I froze. A bear. A huge, scary brown bear stood directly behind me.
The Plum Bear
A bear.A bear was standing right there on all fours, staring straight at me.
And sure, I’d learned a lot this already very, very long morning, including my own status as a female bear shifter.
But half of me was still human, and human instinct is human instinct. Especially when it came to creatures that were much larger than you with razor-sharp teeth.
I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could let it out, a huge paw spread in front of my entire face, its rubbery palm blocking out everything beyond it.
He didn’t cover my mouth, but my rising scream ebbed back. Partly out of surprise that he had held up the bear equivalent of a stop sign in front of my face, and partly out of surprise that it wasn’t ripping that same face off.
We stood there like that for several moments, until the stop-sign paw was withdrawn to reveal the bear, now regarding me with a wry, censuring look. One that I translated as,“Seriously, don’t do that.”
So, I didn’t do that.
Curiosity replaced fear as I took in the large beast standing before me. And that was when I noticed it had eyes the same color as a gray lake and a streak of white running through its fur that started a few inches above its left eye and disappeared over one fuzzy white ear. It stood in sharp contrast to his dark-brown fur, but unlike Tadhg and Cian, he wasn’t wearing a medallion on a long chain.
“You must be Brigid’s husband!” I realized with a sigh of relief. “So this is what a plum smells like!”
I indulged myself in a huge sniff. “She’s right. Your scent is delightful. Sweet and sour, sharp and rich, all at once. I’ve never smelled anything like it before. Want a muffin?”
I held out one of the muffins Tadhg had encouraged me to take with me. I’d stuffed them into both dress pockets as an emergency snack before setting out to find an emergency mental-health whittling stick.
The bear squinted. Then reared back and bared his teeth.
Making me cringe.Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Who offers a bear a muffin?
I nearly jerked my hand away.
But then he deftly plucked the treat from my outstretched palm without so much as touching me with that razor-sharp maw.
The muffin disappeared into his mouth with one quick tip back of his furry head, and his lips curved up in a smile. For me or the muffin, I didn’t know.
Either way, it pleased me that my gift had pleased him.
“I’m glad you liked it.” I put the stick in my now empty muffin pocket. “I wish you could tell me if your brother likes muffins, too. That’s what I did back in St. Ailbe, when I was trying to get this one male to like me. I baked.”
My shoulders sagged. “It didn’t work. And your brother doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who can be swayed by baked goods, anyway.”
The bear tilted his head to the side, in a way I translated as,“Don’t be so sure about that.”
“So, you think I should make him some kind of bread or muffin?” I asked hopefully. “Wait, what am I saying? He has his own chef. Obviously, my home-baked goods won’t compare.”
A sullen frustration made me shake my head. “Ugh! I hate being back in this position again. It’s Faoiltiarn all over again. Me trying desperately to get somebody to like me who obviously doesn’t want to like me. But even worse, because your brother-in-law told me that he and the Shadow King are fully on board to mate with me. I guess it’s the High King holding things up, and he’s got all the power in this situation. I’ve got to be trained to please him, and I think I’m supposed to perform for him or something?”
I fretted my bottom lip as old, familiar feelings of not being good enough—good enough not even being within the realm of my possibility—washed over me.
“You know, I don’t have a ton of pride. Especially when it comes to males,” I admitted to Brigid’s husband. “But this feels crazy, like it’s crossing some kind of line. Now that I know I’m a bear, I don’t want to keep on chasing after males who don’t want me. I should tell Tadhg no. Ask him to drop me off…”
I mentally searched, and more frustration welled up inside my stomach when I realized out loud, “Goodness, I don’t even know where I’d go. Scotland’s all wolves who don’t want me. And my village in Canada no longer feels like home. I guess because it never truly was.…”
My chest clenched as all my St. Ailbe memories rewrote themselves with a “you’re actually a bear” filter.
“I don’t know if Brigid told you this yet, but my mom didn’t even tell me I was one of you. I just found out this morning. How messed up is that?”
Brigid’s mate tipped his head to the side in a way that said,“Pretty messed up.”
