Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  “The pleasure has been all mine Melanie.”

  Chapter Four

  Melanie

  Melanie kept telling herself the only reason she was having coffee with Tye was because he owed her one. She was just being polite. She had to keep ignoring the fact that she was enjoying his company. Enjoying it like she hadn’t with any of the dates she’d been on recently. Not that she dated much when you’re in med school, you don’t have time for dating. Her dad refused to allow her to say no to the men he pushed on her though.

  Tye was completely comfortable with who he was, and didn’t try to impress her with money or success. He was genuinely interested in her, and laughed when she made a joke. His laugh was a big booming sound that made her insides warm. She really needed to get away from him now, and find a way to squash all the butterflies that were swarming in her belly.

  “Melanie, I’m glad that you are ok being in public with me.”

  She raised an eyebrow at his comment. It wasn’t so much what he said, but the way he worded it struck her as having an underlying meaning.

  “Well you owed me a coffee, you also owe me a dress too if dry cleaning doesn’t get these coffee stains out.”

  “Send me a bill. I’d be happy to replace your dress. Of course, with our internship salary, it might be a decade before it gets replaced. Fashion will probably completely change by then, come to think of it.”

  “Can I see you shift?” She immediately blushed with her question. It just popped in her mind and a second later was on her lips. She really wanted to see him shift though. He was a such a big man she couldn’t imagine how big a bear he would be.

  He coughed into his coffee cup. “I can’t really Shift here, Melanie. Things would get…complicated. Quickly. People would call the cops, who wouldn’t be able to tell if I was some dangerous animal or a Shifter or whatever.”

  “What? You’re not an animal. You’re a person, they can’t put you down or tase you.” She was absolutely shocked by his response. Surely it wasn’t really like that.

  “Ah, but you forget I am an animal, at least a part of me is. There’s Tye, and then there’s my Kodiak Bear counterpart.”

  “You don’t seem very animalistic to me right now though.”

  “That’s because I’ve learned to live with my bear, we’re very in sync, but he’s there. There are things about me that are my bear that you can’t see. Like my sense of smell, and my hearing.”

  “Well, maybe another time then. I need to get home. My dad will be waiting to be disappointed that I got into the internship.”

  “He’ll be disappointed? I thought you said he was a doctor. I don’t get it.”

  “No, if I was a son he’d be thrilled. But he didn’t get a son. He’d like to see me married off to one of his rich buddy’s sons. In his mind I belong in the home cooking, cleaning and reproducing, not in the medical field. He thinks it’s too stressful.”

  She could see that Tye was really bothered by her father’s treatment of her. His eyes had darkened just a shade, and his brows had pinched together. His face quickly changed into a giant warm smile that had those stupid butterflies beating themselves senseless in her stomach.

  “Well, I’m glad he had a daughter, and in the medical field otherwise I would have never met you.”

  “Tye, we just met and you seem like a great guy, but…”

  “There’s always a but.”

  “I’m serious about this internship. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to work my ass off and that’s it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. I need this. I need it more than I need friends or anything else.” She sighed. “I’ve been told that I’m not a nice person.”

  “You seem nice enough to me.”

  “Once this internship starts we’re all going to be gunning for Chief Resident, and I’m going to get it. You will be one of the few in my way. I’ll climb right up your back to get where I’m going.”

  “I have a very large back. You’d better wear different shoes.” He made the comment while he glanced down at her nude pumps. Not her typical shoe, today was a special occasion though.

  She got up and threw her empty cup away, and headed to the door. Tye was right behind her, and held the door open for her. She turned to thank him, and about smacked right into him. Her head came to his collarbone, giving her a very up close view of his incredibly masculine chest. She looked up, and saw that his golden eyes were slightly glowing at her. She desperately wanted to lean up and kiss him to feel how his gorgeously shaped lips would feel against her thin ones. He could probably kiss her into next week. She cleared her throat which currently felt like the damn butterflies were trying to crawl out of right now, and took a step back.

  “I guess I’ll see you in a week then, Tye.” She extended her hand to him.

  “Surely you know that us bears are huggers.” Before she understood his meaning he wrapped her up in a literal bear hug. She fit snug against his body, and his big arms enclosed her safely there. She had never felt so warm, safe, and turned on all at the same time. Maybe Shifters have some weird magic that they can cast over humans to make them so drawn to them. Melanie had to be under some sort of spell because she had never had feelings like this for a man let alone someone she’s just met. He released her, gave her sexy as hell smile and a wink then strolled off in the opposite direction from her apartment.

