Shifters of Grrr 2 (27 page)

"No. Don't you dare. This sauce is the
best
sauce outside of Italy."

Bryce quirked an eyebrow. "
I
can do better."

"No you can't," I said with a snort.

"I can." He perked up. "I'll prove it to you. Tonight. Have dinner with me."

I nearly dropped my fork. Lunch was one thing, but dinner? Dinner was intimate. Dinner was like a...

"Like a date?" I said in nearly a whisper, afraid to even say it aloud.

"Yes." His lips spread into a slow smile. "
Exactly
like a date."

My heartbeat sped up, but I tried to remain calm. "Okay," I said.

Chapter 3

I got ready at my apartment. I'd texted Bryce sparingly throughout the day, wondering what he had planned for the night, but he remained surprisingly mum on the topic. After an hour of agonizing in front of my closet, I concluded that going semi-casual was safe if he was going to be cooking for me.

I picked out a flouncy, blue floral skirt and a simple white tank. No jewelry, simple make-up. Pretty, but unfussy. I hoped Bryce would like it.

He picked me up in a different car than earlier, this time a red convertible with the top down. Wind whipped my hair into ropes as we drove into the night.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"White Bear!" Bryce said, yelling slightly over the wind.

I laughed in surprise. "What?"

"Yeah. I have a cabin there. I bought some land as a present to myself after I made my first million. Since it's private property, no company can touch it."

Wow,
I thought. The more time I spent with him, the more he surprised me.

The city's buildings thinned out until eventually, they were gone completely. We followed the highway through forested country land. Then, the road began to incline up, and Bryce accelerated his car up the foot of White Bear Mountain.

He turned suddenly onto a dirt road that I didn't even notice. Gravel rumbled under the tires as tree branches whipped overhead. We jiggled and jerked in our seats while Bryce drove carefully deeper into the woods. Then, a clearing opened around us, and I spotted a cabin sitting in the middle of it.

"Home sweet home," Bryce said. He got out of the car and helped me out of the passenger seat. When my two feet were on the ground, he gave me a kiss on the cheek that caught me off guard.

He led me inside and flipped a switch. The walls made strange humming noises when the lights came on.

"It's the generator," Bryce said as he bisected a living room to a kitchen. "It's solar-powered, but the downside is it's not very quiet."

"I don't mind," I said. I sat down on a gingham couch and glanced around appreciatively. The cabin was furnished in a classic American style, with quilts, bookshelves, and lots of candles. It felt cozy, homey, and modest, everything a stuck-up billionaire wasn't supposed to be.

Well, Bryce wasn't a stuck-up billionaire.

I watched as he opened a window and began pulling vegetables out of the pantry. He rolled up his sleeves, showing off his thick forearms. "Look around if you want. I'll get some water boiling."

I stood up and circled the whole cabin in less than two minutes. It wasn't very large at all. Besides the living room and kitchen, the only other rooms were a bedroom and a bathroom. I joined Bryce in the kitchen and stood beside the window, sniffing the air.

"Is that lavender?" I asked.

"Yup." Bryce chopped some onion against a cutting board, releasing its pungent scent. "I have a flower garden out back. It's not much. I think there's an animal that keeps coming at night to dig up the worms."

"Can I go look?"

Bryce glanced up, flicking dark hair out of his eyes. "Be my guest."

I struggled to push open a door with rusted hinges and followed the scent of lavender to the promised garden. Like Bryce had said, it wasn't much, just a few square feet of dirt. I touched the lavender, carnations, and snapdragons that grew there. They looked like they needed water.

A few feet away, I spotted an empty bucket. Farther away was a spigot poking out of the ground like a swan's head. I carried the bucket over to fill it when something else caught my eye.

Wild mint?

I drifted closer to the mass of pointy leaves growing at the base of a tree. I picked one and crushed it under my nose.
Yes!
It definitely was mint, growing fresh and wild right in Bryce's backyard. I looked over my shoulder at his cabin, which was a few yards away now. I felt pleased with myself, imagining Bryce's face when I'd bring him a handful of mint to have with our dinner.

I picked all the mint I could find and wandered past the tree line, into the forest itself. Along with the mint, there were some weeds that I recognized as an edible variety. As a kid, when food was scarce, my mom used to take us foraging by the highway, and she'd taught me all about edible weeds.

I smiled at the bittersweet memory.

A salad with our pasta,
I thought to myself. I picked up the hem of my skirt, turning it into a makeshift basket, and began collecting weeds. I followed the growth deeper into the woods, turning around several times, bent at the waist. After a while, a cloud passed over the full moon, plunging me into darkness, and I realized with a start that I'd been gone for a long time.

I stood up and turned around, only...

Only with all the attention I'd given to the weed-picking, I hadn't paid attention to the direction I was going.

"Okay, okay," I said to myself. "Don't panic."

Bryce had the lights on in the cabin, so it would be easy to find on this dark night. I glanced this way and that way, but all I could see were trees and shadows. Darkness.

The cloud overhead moved away from the moon, casting a silvery light over everything, but it didn't help.

Then, I heard it:

AHWOOOOO!

I froze. The edge of my skirt fell from my hand, spilling the weeds I'd worked so hard to collect.

Another howl unraveled in the night, this time sounding close. Very close.

Too close.

Suddenly, my mind went blank. My legs moved without prompting. I ran, operating purely on primal instinct. I was no longer a girl collecting weeds for a salad. I was prey evading predator.

I have to get to the cabin.

I didn't even know if I was going in the right direction.

Even more howls erupted in the night, overlapping each other.

There was more than one.

