by Loki Renard
“Where the hell have you been?”
Armel did not answer him. He pushed past Adam, carrying an insensate Addie. Adam’s heart dropped and he followed Armel to the couch where Armel kneeled down and placed her gently on the cushions.
“What’s wrong with her? What have you done to her this time? If you’ve let her get hurt…”
“Nothing is wrong with her,” Armel said, brushing a few strands of hair off her forehead.
The bland, stupid response was enough to make Adam’s anger flare back to life. “What do you mean, nothing? You disappear, then come back hours late with my mate unconscious in your arms and you tell me there’s nothing wrong?” He snarled the words at Armel, biting the air with snaps of his teeth. All his primal protection instincts were aroused and directed at the man who stood in the middle of Adam’s home and dared be obtuse with him.
“Calm down,” Armel said, picking the two words most likely to make Adam fly into a rage.
“I’ll calm down when you tell me what the hell you’ve done to her,” Adam said, his hands curling into fists. “What happened to her?”
Armel drew in a deep breath, and to Adam’s confusion and annoyance, seemed to smile. “Something happened to us in the woods,” he said. “Something I never thought I’d see again in my life.”
“What?!” Adam snarled the word.
A beatific look came over Armel’s face. “The great bear came to us. I saw her when I was thirteen, and was told I would not see her again until I passed away. But she came again. Today. And she came to Addie.”
Adam looked at Addie, who was lying on the couch looking perfectly serene and content. He noticed now that she was not unconscious in a typical fashion. She was not entirely passed out. It was more as if she was in a very deep dream, her lips were moving a little, her fingers and feet were twitching, and he could see her eyes moving beneath closed lids.
He felt a wrench in his chest as he realized that his fears were not so far off. He had lost her. Armel hadn’t stolen Addie away physically. He’d taken her on a much deeper level. He’d claimed her very spirit.
“You…” The rage was too great to articulate it. “You have claimed her in a way I never would. You have made her yours so deeply even if you left right now and never came back she would still be yours. We agreed not to do this, Armel. There was a pact to keep her pure. And you bring her here, filled with the spirit fever.”
“I have not done anything,” Armel replied. “Neither of us had control over this, Adam. This was bigger than both of us. Addie came out here because something called to her. She came out here against her better judgment, against warnings from others, and she stayed even when the cold came. Some part of her knew what was out here, Adam. I’m sure of it. Today, that part of her found what it has been seeking its whole life. I have not said a word to her about the spirit. And even if I had, hell, even if I’d wanted her to take it, I could not have made this happen. You know that as well as I do. There are some things nobody can stop. And this was one of them.”
“Liar,” Adam growled. “I see the amulet around her neck. I know she would have done anything to discover what you are…”
“An amulet doesn’t turn a woman into a bear, Adam. The spirit came to her because she was ready and right for it.”
Adam shook his head, on the verge of tears of fury and frustration. “You have taken her from me.”
“I have taken nothing. I could argue she is more yours than mine. I could argue you have taken her from me.”
“How could you argue such a thing?”
Armel stopped and frowned at Adam. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly,” Adam seethed.
“You’re an idiot.”
The blunt statement took Adam aback. “What?”
“Maybe it’s too early for you in your human form,” Armel murmured, more to himself than Adam. “Shift,” he said more loudly. “Shift and smell her.”
“Why?”
“Do it, or I swear to god…” Armel growled at him. “This is the most stupid argument we have ever had, more stupid than the time we dared each other to swallow rocks so we could dive deeper into the lake during the spring thaw.”
Adam did not shift because of Armel’s threats, but because of his curiosity. He flowed into wolf form, took two steps toward Addie, inhaled, and then flowed back into his now naked human state.
Armel looked at him with knowing eyes. “You sense it now, you ass?”
“Yeah.” Adam scratched his head and couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face. “Yeah. I do.”
“Still worried I’ve made her mine?”
“No,” Adam chuckled, grinning broadly. “Not at all.”
Chapter Eleven
Addie slept for three days following her encounter with the bear spirit. Marnie checked her and said there was nothing to worry about, and Armel seemed to be at peace with the situation, but Adam was worried. He had more to lose than anyone else, or at least, it felt that way to him. He spent hours watching her in her sleep trance, seeing the faint effects of the transition flowing over her from time to time, fur appearing and then fading away, long claws extending from her fingers and then retracting. Eventually he could not keep the vigil any longer and he fell asleep next to her.
“I’m a bear!”
Adam opened his eyes to find Addie straddling him in bed. She looked down at him with a bright grin.
“Is that right?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the flats of his palms and looked up into her pleased face over the tips of his fingers. She was grinning, her pretty round features lit with a glee he had never seen before.
“Yes!”
The excitement in her voice made him smile.
“Are you mad at me?” She asked the question with no small measure of concern. “I mean… are you mad I turned into a bear?”
