“You’re the best ma, but the sandwiches in the city are amazing.”
His mom gave a disapproving huff before turning back into the house.
Tye had a passion for honey, but it couldn’t just be any honey. There was a small bee farm in West Virginia called Thistle Dew Farm, and they made the best pure honey in the world. Tye had loved it since he was a boy, and had grown to not be able to tolerate any other honey except it. His mom took to ordering it by the case load online. He currently had two cases of it at his apartment, one bottle in his car, and soon he would also have one in his locker at the hospital.
His little brother, Jake, and his dad, Logan, were in the back yard wrestling which already had Tye itching to ditch his human form. They both shifted when he came outside and ran to greet him, completely oblivious to their nakedness.
“Son, I’m so glad you’re home. Are you back home for good” His dad was proud of him for pursuing his dream, but he worried about him out in the human city. The humans could be quick to violence against Shifters.
“No dad, I’m just here for a few days before it starts. I needed to get out of the city for a bit.”
“I’m fighting tonight down at the Brew, you should come.” Tye’s little brother was practically still a cub, but he was getting ready to go through his change, which humans would refer to as puberty. It was quite intense for a Shifter, and that most of them fought regularly to help keep themselves in check.
“Yeah I’ll come along. I’d like to get a fight in myself.”
“You boys shouldn’t be down there fighting. I don’t like it one bit,” Sharon said.
“Oh sweetheart we’re the biggest things around here, the boys are fine. If you want to worry, you should worry about the other Shifters they go up against,” Logan said.
His mom swatted her hand at them as she turned to go back inside. As a she-bear she herself was gigantic, but she didn’t fight for sport. Beware anything that threatened her family, though.
“Who are you fighting tonight, Jake?”
“I’m fighting Wiley from up the road. I think we’ll be pretty well suited for each other. He’s a good dude, I like his family.”
“You got to be careful of those lions. They’re quick, and clever.”
“Well I outweigh him by a lot. I can take him.”
“Well let’s be sure of it.” Tye said as he shed his clothes and shifted.
* * *
Later that night Tye and his brother made their way over to the Brew, Tye caught a familiar scent. He paused and raised his nose up a little and let his bear take over his scent. Surely he was mistaken at the smell. Jake stopped and gave him a funny look before tugging him inside the bar. Once he was inside he was almost positive it was her. His bear was positive it was her as he frantically searched through the packed bar. He ran into the edge of a table as he tried to hurry by it, it ended up completely over turning causing all the eyes to float to him for a minute.
This is starting out well! Tye thought as he righted the table and chairs.
“I kind of assumed that you Shifters would make your buildings bear accommodating, but I can see you’re still flinging poor defenseless objects about,” a familiar voice said.
All the air left his lungs and then filled with Melanie’s beautiful scent. He turned around and found her wearing a pair of low riding jeans, and a black form fitting shirt. The fabric clung in all the right places, and he immediately wanted to throw her over his shoulder and get her out of there. He didn’t like the other Shifters looking at her. Before he could stop it a growl rose up in his throat. Melanie took a step back. His eyes snapped back to her. He hadn’t meant to scare her. He was making a mess of this. He looked like a clumsy idiot one minute, and a crazed animal the next. “What are you doing here?”
“Well some of the girls I use to room with come here every now and then, so I decided to tag along. I hope that’s okay. I guess I should have tried to contact you first. ”
He smiled then because he knew she was here to see him.
“Can I buy you a beer?”
“I’m not much of a beer drinker, but if they have a Red’s Apple Ale back there I could be persuaded.” Her eyes had a twinkle to them, and he liked how carefree she seemed here. He took her hand and led her over to the bar. It wasn’t uncommon for humans to come to some of the bars in Haven, but he couldn’t believe Melanie had. Most of the humans that came over were there because they wanted to hook up with a Shifter and see if the rumors were true. Shifter gossips called it going on safari. Once they did a lot of them decided they didn’t want to go back to humans. Shifters mated for life, and once they found their mate and made their claim casual sex was a thing of the past. Before that happened though it was fair game. They were part animal so it was only natural that their animal instincts would push them to seek some sort of release; some of them fought, others had sex, most did both.
