So Much To Bear (A Werebear Erotic Romance) Read online

  “Or we’ll wander around endlessly until dawn,” Jennifer retorted, though a slight smile played at the corners of her lips. The idea of wandering the woods until dawn was not that bad, really; she could enjoy the adventure of it, if it weren’t for Lucy’s aching feet.

  “Look,” Liam said, raising his hands to forestall an argument. “It’s pretty clear what we should do; we should split up into two groups—some of us go back and retrace our steps, figure out where we are, and the rest of us stay here and wait.” Lucy was all for the plan, clearly intending to be one of the ones to stay behind.

  “So once we figure out where we are, do we go on to the town or head back home?” Jennifer hated the thought that they might end up just going home. At least if they wandered around they might find something interesting, even if they didn’t make it to the town. She didn’t like just giving up once she had committed to an adventure.

  “We’ll see how we feel, and anyway I think Lucy wants to get home.” Jennifer was all for finding their way back—it would, at least, extend the fun they were having, especially if she got to go with Robert, who was game for being part of the group that retraced their steps. Liam agreed that Robert, who knew the woods better than the rest of them, would be the best choice to lead the group back but he insisted that Jennifer should stay.

  “If Lucy wants to go home, it would probably be better for her to head back with you and Alex anyway,” Liam pointed out. “Once you get out of the woods, she can head for home.”

  “I really want to rest a bit longer,” Lucy said. Liam shrugged.

  “It’s going to get darker with only one of the torches, and you’d be safer with Robert and Alex anyway—and closer to home.” Jennifer bit her lip; she would really rather have gone with Robert.

  “If Lucy wants to stay behind and rest, she should—those shoes are probably killing her feet. I’m still fresh, I can make the walk.” Liam’s brows knitted together and an expression almost like a pout came over his features for just a moment.

  “Robert or Alex can carry Lucy if she’s really having trouble,” he suggested with a faint smile. “Unless of course you’re scared to stay behind, Jen.” Jennifer started to contest the accusation, but before she could, Robert and Alex had pulled Lucy to her feet and were making their way away from them, saying they’d be back soon.

  The light dimmed to a bare flicker as she and Liam were left with the one torch, hanging back in the gloomy woods. Jennifer hugged herself, pacing in a wandering circle around the clearing they had come to, looking as deeply into the trees as she could. “You’re not scared, are you Jen?” Liam asked, his voice teasing. Jennifer rolled her eyes.

  “No, I just wish we could’ve kept moving. I don’t like standing still just waiting.” She turned her head to look at Liam; he was watching her with a look in his eyes she didn’t quite like, something like a smile—unpleasant, almost a leer—curving his lips.

  “Pretty cold out tonight, isn’t it?” he asked her, and Jennifer could tell that he was trying to be charming; the effect was less that than it was faintly nauseating. She had never been the least bit interested in Liam. When they were younger she’d considered him a spoiled brat, the kind of kid who’d always had the best of everything, whose parents didn’t seem to have the word “no” in their vocabulary when it came to their only son. He had—at different parts of their childhood—even occasionally been something of a bully, taking what he wanted from other kids with few consequences to his actions. He’d tempered it somewhat in recent years, and Jennifer had reluctantly had to agree with Robert that Liam was not as annoying as he once had been, but he would never be her idea of a good companion.

  “It’s not that bad,” Jennifer said, even as a shiver worked through her spine. She wasn’t sure if it was more due to her dislike of Liam or the chill in the air; while they had been walking steadily, she’d been warm enough—she had even broken a sweat climbing over some fallen trees—but now that she was mostly still, the cold of the night seemed to creep through the weave of her clothing, slipping underneath the thick jacket she wore to test the few patches of skin she had exposed.

  “You could come over here and we could cuddle—that would keep us warm while we wait,” Liam suggested, another leering smile curving his lips. “I know I’d heat right up with you in my arms.” Jennifer scowled.

