Bearly Accidental (Accidentally Paranormal Book 12) Read online

  He raced to her side, hunching down next to her, his eyes full of concern, keeping them on her face like any good gentleman would, running his hands over her cheeks. “Teddy, what the ever-lovin’ hell?”

  A cough rose up in her throat as the frigid air hit her exposed skin, making her hack and sneeze. Cormac pulled off his vest, wrapping it around her and pulling her close.

  And she let him, naked as a blue jay, somehow comforted by this almost-stranger gathering her in his arms. She didn’t understand it, he certainly wasn’t Mr. Friendly, but he calmed the storm of anger at her missed opportunity to kill that son of a bitch.

  Marty, Wanda, and finally a raggedly breathing Nina were there, too, fussing over her, throwing one of their bathrobes on her and helping Cormac get her up to her frozen feet and back into the house.

  She grunted at the searing pain in her ribs, squeezing her middle like a vise, but she managed to hobble into the kitchen, where Nina took her from Wanda and Marty. Wrapping her arm around Teddy’s waist, she brought her to a window seat, where a pile of plush cushions in cheerful red and navy blue were stacked.

  “Sit. Stay. I’ll make something to warm your Braveheart ass up.”

  Cormac was at her side before she could protest, gripping her frozen hands, warming them between his bigger ones. “Are you hurt? What happened? I heard some glass shatter and the next thing I know, you’re hell on wheels across the lawn in bear shift.”

  Attempting a deep breath, Teddy shivered from her head to her toes. “Somebody took a shot at me. If you go upstairs to the bathroom, you’ll find a bullet on the floor and a broken window over the bathtub, among other things.”

  “The motherfucker!” Nina griped, slamming a pot on her chef-sized stove. “He broke the window? Jesus, those windows with the fancy arch in them cost a damn fortune. I had that room specially decorated for my sister Penny because she loves fairy princesses. I’ll kill the fuck!”

  Marty, her hair a wild nest of curls, her silky lavender pajamas clinging to her, rolled her eyes. “Settle down over there, Threat-Maker. You’re not killing anyone. I’ll have Keegen send someone to fix it tomorrow. Penny will never know it happened.” Then her blue eyes turned to Teddy as she brushed a strand of hair from her face with motherly fingers. “Are you okay, honey? Did he hit you? Let me look.”

  Wanda rolled up the sleeves of her long, flowing nightgown in sky blue and huffed a breath, her face wreathed in a sympathetic smile. “Oh, Teddy, you were magnificent! You climbed that tree like some kind of otherwordly creature. I’ve never seen something so big move so fast.”

  Teddy chuckled then grimaced at the pressure it put on her rib. “I’ve been doing it a long time. And I’m okay. I’ll heal,” she said for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. “How did he get in here anyway? I thought this place was locked up tight with all this high-tech security?”

  “An apparent malfunction with the security gates. He got lucky because the gate is electric. Had it been working, he’d have fried to a crisp. But it’ll be fixed in no time,” Wanda assured.

  Nina, in footy pajamas with red and white stripes, set a steaming cup down in front of her on the small table by the window seat and held up the gun she’d found by the tree. “You’re one determined broad, huh? You were across that lawn lickety-split. You get a look at him? Was it that Andre dude again? How the fuck could he have gotten here so quick?”

  Oh, she’d gotten a look at him, just before he’d knocked her fifty feet to the ground. But she couldn’t tell them that. “I’m not sure, but I am sure it wasn’t Andre. I don’t get it.”

  Cormac ran a hand over his jaw, his beard rustling under his fingers. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on at this point. Maybe they thought I was in the room?”

  Teddy shook her head, allowing Archibald, who’d rushed into the kitchen on silent feet, to press a heating pad against her ribs. “No. He had binoculars. That was meant for me. He must have been looking into Penny’s window and found me. I feel it in my gut.”

  She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he’d meant to kill her. How she’d explain that would have to wait until she investigated further. She’d only cause more grief and confusion without the facts.

  Nina whistled as she settled in a chair at the round table, tucking her feet under her. “Okay, so now we have two fucks hunting you two? Shit just got real. What are we gonna do about it?”

