Grizzly Flying High (Air Bear Shifters 1) (9 page)

Standing in the shadows several hundred feet away, Amanda was crouching against the wall of one of the buildings on the outskirts of the town center. Her eyes were wide, and, even from this distance, Sawyer could see the fear and disbelief in them. He wasn’t sure how much of that spectacle she had seen, but even a minute of a bear fight was too much for a human to see without needing some explanation.

“Amanda?” Sawyer said, his voice barely more than a whisper. But even though she couldn’t hear him, she realized that he had seen her, and she took off running. Sawyer’s heart tightened in his chest, and his bear roared to be let out again. Any thoughts of making a speech to his clan right now went out the window. All Sawyer could think about was that he couldn’t let the most beautiful woman in the world get away from him again. Especially not when she had just been exposed to his shifter side without warning.

“Amanda, wait!” Sawyer yelled out. But she had already disappeared into the row of cabins next to the town square. Sawyer took off running after her, leaving his confused clan members behind to draw their own conclusions about why their victorious alpha was suddenly sprinting away.

Amanda ran like hell. Her lungs and legs burned, but she didn’t care. She had no idea where she was going, or where she could escape to, but she had to get away from here. The pilot who dropped her off here had been right about this place being weird. But Amanda was pretty sure he hadn’t realized quite how weird.

She heard Sawyer’s voice somewhere behind her, calling out her name and begging her to stop. She ignored him, and kept running, hoping that he hadn’t seen which direction she had taken.

Her mind was still reeling from everything she had just seen. After she left Silver behind and headed for the roaring noise, she had come across a scene so bizarre that at first she had been sure she was hallucinating. There, in what looked like the town square, a huge group of grizzlies had gathered. Amanda had never seen so many grizzlies congregated like that, and she had been momentarily stunned into confused inaction as she stood there. But her eyes had nearly widened right out of their sockets when she realized that there were humans standing in the middle of the group of grizzlies, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to hang out in the middle of a group of bears who could easily kill you with one swipe of their paws. The humans didn’t seem afraid at all, however. They were yelling right along with the roaring of the bears, all focused on something in the middle of the large circle of bears.

That’s when Amanda’s focus had turned to the center of the circle, and she had given up any hope of trying to make sense of the scene in front of her. A large grizzly, much larger than any of the ones in the outer circle, huffed and paced angrily. Next to him, a dark-haired human yelled at the bear and gestured to the crowd, riling them up every time he raised his arms above his head and did a fist pump. Another human, looking somber, raised a bullhorn and quieted the crowd, then recited some rules about how the fight was going to work. Amanda’s heart had dropped in her chest when she realized that she was witnessing some kind of weird boxing match between a bear and a man. The man who was fist pumping didn’t seem at all concerned, however. Despite the fact that he was apparently about to fight a giant bear, he kept hooting and hollering as the countdown to begin the fight began.

Amanda didn’t want to see a man torn to shreds by a grizzly bear. She wanted to look away, but somehow couldn’t force herself to turn her head. Like someone watching a bad car accident taking place, she couldn’t force her gaze from the horror. Just as she was sure she was about to witness the man’s death, he let out a roar and began to grow in size.

Amanda had rubbed her eyes, sure then that she must be hallucinating. In disbelief, she watched the man turn himself into a terrifying grizzly even larger than the first one in the ring. The two bears fought for several minutes, with the smaller grizzly somehow defeating the monster of a bear. Several times, Amanda told herself to turn around and run, but her feet remained frozen in place. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and, somehow, she thought that continuing to watch might explain what was going on.

No answers came, however. Only more confusion as the bears in the crowd suddenly began turning themselves into humans. Amanda’s heart pounded as naked person after naked person appeared, chanting and seemingly oblivious to their lack of clothes. Her mind again screamed at her to run, but still she stood there, alternating between fascination and terror. What was she witnessing here? Magic? Witchcraft?

But just when she thought things couldn’t get any weirder, she saw the grizzly in the center—the one who had just won the fight—turning into a very familiar-looking human.

“Oh my god,” Amanda had whispered to herself. “It’s Sawyer.”

