Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
I come out a minute later in the clothes. The black shorts are tight on my thick muscular thighs, but the orange sweater fits well. It must be huge on her, but it fits my frame snugly. I hope I don’t look too ridiculous.
The coffee is brewing. It smells good, but I’m almost angry at it for overpowering her angelic scent. I want to be engulfed in that scent. I want to live in it forever.
She smiles when she sees me in the clothes. I must look ridiculous, but it’s okay. If it gets a gorgeous smile like that out of her then I don’t mind.
“So, I’m guessing you wouldn’t know anything about that brouhaha at the train station this morning?” she asks as she pours the coffee into two cups. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Black,” I say as I sit at the counter. She’s behind it, adding one heaping spoonful of sugar into her cup after another.
“There’s been a lot of chatter in town about bear shifters and French ninjas. I thought it was all crazy talk, but then I saw you all bloodied up out back. Now I’m thinking… I don’t know what to think, honestly.”
She looks at me over the mug, those sparkling green eyes piercing into me as she puckers her lips and lightly blows on her coffee. “Want to fill me in?”
She takes a slow sip as I sigh. She’s my mate. She’ll find out everything eventually anyway and I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. I want her to know it all.
“The truth is… I am a bear shifter.”
I’m expecting her to be shocked, but she rolls her eyes before taking another casual sip. “And I’m a vampire.”
“It’s true. I have a grizzly bear inside of me. A nasty one.”
She leans on her stove, watching me skeptically.
“Those men, the three other bear shifters and the French ninja… He’s actually a wolf shifter not a ninja, but it doesn’t really matter. They’ve been chasing me.”
She’s sipping on her coffee and watching me with an amused grin like someone listening to a five-year-old telling them they just saw a unicorn flying in the sky.
“And why were they chasing you?”
I drop my eyes and take a deep breath. “My grizzly has gone feral.”
“Feral?”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
“All bear shifters have one fated mate who belongs to them,” I say with my voice cracking. I still can’t believe that my bear is still calm inside of me. He hasn’t been like this since before I started puberty. “One soul that connects with theirs. That binds together and completes them.”
“Okay,” she says, looking even more skeptical now.
I exhale long and hard. “Sometimes, if a shifter can’t find their mate, their bears go a little crazy. They get a little unhinged. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s not pretty. In fact, it can get downright ugly.”
She tucks her red hair behind her ear and my whole body begins to ache with need. I’ve dreamed about meeting my mate for years, but I never thought it would be like this—being so close, but not being able to touch. To have a ravenous hunger, but not being able to taste. My blood is burning with need for her and I have to sit here and calmly drink my coffee. Talk and act like everything is normal when I’m dying to have her. This is torture.
“My bear lost it about a year ago. He went feral. He was pushed over the edge while waiting for my mate to come into my life. He’s been… dangerous.”
She looks at my chest like she’s trying to see the bear inside.
“So, those men, they came after me.”
“To do what?”
I sigh. “To put my bear down.”
“To kill him?”
I nod.
“But if they kill your bear, what happens to you?”
“We’re two halves of the same coin. If he goes, I go.”
“That’s horrible,” she says with a gasp.
I shrug. “Maybe, but it’s necessary. At least, it was…”
She looks at me for a long moment. “Why? What’s changed?”
“I found my mate. Finally.”
“You did? Where is she?”
I stare right at her.
“Uh…”
“It’s you,” I say in as calm a voice as I can manage. “You’re my mate.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Hazel
I should have let Kathy take out the garbage.
Then she could have dealt with this strange guy who is claiming he’s my mate. I mean, come on. A mate? It sounds so primal and barbaric. Like I don’t even get a say in the matter.
Although, if I’m being honest, it doesn’t sound so bad…
I am still feeling this strange pull toward him. The feeling of being drawn to him when I first saw him lying injured in the dumpster is even stronger now. It’s taking over.
“What did you say your name was?” I ask as I look at him a little differently.
“I didn’t. My name is August, but people close to me call me Gus. And you?”