  “I agree with Nina. I know that’s rare, but what do we do about it?” Marty asked, gripping a mug of her own.

  “We get a good night’s sleep and then we figure out who the players in this game are and hatch a plan,” Wanda responded without hesitation.

  As their voices became distant background noise, as Cormac held her hands and chatted with them, Teddy knew what she had to do.

  She had to figure out why the guy who had hired her was trying to kill her.

  Chapter 7

  She woke in the basement with a sick feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach for what this morning brought.

  Today, she had to confess to the girls and Cormac about why she’d really darted him back in Colorado. No way he was going to believe her life mate claim after that. He’d think she made it up to save her own hide, but while that was partially true, it wasn’t a total lie.

  He was her life mate. He was meant to be hers, and now, even though he’d hate her guts once she confessed, she was going to make sure no one hurt him. Whether he liked it or not.

  Rolling to her side, she hugged the pillow and moaned into it to keep from waking Cormac, who slept soundly on a twin bed not far from hers.

  Nina had put them down here in the playroom her daughter Charlie and her cousins played in because there were no windows where people could turn her into a cadaver. It was a room built virtually underground, full of all sorts of toys and Barbie motorized cars—and unicorns. So many stuffed unicorns.

  Sitting up, she pushed the warm blanket from her body and reached for the bathrobe Nina had loaned her, snuggling into it as she watched Cormac’s wide chest rise and fall.

  His arm was thrown over his forehead, his rippled-with-muscle chest exposed, the delicious trail of hair from his belly button snaking down under the sheet, dark and crisp-looking. Teddy wanted to run her fingers through it, burrow against his side, wrap her leg around his and nestle. He was a thing of beauty—every last inch of his hard body made hers tighten in curiosity, made her fingers itch to explore.

  She had to take a deep breath when she simply looked at him. He was so beautifully rough; she had to force herself to continue taking air into her lungs.

  “Are you watching me sleep?” he grumbled, deep and sleepy.

  She jumped, her cheeks going red, her eyes shooting to the floor. “That’s creepy. Why would I do that?”

  He laughed that rumble of a laugh that made goose bumps appear on her arms. “This from the woman who darted me and hauled me over her shoulder like some cavewoman with a side of beef? You have some questionable moments, lady.”

  Teddy giggled and stretched. “How’d you sleep?”

  “You mean when I wasn’t worried to death about you?”

  Her heart skipped a beat then settled in her chest. “You don’t need to worry about me. Clearly, I can take care of myself.”

  “Yeah. Your broken rib and torn-up gut say so.”

  “I was trying to keep you from being shot, thank you very much.”

  “No,” he murmured in a softer tone. “Thank you very much. You did save me from being shot. I’ve been a bit of an asshole about it ever since, haven’t I?”

  Teddy snorted, trying to smooth her bed-head into place without appearing obvious. “A bit? Define your means of measurement.”

  “Okay, a lot of an asshole. I apologize.”

  “How magnanimous,” she replied, but she smiled when she said as much.

  “How’s the rib this morning?”

  Her hand went self-consciously to just under her breast, where she pressed wit
h two fingers. “Fine. Like it never happened.”

  “This healing thing is pretty amazing, huh?”

  Teddy cocked her head. “You say that like you’ve just discovered it. You should have always been able to self-heal. From birth, in fact.”

  “Welp, I wasn’t born this way. So seeing it happen and having confirmation I’m not crazy is all new to me.”

  “Come again?”

  “I said I wasn’t born this way—the way I assume you were. I was bitten.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth to cover her gasp. “What? Someone bit you? That’s against our code!”

  “There’s a code?”

  “Yes! A very strict one. If you break it, you’re subject to some serious shit. We don’t go around biting people just to bite them. It’s 2016, for hell’s sake.”

  “So you used to bite people to just bite them?”

  “No. I mean, sure, we had rogues who did whatever the hell they wanted, but there weren’t any penalties until the late seventies. Now if you bite someone and turn them, unless it’s in self-defense, you end up in the pokey. We have rules, just like humans.”