Chapter Six
Melanie
Melanie stared at Tye over top of her beer. She still couldn’t believe she had come all this way on a hunch that he would be here. She had called the adviser of the internship, and fibbed that she was a landlord looking to verify Tye’s application, which meant verifying his hometown. The adviser had been hesitant to give it out at first, but Melanie had googled the closest Haven, and spouted off a portion of the town’s local bars address. She fibbed about the rest of the address on his application being smudged and her just looking to confirm the accurate one. Once she had confirmed he had been from that Haven, she got herself dressed and hit the road.
She wasn’t surprised at all when he walked in, and she tried to stay out of eye sight by hiding behind some of the girls she came with. She also wasn’t surprised when he ended up tangled up in a table. She’d seen him twice now, and both times he was moving too fast for his giant body to keep up.
“So are you ready for our first day?” Melanie asked trying to break the ice a little bit since they were both just staring at each other for the past five minutes.
“Yes, I just hope the doctor I get paired with doesn’t have a problem with Shifters.”
“It should be fine, right? I can’t imagine he’d have something against Shifters.”
“You don’t though, right?” He was looking at her quizzically now, and she couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t quite sure why she wasn’t more afraid of him.
“You’re the only one I’ve met so I can’t say really.”
“Most people are afraid of me because of my size alone.”
She wasn’t sure if he was trying to intimidate her now, or just figure her out. She refused to back down now. “Well other than worrying about if you are going to run me over, or toss me across the room you seem fairly harmless.”
He smiled at her, and she swore she saw a faint blush on his face. Another giant man came up just then, and slapped Tye on the back. She saw some resemblance between the two, but the other guy seemed younger somehow even though his size and overall hairiness suggested otherwise.
“Big bro you didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend?”
“Jake, leave.”
Jake clutched his hand to his chest like he had been actually injured at Tye’s brush off, and Melanie couldn’t help but giggle.
“Hello beautiful, I’m Jake the younger much more attractive Brigham man.”
“Nice to meet you Jake. I’m Melanie, and I’m not Tye’s girlfriend. Just a friend from the internship.”
Jake looked at Tye, and Tye shrugged but didn’t comment further.
“I’m glad to hear Tye has some back up out there in the human world.”
“I don’t know how much I can offer to him.” She laughed at the thought of her doing anything to help a giant like Tye.
“You can do plenty. Don’t worry it’ll just come naturally to you.” With that Tye stood and shoved his brother out of the way. Melanie wasn’t sure why Tye was so bothered by the comment. Maybe he was feeling badly about what had happened when they first met
.
“Anyways big bro I just came by to let you know your fight is up.”
“Fight? What’s going on?”
“You mean you didn’t tell her. You’re in for a treat tonight, girl. Tye’s fighting and he never disappoints.”
“Like boxing?” Melanie was really confused by what was happening. She followed the Brigham men out a back door to an open field that had several areas mapped out for fights apparently.
“You really didn’t tell her anything did you? He’s going to fight Mike Bunner tonight. He’s a lion. It’ll be a wicked good fight. There’s not many who can give us a good run for our money but lions are formible.”
Melanie grabbed Tye’s arm and tried to turn him to face her. He didn’t budge so she grabbed hold with two hands and tugged harder. He kept walking.
“Damnit, Tye.” She immediately regretted yelling at him because several Shifters close by turned to look at them now.
“Melanie, I think you should go. I don’t want you to watch this.”
“Watch what? I still don’t understand what’s happening.”
“For us it’s like exercise, but it can be alarming for humans to see. It’s brutal and bloody.”
“I’m a doctor. Blood doesn’t bother me. I’m staying.” She wanted to advert her eyes from his, but stood up a little taller and kept his gaze.
“Fine. Stay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He winked at her then as he pulled his shirt up and over his large perfectly sculpted chest. She was pretty sure her mouth was hanging open as she marveled at his sculpted torso. She had to actively refrain herself from reaching out and running her fingers over his abs. Then his hands went to his belt, and removed that. She was sure she was going to faint when he started to take his pants off.
“What are you doing now?” She squeaked.
“It takes a lot to find clothes to fit my body so I like to preserve them. You don’t mind do you?” He was now stark naked handing her his clothes. She pulled herself from her stupor and kept her gaze locked on his eyes as she took them.
“You can look down if you want honey.” He was loving her embarrassment which made her want to kick him.
“Not much to see I’m sure.”
