Chance watched Summer holding their baby son. He was a strong boy, big like his dad and dark like his mother. Summer smiled at him from the rocking chair. It was times like these that Chance treasured more than anything. After the wedding with all the Montana grizzly game wardens in attendance, a big jug of honey from Brody and several pounds of smoked fish from Emerson, they’d settled into a comfortable life together in their home.

Summer loved the garden, and she loved her job. She told him every day how happy she was. When the baby came, she got paid maternity leave from the mine. It made everything easier for all of them. She loved being home with her baby, but she loved her work, too.

Chance wanted his family to be healthy and happy. He knew that a happy momma meant a happy baby. Summer’s work was important to her, so it was important to him as well. When she went back, there were other shifter families who had already offered to care for the baby for them.

Bertha McLaren from the craft store was a grandmother shifter whose daughter cared for a few shifter children during the day, and they’d already decided that she was the perfect fit for their family.

Watching his wife and his son rock in the rocking chair as the spring rains fell outside the window made his heart sing. He wanted to remember this moment for the rest of his life.

Summer had given him the peace he’d always needed to settle his heart and the beast within. She was everything to him, just like he had told her the first time they’d been together. Still as sassy as ever, but calmer and more open-minded, Summer gave him the joy his life had been missing for so long.

She looked up at him and smiled as he threw another log into the fireplace. Their cozy home was made cozier by their love, and he always wanted it to be this way.

“Will you do it tonight?” she asked him, rocking the baby.

“If you want. But they don’t have baby monitors in the woods.”

“We can call the sitter. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“Are you really ready for this? There’s no going back afterwards.”

“Candice seems to like being a bear,” Summer said, standing.

The baby was three months old now, and Summer had been asking him to turn her since the baby was born. He’d never turned anyone before. His claiming bite would make her like him, and she would never be fully human again. She would always have the beast within her, waiting to come out.

“If this is what you want, then I will turn you.”

“I want to be a bear. And I want you to claim me. I want it all, Chance,” she said, moving across the room to kiss him.

“Tonight then, sweetheart. The moon will be full. It will be time.”

After the sitter arrived and went to sleep in the guest room, Summer and Chance retired to their bedroom. They’d had a fantastic sex life all through the pregnancy and soon after the birth. Things hadn’t slowed down and were as hot as ever. But looking at his wife’s new curves as she lay across their bed, waiting for him to claim her, made him rock hard in an instant.

He fell over her, licking her body up and down, getting her worked up enough to take his thick length. She pulled him to her, taking his mouth in a kiss, wrapping her legs around his waist.

“Come here, baby,” she said. His shaft pressed inside her, and they were one, moving as a single being. Soon she would know the joy and pain of being a shifter. Soon she would share his world completely.

As he felt Summer release and felt himself coming closer to climax, he sank his teeth deep in her neck, tasting her blood spill over his tongue. She shuddered with a stifled scream from the pain of it, but then let out a long sigh as his hips worked her body.

His climax erupted from deep within as he held her neck between his teeth. His seed spilled deep inside her as he claimed his woman. Forever after, every shifter would know that she belonged to him and he belonged to her. Summer’s body clamped on his as she came again. He licked her bleeding wound to close it and balm the pain.

Turning away, he lay panting for a moment, still tasting her blood on his lips. “It’s time, Summer. We go out now,” he said, standing. He took her hand and led her down the stairs into the dark house. Out on the porch, she shivered in the cold.

The moon broke out from between the rain clouds, and Summer threw back her head. A scream broke from between her lips as the shift overtook her.

“Summer,” he called out.

“Oh God! It hurts.”

“Let go. It will only hurt once.”

With a shriek, she burst into her bear form. Big and dark and glorious, her grizzly panted before him on the lawn below. He joined her and shifted into his own grizzly form. Together they sniffed the air and sniffed each other.

Through their animal link, he could feel her emotions bubbling, overflowing with the new sensations. He sent her a feeling through their link. “Let’s run.”

She roared and burst through the yard and into the forest. Chance followed behind her, marveling at her strength and her beauty. He loved her with every fiber of his being. Both as a man and as an animal. The wind blew over their fur as he followed his mate through the dark forest. Scents and sounds filled his senses, and he knew that she felt it, too.

Nothing made him happier than to feel her joy rising through their link. He knew that he would do everything in his power to feel that for the rest of his life.