Grizzly Flying Home (9 page)

Chance smiled over at Emily as she laughed and gestured wildly with her hands. She was telling a story about getting lost on a wilderness trip with some friends several years ago. Her voice was animated as she talked about losing her entire stash of food rations when her canoe capsized, and then being covered in mud and brush when she got to close to the edge of a hiking trail and slid down a steep hill.

“It wasn’t funny at the time,” Emily said. “Not even a little bit. But now it makes for a good story.”

Chance nodded. “I know what you mean. I have a few stories like that.”

Emily laughed again and then took a long sip from her cocktail before launching into another story about the time she got lost driving through Montana. Every day, Chance thought Emily couldn’t possibly become more beautiful. But, every day, she surprised him. He had never seen her look so animated and glowing before. She’d had just enough drinks to make her feel relaxed and comfortable, and she was telling him story after story of adventures she’d had over the years. The more stories she told, the more surprised Chance was by all of the places she had been and the things she had done. He had always known that there was more to her than just a sad girl who stayed cooped up at home, afraid to leave her apartment lest her boyfriend turn violent. Watching her come alive again was a treat in itself. Chance felt honored to have had a small part in this journey.

And yet, he felt dissatisfied. He didn’t want just a small part in her journey. He wanted to be part of every page of her journey from now on. The more he got to know her, the more he knew he didn’t want to live without her. He had already made his mind up that he was going to lay his heart on the line for her tonight. Sawyer would be picking them up early in the morning, then dropping her off in Kodiak. There wouldn’t be any time for deep conversations or revelations. It had to be tonight. This was Chance’s now or never moment. As nervous as he was to reveal to a full human that he was a bear shifter, he had to tell her. He had to let her in to see who he was at his very core. Telling her was a risk, but he knew he would regret it for the rest of his life if he let her get away without at least trying to explain things to her.

All through dinner and dessert, Emily was talkative and cheerful. Chance did his best to participate in the conversation, but it was all he could do to keep from leaning across the table and telling her right then and there that he loved her.

“Patience, bear,” he whispered to himself as she excused herself to go to the restroom after their dessert plates were cleared away. “Just wait until you get back to the room. You can tell her then. This isn’t a conversation you want to have in the middle of a public place.”

Chance grabbed the bill and quickly paid it with his credit card while Emily was away from the table. She protested when she returned, but he wouldn’t allow her to give him any cash to cover her portion of the meal. He wanted to feel like he had taken her out at least once in his life. This might be the last chance he got.

As they walked back to their hotel, even Emily fell silent. Her joyful mood seemed to be slowly disappearing, and she looked somber as she climbed into the elevator with him. When they reached their room doors, she turned and gave him a sad smile.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in the morning, then,” she said. “Thanks for a lovely evening.”

Chance took a deep breath. “Actually, I was wondering if I could come in to your room and talk to you for a minute. Or you can come to my room, if that’s more comfortable for you. I don’t want to just invite myself over,” he said, chuckling nervously. He mentally kicked himself for sounding like such an idiot. The last thing you wanted to do when you were about to tell a girl you had feelings for her was appear like a weakling who was unsure of himself. Girls liked guys who were confident and had their shit together. Usually, Chance was one of those guys. But, right now, his palms were sweaty and his heart was pounding erratically in his chest. Was this what people meant when they talked about being head over heels in love with someone? Chance had never felt an emotion this strong or desperate before.

“Of course you can come in,” Emily said. She smiled up at him and Chance thought he saw a glint of hopefulness in her eyes. Did she know what he was about to say? He’d thought he’d seen her looking at him with desire on several occasions tonight, but he hadn’t wanted to read too much into it. He hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up only to have them dashed.

He followed Emily into her room and closed the door behind them. She sat on the bed, bouncing a few times as if to test its springiness. Then she looked up at him expectantly.

“Emily, I love you,” Chance said. The words came out before he could stop them. Emily clapped her hands over her mouth in surprise, and Chance felt the nervous knot in his stomach multiply in size. What kind of idiot starts out with the “I love you” statement? Way to scare her off, he told himself. He ran over to the foot of the bed and knelt down in front of her, looking up with earnest eyes. There was no turning back or denying his feelings now. He might as well own it.

“Wait, please, before you say anything. I know it’s a little crazy to start out a conversation that way, but the truth is that I’m crazy about you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the first time I laid eyes on you. Trust me, I tried. Especially since you still had a boyfriend at the time, even if he was a total scumbag. I believe deep down in my soul that we’re meant to be together. I do love you, deeply. I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I already feel confident that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t expect you to feel that strongly yet, of course. But I’m hoping that you at least feel something toward me and are willing to give me a chance.”

Emily giggled, her own laugh sounding nervous but happy. “I’ll give you a chance,” she said with a smile. “Your name is Chance, after all.”

Chance smiled, his nervousness easing up a little bit at her cheesy joke. Emily opened her mouth to start talking again, but Chance put his finger over her lips to stop her.

“Wait,” he said. “There’s something I have to tell you before you say anything else. I don’t know exactly how to say this, so I’m just going to tell you and hopefully it comes out making sense.”

Emily furrowed her brow, then nodded, waiting for Chance to continue.

“I’m a bear shifter,” he said, figuring it was best to just get that out there from the start. “A grizzly shifter, to be exact. Have you heard of shifters before?”

Emily furrowed her brow further, looking confused.

“Okay, well, I’ll try to explain it as plainly as possible. Basically, a shifter is a human who can shift back and forth between animal and human form. In my case, I can shift into bear form and back again at will.”

