8.
“I don’t want you to go back to your cabin tonight,” he said as they lay in his bed several hours later.
After they had recouped from their crazy fuck under the stars, Arlo had swept her up in his arms and carried her into the house, to his room and made love to her again. Poppy was curled up into the nook of his arm, and they were both completely worn out and sticky with each other’s sweat.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she smiled.
She drifted off to sleep with the sounds of his breathing getting heavier beside her. It was so gruff and low, she was more sure now than ever that he was growling.
Poppy awoke with a start in the middle of the night. She sat bolt upright and looked around the room. It took her a moment to remember where she was, but it was with relief that she realized that she was at Arlo’s and not in some stranger’s bed. She reached out for him but found her fingertips stroking the mattress instead.
“Arlo?” she whispered as she looked around, realizing that she was alone.
The moon had come out from behind the clouds and it was casting silvery light all down the decking, shining in through the huge glass doors and into the room. She was naked but she wrapped the bed sheet around herself and shuffled over to the doorway and looked down the hall. The house was completely silent and there wasn’t any sign of him in the front room or the bathroom.
“Arlo?” she called again. But she knew that she was alone in the house; he was gone.
She made her way quickly back to the bedroom and looked out the doors again. She slid them open slowly and stepped out into the night. It was chilly out there but she still felt warmed through and she was about to turn and begin to walk back toward the couch and fire pit where they had started their evening when she heard the sound of branches snapping in the woodland behind her.
She froze and turned around slowly. Afraid of what may be lurking. She was sure that she could hear grunting and the sound of growls, and it was with horror that, when she turned and peered into the darkness behind her, she saw the outline of a big hulking beast. It was so big and covered in fur that as it slammed its way toward her, she almost fainted with fright.
“No!” she screamed as she held out her hand as if that in any way could defend her.
The bear was so big and powerful, the closer it came the more the deck bowed beneath its weight.
Poppy tried to push herself backward, to make it back to the doorway and inside, but she was so frightened it was as if she was frozen to the spot. She closed her eyes tightly and covered her ears. She knew that this was it, there was no way she could outrun or get away from it. She was doomed.
She thought of her mother and of how she knew that she would barely care… But then she thought of James and of what it would mean for him to lose his older sister. They had only really ever had each other, and now Poppy was going to go and get herself killed in the mountains by a grizzly bear. Even after Arlo had warned her of the dangers.
She peeked out from between her fingertips and the bear was still right in front of her. She could smell the hot stink of its breath and it opened its jaws wide and wailed up into the night’s sky.
Even though she couldn’t move her eyes from the beast in front of her, Poppy was aware of some movement out in the woodland behind it. She saw the flash of something darting quickly between the trees, and in an instant, the bear in front of her stopped and turned around as if it had sensed it too.
Poppy was cowering on the deck, right next to the wall of the cabin, her heart pounding and her palms sweating, when, suddenly, Arlo emerged from the forest, completely naked and full of rage.
The bear and he squared up to each other and Poppy’s mind was racing. Was any of this even real? Or was it just some crazy nightmare?
“Arlo!” she screamed, but he was completely focused on the bear. He flexed his huge arms hungrily and bared his own teeth and Poppy suddenly saw something come over him that was both arousing and terrifying.
The bear that had cornered her whimpered and lowered its head, it moved backward slightly, closer to Poppy, but with its shoulders hunched and its nose touching the ground.
Arlo snarled again and when Poppy looked back at him, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The man who she had just spent the past several hours exploring every inch of was changing before her. His demeanor was fiercer and his eyes were burning with power. She cowered as she watched him snarl and take another heaving step closer, but this time, she could tell that something incredible was about to happen.
He belted out a growl so loud it tore through the night and was so fierce it blew the hair back from her face from over ten feet away. He hunched his shoulders and his arms bulged with exertion, and in an instant, his skin seemed to rip open as a dark fur sprang up in its place.
Poppy rubbed her eyes. Could this really be happening? What the fuck was she witnessing?
Before her very eyes, Arlo turned from the handsome man she had got to know into a big, beast of a grizzly bear. His paws were so big and full of claws that they could have torn her apart.
She wanted to scream but she was frozen. She wanted to run but her legs and feet were heavy with fear.
The bear in front of her was also cowering and as Arlo moved forward quickly and lunged himself at the smaller bear, there was a flash of fangs, fur, and claws as the pair began to fight.
Poppy tried to hide, but she was right there and she saw it all. Arlo was so big compared to the other bear, he was like no animal she had ever seen, and as he drove the smaller bear back into the woods, Poppy honestly couldn’t believe what was happening.
She rubbed her eyes and breathed in deeply.
“This can’t be real,” she whispered to herself. But then she was suddenly aware that the Arlo bear was back, and he was right in front of her.
When she looked up and saw him right there, she looked into his eyes and she knew that it was definitely him. The man she had fallen for, he could shape shift and now it all made sense. This was why he was so hot to the touch, why he seemed so different and mysterious, why he had been so secretive and cryptic.
She tried not to cry and to instead slow her breathing. The bear moved backward and seemed to heave in the moonlight and then, in an instant, it started to convulse and shudder as the fur began to disappear and the tanned, thick muscles returned in their place.
Arlo stood there, back in his human form, and to Poppy, he had never looked better. He looked so alive and so powerful. It was intoxicating.
“You’re my woman now,” he said with a pant. “And I’ll protect you no matter what.” His chest was heaving with exertion and Poppy could feel the bond between them. Something had most definitely changed.
“What are you?” she whispered, even though now she really did know.
“I’m Arlo,” he whispered. “And like I told you, it’s going to take a very special and understanding woman to love me.”
And even though there was a sadness in his eyes, Poppy knew it would all be okay. Whether he knew it yet or not, she was most certainly that woman.