Free Wild Mate: BBW Bear Shifter Romance by Natalie Kristen

“He
couldn't have seen us. Even if he had a pair of binoculars...”
    “ He saw everything!”
she screeched.
    Levi frowned and checked the
house again. He sniffed through every corner, turned everything
upside down, but he found no hidden cameras. Going back to Rebecca's
room, he found her huddled at the far corner of the bed, hugging her
pillow and crying softly.
    “ Rebecca.” He
sat down beside her but didn't touch her. “There are no
cameras, no recording devices hidden anywhere in your house. All the
doors and windows are securely locked. I checked. Nothing has been
tampered with. The blinds and curtains are drawn. There is no
way...”
    “ You think...I'm lying?”
she whispered, trying to suppress a wrenching sob.
    “ No, no, I don't...”
    “ You don't believe me.”
    “ Rebecca, it's just not
possible...”
    “ Stop saying that!
Please, just stop! I. Saw. Him! And there was someone else,
something else in the room.” Her voice dropped to a dramatic,
almost demented whisper. She began to shake her head frantically.
“It wasn't a shadow. It was...”
    “ Rebecca, look at me...”
    She hiccuped and turned to
him, tears streaming down her face. “He was right here. In my
room. With a knife. Don't tell me that it's just a nightmare.
Because it's not! It's not,” she sobbed.
    Levi nodded without speaking.
Rebecca's fear was real. Her tears were real. Something had scared
her badly.
    “ I'll stay here with
you. I'll stay right here.” He pulled up a chair and sat down
beside the bed.
    She closed her eyes and slid
down, pulling the covers over her head. “He'll come back,”
she whimpered. “He said he'll come back for me.”
    Levi reached out and patted
her shoulder gingerly. “Go back to sleep, Rebecca.” He
bit his tongue before he could say, And forget all about this
awful nightmare.
    It wasn't a nightmare to her.
    To victims of violence and
abuse, the pain and hurt they experienced in the past could still
torment them in the present.
    Telling them to forget their
pain was undermining and belittling what they had gone through.
    Some horrors could never be
forgotten.
    Levi watched Rebecca's shaking
and shivering gradually subside. Her form remained curled up under
the sheets, and her sobs became ragged breaths. She finally cried
herself to sleep, her murmurs and frightened whispers fading into
silence.
    Once he was sure she was
asleep, he surveyed the room again. There was just no way Phin could
have gotten in. That bastard would have to break the window. But
there was not even the slightest crack on the window pane.
    He kept checking and
rechecking the doors and windows. Throughout the night, he paced
around her bed, occasionally whispering soothing words to her when
she cried out and tucking her arm back under the sheets when she
flung her arm out in agitation. The shadows began to recede as the
first rays of the morning sun filtered through the curtains.
    Levi slumped into the chair
beside her bed. He had spent the whole night wearing down her
carpet. At least Rebecca had managed to catch a few hours of sleep,
fitful though her sleep had been.
    As the sunlight hit her eyes,
Rebecca jerked up in bed and blinked. Her hair was plastered to her
face, and her skin was covered in a sheen of sweat. Climbing out of
bed, she staggered to the bathroom and was about to close the door
when Levi put his hand against the door.
    “ I'm going to take a
shower,” she said, running her hand down her neck which was
sticky with sweat.
    “ I'm coming in with
you.”
    She opened her mouth, then
shut it. Without another word, she opened the door and stepped
aside.
    Levi checked behind the door
and looked in the shower. He even peered into the toilet bowl, which
earned him a nervous giggle from her, but a giggle nonetheless.
    “ All clear, ma'am,”
he announced.
    “ Thank you, kind sir.”
She let out that high-pitched nervous giggle again. She went to the
door and waited for him to leave.
    Instead of walking