Standing there, naked and with a body that was every bit as gorgeous as Amanda had imagined it would be, Sawyer began yelling something to the bear on the ground about being banished. The bear got up and limped away, and that’s when Sawyer had turned and locked eyes with Amanda.

The moment she knew he had seen her, Amanda found her feet. She turned, and began running for her life. Fear and confusion washed over her. Sawyer had never given her a reason to think he was violent, but she couldn’t take chances by stopping to chat with someone who had just turned himself into a bear.

Amanda pumped her arms and legs as fast as she could, the adrenaline in her body helping her run much faster than she normally would have been able to. She reached the edge of town and didn’t slow down for a second—she just kept running into the woods, not caring what kind of wild animal she might meet there. Nothing could be worse than the pack of human grizzlies behind her. All she cared about right now was getting away from Sawyer. Trees, bushes, and rocks rushed by her in a blur as she propelled herself forward. She didn’t hear Sawyer’s voice yelling at her anymore, but she didn’t dare turn around to look. She couldn’t afford to slow down, even for a millisecond.

But, suddenly, Amanda realized that the little girl, Silver, was still alone on a porch somewhere. Guilt washed over her and she forced herself to stop running. The little girl must have seen the weird human bears. She had obviously been disturbed by something, and she had been talking about bears. Amanda frowned, and began to turn around. She couldn’t leave the child behind in good conscience. Who knew what all those bear people would do to her? Even though she was risking getting caught herself by going back, she had to try to save the girl.

She didn’t see or hear Sawyer anymore, so she must have lost him somewhere back in town. Encouraged by the fact that she wasn’t being hotly pursued anymore, she quickened her pace again. Maybe she could sneak up to the cabin, get the girl, and sneak out before anyone saw her.

As she rounded the trunk of a particularly large tree, however, she ran smack into a familiar body. He was so strong and solid that just colliding with him knocked her backward. He didn’t move a centimeter, however. He stood there looking down at her as she slowly picked herself up from the ground, brushing leaves and dirt from her pants.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, her voice sounding ragged and afraid.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, reaching to help her brush the leaves away. She flinched and took a step backwards, and he raised his hand in a surrender motion and took a step backwards himself.

“Sorry. I was just trying to help,” he said.

“Who are you?” Amanda asked, hating the way her voice was shaking. “
What
are you? And what was going on back there? Some sort of weird Bearman Fight Club?”

If she was going to die at the hands of a man-bear, she’d at least like to know what the deal was with the whole changing into a bear and back thing before he killed her. As if he read her thoughts, Sawyer shook his head no and sighed.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Amanda. Far from it. I just wanted to make sure you were okay after what you saw. And to try my best to explain.”

Amanda cocked one eyebrow up in his direction, her voice slowly settling as she realized Sawyer wasn’t interested in hurting her, at least not at that moment. “It’s going to take a lot of explaining. That was some pretty weird shit.”

Sawyer laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. It must seem really weird to someone who’s not used to shifters and clans.”

“So explain,” Amanda said, crossing her arms and trying her best to look tough. Which was a little bit pointless when she was standing in front of someone like Sawyer. Even in human form, his body looked strong and formidable. Amanda couldn’t help letting her eyes glide over his muscles, taking in the crevices on his abdomen that formed a perfect six pack, and the “v” shape of his muscles that pointed down toward his groin. She let herself sneak a peek at his dick, which, unsurprisingly, was huge. She stifled a gasp and quickly forced her eyes back up to Sawyer’s face, but it was too late. He knew she had been looking.

“Like what you see?” he teased.

She frowned at him. “Are you going to explain or not?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, well, I’m not sure where to start. The short version is that I’m a grizzly shifter, meaning I can switch back and forth between grizzly and human form. All of the residents of Frost Peak are grizzly shifters. We’re one big clan, and I’m their alpha. That basically means their leader,” Sawyer said.

“Yeah, I know what the word alpha means,” Amanda said, a little too sharply.

Sawyer threw his hands up. “Okay, sorry. I never know how much of this is new to people, so I try not to assume.”

Amanda instantly felt regret. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just a little on edge. The last thing I expected when I came here was to find a bunch of half-bear, half-humans cheering on a weird bear fight. What was going on back there?”

