Chapter 16
Simon woke as a man, his grizzly mind tucked away, and his first thoughts were to take stock of his situation. His human body was warm and healthy, the sheets smelled of Alyssa, but his arms were empty. So he climbed out of bed and went in search of her.
He found her in the kitchen as she frowned at her phone, a news reporter’s voice coming through the tiny device. She looked up as soon as he entered, and her expression softened in a way that thrilled both man and bear. Her eyes lightened and her lips curved. Best of all, she set down her mug and phone to cross to his side.
“Did I wake you?” she asked. “I tried to be quiet.”
“I woke because you weren’t with me,” he answered. Then he drew her into his arms pressed his face to her hair. She smelled slightly nutty, but mostly of what they had done last night, and he couldn’t resist nuzzling down to her neck to lick the skin beneath her ear.
She chuckled, then lifted her head. “You’re talking again. That’s a good sign.”
He nodded and stayed in that place of holding her for a minute longer. Just a minute. But eventually, he had to explain. If not for her, then for them both. Because she needed to understand him if they were to continue together. But how to explain when he wasn’t even sure of what had happened?
Eventually, he pulled back. “You must have questions.”
“A zillion. But mostly it comes down to one.” She touched his cheek and he loved how her eyes grew soft. “Who is the real you? Are you the growly bear? The Machiavellian leader? The vicious killer or the thorough lover?” Then her lips curved into a smile. “Or are you the man who held me all last night like he needed me in his arms?”
“I guess I’m all of them. I put walls between them because it’s better that way. But sometimes…” He shook his head. “There’s a dark place I can go, Alyssa. It’s human violence coupled with a bear’s ferocity. It’s fury and deliberate destruction, and the last time I went there…” He shook his head.
“What?” She stroked his cheek. “Tell me.”
“My best friend was teasing me about how I sucked in basketball.” He shook his head. “Basketball. Can you believe it? I nearly killed him because I couldn’t hit a jump shot.” He snorted. “That’s why I enlisted, you know. I figured if I was going to be a violent killing machine, I might as well do it in the army.”
She pulled back from him, not in fear but in confusion. “I don’t understand. You had a death challenge with your best friend? Over basketball?”
He touched her face, startled that he wanted to tell her this. He’d never told anyone. But he told her because he wanted her to understand. He needed her to know how amazing what she’d done was.
“It’s a place where man and animal merge in the worst of both. We were teens and both shifters. It was spring, too, which always makes us hot.” He closed his eyes, remembering every detail of the day. The smell of flowers and the sound of animals mating. They were outside on a basketball court, but in Gladwin, Michigan, the state park was right there and coming alive. He wasn’t new to shifting, but he was still prey to all those teen hormones. And the girls were nearby watching, including an extra pretty one he’d been trying to impress.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Alyssa whispered as her hand stroked his shoulder.
“I do,” he stressed. If she was to be his alpha female, she needed to know it all, including her part in all of this. “You have to know what happens. What I can do. What you did.”
He felt her hand tighten as she said the words he hadn’t been able to. “In case you go there again?”
He nodded, his gut twisting. “A shift in power is always dangerous. A new alpha will get more challenges—”
“Tell me what you need me to know.”
His lips curved. She always cut straight to the point. “We started playing basketball, me and Jason. He laughed at my jump shot, which really did suck, and he said I couldn’t sink one with him in my face. He said it really loud, and there were girls watching.”
“You were a teen boy. That’s what boys do.”
“I know. And he was good, and I couldn’t get past him. I couldn’t sink the shot. I felt the grizzly coming out, but we were in public. I couldn’t go bear and what would be the point? It wasn’t like a bear can play basketball.”
She snorted. “People would pay to see that.” Her tone was light, and it frustrated him. She needed to take this seriously, but the fault was in himself. He couldn’t express what he wanted to. But she was listening, so he tried again.
“So I merged the two. I’d never done it before but it was so easy. All the fury of the animal without the fur. All the intelligence of the man but without the restraint of morals or logic. I had a single goal—to sink that shot—and I didn’t care what I did to accomplish it.”
She stilled, but her voice remained gentle. “Teens are stupid. Boys most of all.”
He couldn’t argue, but he also couldn’t hide from what he did. “I beat him up, Alyssa. I punched him and when he didn’t go down, I hit him as fast and as hard as I could. He was down on the ground with broken bones, and the only reason I stopped—the only reason—was so I could stand up and sink my jump shot.”
He looked at her, trying to see if she understood. She didn’t. She just stared at him with a vague kind of confusion. “Okay,” she said slowly. “That’s horrible. And a lesson in why teenage boys can’t be trusted with anything. But—”
“It was a basketball game, and I nearly killed him. What if it had been something different? What if he’d teased me that I couldn’t get the girl? I wouldn’t have stopped, Alyssa. In that place, I don’t stop for anything even if it’s murder or rape.”
“That’s a big leap, don’t you think? From hitting your best friend—”
