Page 35 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
“You ever hurt anyone?” the Colonel asked, his voice very low and very serious.
Instantly a flush of shame and guilt filled him. Holly’s little flinch and gasp. The way her taste had flooded his mouth, sweet and fresh and overwhelming.
“Yes,” he gasped. It came out sharp and broken. “I—I lost control and bit someone. Once.”
He waited for the blow to fall.
“Did you hurt them?” The same calm voice. Implacable. “Badly?”
“I—”
He wanted to stay yes. Hehadto have hurt her. And yet, Holly didn’t act hurt. She didn’t act like she found him scary to be around.
Her soft smiles. Holly sleeping on the other side of the wall from him. The way she had felt against him, warm and trusting.
“I don’t think so,” he said, almost to himself. “It was just a little nip. Sh—she didn’t act like it hurt that much.”
He forced himself to raise his eyes to the Colonel’s face. It was grim, but not condemning.
“Sir, does it hurt humans to be bitten by a shifter? Like—like in a werewolf movie, I mean.”
“No. Doesn’t work like that. After you bit—her?” he said, and Jace gave a jerky nod. “What did you do?”
“I ran,” Jace said softly. “As far away as I could get.” Until fate, it seemed, had brought them back together.
The Colonel nodded. He undid his coat, took it off, and slung it over the fence rail.
“Uh ...” Jace began, as the Colonel undid his belt buckle. “Are you going to—shift, sir?”
The Colonel didn’t bother to answer. He stripped systematically, hanging his clothes on the fence, breath steaming in the cold air. Being in the military meant Jace was used to nudity around other guys, but he glanced away to give him some degree of privacy.
When he looked back, it was just in time to see the Colonel shift into a bear.
Jace had never seen a bear that big in his life. He hadn’t even known bears came that big. This was a creature straight out of the Ice Age, shaggy and massive, the great humped knot of muscle on his shoulder nearly level with Jace’s head.
His fur, as a bear, was similar to the color of his hair in human form, white tinged with yellowish gray. Jace didn’t know bears, but he was pretty sure this guy was a polar bear. Whatever kind of bear he was, the Colonel looked fully at home in this snow-covered field, with the pine forest behind him. Something wild and predatory. Dangerous.
And scarred.
The scars were more visible on him as a bear. In fact, the ear on the scarred side was chewed up, which Jace hadn’tnoticed on him as a human. And there were other scars, visible because the hair hadn’t fully grown back on his shoulder. It looked like he’d been in some kind of massive fight.
Jace took a slow, shaky breath. If it had been hard to meet the Colonel’s eyes when he was a human, looking into the bear’s eyes felt like facing down an oncoming freight train.
He had never felt so acutely his lack of experience with other shifters. He didn’t know the right thing to do, and especially wasn’t sure if looking another shifter directly in the eyes would be taken as a challenge or not. He had to go on instinct, and instinct said that looking away would be a mistake. He stared into that hot golden gaze as long as he could stand it, then lowered his eyes slowly.
The bear adjusted its weight and lifted a paw off the ground. Its paws were as huge as the rest of it, bigger than a dinner plate, with claws curved like scimitars. Jace braced himself to—he didn’t know what, to run, to fight, to stand his ground. He wasn’t exactly afraid, but he was tense; his breath came in small sharp gasps, little puffs of steam in the cold morning air. The bear’s breath steamed like the smoke of a chimney.
It tapped him lightly with that huge paw. Just the pressure of it drove Jace to his knees in the snow. Gasping, he raised a hand automatically, pushing back on it.
He couldn’t help thinking, suddenly and strangely, of Holly. Whatever was happening here, whether it was a test or some kind of ritual or ordeal, Holly was on the other side of it. Holly, with her beautiful face and her graceful hands and her prickly intensity. He was sure of that. And because of that, he refused to back down from—whatever this was, even if that massive paw tried to knock his head off.
And then the Colonel shifted back with the smooth seamlessness of long practice. He still had his hand on Jace’s shoulder. Where it had felt like a terrible weight when he wasin bear form, now it was a light pressure. He withdrew it and reached for his clothes.
Jace stood up again, eyeing the Colonel as the man got dressed. For an older guy, the Colonel was fit and trim. The scars that had been visible in his bear form could be briefly glimpsed before they vanished beneath his outwear once more.
“You’ve got guts,” the Colonel said. He pulled on his coat. “What’s your wolf say about all of this?”
“I don’t know.” Jace’s breath came in short, hard gasps. He felt almost as if he’d run a marathon. His hands were shaking.
