by Zoe Chant
"April ..." he said. His deep voice was husky with need.
She leaned forward, stretching up to him, just as he leaned down. Their lips met, at first just a tentative brush, a question more than an answer—but it sent an electric current down her spine, sparking a hot rush of want between her legs. She surged up and met him full on, mouth open, wet and hungry and wanting. His kiss was hesitant at first and then, increasingly sure of his reception, he began to take control, exploring her mouth and then trailing kisses across the corner of her mouth and down her neck to her collarbone.
"I thought ..." he whispered into her neck, and his breath on her skin made her shudder. "I thought you felt it too. But I didn't know—I wasn't sure—"
"Yes," she said into his hair. "Yes." She slid her hands under his shirt, ran her palms across the firm, toned muscles of his shoulders and chest, then slid her fingers down to run them beneath the waistband of his jeans, across his hips and the hollows above his fine ass.
He let out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan. She felt him working free the tails of her shirt, and then his hands wrapped around her waist, one on each side, big and warm, skin against skin. It felt just as perfect as she'd thought it would.
Nathan brought his hands up, beneath her shirt, to cup her breasts, one for each. He kissed his way down her chest, across the fabric, and took one of her nipples into his mouth through the shirt.
She gasped. His mouth was wet and warm, bringing both her nipples to instant erect hardness; they pushed against her shirt. She pulled her hands back from his waistband and began fumbling with her buttons—she needed the shirt off, she wanted more, now—but he gently moved her hands away and unbuttoned her shirt and then her jeans himself. Carefully, as if she was the most precious thing in the world, he slid the shirt off her shoulders. She was left kneeling between his legs with her jeans undone and her ample breasts barely contained in her bra.
Nathan paused, holding her in place with his hands on her hips, to gaze at her. She looked up at him, wondering what kind of a sight she made: her hair mussed, face flushed from need and arousal. The look in his eyes was one of open wonder and delight.
"You are so beautiful," he breathed.
"Less talking," she gasped. "More ... everything." She was so wet, her panties damp. If he didn't take her right now, she was going to climb him like a tree.
He broke into another of those amazing smiles and leaned down to capture her mouth with his own. As he kissed her, he cupped a hand around each breast and rubbed her hard, sensitive nipples with his thumbs. She could feel each stroke as a small, delicious shock between her legs, spreading through her sex.
April moaned into his mouth and placed her hands on his thighs. As he continued to rub her nipples, she fumbled with his zipper and got his jeans open. He was rock-hard and ... okay, wow, enormous. He was a boxer guy, it seemed. She rubbed him through the loose fabric and had the joy of feeling him shiver in pleasure at her touch.
He undid her bra and let it fall away, then laid her down on the sleeping bag. Her whole body thrummed with anticipation. She spread her legs and he knelt between them, bending over her. As he kissed her and fondled her breasts, she reached up to undo his shirt buttons—more skin, more touching, more everything. He broke away for a moment to peel it off, exposing that gorgeous body she'd so admired at the airplane hangar. His nipples were hard too, she saw, and she spread her hands across his powerful chest, rubbing her thumbs across his nipples as he was doing to her. He gasped and made a growling sound deep in his throat; she could feel it rumble in his chest. His eyes were dark with arousal, pupils blown wide.
"Please," she whimpered, lifting her hips. She had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this.
Nathan worked her jeans down over her hips and then pulled down her panties. He took each of her ample buttocks in an enormous hand and lifted her hips to bury his face between her legs.
The first touch of his tongue was a gentle flick. She was so sensitive and so incredibly wet that she jerked all over and let out a small cry.
With more small flicks of his tongue, he teased her closer and closer to the edge. His tongue moved down, caressed the soft folds of her sex, then came back up, one stroke at a time, to tease around the hot, quivering nub of her clit. The ache built in her; she writhed her hips against him, but he held her still, guiding her with gentle touches until the sudden shock of orgasm arched her spine. Through the shocks, he lapped at her, driving her onward into wave after cascading wave of pleasure. She'd never come so long before, and even as she began to relax down from it, quivering with aftershocks, she knew the best was yet to come.
He rose on his knees to push down his jeans and underwear. His cock sprang free, the whole great length of it. She moaned aloud as he pushed between her legs, filling her as she'd never been filled before. He plunged deep, pulled back, plunged again. She could tell he was close; the sight and smell of her ecstasy had driven him to the edge. Already her next climax was building in her, as he grunted with each thrust and built toward his own. "Deeper," she gasped, "harder," and he gave her more and more, thrusting into her as she rose to meet him with each stroke. His whole body arched as he came, and the final thrust sent her over the edge too, white-hot pleasure coursing through her body and then slowly letting her back to earth.
They held each other through the aftershocks, twined together, damp with sweat.
"That was ..." he whispered into her hair. There was still a hint of growl in his voice. "Amazing."
"I think that's my line." April sat up and untangled her feet from her clothing, kicking it to one side on the tarp.
Pushing himself up on hands and knees, Nathan unzipped the sleeping bag and spread it out. She climbed into it and he lay down with her, then zipped them both in. Just as he'd fit perfectly in her, so they both fit perfectly in the fluffy bag. Warm, cozy, and not a care in the world.
