Son of the Cursed Bear (Sons of Beasts #1)
T. S. Joyce
Chapter One
Nox Fuller hated just about everyone, but at the top of that list were the fire breathers.
It was a new hatred, thanks to Damon Daye summoning him like some bellman to his overpriced, cold-as-a-dead-fish cliff mansion and bullying him into being here. Right here—cruising past the Foxburg, Pennsylvania Population 183 sign. The blue dragon was a twat-muffin, and if it weren’t for his threat to kick Nox out of his mountains and/or fucking eat him, he would’ve been back home, relaxing in his trailer, enjoying rare-as-a-unicorn time off right now. But no. Instead of making his way through a six pack with a few steaks sizzling on his grill, he was here in between bounty hunting jobs, tracking down Damon Daye’s son, Vyr.
Fucking. Dragons.
He should just kill Vyr. His bear rumbled a growl up his throat, because even though he was a beast, he was all about survival. If he killed the red dragon, then the Son of Kong would be all mad at Nox for murdering his best friend, and the asshole gorilla shifter would probably kill him before he even Changed into his grizzly. Everyone was scared of Vyr because he was an out-of-control fire breather, a man-eater, and blah blah blah. Everyone was scared of him but Nox.
Nah, Torren was the one to watch. Vyr only shifted into his dragon once every few weeks. Torren Changed all the time like he couldn’t help it. He was a fully mature silverback shifter gone years too long without a family group under him, and he was half off his rocker. He pretended he wasn’t, but Nox was the son of Clinton Fuller. He could spy crazy from a mile away.
Everyone thought Nox was the insane one, but he fucking wasn’t. He just hated everyone and didn’t want to play lets-talk-about-the-weather. Reclusive didn’t equal crazy. Torren and Vyr were the nut jobs.
Nox gripped the steering wheel as he coasted into the parking lot of the Foxburg Inn sitting pretty on the edge of the Allegheny River. Cute town if you were into scenic mountains and that small hometown feel. Everyone probably knew everyone here. The trees were different, the houses, and the smell of this place too, but in a way, it reminded him of home. Damon’s Mountains were a lot like these, which is probably why Vyr had picked the Appalachians.
Too bad he was going to shifter prison for a year.
That’s fuckin’ right. Nox was here to bounty hunt his fire-breathin’ ass, and he was good at his job. His phone dinged with a notification so Nox pulled to a stop to check it. Big Stupid Red Dragon just used his credit card at the local grocery store. Idiot didn’t understand the first thing about being on the lam. Cash only.
Nox moved to turn his old work truck around, but stopped midway through the first rotation of the steering wheel. As a man of deep instincts, the hair rose on the back of his neck. Sure, he had two devils on his shoulders, no angels, but those devils had kept him out of trouble a hundred times. And right now, they were whispering, “the timing is weird.”
It was. Vyr was a big, mindless sky lizard when he was Changed, but as a man? Vyr wasn’t that dumb. This was the second time using a credit card, and it happened right as Nox rolled into town? Hell no. Was he the one being hunted?
Nox narrowed his eyes at the line of shops down the street. He already knew this town. That’s what he did when he went on a hunt. He researched a place to death so there was less risk of being caught off-guard. He needed to ease into this one. Wait a minute and figure out what was going on before he charged the Red Dragon both guns a-blazin’. Or in his case, all claws out.
Nope. He wasn’t going after him right now. Both devils on his shoulders nodded in unison and gave sharp-toothed smiles.
Nox parked in the inn lot, right over the line so no human fart-knuckles got the genius idea to park right next to him, ding his work truck, and bring on the wrath of Nox’s bear. He lived alone deep in Damon’s Mountains for a reason. As he looked up at the inn, he sighed in irritation at the thought of being crammed in there with other people. His mood was about to take a turn for the worse, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it but blame the beast in his middle. He was a loner bear, rogue maybe, hell if he knew. All Nox knew was people—humans and shifters alike—made him want to rampage.
New plan. He was going to check into the inn, then wait until he knew the Red Dragon would be far away from the store, and then he was going to do some recon. Maybe tomorrow, if his instincts settled down, he would bring in the Red Dragon. This was dangerous because Vyr wasn’t careful. He was unpredictable, and with Torren as his bodyguard? Nox could have his throat ripped out and his carcass burned within seconds. They hated him, and the feeling was pretty fuckin’ mutual. Damon Daye wanted his son brought in as quietly as possible, so it meant Nox had no back-up and he had to be even more careful than usual.
Maybe tomorrow he would be the missile that blew Vyr’s fucking world out of the water.
Tonight? The devils on his shoulders were too loud. They wanted to survive Vyr’s fire.
Tonight he hunted on the outskirts of the Red Dragon’s new territory, and quietly.
Chapter Two
Nevada Foxburg exhaled a long, shaky breath and tried to gather the courage to push open the door of her silver Maxima. Just do it. There’s not that many people here.
This was the talk she had with herself every time she went grocery shopping.
Social anxiety was a B-word to deal with on a good day, but this week it had been particularly draining.
She tried again, but yanked her hand away from the door handle and then, in frustration with herself, she slammed her head back against the seat rest. Freaking do it!
It wasn’t even the thought of going into the store and picking out food in the nighttime hours when most women wouldn’t have dreamed of shopping alone. It was the number of cars in the parking lot. There were five. Two of them belonged to the cashier, Jimmy, and the manager of the small grocery store, Esmerelda, but that left three other cars that had to be customers. It was eleven o’clock on a Tuesday, and it wasn’t usually this busy. She’d systematically come at different times to figure out when was the least busy, but this Tuesday had bucked the trend. She needed peanut butter and bananas and cheese crackers and toothpaste and bread and a gallon of vanilla ice cream to deal with this week’s tomfoolery. Yet here she sat, tracking the progress of two guys in workout clothes chattering happily as they walked across the parking lot and into the store.
Why couldn’t she be like them? Stores and crowds obviously bothered them zero percent.