Page 19 of Roaring Heat
When it ends, the forest holds its breath. The crash and thunder of the herd give way to a stillness so complete it presses against my eardrums. Only the ragged rasp of her breathing breaks the silence, raw and uneven, scraping through the charged air. The leaves around us tremble in the aftermath, but she doesn’t move, and neither do I.
I lower slowly, the weight of my form pressing into the grass, blades snapping beneath the force of each step. My massive paws leave deep impressions in the earth. I turn my head toward her, muscles tight with tension, ready to respond to the slightest movement. Her presence pulls at me, anchoring the wild energy still thrumming in my veins.
She’s staring up at me, eyes wide and unblinking, locked onto mine like she’s trying to piece the impossible into something that makes sense. Her chest rises and falls in shallow bursts, lips parted, but she doesn’t flinch or look away. There’s no fear in her gaze—only awe, confusion, and something fierce just beneath the surface.
Not terror. Awe.
Her lips part, hair wild around her face, but she doesn’t run. Doesn’t scream. Just looks at me like I’ve cracked the world open, and there’s no turning back. For the first time, someone outside the fold has seen what I am. Not just the man, but the grizzly within. There should be fear. Panic. A scream I won’t be able to silence. Instead, she watches me with wide, disbelieving eyes, as if some deep part of her already knew.
Linking me to the massive grizzly that just faced down a stampede should make no damn sense… but something in her gaze says she’s already accepted it. Even if it tears apart everything she thought she understood.
“Beau?” Her voice trembles. “That… that’s you, isn’t it?”
I take a step back and let the mist rise again. It spirals upward, thick and fast, dissolving the bear and pulling me back into my human skin. The return is jarring in its completeness, leaving me kneeling in the churned earth, breath ragged and limbs unsteady. Dirt clings to my legs. My chest heaves as I reach for her, every muscle aching with the effort of the change and the weight of what I’ve just revealed.
She doesn’t retreat. But her gaze drops—then jerks back up with a snap of realization.
My jaw tightens. The truth of what I am is out, and I'm standing here naked, body scraped and marked from the impact, with nothing to shield her from seeing all of me.
I alter my stance just slightly, giving her the illusion of space while keeping a wary eye on her face. "Not exactly how I meant to have this conversation."
Her cheeks flush, and she quickly looks away, focusing on the trampled earth instead of the very naked man standing in front of her. I reach for the clothing that lays scattered and trampled in the dirt, shaking it off as I do so. Cold fabric brushes my fingers, as I pull them on. The rough cotton scratches against scraped skin, grounding me.
I approach her slowly and crouch beside her, muscles still tight from the shift, my breathing uneven. My clothes cling damply to my skin, and the pounding of blood in my ears hasn’t quieted. Her gaze locks onto mine, and I feel it like a current, fierce and unrelenting. My heart still hammers, syncing with the echo of the stampede that hasn't fully left my veins.
"I suppose trying to convince you that you didn't see what you just saw would be kind of pointless," I say, voice hoarse with the weight of everything that just happened. My pulse is still pounding, each beat echoing the raw adrenaline still flooding my system.
She nods once. No questions. No words. Just a silence dense with the weight of a hundred broken rules. There's a sense that even more are waiting, wound tight and ready to snap.
Her worldview didn’t get bent or slightly altered. It was cracked clean through, splitting along the seams of logic and science until only the raw, impossible truth remains. She stares straight into it, and me, without blinking.
I step closer, chest still heaving from the aftershocks of the shift, every breath a jagged edge against my ribs. The air between us crackles with tension, but beneath it runs something gentler—an ache to ease the confusion stamped across her face, to reach her through the chaos I just unleashed.
“I need you to breathe, Anabeth.”
She blinks slowly, like she's surfacing from deep underwater, and finally exhales a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Her shoulders drop a fraction, the tension releasing in a visible wave, but her eyes never leave mine.
“I don’t... I don't understand what I just saw.”
“I know.”
Her eyes search mine. “But it was real.”
“Yes.”
She shudders. “That was a grizzly. A real, live grizzly. And... and it was you."
“Yes.”
Her knees buckle, and she drops to the ground, waving me off with a shaky hand as I move toward her. She doesn't faint. She just lowers herself to the ground, trying to find a little stability in a world that’s tilted just turned upside down.
“I need a second,” she says.
“Take it. Take all the time you need,” I say crouching down where I am.
The silence that follows feels fragile, delicate in its stillness. It’s the breathless moment between lightning and thunder, full of tension and unanswered questions. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. But something in her posture says she knows it isn’t over. She knows the storm hasn’t passed. It’s only waiting, crouched in the quiet, for her to catch up.
She lifts her head, eyes blazing.“What the hell are you, Beau Hayes?"
