“And how did she react?”
He snorted. “Tonya shifted, too, and we…” He cleared his throat. “Well, she didn’t get pregnant, so we were lucky about that. But there wasn’t much left of her furniture when we were done.”
“Hot and hormonal. But you already shifted today. So that won’t be a problem, right?”
He nodded. That at least was true. “This still isn’t a good idea.”
She leaned over him, stroking across his cheeks with a feathery touch. “I need to meet him, Carl. If you’re two people, then I need to meet the other half.”
“He doesn’t talk,” he repeated.
“Then it’ll be a short conversation.”
He could see that she was determined. And to be honest, he wondered if he could manage it. He hadn’t tried to do this since that disastrous time with Tonya over a decade ago. But inside, he couldn’t stop the dread that filled him. What would happen when she saw he was just a grunting, horny bear? Would he lose what little chance he had with her?
“It’s not me who feels unsafe,” she said softly. “It’s you. You don’t trust yourself.”
“Because it’s playing with fire.” He looked into her eyes. “People have been burned. Badly.”
“What people?”
“My mother.” The word was out before he could stop it. Damn it, this is what Becca did to him. She made him lose control and words—secrets—came tumbling out.
“What happened?” she asked, her entire body stilled.
“My uncle was Maximus then. He was brutal, like most Maxes of the time. But he seemed to enjoy it.”
She waited, her body stilled as it pressed against him, but not in fear. She was simply listening and he found he wanted to explain.
“He was being cruel. He liked baiting children, torturing them until they got angry enough to shift.”
“Does that work?”
“Only if the kid is ready to shift anyway. For anyone under the age of fifteen, it’s just sadistic.”
She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Was it you? Was he torturing you?”
He shook his head. “Alan.” The boy who was so human they knew it even when he was a toddler. But that hadn’t stopped his uncle.
“How awful.”
“She went Mama bear on him. She was a shifter, but not a strong one. She changed only three times in her life. That was her third.”
“And he killed her for it?”
Carl nodded, feeling the burn of tears in his eyes. He still remembered the sound of them fighting. His mother’s roar of fury. His uncle’s lower, angrier, growl. And then blood. Oceans of blood. And he’d been powerless to stop it.
“My uncle was mean, but even he had limits. He didn’t plan on killing his brother’s wife, but she attacked him.” The words clogged his throat, and he pressed his face against Becca’s breasts. They were full and soft, and smelled of the food she’d cooked. Lost in her softness, he was able to say the rest. “My father heard the noise and came running, but was too late to save her.”
“What about you?” she whispered. “Where were you?”
“With Alan.” He’d shoved his younger brother into a kitchen cabinet, then cowered nearby, planning to distract his uncle when the creature turned on them. “My uncle’s bear was a monster,” Carl said.
“Sounds like he was the monster—human and bear.”
Maybe. Certainly. But in his mind, Carl had always associated the bloody death of his mother with the grizzly bear, not the man. “My father challenged him that day, but he was smart, too. He knew he couldn’t beat my uncle bear to bear, so he called in the police to help. It was a human cop who shot the ‘rabid’ bear attacking my father. By evening, my uncle was dead and my father became Max.”
He felt her hands on his face, stroking his cheeks as she pressed kisses to his forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
