Fated Attraction_Shifter Nation_Werebears Of The Everglades Read online

  When I pushed open the door, I laughed. The candles formed another circle. This one had Ezra in the middle, down on one knee.

  I crossed my arms. “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged. “I just thought the candles and rose petals would be a nice touch.”

  I let out a sigh. “Well, let’s hear it then.” But I was laughing. This was cute.

  “Britt,” he started, taking something from his pocket. “You’ve been a pain in my ass since the day I met you, when you tackled me and almost attacked me.”

  I shook my head, remembering our meeting, and laughing.

  “Since that day, we’ve gotten on each other’s nerves, we’ve driven each other crazy, we’ve killed together, almost died together, and made some good sweet loving. And all that was before we even really started dating. Someone—fate, maybe—brought us together to form this wacky balance of love that we have going on. But at the end of the day, there’s no one I’d rather be annoyed by than you. Your insults are like the sweetest compliments.”

  I snorted. “Oh, Lord, this is getting thick.”

  He laughed, too. “You’ve made me see life completely differently, and I think I’ve done the same for you. There is no one—not even close to anyone—on this earth that I would rather annoy the piss out of for the rest of my days than you.”

  I put my hand to my forehead. “Is this supposed to be a proposal?”

  He smiled, but turned serious. “A year ago, I almost lost you, and it felt like the world would never be right again. I don’t want to go one day without your laugh or smile or quick wit. Be my hunting partner and mate forever. Britt, will you marry me?”

  He held up a ring. But it didn’t look like the typical diamond ring. I squinted and moved closer to look at it.

  “Now, before you go having your fit, this is not a diamond. I didn’t think you’d want that.”

  I gasped. “Is that—”

  “I talked to Kat and Dezi and Kat’s gramma and they assured me—”

  “You didn’t!”

  “—that this was the only ring you’d want.”

  “Ezra!”

  He stood and slipped it on my finger.

  “Is that my gramma’s jade?”

  “Yep. And the band is made from your ma’s necklace, melted down.”

  I squealed and wrapped my arms around him. I’d never been into typical jewelry, it was true. If he’d given me a gold band with a diamond, I’d wear it, but I’d try to get out of wearing it whenever I could. I just didn’t like that sort of thing. But this ring? I couldn’t have designed one more perfect.

  “I think I’d have to say yes just because of the ring.”

  “Really?” He sagged with relief. “I was worried you might be pissed that I ruined two pieces of jewelry that were both super important to you.”

  “I can see why you’d think that. And if you’d screwed it up, I would be. But it’s perfect.” I pulled back to look in his eyes. “I had no idea I could love someone like I love you. You were totally unexpected and not at all who I ever would have pictured spending my life with, if I had pictured that at all. But somehow, we’re perfect together.”

  “We are, aren’t we?”

  “We are.” I kissed him hard. “Now come help me skin this croc.”

  He laughed. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” I took his hand and we blew out the candles as we went, starting out on the path to our forever.

  THE END

  Steamy Shifter Romance Extras From Meg

  Part I

  Ranger Drew

  Werebears Of Acadia

  Ranger Drew

  Fighting fires was my duty at Acadia, but the day I met Kathleen, nothing could have prepared me for the fiery passion that would ignite between us.

  She came here to explore the beauty of our national park, and from the first time my eyes met her emerald green gaze, my inner bear knew I had to claim her as my mate.

  But the more I tried to get to know her, it seemed the less I knew. As it turned out, she’d been spying on my clan and delivered us an ultimatum: we could either surrender ourselves to the government as test subjects, or be destroyed along with the park we called home.

  She swore she was being blackmailed and promised to help us defend Acadia. But would her betrayal of my trust extinguish the flames between us once and for all, leaving nothing but the ashes of what could have been?

  1

  Kathleen

  The National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases, or the NCPD-CID, probably thought that I would be thrilled with the accommodations they’d be providing me with while traveling to Bar Harbor, Maine just because I was a poor little bottom feeder in their eyes. I was sure they figured I would be grateful for an economy class plane ticket, a shoddy room in a two-star hotel, and a car deemed the worst model to have ever come out in 2008.

  And they were right.

  I actually hadn’t been on a plane since I was thirteen, when I came to the United States from Ireland. I didn’t remember too much about that plane ride; surely, I had slept through most of it. I couldn’t say I’d been excited to fly all those years ago, but that day, I was over the moon. Flying sure beat hitch hiking or backpacking, which is how I had become accustomed to getting around.

  I always made it a habit to travel light because I was always on the move. But America was such a vast, overwhelming country for me; before that day, I’d never traveled outside the state. West Virginia technically had everything I needed anyway, but it sure as hell wasn’t a vacation land in any way, shape or form.

  The semi-comfortable seats in coach were welcomed, as were the movies and music. It was only about a five-hour flight from Atlanta, Georgia, where the NCPD-CID’s main office was located, to Bar Harbor, Maine—just enough time for me to watch Hancock and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan—so I pulled out my earbuds and plugged them into my seat’s audio jack. I didn’t get to the movies much, but I had no issues pirating or streaming movies when I had some down time—which was hardly ever.

