Chapter 23
Elliott meets his mate.
Fern ran for the creek, her ass peeking out at him each time his big shirt flipped up.
Elliott’s bear rumbled appreciatively when he followed at a jog. What was she? She clearly wanted to swim—that’s why he’d taken her outside when her chest started making sounds and she began overheating. It was animal time. But which one? That was the burning question.
He hoped she wasn’t a walrus. He'd love her no matter what, but it would be damn inconvenient. They might have to relocate somewhere with saltwater, somewhere coastal, and he’d have to move his whole studio.
What a pain in the ass. What else liked water?
Bears, but she wasn’t big enough. Maybe a seal?
In bounding steps, heedless of the stones beneath her bare feet, Fern splashed into the creek. Water drenched the back of her shirt—his shirt—suctioning the fabric to her asscheeks. He groaned, balls twinging at the sight. Then she dove in and disappeared.
He wished she’d put on a white shirt instead of a dark blue one. Made her damn near impossible to see beneath the water. He expected her to surface, to show him she was all right. But aside from a stray ripple, a patch of bubbles—nothing.
Chest tight, he kicked out of his sandals and prepared to shift, to go save her. His bear would have her out in no time.
Then a small splash, hardly more than a pebble dropping into a pond, had him swinging his gaze upstream. There, a tiny brown head poked up and disappeared beneath the water.
He waded in up to his ankles when the creature popped up again, close.
Its sleek brown body was almost serpentine as she sped past, a few feet below the surface.
Laughter bubbled in his chest when her head emerged again, downstream this time, and she chirped before twisting and swimming past him on her back, showing off.
Fern was sleek, playful, and intelligent. And so, it seemed, was her otter.
She passed by again, this time spiraling like a little torpedo. She stopped, did a flip, then stuck her head up, blinking at him through dark brown eyes set against a whiskery little face.
Pleased beyond belief, his bear roared loudly in his chest, and she responded with a squeak as she padded into shallow water, watching him closely.
Squatting, Elliott held out an open palm, hoping to coax her closer. “Hi there, look at you. I know you can hear me right now, and you’re perfect.” She walked under his hand like it was an awning and reared up, all three feet of her, to place her tiny paws on his knee.
Her otter cooed, and he swore she was batting her lashes.
“You’re so fucking precious.” Gently, he lowered his hand to pet her slick, velvety back.
With her head resting on his knee and sunshine on her face, he could see the variations in her fur.
Her back and tail were a dark chocolate brown, while her belly and face were a paler shade.
Slowly but surely, her eyes fluttered closed, and he petted her for another minute until she perked up, pushed off, and bounded away.
Brows furrowed, Elliott stood and wondered if he’d done something wrong.
No. There was a spot a few yards downstream where runoff entered the fray in a small silty channel.
Dashing up into the yard for a head start, she raced downhill and dove, sliding through the grass and mud to splash into the water.
When she emerged, he expected her to do it again.
But she didn’t go back to the slide; she approached him.
Fern’s otter sat down a few feet away and waited for... something.
“Yes?”
She chirped, then ran around in a small circle.
“You want to play?” he ventured.
Another chirp, this one higher-pitched and brimming with excitement, seemingly confirmed he was on the right path. His grizzly, unfamiliar with otter behavior, huffed and snapped his teeth, desperate to play but unsure if he was allowed.
“Do you want my bear to play?”
The squeal she let out couldn’t have meant anything other than, “Yes!” To confirm his suspicions, she charged him, like a very tiny bear, and mouthed his fingers with an open jaw.
“Are you acting like a bear on purpose?”
She cooed.
“Go wait by the water while I shift. I don’t want to crush you.”
Spinning more times than necessary, she eventually faced the stream and bounced away.
Elliott’s shift was fast, and when his four paws hit the earth, he lumbered toward her, huffing and snorting and making a general ruckus. His beast had never been so happy.
They did a sniffing thing: Fern’s otter was swift and trusting, running beneath him and slaloming through his legs before she looped around and stopped beneath his snout.
He inhaled her—her scent—but Elliott was pretty sure his bear breathed in hard enough to suction her to his nostrils.
Then she took off—again. With quick glances back over her shoulder, she bounced across the lawn, running parallel to the creek before looping back and going wide to zoom up behind him and headbutt the back of his legs.
“Run,” he urged his grizzly.
Elliott’s bear launched into motion with thundering footsteps that jostled stones free from the side of the creek. A thrill ran through him; he’d never been the prey before.
When his yard ended and the plants near the stream grew too thick to plow down, his bear veered right, up into the forest, weaving through trunks as she followed him onward.
He stalled every few feet—again, he’d never been prey before—to make sure her pattering footsteps followed.
A patch of late blueberries caught his attention, and the beast wanted a snack, but Elliott told him to make a mental note and come back for those later.
Laughing at his animal, Elliott urged him to move faster.
Fern would be pissed if he didn’t give her a good chase.
His grizzly reached Potter’s Lane, using the open road as a chance to change directions, turning right to head toward home.
“That’s so boring! Go back through the woods.”
The beast complied after a quick check over his shoulder to make sure Fern was following. She was about ten yards back, and she was flying. It was fucking hilarious. Her little back popped up over top of her head as her paws beat against the dirt road, and she boinged toward him at full speed.
Past a blackberry bush, around an aspen, and down toward the stream he went. Foam sprayed from his mouth, and he kept looking back at Fern’s otter as he raced straight into the water, splashing up a storm.
He turned downstream and glanced at the trees just as she emerged. She stood up on her hind legs for a moment, looking around until she spotted a muddy rivulet streaking downhill. Leaping and flopping on her belly, she slid, flying toward him at a million miles an hour.
