Page 7 of Bear Facts

He laughed out loud, knowing no one could hear him, then he yelled invective at Graham’s wolves for the hell of it.

Laughing again, Shane let his bear come.

Shifting twice in one day could be painful, but Shane put up with it as his muscles and bones struggled to readjust themselves. In a few moments, he landed on his bear paws, thick fur rippling as it settled.

Shane let out a roar, a warning to all the little creatures nearby that a grizzly walked among them.

Yes, yes, he knew that a grizzly was technically considered a brown bear and not a different species from all the other brown bears in creation. Grizzly just sounded so much cooler.

Shane finished showing off, lowered his head, and began a leisurely lope between the trees. The lope became a run, and then a charge.

The human part of Shane whooped in joy as he careened through the woods, expertly swerving around trees and plowing through undergrowth. Shane was huge, he was strong, and he was the only bear around.

Non-Shifter bears didn’t live in this mountain range, so he had it all to himself. Wolves didn’t live here either, thank the Mother Goddess. Other predators did—mountain lions and coyotes, to name two—but they were wise enough to steer clear of Shane.

Shane zigged and zagged, more or less following the trail, but letting himself go wherever. His bear instincts, including his terrific hearing and incredible sense of smell, would return him to the truck when he was ready.

Which wouldn’t be for a good long time.

He let out another roar, spinning on a patch of ice to race off in another direction. This was a hell of a lot more fun than facing down Graham’s cranky Lupines, any day of the week.

Shane was miles from his parking spot when he became abruptly aware that he was not alone.

He caught the unmistakable stink of something feral and savage. Two strides later, a huge gray shape came out of the trees and hurtled straight into him.

Chapter Three

Shane staggered with the impact and went down in a crash of fur, claws, muddy snow, and pine needles.

He rolled to his feet a second later, but the wolf who’d attacked him locked its teeth around Shane’s throat and hung on tight.

Damn, stupid, damn, fucking …

This wolf wasn’t a wild one. It was far too large and too agile to be a normal wolf, plus it was dumbass enough to attack a Shifter bear.

Shane realized three things as he tried to paw the wolf off him. First, the Lupine wasn’t one of Graham’s, nor was it from any other pack in the Las Vegas Shiftertown.

Second, no Collar glinted on the wolf’s neck to deliver punishing shocks for its attack.

Third, she was female.

What the total fuck … ?

The questions went out of his head as the Lupine’s teeth ripped needles of pain into Shane’s throat.

He hadn’t been able to take out his annoyance on Graham’s wolves—even his berserker bear had known he couldn’t hurt them without consequences.

This Lupine, un-Collared and likely feral, was a different matter. Shane could bash it as much as he liked, then take its broken body to Shiftertown to be healed if it could be or sent to the Goddess if it couldn’t. Shane’s Collar wouldn’t stop his violence, because last year, he’d had it replaced with a convincing fake.

The only thing preventing Shane from bringing his paw down on the wolf’s neck and crushing it was that this Lupine was a lady. Shane was a gentleman that way.

Being female wouldn’t stop her from trying to murder Shane though. Female Shifters could strip the flesh from the bones of their attackers and then stomp the hell out of whatever was left.

The female of the species is more deadly than the male, went the line in the old poem, and it was true. Shane always wondered if Kipling had been acquainted with Shifters.

If Shane didn’t stop this female of the species, he realized, he’d be dragged back to her den as a bear rug.

The bear inside him told him to conquer her, make her his, and then give in to mating frenzy. The Lupines weren’t wrong that Shifters needed mates, and hadn’t Shane been waiting long enough?

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