  I didn’t have proper luggage, but my backpack was roomy enough to carry my laptop and seven outfits. Lucky for me, it was July, the warmest month of the year for Bar Harbor, and I had packed mostly tank tops and shorts. The temperatures were supposed to be between sixty and eighty degrees, so I had brought one light sweater to throw over my tank tops when the temperature was on the lower side. I only brought the old, beat up navy blue sneakers that I wore on the plane ride, and a slightly nicer black pair for when I’d have to infiltrate Acadia National Park. I was told to bring at least one nice outfit, but the best piece of clothing I could find in my wardrobe was the black ruffled shirt that I usually saved for dates—which were extremely few and far between. Pair that with shorts and my black semi-decent sneakers and I had a not-so-professional outfit, but it was the best I could come up with on such short notice. I wasn’t exactly sure why I needed an outfit like that in the first place, but I’m sure if I had shown them what I had, it wouldn’t have been up to par.

  Okay, who was I kidding. Those were the only clothes I owned.

  If all else failed and I needed something better, I hoped that Bar Harbor would have a cheap boutique where I could grab something. The guy who hired me had mentioned they’d be providing me with funds for my meals, but that he’d have to authorize payment for other things, like gas for the car; if they wanted me to have a professional outfit, I would think they wouldn’t mind footing the bill for one.

  The guy from the NCPD-CID who had hired me, Eric Hanson, told me that when I got off the plane, there would be someone waiting for me, holding a sign with my name on it, and that person would be handing a car off to me. I had kept my composure well when he’d told me this at first, but inwardly, I had been flipping out.

  My very own car? I barely had my license, even though I was in my early twenties at the time.

  I didn’t want him to think I was excited about the trip, the
car, or anything else, for that matter. Hanson had found me after one of his technicians intercepted a hacking I was conducting on their file inventory.

  A client from a hacking site I received work through was going to pay me to search through the NCPD-CID’s private records for anything of interest. Any experienced hacker probably wouldn’t have taken the job. Hacking into government files was difficult alone; private files were a whole different level of hell. The person who requested this job probably knew that someone like me would be checking out the wanted section, though; someone willing to do anything for any amount of money. Getting a thousand dollars would have been like winning the lottery, and would have helped me get by for a long time. But, hacking was a competitive job market—and also illegal. So, between dodging the feds and doing my damndest to score the most attractive jobs, it was hard to keep a decent amount of funds in the bank to cover food and day-to-day expenses.

  I had been so eager to get paid, however, that I failed to take extra precautions for security purposes. When shutting down a hack, I could usually clear my computer and the interceptor wouldn’t have enough time to get information on me to act. But that day, just enough time had passed for the individual to be able to track my IP address.

  At the time, I’d been using the Couchsurfing app, where you could plan to stay with someone for up to three days, completely free of charge. When I found out about the app after I turned eighteen, it changed my entire life. I had done the research: with 29,643 hosts in West Virginia, where I lived, there were enough places for me to stay over the span of 247 years. My plan was to stop couch surfing in a few years, though; I hoped I would be able to save enough money to get my own apartment by then.

  To participate, I had to bring a small gift, or treat my host to dinner whenever I changed places. Dining out with others could get pretty expensive, and I never had that kind of money to spare, so I usually just picked up the nicest trinket I could find at the dollar store closest to the host’s place. Apparently, other couch surfers didn’t do that as often because my hosts were always thrilled to receive a gift and gave me great reviews because of it; thank god, because I needed reviews like those to keep me going. Too many poor reviews would mean hosts wouldn’t welcome me into their homes, and my master plan would fall through completely.

  Anyway, I was surprised the NCPD-CID found me because my entire Couchsurfing profile was fake: fake name, fake address, everything. The only real thing was my picture and I had made sure other people were in it; it was blurry, and you couldn’t get a good look at my face. Most people thought it was something artsy I was trying to do, but whatever made me inconspicuous was fine with me.

  So, how were they able to nab me?

  Apparently, when they mapped out my IP address, they used surveillance to watch me flee my host’s place, taking a snapshot of my face and cross referencing it. They found my foster care info and learned who I was, then they hacked my Couchsurfing profile to find out where I was going to stay next. All of this happened within the span of ten minutes, because in the fifteen minutes it took me to get to the new host’s house, the police were there waiting for me.

  And all I could think was how much this was going to hurt my Couchsurfing reviews.

  I thought I was going to be hauled off to jail for sure, no questions asked. They had too much proof against me, and even I knew it wasn’t smart to fight them. However, instead of being sent to prison, I was handcuffed and taken in a van to Atlanta, Georgia, to the office of the NCPD-CID. It had been a long nine-hour trip in the van with no food or drink, and I wondered if it was legal to do that. I was basically a prisoner, but even prisoners had rights.

