Page 31 of Step Brother Bear

“You’re in a group of bears?”

“No. There’s only one other bear. The other four are wolf-shifters.”

“What about vampires? A Loch Ness monster?”

He flicks a twig at me. “Ha, ha. Very funny.”

“What? It’s not that much of a stretch.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Okay, well, anyway, back to your group. What is it that you all do together?”

“We were friends, supported each other, but we also made sure the woods were safe from poachers and protected other animals.”

“Wow, how sweet and unlike you.”

He punches my arm, attempting to hide his smile. “You don’t know me very well.”

It’s true, but I don’t want to admit it. “Wait, you said were friends. Are you not friends anymore?”

He nods.

“Why?”

He raises his injured shoulder as an explanation, but it’s not.

“Wait, they shot you?”

“No! But they don’t want to be around me because of this. It’s kind of my fault.”

“It’s your fault you got shot?”

“Yeah.”

I wait for more, but he’s silent, staring out to the stream. “Okay, well now you have to tell me!”

He groans and falls to his back, staring up at the sky. I can’t help but trail my eyes over him in this new position, reveling in his muscles straining over his breath. “I’ve been dealing with some changes.”

“Changes?”

“It happens at puberty, and then again when you’re older. It’s the bear part of me, gets really angry and violent for little to no reason.”

I think back, remember hearing about particular hostile years, specifically when he didn’t come home for the holidays. “Did you go to a school for bear-kids?”

It seems like an abrupt change in the conversation, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He laughs. “No, but it was a school for kids like me, for parents who couldn’t handle their children’s abnormalities, or didn’t even give a fuck to try.” Anger glimmers in his irises. I wish I could go back and hug that little kid, erase all the times I wanted to punt him.

“I take it you didn’t enjoy it?”

“Fucking, no. It was like jail, worse than jail. But it is where I met my pack.”

“Your pack?”

“Yeah, my group, that’s what it’s called in the shifter-world.”

A whole world? I guess it makes sense, it wouldn’t just be Derek, but I still can’t believe I had no idea about shifters in the first place if Derek was able to find a whole pack of them. “So how does your pack and your gunshot wound relate?”

“As I was saying, I’m currently dealing with this change. It makes me angry. We were in the woods, and I heard hunters. We’re not supposed to hurt humans, unless we have to or to protect one of our own, but I lost it. I charged them, ripped a guy's arm off, got shot, and then got kicked out of my pack.”