He lunged, cutting my wondering thought short.
Fast, with his maw gaping wide.
Before I could blink, he had the Iron Claw pinned to the cell floor with one massive paw.
I expected a fight, some kind of resistance. But the Iron Claw didn’t struggle. Didn’t even yell out.
Instead, he pulled up the sleeve of his leather jacket to expose his forearm.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, my voice rising in pitch.
The Iron Claw didn’t answer. Just grinned as the bear’s teeth sank into his exposed arm, drawing blood.
“Yeah, Koda. That’s right.” To my shock, the Iron Claw let out a low, approving growl, his chest practically purring. “Let’s do this!”
I stared, horrified, but then the bear finally released him. A thin line of blood trailed from the bite.
“Well, that’s one way to say, ‘Welcome to the family.’” The Iron Claw sat up, his smirk returning as he flexed his arm. Then he grinned at me. “Your turn, Blondie.”
“What in the actual fuck?” I shouted, backing away as the bear turned his attention to me.
The growl deepened, reverberating through the cell as he stalked toward me.
For the second time that night, I reached for my bear outside a full moon. But it stayed back, refusing to resurface. In fact, it hummed inside me, happily thrumming with an emotion that felt a lot like… anticipation.
“No, no, no—” I raised my hands in a futile attempt to ward off Takoda’s bite-happy bear.
But he was on me in seconds, his clawed paw pressing me to the floor.
I was 6’6” and nearly 300 pounds, yet he held me down like I weighed nothing. Goddamn bear magic! I thrashed, adrenaline screaming through me, but his weight was unyielding.
“Stop fighting it,” the gravelly Iron Claw called out from somewhere in the distance. His tone was aggravatingly unbothered. “’I surrender to it, and by surrendering, I control it.’—That’s some Robert Jordan for ya.”
“Who?!”
“Robert Jordan, one of the founding fathers of modern epic fantasy.”
“Okay, this bear is trying to take a chunk out of me, and you’re quoting—ahhh!”
My question dissolved into a yell as the bear’s jaws locked onto my forearm. Sharp teeth pierced through skin and muscle, sending lightning bolts of pain shooting through me.
And then?—
It tingled.
Not in a bad way, but in a way that made my head spin—then abruptly clear with a strange sense of…Brotherhood?
The word floated into my only-child brain like a bright red, heart-shaped balloon.
But yes—brotherhood. That was what I felt when I stared into the glowing eyes of the bear with its jaws locked around my arm.
The connection was instant. Primal. Raw. Something ancient and feral unfurled in my chest, snapping into place like a puzzle piece I hadn’t even realized was missing.
The bear released me, and I scrambled back, clutching my arm. But when I looked down, the bite mark was already fading, replaced by a spreading warmth that defied explanation.
“What the…” My voice trailed off as I stared at my arm, then back at the Iron Claw, who was watching me with a smug expression. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
“Nah, he didn’t kill you.” The Iron Claw held up his arm to reveal a now completely healed crescent-shaped bite mark of his own. “Hemadeyou.”