Sawyer sighed and ran his finger through his hair. “There are a lot of ancient clan laws that allow clan members to challenge the alpha for his position. It almost never happens, because most people respect the alpha and realize that they wouldn’t stand a chance at defeating him in a fight. But every now and then, someone gets cocky and tries. This guy, Simon, decided to try, and he even went so far as to use steroids and physical enhancements to his bear to make sure that he defeated me. But I still whooped his ass, because he doesn’t know how to fight.”

“Seems a little weird,” Amanda said, tilting her head sideways. “Like a bunch of men who never outgrew the teenage need to prove how macho they are or something.”

Sawyer shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. It’s more than just a show of strength. It’s a show of who cares enough about the clan to put their life on the line for them.”

Amanda nodded, but she was still unconvinced, and Sawyer could tell.

“Like I said, hard to explain,” he said.

Amanda crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a bear?”

Sawyer raised his eyebrows in her direction. “It’s not easy to bring up in casual conversation. Saying ‘Hey, by the way shifters exist, and I’m a bear’ tends to just make people think that I belong in the Looney bin.”

“You kissed me,” Amanda said angrily. “Then you left me, sending my emotions into a tailspin before coming back and trying to get me to give you another chance—all the while, conveniently leaving out the fact that you’re a bear.”

“Bear shifter,” Sawyer corrected.

“Whatever. Don’t you think it’s a little cowardly of you? You wanted me to trust you with my heart, but you weren’t man enough to tell me who you really were. Some alpha you are,” Amanda said, then stomped past Sawyer and continued on the path to Frost Peak.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have told you instead of hiding the truth. But until I saw you in Kodiak, I thought I wasn’t going to see you again. I liked you, but I didn’t think we had a future together. I threw out your number, and had no plans of calling you. It wasn’t because I don’t care about you. It’s because I care a lot about you and didn’t want to mess up your life. This—,” Sawyer said, gesturing toward his town with a sweeping wave of his arm, “This is not an easy life. It’s a good life, sure. For the most part, the clan is a tightly-knit group and we all share many good times together. But sometimes the stress of life as a shifter results in blowups like the one you saw today, where people ache for change and look for the next alpha who might be able to help them live in peace. Because we never truly live in peace. There are always humans out there trying to destroy us for being part bear. We always have to watch our backs. And I didn’t want to drag you into that. Especially not when you were in the middle of this grand plan to find yourself and leave behind a life you hated. It didn’t seem like good timing.”

Amanda paused and turned back to face him. “If it wasn’t good timing, why did you act the way you did in the diner? Why did you come at me so strongly?”

Sawyer grinned at her, and despite the fact that she was mad at him right now, the grin sent a little thrill through her.

“My bear wanted you,” he said with a shrug.

“Your
bear
wanted me?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting to see you in Kodiak. I was there for a few days of peace before the fight. But when I walked into that diner and saw you sitting there, looking so beautiful and perfect. I knew I had to have you. You made my bear restless, and no woman has done that in a long time. I was beginning to think there wasn’t actually a lifemate out there for me.”

“A lifemate?”

“Soulmate. Someone destined for me.”

Amanda stared at Sawyer, unsure of what to say in response to him. This whole situation was unbelievably bizarre. She couldn’t deny the fact that some sort of magnetic attraction was pulling her toward Sawyer. His body and his spirit beckoned to her, telling her that she would be safe with him. That she could find herself here, in the beautiful Alaskan wilderness. She could make a home with Sawyer, and live the kind of life she wanted to, unfettered by the arbitrary rules of the corporate world. But her rational side told her that she was crazy for even thinking that. After all, Sawyer himself had said life wasn’t easy here. And there were obviously rules, since he had mentioned the weird clan laws as being part of the reason he had to fight. Just because there weren’t corporate rules didn’t mean that she wouldn’t feel suffocated and restrained.

“I have to go,” Amanda said, turning on her heel again and heading toward Frost Peak.

“Where are you even going?” Sawyer asked. “You do realize that you’re heading straight back into the middle of a shifter clan, right?”