A part of her wondered if she was going to regret this when she got back to civilization. It all seemed so sudden. She wasn't normally one to jump into something like this. She hadn't even come here looking for a relationship, or wanting one!
But right now, she was relaxed and content, and couldn't imagine anything she wanted more than to tuck her head against his shoulder and fall asleep, with his big arms around her, tucking her in and keeping her safe.
So she did.
6. Nathan
The unexpected smell of another bear roused Nathan out of a light sleep.
He'd been drifting in peaceful bliss, with his mate in his arms, safe and protected and his. It was the bear, his bear, that brought him awake, rising up inside him in response to the threat to what it had claimed as its own.
For a few minutes he lay still, while April slept serenely in his arms, her rhythmic breathing ruffling the fine downy hairs on his neck. It was difficult to properly sort out the smells outside the shelter, since April's beloved scent and the smell of recent sex was still so strong. But there was a bear out there. He could feel its presence.
The rain had stopped, and the only sound now was water dripping off the tarp and the rustling of brush in the wind. Or ... maybe that wasn't the wind. Nathan lay as still as any predator awaiting its prey, and listened to the crackling and snapping outside their makeshift tent. In this remote country, most bears weren't afraid of people. This one certainly didn't seem to be. It was nosing around, curious about the plane.
He could smell it clearly now. Polar bear. Not a shifter, just a regular bear. And it was a male. His bear roused further, snarling at the proximity of another male bear.
There was a sudden rustling very close, and the other bear thrust its broad white head under the dangling flap of the tarp.
Nathan didn't even think about it. Instinct took over. His mate was in danger, and in that instant, the human and bear sides of him were in perfect agreement. The bear erupted out of him, fangs growing, shaggy white coat rippling down his back.
He surged out of the sleeping b
ag with an earthshattering roar. His tremendous white bulk filled the tent; the tarp collapsed on one side as he shouldered his way out of it.
The other bear sprang backwards in utter shock. It wasn't a large bear, as Nathan could see now that he was in his bear form. It was only a little boar, probably a couple of years old. It was horrified at having come face to face with a full-grown and very large male bear. Flattening its ears, it turned tail and fled across the tundra.
Nathan roared after it, bristling to make himself look even larger than he was. His deep roar echoed across the landscape. Mine! it seemed to say.
The fleeing heels of the small bear vanished over the nearest hill. A low growl of satisfaction rumbled out of Nathan's chest.
Then a voice behind him said in soft shock, "Nathan?"
Horror filled him.
The one thing he'd never wanted to do, the one thing he'd desperately tried not to do for his whole life was change into his bear form in front of someone who didn't know.
And he'd done it in front of the one person he'd have given anything not to find out the truth about him.
He couldn't even look at her. He didn't know what to do. All he knew was that seeing her look at him with condemnation and hate would shatter him, like a piece of hot, hardened steel doused in ice water.
All he could think to do was get away before she had a chance to tell him what she thought of him now. Nathan turned and galloped over the tundra away from her. As long loping strides carried him, step by step, away from his mate, he felt like he was being ripped in half, as the biggest part of his heart stayed with her.
7. April
He's a bear.
April stared in the direction Nathan ... no, the bear that had been Nathan had gone, trying to comprehend what her eyes had told her. He'd turned into a bear. Right in front of her.
How is this possible?
But clearly it was possible. April was too much of a scientist to dismiss the evidence of her own eyes. She knew she wasn't crazy, so what she'd seen, however strange, must be the truth.
She slowly got up. She was still naked, and the breeze blowing under the tarp was cool on her bare body, raising goosebumps. She picked up her clothes and began to pull them on. It was possible that the other bear might come back, though she was fairly sure Nathan had scared it off pretty thoroughly. The only predator polar bears had, besides humans, was other polar bears, which meant that when they fought, it was for keeps. A little bear like that one had a very real chance of being killed by a bigger bear. And therefore, when a big male like Nathan told a smaller bear to get out of Dodge, it got right the heck out of Dodge.
And Nathan was a big bear. She supposed it shouldn't be a shock; he was a big human too. Of course, bears probably seemed bigger when you were right next to them. The only other times she'd been close enough to touch a bear, they'd been tranquilizer-darted for radio collaring.
Why did he run off? Did he think I'd be afraid of him?
"Nathan!" she called. Her voice echoed across the tundra.
It had stopped raining, she noticed, though the day remained dank and gray. A cool, damp wind tugged at her sex-mussed hair.
Nathan, are you really going to fucking run off and leave me here?
With a sigh, she started gathering their stuff into her backpack. Proper wilderness survival procedure was to stay with a crashed airplane until rescuers arrived. It was a whole lot easier to find airplane wreckage than one or two tiny human travelers on the vast tundra. But she couldn't just let Nathan run off on his own, thinking she was afraid of him. She was terribly worried he might not come back.
Like you're going to be able to find him if he doesn't want to be found.
And all the while a litany was running at the back of her brain, like a recording set to loop: Nathan is a BEAR?
