Bear With Me: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (11 page)

“Do you need a job?” she blurted, tangling her fingers in his hair.

* * *

MARK

Mark’s train of thought, which had already taken a detour from “sober and detailed explanation of shifters” to “mmm, that feels nice,” screeched to a halt.

“Wait, what?” he managed to say, blinking up at Jamie in confusion. Her face was lit up with excitement.

“Do you need a job? Or, anyone else in your family who has this, um, who’s a bear as well, but mostly … you?”

“Wait—what?”

Jamie rolled her eyes, smiling. “Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I mean—do other animals treat you like they would a bear?”

Mark remembered the protective condor parents dive-bombing him. “Er, yes.”

“Then that’s perfect!” She twined her fingers through his hair, grinning happily. “One of the problems with restoring wildlife areas is that we can have trouble with predators arriving and wiping out the species we’re trying to re-introduce. Even if the predator and prey species could live together once the prey’s properly established, that establishment period can be pretty dangerous.”

She pulled her hands away from Mark’s head and moved them to his chest, tracing out her thoughts and plans as she spoke.

“Like, maybe we try to introduce a bird species, it’s no good if every bobcat in a hundred miles moves in thinking
yum, buffet time
, at least until there are enough of the birds around to cope with predation pressure. But—bears! So many species are wary of bears! It could be a, a sort of seasonal job … Hey, stop laughing!”

Mark bit his tongue, and looked up at Jamie. She was practically glowing. This was her passion, he knew: protecting creatures and helping them thrive. And—and the first thing she had thought of, when he told her about his shifter nature, was how to bring him into that world. Into her life.

“And we could—oh.” Jamie bit her lip, her restless hands growing still on Mark’s chest. He raised himself up on his elbows, looking at her with concern. The light that had seemed to pour out of her had gone dim.

“What’s wrong?”

Jamie laughed ruefully and leaned back on her haunches, pulling her hands away.

“We run into the same problem as before, don’t we? The same reason I sent you packing when you first showed up.” She groaned. “There’s no point you coming out with me on these trips if we spend all of our time, well,
you know
, and can’t even concentrate on the job.”

Mark’s stomach turned over. He caught Jamie’s hand as her face went white under its freckles.

“My job … Oh, God, the birds!”

Jamie jumped up, pulling Mark with her. Mark held onto her hand, but she shook him off.

“Jamie, let me go down to the river first, just in case…” He didn’t want to say it.
In case there’s nothing left there to see.

Or, worse—something to see, but nothing alive.

Jamie shook her head. “No. I have to see for myself.”

Before Mark could say another word, she sprang away, jamming her bare feet into her boots and racing towards the river in long, light strides. Mark followed, his heart sinking.

“The rain stopped soon after I pulled you out of the river,” he called as he ran after her, hobbling slightly on the uneven ground. “The water level might have gone down, but it still could be dangerous—”

And I don’t want you breaking your heart over seeing an empty nest
.

In front of him, Jamie broke through the trees and came to a sudden halt. Mark hurried to her, breathless from worry rather than the run.

They were standing at the edge of the bank overlooking the river. Mark remembered the site from when he had last been here, three weeks ago—but what had then been an idyllic mountain scene, tarnished only by the presence of two homicidal condors, now looked more like a bombsite.

Sometime in the night, the tree that had wiped out the condors’ nest had been wrenched further downstream, causing further destruction. Shrubs and smaller trees on both banks had been torn free, their leaves and bare roots matted with silt. Even the flow of the river was different, coursing around unfamiliar boulders that the flood had forced down the river.

“Oh, my God,” Jamie breathed as Mark’s heart clenched. He forced his eyes upwards.

The cliff on the other side of the river glimmered with water. Tiny waterfalls cascaded through fissures in the rock as rainwater drained from the soil above.

And there, just over midway up the cliff face, on a rock shelf far higher than even Mark could have reached from the river’s bed…

“My God,” he murmured, unconsciously echoing Jamie’s words. “They’re alive.”

Silently, he added:
How the hell did I reach all the way up there?

How high did the river get last night?

“They’re alive!” Jamie cried, her voice raised in a triumphant shout.

Two bare, pinkish heads turned towards her, disturbed by the noise. Beaks tipped at a suspicious angle, and, clearly not convinced the humans weren’t a threat, the condors shuffled closer to the precious scrap of down that huddled between their feet.

“You did it,” Mark said, elated. He wrapped his arms around Jamie, feeling her warm body sag with relief. “You kept it out of the water long enough that it was still alive by the time I got to it.”

“I can’t believe it.” Jamie’s voice was pale with shock. “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t think I deserve for it to have worked.”

She turned around, nestling into Mark’s embrace. Mark kissed the top of her head. Her hair was still damp from her ordeal the night before, drying in ginger straggles across her shoulders.

“I’m not … I don’t know, spontaneous? A risk-taker? Sure, maybe I’ve dreamed about … about being more adventurous, but not in real life. I’m the one who brings extra meal packs and blister tape in case anyone forgot theirs, for God’s sake, not…”

Her voice trailed off. She lifted her head and looked up at Mark, then prodded him in the chest.

“
Not
the sort of woman who hooks up with a guy in the back of a car at her best friend’s wedding, and then disappears into the wilderness for weeks on end without a hiking buddy. Definitely not the sort of person who jumps into a flooded river to try and save a baby bird.” She prodded him again. “You know, I’m starting to see something connecting all these situations…”

“I have a theory about that,” Mark said slowly. There was a mischievous glint in Jamie’s eye that he didn’t quite trust. “First, though, there’s something else I need to tell you. Um … While you’re not kissing me, if possible.”

