This was her compromise. Because of all the sacrifices Bron had made to keep her safe, the risk was worth it.
Just thinking about the repercussions of this decision made her hands shake even harder. Maybe if she lived and became a bear, she would be stronger. Perhaps she could be the mate Bron deserved to have by his side.
“Hello?” Muriel said on the other line.
“It’s me. Samantha. I’ve thought about your offer.”
“And?” she asked. Was that hope Samantha heard in her tone?
“And I want to try. For Bron. He deserves it.”
“I’ll text you my address. Does he know of your decision?”
“No.”
“Best hurry then, little future bear. Your new mate is a tracker.”
The text came through fine and Samantha weaved through the streets to the other side of town. She lost the GPS signal on a one lane dirt road that led toward the Seven Devils, but a mailbox read Muriel Marsden beside a muddy turnoff. It seemed Muriel liked to live out in the wilderness too. Was that a bear shifter thing, wanting to live outside of human society? Perhaps her new instincts would demand the same if she survived tonight.
She should've told Bron a better goodbye, but if she had, he would’ve been suspicious, and she needed him to keep packing up his house while she ran her secret errand. If he knew what she was about to attempt to do, he would’ve brought hell on earth to stop her. He wouldn’t approve of the risk, even if it was her decision to make.
A cabin much smaller than Bron’s stood between two giant pines. Every window was lit, and homey looking. Thunder rumbled as she stepped out of the car and sprinted up the sidewalk, and rain pounded down against her shoulders in punishing waves.
Muriel waited at the front door and ushered her inside. The cabin was warm, and Muriel seemed to be a collector of old, worn-in furniture. Nothing matched but everything seemed to go together in a way that Samantha could never pull off. As much as she wished she had better taste, her decorating sense tended to veer toward college dorm room chic.
“I like your place,” she said nervously.
“Thanks. Most of it I inherited from my mom.” Muriel led her into a room that had rows of dried plants hanging upside down in the window. One wall was covered with pages of hastily printed notes and sketches of plants and animals. The room smelled strongly of spices and something chemical. She picked up a small jelly jar and shook the contents. “I’m going to poison you.”
“Wait,” Samantha said, arching her eyebrows high. “What?”
“Your vitals have to be moving in slow motion for this to work. To give the bear a chance to take over, you’ll have to be on the brink of death when you’re given the toxin that will turn you. Your heart rate will slow to almost nothing, and in that moment, that’s when you need to change.”
“And if I’m unable?”
“Once you take this, there is no going back. You turn or you die. I’ve put as much help in here as I can give. You’ll be able to survive on less everything. Less oxygen, less blood pumping through your veins. But once this slips past your lips, there is no changing your mind.”
“What are my odds of survival?”
“I don’t like doing odds. It’s better to think positive—that you will make it through this. But you should know, there is a chance this won’t work.”
Samantha sank heavily into a chair in the corner of the room. This was a terrible risk to take when she’d just found Bron again.
“Listen,” Muriel said, kneeling down in front of her. “If you think you and Bron can find happiness outside of Joseph, then don’t do this. I’ll do everything in my power to get you through the transition, but we stopped turning humans decades ago because of the risk. It got to where none of you survived at all.”
“What makes you think I will be different?”
“Because the knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation in my family. I was raised with medicine women who kept these secrets close to their hearts. And I know what the others were doing wrong.”
“What?”
“They were trying to turn grizzlies for war. You can’t put a dominant animal like that in a human and expect the human side to survive. You have to be born with a grizzly. What kind would you like to be?”
“What kind of bear?”
“Black bear is most common, but you can choose and Andean or Sun bear as well. They’re smaller, less volatile, and you’ll have a better shot at living with one of them inside of you.”
“So I just…pick a bear like out of a catalogue?”
“I’ve collected the toxins from my clan. I have a vial of each.”
“Are Andean bears the ones with the white faces?”
Muriel nodded. “Not many of those left. If you survive, you would be one of three.”
This wasn’t like picking which earrings to get her ears pierced with. Samantha was picking which freaking bear to put inside of herself. She closed her eyes and wished Reese was here. She should’ve said a proper goodbye to her, too.
She imagined Bron never having the opportunity to track down who killed his brother and what that would do to him. She imagined living outside of Joseph as Bron withered without his people. Visions of his clan dying out because they didn’t have a strong enough leader pulled at her heart and she took the jelly jar from Muriel’s hands.
“Save me,” she said, then tipped the rim to her mouth before she could change her mind.
The liquid scorched heat down her throat and was bitter against her tongue. Gulping, she pressed the back of her hand over her lips so she wouldn’t gag.
Her vision blurred, doubled, then focused again as she watched Muriel fill a syringe. The woman’s green eyes flicked to her and back to the needle. She looked as nervous as Samantha felt. If she died in here tonight, Muriel would have to live with that on her conscience.
Samantha hoped she lived for the both of them.
Swaying, she gasped for breath that seemed to suddenly congeal in her lungs. She was going to suffocate! Falling from the chair, she crawled aimlessly as Muriel dropped beside her. The prick of pain in her arm and the burning tendrils that stretched up to her shoulder was secondary to her throat closing.
