Bear Love by Belinda Meyers

part to stop bear shifters from
breeding?”
    “I don’t know. I guess.”
    She sank down on a stump. “But how
could he have hoped to keep me? As a mate? I mean, if I wasn’t a prisoner, how
could he have thought I’d stay?”
    “He would have taken you far away
where you couldn’t leave, and over time you would have been forced to get to
know him and his people. He probably would have Turned you.”
    “Made me … a lion shifter?” When
Mike nodded again, she said, “Wow.” She studied him. “Can you make me a bear
shifter?”
    “If I laid the claiming mark on
you, yes.”
    She felt the back of her neck.
“That’s usually done during, uh, while making love, right?”
    He squatted before her, and she was
impressed that he could maintain that position, and that he would do it just so
that they could be at the same eye level. “Only if you want it,” he said, and
his voice was surprisingly soft.
    She stared into his blazing blue
eyes, and flakes of snow fell between them. He started to reach toward her, but
she hopped off the stump and moved a few feet away. Stamping her feet—it was
cold—she said, “So what did you want to show me?”
    He sighed.
    “What?” she said, then appraised
him suspiciously. “There is something, right? That wasn’t just a ruse to get me
out here, was it?”
    Amusement passed across his face.
“No.” He stood. “Right this way, ma’am.”
    She wasn’t sure if she liked him
calling her"ma’am" . He’s just trying to needle me, she
thought.If so, though, it was
working. Ma’am sounded so cold coming
from him. She couldn’t stand him being cold to her, even if just in jest. She
wanted … well … she wanted something more. A lot more.

Chapter 13

 
 
    They continued on through the forest, and slowly the snow
began to stop, then recede from the trees and ground around them. Jess looked
around in amazement as the winter wonderland retreated, replaced by green trees
and grass.
    “How is this possible?” she said.
    Mike only smiled.
    “It’s almost like summer,” she
said.
    She’d been shivering, but now she
quit. Sunlight poured down on her through the trees, warming her, and soon she
felt beads of sweat pop out on her cheeks and forehead, and under her arms,
too. If she didn’t watch out, she’d start to smell. Soon she’d have to take
this jacket off. But that made no sense.
    “This makes no sense,” she said.
    “It makes all the sense in the
world,” Mike said. “Well, one world, anyway. A different world.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Remember when Connor talked about the
Fae?”
    “Vaguely …”
    “Well, the Fae Lands connect to our
world through various gateways. Humans can’t see them, but they’re there.”
    She glanced around in wonder. “You
mean … there’s a gateway to some fairy world around here?”
    Something shone in his eyes—awe,
amusement? She couldn’t tell. Maybe some of both.
    “That’s right,” he said.
    She looked all around, more
critically this time. Then she gasped and pointed. What looked like fireflies
danced and spun in a clearing not far away, maybe twenty yards through the
trees. The light of the fireflies, or whatever they were, bathed the trees and
bushes around them with glowing, swaying illumination. But the creatures didn’t
move like fireflies. They danced and spun, flew and swept in intricate
patterns. Sometimes their lights flashed in strange colors: purple, red, green,
and more.
    “Those are not fireflies,” she
said, putting one hand to her mouth.
    Mike came to stand beside her, one
of his huge hands going around her shoulders. “No,” he said softly. “They’re
not.”
    “They’re … fairies ?”
    “Some of them. There are many
kinds. Some look human, or at least can pass for human.”
    She swallowed, suddenly dizzy. She
felt like she were walking among the clouds. “Have you ever been over there? I
mean, through the gateway?”
    “I’ve never been to the Fae Lands.
Some say that’s