I stopped so suddenly that I nearly tripped over my own feet. A bear's nose was more powerful than most shifters’, although not quite as good as our feline counterparts. My nose tingled as I sucked in another whiff, wondering if he could pick up on my mate scent yet. Given that he’d started chattering again, I assumed he didn’t have an extraordinary sense of smell. I took a few steps closer so he could scent me. He kept spewing words at a rapid pace, which kind of amused me.
"Oh! Speaking of film facts and mobsters. Did you know that awful scene in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta jammed the needle into Uma Thurman's chest to revive her from the overdose was actually filmed backwards? Although, if you want some good mafia trivia, I should tell you about…"
I tuned out his actual words as I finally took a good look at my mate.
He was tiny like my brother Cyrus's mate, Leaf. Maybe even smaller, if that was possible. His chestnut brown hair was windblown and probably due for a trim based on the way he kept poking his lower lip out to blow hair out of his eyes whenever he came up for air. Although petite, his body was perfectly proportioned and was just begging for a mate's attention. I was a lucky man to encounter my mate for the first time while he was completely undressed.
Shit! My mate was naked and my brothers—my father!—and the guards were all seeing him! Nope. This would never do.
I sprang forward with a burst of speed, shoving Vasily aside as the gates slowly slid open. Undoubtedly this was happening at my father's order, but I hadn't been paying attention nor did I care. I was too impatient to wait for the gate to fully open and was already busy pulling off my jacket while trying to squeeze through the opening in the gate so I could wrap it around my mate.
He stopped talking mid-sentence, his nostrils flaring and eyes going wide as he caught my scent. As I rushed toward him and raised my jacket, the gun fell from the inner pocket and bounced a couple times before ramming against his toes. His eyes went even wider before the lashes began to flutter as his body slumped forward.
I barely caught him before he hit the ground. I took a second to wrap my jacket around him like a blanket before standing with every intention of carrying him bridal style back to the house. It wasn't like I had any other options, right? What else was I to do when my mate passed out when he saw me?
River sauntered over and scooped up my gun, shaking his head as he shoved it in his waistband. He’d looped his chain over one shoulder. "Let me guess… you found your mate."
"You're a smart man, River." I grinned happily as I passed him and stepped back through the gate. Hugging the tiny man's body against my chest, I shouldered my way through the clustered group of my astonished father and brothers and headed toward the house.
Any questions they had could wait. First, I needed to get my tiny treasure of a mate to safety.
3
Tanner
A horrible scent filled my nose and I jerked away from it with a start. If I’d been laying on a bed, I would have jumped right off it. But I wasn’t. I was being held by a pair of big, strong arms, and warm brown eyes with flecks of amber were staring down at me.
“Did you know that brown eyes are the most common eye color in the world?” I said. “But I don’t think that’s fair, because they group all brown eyes together, from the almost-black ones to the liquid chocolate ones to ones like yours, with pretty flecks of gold. There really should be separations for all of those because I don’t think anyone could call your eye color common.”
As my mouth ran away from my brain, I remembered where I was, even though I was now inside a room full of expensive-looking wood furniture and big, brawny bear shifters. Someone—the man holding me?—had wrapped a jacket around my lap, and I tugged it closer. My nose was burning, and I couldn’t smell anything specific, but as I stared up into those sparkling brown eyes, I remembered feeling overwhelmed with a sense of safety and yearning the moment before everything had gone dark. There had been the scent of smoke and heat and resin, like a campfire made from pinewood. A scent that I’d loved all my life, but in this instance, spoke of something far more important than a night of camping and relaxation.
It had said mate.
I wanted to smell him again, but my nose was still twitching from whatever they’d used to wake me up.
“Did you know that bamboo is the fastest growing woody plant in the world? It can grow up to thirty-five inches in a single day,” I said as I tried to regain my sense of purpose and balance. The words sounded like an echo… had I already shared that recently? Oh, yeah. The dude who’d tried to roofie me, which was why I was hiding in the storage room where they dropped Pavlo. It was a good thing I didn’t remember what the asshole looked like, or I’d be tempted to send these big guys after him.
“I know of some wood that grows faster,” one of the big guys said. A smaller guy elbowed him.
“And in Renaissance France, a woman could take her husband to court if he was impotent. Not that you have that problem, I’m sure. Or that I’d want to take you to court anywhere. Unless it was a basketball court, maybe. Not to play. I’m too short to be any good. Did you know that the basketball player Svetlana Pankratova has the record for the world’s longest legs? She’s not the tallest, though. Oh my god, why can’t I stop talking? You have to help Pavlo. That’s what I had to tell you. I’m going to go now, okay?” I started to move, but the big guy grabbed my shoulders and made me look him in the eyes.
“Did you know,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “that Marvel comics held the trademark for the word zombie until 1996? And in the Marvel universe, Santa Claus is the most powerful mutant ever registered. And they once created a superhero named Throg. He is a frog that has the power of Thor, and is in a group called the Pet Avengers.”
As my mate spoke to me in my love language of trivia, my heart rate calmed down, my muscles stopped twitching, and I relaxed into his hands. “No one’s ever shared trivia with me before,” I said dreamily.
“My name is Ivan,” he said. Ee-vahn. That hint of Russian mixed with his blue-collar Chicagoan accent was the most delicious thing I’d ever heard. “Do you have a name? Or should I just call you ‘Facts’?”
“You can call me whatever you want,” I said. “But my passport says I’m Tanner Danger Wong.”
“Wait.” One of the big guys stepped forward. “Your middle name is actually Danger?”
“And isn’t Wong a Chinese last name?” another added. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look even the least bit Asian. Or would that be the wong way?”
“Misha, no. Just… no.” Ivan shook his head. “No puns, please.”
“I’m adopted,” I said. “So is my sister. And we look nothing alike. Her skin is as dark as mine is pale.”
“Tell me she has a crazy-ass middle name, too,” the first guy said.
“Hey,” Ivan snapped. “Tanner’s middle name isn’t crazy, Joey.”
“No, it’s Danger, remember?” another of the big guys said with a loud snicker. Ivan growled, baring his teeth at the would-be jokers.