  Upon arriving at the office and being locked in a room with Hanson, I was uncuffed and offered a tuna melt sandwich and a bottle of water. I ignored it for a bit, but my growling stomach gave me away and I ate it in silence.

  “Good, now that you are fed, we can get right down to it. My name is Eric Hanson; I’m the head of this department. Your name is Kathleen Boland and you tried to hack into our system, but we caught you. What were you trying to get?”

  “I was hired to do it.”

  “By whom?”

  “I have no idea. The site I was contracted through is anonymous; I don’t know the person who requested the job. The clients pay the site, who holds the funds in escrow until the individuals they hire complete their jobs. If your IT guys could track me down that quickly, they should have the person who requested the job in no time.” I shrugged, taking another bite of the sandwich. It was pretty delicious, actually; the tuna was flavorful and not smothered in mayonnaise, like I hated.

  “We will need the username of the person as well as the website you use, then.” Hanson had remained standing since I arrived, and it made me uncomfortable.

  “Why? So, you guys can shut it down? People have to make a living somehow.”

  “It’s illegal!” He slammed his fist on the table. I stared blankly at him.

  Okay…try to go through this smartly, Kathleen. If you cooperate, it could make things easier for you.

  “I will reveal it if it will get time off my sentence,” I said firmly. Hanson stared at me for a moment and then chuckled, finally sitting down.

  “You’re not going to jail.”

  “Wait, what?” I looked around, confused by the sight of the two police officers standing just outside the room. They hadn’t looked at me, though. They stood at attention and kept their eyes straight ahead.

  “You are going to work for me now. As an informant.”

  “You’re hiring me after I tried to hack you? I didn’t know the government was in the habit of hiring criminals to do their bidding,” I snickered. There was no way he was for real.

  “The difference is, I’m not necessarily going to pay you to do it. You will do it, or you will go to jail. It is your choice.” Hanson narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his chair.

  “Pfft. I’d rather go to jail. I’d probably be detained for what? Six months? Who knows how long you will want me to work for free.” I folded my arms over my chest.

  “Actually, I could get you for first degree computer crime. When you hack into equipment costing over ten thousand dollars, which our computer systems are most definitely worth, you warrant yourself twenty years in prison and a fine of fifteen thousand dollars.” Hanson smiled deviously.

  Shit.

  “Listen, Kathy—”

  “Don’t call me Kathy.” I glared at him. He knew I wasn’t ready to do twenty years in jail. And then to pay a fifteen thousand dollar fine when I got out? There was no way I could afford that. “How long would I have to work for you?”

  “It depends on how you do on this project. If you do well, I’ll keep you on.”

  “And if I don’t, you haul my ass to jail?”

  “Not exactly…”

  “What do you mean?” I didn’t like his tone. It sounded like I didn’t actually have a choice after all.

  “If you take this job and anything goes wrong, as in, if you decide to not finish your duties, or if someone finds out about it, or anything like that, then you will be terminated.” Hanson’s eyes did not leave mine and they were blank.

  “Terminated? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “I will have to get rid of you. Your parents are already dead, and you have no close relatives, so that makes things fairly simple. You don’t seem to have any friends or anyone who might notice your disappearance, either. So, I would wipe your existence from the face of the Earth. Kathleen Boland would have never existed. I will frame it to look like you died in that gas explosion with your parents back in Ireland.”

  What the fuck?

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Yes, I can. And I will. But you won’t have to worry about that if you don’t fail.” Hanson folded his hands over his stomach, with a smug look on his face.

  I had been right: this wasn’t much of a choice. Either I go to jail for a quarter of my lifespan and then spe
nd at least two years doing hacking jobs to pay for a job gone wrong, and that’s if I didn’t get caught again. There was no way I could get a job doing anything else; I was on the move way too much. And, at that point, would anyone even let me into his or her home? I could only imagine the review Ms. Lorraine left on my profile.

  So, do I take the job, or go to jail? I can’t do twenty years in prison; there’s just no way. Maybe I could get out early on good behavior or something? But isn’t that only when most of your sentence has been served? I don’t think I could last that long, either.

  “Before I decide, what’s the job?”

  “I can’t tell you. It’s top secret government information that will only be revealed to you once you accept the position.”

  “Well, are there any perks? You’re not exactly selling me on this here.”

  “Perks? I guess there are some. I will pay for your stay and transportation in the state I need you to visit, and I will provide you with a car. The car will have a tracking device on it, though, and if you try to leave without prior authorization, you will be stopped. I will give you a $60 daily budget for meals, which will be placed on a card that only I have access to. You will not be able to withdraw money or use it for anything other than food or gas. If you try to make an unauthorized purchase, the card will be declined. If the car needs gas, you are to text a number and $40 will be transferred to the card, which you must use for gas that day, or it will be removed. You will never have more than $100 on the card at any one time. Again, as I said, this is not a paid job. The perk is that you’ll be doing this instead of going to jail.”

  My own car? Sixty bucks a day for food?

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” I said in the most composed voice I could muster at the time. On the inside, I was extremely excited.