Free Finding Alien Love (SciFi Alien Romance) by Meg Ripley Page A

risk the panic of a woman encountering two bears in the woods at night, or if it would be better to vacate the area, keep away from the stranger. The Nita clan had lived in the town of Green Tree for as long as it had existed; the original shape-shifters who had formed it had been loggers, just like the majority of the town’s men. Their existence was precarious, however. None of the normal humans in the tiny town knew the true nature of the members of the clan. There were occasional murmurs about some of the stranger behaviors of the “local bears,” but in spite of the occasional sighting of someone coming out of the woods, transformed back into a human, the members of the community seemed content to turn a blind eye; but if they were confronted with the true fact of the Nita clan, there would be consequences—deadly ones.
    Move on? Ben rumbled, turning his head and scenting the air, trying to catch the trace his friend had noticed. In his human form, he had better-than-normal senses of smell and hearing; but in his animal form, Ben’s senses were even more acute. He caught the scent that Dov had found: richly female, with the sweet, slightly musk-laden undercurrent of fertility, it was enough to briefly make the promise of even the sweetest, ripest berries pale in comparison. How the woman had managed not to attract every human male in the town—along with the unattached Nita clan contingent—was beyond Ben’s ability to comprehend. A jolt of fiery need shot through him at her smell. Breathing deeply, trying to settle the hormones surging through his body, Ben picked up the answering scent of Dov’s pheromones; he was beginning to respond to the smell of female fertility as well.
    Better leave, Dov’s hurried, not-quite-panicked thought reached him, and Ben let out a grumbling growl to confirm his agreement. They moved deeper into the woods together, and as they moved further away from the alluring, distracting smell, Ben felt his thoughts beginning to clear. If they could just keep downwind of the woman, he thought, they would be okay. He sniffed at the air, sorting through the scents that painted crystal-clear pictures on his ursine mind, identifying each one. There was carrion nearby, but he was unmoved by it; there was a tree somewhere close to them that had—to his keen nose—perhaps a few ripe fruits for the picking. He ambled off on all fours, meandering through the underbrush and putting the new woman out of his mind as completely as he could. She was not for him—even if she smelled appealingly like she should be. He would not fight Dov over the right to take her; he would rather lose the opportunity to mate completely than be in opposition to a man he considered his brother, his own flesh and blood. Ben barked a quick sound in Dov’s direction, heading towards the appealing smell of more food.

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    Dov’s mind was not so easily turned away from the woman whose scent he had caught on the breeze. As he followed Ben carelessly, the woman’s pheromones lingered in his nose, spurring the animal arousal that bubbled inside of him. That she was fully human—not a werebear, or even another kind of shape-shifter—was a problem, but even as he tried to focus on enjoying the night’s explorations, Dov’s brain filled with fleeting, flickering images. He had met the new woman around the same time that Ben had; he had taken his cue from his friend, knowing the Alpha’s edicts about mating, and knowing that with the climate within the clan, losing control could spell their doom, but the small, curvaceous woman had attracted his attention nonetheless. Blurred, animal images flitted through his mind: what the woman must look like naked, the shape of her breasts, and the idea of her nestled firmly in his arms. He could imagine the smell of her arousal, the taste of her sweat and fluids on his tongue.
    Dov had caught his friend’s pheromones as well; he knew that Ben—in spite of resolutely turning