Chapter 13 #2
It makes sense. I always thought he was embarrassed of his son's temper, but it turns out his temper was only a result of a father who was embarrassed by him.
“Was your mom…”
“A bear-shifter?”
“Yeah.”
He shrugs. “Yep. She died in childbirth. Darrell never told me much about her.” He looks away from me, but not soon enough for me to catch the sadness hiding in his eyes.
He really never calls him Dad. I wonder if he ever did.
“Does anyone else know?”
His eyes dart nervously. “Yeah, I’m part of a group.”
“A group?” Oh no, could what Chrishell mentioned be true? Is he part of a gang?
“Other shifters like me.”
“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.”
“You ripped a guy's arm off?” Surely he’s exaggerating.
“Yeah, it snapped like a piece of celery in my jaws.” He laughs, and I’m reminded that I’m lying next to a predator.
I’m convinced he doesn’t hate me, but he just admitted to going through an uncontrollable change.
I should be frightened, and yet, I must rub my legs together to give myself the much-needed friction my body currently craves.
My phone pings, and I pick it up, reading Lewis's message on my home screen.
Hey, how are you feeling? I miss you.
I click the screen off and shove it under my thigh, embarrassed. It’s not fast enough, though. Derek leans over me, a disappointed look in his eyes. “You know you’re too good for him, right?”
I look away from his intense stare. “No I’m not.”
“Isabella…”
“What?”
He grabs my jaw, pulling my attention to him. “He’s a prick and an idiot.”
“He’s not an idiot.”
“He dumped you. I can’t think of anything more stupid.”
I tingle under his grasp. The world slips away, and I’m lost in his dark eyes.
I don’t think he’s ever said anything nicer.
Except that’s not true, he’s always finding small ways to compliment me, and I usually brush them away as if it’s another form of teasing.
Now his words hold a different weight, one that grounds my heart in place.
The space thins between us, his face moving toward mine. My eyes flutter closed, but before his lips crash against me, a twig snaps, and I pull back, catching a squirrel rushing across the clearing and climbing up into a tree.
When I turn back to Derek, he’s walking toward the stream. I get one glorious glimpse of his asscheeks before he shifts back into his bear form and submerges himself in the stream.
I’m restless, and once he’s swimming against the current, I follow after him, standing at the edge.
I kick at the ground and juggle from one foot to the other.
I’m flustered, not focusing on my steps.
My feet slip on a wet rock, flying out from underneath me.
I fall into the stream, catching myself on my hands.
“Fuck!” I yell, pain shooting up my leg.
Derek swims over as I sit up, examining my bloodied shin.
He shifts again, but not completely. His body remains in his bear form, but his neck and face return to his human self. He tsks, cradling my leg in his bear claws. “Look what you did.”
It’s an odd sight, a monster tending to my wound. He presses his furry paw against the gash.
“Ouch! What the fuck?” I try to pull away.
He grabs my ankle and pulls me back to him, my ass scraping against the river rocks. “Stop being a baby.” He holds me in his arms as if I am just that.
My cheeks heat. My body is on fire. “I’m not being a baby. You hurt me.”
The space between us is thick as I stare into his eyes, my body pressed against his furry chest.
“Are you going to cry?” he asks, almost a whisper. He can never resist teasing me. God, do I hate the way my body reacts, practically vibrating in his arms.
“No,” I say, my eyelids growing heavy.
He leans in, skimming his lips along my cheeks until he reaches my earlobe.
“I’ll give you something to cry about.” He bites at my neck.
I yelp, but then he kisses the assaulted spot, causing me to groan with pleasure.
The sensation relieves the pain in my leg, demanding all my attention.
I wrap my arms around him, and my eyes fall closed.
His hands shift back to human, and with one, he pushes aside the fabric of my top and rolls my hardened nipple between his fingers.
His other hand trails down my body, uncovering my cunt from my bikini bottom and seeking out the slick between my legs.
“What happened to making me cry? Aren’t you going to hurt me? ”
“I don’t need to hurt you to make you cry, Isabella.
You’ll have tears soon enough.” He strums my clit, playing my body as if it’s what he’s made to do.
It’s only a matter of seconds before I’m sputtering, my insides turning into the consistency of the water around me.
I try not to, but I cry out, tears falling down my cheeks just like he said I would.
He barely waits a second before flipping me over and molding over me, most of my body submerged below the water but my boobs floating to the top as he plays with my nipple. His other hand positions his cock at my entrance.
A wave of fear rushes over me as I feel his tip. He’s always had a massive dick, but he’s mostly in his bear form now. He’s bigger than usual—in all ways.
I reach back, digging my nails into his fur.
“Derek!” I want to tell him to wait, that I don’t think I can take him, but I don’t get the words out before he pounds into me, stretching me past my max.
I scream, my vision blurring. I’m sure I’m about to die, be ripped into two, but somehow I recover.
No, not recover—much, much better than that. “Oh, my God. So. Fucking. Good.”
“You were made for me, Isabella.”
I’m too delirious from the pain to fully register his words, but something mends inside of me—ironic since my insides are actually being rearranged—but it’s like I’ve been waiting for those words my whole life. That I mean something to someone. That I belong.
He doesn’t stop. He’s a wild animal as he drives into me, taking his pleasure but still strumming me like a harp, making me sing.
I reach my edge just as he sputters inside of me, stretching me even further to keep himself inside of me.
Of course, it hurts, but it quickly turns into pleasure, enough to bring me to a point in my ecstasy I didn’t even know existed.
Once my second orgasm passes, I’m reminded what he is, who I am, and what all of this means.
He holds me up, smoothing down my hair and mumbling happily into my ear.
Birds chirp in the distance, light dances on the surface of the water—everything is perfect, except it’s not, because no matter what my swollen heart tells me, Derek is still my stepbrother. My stepbrother bear.