“Run, dummy!” Elliott shouted at his bear, and the beast took off as best as he could.
Slowed by the drag of water through his fur, he lumbered along, eyes downcast. She was in her element, coming up on him fast, and when his beast caught sight of a trout in the shadows between two large rocks, Elliott knew he was done for.
Forgetting he was being caught, his bear decided to do some catching.
Stopping, he shoved his head underwater and bit a fish.
A tiny torpedo nailed him in the side, catching all six hundred pounds of him off guard.
As she scrambled up the side of his body, he sidestepped and sucked water up his nose, zapping his brain and making his head flail.
It took a second for the stinging to stop, and when he could breathe again, his bear looked over his shoulder to confirm the otter had climbed him.
Whiskers brushed his nose, and his catch was snatched from his mouth.
He grunted.
Holding the fish between two tiny paws, she lay on her belly on his back, enjoying her snack. His bear bit the tail, and they shared a meal.
Chuckling, Elliott wondered what the fuck Fern was thinking at that moment.
She’d liked the trout he’d cooked for her, but he wasn’t sure how she felt about raw fish.
When she finished, her otter used his rump as a slide, splashing back into the stream.
She bumped and nipped his ankles, and his bear began his downstream rampage anew.
At the very same spot where Fern had pulled her kayak ashore to swim, his grizzly lumbered out of the water. She followed close behind, ready to pounce again—and he knew it. A flattened patch of rushes, a deer bed, called to his beast, and he slowed.
As predicted, she pummeled him again, knocking into his ass and stopping his bear up short.
He flopped to his belly and promptly rolled over, displaying himself for her, submitting.
She climbed up his right leg and made her way to his face.
Her round brown eyes peered into his, and she blinked—slyly, in hindsight—before sliding out of view and biting into his neck.
His grizzly roared, but it wasn’t from anger.
Sizzling, hot magic flooded the spot where her tiny canines punctured him.
She latched on, probably making sure she got through the fur.
But it didn’t hurt. It was glorious. Magic spread outward from the bite to flood his system, and he felt a tug in the center of his chest—his human chest—as their mate bond snapped into place.
“Fuck, please shift back. Let me see her, please,” he begged, not waiting for the pleading phase of his usual arguments.
Happy as a clam, his bear backed off and gave Elliott control.
Her otter must have done the same, because when he stepped into the forefront of his own consciousness, he was lying ass naked on the forest floor with Fern on his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, he rubbed his palms up and down her back and breathed in her scent.
Their clothing returned beside them, all of it together, from the looks of things. A question pinched behind his ribs, furrowing his brow with added uncertainty.
Shocked, he realized it wasn’t his emotion, it was hers. “Fern?”
“I bit you,” she murmured from her face-planted position in his chest hair.
“You did. Is that okay? I hope your animal didn’t force you. I wanted it to be your choice.”
“Oh, no, I told her to do that.”
When he chuckled, her head bounced, and she lifted her face to look at him. That uncertainty was still there, tweaking his heart.
“We’re permanent,” she breathed reverently, lowering her lips to his.
Their embrace was soft and sweet, twenty tiny kisses that culminated with him pulling her bottom lip between his teeth. But still, that questioning sensation pervaded the moment. “We are, and I’m so happy. But what’s wrong?”
“How do you know something’s wrong?”
“I can feel you, in my chest.”
“You can— Oh my god, is that what that contentment is? It’s your feelings? Is this part of the mate bond? None of you jerks told me this is part of it! Is it permanent?”
“It is,” he confirmed, smiling at the look of awe on her face. A rock, maybe a branch, dug into his right asscheek, but he didn’t mind. “But what’s wrong? I can feel your uncertainty.”
“Obviously! What am I?”
“Oh my god, sorry! You’re an otter!” he grinned, pleased to pieces that he could resolve the issue at hand. Of course she didn’t know what she was, she couldn’t see herself, and they hadn’t exactly raced past a mirror.
She arched her back, her whole body beaming alongside her mouth. “Thank fuck! I was worried I was a beaver.”
“I think they’re rodents.”
“Oh.” Settling in again, she slid to his side and slung one thigh over top of his legs like they were lying in bed, not surrounded by birdsong and bushes.
Her fingers tangled in his chest hair, and he met her there, interweaving his hand with hers.
“Why’s my vision worse in animal form? I can smell better, definitely.
I can hear better, which is cool. But when I do the thing”—she waved her fingers in front of her eyes—“everything gets blurrier, not sharper. Am I defective?”
“You’re not defective,” he chuckled. “If your animal has better vision than a human, you can shift it better. You will be able to make more out at night as an otter, even if it’s blurry.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah, and you have a membrane over your eyes, so if you don’t mind a little blur, you should be able to shift them and keep your peepers open underwater.”
“That is super freaking cool.” Maybe she could have tiny glasses made for hanging out in animal form. She didn’t need them otherwise.
“Yeah, and you’re not a walrus,” he added.
“I could’ve been a walrus? I’m so glad I’m an otter.”
“Playful. Sleek. Loves to swim. Mischievous. It fits the bill.”
“Don’t ever crush me, though. Your bear’s huge.”
“I won’t. But you should stop running under my legs,” he teased.
Fern’s chest squeaked—humans were going to think she had bad asthma. “She’s not going to stop doing that,” she said.
“It’ll be fine. I’m always aware of exactly where you are. I’ll do my damnedest to keep you safe and happy, forever.”
“Is that so?” Fern asked, sneaking her hand away from his to trail down his abdomen. She squeezed her thigh against him and slid it up, pressing against his half-hard cock. “I trust you to keep me safe, but how will you keep me happy?”
Her fingers wrapped around his length, and he growled, “Let’s go wash up, and I’ll show you.”