Page 62 of Choose the Bears

“There’s cereal, toast, and coffee for the early risers. If they want something more exotic, they’ll either wait or cook it themselves.” That had my hands tightening into fists, something she noted with a raised eyebrow. “You’ll have your chance to wow everyone with your culinary delights. I, myself, will be first in line for your famous bear pancakes.”

“With lemon and sugar,” I said with a snort. “Or maple syrup. I got both.”

“Of course you did, so…”

Exercise soundedlike hell right now, but she was right. Mike made clear who my priority was supposed to be and it wasn’t me. There was something almost naughty about walking away from the kitchen and towards the gym, Ursula shoving the doors open.

I couldn’t help but remember the last time I was here. The boxing bag hung limp on its chain now because it didn’t have Asher dancing around it. In my mind I saw him punching into it with a power no man could match, forcing the bag to swing wildly. Asher who hit with all of the power of a sledgehammer.

Or a polar bear.

I jerked my eyes away, not wanting to get lost in yet another dumb dream. It wasn’t hard to work out what was happening. The guys stepping in to help me, it was like a scene from one of my books, and for some reason I didn’t see them as my usual werewolf romantic leads. Too big, too solid, too… powerful to be just wolves, seeing them as bear shifters made sense.

Except it really didn’t.

This was the real world, and all the magic seemed to have been lost from it long before I was born. They were just guys who helped people, and right now Ursula was trying to do the same.

“Let’s take a look at your range of movement.” She watched me tense as she reached for the sling. “It’s OK. I won’t hurt you. I talked to Ginny and she said some movement would be good for the injury. Just the right movement.”

The sling was removed and she took over holding my arm up, very carefully moving it until I started to hiss from pain, trying this direction then the next.

“Leg day, I think.” She nodded to me before putting the sling back on. “Have you done squats before?”

“What, like this?”

I dropped down into a half squat, not daring to go too low.

“Kind of.” She looked me over, then asked me to do it again. “You’re letting your knees go too far over your toes. Come over here and I’ll show you what I mean.”

I ended up with the backs of my calves pressed against a weight bench, forced instead to hinge my body at the knees and hips. Over and over I performed the movement slowly, surprised at the wobble in my legs.

“Been a while, huh?” Ursula asked with a smile.

“Exercise was never something I did willingly,” I replied. “I loved art and hated PE at school. Running? Ew.”

“Sports is one thing,” she replied. “Some people enjoy it, some don’t, but being strong? Everyone likes that.”

As she stared into my eyes, I saw something I didn’t expect to see: kinship. I couldn’t say how or why, but I was willing to bet Ursula had her own Mike at some point, someone who made her feel weak when she was so obviously strong. I looked over the slim muscles of her arms and then nodded, able to see the way she would’ve dealt with Phil. A karate chop or a punch to the face, driving that fucking arsehole back with each blow, yeah I liked that idea a whole lot.

“OK, see if you can make me strong then,” I replied.

“Stronger.” She nodded and then took up position against the weight bench across from me. “Let’s go with three sets of ten and see how we go from that.”

I was sweating,my muscles were burning, and yet there was a strange kind of exhilaration about it. My thighs turned out to be stronger than I thought, able to perform the exercises she assigned me and move onto the next. Ursula was experimenting with finding the right weight for me when doing leg extensions when the doors opened again, this time to let them in.

It was hard not to see it, the way the three men walked in together in a loose group, the bonds between them clear, the easy confidence. The fact that they looked just like they had in my dream wasn’t what caught my attention, but this. Kyle ripped his tank top over his head and used it to mop his sweating brow, revealing something that wasn’t there when he slept beside me. A red, ragged series of scratches down one side of his hip, it was nowhere near as angry as it was in my dream, but its presence was enough to get me disengaging from the machine, Ursula looking up as I crossed the floor.

They stopped talking before I got close, their eyes all finding mine. With an animal-like awareness, they watched me quietly, implacably, right up until the point I stepped in front of Kyle.

It could’ve been a girl’s nails, my fingers spread apart, trying to see if it would match the scratches. No amount of stretching my hand would allow me to match it. Something far bigger, something with claws, left that mark. I looked up as my hand moved of its own accord, Kyle’s honey-brown eyes widening as I did something extremely weird. His stomach muscles tensed, a low hiss escaping his lips as I set my palm against the mark. I felt the rough rasp of the tiny scabs, the ridge of the mark, and just how small my hand was in comparison.

“How…?” My voice died in my throat, my brain realising belatedly how dumb this was, but my mouth was determined. “How did you get this mark?”

Chapter 33

Kyle

If Imogen knew that each time she touched me my whole body came alight, she’d have snatched her hand back so damn fast. I was forced to grit my teeth, no, my fangs, as a thick, liquid heat pooled in my groin, my dick perking up instantly. But having a raging boner in jeans wasn’t the same as when free balling it in running shorts, so I sent a rapid slideshow of unpleasant images through my head to try to get not so little Kyle to settle down. That only partially worked. But her words? They cooled my ardour far more effectively.

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