She shrugged into the pack straps and made careful note of landmarks around the crash site. There weren't many to speak of. The tundra was mostly flat here, with gentle dips and rises, strewn with ancient glacial boulders nested in brush. There was not a single tree in sight anywhere.
A cluster of particularly large boulders, with a low bare-topped rise behind them, served as the closest thing to a distinctive landmark in the area. She fixed it in her mind, and took a picture with her wildlife camera just to make sure. Then she turned in the direction Nathan had gone, and started walking.
It was chilly at first, but the exercise quickly warmed her up. People tended to think she was out of shape at first glance, due to her overall roundness, but actually she spent a hell of a lot of time hiking for her job. She was pretty sure she could outwalk any size zero on the planet. Not that she wanted to take a hike on the damp tundra today, especially knowing there were bears around. But needs must, and all that.
"Nathan!" she called.
There was no answer, just the soft rush of a breeze ruffling the low tundra vegetation. April hiked across the gentle hills, trying as best she could to note the way she'd come, though in the absence of landmarks she wondered how she'd ever find her way back to the plane. After a little while, a thought occurred to her. There were a ton of loose rocks around, so every so often she paused, picked up a few of these, and made a little cairn. At least that way, she felt like she was doing something so she wouldn't be completely lost out here in the endless barren hills.
With the low clouds, there was no sense of time passing at all. She checked her watch and was surprised to find it was already after 7 p.m. The flat gray light looked like a cloudy midday.
She really didn't want to spend the night out here by herself, with bears in the area.
"Nathan! Come on, stop playing games. I have the food and everything."
Although ... as a bear, he could hunt, couldn't he? A chill ran through her. Nathan would be just fine out here. She was the one who needed him.
April sighed. She sat on a boulder, had another sandwich and a drink from her water bottle, and went on.
She came upon the ocean unexpectedly. She'd thought they were farther inland, but then, the coast along the northern edge of the North American continent was rippled and ruffled, carved into a million tiny bays and inlets by years of glaciation and changing sea levels. Here there was a low bluff and, below it, a broad gravel beach.
Some part of her had thought that Nathan might be here, but there was no sign of him. April stood looking down at the wrinkled sea, kicked up into breakers by the tattered remnants of wind trailing behind the storm. Farther out, the mist of ocean spray merged with the low clouds into a gray haze, like she'd reached the edge of the world.
It was a very lonely place to be.
She made another cairn to mark the spot where she'd reached the shore, then turned and began walking along the top of the bluff. At least with the ocean on her left, she couldn't get lost. And she was heading in the general direction of town. How far out had they come, anyway? She didn't really want to do the math on that. They'd been flying for hours.
A sudden low, coughing roar, almost more of a bark, got her attention. That was a bear. Nathan? She picked up her pace.
In a minute or two, she came upon a steep-sided inlet where some ancient stream or glacier had carved its way down to the sea. Along the water's edge, the huge white bulk of a polar bear lounged lazily. This was definitely not the bear they'd encountered earlier; that one had been much smaller.
"Nathan?" she said hesitantly.
The bear grunted and picked up its head. Its small ears pricked with interest. April took a nervous step backward. I ... I don't think that's Nathan.
A sudden crashing behind her made her whirl around. Another bear was standing up. It had been lying behind a boulder and she hadn't even noticed it. This one was tiny by bear standards, hardly any bigger than a Rottweiler.
April's mouth went dry. That's a cub. A young one. The other one must be the mother.
The bear at the water's edge stood up. She'd been lounging half in and half out of the surf, letting it ebb and flow around her.
Water streamed from her long, shaggy fur.
Shit shit shit, April thought desperately, and backed away, keeping an eye on both bears. None of the usual techniques that back-country hikers learned for dealing with bears—playing dead, for example—worked on polar bears. Most bears were omnivores, and rather lazy. They didn't want a hassle. Polar bears were predators through and through. The only thing they ate was meat, and they didn't see humans enough to know that a human being was anything other than a meal on legs. Even so, normally they weren't inclined to bother people unless they were hungry—a smart predator didn't waste time running after prey if it had already eaten. Unless you did something unwise, like, say, getting between a mother and its cub.
The mother bear grunted.
"I'm not gonna hurt your baby. No problems here. I just want to leave, okay?" April babbled. Even as the words came out of her mouth, she thought, You are talking to a bear like it can understand you. But after what had happened with Nathan, who knew? Maybe all the bears around here were shapeshifters like him.
The mother bear took a few slow, rolling steps forward. Her hackles were standing up, the long hair prickling all down her spine. That was definitely not a friendly-looking bear.
April looked wildly around for somewhere, anywhere to run to. Running from bears was the one thing you were never supposed to do; although they looked slow and ungainly, they were as fast as a galloping horse. But she wasn't about to stay here and get mauled, either. Unfortunately the treeless countryside offered nowhere to go. Maybe she could climb on top of a boulder?
The bear was picking up speed. April tensed her legs to run, even though she knew it was hopeless.
There was a tremendous roar, so loud it seemed to shiver the air, and another bear came charging down the hill. This one was even bigger than the mother bear. April let out a yelp of pure terror, then realized an instant later that the newly arrived bear was headed for Momma Bear, looking furious.
