Page 75 of Monsters and Beauties

The walk was long, and the higher I ascended, the chillier and thinner the air became. And the closer I got, the clearer the memory of that night the bear-beast saved me played through my mind.

I broke through the trees to a small clearing, where the brook descended the mountain into the village. The sound of the rushing water and the scent of its cleanliness washed around me. I stood there for a moment just taking in the scene.

A small animal scurried across the forest floor somewhere close. A woodpecker was going to work on a tree. I stepped closer to the babbling brook, droplets of the icy water splashing on the hem of my skirting.

The pink berry bush was on the other side of the water, and I slowly made my way across the natural bridge of flattened rocks until I reached it.

It was several minutes after I crouched and started picking the bright-pink berries off and putting them in my basket that the skin on the back of my neck prickled.

Although every part of me said I wasn’t alone, I ignored the feeling as best as I could and kept working on cleaning off the thorny branches until my basket was filled.

Only then did I stand and turn around slowly, sweeping my gaze across the suddenly still and quiet surroundings.

A flock of birds scattered away from high above, and my heart started racing as that feeling of not being alone—of being watched—filled me.

I knew who—what—it was. I felt this same sensation for the last fifteen years.

The bear creatures watched me, as I knew they’d been doing all this time.

I shivered, very aware of the minutest stirrings all around me. The wind across any exposed skin. The way the lapping brook surrounded me. The fact that my body felt hot in a way I’d never experienced before.

Although my nerves felt shot, as they did every time I ventured this far out—to this exact spot—I also anticipated this strange sensation that consumed me.

After trying to swallow the thick lump in my throat and failing, I steadily—and slowly—made my way back across the brook to the other side. My heart was beating so fast by then, my palms were damp, and a tingling sensation settled right between my thighs.

But no matter what direction I scanned, I couldn’t see anything despite knowing I was being watched. From more than one direction.

I stood there for a moment and just let the feeling of them watching consume me. It was a heady feeling, one I had only experienced when it came to… them.

I exhaled, tightened my fingers around the handle of the basket, and started making my way back toward the cottage. All the while, that feeling of them close but still far away was ever-present, and I held on to it, letting it wash over my body.

I let it tingle between my thighs, tighten my nipples, and knew I’d find myself in bed touching myself as I thought the most obscene things about creatures that weren’t even human.

ChapterTwo

Bear

“I’m tired of waiting.”

I looked over at Bruin as he tore into the carcass of a deer. I could feel the wild energy surrounding him. He was just as impatient as I was, my middle brother.

I didn’t respond, and he turned his gold eyes my way, baring his teeth in an irritated scowl.

“She wasn’t ready,” Ursid, our youngest brother, growled, his voice deep, because he too was just as impatient for our female.

“We all want her, but she wasn’t ready. Not until now.” I rose and left my brothers finishing their meal, headed out of the cabin, and made my way to where I knew she’d be.

It had been so long since I first saw her, since we found her alone and lost in the woods all those years ago. We hadn’t seen her as anything more than a human child who needed help. And so we’d done just that. But the protective side of us demanded we made sure she stayed safe and protected at all costs.

We provided for her and her family throughout the years by bringing bundles of berries to her doorstep, led injured deer toward her home so they were easy kills and they wouldn’t go hungry.

We looked after her, and because we were the most dangerous predators around, nothing dared come close to her.

It was when she was of age, when we saw how beautifully she’d grown into a woman, that we knew she was ours and that no other would compare.

And when her parents died, it took everything in us not to comfort her, not to pull her into our big, furry bodies and hold her close.

As much as we wanted her, knew she would be ours in all ways, I knew we had to wait longer to claim her. She needed time to navigate this new path in her life.

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