  Cormac cleared his throat and propped himself up on the pillows, his thick chestnut hair against the white sheets falling to his jaw line in a sexy tousle. “Good to know. I don’t need to end up in bear jail. I have enough trouble as it is.”

  Her head reeled so hard from this revelation, she was almost dizzy. Who would do such a thing? “Who bit you?”

  “Andre.”

  Now her eyes almost fell out of her head as she hopped up and paced to his bed to look him in the eyes. How had she not smelled Andre was a bear? Had she been too pumped up on adrenaline? Too focused on saving Cormac that she’d missed a crucial clue?

  He patted the bed and she didn’t think twice about plunking down next to him, still in disbelief. “What? Andre bit you? How? When?”

  Cormac’s let out a puff of air from his luscious lips. “If he is indeed the same guy who you saw on my computer screen, then it was Andre. This is part of that long story I mentioned. The short of it is, we were in an accident together. A car accident. I was trying to get away from Andre in the rubble of the wrecked car and he bit my calf. I still have the scar, which, incidentally, didn’t go away once I’d healed. How does that work with this self-healing method anyway?”

  She almost didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know anyone who’d been turned into a bear—not ever. Everyone she knew, all her family, her friends, were all born bear shifters. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you weren’t born this way? Because you were, in essence, manufactured?”

  “I feel like a Lady GaGa song.”

  Teddy couldn’t help but laugh but then she sobered. “So how did you get into a car accident with Andre and why was he trying to keep you from getting away?”

  “Andre and his Russian mob-leader wannabe, Stas, kidnapped me when they found out my sister Toni shared some sensitive information about them with me.”

  On a wince, Teddy asked, “Sensitive how?”

  “Murder.”

  “They murdered someone?” Things were becoming clearer by the second.

  “My sister saw it. She managed to get away and she came straight to me. Unfortunately, they caught up with her at my house. Next thing I remember, they have me in some cellar in some house, threatening to hack off my finger if I don’t tell them where Toni is. Somehow, she managed to escape them.”

  His voice held pride at this revelation, pride and love.

  Teddy’s eyes went to his missing ring finger, and her fingers moved of their own volition, grabbing his hand. “That’s what happened to your finger. They cut it off…” She swallowed hard, her stomach rolling at what he and Toni must have endured. How horrific.

  But at least she knew her gut had been right about Cormac. Thank God she still had an instinct working properly.

  Cormac nodded his sleep-mussed head. “They used it as bait to prove to her they had me. They mailed it to her. Then they made a phone call, which is still sort of vague for me, because I was in and out of consciousness. But I assumed it was a call made to Toni, demanding a meet. I get the impression they told her they’d let me live if she’d meet with them. It’s still a blur. I hadn’t eaten in days. Hardly slept. I think by that point, I was delusional. I only know I got it in my head that it was her on the other end of that line and no way was I going to let them near her.”

  “Oh, Cormac…” she whispered, reaching out to cup his bearded jaw, the crisp hair tickling her palm. “How horrible. I don’t know what to say.”

  His fingers curled around hers and he squeezed, brushing them to his lips. “I knew damn well they weren’t going to let me go, but I was sick with worry she’d actually meet with them. I spent that whole damn ride racking my brain for a way to escape. But fate stepped in. We were, I think, on our way to meet her when we were T-boned. Somehow—and I have no idea how, other than the sheer will to survive—I managed to escape.”

  “And you’ve been hiding from them ever since,” she offered in a somber whisper.

  “Trying to figure out where my sister went—or if she was even alive—and who they’d murdered that night. I needed some kind of proof to go to the authorities with. I watched the news for days after the murder. It happened at a pretty high-profile car dealership. That was where Toni worked. But there was nothing. Not a single word. No body means no murder.”

  “So Toni didn’t know the dead guy?”

  “No. Not according to her. I’ll never forget her face when she showed up at my door that night, white as a ghost, shaking so hard I didn’t know if I’d ever calm her down, and verging on hysteria. She’d found out Stas, her boyfriend at the time, was cooking the books at the dealership. She’d called her supervisor, Andre—”

  “Andre was her supervisor?” Oh, Jesus.