No bear could survive if her body couldn’t breathe.
Panic seized her as her elbows locked. Wheezing, she went rigid as Muriel lifted her and rushed her outside. She’d been so stupid! What had made her think she was stronger than the other humans the shifters had tried to turn?
Bron, Bron, Bron.
She wouldn’t ever see him again. Wouldn’t touch him or kiss him or feel his warmth. She would never share his secrets and see the smile he saved only for her. The wrong decision had been made, and now she would die here in a stranger’s arms.
Something big pulsed within her. Raw power crashed against her bones and made her body arch back with the discomfort of the humming vibration. She wanted to scream, but a snarl of agony ripped from her throat instead.
She had to breathe.
“Samantha, you have to change. You’ll be fine as long as you can change. You’ll feel better. Do you feel her in you?”
With short panting breaths and wide eyes, Samantha nodded. Rain splashed against her cheeks as Muriel lay her crumpled body on the damp grass.
“Close your eyes and let her have your body,” Muriel whispered. She looked so scared in the light from the window.
Samantha’s heart was glugging against her sternum, slowing, and her arms felt heavy as if they were encased in cement. Closing her eyes, she tried to force the animal out. The humming came closer to the surface, and excruciating pain rippled down her spine.
Panicked and delirious, she fought and struggled against what was happening to her.
Convulsing, her body was wracked with hacking coughs. She tasted iron.
Muriel’s green eyes went round.
“Bron,” Samantha whispered.
Muriel pulled a cell phone from the back pocket of
her jeans and hit a speed dial number. “Bron?” she asked. Her voice sounded like she was about to cry. “It’s Samantha. Come to my house right now.”
“What’s happened?” he asked. The sound of his voice was amplified and pounded against Samantha’s ears. She screamed and clamped her hands over her them.
“I tried to change her,” Muriel said with a sob. “I’m sorry!”
The line went dead.
“Samantha, listen, honey, you have to change.” Muriel’s voice sounded desperate. “There’s no choice for you now. You have to let that bear out before you become too weak. Just let her out and you’ll feel okay again.”
Another spasming cough and Muriel leaned her forward as Samantha wretched. She’d hoped to rid her body of the poison, but her body seemed bound and determined to keep it all inside.
Another pulse of power raged through her, and Samantha gritted her teeth as her spine felt like it was splitting in two. Her arms were so heavy as she rolled over and crawled through the mud. Gasping, she clutched wet tufts of grass as another feral growl ripped through her.
“That’s it, Samantha. Relax and let it happen.”
But no matter how hard she tried to give the beast her body, whatever was supposed to happen just didn’t. And now it was hard to move. Minutes felt like hours and when she looked down at her hands to figure out where the warmth was coming from, red spattered across her knuckles. It was dripping from her mouth.
That scared her more than anything. She was on borrowed time, and even if she could breathe a little easier now with the effects of the poison slowing everything down, and even if her heart wasn’t racing anymore, it was getting harder to move and her vision was blurring around the edges.
Crunching gravel, boots sloshing through the mud, the rain looked so beautiful in front of the headlights of Bron’s truck.
Yelling.
Someone was crying but they sounded far away.
Her neck arched back as Bron’s strong hands positioned under her shoulder blades.
She tried to smile.
He looked so scared.
“She needs to change!” Muriel sobbed. Where was she? Samantha wished she could tell her it was all right so she wouldn’t live for always with the guilt of her death on her conscience.
Silver, inhuman eyes caressed her skin before Bron clutched her against him. He was so warm and she was so damned cold.
“What have you done?” he whispered brokenly. Easing back, he brushed the wet hair from her face and tried in vain to wipe the red from her chin. His hands were covered in the stuff as she gasped for life.
Samantha couldn’t see much beyond Bron. The lights from his truck surrounded his head with light. “You’re beautiful,” she rasped.
“Change with me, Sam.” His voice cracked. “My Sam. Do you want to change together?”
Words had left her. Burning lungs wouldn’t let her draw enough breath to push past her vocal cords. Her heart beat so slowly in her ear, and he pressed his fingers against her pulse.
Weakly, she dipped her chin in answer. The end was coming, but she didn’t want to disappoint him. Not when this is what would be seared into his mind for the rest of his life. She wanted him to know she tried until the end.
“Change!” he bellowed into the woods. The crack of power in his voice caressed the hum inside of her.
When she turned her head, Muriel, Reese and Dillon were all there, hovering near the tree line. Reese was soaking wet and sobbing, but she pulled her shirt over her head and dropped to all fours with the others. Squinting, Samantha tried to hold onto their blurred forms as they turned into monstrous bears.
“Watch me, love. Change with me, please. Samantha,” Bron whispered as he lowered his forehead to hers. “I need you.”
A burst of pops sounded and Bron gritted his teeth as his face elongated. Rearing up, an enormous grizzly burst from him and he stood over her, great paws on either side of her face as he stared at her with such determination. His chest heaved as he inhaled, and tipping his head back, he roared.