  “I wouldn’t cuddle with you if it was 20 degrees colder,” she said brusquely. Liam snorted.

  “Come on, Jen. You know you’ll give in eventually.” Jennifer turned on her toes when she heard Liam stand up.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jennifer said, stepping back slightly as Liam started to move towards her. “I’ve never been even a little bit interested in you.” Liam laughed, the haughty sound echoing off of the nearby trees.

  “Don’t lie to yourself. You’re totally into me. I’m hot, I’m wealthy, I’ve got political power—you’d be an idiot not to be into me.” Jennifer sidestepped as Liam moved closer. She didn’t know why she felt afraid of him; she had never been afraid of Liam, never truly afraid of him, the entire time she had known him. But something in his determined expression gave her a sense of alarm she couldn’t deny. She didn’t think she would have to run away—and even if she did run, she’d quickly get lost in the depths of the woods with no torch to see by. As she looked around, her gaze scanning the line of trees around them, she thought she saw a pair of shimmering golden eyes in the dark; but they were gone so quickly Jennifer was sure she must have imagined them.

  “Liam, you aren’t even remotely my type,” Jennifer said, shaking her head. “If you really wanted to attract me, you’d stop being such an asshole and pretend like you actually give a damn about other people.” Liam’s eyes widened and then narrowed into a scowl.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Liam’s voice dropped to a near-hiss, his face starting to redden with his frustration. “Are you frigid or just an idiot?” Jennifer shook her head.

  “Neither. I’m just not into jerks who think they’re entitled to me.” Liam let out a growl and lunged towards her; Jennifer dodged his first movement, slipping away from his grabbing hands and dancing on the balls of her feet to the edge of the clearing. She thought she was more than amply prepared to deal with someone like Liam; he wasn’t that much taller than her, and while he worked out, Jennifer had taken a full self-defense course as one of her electives in college. It had seemed only reasonable at the time, since as an anthropologist, she planned to travel to areas where she couldn’t entirely depend on the police to protect her.

  Liam was quicker than she bargained for, however, and as she moved to evade him once more, he grabbed her wrists. He was so occupied in trying to pull her to him that he didn’t see it—but Jennifer caught sight of a tall, shadowed man coming up from behind him. The man’s hands fell onto Liam’s shoulders and pulled him back savagely, wrenching him sideways and backwards so quickly that Jennifer’s hands fell free of his grasp. The shadowy figure threw Liam to the ground with a dull roar, and Jennifer heard the thud of contact, the whoop of surprise that left Liam’s lips as some of the air left his lungs involuntarily in the impact.

  “Robert?” Jennifer called out hopefully; it had to be him—maybe they weren’t as deep in the woods as they thought, and Alex had taken Lucy home while Robert doubled back.

  “Come on, Robert, I wasn’t going to hurt her…” Liam started. But the figure moved into the light of the torch and they could both see it wasn’t their friend; the man was taller, more muscular than Robert, with shaggy hair cut harshly around his face. His features were further obscured by a rough beard, slightly grizzled with blond hairs twisted amongst the darker threads. Through the faded, dirty clothes, Jennifer spotted a flicker of dark, twining tribal tattoos on his arm and chest; corded muscles that she had to admit to herself were more than a little attractive.

  Liam recovered quickly, letting out an angry roar of his own. “Who the hell are you?” he shouted, struggling as he leap
ed to his feet. He cocked a fist and threw his weight behind a blow aimed at the man’s jaw; the mysterious man evaded it easily, moving with a speed that startled Jennifer even as she watched. He ducked and evaded all of the blows that Liam aimed at him, glancing at her occasionally to make sure she was okay—or so it seemed. Frustrated, Liam shouted again in wordless rage, and Jennifer’s heart began to pound even faster as she watched him pull a hunting knife out of a hidden holster attached to his jeans.

