Page 36 of A Bear's Journey

Then, behind her, she heard, “Hello, Olivia.”

She didn’t have time to brace herself.

Her bear expanded inside her in a heartbeat, and before Olivia knew it, while she was still chewing her salami, she was shifting.

She almost felt like she was watching herself grow claws and fur and teeth, her brain folding in on itself and simplifying as she struggled to stop the shift, but it was too late.

For a moment, Olivia looked around L’Aubergine as she stood on all fours, baring her teeth as Buck. Screaming patrons ran everywhere, but she hardly noticed them.

Olivia looked at Buck with bear eyes, and suddenly, she recognized something. Not the human who’d locked her in the barn.

No, she recognized the wolf.

Memories came back to her in a flood: blood and fur and teeth and claws. A surprise ambush.

Then she had one final, lonely human thought:

NO.

The tiny human part of Olivia screamed and pushed, pushed harder than she ever had before.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then, at least, she felt her bear recede, the fur and claws and teeth folding back into her, her whole self collapsing, and suddenly she was falling to the floor, naked and sweaty.

Behind her there was a crash and liquid splashed across her. Then someone — either Craig or Jasper — covered her with a table cloth and then with himself. Both of them were shouting something, everyone in the restaurant was screaming, but Olivia could only think about one thing.

From the floor, she looked up, slowly pushing herself to her feet. She held the tablecloth in front of herself, wrapped tightly around her, and she felt someone put a huge, tentlike dress shirt around her.

She stared at Buck, right into his steel-gray eyes.

It was the eyes that she remembered.

“It was you,” she said.

Buck raised his eyebrows mockingly.

“It’s still me,” he said, his tone cruel and cold.

The restaurant patrons who hadn’t left were all gathered around the walls, broken dishes and plates everywhere. It was mostly shifters still present, and Olivia’s over-sensitive nose could scent the adrenaline rolling off of all of them in waves.

“Call the police,” she heard someone mutter.

“Call animal control,” a tart female voice responded.

“She’s getting locked up for sure now,” said someone else.

Olivia ignored them all and kept staring at Buck, the tablecloth wrapped tightly around her, the dress shirt over her shoulders.

She didn’t give a shit what anyone said about her, because she finally remembered.

“I killed those wolves,” she said, staring Buck in the eyes. “You know I did, because you were there.”

A slight crease formed between his eyebrows, and instantly, Olivia knew that she was right.

“You’re wrong,” he said.

“There were three of you,” she went on, ignoring him. “It was spring, and I’d just woken up form hibernation, and I was so hungry. I was rooting around for grubs and berries somewhere, and then I turned, and there were three wolves right behind me,” she said.

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