Free A Change To Bear (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Last of the Shapeshifters) by A.E. Grace

out into the road.
    And nothing happened. Standing still like a deer in headlights, she watched as the mopeds funneled around her, leaving her a small enclave of road and air. She stepped forward, and the funnel adjusted with her, and step by step, she walked across, wondering how it must look like from above as the gap of mopeds that went around her shifted laterally across the road, opening and closing to her sides in the shape of an ellipse, like an eye.
    “Whew,” she whispered to herself, arriving at the other side. She looked after the train of people, and none of them were looking back. Her heart was racing, and she became aware of the shaky adrenaline that was coursing through her body. That had been… fun . Being a little afraid, a little uncertain, it had been exciting. She laughed, feeling stupid. God, people here crossed the roads like that every day, all the time, but to her, it was entirely something foreign, something so, so different.
    It was definitely something she was going to remember, that was absolutely certain. She’d heard friends and colleagues talk about their traveling experiences, and they always came back with nuggets of memory, bits and pieces that stand out more than anything else, and those were always the stories they told. To the listener, it would seem like a disjointed account of the whole experience, lacking in narrative or structure. And yet, Terry was going to remember the first time she crossed a road in Vietnam alone. It wouldn’t be bookended with why she had been crossing it. She wouldn’t remember why she was crossing that particular road, or even where she was going. She would simply remember being out in what felt like no man’s land, and watching, trying to hold at bay the onset of instinctual panic, as people on mopeds had come rushing toward her before neatly dividing themselves into two temporary lanes around her, and then merging back together again. That would be what she remembered, and what she would tell people.
    And that brought her back around to Liam. He was also something she would remember, if only for their chance meeting on the train, or his guarded and odd behavior. No, she thought to herself, knowing that she wouldn’t fool anyone with that. She would remember him because, truthfully, he was just really hot, and she kind of liked him.
    Where was he now? What was he up to? She took in the sight of the large lake as she slowly rounded it. She took off her day bag, a ratty rucksack, duck shit green that looked like it might disintegrate into tatters of frayed fabric at any moment. She reached in for her guidebook. The spine was already peeling off its binding glue. If it was any other book, she’d care.
    “Lake Hoan Kiem,” she read aloud. Translated into Lake of the Returned Sword, it was situated in the historic center of Hanoi. The city had no doubt expanded asymmetrically over time. She saw a narrow red bridge that connected to a small island in the lake, and decided that she was going to go there after breakfast. But food came first, before sightseeing, and she made her way to the restaurant with colorfully-dressed waitresses. She’d had Vietnamese noodles before in Chinatown back home, but she was eager to try the real thing.
    And she was keen on returning her thoughts to Liam, and to speculate as to his secret, hidden past. She knew that his story would likely turn out to be far less interesting than anything she was about to imagine. She also knew that she probably wouldn’t see him again. It would not be surprising in the least bit if she returned back to the guest house at the end of the day to find her neighboring room vacant.
    “Table for one,” she said, and the pretty young waitress in a bright blue and unadorned long-sleeved and slim summer dress showered her to a table on the balcony, overlooking the lake. She sat down, could see an old couple, maybe in their eighties, jogging around the perimeter of the body of water.
    “Can I get you