So Much To Bear (A Werebear Erotic Romance) (4 page)

“I don’t need any help,” the man said
harshly, his dark brows puckering in a frown. Jennifer rolled her
eyes. He started to rise and Jennifer, unafraid, gave him a firm
push down onto the chair. She ripped lengths of her tights into
makeshift bandages, scowling at him firmly and pressing her lips
together.

“Shut up. You got these helping me;
you’re going to let me help you dress them.” The man watched her
with a kind of wild animal wariness as Jennifer folded a piece of
her leggings into a patch and then secured it over the wound on his
arm; she ripped the seam of her legging lengthwise and wrapped it
around and around the muscled limb, tightening it and tying it down
with a knot. She did the same with the wound along his ribs,
wrapping the fabric awkwardly around his torso, trying not to
notice the rippling of muscle along his abdomen.

“You’ve helped me. Go away.” The man
struggled once more to stand, and Jennifer sighed; he may have
saved her from Liam, but he seemed to be every bit as bull-headed
as the man he had fought off for her safety. She slipped his arm
over her shoulders and started to guide him towards his bed.
Jennifer shook her head, wondering at the fact that this man had
apparently lived off the grid for a long time and seemed to be
doing so quite comfortably. She wondered just how he managed, on
his own the way he was. The bigger question of his nature—of what
kind of man could transform into a bear—still plagued her as she
helped him to settle heavily on his rough bed. He had lost a good
bit of blood on the trek back to his quarters; that was the only
explanation that Jennifer could think of for the fact that he
didn’t seem willing to fight her anymore.

As the bear-man settled into a quick,
deep sleep, Jennifer felt fatigue creeping into her own bones. She
had certainly not been planning to have an altercation with Liam,
or to climb up a cliff, or take such a long hike in the woods; and
the last thing she thought the night would hold would be to bandage
a strange man who had taken injuries helping her get away from
Liam, much less help him into bed. She bit her lip; he was
obviously safe. Incapacitated as he was, he was no threat, and
Jennifer couldn’t shake the kind look of his eyes when he had been
in his bear form, looking at her in the darkness. No—he was no
threat to her.

Exhausted, she slipped into the tiny
space next to him on the bed. The mysterious man was as warm as a
furnace, and in moments, Jennifer found herself breathing slowly
and evenly, sleep overtaking her almost as quickly as it had him.
Maybe in the morning, she thought idly as she began to drop off
into unconsciousness, she would find out just what kind of person
was capable of turning into a bear.

Chapter Three

Jennifer woke suddenly, aware of light
in the cave and the absence of the heat of the mysterious man’s
body behind her. She sat up in the strangely comfortable bed,
looking around startled. For a moment she was disoriented, unable
to completely remember what had happened the night before or why
she was in the homey cave. Memory flooded her: Liam’s crude
come-on, his attempt to force her to get close to him, the
appearance of the strange man and his transformation. Jennifer
gasped, remembering finally that she had crawled into bed with the
strange man after dressing his wounds and watching him fall into a
deep sleep. “You!” she cried out, looking for and finding the
strange man as he moved about in the early morning gloom of his
cave. He had a bundle of clothes under his arm, and when she cried
out, he turned to look at her with his odd golden eyes.

“You didn’t have to help me,” he said,
pressing his lips together. He was slightly pale, and he staggered
slightly as he stepped away from the hamper he had taken the
clothes from.

“You changed into a bear. How did you
do that? What are you? Why do you live here?” Jennifer sat up and
threw her legs over the edge of the bed.

“I would have been fine if you had just
left me,” The man insisted, giving her a slightly petulant look.
Jennifer shook her head.

“How long have you been living off the
grid like this? And how do you manage to do this… how are you so
comfortable?” Jennifer stood, gesturing around the cave of
comforts. The man grunted, reaching down to shift the clothing in
his arms. He let out a low growl.

“You should just go back to where you
came from,” he said. Jennifer snorted.

