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  A couple of people eyed his scar, but Flint was used to that. Goldie met his eye briefly and smiled before glancing at the ground, then back up at him. Oh Bear, she was so sweet. And you are so sunk.

  He made his way closer and spoke quietly, a smile on his face. “Remember me?”

  Goldie laughed and blushed. “Sorry, no. Have we met? I’m sure I’d remember.”

  Flint was happy she was joking with him. It meant she felt comfortable, that she trusted him at least enough to not be too serious. “Must have been someone else that ran into my car.”

  Goldie’s face fell, her eyes flitting around to her coworkers. Shit. Right, of course she wouldn’t want to talk about that here. Flint's eagerness was getting the best of him. “Sorry, forget I said that. Water’s this way.” He moved away from Goldie and back to the front of the group, mentally kicking his own ass. Dumb.

  “Eyes up here, important information coming your way,” Flint called. He gave his briefing and got the group moving to the eight-person raft that was on rollers at the concrete beach nearby.

  He helped each of the riders into the boat, and somehow Goldie ended up last, her shy smile and slight evergreen aura on full display as she stepped up beside him. Time slowed down, her skin shone in the sun, and her lovely green sparkled, the slow motion fog Flint was caught in making her every move seem to last for a full hour. Her slender fingers moved towards his. He held his breath as he waited for the moment. The moment he would get to touch Goldie again.

  Oh. Bear. Had he thought he wasn’t interested in Goldie romantically? He was soooo interested in her, romantically. He wanted to cook for her. Clean for her. Kill things for her. He wanted her to use him up and throw him away.

  Their fingers touched. An electric zing zipped up Flint’s arm. Goldie’s eyes widened in surprise so he guessed she felt it, too. He caught her gaze but she wouldn’t hold it, looking down instead.

  Flint shook it off and looked into the raft for an empty seat, and bit back a groan. The only one left was right next to his. He’d never be able to ignore her now. For fuck’s sake, he thought, as he settled onto the wooden plank seat and picked up his oar, Goldie’s luscious herbal scent was the only thing he could smell, even surrounded by pine trees and autumn blooms.

  They heaved away from the loading dock and were on their way, Flint directing everyone on when to paddle and when to drag their oars. It was a pleasant ride for the first half-mile, then the rapids got rougher and more treacherous. In the rainy spring it wasn’t so dicey, but in the fall the river was so shallow they had to be careful of the rocks that sprang up seemingly out of nowhere, ready to tip a craft without warning or mercy.

  Flint was an old pro and nothing caught him by surprise anymore. He’d been riding these rapids for two dozen years, leading others down them for almost two decades. The Nantahala River and its surroundings were part of his blood in a way that no place else had ever been, not even out West where he’d been born.

  He breathed in through his nose and got a hit of fresh mountain air, the spray of cool water on his sun-warmed skin. This truly was the ideal life for a bear like him. Outdoors in the daytime, home at night, kicking vampire ass as his number one hobby. Not much missing, except…

  They went over a quick dip of rapids, water splashing into the raft and all over their group. Merry screams followed as they careened down the river. Flint glanced at Goldie beside him and saw her face split wide in a grin that lit up his world more brightly than the sun overhead, put a whole new spin on the thing. Then all at once her eyes went wide in fright, and Flint turned back to face front. Shit, he’d let the Horns sneak up on them.

  His voice carried, loud and urgent, from the left side of the raft. “Dig in! Turn left!” He had to get them aimed correctly over the cascade or they’d get hung up in the swirling pool to one side of the pop-up. “Now right! Dig in hard!”

  The raft carried to the left side of the river, then aimed into the sweet spot on the first falls. He continued barking commands as they quickly went over the second and third rapids, then guided them to the fourth and final drop in the Horns, the one where kayakers almost always took an upside-down dunk in the drink.

  They landed with a huge splash, the whole group screeching as cold water crashed over them and sloshed out the sides of the boat. Spectators who had lined up at the car park to one side cheered as the raft floated out of sight on swift, calm waters.

