Fated Mates: The Alpha Shifter Boxed Set (12 Book Bundle) (Insatiable Reads)

by Hunter, Adriana

  “Wait,” she said, putting out a hand, but the bear was already taking its next step toward her. She could hear its breathing even though it was half a dozen meters away, deep and calm, as though the thing was sucking up gallons of air with each breath it took. And the way the bear’s chest and back heaved with its breathing, Terry didn’t doubt that for a second.

  The animal had a fantastic strength to it, each step it took deliberate and assured. The wooden planks continued to complain, creaking and bending beneath the weight of the beast. The animal’s whole body moved with an odd grace she didn’t expect from something so large. She could see the bear’s shoulder blades jut up out of the creature’s back with each forward step, framing its gigantic, utterly inhuman head.

  “Fuck,” Terry whispered to herself. The second wave of mind-blowing understanding came crashing down on top of her. Every culture, every people, had legends of men and women that could turn into animals, or were grotesque amalgams of human and animal. Those legends, those stories, were all based off truth! How many shapeshifters were there in the world? How many were like Liam, living for centuries?

  Terry half expected to faint. Isn’t that what people did in the movies? See Dracula? Faint. See Frankenstein? Faint. See aliens? Faint. But she wasn’t fainting. Her mind felt clearer than it had the whole night. All that buzz from the beer hoi had worn off. Her vision was no longer fuzzy around the edges, and she could feel the quick pulse of adrenaline in the veins in her wrists and her fingers.

  Right on the edge of the pier, she could not step back unless she wanted to get wet. She wasn’t about to try and run away, either, even though every instinct in her body was screaming at her to run. She knew it was Liam beneath all that muscle and fur. She could see it in the bear’s tiny eyes.

  The bear did not stop its slow advance. She could feel the beast’s heat, now. It was only a mere two meters away. She hadn’t realized that the heads of bears were quite so large. It was huge, dwarfing her own, and the beady eyes and heart-shaped button of a nose were blacker than the night sky.

  A rush of warm breath washed over her, but it didn’t smell like much. In fact, and Terry grinned, it was almost like there was a fleeting hint of the smell of the mint she’d shared with him.

  “Liam?” she asked, her voice lacking the volume of confidence. The bear didn’t respond, and she didn’t know if she had expected it to. She might have just cracked up into laughter if the bear could speak.

  “Is that really you?” This time, though, the bear did respond. It moved its head down and then up; a slow, single nod. “Oh my God,” Terry breathed, shaking her hands in front of her like she was trying to dry them out or fling off a bug, a wave of nerves and nausea flooding into her. She turned around, rocking from the balls of her feet to her heels, and then spun back around again when she thought it probably wasn’t a good idea to turn her back on a bear.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I’m sorry, I just can’t. This is too fucking much. Stop it, I don’t want to see you as a bear anymore.” She looked into the bear’s eyes, was instantly afraid she might provoke it. It was that instinct, she just couldn’t let it go, and it was scaring her, making her feel both insecure and uncomfortable.

  She tried to find somewhere on the bear’s face to look, and when she found the creature’s ears, sticking up off its head at a wide angle, tiny things that looked disproportionate to the bear’s head, she let out a sudden laugh. They were actually really cute! She wanted to just grab them and pull on them, and in the frenzy of emotion she was feeling, had to actually bite back the urge to do so.

  “Please,” she said, looking at Liam – the bear. “Turn back into, uh, a human?” She asked it, and the idea that Liam, technically, might not be human shocked her senses into eerie clarity. She looked around, her head on a swivel. Someone else could be watching them! What if somebody saw? What if it was a police officer or a guard – would it look like she was being attacked? Would they shoot at Liam?

