His head moved and he groaned as if everything hurt. His body was covered in blood and long claw marks blanketed his back. Even though she was scared out of her mind, she reached out to touch him and noticed that blood no longer gushed through the skin. Her mind could barely process what had happened. A wild, aggressive bear turned into a man. A man who was familiar.
Then it struck her. “Ryan?” The word came out almost inaudible. Had she screamed? Had she lost her voice?
Two men approached her, but she didn’t even bother to look up. She was still in shock. One of them crouched next to the passed out man and the other put a hand on her shoulder.
“Celine? Let me help you up,” the familiar face said. She knew he was one of Ryan’s friends, but couldn’t remember his name. It wasn’t even relevant. She had seen three wild bears fight just meters away. He supported her body as she stood. The man on the ground hadn’t moved.
Alex guided Celine inside and made her sit on the red couch in the living room. He knew it hadn’t been the best idea to touch Ryan’s mate, but he had no choice. She just stared blankly into space. She was like a zombie. Poor thing, Alex thought. He covered himself with one of the towels from the bathroom. As he went out of the bathroom, a naked Ryan entered. His body was covered in blood and cuts. He almost lost it again when he saw the state Celine was in. She was now sobbing, hugging her legs and rocking her body. Ryan hurried to hug her, knocked the coffee table out of the way, kneeled on the floor in front of her legs, but she retreated to the end of the couch, repeating “stay away” and protecting herself with her arms.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I ruined everything. I’m so sorry,” his voice was hoarse and he was shaking all over. He was panicking. It could trigger another change if Alex didn’t do something soon. Alex’s bear tried to reach Ryan’s bear. He focused on their childhood. The connection between them was open so he flooded it with the sound of water flowing peacefully, leaves rustling in the wind at night, memories of them playing in the snow and running together in the mountains in winter. It was working. Ryan’s shaky body was calming down. Ryan and Alex looked at each other for a few moments.
“Thanks, man,” Ryan managed to say as he fought back tears.
Alex went out of the room to give Ryan and Celine some privacy.
As soon as they were alone, Ryan broke down. He gently hugged her legs and kissed them.
She flinched.
“It’s me, baby. I’m not going to hurt you. I love you, brave girl.”
She stopped rocking and her legs slid to the floor. She hugged him back, but kept crying. She looked so small and terrified. They didn’t move for a while. They just stayed like that, holding each other, neither wanting to break their connection.
Still sniffing, Celine touched his lips with her finger. Her emotions were all over the place. She didn’t know what to say. Was he special to her because of his ability to change into a bear?
“There are so many things I have to tell you. Can you hear me out?” Ryan whispered without lifting his head.
“Were you ever going to tell me you change into a bear, Ryan?”she asked, lifting her head and forcing him to look at her.
“You would have found you anyway, I’m aware of that now.”
“Telling me was never your plan. I… I understand. I have no idea what sort of thing this is and it sounds straight out of a fantasy book. Why did you think it was better to keep me in the dark? You said you were serious about us and I trusted you! Can’t believe you, Ryan!” she shouted.
She wanted to get out of this place, even though being close to Ryan made her feel so safe and loved. She didn’t recognize this version of her man. He looked broken beyond repair. She tried to get on her feet, but he grabbed her wrists, gently urging her to stay.
“Please, baby…” The pained expression on his face made her listen to him and stay. For now. She didn’t know if she could forgive him for this lack of trust. He continued. “My ex-wife, Joana, was three months pregnant when she found out I was a shifter. I am a bear shifter, Celine. It’s who I am and it’s with the animal inside that I have the most problems with. I wish I had a bear that was tamer, but mine is a beast, so it takes great effort to keep under control. Not many people know about us. So, Joana… when she found out that I was a monster- as she called me- she got hammered and committed suicide. She drove off a bridge. She said she didn’t want to bring a monster in the world. She preferred to end her life and our child’s life, rather than give me a chance to make things right. We are not monsters and I wanted you to see that before I told you.”
Celine was speechless. What could she say now? It was clear in how much pain Ryan was. He was like a different person. She remembered Adam had the same expression on his face as he restrained Anna.
“Anna is just adapting to her new senses. We thought she might react this way, but we were prepared. I did it all for you and…”he placed one hand on her belly. “Our little one.”
Understanding crashed on Celine. “Are you telling me I’m pregnant?”her lips trembled. Too many things were happening faster than she could process.
“Yeah, baby. I’m guessing that’s why you have this cold. It’s your body adapting to it.”
“So you’ve been married before. How long ago?”
There were no emotions on her face that gave Ryan any signs of what she was thinking, so he just went for the full disclosure policy. “She died seven years ago. It really messed me up to the extent that I slowly pushed the animal inside me deeper and deeper. I focused on building our business. The whole situation affected my whole family and I owed it to my brother not to let this burry us,” he was rambling now, so he shut up.
