Free Miri: A Paranormal Romance (Plenty of Shift Book 1) by Carina Wilder Page B

kind.
    He backed away for a moment, ready to surrender his bear form. To inhabit his human skin and ask them to leave and never come back. But in that instant, one of the wolves leapt at him and Malcolm turned his head, grabbing it around the throat and throwing it to the ground, its neck pierced, bloody.
    I didn’t want to do that, buddy, he thought. I really didn’t.
    And it was at that moment that things got worse.
----
    M iri strode quickly down the street, cursing herself for having forgotten to charge her now-dead cell phone. She could only hope that Jenn and Kor would still be at the bar to help save her from the potential of an awkward moment alone with Malcolm.
    Malcolm, who had taken up permanent residence in her mind. Still etched on some place in her chest. And she might never be satisfied, she knew, until she had a taste of him. As she opened the bar’s door, she smiled, her insides giddy with some sort of teenage excitement. So undignified for a grown woman, but a refreshing change. It was nice to know, at least, that she was still capable of falling for someone. And maybe, after all, he was the right guy.
    She expected the same bar she’d stepped into twice before: relatively quiet, aside from music pulsing gently through the hardwood floor. The gorgeous bartender behind the counter.
    What she didn’t expect was to find the place in a state of tequila-drenched pandemonium. Jenn and Kor were nowhere to be seen, and Malcolm—Malcolm was a grizzly.
    Miri’s heart shattered inside her chest in that moment. She’d wanted to see his shifted form, but not like this. This was the opposite: this was what she’d feared all along.
    Violent, thuggish behaviour.
    So, he was just like the rest of them.
    The wolves whimpered, cowering at his feet as he let out roars, his teeth coated in the blood of one of their kind. It took Miri only a moment to see the form lying before him, its neck soaked, red with its own blood.
    Oh, God. The grizzly was on a rampage.
    She froze in place even as Malcolm’s head snapped around to look at her. For a moment it seemed as though his face settled into an expression of remorse, if such a thing were possible for a grizzly. But it didn’t matter.
    Miri turned and left.
    With a solid jab in her chest she told herself that she must never set foot in that bar or speak to Malcolm again.
    “Miri!”
    She was all but running down the street, escaping that voice. That face. That everything.
    But then a hand was on her shoulder, swivelling her around.
    “What?” she said through hot tears. He was a blur in front of her, a towel loosely wrapped around his waist. “What do you want?”
    “You. I want you.”
    “Well, it seems that you want to beat up shifters more than you want me,” she said. “It seems that you do like fighting. You do like hurting people. So tell me—what the hell would make you think twice before hurting me?”
    He was silent, his shoulders slumped.
    “That’s what I thought,” she said. “You’re just like everyone else. Just like the worst of them. You’re a fucking thug. Good-bye, Malcolm.”
    Without another word from either of them she turned and walked away. And this time, he didn’t follow.

Chapter Nine
    A ll the way home , Miri cursed herself for any number of mistakes. For letting her heart begin to open itself up to someone she’d thought she could genuinely fall for. For trusting him. For trusting herself.
    For being such a tech idiot that she’d forgotten to charge her phone.
    Damn it, she couldn’t even call Jenn to ask where she was, let alone text her. She couldn’t talk to anyone, and she’d never felt so alone.
    But it didn’t matter; at least she and Kor hadn’t been there to see their buddy going on his killing spree, or whatever it was. At least they wouldn’t be disillusioned about his true nature.
    Fuck, was she even qualified for this self-imposed matchmaking job? If she’d judged Malcolm so poorly, even after spending hours