The sound filled her veins, and rushed her stuttering heartbeat. The hum inside her grew more urgent and she braced against the ground as her body shattered. The illumination of the headlights was too bright, and Samantha closed her eyes against the ringing pain.
He was calling to her. Calling her bear from deep within her. A hundred pops cracked up her spine, and each was accompanied by unimaginable pain. She was being shot and electrified and drowned all at once.
Her scream filled the clearing, and when she dragged air into her lungs to do it again, the roar that bellowed from her throat was a direct answer to Bron’s.
There she was—the animal that was now a part of her.
The bear was desperate and scared and clawing her way out of Samantha’s body. Tears fled the corners of her eyes as her face broke and her teeth curved and stretched down. Black, six-inch long claws pushed through her finger tips as her hands transformed into massive, ebony-black furred paws.
One final wave of pain stretched from her snout to her hind legs and disappeared as if she’d never been hurt at all. She stood stunned and swaying, uncertain on legs she didn’t yet know how to command. The sick feeling the poison had left fizzled away in her stomach until she felt no discomfort at all. Only weakness and exhaustion.
Bron stood in shadow near his truck, his profile to her, frozen in place like he couldn’t understand how she’d come to be here. She moved to join him, desperate for his reassurance, but fell forward onto the wet grass with a grunt.
He was there in an instant, and his oversized nose pressed against the fur at her neck, inhaling deeply as the soft rumble she recognized so well rattled from his throat.
She was alive.
Relief washed through her, making her feel unbalanced as her human emotions clashed against the confusion of being in a body that was other. Bron raked her closer to him with his oversized paw, and a soft whimper wrenched from her throat as the relief of his touch threatened to drown her with happiness.
Another paw touched her back, and another as the other bears gathered near and pressed against her. Their warmth seeped through the coldness that had taken her in the throes of that awful pain, and soft grunts filled the night as her clan mates familiarized themselves with her new form. Reese lay beside her and sighed heavily, and Dillon pressed a paw on her back as he watched the road like he was standing sentinel.
And Bron, covered in scars of battles she knew nothing about yet, watching her with such pride in his soft eyes, nuzzled her face until she huffed a laugh deep in her throat.
She’d chosen right. In this moment, as her mate stood protectively over her, she could see the choice was always supposed to be this.
She loved him more than anything.
After everything they’d been through and given up, she and Bron deserved to be happy.
And now they could be.
Epilogue
“Okay,” Bron murmured. “Open your eyes.”
Samantha pulled her hands away from her face and gasped. Dillon, Reese and Bron had been working on the outside of the house from sunup until now, while she’d been ordered to stay inside and finish up the last touches on the interior of the house.
The wooden plank walls of the house had been replaced and painted dark brown with white trim. The porch swing drifted easily in the breeze and had been newly whitewashed to match the railing. The overgrown weeds had been mowed, and the front flower bed was lined with trimmed shrubs and autumn mums in yellows and rusty reds.
A young red maple had been planted in the yard.
“It’s perfect,” she breathed.
“I was thinking we could keep it,” Bron said. “When you’re ready, I want you in the cabin with me, but your dad will get out in a few years and we could give him his old house. Before you say no, you should know that I aim to help him transition back. That was always the plan.”
She shook her head in disbelief that such an honorable man
was hers. “Why would I say no? I think it would suit him. And he’ll be close to the clan again, like he’s supposed to be.”
The smile that stretched Bron’s face was so full of adoration, she melted into the side of him, under the warm protection of his arm. “Our clan,” he said softly.
Tonight they would tell Dodger and the rest of the Hells Canyon shifters what she had become. Bron had called a meeting, and she would show them that she belonged in Joseph, a member of this clan and a part of this community.
Hunter and bear, the first of her kind, and one of the last Andean shifters in the world, she would walk through life beside the man who held her heart.
Bron had vowed to find Trent’s murderer, and she would be there when he did. And she would support him as he took his place as alpha. The future was still uncertain, but whatever destiny had in store for them, she would take life as it came and appreciate every day with him as the gift it was.
Her breath shook and her eyes burned with tears she quickly dashed away with the back of her hand. She’d worked so hard to get to this moment.
Reese clutched her other hand, and Dillon studied the house they’d fixed together with such pride. This was what fate had in mind when she’d bonded with Bron all those years ago. She’d been mistaken when she’d thought the path her life was supposed to take had been broken. She was supposed to be with the people she loved the most, right here—standing with her clan, in the shadow of the Seven Devils Mountains.
Bron looked down at her, his eyebrows furrowed as if her tears worried him.
“Thank you,” she whispered, grateful for all the happiness he’d brought into her life. Thankful that he’d finally let her in.
He ran the pad of his thumb across her cheek where the moisture of her tears had been. Leaning down, his lips curved into an irresistible smile just before he pressed them to hers.
This had always been her home. She’d just taken the long way getting back to it.
And as the evening shadows stretched across the yard, and the cicadas began their familiar song in the woods beyond, she was taken with the beauty of her life.