Fast and FURious Bears: BBW Bear Shifter BWWM Werebear Paranormal Romance (Wild Alpha Shifters Book 4) by Zola Bird

mist from her face and Greg took her hand, placing something in her palm. She looked down. It was a bag of Skittles.
    “Your reward for the hike,” Greg said, seating himself on a rock ledge.
    “My favorite,” Amanda said.
    “What make you think they’re all for you?” Greg said, taking the package back with a grin. He poured some in Amanda’s hand before taking a handful of the rainbow-colored candies for himself.
    “I brought you up here because I wanted you to see something that’s important to me,” Greg said. “This is where I first met my bear.”
    Amanda sat beside him on the rock ledge.
    “As grizzly shifters, our bears come out during our adolescence.”
    “Tell me how it happened to you,” Amanda said.
    “We were hiking. A bunch of us had come up here, but I was the last to leave. Then I started to feel strange. Like my insides were twisting open and something was coming out of me. It was my first shift. I was stuck up here as a bear.”
    “Were you scared?”
    Greg smiled. “I sure was. I didn’t want to come back down. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t have it under control. The only other shifters my age that I knew were Brandon and Peter and they hadn’t shifted yet. That came later for them. I was the first one in our group.”
    “So what did you do?”
    “I waited here as a bear.”
    “All night?”
    “Yes. All night.”
    “I still don’t really understand it,” Amanda said.
    “Tell me what you know about shifters.”
    “Well. Not much.”
    “Come on.”
    “Just a few things that Jada said after she finally cracked and told me about Brandon. She said that you guys live a long time and that there are a bunch of you at Wild Alpha. My first thought was that I’d gone to work in a bear den. Crazy.”
    Greg laughed quietly. “Sometimes it seems like that to me, too. There are definitely a few of us in Wild Summit. I grew up with Brandon, so I guess it makes sense that we ended up working together. I knew his brother Peter, too. I’d even met Jeremy a few times. We grizzly shifters, a lot of us like to stay on our own, but the Hellers and me, we’re kind of a clan.”
    “So, what’s it like?”
    “To be a bear?”
    Amanda nodded.
    “I don’t know what it’s like not to be one. As far as I can tell, we’re normal people in most ways. We just have something inside us, our bears, that lead the way and tell us what to do. I guess it’s like having a big furry conscience. Except it’s harder to resist than that. Your bear can’t easily be ignored. Let me tell you, Amanda, when the Heller brothers started finding mates, all I could think about was you.”
    “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I thought you only thought of me as a friend.”
    “And now?”
    “Well, things just feel different now.”
    “So, what happens next?” Amanda asked.
    “That’s up to you.”
    “I don’t want it to be up to me.”
    “Who do you want it to be up to, then?” Greg said.
    “Your bear.”

Chapter Nine

    Amanda’s heart pulsed with excitement. She knew what she was asking for. Him. She wanted all of him. She wanted him to claim her, to take her, to make her his mate. Greg had her permission. What happened next would determine if they were meant to be.
    “Do you know what it means for a bear to claim his mate, Amanda?”
    “Yes,” Amanda said. “Jada told me. We’ll be joined together forever. Bears mate for life.”
    “You know that there’s no going back?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you also know I need to mark you? It will be a small bite, but I need to do it.”
    His lips hovered over her.
    “Then mark me already,” Amanda whispered.
    Greg pulled her near, wrapping his arms around her back, enveloping her in his strength. He bent his head down to meet her waiting mouth. Their lips connected and Amanda closed her eyes. From the moment they touched, Amanda felt as if she was falling. Falling into a beautiful abyss from which there was no return. Greg’s hands