Stone Bear: Sentinel (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Stone Bears Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

like a jackass, but I can’t allow them to get too friendly with me.”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s complicated,” he replied. “I’m not sure that I can tell you enough information for it to make sense. Let’s just leave it as ‘They don’t know everything that I do.’ It would be a lot easier for me if they did, but someone would say something they shouldn’t, which would make it a lot harder for me eventually. It would just be a matter of time.”
    He stared at her, stressing the seriousness of his point. She didn’t back down, but neither did she acknowledge it. Gabriel sighed, running his hands through his hair as the silence stretched on.
    “So, what are our next steps?” he asked eventually, changing the subject.
    Glad for the reprieve, she told him. “Finding the Opals is going to be a bit of a case of tracking them down. It will likely take time.”
    Gabriel nodded, not disputing that fact.
    “I think, in the meantime, we should talk to some of those who might have similar interests.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Well, I’ve heard that the Sapphires are a lot like the Opals were that night. Rude, egotistical, and generally unpleasant. I thought I would go pay their den in the city a visit.” She was proud of herself, having referred to their home as a den in the proper way.
    Caia had expected either nothing or a small smile of praise from Gabriel about remembering the name for a shifter’s place of residence. The look she got, of shock, was not the way she had expected things to go. At all.
    “No.” His voice wasn’t loud, but there was more give in steel than in his voice.
    “Why not? That does make sense, doesn’t it?”
    “The Sapphire building is no place for a young, beautiful woman completely new to Genesis Valley.”
    Caia’s eyebrows arched at the word “beautiful.” She would never consider herself to be ugly, but she had some curves and a little bit of extra weight around her hips that would never allow her to classify herself as beautiful. Cute and good-looking she could accept, but anytime someone called her beautiful, it always sent a wave of butterflies through her stomach. Just because she couldn’t view herself that way, didn’t mean she wasn’t able to accept that others thought of her as such.
    Perhaps Gabriel can convince you. The voice spoke from deep within her, but she ignored it. She wasn’t unhappy about anything, and part of the reason was because she truly didn’t care what others thought about her looks. She was who she was. Take it or leave it.
    “Well, it needs to be investigated,” she said, wisely choosing not to draw attention to his words about her appearance. “Besides, I never said I was going alone. You’re coming with me.”
    Now Gabriel laughed. “You know, I don’t think they’re going to be willing to share information with me. The Sapphires and I don’t exactly have the greatest of relationships,” he explained, chuckling the entire time about the thought.
    “What did you do to them?” she asked, not bothering to contain her eyeroll.
    Gabriel just looked at her in response.
    She sighed.
    “Well, I guess you should practice being on your best behavior then Gabriel,” she said, using his name for effect. “Because tomorrow we’re heading over there. They are off shift, which makes it a perfect time to stop by and to examine things.”
    “What are we looking for?” This time he seemed to want to know more about her thought process.
    “Anything out of the ordinary. I’ll bet it’s been a while since someone from the Consortium has inspected their houses, hasn’t it?”
    Gabriel nodded. “Inspections aren’t really a thing we do. The liaisons are generally in charge of those sorts of things, since they tend to live amongst the crews. We generally trust the liaisons to do their jobs properly. But maybe we should be paying a little more attention to them,” he mused. “With the way things are going, we might have to start doing that.