Penny was only grateful to have something worthwhile to do other than twiddling her thumbs and she sighed in relief. “No problem at all.”
She was just about to clear a space for herself at Cole’s desk when there was a knock at the door. The knocker didn’t wait for an answer before slipping inside and Penny glanced over to see a pretty young woman with a very high ponytail and very tiny shorts sidle up to the counter. Penny raised an eyebrow and smirked at the way Cole pursed his lips at the intrusion.
“Hi, Professor Montgomery,” the girl said, hopping up on a stool. “I’m sorry to bother you-”
“Yet here you are.”
“I know we agreed on a one-time thing-”
Cole cleared his throat to interrupt her and Penny looked up just in time to see Cole glancing back at her as if nervous about her reaction to the exchange. Penny stifled a chuckle and turned her attention back to the pile of exams.
Of course.
“Nina, you need to go-”
“Hey, wow. What the hell happened in here?” Nina gaped at the half-shattered terrarium and the goo and glass on the floor. “Are you okay, Professor Montgomery?”
“Yep! I’m great. Special project.”
“Are you sure you couldn’t use the company?” Nina asked, deep and throaty. She hooked a foot around Cole’s leg in an attempt to draw him closer and he slipped out of it.
“I have company,” he said, nodding at Penny.
Penny raised her head and smiled wryly at Nina, tossing her a wave. “Hi, there! I am not that kinda company. Just so we’re clear.”
Nina only glared at her. Penny thought she should have been glaring at Cole.
“Nina, our time together is over.” Cole spoke in what sounded like a deliberately patronizing tone, looking down his nose at her. A flash of anger came over her and she hopped off her stool.
“Your loss!” She snapped, and blew right out the door.
“That was impressive!” Penny piped up from the corner. “Was that your special voice for sending women away?”
“Generally,” Cole said, as he picked a book out from his cabinet. “But I used it on you and it didn’t seem to work.”
Penny cast him a disapproving glare and Cole said, “If it helps, I only sleep with my grad students.”
“Charming,” Penny said, rolling her eyes. She went back to grading papers and missed the amused expression that Cole was sending her.
Cole
It was nearly nine in the evening before anyone broached the subject of either dinner or calling it quits for the night. Cole had lost track of time. He was by turns restless and nervous, his bear self pawing at his insides as he combed through tomes looking for just the right antidote prescription and obsessively checking his email for word from the wizarding sect in London. He had other friends who likely knew more about potions than the wizards but he didn’t quite trust them not to take the potion and go destroy Belgium or something equally insane. Potion people tended to be pretty out there in general.
It was when he discovered that the base for his antidote alone would need to steep for eight hours that he finally caved. He’d been waiting for Penny to say something first, but the fiery young woman who’d demanded his help had been plugging along without complaint. She’d already finished grading the midterms and now she was bustling about the lab, cleaning up and organizing. He’d even seen a feather duster make an appearance which was fairly shocking since he’d had no idea he possessed a feather duster.
She was pretty, this Penny Sax, and spirited. He’d taken note. He’d also taken note of her roving eyes skimming the muscles of his forearms.
Women seemed to love forearms, he’d noticed. He’d never understood this. It had always seemed like a pretty utilitarian part of a man’s body to him. But Penny definitely appreciated his forearms. He almost had an urge to say “eyes up here.” And...apparently, now that the antidote needed to steep before he went on, and he nothing left to do, he could think of nothing else but Penny’s eyes on his forearms.
His bear self paced inside him, wanting to go to the woods.
He was also starving, having eaten only a granola bar for lunch. They’d been at it for hours. Penny had to be hungry too but she hadn’t said anything. There was also the fact that they weren’t going to be done with this any time tonight and he wasn’t about to let Penny drive back into the city this late to face her brother alone if he could help it.
“I have a proposal,” he said now, finding himself unaccountably nervous.
“Yeah?” She seemed to be alphabetizing his chemical supplies on a shelf in the back. And now she glanced in his general direction. “Little early for marriage. I just met you.”
He snorted at that and leaned on his hand, watching the quietly steeping potion base bubble in his glass-bottomed flask. “Ha. Ha. Listen, this antidote could take a while. As in more than a day-”
“More than a day?”
“And I haven’t heard from my wizards yet,” Cole went on. “And I don’t think you should be home alone with your brother. So, I wondered if you’d like to stay at my place for the night. If not, I’ll help you spot a room at a motel. I’m just thinking in terms of safety, I’m not…”
“Right.”
“So?”
“I don’t want you to pay for anything,” she grumbled. “I can pay for a room.”
“Well, around here I’m guessing you wouldn’t be able to afford anything that won’t give you Lyme disease,” he said darkly. “But it’s up to you.”
“Is your couch comfy?” Penny finally said.
“The comfiest.”
“Alright.” She strode over to him, eyeing him suspiciously. “But I’m not one of your little grad students.”
“Heaven forfend,” Cole said, rolling his eyes. Yet he couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, great. So, I just have to go on...an errand. On my bike. I’ll quickly give you my address-”
“Where you goin’?” Penny asked casually, but he noted a tone of curiosity. That wasn’t good.