  “Yep. Anyway, she called him with the proof, and he asked her to meet him to straighten things out. When she showed up for that meeting, Stas and Andre were standing around, laughing about the poor soul they’d just murdered. And that’s all I know.”

  A shiver of fear rolled over her spine. “Where is Toni now?”

  He grinned, warm and fond, making him a million times more appealing than he was before, if that was even possible. “She’s okay. That’s where Nina, Marty, and Wanda come in. They met Toni at a discount designer mall in Jersey where she was working. It gets crazier from there—I’m not sure you’re up for it.”

  “Crazier than you being bitten by a Russian mob guy and turned into a bear? Please. Go on and try me,” she teased.

  He looked hesitant until she nudged his hip with her knee. “Toni fell through a wormhole at the designer outlet store she was working in and where the three women and Carl were shopping for Christmas. They fell into another realm called Shamalot, where she met the love of her life and plans to marry. One Prince Iver of Castle Beckett, I believe.”

  Teddy rolled her tongue against the inside of her cheek and blinked. “Okay, you’re definitely testing the parameters of crazy. How do you know this for sure? I don’t want to doubt the Bickersons, but you have to see how outrageous this sounds, don’t you?”

  Cormac’s laughter echoed around the basement. “I do see how outrageous it sounds, but Wanda had a message from my sister—one that could have only come from her or my best friend Damon. Oh, and a tattoo parlor in Atlantic City.”

  “Care to divulge this information?”

  “Uh, nope,” he said on a delicious grin.

  “Okay, fine. So you trust they’re telling you the truth?”

  “I do. Can’t say why, other than it’s not like I don’t understand an outrageous story. How many people would believe me if I told them I was turned into a bear by an angry Russian mobster? Besides, what do they have to benefit in pretending to help me?”

  “Maybe lead you right to the Russian mob dude who wants to kill you?”

  “Because?”

  Suddenly, she was getting a muc
h clearer picture of the attempt on her life last night. “Okay, for the sake of our predicament, let’s say what they’re telling you is true. What can they do to fix this problem?”

  “I don’t know, but according to them, they’re pretty proficient at this kind of thing. Did they tell you about OOPS?”

  Teddy’s head bounced up and down. “The support for paranormals in crisis? Yes. I heard all about it from Nina. Apparently, she was once the bruiser of this bunch.”

  As they’d all settled into the castle last night, Nina had shown her the OOPS website and told her all about how each of them were turned. She’d only listened with half an ear, too caught up in her own fears to totally focus, but she vividly remembered something about genies and cougars and dragons. Oh yes. She remembered the bit about the dragons.

  “She gave up her vampirism for Toni. She saved her life from an evil queen.”

  Teddy snorted a laugh, unable to keep it from shooting from her mouth.

  Cormac laughed, too. “I know. I know, but what choice do I have but to believe?”

  “Right. Okay, now you’ve gone too far, buddy. An evil queen? Seriously?”

  “Um, yeah. Seriously,” Nina said, suddenly standing before them, crumbs at the corner of her mouth from the cinnamon Pop Tart she held, Lenny tucked securely under her arm. “You got some kinda problem with that?”

  God. She was like a cat.

  Cormac and Teddy passed each other guilty glances. “You have to admit, it’s pretty outlandish,” she said with a sheepish glance up at the tight-faced ex-vampire.

  Nina stuffed a hand inside her black hoodie, shoving the Pop Tart in her pocket, and leered down at Teddy. “I don’t gotta admit shit. You don’t have to believe a fucking word that comes out of my mouth. I don’t give a guinea pig’s fart. What you best believe is this: people want you two dead. I get why they want Cormac dead, but I don’t get why they want you dead, Teddy Bear. But I’m gonna find out. Now, quit loafin’ around down here like you’re on fucking vacay at Chez Statleon, waitin’ on the breakfast bell while your towels warm in the dryer and someone steams your sheets. Get dressed and get your asses upstairs so we can figure it out. We have shit to do.”