think he or his friends are who shot the wolves?”
    “I think yes to all of it.”
    “So, what do we do?”
    “We wait and see, baby. We wait and see.”
    Bex had no idea how she felt about wait and see. She’d never had anything to be urgent or impatient about, never any impending danger. She didn’t like it. She wanted whatever was coming their way to just show itself. But maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe the sooner it showed itself, the sooner those in her life now would be injured or die.
    And she had so many people in her life that she never imagined having, so many, who because of her, because of her mother and what had happened to her so long ago, put them all in danger.
    Gus reached out and touched the crease in her brow that she hadn’t realized was there. “You’re worrying.”
    “Of course I’m worrying.”
    “Try not to, okay? It’s not going to help anything.”
    “Is that why you’re so calm? Are you trying to protect me?”
    “Always. We can’t change it, Bex. A confrontation is going to happen whether we worry or not and I’d rather focus on other things.”
    “What sort of things?”
    “More pleasurable things. What’s coming isn’t going to go easier if we worry over it, worry over what will happen.”
    “But we can be prepared.”
    “How do you prepare for something you’re not sure of?” Gus took her by the waist and pulled her between his knees. Being close to him made her feel better. Being close to him made her feel safe. She couldn’t shake the unease inside her, though. She couldn’t calm her racing heart, or still the thoughts in her head.
    “Look… The Mayor is going to come. He’s going to call us all out. He’s going to try and kill us, especially you. You most of all, signify everything he’s lost. Me and Luke and Michael and the rest of us? We signify it too. On a different level, but we do. This is what we know. What we don’t know, is when or how. I can’t and won’t waste precious time with you worrying about that. I won’t waste precious moments with you in my arms or under my hands worrying about that.”
    “Under your hands?”
    Gus smiled and kissed her softly. “See? Of all I said, you’re most curious about what it means to be under my hands. That’s my pretty girl. I don’t want you sad. From the moment I saw you, sad and broken hearted in the street, I knew I’d make it my mission in life to never see you that way again. And that still holds true.”
    As he talked, he’d lifted her shirt, skimming her bare skin with his fingers. She could and often did lose herself to his touch. “Is it because I’m a bear, too, that you… That we…” She