“Okay, something is obviously bothering you,” Bailey said. “I don’t think you’re paying attention to this movie at all.”
Trevor let out a deep sigh. “You're right,” he said. “There is something bothering me. A big something. But I'm afraid that if I tell you what it is, then you won't want to see me anymore.”
“Oh, come on,” Bailey said. “How bad could it be? You’re not about to tell me you’re some sort of axe murderer or something, are you?”
“No, it’s nothing…bad. It’s just that there’s something about me that’s really different, and I don’t know how to explain it to you.”
“Just spit it out. You seem relatively normal to me. How bad could it be?” Bailey asked.
Trevor rubbed his forehead and then ran his fingers through his hair. He stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, and then finally returned his gaze to Bailey.
“Fine. You know what? Screw it,” he said. “I am just going to spit it out. I honestly don’t think there’s a better way to tell you this, anyway.”
Bailey looked over at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue. On the television screen, the frame was frozen on an exploding car. When Trevor was silent for several more moments, Bailey decided to give him a little nudge.
“So?” she asked. “What’s the deal?”
Trevor took a loud, deep breath while looking uncertainly over at Bailey. “I’m a bear shifter,” he said.
Silence hung in the air for a few moments. What he said didn’t make sense to Bailey, and she thought she must have misheard him. “I’m sorry, what?” she asked.
“I’m a bear shifter,” Trevor repeated.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bailey said.
“You’ve never heard of bear shifters?” Trevor asked, his face looking strained.
“No,” Bailey said. “Care to explain?”
“I guess they didn’t cover that in journalism school,” Trevor said, the frustration in his voice clearly coming through. “A bear shifter is basically someone who can change forms from human to bear and back again on demand. It’s a genetic mutation, so it’s not contagious or anything like that. But, essentially, what I’m trying to tell you is that I’ve got a bear living inside of me.”
Bailey nearly fell off the bed. “Oh my god,” she said between laughs. “How many beers have you had?”
“Bailey, I’m serious. You’ve been with me all day. You know that this is the first beer I’ve had.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t take you seriously right now. People don’t just turn into bears, at least not in the real world. If you’re trying to pull one over on me right now or something, then you might as well stop. I’m not that gullible,” Bailey said. She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes as she looked at Trevor in amazement. He was doing a remarkably impressive job of acting serious. But her laughter stopped when she saw his expression changing into one of anger.
“You know what? Forget it,” he said. “I should have known this was too good to be true. Maybe it’s all a joke to you, but this is my life. I’m glad you think it’s so funny.”
Bailey forced herself to stop laughing. “Aw, don’t be mad just because you can’t fool me,” she said. “I’m a journalist by training, so I’m used to dealing with facts. If you want to trick someone into thinking that werebears or bear shifters or whatever you want to call them actually exist, then you’ve got the wrong girl. Now, do you want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”
Trevor’s only response was to cross his arms and look at Bailey with angry, churning eyes. Before she could once again admonish him to get over his bad mood, she was knocked backward by what felt like a small explosion. She landed on the floor next to the bed, and she pulled herself up from the carpet in a confused daze. What the hell had just happened?
When she lifted her eyes up to look at the bed, she let out a bloodcurdling scream at what she saw. On the bed, where she and Trevor had just been sitting moments before, sat a giant black bear. She looked around wildly, trying to find Trevor. But she didn’t see him. And then, she noticed the bear’s piercing green eyes. They looked just like Trevor’s. She stood slowly, and took a few steps backward while covering her open mouth with her hands.
“It’s you,” Bailey said. “It’s really you. You weren’t kidding.”
The bear huffed in response, its round, furry ears twitching back and forth. Bailey let her gaze wander over the bear in shocked amazement. Its fur was thick and boasted a sleek, black color. Each of its paws equaled nearly the size of Bailey’s head. And the long, sharp claws at the end of each paw could easily have done some serious damage if the bear decided to take a swipe at her. All of a sudden, the name “Burning Claws Crew” made perfect sense.
“Are the rest of your friends bear shifters too?” Bailey asked, then realized that Trevor probably couldn’t answer her while in bear mode. Well, unless he was a talking bear. But that didn’t seem to be the case, since he hadn’t said anything since he shifted. As soon as she asked the question, she was knocked backward again by another small explosion. When she sat up, the bear was gone. In its place, Trevor sat on the bed. He was stark naked. That’s when Bailey noticed that the clothes he had been wearing were spread across the room in dozens of torn shreds of fabric.
