Free Breakwater: Custer (BBW Bad Boy Space Bear Shifter Romance) by Becca Fanning Page A

about six times in the last three years-since Tom and Dina got together, but it's good to have your own kind around."

    "That's neat," Lorne nodded. She was determined not to be shaken by the news, but truth was, this was the first time she'd ever knowingly met a shifter, and she could already feel her mind brimming over with questions to ask him. She'd read plenty about shifters when she'd gone through an obsession with them in her early teens, she'd found the concept of them so romantic, so dashing, so fantastically weird. But she quickly grew out of that as her pragmatic adult self kicked in, or she thought she had, as she found herself fluttering slightly in the presence of a real, live shifter.

    "So, what kind of shifter are you? Shit, is it alright for me to ask you that? I don't want to be rude, I just-"

    Sam waved his hand in the air, as if knocking the question away from him.

    "You ask what you want, and when I get offended I'll storm off and you'll know better next time. Deal?"

    "Deal."

    "We're all bears. It was weird, actually, I had never met a bear shifter before Tom and then-" he nodded at the other groomsmen, who were variously dancing, drinking, and flirting around the room, "-I found four at once."

    "Bears?" Lorne knew from her teenage obsession that every kind of shifter was theoretically possible, but she'd always been hung up on the old-fashioned notions of werewolves and vampire bats. There was something so enormous and ungainly about bears, at least in theory, that she felt her mouth twitch upward into a smirk.

    "Are you laughing at me?" Sam demanded, with mock outrage. "I wouldn't piss off a bear, you know."

    "Sorry, it's-"Lorne stopped herself, and shook her head. "It's weird, I'm having trouble putting the pieces together in my head. I know that shifters exist, and I know that you're a shifter, but…you know?"  

    She flapped her hands in the air, awkwardly trying to get her point across, and Sam shrugged.

    "Yeah, I get it. Sometimes even I don't really believe it's a thing, and I do it a couple of times a month."  

    "So, how come Dina and Tom don't know?" Lorne leaned in close again, glancing around to make sure she hadn't missed an errant bride approaching behind them.

    "Dina's had some bad experiences with shifters in the past. We didn't want to freak her out," he explained. "I'm sure she's told you about that."

    Lorne was temporarily taken aback. She was sure Dina had told her everything-but this was coming as news to her.

    "Her ex? Before Tom? He was a wolf shifter, and he was a piece of shit, from everything I've heard," Sam shook his head angrily. "I don't blame her for not wanting to trust any of us again."

    Lorne was still staring off into space, trying to process what she'd just heard. Dina had mentioned her ex, and Lorne knew with no equivocation her feelings about him, but she had never told her anything about him being a shifter. Why would she keep that from her? Was it that bad that it was a part of her life she never wanted to talk about again?

    "Huh, yeah, I guess," she nodded, realizing that she'd been sitting in silence for at least thirty seconds. "Can you give me a minute?"

    Lorne stood up abruptly, and made her through the crowd once again. Dina caught her eye, and immediately her expression changed from playful to concerned. She hurried towards Lorne, drink in hand.

    "What's wrong?"

    "I was just talking to Sam," Lorne gestured vaguely over her shoulder, in his direction. "He was just telling me about your ex?"

    "Who? Freddy?" A flicker of fear in Dina's voice sent a chill down Lorne's spine, she'd never heard that before.

    "Yeah. Said he was a shifter."

    "He was," Dina replied carefully. "And kind of a dick."

    "You never mentioned that before." Lorne knew that Dina was entitled to tell her or not tell her anything at her discretion, but it bothered her to know that she'd been keeping this, especially if it had hurt her as much as it seemed to.

    "He-" Dina