  “Turn back,” she said, urgent. “Come on, Liam. It’s dangerous.” And the bear obliged. Before her she watched as the brilliant brown coat shortened, as though growing back inside the body, and she saw the hulking mass of muscle and bone shrink, recede, withdraw. It pulled inward, like it was being sucked into a black hole, lumps disappearing at once in a fashion that made her feel sick, like the worst kind of body horror. She saw the shape of a man now, just a vague outline, an impression, a hint. But it became more solid, more certain, and soon she could see the shoulders, arms. The bear’s body became a recognizable torso, the hair was almost all gone, and now she was looking down, at a crumpled thing on the pier, watching as it morphed, almost too slowly that it was uncomfortable to witness.

  And then it was Liam. He was completely naked. Terry stepped back absent-mindedly, found no more pier, and was strangely okay with getting completely soaked, when Liam’s arm darted out of his crouched figure to grab her hand and pull her back. He was on his knees, and she didn’t even bother to try and hide the fact that she was looking. She was definitely looking.

  His body reminded her of a sword; nothing wasted, and everywhere a hard edge or surface. As her eyes traveled downward, her mind telling her not to stare, she saw his manhood, and she was impressed, though unsurprised.

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice breathy, and Liam smiled a little at her, and she became quite embarrassingly aware that he had watched her stare. “Sorry!” she said, turning around quickly.

  “For what?” Liam asked. Terry heard him get up, heard the planks creak again as he made his way back to the bank. She turned, unashamed of wanting to look at his bum. And yeah, it was a nice ass, generous and obviously firm.

  “Um, looking?” she answered even as she watched him. He reached the bank, and there she saw at his feet something she hadn’t noticed before. It was his clothing, and hilariously, it was folded neatly. “You folded your clothes?” she blurted, shaking her head at him. Everything was clashing.

  “Yeah,” he said, shrugging at her and smirking. “Old habit, I guess.”

  “Uh huh,” Terry sounded.

  “You’re still looking.”

  “Oh!” Terry turned again, Liam putting on his briefs disappearing out of the corner of her vision. “You know,” she said, throwing her words up and over her head. “People aren’t usually comfortable with getting naked like that.”

  “You didn’t believe me,” Liam stated. “So I had to show you. Besides, I was naked as a bear, and completely fine with that. Why care if I’m naked as a man?”

  “Because that would be normal human behavior,” she said, realizing she had answered his question.

  “So, do you believe me now?”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Can I turn around now?”

  “Yes.”

  She turned and saw he was fully dressed, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, and his jacket hanging loosely off his shoulders. He was sitting on the bank, elbows rested on his knees.

  “Were you scared?”

  “A little.”

  “What of?”

  “What?” Terry asked.

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “I don’t know,” she said after a pause. “You were a bear. It’s scary.”

  “I stay in control.”

  “So you could hear me and understand me and everything?” She walked across the pier and sat on the bank next to Liam. She leaned into him a bit, so that they were shoulder to shoulder.

  “Yes, I could.”

  “But you can’t speak when you’re a bear.”

  “No. The muscles just aren’t there.” His face bunched up as he tried to figure out how to explain it. “It’s a bit like pointing a remote control at the wrong television,” he eventually said. “You know where the buttons are, but there’s no reaction.”

  “That’s so weird,” Terry murmured. “Wow! I am still so shocked.”

  “Most people are when they find out.”

  “Do many peopl
e know?”

  “There was a time when they did,” Liam said. “You know, the legends and the myths have to come from somewhere. But my kind are basically extinct right now. I am one of the last.”

  “Last of the shapeshifters, huh? How did you all die out if you live for so long?”

  “We didn’t die out,” Liam said, and she heard grit and rage in his voice. “We were hunted to extinction.”

  “Hunted?”

  “Yes. By monsters.”

  “You mean other shapeshifters.”

  Liam opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t say anything, and Terry wondered if she’d touched on something. “Other shapeshifters hunt you?”

  “Some,” he said. “When more people knew, it was mostly men who were afraid. Some of us were recruited, willing to turn on their own for a profit. They must have known that they would eventually become targets themselves.”

  “How do you die?”