Jamie planted her hands on Mark’s chest and pushed herself back. “Whoops. That’s probably another thing I don’t usually do. Macking on naked guys in the woods.” She grinned. “Actually, strike that. I’d say it’s becoming a bit of a habit.”

Mark took a deep breath. Explaining what was making them constantly want to jump each other’s bones, while not giving into the impulse … Phew. This was going to be tricky.

His groin throbbed. Make that
really
tricky.

“I think it’s—” he began.

“Is it something to do with how you’re a bear?” Jamie interrupted. “I mean, a bear shifter. Is that what you called it?”

Mark’s mouth fell open. He shut it hurriedly. “Um. Yes.”

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll let you talk. Promise.” She grinned. “Promise not to talk
or
otherwise distract you.”

Mark got the feeling that if he was going to say this now, he was going to have to say it really, really soon.

“It’s—it’s called the mate bond. Shifters can have it and, well, humans too, but only with shifters. I guess it’s like … a soulmate sort of thing? With us, you meet your mate, and
bam
, you know you’re meant to be with them for the rest of your life. From what some of my mated cousins tell me, the first rush of the mate bond is intense, but cools down to, I guess, a sensible level after a while. Maybe we’ve just got an extra-concentrated version of that because we’ve been apart for long enough that it’s … built up?”

Jamie snorted. “What, so we just have to bang enough to release the pressure, and then we’ll be able to concentrate long enough to focus on the job?”

“It’s not just about sex,” Mark said quickly. “It’s like falling in love. It
is
falling in love. All at once, no questions. Like—like magic.” He shrugged. “Maybe it
is
magic. I mean, I can turn into a bear. Which has always seemed normal to me, but now that I’m telling you about it…”

“…Less normal, more magical,” Jamie mused. “Or a different normal, at least. Maybe it’s just another branch of science we haven’t explored yet.”

“I … yes?” Mark felt as though someone had pulled the carpet out from under him. “But, I mean … with
us
… you’re okay with this?” He waved his hand. “Everything that’s happening?”

Jamie blew her cheeks out. “Well, it’s
weird
, sure. But, assuming I’m not hallucinating all of this … It’s actually kind of a relief to know I’m not going totally nuts.”

“This must be a shock, still…” Mark said weakly.

Jamie shrugged. “Of course it is. Learning new things usually is—and, you know, the human brain is a hell of a strange thing. Even a regular crush can make a person act differently, let alone—what was it—the mate bond?”

“Yes,” confirmed Mark. He frowned. She was taking this really well. He couldn’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop. “Jamie, you understand what I’m telling you, right? The mate bond isn’t just a crush. It’s—well, it’s serious.” He paused. “It’s forever.”

“Like kissing a frog.” Jamie nodded.

“What?”

“Sorry, sorry. Like in the fairy tales, the frog that turns into a prince? Happy ever after?” She grinned suddenly, and her whole face lit up. “Mark, you idiot, of course I understand you. Ever since I met you there’s been this sort of itch inside me, like there was something I was missing out on and needed to find. It freaked me out when you turned up here and my brain reacted like it was Christmas morning, and yeah, the whole ‘mate bond’ thing sounds like it has the potential to be really messed up, but—you saved my life!”

She reached up and cupped Mark’s face in her hands.

“For whatever reason, the universe has seen fit to dump a super-hot, magical life-saving bear shifter in my lap. And now he says he loves me. No way am I going to question any of that.”

“Well,” she added after a moment, “Not for a few weeks, at least.”

“Is that so?” Mark could feel a smile spreading across his own face.

“Mmm. And not the ‘you love me’, bit, by the way. The magic bit. I am going to question that
hard
.”

“Right.”

“Oh, and I meant what I said about you playing big-scary-bear at our conservation sites.”

“Yep.”

“And…”

“Hmm?”

That mischievous spark was back. “I feel the need to do a bit more research on this whole ‘mate bond’ thing. How about you?”

* * *

JAMIE

Jamie squealed as Mark picked her up and slung her over his shoulder as easily as if she was as light as a feather.

“No offense meant,” he murmured into her hip, “but I would feel a little weird
researching
in front of your friends over the water there.”

Giggling helplessly, Jamie let herself go limp as Mark bounded back into the forest. The noise of the river, returned to its normal size after the previous day’s sudden flood, faded into the other sounds of the forest.

Mark’s arms tightened protectively around her as he skidded on a patch of muddy leaves. As he paused, she wriggled back over his shoulder and wrapped her legs around his waist, looking around.

“My camp’s back that way,” she said, jerking her head in the direction. “We could try that rope thing you suggested…”

She gripped harder with her legs and was rewarded with a heartfelt—or possibly other-parts-felt—groan. Mark dropped his head to rest on her breast, and she felt his breath, hot through the thin fabric of her t-shirt.

“That’s a terrible thing to say when your camp is still hundreds of feet away,” he moaned.

“Come on,” Jamie coaxed him, slithering down out of his grasp. “I think we can make it…”

The ground was damp and cool beneath her bare feet. Even this early in the morning, the day was already hot enough that tendrils of steam were rising from the soil. Shafts of sunlight fell through the forest canopy, lighting the vapor as it curled towards the sky. It looked magical—as magical as Mark’s revelation about shifters, and the mate bond.

Jamie knew she should probably feel more weirded out about the whole ‘mate bond’ thing, but instead, she found herself instantly at peace with it. She had been worried about her instant attraction to Mark because it didn’t mesh with her understanding of herself, and how the world worked; now that Mark had provided the missing puzzle piece, everything made sense. And even before Mark’s reassurances, she had known it wasn’t all about sex. It was about finding another person who was perfectly suited to you … And
also
having lots of sex.