  Flint smiled at the group. “How incredible was that? You all did great.”

  Beside him Goldie was grinning once more, her sopping hair and dripping face making her look all the more adorable. Her scent reached out to him, bright with that same herbal complexity, fresh and generous as a garden harvest. And for once, Flint forgot his reasons for revenge. Forgot The Cause. Forgot all of it. Sunk. Like a boulder.

  A man sitting back and to his right called out, “You get many bears around here?”

  Flint nodded. “Black bears sometimes, as you could probably guess from the name.”

  The guy didn’t let up. “What about grizzlies?”

  A nervous chuckle bubbled up from Flint’s chest. “Nah, they live out West. Why?”

  He turned to look at the man, who raised his hand and pointed ahead of them. “Then what the hell is that?”

  Flint whipped his head around in the direction of the man’s finger. Sure enough, on the forest side, in a clearing near the river’s edge, stood an enormous, shaggy brown bear with the distinctive hump of a grizzly. “Motherfucker,” Flint muttered under his breath. What the fuck was Bryce trying to pull?

  Chaos broke out on the boat as they drifted closer to the beast that was wading into the rushing waters, stretching its neck out and giving a bellowing roar in their direction. Flint rolled his eyes at his brother’s theatrics and resumed barking orders as he had a few minutes ago. “Turn right, dig in!”

  With a huge effort, because half the people in the boat were too busy screaming to listen, he got them turned away from the bear and the raft floated past. Flint made sure to flip his paddle as it did, giving the grizzly a face full of river water. In response Bryce sat back on his haunches, swiping at his furry face and seeming to shake with laughter. Flint flipped his brother the bird as surreptitiously as he could, glancing around to check on his group at the same time.

  Everyone seemed fine, if shaken up. But he turned to Goldie and she was gaping at him with her jaw dropped wide. She’d seen him flip off a bear. Crap. Flint grimaced at her and shrugged. “Crazy bears.” He was going to kill Bryce.

  The rest of the tour was more of a float, giving him some time to draw information out of Goldie about her job and her background. By the time they got to the end and took the bus back to BBOC, he knew that she was an only child, had recently completed her master’s degree in speech pathology, and that she had moved here from New Orleans exactly a week ago with her roommate.

  And then he got himself a date that night.

  He played a little dirty, sure, asking her while they were still on the boat, pretending not to watch the shoreline while he waited for her answer.

  But since it got him a yes, he was okay with it.

  Chapter 10 - Goldie Catches Air

  That evening at dinner, Flint sat with Goldie in a booth in the most private corner of his favorite brewpub and fought the urge to pinch himself. She was adorable in a sky blue sweater set and sparkly silver skirt, and she seemed to like him back. He’d seen approval of him in her eyes and heard it in her laugh more than once that evening.

  They were sharing dessert, and Goldie’s eyes were shining as she told Flint about her childhood in New Orleans. “You can’t grow up there and not know something about protecting yourself, especially in Mid-City. But Mama and Daddy had a bunch of friends in the neighborhood. We all kept an eye on each other.”

  Flint tried to imagine this woman as a streetwise kid in New Orleans. “And your parents were musicians?” A bit of cream lingered on her lip and Flint fought with himself not
to swipe it off with his tongue.

  “Mama was a singer, Daddy played upright bass. He used to joke when they’d leave me with my grandma Tallulah for the night that I was so small he should carry me around to gigs with them, and I could sleep in the case backstage while they played. But I always ended up at Tallulah’s.”

  Her eyes lit with sad lights that left Flint wondering about the story behind them. He couldn’t stop himself from wanting to know more. “And where are they now?”

  Goldie’s eyes dropped to the table between them, her tone going somber and her green glow giving a little pulse of power. “They died when I was fifteen. In Katrina.”

  Flint gulped. “Shit, I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say, but he wanted to let her know he understood. “We’re both orphans.”

  Her face lifted, eyes wide and questioning. Flint cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s been longer for me. Twenty-five years. I was nine.”