“You are so cute when you lie.” He rubbed his fingers across her chin with that comment, and then where there was once Tye was now a gigantic bear. He had to be almost nine feet tall. She stumbled back a few steps so that she could look all the way up at him without breaking her neck.
She was completely in awe of him. She clutched his clothes to her chest with one hand and reached out with the other to touch his fur. He dropped to all fours in front of her, and leaned his head into her hand. He was magnificent in his bear form. Finally, a whistle blew and Tye sauntered off towards one of the circles where there was a lion waiting. Melanie couldn’t believe this was real life. She looked around to see if anybody else was freaking out, but everyone else seemed to expect this.
“Sure you’re up for this?” Jake said casually, but his eyes said he was a little concerned for her.
“I guess I’ll find out now.”
Tye and the lion started circling each other. The lion finally swiped his paw out and let out a roar letting Tye know he was tired of the foreplay. Tye lunged and tried to wrap the lion up in his death grip, but the lion eluded him and tried to pounce onto his back. Tye rolled effortlessly considering his size and landed back on his hind feet. They continued going after each other in a fury of fur and blood.
Melanie was positive that she hadn’t taken a breath the entire fight when the whistle blew again and the two shifters let each other out of their grips. She wasn’t sure if there was necessarily a winner of the match. She was shocked to see how differently Tye moved in the arena. He was confident, even lithe. Jake was still next to her, and he was shouting and clapping loudly with the rest of the crowd pleased with the fight.
“Yeah Tye! Wooo!”
“Does he do this often?”
“Not anymore. He’s busy with his new life. Not much time to give his bear a release.”
There was that word again, release. Jake was looking at her the same way Tye had looked at her when he said it earlier, like she was supposed to take care of his release. Good luck with that. She may have drove out in the middle of nowhere to see more about him and his way of life outside of his human form, but she had no intentions of helping with anybody’s release. She still had her goals to reach, and she had to stay focused. She looked up again to find Tye now that the fight was over, and realized he was back in his human form, naked, and bloody while a woman leaned over him poking and prodding some of the bigger wounds.
“Does he need to go to a hospital?”
“We don’t do hospitals, Heather is our healer, she’ll tend something if necessary, but they all look like they’ll be healed in the next thirty minutes or so.”
“Like a Shifter doctor?”
“Yes, but she didn’t go to school for it, she was blessed by our Goddess with the abilities to look after the Shifters health.”
“This is all so crazy.”
“It’s normal to us.”
Normal. This was not her normal, obviously, but she didn’t have much a normal herself. She had boring. She had been so focused for so long on achieving her medical degree and getting that coveted prefix for her name that she hadn’t done anything else. While the other girls in undergrad had been out partying, and even venturing to Havens to party she had been studying. When she got to medical school some of her fellow students there even took the occasional night off and let loose. Most of them had significant others, friends and family circles they could chat with, and lean on throughout the rigorous course work. She didn’t have any of that. Her mom was always willing to lend an ear, but she didn’t understand her drive to be outside of the home so she didn’t really have much input. Her dad just told her to give up and come home. Maybe for the first time in her life she wanted more.
“What did you think for your first Shifter fight?” Tye was back and fully clothed.
“You were impressive. I kept waiting for you to trip and just simply fall on him and smother him.”
“I’m usually not so clumsy. Humans make me awkward. Well you make me awkward.”
Melanie wanted to melt into him. His deep golden eyes beckoned to her to just lean into him and let him give her that comfort that she had been missing out on her whole life. This man, this giant beautiful Shifter was more dangerous to her than anything else she had ever come across in her life. He could make her feel complete, like she didn’t need to strive anymore. She needed to get away from him.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I have to go.” She turned around and hurried off before he could say anything. She needed space. She could hear him yelling her name behind her, but she just put her head down and kept plowing her way through the hordes of people. She finally made it back to her car, and didn’t waste any time throwing her car in drive and getting the hell out of Haven.
Chapter Seven
Tye
What the hell. Tye stared after Melanie completely dumbstruck. She drove all the way out here just to see him, and then she took off just as fast as she showed up.
“Easy come, easy go.” Jake gave him a good slap on the back. Tye was still a little in shock.
“I know. I just thought Melanie had more backbone than that. She’s not some weak human just looking for a good time. She’s made of tough stuff. There’s been a couple times she put me in my place.”
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 94