Page 16 of Cold Foot Croc

“Raynah! It’s not!”

“Aw, beans. I was going to say it’s unnecessary because I saw your dick when you were dead that night. You know, before Wreck brought you back to life? Even when you were a corpse, it was huge,” she muttered, opening the photo.

He cleared his throat and told her, “Thank you? I think?”

The picture was a selfie of him sitting in a chair, pushing his stomach out, legs splayed. He wore the same expression she’d had in the picture she’d sent him. Raynah tossed her head back and laughed. “I’m going to make that my lock screen.”

“Fair. I’ll make yours my lock screen too. I’m doing that right now. Tell me when yours is done.”

Oh gosh, he was fun. They were really doing this. It took her a couple minutes and some guidance from him to change the wallpaper from the screen the phone had come with to the silly picture of him. She took a screenshot and sent it to him, and at almost the same time, she received a screenshot from him of her picture on his phone. He’d drawn a word in the upper left corner.Lenace.

Her shoulders shook with her quiet laughter. Okay, he was really fun.

“I’ll talk about my brother and everything I’m protective over sometime,” he told her, his voice growing serious. “I’m just fighting some pretty big instincts from some tough lessons, and you have to pay a little bit for Farrah’s bullshit. I’m sorry for it.”

“Don’t be. It’s very understandable. My offer stands. If you have questions, ask them. Maybe that will make you feel better about talking. Hey, nice TV dinner on the table,” she said, studying the selfie he’d sent.

“Thanks, it’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes night. I’ll probably heat up four more of them before I’m satisfied.”

“Yeah, that’s actually not taking very good care of your animal.”

“What?”

“You’re a big, badass grizzly bear, Garret. You should be feeding him actual meat. Not whatever meat-mixture that is. Go check the ingredients. Steaks will keep you the most sated.”

“How do you know so much about bear shifters?”

“Polar bears in my Crew, remember? Timber and Sasha are pretty new too, like you. They’re having to focus on their diets a lot right now to keep as steady as possible. Sasha is already back to working at the hospital in a stressful environment. Hunting helps, too. When you Change, hunt and eat your prey.”

“Oh. Okay.” He hesitated. “Anything else?”

“Sleep is important.”

“Yeah, about that. I actually moved here, where it’s freezing, because my brother and I thought I would be hibernating half the year.”

“What?”

“I woke up like this. I didn’t know any shifters, and neither did my brother. The information online is a crapshoot and it is hard to tell what is real or not, but I knew I was a grizzly. Mybrother had to fill my hide with buckshot the first time he saw me Change. I tried to maul him. Grizzlies hibernate in the wild.”

“So you thought you would be asleep half the year?”

“I didn’t know. We moved here so I could be in the right temperature. Dylan helped me dig out a den up in the mountains and everything, just in case.”

This was so sad. How terrifying it must have been to figure all this out on his own.

“Who Turned you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember being bitten or attacked or anything. I have no scars from a bite. I woke up in the back of a dead-end alley, and I knew something was wrong.” He made a ticking sound behind his teeth. “Anyway—good meat, good sleep, hunting.”

“Yeah. Good habits will make the animal steadier. Especially if he understands you are doing that for him.”

Over the phone, she could hear him swallow audibly. “Thank you.” There was a depth to his appreciation that tugged at her heart.

“You’re welcome. Go eat some real meat.”

He chuckled, and God, she loved the sound of it.

“See you tomorrow.”

---