Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (50 page)

Chapter Two

Bianca stood as a fox came trotting into view. The animal stopped, shook, and smoothly turned back into a human. If she was honest with herself, she liked the look of her partner. Even though she was
much
bigger in animal form, Mason was close to her in size as a human. His dark hair, shaved so short Bianca could hardly tell if it was brown or black, was nothing like his fine orange fox pelt. His skin was tanned, as if he spent quite a bit of time outdoors. The fox shifter wasn’t as muscular as the larger predators Bianca was familiar with, but more sinewy and sleek. In fact, he was shockingly cat-like for a canine shifter. Some of the men Bianca had seen on the show were decent looking at best. Mason was by far the most attractive one ever cast. Mason fixed her with a pair of deep blue eyes and a smile she felt compelled to return. She hoped he didn’t realize she had been checking him out.

“I might have found the perfect spot,” he said. “What about you?”

She shook her head. “Nothing I’d consider perfect. There seem to be plenty of decent trees. Let’s go see what you’ve got.”

“Trees?” Mason asked as he started to shift.

Bianca shifted and gave herself a good shake. If the fox shifter was intimidated by the much larger creature, he didn’t show it. He led her back to where he had found a rock formation. A shallow, natural cave provided a decent amount of shelter. Several long, flat rocks jutted out from it, along the ground. Mason shifted back and gestured to it.

“I thought we could lean some branches over it to increase the size of the shelter and put down some leaves to soften the floor.”

“Whoa, no,” Bianca said. “Sleep in
that
on the ground? Are you crazy?”

Mason turned to her, stunned. “Where else would we sleep?”

“In a tree.”

“What
?!”

Bianca looked around for a suitable tree. “Like that one there. Good low branches. We could put more of them across to make a platform, some above for shelter, and we’re all set.”

“Why would you sleep in a tree?” Mason demanded.

“Let’s see,” Bianca said, pretending to think about it. “Because the ground is wet, cold, and there are probably more venomous snakes around here than anywhere in the world?”

“We build a fire, right here,” Mason gestured to the flat rocks. “It’ll dry off the rocks and heat them up, we just move it further away from the shelter when it gets dark. And the snakes will probably stay away from the fire. I’m not sleeping in a tree.”

“I’m not sleeping on the ground.”

Mason crossed his arms, glaring at his partner. “Well, one of us is going to have to compromise. We have to sleep together!”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, not… not like
that
. We’re supposed to be a team. We can’t split up the very first night!”

“We’re not splitting up, we’re sleeping near each other. In fact, I’m compromising by using this tree instead of the one I found earlier that I like better.”

“Fine,” snapped Mason.

“Fine,” she snarled back, before turning and storming away.

“Where are you going?” Mason called after her.

“To find branches!”

Growling under his breath, Mason did the same. It wasn’t exactly hard to find branches in the jungle. The hardest part was breaking them off of the trees. If only the producers had given them an axe. After several exhausting hours of struggling to get branches and dragging them back to the camp, Mason had a small shelter built. It didn’t look like much, but it would easily accommodate him. Building for one person had been much easier. He had originally planned on making it bigger, until his partner had uttered a snarky, “Don’t expect me to help with your little den,” while he was taking a break. After that, Mason had scaled down his plans. All that was left was to build a fire. He even had a large pile of leaves, ready to turn into bedding, once the stones were dry and hot.

Even though she wouldn’t admit it, Bianca hadn’t found gathering her branches any easier. It took nearly as long for her to build her platform. At last, she climbed up and sat on it, admiring her handiwork. It would never hold her weight as a tiger, but it would do nicely for a human. Her stomach rumbled.

“Are you hungry?” she called. It was the first thing they had said to each other in hours. She regretted the snippy comment she had made earlier. She was usually a little more even tempered, even under stress. Their first day was off to a shitty start.

Mason straightened from his work on the fire and nodded to her. “Yeah.”

“I’ll find something, if you want to keep working on the fire.”

“Deal.”

Bianca left her clothes on her platform, jumped down, and shifted. She sniffed the air and trotted off, hoping to find some prey.

~~*~~

Frustrated as all hell, Mason kicked over the little frame he had built for his fire. Everything was too wet, he couldn’t even get a spark. The shoelace he was using to spin his bow-drill was starting to fray and he had yet to see any smoke at all. He’d started plenty of fires with a stick and a shoelace for fun, it was infuriating that he could do it when he
needed
to. It was getting dark too, soon he would be able to see at all in human form. If he couldn’t get the fire started, they’d have to spend the night without one. With no idea how cold it would get, Mason wasn’t looking forward to it.

Movement caught his eye; he looked up to see Bianca returning. A small rodent was hanging from her mouth. She padded over to him and dropped it, then shifted back into a human.

