10
Elliott is a beast.
Elliottlethisbearrun far on Sunday night, not that he could’ve stopped him if he’d tried. It was a miracle he got away from Pella’s Pond without diving in to rescue Fern, without biting her and starting a bond. After she fell in, Beck saw something in Fitz’s posture, and with a harsh burst of alpha energy, commanded him to leave.
It was for the best.
He went east into the mountains, then lumbered north a ways, before spending the night in one of his favorite craggy dens near the source of the Wrentham River.
Far enough from town that he couldn’t pick up on her scent, his bear relaxed a smidge and bedded down. Trapped behind closed eyelids, Elliott stayed up late thinking.
He’d tried to approach the pond day with an open mind. If Fern was comfortable with shifting, he’d tell her about mate bonds and them being potential mates. If she was put out, problem solved. He’d let the bond fade and go back to doing what he did best: hardly anything.
Bravely, he’d invited her to smoke before swimming, expecting the big conversation to happen later, during lunch. Life-altering information went down best with a meal. But when Fern bashed his lip and the timeline changed, his carefully curated nerves frayed.
Of course she’d been enamored by their magic, and of course he’d panicked, no longer certain he wanted to tell her about their potential bond. She was pretty great, and they had a few things in common, but she was so fucking put together in her little white sundress with those long, shiny nails and her hair twisted up on her head. She ran a salon—or she was about to. That was some composed shit, a level of polish he could never hope to achieve.
What had he done with his life? Nothing, aside from accepting the business his grandfather gave him. What had Fern done? Started at the bottom and climbed her way to the fucking top. He was leagues below her. What would she expect from him? Could he even give it?
Monday, Elliott awoke with his bear, and after a slow stretch on cool stone, he emerged into the afternoon sunshine and started down the mountain. While his grizzly sniffed incessantly—seeking berries and jasmine, no doubt—Elliott considered his pesky potential bond. He didn’t need to be rash about things, but he had no choice except to get to know Fern better.
His bear liked her too much to let him ignore the bond until it went away.
What he’d do is grace it with a whisper of attention, see how she was as a friend, and if they were completely and utterly incompatible—as he suspected—his bear would have no choice but to move on.
If they were compatible… Fitz would suck it up and tell her about the potential bond.
By the time he lumbered down the steep slope where the upper valley gave way to the lower, he had a new plan he could stick to, and his bear seemed happy. With a purr, his animal scented the air again, and Elliott realized what had him in such a blissed-out state: Fern was around.
“All right, buddy. I smell her too. When we get to the bottom, we’re going to shift back, so I can go find her.”
Pausing to rub against a tree, his bear grunted happily.
“Thank you,”Elliott said, taking it as a good sign when they got on their way.
His grizzly padded along the rocky ridgeline and down to the spongy,pine-coated basin of the gorge, sniffing and panting as he made his way toward the river.
“Okay, here’s good. Let’s change back.”
His animal paid no regard to Elliott’s request… or the next one… or the next one. Fitz had thanked that fuckerfartoo soon.
Each of his increasingly panicked pleas was ignored—or graced with a snort—as his bear continually scented Fern, her delicious smell growing stronger with each moment.
Elliott eyed the world frantically through his grizzly’s eyes as they splashed into the Wrentham River and swam across its deepest point to emerge on the forested island in the middle. Raspberries, blackberries, jasmine, and vanilla had his grizzly drooling as he crossed to the western shore—close to home.
“Yes, great idea. Let’s go home and shift. I’ll clean up, we’ll go find Fern. Can we do that, buddy?”
Stopping abruptly, his bear plopped down in the brush beside the Potter’s Branch and chuffed. A splash caught his attention, and he spied a kayak gliding his way. There she was, coming up Elliott’s narrow, slow-flowing branch of the river.
“Shift back. Now.”
Motherfucker, his grizzly was behaving just like yesterday. Why was she down here alone? What was she even doing, going against the flow? Fern passed, and his bear stood, rustling the rushes. Luckily, his noise was drowned out by the splashing of her paddle, or she’d easily have spotted him.
The muscles in her upper back flexed as she paddled along, the hot pink bow of her swimsuit and her two braided pigtails swaying side to side. Deciding she’d gone too far for comfort, his bear started forward, stalking her up the bank and salivating heavily as he wove between shrubs and ducked under branches.
Shit, shit, shit.
Elliottknewwhat the fucker wanted to do. He could feel it in his beast’s soft, insistent growl, his rising heart rate. He was desperate to bite her, to mark her, to start the bonding process.
