Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,135

on the forest floor and Cody wasn’t sure they’d ascended to some other plane of existence.

My mate, he’d thought, as he looked up into her eyes.

He hated to go home alone again that night. He wanted her in his bed through the night.

Someday, he told himself. They just had to figure out how exactly. His plan was to eventually tell his brothers, once he could convince Jessie it was safe, and enlist Connor’s help. But he worried about it. He wasn’t sure where Connor would come down on Jessie having up and kidnapped a bunch of cubs from their sleuth, even if they were being abused. That night he’d tossed and turned in bed worrying about it.

The next day, the sleuth arrived.

Cody was the last to know. He was hidden away in the kitchen, at work on a complicated Beef Bourguignon, with a twist that he would not divulge. He was still worried, in general. But his good mood could not be crushed by what so far seemed like small anxieties. The kitchen staff was baffled by the way he practically danced around the kitchen, humming to himself, complimenting everyone on their good work.

Even when the sleuth arrived, he didn’t know what it was about. They did not announce their intentions.

It was Eric who blew into the kitchen, looking alarmed. Eric was usually the cool-headed brother among them. He was the concierge after all. It was his job to keep people happy and calm.

He didn’t look happy and calm now.

“Cody!” Eric said. He was breathless, as if he’d run straight to the kitchen at top speed. “Something’s up. Come with me.”

Cody frowned and took off the apron he often had tied around his waist in the kitchen, hanging it on a hook.

The moment he hit the lobby, he had a terrible feeling. It was dread and it felt like something icy under his skin that slithered up his arms and wrapped around his neck.

There was a crowd of bear shifters in the lobby. About a dozen of them were around his age or a little older. They smelled like rough woods bears. Or anyway that’s what Cody had heard them called before in this part of the country. Rough woods bears were less assimilated into human life. They lived in the woods most of the time and their sleuths were known to be brutally run. Cody wasn’t sure how he knew. It was the way their scents had a dark, musky smell that was a little less human than his own. Not that it was bad to live in the woods all the time. It seemed like a simpler life to him. But he wondered if this was the brutal kind he’d heard about before.

There were a few other bear shifters too and Cody immediately pegged them as elders. Elder bear shifters were part of the old guard of shifter society. They stepped into settle disagreements between sleuths if the disagreement was important enough. They were usually aged Alphas. Cody’s grandfather had served as an elder when they were kids before he’d passed. But they weren’t around too much anymore. Bear shifter society wasn’t as institutional as it used to be with so many bears assimilated into human life. But it made sense, Cody supposed, that rough woods bears would have elders with them if there was a problem. Cody supposed that was better than them settling a problem through violence which was what he would have expected.

“What’s going on?” Cody said. The sleuth looked him up and down as he passed them, smiling tightly. Nothing about them gave Cody a good feeling, even if they were just guests. He had to think that whatever was up had something to do with the newcomers.

“Just come with me to Connor’s office,” Eric mumbled.

Cody followed him behind the front desk and down a short hallway where Eric knocked on Connor’s door. That alone was fairly unusual. Connor usually left his office door open and if it was closed, none of his brothers ever bothered to knock.

Connor was sitting behind his desk with a stress ball in one hand that he was rolling around between his massive fingers. Nathan sat backward in an antique chair, looking a lot more dour than usual.

“Connor... ” Cody looked between his three brothers. Everyone seemed on edge. “What the hell is going on?”

“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine,” Connor said. He looked just as put together as usual, his dark hair slicked back, his full