“Lisa? Don’t!” Raven pleaded desperately as she thrust her clothes into a suitcase half-sobbing.
“You were the … bear thingy that attacked me in the woods all those years ago! You damn near mauled me to death! I have been having nightmares for years no thanks to you.”
“I didn’t attack you. I was drawn to you because you are my mate. Admit it, there is this pull between us.”
“No there isn’t. Just stay the hell away from me and stay the hell away from my kids!”
“Lisa I would never hurt you! I invited you on this trip to get you away from those men who wanted to hurt you.”
“What men?” she asked, slowing now to stare at him.
“Other werebears. That day in the woods I marked you as my mate for life and only werebears can see the mark. They have been after you since that day I rescued you from that guy in the park.”
“Was he”
“Yes. Definitely. He’s a werebear too.”
“Why would they want to hurt me?”
“Because I chose a human and because I have chosen not to live with the rest of the pack.”
“Why?”
“They were hurting humans and they didn’t have to. We can eat food unlike vampires and werewolves, but they sometimes prefer to just grab and hurt humans for the heck of it.”
“And now suddenly they can’t hurt me anymore?”
“We mated. That makes you one of us in a manner of speaking. They won’t be able to so much as come near you,” he assured.
“And for that I’m supposed to thank you?” she spat. “By your explanation you brought this on me!” she yelled, deliberately ignoring his reference to their lovemaking as ‘mating’.
Raven stared at her a beat, then he sighed.
“I don’t know what to say. I couldn’t stay away from you to save myself and I have tried! For three years I just watched over you from a distance.”
Silence reigned as she slowly sank onto the bed, feeling her emotions scattering all over the place.
He knelt in front of her, his hands holding hers as he said, “I love you Lisa. You are the only woman in the world for me and being around you is absolutely terrifying for me because it sets me free and it controls me.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she told him. She could feel the fear ebbing as he held her; an unbreakable connection forging between them.
She slowly raised a hand and stroked the side of his face as she repeated, “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Around you, I can control my impulses. Ordinarily I change into a werebear when I lose control, like during orgasm, but with you it’s different. You are the only woman in the world for me, literally. Once a werebear meets its mate, it’s forever.”
Lisa looked down at him, her heart constricting in her chest. She was almost afraid to breathe. His silver eyes with flecks of gold stared back earnestly at her, open and filled with so much love she couldn’t bear to look away.
The words trembled on her lips. She held them back with a question. “I should probably shed some weight.”
He stared at her, his eyes looking so intensely into her soul as he said softly, “Honey you are a beautiful big girl. I love you just the way you are. The first time I saw you, I almost creamed my pants just staring at your cleavage.”
“When was that?”
“When you were jogging the woods three years ago?”
Lisa chuckled as he rose to sit beside her on the bed and gathered her into his arms.
“You weren’t wearing any pants. You were a naked werebear and then a naked man.”
“What were you going to tell me before you made the crack about losing weight?”
Her eyes met his, held. “I love you.”
Raven bowed his head as though in prayer as the sweet words washed over him. Then he said, his voice throbbing with emotion, “I have waited all my life to hear those words. I love you too.”
“I want to see you in your other form,” she said decisively, the last fear fading as she instinctively knew the exact thing to say.
Slowly, without so much as a noise, he morphed into the same brown bear that had accosted her three years ago with grey eyes and gold flecks in them.
He was her love, he was her future.
THE END