“I’m not mad at you,” he said, sliding his hands down her back to cup her bottom. “I can’t be mad at nature for being what it is.”
“Good!” She leaned down and planted a kiss on his lips. “I’m going to hunt salmon in the river when it melts. I’m going to know what it’s like to be a bear from the inside. Do you know how this is going to change wildlife research? I’ll be able to observe from a whole new perspective!”
Seeing her enthusiasm made Adam glad she hadn’t been conscious when he’d first found out about her transformation. She would have been so hurt if she’d heard his tirade at Armel.
“You want me to turn into a bear now?” Addie made the offer generously. “I could probably do it.”
“You shouldn’t do it more than once a week or so in the beginning,” he said. “It will take its toll if you do it too often. It’s a big change for your body…”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s like… wow… I know why Armel told me I couldn’t understand now… because you can’t understand what this is, can you? It’s being you, but you’re something else… but you’re still you inside…”
“Mhm…” He rubbed her butt and listened to her chatter on. She had a lot to say, much of it repetitive, some of it a little over his head in terms of technical talk, but the basic message was clear—she was happy. She was very happy. And that made him happy too.
Chapter Twelve
The spirit of the bear had come to Addie—and it had changed everything. She and Armel were much closer than they had been before. There were no longer any secrets between them. Instead of a gulf of the unspeakable that had once made her feel so separate from him, there was a shared understanding that was transmitted every time they so much as looked at one another.
They spent much more time together than they ever had before. In teaching her how to navigate the world in her animal form, Armel shifted with her and together they patrolled their territory, the village, and the lands beyond it.
“You must never come out here alone,” Armel said in a rare moment of sternness as they took their human forms in a warm thermal spring several miles away from
the village. “My scent keeps most of the wildlife away, but you are female and smaller and will draw all sorts to you. I know you feel stronger than ever before, but you are more vulnerable than you think.”
He was right. She really didn’t feel vulnerable, not in the slightest. Whenever she took her bear form, she felt as though she could protect herself no matter what. Her claws were as long as her fingers had once been, shining scimitars capable of slicing through a tin can with ease. Marnie was not happy to find that Addie had tested her jaws and claws that way and Addie had made a full apology under threat of punishment by Adam.
“You hear me, Addie?”
“Uh huh,” she grinned at him. He looked hotter than ever with his hair wet and slicked long around his face, his dark eyes slightly narrowed at her as he made an attempt to lay down the law.
“You better hear me, brat,” he said, drawing her close so that she was straddling him. They were both totally naked of course, her sex pressed against his in the warm currents of the pond, her breasts against his chest. They kissed languidly, enjoying the quiet of the snowy lands stretching out around them into the distance, and soon Armel was sliding his hard cock inside her tight, wet channel.
“I don’t want to leave,” she murmured against his mouth as they made love slowly.
“You don’t have to leave…”
“I mean…” She let out a moan as he put his hands on her bottom and ground her down hard. “I mean, there’s been a part of me that has wanted to go home since I found myself here. I don’t know where that part went, but it’s gone. I don’t want to go back anymore.”
“Good,” Armel said, running his hand through her hair. “I don’t want you to go either. You’re a part of me now.”
She knew exactly what he meant. It was as though a little piece of him lived in her, and a little bit of her lived in him. They were yin and yang and perhaps they would have been satisfied with one another, but for the fact that there was also a part of her that belonged to Adam. She could feel him in her as well.
“Do you feel Adam?”
Armel stopped his thrusting and held her on his lap in the warm water, smiling curiously at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there is a bond between you and me, between Adam and me. But you and Adam, do you share more than just… me?”
He let out a small chuckle. “You ask some curious questions, Addie,” he said, pressing nibbled kisses to her neck as he surged inside her again. Her head fell back as she offered her throat, her breasts, her pussy, every part of her body to Armel.
In the motion of his hard cock inside her, the talented touch of his teeth and tongue, Addie lost the question to the orgasm that was welling inside her, making her cling to Armel desperately as he cupped her cheeks and took her with all the passion that was his to command. The water rippled around them, waves splashing up into the snow until Armel sated himself inside her, spending his cum deep in her pussy as she quivered around him in a climax that left her collapsed against his chest, her face and breasts pink with the flush of completion.
* * *
She was in love. In love with Armel. In love with Adam, and in love with the new life they had together. But love didn’t mean peace in Addie’s world, and it definitely didn’t mean obedience. She and Armel returned from their trip to the springs and he and Adam went off to talk business. Addie seized the opportunity then to slip away, saying she was going to see Marnie. Of course, she had no intention of visiting with Adam’s mother. There was something else she’d wanted since waking up in the village, and now she was in a position to get it.
Addie loved being able to take animal form. The world was a different place inside the fur of a bear. It was warmer, it was smellier, it was full of small wonders and grand possibilities—like getting her data back. Since her arrival, she had been more or less trapped in the village, not just by Armel and Adam, but by the snow itself. The deadly cold that she knew would claim her if she wandered off on her own. Now that she could travel in bear form, she could get back to her camp. She could dig through the snow and retrieve her equipment.
