Trouble in a Fur Coat (The Fur Coat Society Book 1) Read Online Free

hesitant. Did she really want to entangle herself more with a family whose patriarch wanted to eliminate shifters? Sure, it wasn’t Joe’s fault that his dad was acting this way, but that didn’t change the fact that he was their son.
    Silver avoided making eye contact with Joe as she pressed her right hand flat against the computer screen on her front door. In quick succession, the computer let out five beeps and flashes of lights as it verified her identity. She couldn’t afford one of the fancy new eye-scanner security systems, so she’d settled for the standard fingerprint scanner. After what she’d overheard tonight, she was glad she didn’t have an eye scanner. An involuntary shudder passed through her body as she imagined a scanner detecting bear DNA in her eyes and setting off an alarm. No doubt, as soon as technology like that was available, Joe’s parents would install it in their home. Which was obviously going to pose a problem when Silver came over to visit.
    “Welcome home, Silver,” her security system said, greeting her in a male voice with a British accent. Joe hated the voice, but Silver refused to change it. She said it sounded sophisticated. Joe said the way American women idolized British accents was ridiculous. But since Silver lived here, she got to keep the voice set to whatever she wanted. For a few weeks, Joe had changed the voice on his own security system to a sultry female voice that said, “Hey there, baby,” whenever Joe arrived home. But his attempts to annoy Silver into changing the voice on her own system fell flat. Silver wasn’t threatened by a computer voice, and Joe finally gave up and changed his security system back to a more normal voice.
    Silver stepped inside her small condo as the door whooshed open, and she hobbled toward the living room where she sank into her own couch, grateful for its familiar comfort. The couch was old, and didn’t have any modern features like temperature sensing or automatic height adjustment. But it was still comfortable, and Silver loved to sit here and read while sipping on a coffee or tea.
    The lights had all automatically turned on as Silver entered the room, but she didn’t like how bright they were. Her head felt like it was spinning faster and faster, and the light was somehow making her headache worse.
    “Computer, dim lights please,” Silver said.
    “Dimming lights,” the British voice called out, and the lights slowly faded to a dim glow.
    Joe sat down next to Silver and looked over at her with a renewed expression of concern. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked for the hundredth time.
    Silver sighed. “Yeah. I’m okay. It’s just been a long day. I need to rest.”
    “I can call off after-dinner drinks,” Joe said, his voice uncertain. Silver’s heart melted a little. She understood what a huge sacrifice that would be for him. He would hear about it for days if he didn’t make it back to at least have a drink with the guests before they left. She looked over at him, her eyes searching his handsome face, although she wasn’t quite sure what she was searching for. Some sort of reassurance that he wouldn’t think she was a monster because she was a shifter? A guarantee that he would stand up to his parents when it really mattered—when the argument wasn’t just over dinner parties but over people’s lives?
    “What’s wrong?” Joe asked. “You look really upset, and I’m starting to think it’s more than just a stomach bug or a knee injury. Something’s bothering you.”
    Silver took a deep breath. She knew she should wait until she’d had time to process everything before bringing up the subject. But she couldn’t help herself. She had to at least nudge Joe a little bit, and see what his reaction to his father’s shifter hatred might be.
    “I overheard your dad saying something really upsetting tonight,” Silver said.
    Joe raised an eyebrow. “That’s not that unusual. I love my old man, but he’s