Free The PlayBear Billionaire: A Bear Shifter Romance by Maria Amor Page B

threatened to claim him. He needed to be awake to explain—he needed to tell Daphne, hope against hope that she could somehow accept what she would now know about him.
    ***
    Alex awakened slowly, coming back to himself bit by bit, with slowly increasing awareness of his body. His shoulder throbbed and burned with pain, and his back felt sticky where the blood had flowed and trickled. His legs and arms ached, his head was pounding. All at once he realized that he was moving, the ground shifting underneath him, the crunching and rustle of leaves filling his ears.
    He breathed in and realized that over the loamy musk of forest smells, he could smell the spicy warmth of Daphne’s pheromones, the acrid tang of fear an undercurrent that brought him abruptly to complete alertness. “Daphne,” he said, groaning with the pain lingering from Eric’s bites. That had been the man’s larger game—to expose the fact of Alex’s status as a shifter to the woman he loved.
    “Alex!”
    He felt his movement abruptly stop and then he was shifting down onto the ground; Daphne had been dragging him—he couldn’t blame her, he would be too heavy to carry for her slight size and the lack of any preternatural strength.
    “What did you see?”
    Daphne’s face swam into view and Alex felt his heart beating faster—he wondered if the blood on his wound had clotted yet. “Well,” she said, taking a deep breath and exhaling forcefully. “I’m not entirely sure of what I saw, but I’m fairly certain it involved bears.” Alex sat up, struggling against the fatigued inertia of his body.
    “You saw me change back,” he said. He chewed his bottom lip, breathing as slowly as he could to stay calm. “I knew you were there—I would have spared you knowing the truth…” Daphne’s dark eyes widened and her look of bemused worry changed to a frown.
    “You would have lied to me?” she asked him sharply.
    “Not lied,” Alex said, trying to think of words to explain. The pain was too intense; Eric had bitten more deeply than he’d thought. “How’s my shoulder?” Daphne smiled wryly and stood up, showing him where her skirt had been ripped along the bottom.
    “I think the bleeding has stopped,” she said, looking at the wound. “But you should probably go to a doctor. Or would you need to go to a vet instead?” Alex laughed, shaking his head.
    “There are special doctors we go to,” he told her. “Are you… you do know what you saw, don’t you?” Daphne shrugged.
    “I saw a grizzly bear fighting a black bear. And then I saw that grizzly bear transforming into you.” She shrugged again. “Either someone spiked my drink or you’re a person who changes into a grizzly bear.” Daphne frowned slightly. “Or a bear that turns into a person. I can’t rule that one out.”
    Alex frowned. “You don’t exactly seem shocked.”
    Daphne shrugged again, and Alex could smell the lingering fear in her pheromones. “I’m pretty shocked but I mean… it’s not like I can exactly deny what I just saw. I saw it.” She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “You don’t… have sex in that form, do you?” Alex stared at her for a long moment and then laughed again, closing his eyes against the jolt of pain the movement caused.
    “Not with humans,” he told her firmly. “I would never…” Daphne began to chuckle.
    “Well,” she said slowly, pressing her lips together as she thought, “This is… certainly something I’m going to have to process a little bit more.” She looked down at her hands for a moment. “But when I saw you lying there, injured… I wasn’t really thinking about how weird it was. Just that you were hurt, and I was the only one here to help.”
    Alex reached out and touched her chin, tilting her face up to meet his gaze; to his surprise, she didn’t even flinch.
    “Are you afraid of me?” he asked her. Daphne met his gaze in silence for a long moment before shaking her head.
    “I figure if you