AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What happened to the bear?” I asked, trying to work through the haze that had fallen over my thoughts.
“It’s gone. I—I drove it off after it pulled you out of the car.”
“You saved me from a bear?” I asked, smiling even though it pained me.
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “I guess I did.”
“My hero,” I murmured, my voice groggy from the deep sleep I’d only just awoken from. “I don’t even know you name.”
“My name is Cade,” he said, returning my smile as he sat down beside me. “And you’re Ashley.”
“How do you know what my name is?” I asked, brows furrowing. Was he some kind of stalker? Was that why he was so quick to arrive on the scene? Had he been following me?
As I asked myself a flurry of panicked questions, Cade plopped my purse down on the bed and quirked the side of his mouth up in a lopsided grin.
“I may have looked through your purse. I managed to grab it before I took you up to my cabin after I… drove the bear off.”
“Normally I’d be pissed at anyone who went through my bag, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” I said, relaxing as I felt a little more confident that my rescuer didn’t intend to keep me shackled in his bedroom Misery-style. “Where are we, anyway?”
“My cabin,” he said, looking around the room. “The roads are washed out from all the rain and I don’t have a phone. So until the storm clears, I can’t take you to the hospital.”
“No phone? Jesus, how do you live?” I asked, sitting up slowly. I thought that I’d be in agony, but to my surprise, I barely felt any pain as I moved into a more comfortable position against the headboard. I glanced down at my wounds, only to find that they not only looked much better than I had hoped, but they were already starting to heal.
“Holy hell,” I breathed, my eyebrows raised. “I thought I’d only been here a few hours. My cuts are almost gone!”
“You have only been here a few hours. The storm’s still going on outside,” Cade said, shifting nervously beside me as I began to examine myself, pulling the blankets away. I hardly even noticed that I was naked.
“That’s not possible,” I said, looking up at him, “I had a broken leg. Hell, my face was all—”
I reached up to touch where the countless lacerations had crisscrossed over my face when my windshield had shattered into a million pieces. But as I brushed the tips of my fingers over my cheek, all I felt was smooth, unbroken skin where I knew a mangled mess should have been.
“Cade,” I whispered, my eyes wide. “What’s happening to me?”
“Let me explain,” he began, biting on his lip.
“Yes,” I said, “I think you should do just that.”
“When I was pulling you out of the car—”
“Wait,” I interrupted, my eyes narrowing. “You pulled me out of the car? I saw that fucking bear, Cade. It pulled me out, not you.”
“I…” He faltered, turning away from me for a moment before looking me straight in the eyes. “I am the bear.”
“No fucking way,” I said, leaning farther against the headboard. “You can’t be a bear. No one can be a bear and a person, Cade. What, are you some kind of weird werewolf thing, or something?”
“A werebear,” he corrected, frowning a little. “I had to transform to get you out of the car. And when I finally saw how badly you were hurt, I knew that I couldn’t save you. Not unless I did something really stupid.”
“Couldn’t save me? What do you mean? I’m—” I stopped, looking into his eyes as a kind of apprehension dawned over me. “What did you do to me, Cade?”
“I bit you.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat constricted, strangling the words before they could form. Bit me? I thought, looking around the room, then back down to the red cut on my arm, only to watch as it began to knit itself up before my eyes. I wanted to scream.
“If I hadn’t done it, you would have died,” he said, a kind of shame present in those sad, brown eyes. “If I could have kept you alive any other way, I would have.”
“What happens now?” I whimpered. “Am I going to turn into a—”
“Yes, on the next full moon,” he said, though somewhere in there I could tell he meant to say he was sorry.
