beside her on the bed and gathered her into his arms.
“You weren’t wearing any pants. You were a naked werebear and then a naked man.”
“What were you going to tell me before you made the crack about losing weight?”
Her eyes met his, held. “I love you.”
Raven bowed his head as though in prayer as the sweet words washed over him. Then he said, his voice throbbing with emotion, “I have waited all my life to hear those words. I love you too.”
“I want to see you in your other form,” she said decisively, the last fear fading as she instinctively knew the exact thing to say.
Slowly, without so much as a noise, he morphed into the same brown bear that had accosted her three years ago with grey eyes and gold flecks in them.
He was her love, he was her future.
THE END