“Most of the crew are shifters,” Trevor said. “Charlotte, Ian’s wife, is human. She’s the only firefighter on our crew that’s not a bear. Riley and River, Hunter’s and Luke’s girlfriends, are human, too.”
“And they’re…okay with this? With you guys randomly turning into bears?”
“Well, yes, they’re okay with it. But it’s not random. I’m completely in control of when I shift back and forth.”
Bailey sat on the floor, trying to process what she had just seen. The longer she sat there and thought about it, the angrier she became. “You should have told me,” she said.
Trevor’s face looked pained. “I’m sorry, Bailey. I wanted to, but I didn’t know exactly how to tell you. Or when the right moment was to break the news.”
Bailey stood up, her face flushing red with anger. “I’ll tell you when the right moment was—it was before you slept with me. I can’t believe you would let me have sex with you without telling me you were a bear.”
“You make it sound like I’m a complete wild animal, Bailey. It’s not like that. I’m human, I just happen to be able to shift into bear form. But, other than that, I’m not that different from you.”
“You let me sleep with you without knowing you were a bear,” Bailey repeated, her eyes blazing. “Here I was, thinking you were this amazing, sweet, romantic guy. I trusted you. I even jumped out of a fucking plane with you. And then you drop this bombshell on me and I find out you’re not who I thought you were at all.”
“Bailey, I am who I said I was. I just happen to be a bear in addition to that. I’ve tried to be sweet and romantic with you because I truly care about you. None of this has been made up. Please, just give me a chance. You’ll see that I’m not really that different from you deep down.”
Bailey stared at Trevor, unable to formulate a reply. She didn’t think she had ever been so angry in her entire life. Not even when her ex-boss had cared more about his story than about Conner’s death. At least her ex-boss hadn’t pretended to be anything other than a jerk. Trevor had hidden his true self from her. How could he think it wouldn’t matter to her that he was half bear? Her skin crawled at the thought of it. Trevor looked over at her with pleading eyes, but all she could feel toward him in that moment was coldness.
She had dared to hope that she had finally found a man who cared about her. She thought she had finally found a man who knew how to treat a woman right, and who knew the meaning of honor and loyalty. And he had hidden a huge secret from her in the first days of their fledgling relationship.
“Bailey…” Trevor said, letting his voice trail off. He seemed to be fishing for the right words to say to make this better. But nothing c
ould make it better. He had lied to her. He had let her down.
Bailey raised her finger and pointed at the door. “Get out,” she said.
Trevor’s face fell. “Bailey, please,” he said.
“Get out,” she repeated, her voice hard and unfeeling.
Trevor looked like he was considering protesting again, but then he set his face in a hard line. “Fine,” he said.
He stormed into the bathroom and grabbed a towel, then wrapped it around his waist. He didn’t bother to grab the tennis shoes he’d left by the door earlier. He just snatched his keys from the hotel dresser and left the room without another look at Bailey, slamming the door behind him.
With the sound of the door’s slam reverberating in her ear, Bailey sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. The takeout boxes were smashed as a flat as pancakes by the weight Trevor’s bear had put on them. On the television, the screen remained frozen with the scene of the car explosion.
An explosion.
It now seemed like the perfect analogy for what the last week of Bailey’s life had been like. What had she been thinking, believing that she could actually change her life? Had she really been considering moving cross country for Trevor’s sake, just hours earlier? What an idiot she’d been. These kinds of things only worked out in movies.
Bailey glanced at the overnight FedEx envelope sitting on the hotel desk. She still hadn’t opened it, but she already knew what it held. She stood, walked over to grab the envelope, and tore it open. She peered inside to confirm that it contained her passport and credit card. Bailey set her lips in a determined line, and grabbed her room key. She would go the hotel’s business center right now, and book the next available flight back to D.C. The idea that her life could change had been fun while it lasted, but it was time to get back to reality.
Chapter Eleven
Trevor ignored the strange looks he received from the front desk attendant as he walked through the hotel lobby with only a towel wrapped around his waist. He realized halfway to the front door that he'd forgotten his shoes, but no way in hell was he going back to get them. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this angry about a girl. He couldn't believe the way that Bailey had reacted. The fact that his attempt to take her skydiving had turned out to be a resounding success had given him just the boost of confidence he needed to confess to her that he happened to be a bear shifter. With all of the decisions that Bailey had made in the last week to change her life, better herself, and overcome her fears, he truly thought that she would be able to see past the strangeness of him being a shifter.
Oh, how wrong he'd been.
