My mother never said it, but I’m sure that’s why we’re here. It was a shock to everyone when out of the blue, Oliver phased into a tiger when he was two years old. I still remember my mother screaming her head off when she walked into her boy’s room and saw a tiger cub where she had left her son.
None of us—including my dad—had the shifter gene, so it was a big surprise. My parents did some digging into their family tree and it turned out that my mother had a great uncle she didn’t know about who was a tiger shifter. The gene got lost in the family but somehow popped up in Oliver.
So, I guess when she met a tiger shifter online, she immediately thought it would be the best thing for Oliver who was having a hard time without his dad. Maybe she would have been right if Rhys hadn’t turned out to be a total dick.
“We’re going to get that grizzly bear shifter,” he says as he starts feeding the goats. “We’re going to make him pay for jumping Victor, Patrick, and Clyde.”
“If Victor, Patrick, and Clyde got their asses kicked,” I say, “then they probably deserved it.”
“You always think the worst of these guys,” he says as he dumps the rest of the feed and then chucks the metal bucket at the wall, scaring a goat.
“Because they are the worst. I don’t want you turning out like them.”
“Would you rather I turn out like you? No, thank you.”
He storms out of the barn, bumping me with his shoulder as he goes.
I turn to my mother with a frustrated huff of breath. “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here. Are you seriously okay with Rhys taking your sixteen-year-old boy to jump some bear shifter?”
She sighs as she walks over and picks up the metal bucket. “Let him have his little battle. It’s bringing them closer together.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
She frowns as she gathers more feed in the bucket.
My heart is hammering angrily as I head over to the goats. I pet one as it yells at me. These guys always calm me down. They’re always making me laugh with their funny faces and the way they bleat and scream out the funniest noises.
I step into their pen and start cleaning it with the shovel. My favorite one, Rosey, tries to climb on my back when I’m bent over.
“Will you get off me?” I say with a laugh as I push her off.
This is the only place on the ranch where I enjoy being. Everywhere else feels like a prison. It feels like I don’t have a home anymore. That’s what hurts the most. It’s like my family got absorbed into a cult and I no longer recognize them. It’s like I’m surrounded by brainwashed people and I’m the only one who can see that the leader is a conman.
Rhys walks into the barn and I get a cold shiver snaking down my spine. He’s a large imposing man with a shaved head and cruel green eyes. His shoulders are the size of boulders and he’s always swinging his big arms around like he’s constantly ready to hit something. He’s older than my mother by at least a decade or two. His skin is all hard and rough with wrinkles on the sides like a dried-up riverbed roasting in the hot sun.
He walks right up to my mother, grabs her jaw with a rough hand, and slams his lips against hers. I turn away in disgust.
My mother is a gorgeous woman with a nice easy smile. At least, she was like that when she was with my father who was a good man and treated her right. She’s smiling less and less these days and looking more defeated with every week that passes.
We learned all about shifters when Oliver had phased and the most interesting part to me was the bond with the shifter’s mate. I used to dream about having an intense love like that. A bond so unbreakable and deep that you would know immediately upon seeing the other person that you were meant to be together forever.
That’s not what Rhys and my mother have. I don’t care what she thinks, this is not that.
He releases her and turns to me with his wicked green eyes shining. “You.”
“I have a name.”
“Brooklyn. I need you to help me out.”
“Why would I ever help you out?” I squeeze the handle of the shovel and stand up straight, staring at him defiantly as he comes over.
He hops the fence and even the goats know to get away from this man. They bolt to the other end of the pen as he walks right up to me with a sadistic grin on his face.
“You’re going to help me because I’m giving you free room and board.”