Bear Down: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (4 page)

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.

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 bag 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.

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
.

"Nathan!" she gasped in relief.

Nathan skidded to a halt between April and the other bear, digging his giant clawed paws into the thin tundra soil. He put his head down. All the fur on his shoulders was standing up. He gave another tremendous roar. The message was very clear.
Mess with her and you mess with me. Bring it!

For an awful moment April thought the mother bear might try it. She snarled and flattened her ears, and kept coming. Then the baby bear ran down the hill to Mom. Nathan's arrival had completely terrified it. It scampered behind the mother's bulk.

With her baby safe, Momma Bear gave another token snarl in Nathan's direction. She slouched off along the shoreline, shepherding her baby in front of her.

April sat down very suddenly on the ground when her legs decided to stop holding her. She felt like everything from the waist down had turned to jelly. That had been too close. Way too close.

"Have you been following me all this time?" she asked. "I've been looking for you! Jerk."

Nathan swung his head around and gave her a look that was ... well, if bears could look sheepish, he was doing it now.

April got up and approached him cautiously. She reminded herself there was nothing to be afraid of. It was only Nathan. He would never hurt her.

She held out a careful hand. Nathan held still, watching her. There
was
something very Nathan-like about him as a bear, she thought. Now that she'd seen him up close, she was pretty sure she could recognize him again, even in bear form.

Lightly she touched the shaggy ruff of fur around his face. He was so big that even on all fours, she was on eye level with him. Nathan lowered his head, ducking it almost shyly. It was—God help her—very cute. She ran her fingers through his fur. He made a low sound in his throat that was almost a purr.

"You ought to change back," she said. "We can't have a conversation like this. Here, I brought your clothes." She slung the backpack off and unzipped it.

When she looked up from the backpack, human-shaped Nathan was crouched on the ground in all his naked muscular glory. He stood up slowly. With a certain amount of reluctance, April handed him the neatly folded bundle of clothing. As far as
she
was concerned, he could walk around naked all day, but she didn't want him to be cold.

"So you're .... okay with this?" Nathan asked, as he tugged his jeans over his hips.

"What? Did you think I'd be, I dunno, mad at you or something?"

"I thought you'd freak out," Nathan admitted. He frowned at her. "
Why
aren't you freaking out?"

Now it was her turn to confess, "I don't know. For all I know, maybe there's an enormous freakout waiting for me when we get back to cars and people and all those normal things. But right now, I'm mostly just—Nathan, do you have any
idea
all the questions I want to ask you?"

"Huh?" He looked confused, and vaguely alarmed. "Like what?"

"Like—like
everything
! We can radio collar bears and follow them around, but we can't live with them. How do polar bears figure out which ice floes are the best seal-fishing grounds? How do they communicate with each other?
Do
they communicate with each other? Polar bears are mostly loners, but we're starting to realize their social structure is actually more complex than we'd ever realized. But we can't really study it because they live in such remote areas and they're so hard to get close to!"

"April," Nathan said when he could finally get a word in edgewise, "I'm a bear shifter, not an actual bear."

"Oh. I guess you're right." She blushed. "Still, you must know a lot about the private lives of bears that we biologists never see. I hope you're okay with me asking questions, because, uh, I don't think I'm going to be able to stop myself."

Nathan laughed. "Hey, I'd much rather have you asking questions than avoiding me." Sobering, he added, "I don't usually change in front of people. Not very many people know about this."

"Who does know?" April asked. "I don't want to say something in front of the wrong person."

"Well, my family, of course. It's a family trait. And Lee knows, as well as few of my friends in town. I'll introduce you around later, if you're okay with that."

"I'd love that," she said, smiling. "Though first I guess we have to find our way back to the plane so they can find
us
. I hope you were paying attention, because everything around here looks the same to me. I tried to mark our way with piles of rocks, but they don't stand out very well."