  Liam and the mystery man grabbed onto each other, grappling; the man seemed to almost have Liam disarmed in a few moments, twisting his wrist and beginning to push him down and away. “Guys! Guys! Stop this! Slow down for a second—this is insane!” Jennifer lunged to try and separate the two and found herself knocked aside without knowing which of the two combatants had pushed her away. There was a movement between the two men that Jennifer couldn’t track, and the sound of a muted grunt of pain. The next moment, the mysterious man let out a low growl, and Jennifer gasped as she watched him throw Liam away from him, tossing the other man across the clearing with a kind of strength that seemed impossible.

  The mysterious man staggered backward slightly, letting out an ear-splitting roar, and Jennifer fell to her behind in the dirt and scrub, her hands coming down on the ground with a jarring impact. She watched in shock as the man hunched over, letting out a rumbling noise that sounded almost like a dog, or something larger. Before her stunned eyes, a sort of mist began to coalesce around the man, and Jennifer saw his body contort, muscles twisting and twitching, hair beginning to push through his skin. A gloppy, thick sound mixed with clunking and clattering, like stones in a cement mixer, filled her ears and turned her stomach even as the man began to transform. His face elongated, his hair and beard thickening, covering his features completely. His hands became covered in dense fur, his fingers twisting and shifting into pads with long claws. His mouth opened in a snarl that revealed elongating teeth. In a matter of a few moments, where a muscled man had stood, instead there was a bear, with glimmering golden eyes.

  Liam had staggered to his feet, and his eyes widened at the sight of the bear. “Wh-what—what is that thing?” he shrieked, grabbing blindly at the trees behind him.

  “I think it’s a bear,” Jennifer said dully, staring at the transformed creature in front of her. The bear turned its attention onto Liam and let out another ear-splitting roar, lunging towards him with menace clear in every inch of its tense body. Liam let out a wordless shriek of fear, and then ran backwards a few steps before turning on his heel and darting into the darkness of the woods. Jennifer froze, torn between curiosity and fear, unsure what she should do and not even sure if she should believe her eyes. There had been a man, she had watched him transform into a bear. That wasn’t the sort of thing that should be even remotely possible. The bear turned around and Jennifer found herself briefly face-to-face with the beast. There was something in the glimmering, shimmering golden eyes—a kind of kindness, an understanding that flickered through them though Jennifer couldn’t say how. It snuffed at her, sniffing and snorting, its breath hot against her skin. It grunted softly.

  Suddenly coming back to herself, Jennifer scrambled to her feet, shivering and stuttering in fear. This was a bear—some kind of magical bear-man. Even if it wasn’t real, even if she had somehow hallucinated it, she had to get away. Jennifer backed away as slowly as she could, making a wide berth around the huge bear before she darted into the woods, away from the bear and in a different direction from the one that Liam had taken.

  Chapter Two

  Jennifer ran until her lungs started to burn with every rapid intake of cold air, her heart pounding in her chest, her mind reeling with what she had seen. She tripped over her own feet, grabbing frantically at the trunk of a nearby tree to stay upright as the woods swooped and dove around her face. For a moment, gasping and panting for breath, she thought for sure that she would pass out in an instant; but her vision began to clear in the next few heartbeats and Jennifer, still panting, leaned heavily against the tree, pressing her forehead against the rough bark. The burn in her chest began to slack off, and Jennifer’s panting slowed down, along with her racing heart.

  It occurred to her that a bear that big could probably move pretty fast and she wouldn’t have more than a few moments of safety if it were coming after her. Struggling to quiet her breaths, she strained her ears in the darkness, trying to catch the telltale sound of a lumbering, galloping bear hot on her trail. Instead of the crashing of foliage and dry brush, she heard nothing, and Jennifer’s heart began to slow even more. Maybe the bear had gone after Liam instead. Jennifer took a few deep breaths to recover from her pell-mell rush and looked around. Even in the darkness of the woods, there was a faint glow of moonlight—the clouds had cleared out of the sky. She wasn’t that far from the clearing she and Liam had been in; in the distance, she could still see the flicker of the torch, though it was dying out gradually.