Emily’s eyes widened, and she shook her head quickly as though she wasn’t sure whether she was hearing him correctly. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“I’m part bear. I could change into a grizzly bear right here, right now in this room. And then I could switch back to human form just as easily. Don’t worry, it’s not some weird supernatural witchcraft kind of thing or anything. It’s just a genetic mutation. And I still have the ability to think like a human while in bear form, so I’m not dangerous or anything. I wouldn’t suddenly forget who you are and try to attack you or something.”

Chance looked up at Emily, trying to gauge her reaction. She blinked at him slowly a few times, clearly trying to process what she was hearing and to determine whether she was actually understanding him correctly.

“I still…I can’t…I mean…
what
? I’ve never heard of this before. How is that even possible?”

Chance ran his fingers through his hair. He wasn’t doing the best job of explaining this, but she hadn’t thrown him out of the room yet in shock, so it couldn’t be all that bad, could it? He tried to think of a different way to explain it, or to reassure her that what he was saying was not only possible, it was true. It was hard for him, as someone who had lived in a shifter community from the day he was born, to understand when humans thought shifting was strange or abnormal. To him, shifting was the most natural thing in the world—just another one of the many variations nature had thrown into the mix of living organisms.

“I know it sounds weird. And the reason you haven’t heard of it is probably because we shifters generally try not to flaunt the fact that we can shift. We often get treated as dangerous and weird, at best. There are entire groups of people dedicated to killing us off because they think we are a threat to humankind. But we’re not. We just want to live peacefully and enjoy life with our friends and family like everyone else.”

Emily’s eyes widened as she processed everything Chance was telling her. “I don’t think it’s weird,” she said slowly. “I think it’s kind of cool, actually. But I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that what you’re telling me is actually possible. I almost feel like I must have had too many drinks and I’m making up this whole conversation up.” Emily rubbed her head as if trying to rub away an alcohol induced haze of confusion.

“You’re not making it up,” Chance said gently. “Would it help if I showed you? I can shift right now and you can see what it looks like.”

“Uh, ok,” Emily said. Her voice sounded uncertain, and Chance wasn’t sure if she really wanted to see him shift. But he was out of other ideas, so he stood up and stepped back several feet from Emily.

“I’m going to go into the bathroom for a moment to strip out of my clothes and put on a towel,” he said. “Shifting ruins clothes, and I like this sweater a lot.”

Emily just nodded, still looking over at him with uncertain eyes. Chance quickly stripped down and then wrapped himself in a towel. He didn’t care that much if Emily saw him naked, but she was already freaked out enough about what was going on. He didn’t want to add any more awkwardness to the mix.

With the hotel towel wrapped tightly around him, he walked back into the hotel room. “Okay. When I shift there’s going to be a rush of energy. I just want to warn you so you aren’t surprised if it throws you backward onto the bed or something.”

Emily nodded. Her hands were already tightly clutching the folds of the comforter.

Chance took a deep breath, smiled reassuringly at Emily, and then let out a low growl. He closed his eyes, hoping that this demonstration was going to help things and not make them worse. With another low growl, and a rush of energy, Chance started to shift. The towel flew away as a large, grizzly body burst forth from within his human form. His human flesh morphed rapidly into thick bear skin, covered in dense, brown fur. His face became the face of a bear, with a soft, pointed muzzle and round ears. His hands and feet turned to giant paws, ending in sharp, fearsome claws. Chance breathed in deeply as his transformation completed. It had been a while since he’d let his bear out, and it felt good to release some of the kinks from being in human form too long.

He looked over to see Emily’s reaction. She was sitting on the bed, staring at him openmouthed with wide eyes. He tentatively took a step toward her, trying to show her that he was calm and not dangerous. She didn’t seem alarmed by that, so he took a few more steps until he was standing right in front of her. He gently nuzzled her hand with his wet bear nose, and she responded by finally closing her gaping mouth as she looked down at where his nose was making contact with her hand. She reached up, very slowly, and stroked the thick fur on the top of his head. She dug her fingers deep into it, looking down at him in amazement.

Then, she started to cry. At first, just one or two tears escaped her eyelids. Then, they started coming like a flood. Within moments, she was letting out deep, heart wrenching sobs. Alarmed, Chance quickly stepped backward and shifted back into human form. He dashed across the room to grab the towel and cover himself, but Emily was crying so intensely that she didn’t even seem to notice that he had changed back into human form, let alone that he was naked.

“Em,” he said rushing over to sit by her on the bed. “Em, what’s wrong? Don’t be scared. I’m sorry if I scared you. I just wanted to show you how shifting works, that’s all. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I wasn’t sure when the right time was.”

Emily looked over at him and shook her head, sniffling through the tears. After another minute or so of crying, she managed to calm down enough to get a few words out.

“I’m not scared, and I’m not mad you didn’t tell me sooner,” she said. “I’m just…I’m just in awe that a man like you would not only like me, but love me. I feel like I’ve become a shell of myself. But, somehow, you’ve seen past that to realize that there’s more to me than just a broken, defeated woman who let a bad relationship get in the way of her dreams. I wanted you to love me, but I wasn’t sure whether I was hoping for too much. Then you came in here and said you did. I could have done cartwheels across the room when those words came out of your mouth. I was so happy. But it didn’t end there. Then you told me that you’re a shifter. A bear. A noble grizzly. I’m not scared. I’m in awe. I can’t believe how special you are. How magnificent. And that you love
me
. Plain old me. I don’t have anything as amazing as shifting to offer, and yet you still want me.”

Emily burst into a fresh wave of sobs, and couldn’t continue talking. Chance felt his heart swelling with a rush of gratitude. She wasn’t crying tears of fear or anger. She was crying tears of joy! Here he had been this whole time, worried about whether she would accept him once she learned he was a shifter. But not only had she accepted him, she also embraced the fact that he was a bear. She admired it. Chance didn’t think his heart had ever felt fuller.