Page 33 of Bearing Secrets
“What’s that?”
“You won’t run away this time. Or scream. Please, really don’t scream. You’re perfectly safe, okay? Can you trust me on that?”
Shifting her weight back and forth, she looked around nervously, trying to understand just what he meant. “I guess? I’ll try, how’s that?”
“Good enough,” he said, taking a deep breath that inflated his chest to its fullest. “Now please, just watch.”
Natalia started to give him an exasperatedokay, but what she saw next stole the breath and words from her.
Kirell started to morph. There was no other word for it. His body jerked awkwardly, and she thought she could hear bones breaking and changing. His size grew, and he eventually fell over onto all fours. Bit by bit, his limbs re-arranged themselves in a painful-looking process, but he still looked mostly human to her.
That was when the dark brown fur sprouted, first in patches, then eventually spreading to cover his entire body, finishing with his face as it rippled and began to jut forward. Bone-white teeth as long as her fingers emerged from his growing muzzle, those and the reddened eyes combining to give the creature a ferocious look.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, taking a step back, then another. “Kirell? What’s going on? Where did you go? Please.” Her feet shuffled back some more as the bear shook itself, before plopping lazily onto its rear.
This wasn’t some sort of angry, ferocious beast, she knew that much. But where the hell was Kirell? He’d left her, pulling another magic trick. “You said it wasn’t smoke or mirrors! Stop lying to me!”
The bear cocked its head to the side, and made a chuffing noise that, for all the world, made the huge killing machine sound exasperated, like it was frustrated with her. Then it stood up and started waving its paw, pointing at her, then at itself, shaking its head.
“No,” she whispered, her brain coming up with a completely implausible answer to what was going on. “That’s impossible.”
The bear shook its head again.
Natalia stopped moving. “Can you understand me?”
The head bobbed up and down.
“Where is Kirell?”
There was a pause, then the bear pointed to itself. She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. The bear pointed upward. She followed the massive paw up…to the stars. The constellation.
“Are you Kirell?” she asked in the tiniest whisper imaginable.
There was a longer pause this time. Then the bear nodded.
“Holy shit.” She took a step back.
Except there was no more ground.
14
He was already forcing himself to change back before Natalia hit the water, and shortly after she surfaced gasping for air, he dove in next to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight, legs firmly planted on the ground below.
“It’s okay,” he said, not letting go as she struggled. “You’re fine now.”
“My phone!” she sputtered, reaching for her pocket and pulling it out of the waterlogged pants, then putting it on the ledge.
She struggled to get out, but he pulled her back. The water was warm, and they needed to talk about what she’d just seen.Now. He couldn’t risk her running away on him. Not now. Kirell had already taken a massive risk by revealing his secret, and the secret of his entire family, to a woman he barely knew. He’d been operating on instinct, going with his gut, which had told him it would be okay to share this. But now he was wondering if it had been a mistake? Perhaps he should have done more preparation before levelling such a bombshell at her?
“Natalia, talk to me,” he said. “Please. Talk. It’ll be easier that way.”
“Easier?” she yelped, sounding slightly hysterical. “What’seasierabout you trying to convince me that you can morph into a bear? Not just any bear, either. That thing is huge, and far more muscled than any earth bear.”
“You saw what you saw,” he said. “No magic, as you might call it, no tricks.”
“No tricks. You’re able to morph.”
“Shift.”
