Free A Taste of Honeybear Wine (BBW Bear Shifter Standalone Romance Novel) (Bearfield Book 2) by Jacqueline Sweet, Eva Wilder

from me. Your scent is driving me crazy.” Michael fell to his knees, trying to keep his head. The bear roared with fury at being denied its mate and it wanted out. It wanted to shift, but if he shifted now he’d lose Alison forever. He knew it.
    “My scent? I don’t even wear perfume.”
    “Back away,” Michael growled, his voice deepening as the shift threatened to come on.
    “Wait, just a sec,” Alison said. She ran twenty feet away, to a clump of purple flowers that to Michael looked like mountain weeds. She grabbed a handful of the flowers and their unopened pods, crushed them in her hands and then rubbed the mash across her neck and arms. Almost immediately her scent vanished, replaced by something earthier and pungent. Michael’s head cleared and his bear calmed down.
    “What is that stuff?”
    “Salvia clevelandii,” she said with a grin. “Musk sage. It’s like a stinkier wild cousin to the normal household sage.” She picked one of the purple flowers and sucked from the stem of it. “Also the nectar is delicious. It grows just everywhere around here and people overlook it because it’s kind of a shabby flower, but it’s delightful and very useful. Bees go crazy over it and make lovely sage honey. In fact, I have an amazing recipe for sage honey mead. I haven’t made it since college, but if we find a local hive or apiarist I’d love to make you a bottle.”
    Michael watched her, how animated she was when she discussed all she knew. It was like her mask of shyness fell away then and revealed the truly gorgeous woman beneath. He could listen to her talk forever. He hoped he’d have the chance.
    “Try one,” she said, offering him a delicate purple sage flower. The stem of it was like a narrow cocktail straw and he sipped the sage-flavored nectar from it. “That’s really tasty.”
    “Right? The woods are full of so many secret amazing things.” Her smile dazzled him.
    “If I didn’t think it’d kill me, I’d kiss the hell out of you right now.”
    “What even is this?” Alison asked. “This thing between us? I can feel it, like a connection. An energy here,” she tapped her heart, “that wants to be close to you.”
    “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
    “I believe in chemical attraction. In hormones. In dopamine and oxytocin. But this feels different. I feel like I’ve been waiting to know you my entire life.” Her warm brown eyes grew larger as she said it. Her pulse raced. Her full lips parted and when her tongue darted out to moisten them Michael had to stifle a groan.
    “This is love at first sight.”
    Take her , his bear roared. Even under the smell of the mountain weeds, you can scent her desire for you. Take her now. Claim her as yours!
    Somewhere above a raven cawed raucously and his bear went still. It was the call of a hunting party.
    “We have to go,” he said. “The ravens know we’re here, and we need to present ourselves before they decide we’re spies.”  
    Hand in hand they ran into the woods. Even though the maps said they were still within the borders of Bearfield, everyone around knew this was raven territory. Rook’s Roost was the spire’s name, a name that predated the shifters moving in. But the ravens loved irony, loved anything that could be bent to more than one use. The temptation of the name was too great for them, when they came to Michael’s father seeking asylum.
    The trees in the Rookswood were larger than normal, with leaves wider than Michael’s hand and trunks so thick four men holding hands couldn’t reach around them. Old Jack Harper, who ran the hardware store in town, claimed the ravens fed the trees shifter blood. He said they performed sacrifices of their kin who broke one of their many laws. But Maggie Mayhew, Jack’s wife and head of the Ladies Quilting Society, said that the trees grew larger here because their roots had found the great bear spirit under the earth and his strength nourished them and made them wild