Free Chosen by the Bear by Imogen Taylor Page A

done her any good in the middle of the woods.
    But the bear did not swat at her with its gigantic paws.. It did not chomp down on her, splitting her in half with one easy bite. None of that happened, but it still shocked her all the same. The bear’s arms wrapped around her body, picking her up with ease, and simply carried her away.
    Nikki didn’t understand what was going on; a beast like this that had driven away a pack of wolves was carrying their prey through the woods. Like a mother would a child, or a hero would his damsel, the bear carried her against its chest, seeming to know just where it was going.

Chapter 2: From One Wreck to Another
     
    Nikki felt as if she had been carried for hours, twisting through trees before they came across a small cabin in the middle of a little clearing. If it had been under any other circumstance Nikki would have thought this place a romantic getaway. The clearing was littered with the sweetest smelling flowers she had ever seen and the log cabin was beautifully decorated; it even had outdoor seating on the porch. It was a perfect, secluded place but now it filled her mind with horrors. In a place like this, no one would hear her scream.
    The cabin door swung open easily, as if the bear lived in this cabin like a normal human. The thought was preposterous; after all, Nikki believed that bears lived in caves or wandered around the woods all day. She could never have dreamed of one living in a cabin as a human would.
    As soon as they crossed the threshold, the bear laid her down on the wooden floor, making sure to block the door. The door clicked shut behind them and Nikki looked around the cabin, seeking an escape. Silence stretched between them, neither moving as they stared at each other for a long moment. Only a few hours ago she had been driving home, but now she stood face to face with a grizzly bear in a cabin that it appeared to live in.
    Nikki tried to step around the bear, sure that he was in some kind of trace; he had not stopped staring at her. Yet every move she made was greeted with a warning growl and the bear shifting to protect the doorway. Swallowing hard, she wondered what was going on and how she could escape unharmed.
    The silence remained unbroken, Nikki refusing to attempt to talk to a beast. That’s all he was to her, but the more she looked at him, the more the bear before her seemed to grow more human-like. Its eyes changed, little flecks of gold and human emotion finding their way into the animal depths. The bear’s gaze entranced Nikki, and she didn’t want to pull herself away. In fact, she only wanted to step closer.
    As soon as Nikki opened her eyes, she saw that where there was once a bear, there was now a bare man. He still towered over her with his six-foot muscular frame, but he was no beast.
    She rubbed her eyes, stepping back a little in surprise. She could not believe it. She looked around the cabin, trying to figure out where the bear had ran off to in a matter of seconds. The question bubbled up behind her lips; she couldn’t not ask.
    “Where did the bear go?” Confusion laced her every word as she tried to figure out what had just happened. It was preposterous; the man before her could not be the bear, right?
    The male went to step forward, hands outstretched in an attempt to be as calming as possible, but Nikki panicked, bolting away from him. So much had happened in such a short time that trying to process it all made her brain hurt. Her eyes kept wandering up and down the man before her. He was perfection. She could not stop staring at his body, every last inch of it.
    “Please don’t scream,” he pleaded, an earthy gravel to his voice.
    It was when she looked up into his eyes, those same eyes that the bear had, that it all sank in, the scary reality that everything she feared was true. Her scream vibrated throughout the cabin and the surrounding woods. It was only a split second before she was pounced upon.
    Driven by an innate