“Not a good chance of that now.
Besides, you still need help; look at you.” The man shook his
head.

“I’m fine.” He started toward the
entrance to the cave and then crumpled in pain, falling to his
knees. Jennifer sighed. She was right; in some respects, the
mysterious man who had come to her rescue was, in fact, every bit
as bull-headed as Liam, although he seemed to be less interested in
enforcing his will on her than he was in being left
alone.

“You’re not fine. You’re still in pain,
and you’re still recovering from those wounds. Let me help you. I
promise I won’t tell anyone about your place or anything I’ve seen.
I just… sort of feel like I owe it to you, since the only reason
you’re hurt is because you went after Liam for me.” The man closed
his eyes for a moment before sighing and gesturing mutely for her
to approach.

Jennifer collected the clothes that had
fallen from his grasp and helped the man back onto his feet. “Can
you make the climb down?” she asked him, remembering that while the
steps and handholds had made it easier for her, she hadn’t been
injured. But then, she thought, he had managed to get up to his
lair, hadn’t he?

“Yes,” the man said, his voice rough.
She caught the sight of a bright flush in his cheeks and smiled
slightly to herself at the thought of his wounded masculine pride.
At least, she thought, if he was going to let her help him, she
might be able to find out more about the man.

In spite of his wounds, the man seemed
determined to get through his normal routine, and Jennifer went
with him, helping him clean his clothes in the river, scrubbing and
beating them against a rock. She tried to get him to talk about
himself, but for the first hour at least, it seemed utterly
impossible; he answered her questions with grunts or not at all,
his monosyllables interspersed with grumbling comments that he was
fine and that she could leave at any time. He insisted on hanging
the clothes to dry himself, showing Jennifer the line he had set up
away from view, behind the screen of trees and brush. The sun shone
down on the fabric, the wind rippled through it, and Jennifer
thought that in spite of the way the rough washing faded the
colors, the clothes would probably come out of the experience
smelling fresh from the breeze, and warm from the sun.

He broke his monotonous insistence on
not answering her questions to bark softly to her to be as quiet as
possible as he led her deeper into the woods, beyond the river. The
green canopy of the trees filtered the light, but it was not nearly
as creepy in the deep woods during the morning as it had been the
night before. As they walked quietly—the mysterious man somehow
managing to be almost completely silent, preternaturally
so—Jennifer could hear the sounds of the denizens of the forest
going about their own daily routines, scuttling through the brush,
flitting from branch to branch. She identified a few of the bird
calls, but not all of them. Unaccustomed to working so hard so
early, Jennifer’s stomach began nagging, twisting with hunger
inside of her; but she didn’t even entertain the notion of asking
the man what he had available for breakfast. He didn’t even want
her there with him—if she admitted to needing to eat, he’d probably
just renew his efforts to get her to leave.

Abruptly, the man stopped, glancing at
her with the faintest trace of amusement in his eyes before he
leaned forward and stripped a low-lying bush of berries. The dark
juices stained his fingers as he extended his hand to her. “Here,”
he said. “They’re good. Sweet and ripe.” He ate a few to
demonstrate the safety of them, and Jennifer plucked one from his
open hand, popping it in her mouth. The berry burst with a rush of
sweetness, and whether or not they truly were safe, she knew she
had to have more. The bear-man chuckled as she snatched the rest of
them from his rough palm, eating them quickly. “Your stomach was
growling loudly enough to alert the prey,” he said with a glimmer
of a smile twitching at his lips, leaning in and stripping another
bush and handing her the next handful.

“My apologies; it’s not every day I’m
indebted to a bear-man and feel the need to tag along with him
without any breakfast.” The man snorted.

“You’re not indebted to me. You can
leave at any time. I’m fine.” Jennifer shook her head.

“You got hurt attacking the asshole who
was trying to… well, I’m not sure what exactly he had in mind, but
I am pretty sure I would’ve gotten hurt in the process even if I’d
been able to fend him off.” The man shrugged.

