AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 18
Blake wasn’t sure how else to make her understand. In all his life, he had never willingly transformed in front of a human. Those who knew him were generally in the inner circle. They either were shifters or were fated mates of shifters or children of shifter-human parents.
He taught both complex and simple medical practices all the time, yet those were within the scope of human’s reality. As far as he knew, there was no scientific explanation as to why shifters were able to do what they did—and if there was, he would appreciate a little head’s up so in any future explanations, he wouldn’t need to rely on referencing some stupid and wildly inaccurate TV show about a fox clan who were all in high school.
Utterly ridiculous, and in the end, probably not helpful in making Tanith understand exactly what, and who, he was. The only way he could do that was by showing her. His inner bear shared his nerves, yet as she stood there, watching, waiting, and Blake peeled off each layer of clothing, the inner beast calmed. This was the only way.
In his youth, he had been able to shift slowly, though it was ultimately a more painful experience compared to what he was capable of now. As the warm, late morning air washed over his naked frame, he gave her one last moment to see him, to truly take him in, before shifting. One moment, he was just Blake—and the next, his inner black bear was able to meet Tanith for the first time. He dropped forward onto his front legs, hoping that he might seem less frightening if he was smaller.
That didn’t help.
Tanith screamed.
Though neither he nor his bear registered pure fear by any means. Shock, perhaps even fury, whitened her face. He worried she might faint, yet that fear alleviated when she whipped around and tried to make a run for it.
No. He couldn’t let her leave. They loved each other. They were fated. She needed to know this side of him if they were going to survive—and if she was ever going to learn the truth about what happened to her gallery.
Tanith darted around him and half-ran, half-hobbled in the general direction of the forest path they had followed down to the lake. Unwilling to let her go, not until she grasped the scope of everything he was trying to tell her, Blake bounded in front of her and cut her off. The second scream she uttered tore at his heart more than he would ever admit. It had always been a fear of his: if his fated mate wasn’t also a shifter, what if she was afraid of him?
He shifted back before the beast within could seize control. His inner bear yearned for nothing more than for Tanith to bury her fingers in his fur, look into his near black eyes, and see that all he wanted to do was love her. The man, however, knew that she would need more time before that happened.
“Don’t…” Tanith stumbled back when he reached out for her with his very human hands, a hand clutched to her chest as it heaved. “Don’t… Just… I need a second here, Blake. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this!”
“Okay,” he offered, taking a step back with his hands raised. “I know this is scary. I know it seems—”
“Deceitful?” she snapped, her cheeks finally flushed a dull pink. At least the ghost-white shock phase might be wearing off. “You first saw me at a bear’s wedding, you idiot! Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
Blake risked a chuckle, which didn’t earn him the scowl he thought it might. That was promising. “It was wrong not to tell you sooner, I know. You have every right to feel the way you do right now.”
A strangled sort of laugh, something Blake had never heard before, slipped out of her mouth, and she threw her hands up. “Well, thank goodness for that. I appreciate you justifying my feelings.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Tanith,” Blake remarked softly, and her momentary brush with crazy faded away. For the most part, she just looked drained. Exhausted. And how could she not be? So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, starting with her job offer to work at the college. The fact that one person could take all that news and still be standing should be commended.
“I know. I know. It’s just a lot to take in,” she muttered, biting her lower lip and turning to face the lake. “I mean… when exactly were you going to tell me about it? Did you really think it would be a good idea to just keep it a secret for the rest of our lives? You do know our own kids might be shifters too, right?”
“Yes.” It was as simple as that. He wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. “Think, Tanith, what you’d be feeling right now if you didn’t already know. Shifters are real. There are many of us in the world. Many in Angel Fire, in fact. And I’m the private physician to the largest clan here. How the heck was I supposed to explain that to you?”
“So, you’re a black bear?” she asked. “Not a grizzly?”
“My animal form is a black bear, yes, but that didn’t stop the local bears here from reaching out to me when their old doctor didn’t return.” He gave her a few moments to process that new knowledge, although he didn’t want to name names just yet. “But even in Angel Fire itself there are several other shifter types. There are cougars, coyotes, bighorn sheep, armadillos…all kinds. For the most part, we just want to live our lives. Some, however, are bent on destruction.”
“Like my gallery?” she asked, her expression distant as her gaze lifted to the mountain range.
Blake exhaled deeply. “Yes. Your gallery. The cougars had a hand in that—”
“Why?” She turned on him sharply, her eyes frighteningly focused at last. “Why would they do that? I thought the bears ran them out of Angel Fire.”
“Well, they ran out some cougars in the winter, but like I said, there’s no way of knowing if these cougars had anything to do with that, or if the cats are just troublemakers in general.” Although he didn’t want to burden her further, because goodness knows she had enough to process that day, Blake knew he had to give her the whole story. If he didn’t, there would have been no point in telling her about shifters at all.
She couldn’t just have a piece of the pie. So he fully explained the brief conflict between the bears and the rams, then moved steadily on to Willard Vesper and the deranged psychopath’s attack on the local townspeople last year when his militant environmentalism was ignored.
“I heard a lot about that beyond the lies about the water, but none of the clan would willingly tell me the whole story,” Tanith said, more to herself than to him. “I think Miguel must have ordered them not to tell humans, and his compelling force would not allow any of them to explain the whole thing. But how come you’re able to tell me about it now?”
Blake had eased closer to Tanith over the course of his storytelling, until they were so close he could wrap an arm around her and they would be one. He didn’t, though. Despite the fact their bodies wanted to pull together, he still wanted to give her some space.
“Miguel compelled his clan because they were just one step away from making national news with all that,” he said with a shrug. “Vesper was certainly on the news for a few weeks, though the rest they managed to attribute to some freak accident of nature. But the thing is, I haven’t officially joined the bear clan. I wanted to remain somewhat removed from any clan drama because it isn’t just the bears who seek out my medical services. I don’t want to seem like I’m taking sides.”
“I knew what we were told about the bad water was all wrong,” Tanith replied, rolling her eyes. “It was obviously some shifter thing, but it was so frustrating to not be told the truth. Do you know, there was once a shifter incident where they blamed the trouble on some escaped zoo animals, but that one was a real tough swallow, given that there are no zoos nearby.”
