“Vera.”
No getting out of the rest of this conversation. “What I mean is, I can stop your hibernation. Injections once a month, but you won’t be able to conjure your bear while the meds are in your system. You’ll be helpless. No better than a human.”
“Jesus,” he murmured, eyes wide. “Not even to defend myself or you?”
She shook her head sadly. “I have last month’s injection in me, and I still can’t Change. I’ve tried and tried because I haven’t shifted in a couple years, but I can’t. I can feel her in there, you know? I just can’t reach her.”
Tobias dropped her wrist and rubbed his hand down the short scruff on his face, looking utterly shaken. “That’s a big trade-off.”
“For you it will be. You were always a bear shifter. Your animal was always a part of you. For me, it was a relief when I figured out how to suppress mine. I could kind of feel normal again.” She looked around pointedly. “Well, if you ignore where I ended up, I felt kind of normal.”
“So why stop the medicine now?”
“Because I’m tired of running.”
“You mean you’re tired of being scared of yourself.”
She lifted one shoulder up to her ear in a half shrug. “Yeah, that.”
Tobias didn’t say anything. His expression got real thoughtful as he poured a bottle of water over his skin and toweled off. He even put on a set of extra clothes he’d retrieved from the back of the plane without talking to her. Maybe she should’ve waited until after they’d left to tell him. Had she just screwed her chances of escaping? Maybe getting rid of the bear for half a year wasn’t worth staying awake. She didn’t know. Vera didn’t know anything about him. She’d assumed hibernation was a terrible experience for bear shifters, but perhaps she’d been wrong.
But when the silence got uncomfortably thick, and she began to think up ways to convince him to take her with him again, he loaded up her things in the plane and buckled her into the passenger’s seat before putting a headset over her ears.
After a rough take-off, when they were past the building storm and into smooth airspace, Tobias finally spoke to her again. “We’ll figure everything out.”
Those four words meant more than he could ever know. He was still in this. And even if it wasn’t a love match and he was only willing to trade his protection for her cure, Tobias still felt important. Now, he wasn’t just some man she’d dreamed up. He was a flesh and blood shifter who had gone protective for her back in the village. He’d called her his mate and went after Harlan. The stranger had taken quills for her.
Sure, Tobias saw their pairing as a means to an end—an impersonal mating that got them both what they wanted, void of emotions.
He was a survivor—that was for sure and for certain.
But Vera was beginning to become highly suspicious that Tobias Silver was also a decent man.
Chapter Four
“This is where you live?” Vera asked, trying and failing to stifle the disappointment in her voice. “In a hotel?” She adjusted the strap of her purple bag and followed him inside room 1010.
Tobias clicked on the light and set her suitcase down. “This and a number of other hotels. Are you disappointed?” His tone was odd and low, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
In that moment, she wanted to lie because her opinion on his “home” seemed to matter to him, but he would hear if she was dishonest. Damn his shifter senses. She looked around and explored the room, stalling. It had a single queen-size bed with a green and navy floral print comforter. There was a nice on-suite bathroom with granite countertops and a sparkling white tub, even a little sink near a mini-fridge in the corner. The smell of cleaner was harsh against her hypersensitive nose. “A little. I guess I imagined a little cabin somewhere off in the woods. Some stability.”
“You had that on Perl Island.”
Vera sat heavily onto the plush mattress. “It wasn’t the same. I wasn’t with—” She clamped her mouth shut and cursed herself silently.
Tobias leaned against the door he’d just closed. “You weren’t with what?”
Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she murmured, “I wasn’t with you. I know that’s weird because I don’t really know you, but for some strange and stupid reason, I feel safe with you, and the whole plane ride here I was excited about seeing your place.”
His striking green eyes held steady on her, his face a stoic mask until at last he said, “I hibernate in a den on Kodiak Island during the winters. I guess that’s home for me. The hotels are just a place to sleep between deliveries.”
“Oh. What does your den look like?”
A small smile curved his lips, and he got a faraway look. “It’s nothing fancy and nothing you would be impressed with. It’s just a deep cave, with evergreen branches where I sleep. It’s the best den, though, and every year I go to battle with the wild bears for it.”