A few minutes passed and none of them said anything. They just sat there, Celine on the couch – sitting yoga style- and Ryan on the rug in front of the couch. He was stark naked, but there was nothing sexual about the way he was sitting. It was just a vulnerable space of allowing the other to process what was happening. They were holding each other’s hands and Ryan put his hands on Celine’s lap. She went on to caress his hair. Her handsome and strong man. Bear. Both. He had been through something she couldn’t even imagine and had survived.
“Did you love her?” she was talking about Joana.
“Joana? She was my first love, so yeah, I cared about her deeply. Everything started going down the drain when her parents died and she started drinking. We were only married for one year and two months when her parents were gone. She never recovered from that. Anyway… this is about you and me now, not her. I guess I was and still am living with the fear of you leaving me because of what I am. I tried to work on being more human than animal, but it just blew up in my face.”
“Do you love me?”
He lifted his head and looked straight into her acorn-brown, round, big eyes. “I do. You’re the light guiding me back to myself. You’ve awakened and strengthened my bear enough to fight me. You know… my mother wrote us a letter before she died. She believed in soul mates.” Celine chuckled. “I know, it sounds stupid. I didn’t believe in it until today actually. She said our bears recognize their mates, that person who comes into their lives to spark change and bring to the fore feelings we keep hidden with the purpose of healing those wounds. She mentioned it wouldn’t be easy and that we would probably go against our bears and would fight the attraction because of how much it hurt, but I guess she was right, the need to be in that soul union would be greater than the fear.”
“Will I turn into what Anna is? I saw her face contort and change. I’m so afraid that it’s paralyzing me.”
“About that… Adam and Anna are a fully mated couple. That means she accepted my brother and his bear and he bit her during sex. She has his mark and is in transition to becoming a bear shifter. She wasn’t born one, so the transition is long and quite difficult. The problem is we are quite an isolated community here and because all of us are so young, we’re still discovering things on our own.”
“You bit me
too,” she said as she touched and rubbed her shoulder right over the bite.
“I did, but it was a superficial mark. It wasn’t as deep as the one my brother left on his mate. It only created a link between us. Can’t you feel it? I already feel my bear trying to reach out to the cub.”
“Cub? You mean the baby? The baby’s going to change too? Into a bear?”
“It will take time. It’s going to be born in its human body and the first transformation is around the age of one.”
They had been talking for over an hour when Raddler knocked.
“Yeah, come in, Raddler,” Ryan only turned his head to look at the door.
“I just wanted to let you know Anna is okay before we leave.”
Ryan already knew that. His brother was in a better mood now.“You don’t have to leave, right Celine? We can still have lunch. I just need to shower.”
At the mention of food, Celine’s stomach growled “I agree. Let’s get into that shower.”
“We’ll be right out,” Ryan said, getting up and scooping Celine in his arms.
Raddler chortled and Celine’s cheeks warmed. Everybody knew what Ryan’s intentions were. At least one orgasm was on the list. It was written all over his face. His cocky, confident side was slowly coming back to her.
She laughed.“Put me down. I’m heavy.”
“You’re as light as a feather, sugar,” he said, already heading for the stairs.
Once in the shower, Ryan brushed his lips on the shoulder he had bitten one week into their relationship. The bite wasn’t fully healed, but it did things to his cock to look at it and lick it, so he did just that. Standing behind her in the shower, he murmured in her ear. “You belong with me, Celine. You wake in me feelings I never thought I would be capable of. You would make me the happiest man if you accepted to be mine. My mate and the mother of my cubs.” He was opening up to her about his feelings and it took more courage than he thought he had in him.
“You have shown me what it feels like to be accepted and loved me for me, you naughty bear. It’s true that I am afraid, but it’s also true that I feel I belong with you. The world is a less scary place because you are in it, so yes, I’m in this relationship and I’m not going anywhere.”
EPILOGUE
The guys had taken care of the barbecue while Celine and Ryan had been inside. They had also drunk almost all the beer without even feeling the effects. The steak was absolutely fantastic and Celine couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw how much these bulky men ate. She was also shocked by the amount of food she had when she put a stop to Ryan’s attempts of feeding her the same amount he had on his plate. She still had that cough, but she was feeling better. All that mountain air was doing wonders.
They spent the rest of the day cracking jokes and the guys all took turns in telling stories about Adam and Ryan when they were young. Ryan wished his brother were there, but he felt him close. For now things were more than he had ever imagined they would be.
When Celine’s phone rang, Ryan reached for the nightstand to get it for her. As she answered, Ryan went back to rubbing her belly and telling their cub about their day. He was so excited to be able to do this for the first time that it didn’t matter to him what it might look like to Celine or anyone else. He was finally going to be a father and he had a great mate to share his happiness with.
“Hi Janet,” Celine said. “How are you, girl?”
“Hey, stranger! Haven’t seen you in ages. I miss you so much,” Janet whined.