  “Same way you do,” he said. “We heal a bit faster, live a bit longer, but a bullet or a knife has the same effect on me as it does on you.”

  “But I don’t believe you are still being hunted,” she said. “I mean, nobody knows shapeshifters exist. Who can hunt you if they don’t know?”

  He breathed out slowly. “Nobody knows because there are so few of us left. That I know of, there is still one shapeshifter hunting me and others like me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is that what happened to your wife?” Liam looked at her for a moment, as if unhappy that she had asked. “Hey, I’m just asking. You told me about her first.”

  “Yes. She was not like me, but he killed her anyway.”

  Like the sun breaking over the horizon, Terry knew why he had been so distant, so resistive of her every attempt to get to know him. He couldn’t risk it.

  “It was a wolf.”

  “That was what he shifted into? The shapeshifter who killed her?”

  “Yes,” Liam confirmed. He seemed unfazed, as though the memory didn’t trouble him. “His name was Marcus.”

  “But you escaped?”

  “No,” Liam said, shaking his head. “We fought, and I hurt him. Badly. But I wasn’t going to kill him. He was one of us. I let him hobble away.”

  “You didn’t try to find him again?”

  “Why?” Liam asked, and he looked at Terry. She tried to find sadness in his eyes, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know why it was important to find that. Maybe it made him more human, less of what he had just been moments before: an animal.

  “I don’t know, revenge?”

  “I told you. I wasn’t going to kill him. I hurt him and I didn’t feel better. What would have been the point?”

  “I’m sorry,” Terry said. “I don’t really know what to say.”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “You’re not sad at all?” She was quite aware that she might be pressing a nosy finger into a still-open wound, but she needed to know.

  “I was once. But now,” and his voice trailed off. He leaned back on the bank, supported on one elbow, and looked up at the large moon. “It was bigger than that.”

  “What?”

  “The moon that night.”

  “Why don’t you seem sad, Liam?”

  “I was before. But, now, so much time has passed, and I don’t know. I just don’t feel it anymore. Ever get hurt when you were young? I mean, emotionally?”

  “Of course.”

  “Still feel the pain now?”

  “It’s not really pain, but-”

  “That’s it. It’s not really pain. I am sad, but more and more that sadness is academic. It really hurt once, I remember that. I don’t remember crying, but I did leave. I traveled on my own. That was the start of it all. I went all over the world. In the beginning, that was when it was worst. I went to Asia, north and south, east and west, all over the whole continent. But back then it was quite different, all of it was quite different.” He seemed to become aware that words were falling out of his mouth. He shut his jaw, clenched it, and then spoke again. “So, yes, I’m sad, but not like I used to be.”

  Terry looked at him. He had leaned back, elbows buried in loose leaves, and he wasn’t meeting her eyes. Instead he was looking up at the sky. His face wasn’t lined with sadness, and his eyes were not wet with grief. He didn’t look bothered.

  “It hurts me to hear what happened to you,” she said, taking a cue from how he seemed to be so unaffected by reliving the memory. “But what’s going on with us?” she asked. It had to be asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean what do I mean? It’s obvious, Liam. Don’t dodge it. I mean, you were married.”

  “I was, yes.”

  “I don’t know,” Terry said. “I never really imagined I’d be interested in a guy with, you know-”

  “I’m interested in you,” he said, interrupting her. “But I don’t know what you want to explore right now. I have lived for so long, and experienced so much, there really isn’t any way you can be a part of that. But I’m glad I met you now, and I’ll be alive for a lot longer.”

  “I don’t really know what you’re trying to say, Liam.”

  “I look forward. All the time. There is no point in looking back. Life is too long for me to look back. There is too much. I’ve lost more memories than I can remember having made, if that makes any sense. So I look forward. I go forward. All the time. I don’t stop. I don’t talk about before. At least, I haven’t for a long, long time.”

  “So there have been other times?” Terry asked, feeling the sting of silly hurt and petty jealousy. She knew that she shouldn’t feel that way, but she couldn’t help it.