  Had it really been that long? Yep. Bryce had had his twenty-fifth birthday in July and the two of them were all that was left. Crap, he didn’t want to talk about that. He spoke without thinking. “I'm heading back that way soon. Out West, where I was born. Might stay for good.” His eyes darkened and hardened when he said that.

  Goldie tipped her head to one side, looking disappointed. “Why’s that?”

  Flint rubbed his knuckles on the scar on his throat, not sure where he was going with this. He hadn’t told her about vampires yet, so he couldn’t tell her he was going to find a man who was really a bear who would know which vampire killed Flint’s family. “I’ve got some, uh… old debts to settle.”

  One eyebrow raised. “From when you were nine?”

  He tried to smile at what she clearly considered an absurd idea, but smiling did not come easy to him. “You want the truth?”

  Blue eyes locked on his. Was it just his imagination, or did she look scared?

  “Of course I do,” she said.

  Here it was. An open invitation. He’d already waited too long to tell her, according to Carick and now Jameson. Just the truth. He couldn’t go wrong with the truth. “I know what you were doing two nights ago when you ran into my Rover. You were chasing a vampire.” He sounded serious to himself. But stupid, too.

  She blinked. Leaned backwards. Pulled her sweater to criss-cross at her waist and wrapped both arms around her midsection. He panicked inside just a little bit at the thought of what he’d do if she up and left him.

  “Vampires? Are you out of your mind? Is this a joke?” she hissed at him, looking around to see if anyone was listening to them.

  Flint made sure not to break their gaze. There was no easy way to do this and about a million ways to fuck it up. Something he said was going to convince her, he just had to keep talking. “You’re a switch. A special kind of witch that hasn’t been seen in over a hundred years. The only weapon against the vampires to ever exist. That’s why you can’t help but chase them.”

  Her feet tapped on the floor impatiently, or irritated with him, but her face was a complete blank. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. “And you glow green. All around you, this emerald green aura. I knew what you were the second I saw you.”

  She went still at that, all the blood draining from her face.

  He’d done it! He’d found that thing that made her open up just a little bit. She’d seen the glow. More than once, maybe. He pushed forward with more. “Right. Bright green is what you glow, sometimes, and it’s strongest when you’re hunting them.”

  Goldie’s eyes were bouncing from the table between them to Flint’s face and her hands twisted in her sweater, but she wasn’t running away or calling the cops, so Flint took that as a good sign. He caught her eye, bending down to do it, and asked the question that was running through his mind on a loop. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  She leaned across the table to whisper at him and he caught another whiff of her herbal scent. Yum.

  “I don’t know what to say. Obviously I’ve done some strange stuff, but… vampires?”

  He looked around at the crowded pub. “Why don’t we go somewhere we can keep talking?” Goldie nodded, still looking stunned but then throwing him that shy smile he loved so much.

  He paid the check and held the door for Goldie as they left, aiming towards the parking lot behind the pub. Flint wanted to keep talking, but he was worried he’d scare her off. Or that as soon as he got Goldie in the car the thing foremost on his mind would be not talking. He couldn’t afford that.

  They were almost to the parking lot, passing a small, shadowed alcove that led to a courtyard dining area the pub opened up on nights busier than this one. Goldie was aiming that way, pulling him along. “Hold on, I got a rock in my shoe.”

  They sat on a small stone bench near a walkway and Goldie slipped off her beaded silver flat and tipped it over, a tiny pebble tumbling out.

  Flint laughed. “Forget ‘Pumpkin’, I’m going to start calling you ‘princess’ in honor of that pea. How did you even feel that?”

  Goldie smiled up at him in the intimacy of darkness, her scent surging out in waves. Flint stopped laughing.

  Her scent had changed tone, deepening with a spiciness that was as intoxicating as the alcohol they served inside. He breathed it in deeply, letting his eyes close.

  He spoke what was in his heart, growling it into the night air. “I want to kiss you, Goldie.” He opened his eyes and pinned her with a look, moving in slowly as her scent invited him closer.