“I miss you too. You won’t believe what great news I have for you!”
“Yeah, we have some catching up to do. I have news too, Celine. The manly kind!”
THE END
Janet and the Bear
(Shifting Impulse Book 3)
Copyright © 2015 by Aurora Woodlove
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
CHAPTER ONE
Janet Parker stared at Celine's rosy cheeks. Her friend seemed totally swept away. Ryan just had a way with women. Janet admired him for successfully managing the ten restaurants the Fords owned all over the US. That customer-oriented approach Ryan had going on was definitely good for business, but it gave off the wrong signals to women. He looked like he was always flirting, when in fact he had trained himself to be a pleasant person to be around so customers would be attracted to his business. That was great, but Janet sometimes felt he was just playing people.
He couldn't trick her. They had history. She had known Ryan and Adam Ford ever since the twins were seventeen. Janet was four years younger than them and was always like the sister they never had. She knew about their late mother's dream of having a restaurant and her obsession with Europe. She knew about the cabins Adam and Ryan had built from scratch up in the mountains. She knew they were shifters. She knew about Ryan's ex-wife, Joana, and about Adam's failed relationships.
North Bloom Lake wasn't one of those small towns where everybody knows way too many details about everyone else. It had once been a major industrial city and it was one of the major cities still. Now it was a thriving touristic destination, mainly because of the Outdoors Center Resort up in the mountains, close to the Great Lake, but also the artist workshops that were everywhere, the great food from all the corners of the world and of course the breathtaking views of the mountains in the morning and in the evening, or the clear, bottomless lakes and the towering chilly forests.
It was one of those cities that encouraged production in any way possible. Unemployment was quite low in North Bloom Lake. Businesses supported each other and communities kept expanding as more and more tourists came and some even settled here.
Ryan seemed quite uncomfortable as one of the most annoying gold-diggers in Celine's group - Samantha - came up to him and introduced herself. Watching the scene from behind the bar had its perks. She didn't have to get involved and she could see Celine's reaction. Maybe she was really interested in Ryan. That would be a first. Janet could only hope he wasn't toying with her best-friend. Celine wasn't a people person and she only was in that group because she didn't like being alone. Janet felt restless if she was alone. She sometimes asked herself how in the world they were still friends since they were as different as night and day.
Celine was quiet, Janet loud. Celine worked in the same place for years while Janet's only constant job was this bar-tending gig at the Shifting Impulse. She changed her job every two years. That was mainly her parents' influence, as they thought nothing she did was good enough. But she had to admit she quite enjoyed the atmosphere at Shifting Impulse and she always came back to work for a few years and then leave again. She liked being around those people more than anything. Yes, it was true mostly drunk men hit on her, but she was just amused by their futile attempts. She knew exactly what kind of guy was right for her and she was determined to wait. It would be years probably until that happened and she was already thirty-one, but Janet didn't see it as an inconvenience. People were usually in a hurry to get married because they wanted to be young when they had children. In Janet's case, kids were never a problem. She couldn't have any, she didn't like them, so she could do whatever she wanted without having to really think about the future. Men usually broke up with her because of this.
Ryan's sudden departure snapped her out of her reverie. Celine was definitely impressed. The look on her face was priceless. Janet wanted to believe Ryan was a good guy, but she knew shifters changed women more often than sheets. Her ex-boyfriend, Adler, also a fucking shifter, had cheated on her like there was no tomorrow. The man had serious commitment issues and just coul
dn't keep it in his pants. Proud lion shifter.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed a flash of the most vivid azure blue eyes. Unbelievable. Another shifter. Janet was reluctant when it came to trusting shifters. It was true her ideal man was as massive as Ryan and Adam and it had been the only reason she hooked up with Adler, but she blamed it on their influence on her teenage years. The truth was she was attracted to bulky, beefy, robust men. Attracted in the sense she only saw those in a crowd. Not that many paid her any attention, but that was a different conversation. The guy she'd just seen wasn't moving. He was leaning on a one of the supporting pillars closest to the entrance. He scanned the room and his piercing blue eyes stopped on her. The serenity in his eyes turned to curiosity as he studied her. He just stared, he didn't move at all.
Fingers tapped on the bar counter. "Janet! Whiskey on the rocks," one of her most frequent customers demanded, eyeing her cleavage.
"Make that two," added another one.
"Coming right up, guys," Janet confirmed, using her signature smile.
Right then, Janet's phone rang. She took it out of her back pocket. It was Ryan. He must be joking. She signaled the other bartender to cover for her as she answered and headed to the back.
****
Damn it! She fell right into Ryan's trap and gave him Celine's number. The man was good with words. He sounded sincere too. Angry, but satisfied that she threatened to go after him if he hurt her best-friend, Janet went back behind the bar.
Shifting Impulse: A BBW Bear-Shifter Romance (Complete Edition - Books 1-3) Page 17