  She watched him retreat like an idiot before snapping out of it and high tailing it back to her apartment. She spent most of the evening trying to keep herself busy so she wouldn’t think about Tye, and also ignoring her dad’s calls. She knew he would make her feel bad about getting into the internship, and she just wasn’t mentally prepared for that. She also kept wondering what Tye looked like as a bear. A Kodiak bear at that. She didn’t know much about bears, but those were huge.

  She had heard once when she was in undergrad, that some of the girls would go over to the local Haven bar. Back then she had no desire to go, but now she was curious. Shifters had always been treated like second class citizens. They were segregated completely off from the human societies, but after meeting Tye she couldn’t understand why. She knew that not all Shifters would be like Tye, but not all humans were either and they got to do what they wanted and go where they please.

  She pulled out her laptop and decided to do some research on Shifters. She told herself it was just simply because he was going up against her in the internship, but she knew it was more than that. Tye had gotten under her skin, and affected her unlike any man had ever been able to. She had always prided herself in arming herself with knowledge and this was no different. She needed to know all she could about Shifters.

  Chapter Five

  Tye

  Tye shrugged his clothes off once he entered his apartment, and immediately shifted. The worst apart about going through medical school was that he couldn’t be in his bear form very often. He gave himself a shake all over ridding himself of all the restrictions of his human body. It had taken him forever to find an apartment that was large enough for him in his Kodiak form. He was large as a man, but his bear stood around 8 foot 9 inches tall, and if he had to guess he weighed somewhere around a thousand pounds. He walked around his giant living room complete with mandatory cathedral ceilings, and then slumped himself on the floor, and stretched and rolled around.

  It had been a couple days since he had run into Melanie, and he hadn’t been able to get her off of his mind. His bear was anxious he wanted to be around her and make sure she was okay. Tye had no way of getting a hold of her or finding out where she lived so he had been going down to the coffee shop. The people there probably thought he had a real coffee addiction since he had been there a couple times a day in hopes of bumping into her again. At this rate he’d be broke, and have a serious anxiety issue from all the caffeine.

  Just being in his bear form made him feel at ease. He needed to run, and hunt to help calm himself. He shifted back to his huma
n form and decided to pack his bags, and go home for a few days before the internship started. It would be a while before he’d have an opportunity to break away, and he knew his bear would be like a caged animal if he didn’t take this opportunity now. He wasn’t that far away from his Haven, but the crazy schedule of an internship he knew it would be rare he could go home. Maybe there would be some fights open so he could burn off some steam.

  The leader of the Haven didn’t like the fights that the local bar set up, but he couldn’t stop them he knew that the Shifters needed a safe place to handle their aggression. They never fought to the death, and usually the wounds were easily healed without a healer being required. Tye had fought in them some, but he had never been an overly hostile bear. He had fought in them more since joining the human world because they made him feel so shy and clumsy; two things he normally was not and his bear didn’t like the feeling either. It helped him reassert himself and get his confidence back up.

  The drive over was beautiful with the fall foliage coming on, and leaves were falling along the little highway that wound around the mountains. The holidays were right around the corner which meant winter was coming. Every bear loved winter, and Tye was no different. He couldn’t wait for the first snow fall. He just hoped he wouldn’t be so busy at the internship that he could sneak away to enjoy it. Finally, the gates of his town came into view. He hated the gates because it seemed like a cage, but the humans knew if the Shifters wanted to knock them down and insert themselves into society they could. The Shifters didn’t want any conflict though and preferred to stay to themselves within their own clans anyways. Humans were jumpy creatures, and didn’t take too well to seeing a lion or bear casually walking down the street.

  His mom, Sharon, was waiting on the front porch of their ranch style house when he pulled up.

  “Tye, what are you doing home baby?”

  “I have a few days until my internship, and I wanted to get away. It might be a while before I get to stretch my legs again.”

  “I worry about you cooped up in that city. The bad air, the bad food. Come in, I just got a shipment of that honey you like. I’ll make you some toast with it.”

  “You’re the best ma, but the sandwiches in the city are amazing.”

  His mom gave a disapproving huff before turning back into the house.

  Tye had a passion for honey, but it couldn’t just be any honey. There was a small bee farm in West Virginia called Thistle Dew Farm, and they made the best pure honey in the world. Tye had loved it since he was a boy, and had grown to not be able to tolerate any other honey except it. His mom took to ordering it by the case load online. He currently had two cases of it at his apartment, one bottle in his car, and soon he would also have one in his locker at the hospital.

