Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Santo peered suspiciously through narrowed eyes. “You don’t have a bearskin,” he said with the solemn seriousness of a young child who was sure he was being fooled.
Yakov grinned and lifted his hand. “Watch this,” he said, then extended his claws.
Santo gasped and jumped back, and Yakov thought he’d made a critical mistake. Then a huge smile cracked the other man’s thin face, lighting up those beautiful soft eyes. “Again!”
Laughing, Yakov retracted his claws, only to slice them back out. At the same time, he allowed his eyes to shift to the yellowish amber that came out in the bear in lower light, but that tended to be the first manifestation in his human skin of the bear rising to the surface.
“Bear,” Santo said definitively.
The front door opened again right then, revealing a dark-skinned woman in her late twenties or early thirties, her hair in two neat braids that began at her temples and ended just above her shoulders. Well-fitted jeans and a poppy-red sweater outlined a compact body, her height between Theo’s and Yakov’s.
She wasn’t looking at them, her focus on the person coming out behind her: another woman, the thinnest and smallest of the three. Closer to Santo in age. Huddled into a jacket of sunshine yellow, she wore dark brown pants.
“Janine Fong,” Theo murmured. “Which one of them uses the prescriptions?”
It was impossible to tell at first glance. Janine’s skin was milk pale with bluish undertones, the kind of skin that bruised with a touch. Her face, with its naturally high cheekbones and round eyes beneath epicanthic folds, didn’t hold Santo’s laxness, but she was more timid than him, sticking close to the side of the younger woman.
It was her hair that most struck Yakov: it was braided in the same style as her companion’s, despite the clear difference in textures. Janine’s braid was already slipping apart, strands escaping here and there.
Now, the younger woman shot Yakov and Theo a look of polite inquiry. “Are you here to visit a friend in the apartment building? Only, they’ll have to buzz you in themselves.”
That was when Yakov noticed how she balanced on her feet and realized that she wasn’t a carer—or not only a carer—she was also security. “Actually, I wanted to speak to Santo.” Never taking his attention off the younger woman, he smiled at the gardener. “It is Santo, isn’t it?”
“He’s a bear, Cissi!” Santo said to the carer-bodyguard, whose dark eyes had narrowed when Yakov stated the gardener’s name. “I saw his claws!”
Suspicion morphing into worry, Cissi turned to her female charge. “Will you stay with Santo for a little while, Nene?” Her voice was kind, her tone even. “I need to talk to our new friends.”
Santo opened up his arm and Janine Fong quickly shuffled over to lean against him, hiding her face in his chest.
“Why don’t you show Nene your vegetables, Santo? I’ll be over here with your new friend.”
“Bear!” Santo said again, his grin huge. “I saw him first.”
“I know, I know.” Cissi laughed. “You can talk to him again after we’ve chatted, okay?”
It was clear from the way Santo nodded and began to lead Janine away that Cissi had built a strong bond of trust with the two. The younger woman’s scent was twined into both of theirs—Govno!
Cold in his veins as he realized why his instincts had sparked at Santo’s scent. But it had nothing to do with Santo. It had to do with someone Santo was around. Fuck. “I’ve got ID.” Managing to keep his shock out of his voice as he spoke to Cissi, he reached into his pocket.
“No need, I’ve seen you at Club Moscow with your clanmates.” A sheepish smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you straight off the bat. I just wasn’t expecting to see a senior bear outside our front door. You’re a twin, right? I’m sure I’ve seen two of you at times—but that might’ve been the cocktails.”
Chuckling took effort with his stomach in knots. “I’m Yakov. The other one is Pavel.” He glanced at Theo. “And this is Theo.”
Cissi’s smile faded as she took in Theo. “You’re not a bear. Psy.”
“So are you,” Theo said coolly. “You do a good job of appearing human—that comment about cocktails was excellent—but I can sense your psychic strength. I’d wager you’re at least a 7.”
The two women took each other’s measure, before Cissi gave a crisp nod and broke the eye contact. “Why do you need to speak to Santo?” she asked Yakov.
Folding his arms, he set his feet apart. “First, I want to know who you are and what you’re doing here.”
No give in Cissi’s expression. “StoneWater has no rights over Psy in its territory.”
Woman had spine. Good. Those charged to protect should have spine.
“Per my research,” he said, “Santo was a chemical analyst in his twenties.” Unsurprisingly, he’d worked in an arm of the Marshall Group. “Not at the top of his field, but not at the bottom, either. Just a man doing a job and doing it well, from all his performance reviews.” He held her gaze. “What happened to him?”