Bear the Burn(43)
Quinn’s high heels echoed off the tile floors, and as she came to a stop with the rest of her crew in front of towering double doors, she smoothed the wrinkles form her mint green dress. All she had to do was sit in there next to Rory and show her solidarity. This wasn’t so bad. It was cake—if she could forget all the cameras trained on her.
The seats were filling up inside the sprawling room, and the volume of murmuring increased the second Cody walked across the threshold. Dade’s strong hand on her lower back was the only thing keeping her knees from buckling against the forward movement.
Cody led the crew to a long table up front, angled to face both the large room and a similar table where seven older men and women sat. If the name plates were anything to go by, it was the mayor and town council members.
She took a seat between Dade and Rory, who was cuddling Aaron close in her lap.
“Good evening,” Mayor Randolph said in a booming, authoritative voice that silenced the crowd as they took their seats in rows of plastic chairs. “We are here tonight to speak candidly with a new and emerging group of people who are members of our town. The decision on what to do about them is ultimately up to our great government, but as for this meeting, we can open up lines of communication and begin to understand one another so that we can assure you that Breckenridge is still a safe place to live.” Mayor Randolph’s dark hair shone in the fluorescent lighting as he turned his steely gray eyes on Cody. “Our main concern is all of the negative attention we are receiving in the media. As you know, this is a town that thrives on tourism. If the tourism isn’t there for us, we lose jobs, residents, and funding for schools.”
“That’s bull-honkey and you know it,” Rory’s Aunt Leona spoke up. “I call it now. This skiing season will be the best one yet. Everyone will flock here to try to get a glimpse of the bear shifters. Already, two of the condos are booked through the entire winter and into spring.”
Mayor Randolph narrowed his eyes. “In an attempt to keep some semblance of order today, I’ll ask that you refrain from speaking until asked to do so.”
Aunt Leona glared but sat down beside the other Blue-Haired Ladies and zipped her lips.
“Great,” Randolph muttered. “Now, I think we should start this meeting with the shifters introducing themselves and giving us a brief history of their kind.”
Cody cleared his throat and nodded, then stood and addressed the room. “My name is Cody Keller. Some of you know me as one of the town firefighters, along with my brothers, Gage,”—he pointed—“Boone, and Dade. We are third generation firefighters. Some of you knew our father, Titus Keller, who presumably died fighting a fire right inside city limits when I was fifteen. This is my mate, Rory, and our son Aaron. Rory is human. Aaron is like me.”
“Why do you call her your mate instead of your wife?” a woman in a purple dress asked.
Mayor Randolph looked annoyed, but allowed it.
“Marriage is a human tradition that we only sometimes participate in. For us, pairing up and claiming a mate is the equivalent of marriage. We bond with one mate for life. The rate of infidelity for bear shifters is almost none because our animals simply won’t allow it.”
“But bears in real life mate with several partners.”
“Yes, true, but we don’t. It’s not how we are wired,” Cody explained.
“But you’ll still spit on the sanctity of marriage and raise families never being married,” the woman in the purple dress called out.
“Ma’am, with all due respect, there are lots of people in this society who aren’t allowed to get married, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a family. Rory and Aaron are my family. Gage is mated to Leah, and they have twin cubs, and they are a family. We aren’t aiming to smite out marriage, and in fact, Rory and I are planning a ceremony in the winter to bind us legally. But it isn’t necessary for us. It’s just a different culture. Being mated is equivalent to being married. My brother Dade is a prime example of it. Dade?”
Dade slid his hand off Quinn’s thigh and stood. “Some bear shifters go their entire lives without the urge to settle on one mate, and then some of us are lucky enough to form a bond. In Rory and Quinn’s case, they were both human when Cody and I fell for them, so it isn’t dependent on them also being shifters. For Leah, however, she was born a bear shifter, and Gage knew instantly they were it for each other. For our kind, it works very fast. It’s a very powerful motivator to want to please our mates because their happiness allows us to be happy. It’s like…first love, but all those months it takes to form that bond wrapped up into an instant. With Quinn, I knew the second I set eyes on her she was mine.”