Free So Much To Bear: Shifting Devotions (Werebear Erotic Romance) by Bethany Rousseau Page B

work would be limited to trades and other non-degree-requiring spots, and Jennifer was both hoping that he would find a job of his own, and dreading the process and his disappointment when he compared the effort he was putting in to the money he was receiving.
     
    It would potentially be better if Jennifer could get work as an anthropologist studying the developing world; Damon’s skills would help him fit in among societies where there was still a premium on building your own home, maintaining self-sufficiency, where electricity was inconsistent and technology was more strictly utilitarian. But it would be a while yet before she could even contemplate that option; she was only finishing her basic degree—Jennifer would need to go to graduate school in order to really be able to participate in real ethnographic study. In the meantime, Damon had to be able to participate in the society he had joined her in. So she had to teach him not just generally about regular human society, but about how completely different life in the city was. They lay in bed together, starting to assemble a plan.
     
    “So what’s the biggest difference between the city you’re in for university and here?” Damon asked her, hands trailing over her body in casually possessive caresses. Jennifer considered the question.
     
    “It’s bigger. I mean, that’s sort of an obvious thing, but I don’t know if there’s another way to explain it. Two of these towns would fit inside of the city where my college is.” She called up the city to mind, thinking about the things that had caused her flashes of culture shock. “There are tons of people there. Way more than here or even the other town. It’s never really completely quiet, you know? Things slow down but there’s always someone out and about.” Damon nodded slowly.
     
    “What else?” Jennifer considered what they had already gone through in terms of socializing Damon to regular human life in the town, comparing it to the way things were in the city.
     
    “People aren’t as personable. They aren’t exactly mean, but they don’t really—there are so many people that they don’t know each other, they don’t particularly care about each other. In some ways, it’ll be easier for you that way… you’d be just another stranger to everyone.” As people from outside of the town, they were both conspicuous in a way that they wouldn’t be in the city; Jennifer worried frequently that they might run into someone from the other town—that she would be recognized, that Damon would be.
     
    “You seem to like it better there,” Damon observed, turning her onto her side to face him. He kissed her lightly on the lips. “Whatever I have to do to adapt, I’ll do.”
     
    Jennifer considered the situation from all angles; she wanted to get out of the town sooner rather than later. While she could afford the hotel they were staying in, every day they stayed so close to the forest, so close to the town she had used to live in—and the people who had gone after Damon, hunting him like a rabid animal—the greater the chances that they would run into someone. As the time drew near for her to return to classes at the end of break, to finish her final semester before graduation, she came up with an idea. “We’ll go ahead and go to the city right now,” she suggested to Damon. “We’ll take the train up and get a hotel room somewhere, and we’ll give you first-hand experience before I have to go back to classes.” Damon laughed.
     
    “I’m completely willing to stay in another hotel with you,” he said, looking around the room they had taken. “But I think you’re overestimating how hard it will be for me to adapt.” Jennifer shrugged.
     
    “I mean, it took me a while to get used to living in a big city, and I’m used to living among humans.” Damon made a face.
     
    “If you insist that I will be horribly shocked by the city, I’ll take your word for it. Teach me all about