  His little brother, Jake, and his dad, Logan, were in the back yard wrestling which already had Tye itching to ditch his human form. They both shifted when he came outside and ran to greet him, completely oblivious to their nakedness.

  “Son, I’m so glad you’re home. Are you back home for good” His dad was proud of him for pursuing his dream, but he worried about him out in the human city. The humans could be quick to violence against Shifters.

  “No dad, I’m just here for a few days before it starts. I needed to get out of the city for a bit.”

  “I’m fighting tonight down at the Brew, you should come.” Tye’s little brother was practically still a cub, but he was getting ready to go through his change, which humans would refer to as puberty. It was quite intense for a Shifter, and that most of them fought regularly to help keep themselves in check.

  “Yeah I’ll come along. I’d like to get a fight in myself.”

  “You boys shouldn’t be down there fighting. I don’t like it one bit,” Sharon said.

  “Oh sweetheart we’re the biggest things around here, the boys are fine. If you want to worry, you should worry about the other Shifters they go up against,” Logan said.

  His mom swatted her hand at them as she turned to go back inside. As a she-bear she herself was gigantic, but she didn’t fight for sport. Beware anything that threatened her family, though.

  “Who are you fighting tonight, Jake?”

  “I’m fighting Wiley from up the road. I think we’ll be pretty well suited for each other. He’s a good dude, I like his family.”

  “You got to be careful of those lions. They’re quick, and clever.”

  “Well I outweigh him by a lot. I can take him.”

  “Well let’s be sure of it.” Tye said as he shed his clothes and shifted.

  * * *

  Later that night Tye and his brother made their way over to the Brew, Tye caught a familiar scent. He paused and raised his nose up a little and let his bear take over his scent. Surely he was mistaken at the smell. Jake stopped and gave him a funny look before tugging him inside the bar. Once he was inside he was almost positive it was her. His bear was positive it was her as he frantically searched through the packed bar. He ran into the edge of a table as he tried to hurry by it, it ended up completely over turning causing all the eyes to float to him for a minute.

  This is starting out well! Tye thought as he righted the table and chairs.

  “I kind of assumed that you Shifters would make your buildings bear accommodating, but I can see you’re still flinging poor defenseless objects about,” a familiar voice said.

  All the air left his lungs and then filled with Melanie’s beautiful scent. He turned around and found her wearing a pair of low riding jeans, and a black form fitting shirt. The fabric clung in all the right places, and he immediately wanted to throw her over his shoulder and get her out of there. He didn’t like the other Shifters looking at her. Before he could stop it a growl rose up in his throat. Melanie took a step back. His eyes snapped back to her. He hadn’t meant to scare her. He was making a mess of this. He looked like a clumsy idiot one minute, and a crazed animal the next. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well some of the girls I use to room with come here every now and then, so I decided to tag along. I hope that’s okay. I guess I should have tried to contact you first. ”

  He smiled then because he knew she was here to see him.

  “Can I buy you a beer?”

  “I’m not much of a beer drinker, but if they have a Red’s Apple Ale back there I could be persuaded.” Her eyes had a twinkle to them, and he liked how carefree she seemed here. He took her hand and led her over to the bar. It wasn’t uncommon for humans to come to some of the bars in Haven, but he couldn’t believe Melanie had. Most of the humans that came over were there because they wanted to hook up with a Shifter and see if the rumors were true. Shifter gossips called it going on safari. Once they did a lot of them decided they didn’t want to go back to humans. Shifters mated for life, and once they found their mate and made their claim casual sex was a thing of the past. Before that happened though it was fair game. They were part animal so it was only natural that their animal instincts would push them to seek some sort of release; some of them fought, others had sex, most did both.

  Chapter Six

  Melanie

  Melanie stared at Tye over top of her beer. She still couldn’t believe she had come all this way on a hunch that he would be here. She had called the adviser of the internship, and fibbed that she was a landlord looking to verify Tye’s application, which meant verifying his hometown. The adviser had been hesitant to give it out at first, but Melanie had googled the closest Haven, and spouted off a portion of the town’s local bars address. She fibbed about the rest of the address on his application being smudged and her just looking to confirm the accurate one. Once she had confirmed he had been from that Haven, she got herself dressed and hit the road.

  She wasn’t surprised at all when he walked in, and she tried to stay out of eye sight by hiding behind some of the girls she came with. She also wasn’t surprised when he ended up tangled up in a table. She’d seen him twice now, and both times he was moving too fast
for his giant body to keep up.