Free One Last Prowl: BBW Were Mountain Lion Shapeshifter Mail Order Bride Romance (Shifter Grove Brides Book 6) by Anya Nowlan

that he wanted to put straight.
    Standing up from his office table, he rolled his shoulders back a bit and stretched, feeling the life flood back into his limbs. Paperwork was not the kind of thing a predator wanted to spend his time on, but in today’s world it was a necessity.
    Sometimes I wish we were back in the saber-toothed tiger phase, Austin mused to himself. At least there wouldn’t be any tax forms.
    Chuckling to himself, he stalked outside and took a deep whiff of the air. He shoved his big palms in his pockets and started casually walking in the direction of the smell he’d determined. Rustling through leaves and underbrush around his home, he finally made it deeper into the woods and found who he was looking for. Marcus sat on a big rock by the stream that ran down the length of Austin’s property, whittling a makeshift spear that looked to have no other use than to make the time go by. Austin could understand that. After all, it didn’t feel like so long ago that he’d been a broody, angry teenager himself.
    “Mind if I join you?” Austin asked, taking a seat opposite of Marcus on a fallen tree trunk.
    “You didn’t really wait for a reply,” Marcus snapped, but there was no bite to his growl.
    Austin frowned mildly. He’d talked about Marcus with Dahlia a few times. She was soft with him, but he could understand that. Deep down inside, she must have felt guilty about what happened to Arthur and so it was no surprise she went out of her way to try and make her son at least somewhat contented. But with teenagers, that was a slippery slope – Austin knew. Still, it was not his place to intervene, not until he had a ring on that gal’s finger.
    And he certainly intended to have that done in the near future.
    “I figured you could use the company,” Austin said lightly, brushing off Marcus’ attitude.
    “How come?”
    “Seems like you’re angry a lot and I’m not sure you know why, Marcus. Why don’t you talk to me about it?” Austin offered, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees.
    This wasn’t exactly something that came superbly naturally to him, but he broke it down in his head. He wasn’t talking as the prospective boyfriend/mate of Marcus’ mother, but as a werecougar to another of his kind, one who maybe needed some assistance. It sort of felt like hunting, talking to a teenager. He was ready to have his prey jump up and run off hissing at any moment.
    “Why should I?” the boy said, looking up from his spear for the first time.
    “Because I want to see your mother happy. And I think nothing would make her happier to know that you’re happy,” he offered.
    “Mom doesn’t get it,” Austin snorted, flinging the spear at a patch of grass and having it plant itself firmly in the ground. “She doesn’t miss dad like I do.”
    “I think you’re wrong about that, Marcus,” Austin said, keeping his voice level.
    “Yeah? Is that why we’re here, with her making goo-goo eyes at you? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, man,” Marcus said, waggling his finger in an accusing way at Austin. “You want her to stay, You want me to stay, too. But this isn’t my home. New York is.”
    “It could be your home,” Austin said, taking a deep breath.
    He’d offered that Marcus should go and spend some time with Slate, because he knew that Marcus needed to let out a bit of steam. But if this was the relaxed version of the young man then Austin had to admit he was even more impressed that Dahlia had managed as well as she had. He was a handful.
    “Why? So she could forget all about dad and just live here? No, that’s not right,” Marcus snorted.
    “Nobody’s trying to make any less of the memory of your father. But do you think he would want your mother to be unhappy?”
    “She’s not unhappy! She has me!” Marcus snarled, his eyes wild with indignation.
    “I don’t mean that. You keep getting kicked out of school and she ends up losing her jobs