  Goldie inhaled sharply, her blue eyes locking on his. “Then kiss me.”

  He was halfway there already, and then he was there, brushing his lips against hers, her scent wrapping around him. In one smooth twist, she straddled him, surprising both of them. Flint grasped her thighs, firm, strong thighs that burned his hands. He squeezed her flesh and growled against her lips, wanting to reach under that sparkly skirt and make this little pumpkin in his arms burst with pleasure. But for all the power he knew was brimming inside her luscious body, she reminded him of prey at that moment, apt to startle, to break and run at any big moves on his part. He had to be a perfect gentleman. Especially after how she’d reacted to the whole vampire thing. She wanted to believe. But she didn’t. Not yet.

  That meant holding her close, responding, but not moving one paw, no matter what he might think she wanted. She was in charge of all of it. Unless she made it happen, it wasn’t going to happen.

  He groaned into her mouth at the effort it took to relax his hands, brushing her thighs instead of kneading them. Keep those paws off her ass until she picks one up and puts it there. Somewhere in all the kissing and the straddling, he had popped the mother of all hard-ons. Doesn’t matter. Keep still. Let her come close, then conquer her.

  They kissed for what felt to his bear like hours, days, lifetimes, tongues twining and teasing. Flint was almost glad they hadn’t made it to his car, or there was no telling what would happen between them. He was strong, but not this strong. Warm, willing, killer female in his arms, one connected to him by Fate and Instinct and… other things.

  Goldie tensed in Flint’s arms and pulled back, and oh no, she was lit up like a shamrock shake. Shit, for real? This could not be a coincidence.

  Without speaking a word, she was off Flint’s lap and jogging back to the front of the restaurant. Flint surged up from the bench, going after her, aware of what it could look like to be chasing a disheveled woman down an alley but too concerned about Goldie to stop. Shifting was completely out of the question, but she was so fast!

  He spied Goldie digging in her purse as she ran, coming up with the same nail file she’d used the night he met her. Goddammit. First order of business, he was bringing that woman a real knife. If she was going to keep getting snatched off on vampire chases she was damn well going to be well-armed.

  Freakin’ Breath switches. Flint was losing ground to Goldie with every yard they covered. She burst out from between the buildings onto the main street and tu
rned left toward where they’d first met.

  The same damn limo was there.

  Goldie wasn’t stopping.

  Again she ran into the street. He was going to have to start carrying traffic cones with him.

  A dark green pick up was coming fast at his emerald green switch.

  “Goldie!” he bellowed, sprinting for her, not that he was the fastest shifter in The Cause.

  Her body turned as the truck slammed on its brakes, clearly about to hit her anyway. A yelp escaped her, and she threw her hands up to protect herself from the blow, but a small green bubble flashed from her upraised hands, like a balloon of air. The truck hit the bubble and sent Goldie sailing backwards. Holy shit! Flint leapt higher than a bear should ever leap and grabbed her out of the air, pulling her into his arms, eyes wide, heart stopped.

  He stepped backwards, trying to disappear into the shadows between buildings, wondering just how many people saw that, knowing he had to get them away from there, and quick, but he had to check on her first. That had been some dicey business.

  “Are you okay?” He ran trembling hands over her arms and legs as he sank against the brick wall at his back, holding her to him, touching her every limb in turn. No blood, no bones broken, how in the hell had that even happened?

  Goldie's lips crushed onto his, as if the whole vampire pause hadn't happened and like she’d simply hit play now that they were together again. But she was different now. So different. Shit. This was like in the street after the vampire last time, Prowl-like. Not his sweet Goldie, the one who had kissed him forever outside the pub, all small sighs and gentle brushes and tiny touches.

  This Goldie was all grabby hands and push and pull and sharp teeth on his lips and cheeks and ears. Flint liked both Goldies, but he didn’t like her Prowling on him without her knowing why she was doing it. That was the kind of thing that could sour a relationship.