  Safe for the moment, Jennifer’s fear dissolved into a kind of curiosity; she couldn’t believe what she had seen, but the memory of watching the mysterious man transform into a bear hung in her mind nonetheless and she knew she had to at least look around. The bear—or whatever he had really been—clearly hadn’t followed her. Maybe it had followed Liam. While she didn’t like the guy, and while she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of gratitude toward the bear-man who had fought him off and scared him away, she didn’t think she could endure the thought of leaving Liam to the bear’s mercy, if he had decided to finish him off.

  She retraced her steps, stumbling awkwardly among the roots and underbrush that she had somehow avoided in her panicked flight from the scene. Following the dimming light of the torch, Jennifer made her way to the clearing. She took a deep breath, looking around at the ground illuminated by the torch and the moonlight. She saw the tracks of her own deep footprints in the soft soil, and picking up the torch, looked around until she saw Liam’s tracks away from the scene of the altercation. There were no prints following his—either bear or man. The bear had obviously not gone after him. Jennifer frowned at the ground, walking around the clearing, confused and alarmed. There was a bear loose. She brought the torch lower, pacing a circuit around the edges of the clearing until she found a splash of blood. Jennifer swallowed. It wasn’t Liam’s blood—it wasn’t one of the places he had been during the fight or after he had started to run away. It had to belong to the bear-man. Jennifer stepped into the depths of the trees, and found another drip of blood, and then another splatter along some low-lying leaves of one of the bushes. She realized that the trail was leading in the opposite direction that Liam had taken; Liam, at least, was safe from the bear for the moment.

  Jennifer’s curiosity overtook her again, and she followed the trail, moving as quietly as she could. She heard her father’s words about spooking a wounded bear—about how it was the worst possible idea. But what kind of bear was she following? He had been a man at first; Jennifer was almost certain that the figure she had seen had been a man, though her mind reeled at the idea of a human being turning into a bear, transforming from something remotely known to something utterly foreign. She shook her head; she had to know what had surprised her and Liam in the clearing. She had to thank the man, bear, whoever or whatever he was, for coming to her aid.

  As she walked through the gloomy darkness, Jennifer remembered the gaze that the bear had turned on her before she had run away; it had been kind, patient—almost sweet, in a way she couldn’t quite define. It was a curiously human look from a bear, strange and intriguing. The path through the woods was difficult to follow, and Jennifer found herself straining at every drip and drop of blood she could find, wondering how severely the bear might have been injured; the knife that Liam had had was long. Could he need help? And if he was both bear and man—should she take him to a vet, or a doctor? Jennifer almost snorted to herself at the conundrum. Find the bear/man first, she told herself, manage not to get killed in the process, and then figu
re out what to do about his injuries if you have to.

  As the trail wound through the woods, Jennifer saw a series of cliffs in the distance, and wondered briefly just how far into the dark gloom she had gone and if she would be able to find her way back. Jennifer shivered at the cold, feeling it once more as the sweat began to dry on her skin. The torch was almost dead, but up ahead, embedded in one of the cliffs, she saw light coming from the mouth of a cave. It was a bit of a climb, but Jennifer decided she was up for it—she wasn’t about to let her curiosity go unsatisfied.

  When she approached the cliff, Jennifer saw that there were rough steps built into the stone—a hand-hold here, a depression there, almost a cross between a set of stairs and a ladder. It would certainly make it easier to climb up. Jennifer threw the dead torch down and began the climb, trying to be as quiet as possible. The last thing she wanted to do was to spook whoever—or whatever—was in the cave. She didn’t know with any certainty that it was the man-bear that she had been rescued by; it could be a drifter, drunk or a hermit. With the light it was unlikely to be any kind of wild animal at least. Jennifer shook her head at her own whimsy as she took a break at one of the stopping points on the way up, picturing a panther curled up in a wingback chair reading an ancient tome by candlelight. Clearly that was not going to be what she would encounter.