She chirped, then ran around in a small circle.
“You want to play?” he ventured.
Another chirp, this one higher-pitched and brimming with excitement, seemingly confirmed he was on the right path. His grizzly, unfamiliar with otter behavior, huffed and snapped his teeth, desperate to play but unsure if he was allowed.
“Do you want my bear to play?”
The squeal she let out couldn’t have meant anything other than, “Yes!” To confirm his suspicions, she charged him, like a very tiny bear, and mouthed his fingers with an open jaw.
“Are you acting like a bear on purpose?”
She cooed.
“Go wait by the water while I shift. I don’t want to crush you.”
Spinning more times than necessary, she eventually faced the stream and bounced away.
Elliott’s shift was fast, and when his four paws hit the earth, he lumbered toward her, huffing and snorting and making a general ruckus. His beast had never been so happy.
They did a sniffing thing: Fern’s otter was swift and trusting, running beneath him and slaloming through his legs before she looped around and stopped beneath his snout. He inhaled her—her scent—but Elliott was pretty sure his bear breathed in hard enough to suction her to his nostrils. Then she took off—again. With quick glances back over her shoulder, she bounced across the lawn, running parallel to the creek before looping back and going wide to zoom up behind him and headbutt the back of his legs.
“Run,”he urged his grizzly.
Elliott’s bear launched into motion with thundering footsteps that jostled stones free from the side of the creek. A thrill ran through him; he’d never been the prey before.
When his yard ended and the plants near the stream grew too thick to plow down, his bear veered right, up into the forest, weaving through trunks as she followed him onward. He stalled every few feet—again, he’dnever been prey before—to make sure her pattering footsteps followed. A patch of late blueberries caught his attention, and the beast wanted a snack, but Elliott told him to make a mental note and come back for those later. Laughing at his animal, Elliott urged him to move faster. Fern would be pissed if he didn’t give her a good chase.
His grizzly reached Potter’s Lane, using the open road as a chance to change directions, turning right to head toward home.
“That’s so boring! Go back through the woods.”
The beast complied after a quick check over his shoulder to make sure Fern was following. She was about ten yards back, and she wasflying. It was fucking hilarious. Her little back popped up over top of her head as her paws beat against the dirt road, and she boinged toward him at full speed.
Past a blackberry bush, around an aspen, and down toward the stream he went. Foam sprayed from his mouth, and he kept looking back at Fern’s otter as he raced straight into the water, splashing up a storm.
He turned downstream and glanced at the trees just as she emerged. She stood up on her hind legs for a moment, looking around until she spotted a muddy rivulet streaking downhill. Leaping and flopping on her belly, she slid, flying toward him at a million miles an hour.
“Run, dummy!”Elliott shouted at his bear, and the beast took off as best as he could.
Slowed by the drag of water through his fur, he lumbered along, eyes downcast. She was in her element, coming up on himfast, and when his beast caught sight of a trout in the shadows between two large rocks, Elliott knew he was done for.
Forgetting he was being caught, his bear decided to do some catching. Stopping, he shoved his head underwater and bit a fish. A tiny torpedo nailed him in the side, catching all six hundred pounds of him off guard. As she scrambled up the side of his body, he sidestepped and sucked water up his nose, zapping his brain and making his head flail. It took a second for the stinging to stop, and when he could breathe again, his bear looked over his shoulder to confirm the otter had climbed him. Whiskers brushed his nose, and his catch was snatched from his mouth.
He grunted.
Holding the fish between two tiny paws, she lay on her belly on his back, enjoying her snack. His bear bit the tail, and they shared a meal.
Chuckling, Elliott wondered what the fuck Fern was thinking at that moment. She’d liked the trout he’d cooked for her, but he wasn’t sure how she felt about raw fish. When she finished, her otter used his rump as a slide, splashing back into the stream. She bumped and nipped his ankles, and his bear began his downstream rampage anew.
At the very same spot where Fern had pulled her kayak ashore to swim, his grizzly lumbered out of the water. She followed close behind, ready to pounce again—and he knew it. A flattened patch of rushes, a deer bed, called to his beast, and he slowed.
As predicted, she pummeled him again, knocking into his ass and stopping his bear up short. He flopped to his belly and promptly rolled over, displaying himself for her, submitting. She climbed up his right leg and made her way to his face. Her round brown eyes peered into his, and she blinked—slyly, in hindsight—before sliding out of view and biting into his neck.
His grizzly roared, but it wasn’t from anger. Sizzling, hot magic flooded the spot where her tiny canines punctured him. She latched on, probably making sure she got through the fur. But it didn’t hurt. It was glorious. Magic spread outward from the bite to flood his system, and he felt a tug in the center of his chest—his human chest—as their mate bond snapped into place.
“Fuck, please shift back. Let me see her, please,”he begged, not waiting for the pleading phase of his usual arguments.
Happy as a clam, his bear backed off and gave Elliott control. Her otter must have done the same, because when he stepped into the forefront of his own consciousness, he was lying ass naked on the forest floor with Fern on his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, he rubbed his palms up and down her back and breathed in her scent.