I screamed. "Bryce! Bryce, help me!"

But it was too late. I was too loud, too clumsy. The wolves had found me, and I could hear them circling me as I slowed to a stop. I bent over, panting. Running was useless now. All I could do was keep screaming for help.

"Bryce!"

I felt hopelessly lost, surrounded by trees that were virtually identical in every direction. Then, I spotted two yellow orbs bouncing from the distance toward me.

Wolf's eyes,
I realized. I backed into a tree.

The grey wolf slowed to a stop and bared its teeth, approaching me with its ears flattened against his head. Two more of its packmates appeared on either side of him. The trio closed in on me, and I saw the first lowering itself on its haunches, preparing to spring.

I closed my eyes, shaking. This was it.

* * *

I heard a deep growl that was too loud to be a wolf's.

My eyes snapped open.

The first thing I saw was the bear. It was so massive, it was impossible to miss. I looked just in time to watch it bat one of the wolves out of its way with a single paw. That wolf was flung into a bush. It rose, shook itself, and ran away yelping. Its two cohorts weren't far behind as they fled.

Then, the bear turned its attention to me.

Oh, god. Could my luck be any worse?
Quickly, I tried to think about what you were supposed to do in the presence of a bear. Curl up into a ball? Pretend to be dead? Make as much noise as possible?

My mind was working, but my mouth was screaming. The bear came closer, and I screamed some more.

"Bryce!" I managed to scream. I tried to claw my way up the tree. "Bryce!"

The bear stopped a few feet away from me and growled, its voice rising up and sinking low like it was trying to talk.

Wait--

It
was
talking.

Curiosity took over me, and I stopped screaming. The bear thrust his head forward, and his mouth began to move.

His voice was rough, like he had a blender for a mouth, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was speaking English words.

"Sarah, calm down. It's me."

I stopped breathing entirely. My hands fell to my sides as I approached the bear, staring into its deep, brown eyes.

"It's me," he said again, sounding even more human this time. His voice was softer, sturdier. It almost sounded like--

I gasped as the bear began to transform right in front of me. It rose onto its hind legs and shrank down while its thick, brown fur melted into his skin. The snout receded back into his face while a jawline grew more defined from the top of the neck.

"It's me," he repeated, smiling. He touched his chest with both hands. "It's Bryce."

I was finally getting to see what Bryce looked like without his shirt, without
any
clothes at all, but I didn't have time to appreciate it. One look at his face melting out of that bear's body was enough to bring the shadows.

My vision flickered, my eyes rolled back, and I fainted.

Chapter 4

I woke up from the deepest sleep I'd ever experienced. For a moment, I just laid there, keeping my eyes closed. I smelled cold mountain air and heard birds singing outside. There was a soft, worn quilt under my hands.

I tried to remember what had happened last night. When I finally did, I opened my eyes.

The bear.

Bryce.

I jerked upright, panting. I noticed that I was inside the bedroom of Bryce's cabin. My body had been arranged carefully under the covers of the bed. Nobody was there with me, but the door was open. I could hear water running in the kitchen.

"Hello?" I called.

The water stopped. A shadow fell on the floor beyond the doorway, moving closer. Then, Bryce turned the corner. The sleeves of his red flannel were rolled up to his elbows, and he was wiping his hands with a dish towel.

"Sarah? You're awake." His face erupted into a toothy smile.

I stared at him. "I had the weirdest dream," I said faintly.

Bryce's face fell. He draped the dish towel over his right shoulder and crossed his arms, making his forearms bulge slightly. "That wasn't a dream."

"So you really are some sort of bear...shape-shifter?"

I'd meant it as a joke, but Bryce remained solemn. He stared at me for just enough time to make me uncomfortable. Then, his hands rose to the top button of his shirt.

"Wh-what are you doing?" I asked nervously.

Bryce unbuttoned his shirt slowly, revealing the smooth skin of his muscular chest inch by inch. Then, he pulled his shirt open, revealing his hard abs. But much more than that, the thing I noticed the most were the scratches.

They ran in parallel lines of two or three, stretching diagonally from his right shoulder to his left hip.

"Wolves," he explained simply.

"The ones from last night," I added in a whisper. I had nothing more to say.

Bryce leaned against the door frame. "Why don't you get washed up? I was about to make some breakfast." He gazed at me imploringly.
I'll tell you everything later,
his look told me.

I nodded. Bryce gave me a small smile before returning to the kitchen. Meanwhile, I crept out of bed and stretched. My entire body ached. Plus, Bryce had put me to bed in last night's clothes, which were streaked in dirt from when I'd fallen. I was half thankful that he hadn't undressed me himself while I was unconscious.

I washed my face and brushed my hair over the basin in the bathroom. I changed into a clean bathrobe I found hanging on a hook on the wall. Then, feeling clean, fresh, but most of all curious, I entered the kitchen just as Bryce dropped some bacon on a hot skillet.

"That smells
amazing
," I said, settling down at the table.

Bryce gave me some hot coffee in an earthenware mug. "It's nice to finally meet a girl who enjoys a real breakfast."

"Wait 'til you see me at Thanksgiving," I said before I could stop myself. Then, I froze, watching for Bryce's reaction. Had that been too forward of me? Thanksgiving was months of now. Who knew where Bryce and I would be then, whether we'd be still friends? Especially after what happened last night...

I cleared my throat. "So, when are you going to explain the bear thing?"

Bryce stiffened. His back was toward me as he prepared our plates. He leaned against the counter and dropped his head, causing the muscles in the back of his neck to pull taut. I felt an intense urge to put my fingers there, to knead it smooth until he could finally relax.