  “When I first saw you, I was drawn to you,” he said, this time turning to look at her. “In a way that so rarely ever happens. In any other life, in any other time, if I had seen you, I’m sure I would have felt it then and there, too. I’m not really good with words.”

  “That’s true,” she managed to slip in as Liam took a breath.

  “But I know what I want. It’s you.”

  But Terry was resisting him now. She didn’t exactly know why, either, but she was. “Forget about all of this. I’m still a bit drunk. Tell me more about yourself. Why a bear?”

  “Why a bear?”

  “Yeah. Why not, you know, a jaguar or something?”

  Terry only half-listened while Liam explained how he ascertained that his animal was a bear. He told her of when he was a child, he came across a brown bear in a stream, waiting for the salmon to return. He had been playing, but his friends had run off, leaving him alone. His feet were glued to the cold bed of the stream, and he had watched the bear, locked eyes with it. The beast and the boy had stared at each other for minutes, and then the bear had walked away, turning its back on the boy, its large rear swaying left and right as it left the stream and disappeared into the tree line.

  Liam explained that he could feel that something had changed in him, but he didn’t know what. It wasn’t until he was scared one night, lost in the woods after foraging for a medicinal root at his father’s request, when he first changed. It was a reflex; the shift was something he couldn’t control, but he could control the beast. He didn’t know what he had become. He couldn’t see himself. But he thought of that bear, and when he calmed, he changed back into a boy.

  The words floated around in Terry’s head, but she wasn’t really listening. She was lost in her own thoughts, trying to reconcile rogue feelings of jealousy, of rejection. Did she really expect to be his first? She thought that was it, a silly schoolgirl’s thought, but it wasn’t. She had already reconciled the fact that he could have been with countless woman.

  It was something else, and something she couldn’t really shake. He had been married, and his wife had been taken from him. She couldn’t imagine the kind of hurt that would cause, the kind of scars that would leave. It was almost as though she were angry at him for even allowing himsel
f the time he had spent with her, as though he were betraying his wife.

  And that was where Terry realized her reservations lay. Her thoughts, though not crystallized, were that of lingering doubts, a new cloud on the horizon. She wasn’t sure if she’d get over it. She wasn’t sure anymore if this wouldn’t be just an impromptu friendship, a tryst-that-never-was between two travelers, two backpackers that would end sooner rather than later.

  “I don’t know what it was, but as soon as I saw that bear, something changed. And when I first changed, it was like I found a new muscle I could control.” The words snapped Terry out of her thoughts.

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t respond. He looked out at the lake again. Terry felt a kind of frustration start to well. Why couldn’t he just make a move? What was all this dancing around accomplishing? She was perfectly cognizant of the fact that the more she waited, the more her own doubts would begin to color the way she looked at him. And she wanted him, to be with him. She didn’t want to reach that stage where they couldn’t be together, without having been together.

  “Liam,” she began, but his dark gaze was fixed upon her, and cutting off her words, he kissed her. It was the sort of kiss that told her he had claimed her lips, and doing so in between his. Her breath froze in her throat. She hadn’t been expecting that. She didn’t kiss him back at first, but instead let his soft lips explore hers, feel his warmth radiate through her.

  And just like that, her thoughts of resistance turned traitor to her. Her turbulent doubts and unending questions were silenced. And she kissed him back, a little reluctantly, but that was all the permission he needed.

  His hands were on her body then, exploring her every curve and line, and where his skin met hers, there was left a static tingle that sucked her breath away, and made her heart hammer.

  “Liam,” she breathed, half a moan. “Wait.”

  And though his hands slowed, and his lips no longer captured hers, he did not stop, he did not pull away. He looked at her, and she saw a burning desire in his smoldering eyes, a hunger that she had not seen before. It was like the seal to his depths had been broken, and pouring out was everything she had wanted before, and, she was forced to admit, what she still wanted now.