“Where’s the fire?” she asked.

He gestured to the rodent, “Where’s the food? That thing’s no bigger than a squirrel.”

A growl rumbled in her throat as she glared at him. “It’s all I could find. Damn monkeys were screaming and warning everything away. I smelled a jaguar too, I’m not the only predator in the area. Everything knows to steer clear. There’s nothing here!”

“What did you eat?”

She sat heavily. “We’re splitting it.”

“Oh.”

“No fire?”

Mason shook his head. “Everything is too wet.” He chuckled bitterly. “Here I thought this would be easy. I always laugh at those human survival shows, you know? Figured we’d have it so much easier. But, we’ve already had a fight, we have hardly any food, no water, and no fire. Fuck.” He leaned back against a rock. “I don’t suppose you saw a water source?”

“No.” Bianca’s stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten yet. “We have one advantage over the humans.”

“What’s that?”

“We don’t
need
the fire to eat.” With that, she shifted again and tore the small animal in half. It was so small she nearly swallowed her half whole. She sat down, tail curled around her, and munched through the bones, savoring the first meal she’d had since breakfast.

Abandoning the failed fire, Mason shifted and attacked his half of the tiny rodent. It wasn’t much of a dinner, but at least it was something. All too quickly, he was finished eating. He could see well enough as a fox, but knew it would be too dark for his human eyes soon.

“Thanks for hunting,” Mason said after shifting back.

Bianca nodded. It was still quite early, but she felt exhausted. She wasn’t used to the kind of physical labor she had put into building her platform. Not to mention she hadn’t slept in a day. She hadn’t been allowed to know her destination, so the show had handled her travel as well. She’d gone from their private plane, to the helicopter, to the jungle too nervous to sleep.

“I think I might try to sleep. It’s been a long day.”

“Not a bad idea.”

Bianca headed over to her tree, dressed, and then started hauling herself up onto the platform.

Mason watched her for a moment before calling, “Will that hold your weight?” It wasn’t until she jerked around to face him, expression a mix of shock and anger, that he realized his concern about her building skills had been misinterpreted as an insult. “I’m sorry, I meant –”

“Goodnight,” she snarled. Bianca climbed the rest of the way onto her platform and lay down, pointedly putting her back to him.

“Night,” Mason said, just loud enough to be sure she heard him. He felt like an idiot. Sure, he had noticed she was on the heavy side, but it made her no less attractive to him. He thought she was beautiful. Telling her that now, however, would have made it seem like he was just trying to make her feel better, instead of an honest compliment. Wishing he had chosen his words more carefully, he piled his leaves on the rock and tried to get comfortable. The shelter was just big enough for most of his torso to fit under the overhanging rock, leaving his legs under the branches he had leaned against it.

Chapter Three

Sleep hadn’t come easily for Bianca. First, she fumed over the insult about her weight, inwardly raging at Mason. Then, she started in on herself. She wasn’t normally so sensitive. If he wanted to judge her by how she looked: screw him. She couldn’t figure out why she was so bothered by his opinion. It wasn’t long before the platform became so uncomfortable she couldn’t stay focused on Mason. The jungle itself was shockingly cold once the sun had set. She kept waking up, shivering or jabbing herself somewhere with a branch. This time though, it wasn’t the temperature or the accommodations that woke her. What was it? She squinted into the darkness, unable to see a thing. Something had interrupted her sleep.

There.

A distant rumble of thunder. Was that what had disturbed her? A second rumble echoed, followed by a strange noise. Bianca frowned and tiled her head, straining her ears to identify the sound. Was it rain? Surely not, it sounded like a waterfall!

No sooner had the thought occurred to her, when the skies above opened. A torrent of rain came crashing down through the leaves above the shifter. Her shoddy roof tumbled down around her. She normally didn’t mind the rain as a tiger, but she was human and this wasn’t a mere rain shower. The combination of her form, the unexpected deluge, and the branches falling on her was too much. Overwhelmed, she leapt out of the tree, tiger mind in full control.
Threat! Shift! Fight!
In the dark, she misjudged the distance and hit the ground hard. Pain exploded through her ankle as one leg collapsed beneath her. She cried out.

“Bianca?” Mason called in alarm.

The tiger in her kept its attention on shifting. It wasn’t until she felt the tug of ripping fabric that the human part of her mind realized she was still fully dressed. Too late to shift back and salvage her clothes. With a silent curse, she started toward the shelter as soon as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, limping on her back leg. Mason had shifted too. The fox darted out of his shelter, heedless of the rain, and came toward her. He whimpered in concern and raced in a circle around her.

