Free Avenge the Bear by T. S. Joyce Page B

I thought you’d never talk to me again. I want to feed you because I can hear your stomach growling. It’s uncomfortable doing nothing when you need something.”
    Somewhere in the middle of his admissions, Reese’s mouth had dropped open.
    Ethan sighed a sound that mimicked utter frustration and ran his hands through his hair until it stuck up in all different directions. “I don’t know how to talk to you.”
    Clearly. “I am hungry,” she admitted, unsure of what else to address. The smell of bear was only growing thicker. Soon, she’d have to open a damned window just so she could relieve the weight of his dominance and breathe comfortably again.
    “Good,” he said, but his voice had dipped to a gravelly, inhuman tone. He hooked his hands onto his hips and the gesture displayed the taut musculature of his arms. Across the right one were long silver scars.
    Shyly, she reached out and ran her finger down the biggest one, but his shoulders shook in a curious shiver. When she looked up, he’d closed his eyes and now, the smell of bear was less.
    Reassured that her touch helped, she stepped closer and brushed her finger down the second scar. Ethan dropped his chin to his chest, and when he opened his eyes, they were dark again.
    Shuffling closer, she ran her hands through his mussed hair. A soft rumbling sounded from his throat. “What’s wrong with him?” she murmured.
    Grabbing her wrists, he pulled her hands slowly down until they rested on the impossibly hard planes of his chest. “Nothing is wrong with him, Reese. He’s just different from your bear.”
    “How so?”
    He made a clicking sound behind his teeth and twitched his head. The soft vibration in his throat had ceased and the air was growing heavy again. The leg of a desk seemed to hold his attention, but if he couldn’t share this with her, how could they ever trust the bond they’d forged?
    “Ethan,” she whispered. “I won’t run. I promise.”
    His lip curled over his straight, white teeth and his eyes tinged with sterling around the edges again.
    It felt important that she know this part of him. Important that he share whatever secrets had made his clan fear him when he was a child. Whatever darkness Muriel still sensed from him. Lifting up on her tiptoes, she brushed her lips against his—just a soft peck to reassure him she wasn’t scared. Not yet.
    The snarl left his mouth and it softened, then molded to hers. With a deliberately gentle touch, he rested his hands on her hips and pulled her slowly closer. And the weight of his bear lessened again.
    Easing back, she rested her cheek against his and wrapped her arms slowly around his waist, held him tight. “Tell me now and have it done with. Tell me what I’m dealing with, Ethan.”
    His chest lifted in a long inhalation, and he rubbed his cheek against hers, the scruff of his two day stubble tickling her sensitive skin.
    “He’s in charge. Bear.”
    Her eyebrows shot up as she stared over his shoulder at the box fan attached to the upper corner near the map desk. Ethan was swaying gently, and she joined him, drawing her boots alongside his and melting against him.
    “You call him Bear?”
    “Everyone here does. He isn’t…he isn’t like the others.”
    “Do you control him when you change?”
    “No. And I don’t control my changes either. He does.”
    She remembered Muriel’s warning. “Do you give him that power on purpose?”
    He shook his head. “I tried to stifle him when I was younger. It only makes it worse to control him. He lets me interact safely with the humans in the campground if I let him have his way. We compromise.”
    “Doesn’t sound like much of a compromise.”
    “Mmm,” he said noncommittally. “This is as good as it gets for me, Reese. This is what you would have to accept. I’m not stable, but I would never hurt you.”
    “Bear approves of me?” she asked rocking in rhythm with him like a slow dance.
    “He’s the reason we