Mark didn’t even speak. He just pulled open the door of his truck and waited while Pam and her sons climbed inside. Meanwhile, Tonya stepped up beside Carl, her expression flat.
Becca did a double take. When the hell had she gotten here?
“Alan got it on video,” Tonya said. “And I was here for the last of it. There won’t be any problem from the police. It’ll be reported as a bear attack. I’ll get animal control to deal with the body.”
Carl nodded. “Thanks.”
Tonya kept talking, her voice all business. “Let me handle this and then we’ve got to talk. We’ve gotten some of the forensics back from yesterday.”
Becca saw Carl’s shoulders tighten, then slowly ease back down. “Good. That’s good.”
“So why don’t you go clean up? Maybe put some pants on, and I’ll be inside in a minute.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Carl answered in an almost humorous tone. “Well, it is getting a bit chilly.”
Tonya smirked as she glanced significantly at his crotch. “Couldn’t tell by me.”
It was that smirk that woke Becca up out of her trance. How dare the bitch make comments like that now? Becca might be new to this shifter clan stuff, but she knew hierarchy. Comments like that were inappropriate from a woman to her boss. It had to be ten times worse in a pack structure, no matter how complimentary the comment.
So Becca stomped forward, holding Carl’s coffee in one hand and picking up the discarded stripper pants with the other. “I’m sure he finds your tits appealing, too, Officer, but let’s try to keep things professional, shall we?” Then she offered Carl both items and waited while he decided what he wanted to do.
Well, that’s what she intended to do. She held to the plan long enough to see Tonya’s dark flush of embarrassment, but then she turned to face Carl and that’s when things went all to hell.
She got an up-close-and-personal look at his face.
His mouth and jaw were dark with drying blood. Plus, the coppery scent was thicker here right over the body. And now that she saw the front of Carl’s torso, she got too close to all that gore.
Holy shit.
She was going to be sick.
CHAPTER 15
Disgust. Horror. Nausea.
Carl saw all that and more fight for dominance on Becca’s face. Her eyes widened, her mouth grew slack, and he knew the moment she fought the urge to vomit.
He hadn’t been self-conscious about his physical state until that moment. Bear shifters were fairly casual about nudity, but Becca’s reaction filled him with shame. All of the judgmental thoughts he kept locked down rushed forward, swamping his consciousness. He was a violent predator, unfit for civilization. He disgusted normal people, and they were right to shun him. He’d lost control again, and now he was exposed as a monster.
His jaw grew tight and his grizzly growled. He hadn’t intended to make a sound. Hell, he’d thought he’d completely locked himself down. But apparently he’d made a noise. It must have been bestial because Becca’s eyes shot back up to his. She was pale, and he saw her swallow convulsively.
On instinct, he reached out to steady her, but she flinched back.
Well, that answered that. Up until that moment, he hadn’t realized how deeply she was embedded in his life. He hadn’t consciously decided to propose to her. He hadn’t faced the Gladwin shifters and declared her his mate. But he’d been thinking about it.
She’d flinched back from him. Which meant that she’d seen him for who he really was and was revolted.
He struggled for something to say, anything that would ease the moment or reassure Becca that he wasn’t a monster. But he was a monster and his grizzly wasn’t going to let him apologize for it. Neither was the alpha in him. Which left the man standing there, mute and embarrassed.
He let his hand drop away from her elbow, then awkwardly reached for his pants. But he couldn’t put the damned things on over all the blood. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to strut his bloodied self inside. So he turned to Tonya, who was watching the entire byplay with banked intensity. At least she understood the monster inside him.
“Mind holding the hose?” he asked as casually as he could.
Her brows arched in surprise. “It’ll be cold.”
“Whatever,” he answered. He wondered if he’d even feel it. He felt totally numb inside.
“Sure,” she said as her phone buzzed and she quickly answered it.