The shelter was far, far too small for a tiger. As soon as she was close enough, Bianca shifted back into a human and crawled into the shelter with Mason right behind her. Fitting two humans was impossible. Instead, Mason stayed in fox form. Bianca curled up around him, trying to fit as much of herself into the shelter as possible. The shockingly cold rain pounded down onto her bare legs. She wrapped her arms around him, seeking an escape from the monsoon. His fur was damp, but warm.

Bianca didn’t know how much time had passed when the storm finally stopped. She was sore from the rocks, cramped from trying to force herself into the tiny cave, and freezing. Now that the rain was no longer beating down on her legs, she cushioned her head with her arm and tried to fall back asleep. Thank goodness Mason was there, Bianca was sure she would have been even colder without the warm fox pelt pressed against her.

~~*~~

Day Two

The sun didn’t seem fully up when Bianca awoke. She blinked in the dim light, trying to get her bearings. The light just barely filtered through the trees. Still early.

Mason had fallen asleep and shifted back into a human. Bianca knew she must have been exhausted if she had slept through his transformation, considering she had gone from snuggling a fox to spooning a man.

A naked man.

Seeing her male friends naked after shifting was one thing, being the big spoon to a near-total stranger was another. Just before she pushed him away, Bianca reconsidered the situation. Who knew how long Mason had forced himself to stay awake, staying in fox form to give her room and keep her warm. He had to be as tired as she was. There was no reason to wake him yet.

Instead, she glanced around again, trying to figure out the time. Early, that was all she knew. She lowered her head back to the rock with a sigh. The rain had cooled everything off and the heat from Mason’s body was warm and inviting. Bianca yawned, reluctant to pull away. Something felt right. Comfortable. Safe. She took a deep breath and the musky scent of male shifter filled her nose.

Odd
, she thought sleepily. It was a surprisingly potent smell. No matter, shifters’ scents were always changing. She closed her eyes and inhaled again, letting the delicious smell wash over her and lull her back to sleep.

When she woke up again, the sun was shining through the leaves. Mason was still asleep, body pressed up against hers. She caught another whiff of his scent. More awake now, the potent odor made her frown curiously. It was quite strong, considering how far from the full moon they were. Shifters all smelled a little different, even in their human forms, but it was always faint. Her human nose should hardly have been able to detect it at all and yet it was the only thing she could smell. Bianca realized that her nose wasn’t the only thing reacting. She was aroused.

Oh hell, he was releasing a
mating
pheromone. But why? There were only a few reasons for a male to give off a mating scent and none of them applied here. Mason wasn’t in love, at least Bianca hoped he wasn’t. He wasn’t actively having sex. There were no females in heat nearby. And the full moon wasn’t for…

A female in heat
.

Bianca’s breath caught. Oh god, was she going into heat? Now?! The length of time between cycles varied from weeks to months and was always unpredictable in shifter females. Bianca was fairly good at picking up on clues a couple of weeks before and usually knew when she was going into heat. Had she missed it?

She had been eating at all of her favorite restaurants in preparation for the trip. Even though she was conscious of her weight and usually tried to eat in moderation, she hadn’t worried in the weeks leading up to the challenge. It would have been easy to miss the tell-tale voracious appetite she usually developed before going into heat.

Thinking back, she
had
experienced plenty of anxiety and mood swings, but blamed both on the upcoming adventure.

And… well she was turned on right now. Increased libido: check. As if the fact that she had caused a male to secrete the mating pheromone wasn’t evidence enough.

Bianca rolled away from him with a groan. Oh, this was going to suck. She couldn’t believe she was going to be in heat for what would probably be the rest of the trip. Not to mention during the full moon. Could it get any worse? She glared up at the small rock overhang. The rain had stripped most of the leaves from the branches Mason had used to build his roof.

God, she had been a bitch about the accommodations. Bianca chewed absently on her lower lip as she thought about the day before. If only she had realized sooner she was going into heat. She would have put a little more thought into how she had treated Mason. She crawled out of the shelter and looked over at her ruined platform. The entire debacle could have been avoided. Then again, his final words that night hadn’t been pleasant. She felt a growl in her throat just remembering. But... hadn’t he started apologizing? Had she been too hasty in cutting him off?

Her movement woke Mason. He rolled onto his back and blinked at Bianca as he gathered his wits.

“Morning,” he said with a sleepy yawn.

Bianca forced a smile. “Good morning,” she answered. Should she tell him she was going into heat? It probably didn’t matter, he’d know soon enough.

It took a little maneuvering, but Mason slid out from under the rocks, pulling his mostly-dry clothing with him. He had a serious morning wood going on and prayed Bianca wouldn’t notice.