Her old campsite was a few hours away, but Addie didn’t mind the journey. The air was crisp and cool, the snow crunched beneath her paws as she moved through the trees at a steady lope. She could go so much farther in her bear form, do so much more. Aside from door handles. Door handles were a problem without thumbs.
She felt a peace and a joy as she moved toward her camp, no longer needing any kind of compass. She could sense directions in a new way. The landscape was mapped differently inside her mind and her camp was like a point she felt drawing her.
Distracted by her excitement, Addie didn’t hear the paws coming up behind her. Nor did she hear the panting of the beast gaining on her until a sharp snap at her tail made her let out a cry of surprise and whirl about to face a wolf. A wolf with bright blue eyes and a bag of some kind clenched in its jaws. A wolf that seemed to be glaring at her in a very un-wolf-like way.
Dammit. It was Adam. He’d followed her out here and now he was going to try to make her go back. Well, she wasn’t going to. She’d had enough of being bossed around by him. He didn’t seem to understand that now she had her bear form, she really didn’t need to listen to him anymore.
Addie let out a little growl and pawed at the ground to show him that she was not afraid. Good luck trying to spank her in this form. Bears didn’t get in trouble, and they definitely didn’t get put over anyone’s knee.
* * *
Adam looked at Addie, stamping and snorting in her bear shape. She was not a particularly large bear. Armel was probably twice her size. Ordinarily a wolf would be no match for a bear, but she was smaller than Adam was in his wolf form, and she certainly didn’t know how to handle herself yet. There was an ungainly motion to her gait that would have been cute if he wasn’t so mad at her.
How proud she’d been declaring her bear self. How defiant she looked now, snorting at him. She thought she was untouchable. She had no idea how badly things were about to go for her. Adam flowed from his wolf form into his human state, dropping the bag that he’d held in his mouth down on the snowy ground.
“Shift,” he told the bear. “Now.”
She let out a little growl and shook her head. He’d expected her to refuse. She didn’t think he could do anything to her in her bear form. She was very, very wrong.
“Last chance, Addie.”
She snorted and began to back away, preparing an escape. That was it. She was out of time and out of chances with him. Adam slipped back into his wolf form and bounded atop her. She did not know how to fight back as of yet and it was the work of a moment for his jaws to close around the back of her neck and bite hard enough to hold her there. It would not harm her, but he needed to inflict enough pain to force her to change back into her human form.
She had a wild spirit, and he did not want to crush it—though he knew she must think him a tyrant intent on subduing her entirely. He wanted her to feel that for a moment, to know what it was to be brought to submission. She needed that experience deeply, so she could know that it was not about cruelty, or even control, but the bond that could be formed between an alpha and his mate no matter what form she took.
Addie let out a pained howl that turned into a growling whine, but still he held her there, his teeth sinking deeper with every passing moment until she gave up the fight and the bear form slipped from her, leaving her whimpering naked on the snow. She was fortunate that the transition healed some of the effects of his canine punishment. All that remained of his bite was a red patch at the back of her neck.
“If you try to use your powers against me, you will end up very sore, little bear,” he informed her, grabbing her up out of the snow to save her from getting a nasty frostbite. He grabbed the clothing he had stashed in the bag that was lying nearby and they both got dressed as quickly as possible.
“You know better than to head out alone,” he lectured as she dressed.
&
nbsp; “I wanted my stuff,” Addie pouted. “I was going to dig it out. Then I could at least have my notes to work with. I didn’t see any reason to come and get a babysitter.”
“You didn’t see any reason why you shouldn’t go into dangerous territory alone?” Adam growled the question as he settled a hat on her head. “You didn’t think you might run into something else out here? Maybe another bear with more experience at being a bear? Do you know what would have happened if something wild found you?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. She had the sulky demeanor of someone who knew she’d done wrong and knew she would be punished for it sooner rather than later.
“We’re going back to the village,” he said. “I will deal with you there.”
“No!” She stamped her foot and only succeeded in sinking her leg into the snow. “I don’t want to go back.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” Adam replied bluntly. “You disobeyed me, Addie. You have to learn that no matter what form you’re in, you answer to me.”
“I’m not going back!”
Rather than argue any longer, Adam scooped Addie up in one arm, tossed her over his shoulder, and started carrying her back toward the village. He took some responsibility for this little rebellion on himself. He hadn’t made it clear that her change in nature did not change anything between them. That was a lesson she still needed to learn.
“Settle down!” He growled the words as she started to buck and squirm.
She did not cease her struggles, of course. If anything his warning produced more of a fight. She kicked and cursed and wriggled about over his shoulder, threatening to tip herself into the snow. He let her tire herself out on the walk back to the village, and carried her right through the center of it while the pack looked on with various levels of interest.
