As I looked into the woods, the darkness started to creep forward, to come in closer toward me, obscuring the trees, hiding them in the shadow of a blanket. I felt myself relax. There were animals of all kinds in these woods, big and small, just as afraid of me as I would be of them.
I loosened the grip on my knife and sat back down on the fallen log that happened to be in position parallel with the fire. With my back to my tent, I stared at those flames. I was content and happy, right in my element. I reached for the little pot and grate that would make up my stove and placed it over the flames.
I opened up the cooler and pushed the ice around. The fresh, cold items would only last me a few days before the ice melted, but I had enough prepackaged, non-perishable items to last me the rest of the week. I didn’t want to have to keep going back-and-forth into town, and although it was only a twenty minute or so ride, the point of coming out here was to get away from everyone, away from civilization and the crush of being social.
Besides, I’d always been a peanut butter and jelly kind of girl, a protein bar and fresh fruit kind of hiker. I could handle this, could deal with it even if I had to eat beef jerky out of a bag for the next seven days.
The wind started picking up then, coming from up north, down the mountain. It washed away the scent of smoke and fire, and I inhaled deeply once more, finally smelling the forest in front of me. Squirrels and rabbits, even a wolf in the distance. But there was a musky aroma, a scent of an animal that was stronger, more powerful.
A bear.
As I took in that scent once more, something in me shifted, my inner animal slowly rising, trying to wade through my human side. She was trying to get out.
Although I felt my bear’s strength throughout the years, I’d never felt the kind of push she was giving right now. It’s like she was attempting to fight for supremacy, like she wanted to break free and be the dominant one. And it was a new, frightening but exciting feeling. The very thought of shifting, of letting her take control, actually being in my bear form for once in my life, gave me this excited and anxious feeling.
I stood then, the blade in my palm, my fingers wrapped tightly around the handle, and I glanced into the woods where the scent and noise came from. The bear was still there, powerful and strong, saturating the air. It was a male. A grizzly.
I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply through my nose. Wild. Musky. Alpha. But there was some other scent mixed with all of that, one I couldn’t place, couldn’t decipher what it meant.
But what I did know was that it made me feel like I wanted more... made me want one thing.
Him.
Chapter Four
Cason
I didn’t go any closer her— even though I desperately wanted to, and even though I wanted to make my presence known and tell her she was mine.
Instead, I waited in the darkness, in the shadows. I watched her to make sure she stayed safe, protected. I was going through every scenario in my mind on how I would make her mine.
Charging forwarded in my bear form, roaring out that she was my mate, would most definitely frighten her, would have her running in the other direction from me forever. And that’s not what I wanted. I wanted her irrevocably.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I’d actually found where I was supposed to be, found what had always been mine. My life had meaning now, purpose. It was like all the other bullshit I’d done thus far had just been preparing me for this one moment, this one time where I would lay eyes on what was mine, on who was born to be by my side.
My mate, my wife, and the mother of my children—that’s what she was to me.
My everything.
I watched as she sat by the fire, staring into the flames. There was a little bowl in her lap filled with some peaches she’d poured out of a can. God, she was gorgeous with the wisps of her hair falling out from her ponytail. All kinds of possessive, filthy things ran through my head, things that had me envisioning pulling on those strands and tilting her head back as I stared at the arch of her neck, as I bared it to me and marked her.
My mouth salivated to do just that, my canines aching to pierce the tender flesh of her skin and create the mark that would let all others know she was mine, that she was forever taken.
I took a step closer to her, a twig snapping under my paw. But she didn’t look up. She knew I was still here. As I inhaled deeply and took in the scent of her human side, I also smelled the bear inside her trying to come out.
She was half shifter, yet her human genetics were dominant. Her bear was being drowned, submerged by her human DNA. It stopped her from shifting. I could smell she’d never done it, never experienced that pleasure of letting your bear out and having it run free.
But I knew that would change once I mated with her. I knew once my mark was on her, she’d feel her animal rise up, ripping, clawing from the dark depths within her. She’d shift. Not just for herself, but for me. She’d give me the pleasure, the privilege of seeing her animal finally break free, finally experience the joys of being able to run in the woods, feel the air, the wind move across her fur.
An
d every thought made me harder, more aroused. It made me want to just go over to her right now and take her.
“I know you’re out there,” she called as she stared at the fire, spearing a peach with the prongs of her fork and bringing it to her mouth.
I watched some of that peach juice slip down her full bottom lip, and a low growl of arousal and approval left me.
“I know you’re a shifter, so you might as well come out and stop hiding.” She lifted her head and looked in my direction then, and although it was pitch black, and even though she was only half-shifter, I knew she could see me watching her. “I didn’t come here to be watched and stalked while I’m on vacation.”