“Just have to… I just have to go on an errand. To the woods.”
“You’re going on an errand into the woods?” Penny said. “To do what?
“None of your business, frankly.” He stood up straight and stretched and saw Penny’s eyes travel to the strip of belly that was bared as his shirt rode up.
Gotcha’, he thought, feeling a little triumphant.
“Are you going to meet a drug dealer?” Penny said.
“No! Christ.”
“Can I go with you?”
He shook his head. “Why?”
“I’ve never been up here,” she said, shrugging. “And I like the woods. Can’t stop painting landscapes of forests. I love me some trees. C’mon, lemme go with!” She smiled then, a sweet and genuine little smile and he felt for a moment like somebody had taken a swipe at his logical brain. He was just a little bit dizzy.
“Alright, fine.”
“Yay, woods!”
Cole reflected on exactly what might be happening now between him and this girl and went to the square wooden pillar that jutted out of the wall near the corner which he thought of as his scratching post. He leaned against it and bit his lip, shifting so the corner could dig into the one spot that was perennially itchy between his shoulder blades.
Penny giggled and Cole looked at her, blinking stupidly, wishing he was riding his bike into the forest and not trying to dissect his own reaction to this girl.
“You look like a bear,” Penny said.
Cole sighed.
“I’m just trying to figure out what possible errand you could have in the woods,” Penny said, as her shorter legs hurried to keep up with him. They made their way down the corridor to the front of the science building. Whatever “spillage” had occurred when Penny had arrived seemed to have cleared itself.
Cole had known Penny Sax for all of six hours and found her infuriating and cute - maybe infuriatingly cute. He thought she was also pretty brave, i
ntelligent, witty and resourceful. Not that he was paying too much attention.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he grumbled, straightening his leather jacket.
“We should just take my car,” Penny said.
“I have my bike,” Cole said. “You take your car, I’ll take my bike.”
“It’s sprinkling outside,” Penny said, all but jogging as he walked a little faster. He felt as if he was attempting to outrun his interest in the girl.
“Your point is what?”
“My point is only douchebags ride motorcycles in the rain.”
Cole stopped short in the hall and nearly bumped into her and now he glowered down at the girl who did not look put off at all as she raised her eyebrows at him, knowing she was right. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll leave it here.”
“Good,” Penny said, and they changed direction as she’d parked nearer the opposite wing. “So seriously, what kind of errand does a guy run in the woods? Emergency rabbit hunting?”
That was closer to the mark than he liked and he cleared his throat. “No.” He considered that he should probably come up with something or she wouldn’t give it up and from nowhere the first thing that popped into his head was: “I have to do yoga.”
“Yoga?” Penny looked at him and scrunched up her nose which he noted was also pretty adorable. He wondered if she was a very good painter. “You have to go do yoga in the woods?”
“Yes. It...relaxes me,” he said.
The stranger part was how close that also was to the mark. He did go to the woods to stretch his muscles and it did relax him. That bit was true anyway.
“I think that’s nice!” Penny said brightly. “I mean, if I lived near the woods, I’d probably do yoga in them or something. Maybe not so...urgently. But coping mechanisms are healthy. Self-care is important.”
“It’s not a coping mechanism,” Cole said, feeling especially itchy the closer he got to shifting. “It just makes me feel better when I’m stressed out.”
Penny seemed to be choking on laughter and said, “Uh, yes, Professor, that would be a coping mechanism.”
Cole stewed. He was not used to people talking back outside of the couple of professors he socialized with and with whom there was a sense of competition. His students were naturally intimidated by him and Penny, he supposed, subconsciously confused him as she looked like a student but did not seem impressed by him in the slightest, even as she’d sought his expertise.
In the car he watched her, bemused, as she took the entire ride to choose a song, grumbling at Siri, even though the ride was about five minutes long. She settled on something by Florence and the Machine and was only able to play forty-five seconds of it - bopping along to the music - before they’d arrived at the fringe of the forest in a place that Cole considered was his “secret spot.” It was mid-way between his apartment and the university and he could walk to it from either location if need be. He explained this to Penny, distracting himself via chatter so that he wouldn’t stare at her mouth as she kept licking her lips. Then she was playing with her hair and he realized how long and silky-looking it was. He wondered what a lock of it would feel like twirled around his fingers. He told her he lived in the green stucco duplex down the road. She said nothing to that, singing along to Florence. It was drizzling now and that was all the better, Cole thought. His inner bear loved the rain.
“Just wait here,” he said to Penny, as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
“I kind of want to see you do forest yoga,” Penny said. “In fact, having just met you and gotten a feel of your personality, I think I’d pay to see you do forest yoga.” She was grinning. She was mocking him. Despite the danger looming before her, she was taking some delight at his expense and he found himself blushing, enjoying it as much as he tried to be annoyed.
She was flirting and she was clever about it. His blood felt hot. His bear pawed at him.
“Wait in the car,” he said again and bit back his smile as he climbed out.