Bianca was distracted as she examined her clothes in dismay, wishing she hadn’t shifted while dressed. Her shirt and pants were a tattered mess, not to mention her shoes were unwearable now. She could see them, ripped apart on the forest floor, under the remains of her shelter. She tugged her shirt around her, trying for at least a little modesty.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mason saw a flash of breast and felt his dick strain in response. Good lord, he was horny this morning. He turned away quickly and focused on getting dressed.

Bianca sighed and decided that her clothes were going to need a lot more than just readjusting. She felt a pang of regret about the previous night. If she had helped Mason with his shelter the rain might not have startled her to the point of shifting. Well, she couldn’t change what had happened, but she could make sure their shaky start didn’t affect the remaining fourteen days. Especially if she was in heat. Mason was going to be in for a ride. And whatever he may have thought about her physically, she wasn’t going to let him think she was a bitch too. “I’m sorry,” she offered. “About last night.” Mason turned in surprise, shirt half over his head. “You were… right. I should have helped you with
this
shelter instead of the tree.”

The apology came as a pleasant surprise to Mason. As much as he hoped that the survival partnership would be a good one, their first day had certainly colored his perceptions. Maybe he had been too quick to start jumping to conclusions.

“No, that’s okay.” They had both been to blame. “I’m sorry too. I could have made more of an effort to try and compromise with you. Or sucked it up and tried out your tree.” He gestured to the puddles in the rocks. “Certainly might have been drier.”

“I doubt it.” Bianca looked back at the demolished remains of her tree platform.

“And… I’m sorry if I uh… hurt your feelings last night. I was just thinking… I mean… I didn’t mean to come across as…”

Bianca smiled as he stumbled. It was clear that she had jumped to conclusions. “It’s okay. Thank you. I overreacted.” She started to stand, but a sharp stab of pain ran through her ankle, reminding her of her tumble the night before. “Shit.” She sank down and examined her ankle.

“That looks bad.” Mason crouched next to her. “What happened?”

Her ankle was obviously swollen. Maybe a little discolored too. Not to mention it hurt like hell.

“I jumped and landed on it wrong… then shifted.”

Mason grimaced. Shifting while injured often just exacerbated the wound. If her ankle had only been fractured to start with, the strain of transforming into a large tiger bone and then back into a human could have turned it into a much more serious break.

“May I?” Bianca nodded and Mason carefully prodded her ankle. “It doesn’t feel broken. Hopefully it’s just a sprain.”

“Can’t believe I was so careless,” she growled.

“How are you feeling?”

She shrugged. “It hurts. So does my head.”

“My head hurts too.” Mason stood. “I hope it’s not early dehydration. We should have had water yesterday.”

“I didn’t see any when I was hunting. But, the rain water in these rocks should be pretty clean.” As she spoke, Bianca tore a long scrap of fabric from the remains of her shirt and dipped it down into one of the depressions of water. She tilted her head back and wrung the water out into her mouth. It was still cool from the lower night temperatures and surprisingly refreshing.

Mason broke a leaf from the ruined roof of his shelter and rolled it into a cup, getting a small scoop of water for himself.

“We need a plan for the day.”

“More water,” Bianca said. “Then shelter. And then food. I’d rather be hungry with a good night’s sleep than endure that again.”

“Agreed. We’ll need fire too.”

“Seemed like a waste of time yesterday.”

Mason shook his head. “I don’t think you should shift for a few days. And if you can’t shift, you’re going to need a fire to purify your water and cook your food.”

Bianca groaned. She had expected to be the one in charge, if not at least an equal. Instead she was already turning into a burden. More carefully this time, she eased herself to her feet. The roof was obviously going to need a lot of work, so she took off a good sturdy looking branch and tested it as a crutch.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” the fox asked.

“I’m going to go see if I can find a water source or anything we can eat that won’t require cooking.” Before her partner could argue, Bianca added, “I’ll take it slow. We’re in this together and I’m not making you take care of me on the second freaking day.”

Instead of the argument she was expecting, Mason nodded. “I’ll focus on getting the shelter back together…” He hesitated. “How do you want to do it this time?”

“You had the right idea. We’ll focus on expanding around the rocks and getting a good solid barrier between us and the rain.”

“I’ll do that then. Be careful.”

“You too.”

~~*~~

The heat and humidity were quickly rising. Mason was drenched in sweat by the time the frame of the shelter was in place. He had taken advantage of the soft ground to drive some stakes into it. Then he wove smaller branches into them to form a low wall, which doubled as a place to rest the roof on. His plan was to get a roof that sloped from the rock overhang to the wall and figure out a way to get water to run over it, instead of into it. With any luck, he’d be able to come up with a way to collect water too. Once the branches for the roof were in place, Mason went off in search of larger leaves to use as a water barrier.