“If you’ve had enough?” he gestured
that they would go on, and Jennifer nodded, half-wishing for
something more substantial. The berries had at least given her a
rush of something in her stomach, and they would help her keep up
with the surprisingly agile injured man who was leading her…
somewhere.

He stopped again and knelt in the
underbrush, lifting foliage away carefully to expose a snare among
the branches. Jennifer’s eyes widened at the sight of the rabbit
caught in it, cleanly killed by a jerk of its neck when the snare
activated. It was plump and healthy, and would certainly make a
good meal. The shape of her strange benefactor’s days began to
clear before Jennifer’s eyes as he extracted the rabbit and reset
the snare, handing the dead animal to her to carry. “We’ll skin it
at the river.” He moved to another snare and then another, each of
them loaded with a small animal of some kind.

Loaded down with three healthy, heavy
animals, Jennifer followed her guide’s lead back to the river.
Jennifer had never been terribly fond of game, but her stomach
began to growl at the thought of all the protein the animals
represented and she had to admit that rabbit stew, or roasted
squirrel, would taste good if you were hungry enough. “How long
will this much meat last you?” she asked, as the man sat down by
the edge of the river and took a long, thin knife out of his
jeans.

“A few days. The snares don’t always
work that well. I have to move them around or the animals catch
wise and avoid them.” He took the rabbit from her and gutted it,
spilling out its entrails onto a clean rock. Jennifer felt a lurch
of queasiness at the sight of him quickly cleaning the organs in
the river and then wrapping them up in leaves. The mysterious man
stowed them in a pouch before turning his attention back on his
prey. Jennifer reminded herself that she knew that hunters gutted
and skinned their prizes—and that at least it was fairly easy to
see that the man in front of her planned to let none of the
animal’s bounty go to waste. The man looked up at her face and
faint amusement showed once more in his eyes. “Do you know any
edible plants?” he asked her, taking the next of the animal
carcasses from her arms. Jennifer shrugged.

“A few.” The man started to work on the
second animal, slitting it from throat to tail with all the concern
of a surgeon.

“Why don’t you rummage around along the
river bank? There are some good greens and other vegetables growing
around here.” Jennifer almost balked, understanding the subtext—the
man had noticed her queasiness and thought she couldn’t stand the
sight of him dressing the animals he had killed with his snares.
But she realized that it was a good use of her time, and that he
probably would have foraged for vegetables himself anyway. She put
the last of the animals down and began searching for what she could
recognize.

Her mother was an avid gardener, and
while she mostly focused on flowers and other purely ornamental
plants, she had taught Jennifer something about recognizing edible
plants. Jennifer snagged watercress, dandelion greens, and a few
other varieties she knew, along with more of the berries that the
man had picked before. Moving farther away from the river, she saw
wild onions and harvested them before coming back to where the
mysterious bear-man sat, finishing the last animal off. “There’s a
basket behind that rock,” the man told her, pointing
idly.

Jennifer deposited her finds in the
basket and sat down next to the man, realizing that they had been
at their work for hours—the sun beat down from overhead. “We should
head back to the cave,” the man said. “There’s just one more thing
I need to do.” Jennifer raised an eyebrow, and the man’s lips
twisted in a wry grin. “You’ll see.”

He covered their provender with rocks
and got up more gracefully than he had all day, wincing only
slightly as he got to his feet. Jennifer followed him deep, deep
into the woods, wondering just what he was taking her to. As they
climbed up a bank, Jennifer realized she heard the low humming of
bees, and almost stopped in her tracks; they were going to bees?
Her suspicion was confirmed as the man continued to move forward
and the buzzing hum grew louder. He reached down and picked up a
bundle of green sticks and dried leaves from under a rock. He shook
off the dirt and slipped a lighter out of his pocket, flicking the
rotary flint until it lit and holding it to the small bundle. The
sticks and leaves crackled with fire for a moment before the man
blew out the blaze; it smoldered and plumes of smoke poured out of
the end.