Walking into the woods, Cole found himself smiling at the very idea of Penny, the cute restaurant hostess who liked to paint forests and solve paranormal mysteries in her free time. He took off his jacket and had not gone very far in, as impatient as he was. Quickly, he let himself shift, his groan of relief becoming a low roar as he stretched his muscles. His people came from Alaska and there were no bears near his size in the woods of New England. He usually managed to stay well enough out of sight. Most people ran away from even a glimpse of any bear and he didn’t worry about secrecy very often. Still, on occasion, he thought of Louise. He second-guessed her death at times, though not as often as he had soon after her death. Had they not been careful enough? Could he have prevented it? He must’ve done something to cause his mate’s death. It had taken him a long time to work through those guilty thoughts.
Now he rolled on his back in a pile of leaves, delighting in the pull and give of his muscles. He got up again and jumped from one log to another, snorting and grunting, and then loped around some trees. He wished he had time to go to the river and catch some fish but Penny was waiting and things would seem suspicious if…
“Holy shit.” That was Penny. Cole tripped over his own gigantic paws as he quickly turned around.
Penny stood there in the woods, gaping at him. Presumably, he thought quickly, she had seen him shift ten minutes ago and had been watching him the entire time. Or else she was just fascinated by the sight of a gigantic bear and had no flight reflex.
“Cole?” Penny said softly.
Ah.
Cole shifted back into human form and stood, catching his breath. He stared at Penny who was frozen, leaning up against a tree, her eyes almost unnaturally wide. For one long moment, they just looked at each other. Cole considered that he had very little experience to fall back on for explaining himself to a human. Nothing like this had happened before. He’d been lucky, he supposed.
“Penny-”
“You’re a bear!”
“A bear shifter, yeah,” Cole said. He sighed and found his jacket where he’d left it on the ground. It was beginning to drizzle a little more heavily but it felt nice and he threw his head back, letting the cool water calm him. The last human he’d outed himself to had been an amateur magician back in grad school and they’d become good friends. Even that had been a stupid move but he’d felt young and invincible then. He was usually so careful. “I’m human and I’m a bear. Bear shifter.” He rolled his neck and squinted at her through the rain. “I get edgy when I go too long without shifting. That’s why I’ve been so…aah. Stressed out.”
“Oh.”
He crossed his arms and toed at the mud with his boot. “You don’t seem too freaked out?”
“I mean...my brother’s an evil wizard,” she said, tipping her head side to side. “Bear man isn’t too bad. All things considered. Can you show me that one more time?”
Cole rubbed his face, now cool and slick with rain. The girl was nothing if not logical. He rolled his shoulders, took a breath, and all at once he was a bear again. He saw her alarmed expression from the corner of his eye and stayed still to give her a moment to settle and then he backed up a few steps, rolling his big bear head around on his haunches. He looked up at her and she blinked back at him.
“Christ, you’re huge,” she said. “I mean, even for a bear.”
Cole sat back on his butt, his paws in his lap and Penny giggled. The position was, he considered, the most teddybearish a real bear could be. But that was probably good. I should try to cultivate the cute angle so as not to scare her off.
“And you’re still yourself, right?” Penny said. “You can understand me.”
Cole nodded.
“But you can’t...talk. You’re not a talking bear…?”
He came as close to chuckling as he ever had in bear form and saw Penny blush, mumbling for him to shut up. He gave her a little show; tromping through a mud puddle and then climbing a tree only to scurry back down. When she looked
more relaxed than she had before he’d shifted, he turned himself human again and walked up to her, feeling more exposed than he was generally comfortable with.
“Kodiak bear,” Cole said softly. “I’m from Alaska. My whole family’s the same way.”
“You make a pretty cute bear,” she said, smiling up at him.
Cole smiled in the same practiced way he smiled at flirtatious undergrads and slinked up to Penny, looking her up and down. “You make a pretty good human,” he said, his voice deliberately husky as he leaned into her space. He made a move to kiss her and she ducked away.
“Oh, come on!” Penny burst out. “Really? You’re are so sleazy!”
Cole rolled his eyes and spun around. “Sleazy? Are you joking? You’ve been flirting with me since you walked in the door-”
“I am trying to stop my brother from turning people into Eldritch abominations!” She shoved Cole back hard and he stumbled a step, as she ranted at him.
“So am I!” Cole said. “I just thought as long as we’re - you know, we could-”
“No wonder you wanted me to stay at your place!”
“No, wait, that’s not why!”
“God, that’s it. Forget this.” He watched Penny have a very tiny meltdown in the space of a second, clutching her forehead, and then she was hurrying back to the car. “I’m going back to the city. You can just call me when the antidote’s done or something-”
“Penny!” Cole said, chasing after her. “Wait, no! Come on! I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!”
“You’re a bear!” With that she ran off, back toward the car, leaving him with no particular leg to stand on.
Cole stood in the rain, feeling suddenly horribly sad and alone. He shouldn’t have hit on her. He knew that. He’d known it nearly as he was doing it. But for all her supposed offense, that wasn’t why she was upset. She’d said so herself.
You’re a bear.
It had been a long time since Cole had felt bad about being a shifter. He’d been raised to be proud of it but now he felt keenly how different he was. And maybe it was because he genuinely liked Penny. And he’d thought she liked him. But that didn’t matter. Because he was a bear.
Secrets & Dark Magic Page 5