As he slipped into the driver's seat of his SUV, the feelings of despair overtook him in waves. He put the car in drive and started heading back to base. He knew he was in for some good-natured ribbing once he got there, too. Walking around in the middle of February with nothing on but a towel would be a dead giveaway to the rest of his clan that he’d shifted and lost his clothes.
For the entire drive, he continued to fume. He'd never before felt the way that he did about Bailey. After mating with her, he’d dared to hope that this amazing woman might actually be his fated lifemate. He'd felt connected to her, like the threads of their lives had somehow been interwoven since before they were born. But now, all he felt was emptiness. He pulled into base, and parked at the end of the parking lot closest to the bunkhouse. Maybe, just maybe, he would be lucky enough that he could sneak in and grab some clothes before anyone saw him.
He should have known better. Luck was definitely not on his side tonight. When he opened the side door to the bunkhouse, he ran smack into Zach, who just so happened to be exiting the building at the same time. Zach took one look at Trevor, and gave him the biggest scowl Trevor had ever seen on Zach's face. Which was saying something, given how prone Zach was to scowling.
“Please tell me we just installed a hot tub on base that I don't know about or something,” Zach said, narrowing his eyes. “Because if you're half naked for the reason that I think you are, then I'm going to be one angry bear.”
“Shut up,” Trevor said, trying to push past Zach.
Zach put out his arm to block Trevor's pathway. “I asked you a question, Trevor.”
“And I answered you,” Trevor said. “Shut the hell up.”
With an angry burst of strength, Trevor managed to force his way past Zach and into the bunkhouse. He knew he shouldn't be so disrespectful to the clan’s second in command. But, after the day he'd had, he couldn't be bothered to play nice with pricks like Zach. He grabbed some clothes, but before he could even get his shirt on, he felt tears starting to sting at the back of his eyelids.
“Get it together, man,” he said to himself. “She's just a girl, just like any other girl. Nothing special about her.”
But no matter how hard Trevor tried to convince himself that the little pep talk he’d just given himself was the truth, he couldn't quite make himself believe it. In a desperate attempt to keep anyone else from seeing him cry, he escaped into the shower.
As soon as Trevor made it safely into the shower and turned on the water, the tears started streaming down his face. Once they started, he couldn't stop them. He kept telling himself to man up. After all, what business did a big, tough bear shifter have with hiding out in the shower and crying like a little girl? But the harder he tried to regain control, the more the flood of tears poured out. He felt like his heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces, which, for him, was a completely foreign feeling. He’d never really been in love before. Sure, he’d had girlfriends here and there—some more serious than others. But he’d never really loved any of them.
Was that what this feeling was? Love? Nothing about this made sense to him. If Bailey wasn't his lifemate, then he shouldn’t feel as awful as he did right now. On the other hand, if she was his lifemate, shouldn't she have reacted a bit better to his confession of being a bear?
Trevor stayed in the shower for the better part of an hour, trying to regain control of his emotions and figure out how the hell his life had turned upside down so quickly. When he finally managed to stem the flow of tears, he stepped out of the shower. After toweling off, he threw on the T-shirt and jeans he’d grabbed earlier. He headed back to his bunk, hoping that he could manage to slip into bed without seeing anyone. Although there were no private rooms in the bunkhouse, the building had been constructed with a group much larger than six in mind. Everyone on the crew had claimed a different bunk, spread out across the expansive structure, which usually meant you could have privacy in your own bunk if you wanted it. Trevor definitely wanted privacy tonight, but it looked like he wasn’t going to get it: when he arrived at his bunk, he found Ian sitting next to it. His alpha waited patiently, drumming his finger on the solid wooden bed frame.
Trevor let out an exasperated sigh. No doubt, Zach had gone running to Ian, complaining that Trevor was shifting dangerously close to town. Ian generally led the clan with a very relaxed, laid-back attitude, but he took rogue shifting very seriously. Things could get messy if the wrong human saw one of the clan members shift and decide to report it to the police. Trevor felt a pang of guilt hit him right in the stomach. He shouldn’t have shifted in front of Bailey so soon. He barely knew her, and he had revealed his clan’s secrets to her. He had engaged in exactly the kind of reckless shifting that had brought about the demise of so many shifter clans.
“Hi, boss,” Trevor said warily, trying to keep his voice neutral.
“Hi, Trevor. Take a seat,” Ian said, wearing a serious expression on his face.
Trevor sat down and resisted the urge to start trying to explain everything. He had learned long ago that talking too much when you felt like you were in trouble never helped the situation.
“I hear you shifted,” Ian said. “Why? And did anyone see you?”
“Only one person saw me,” Trevor said, then took a deep breath. “A girl.”
Understanding dawned on Ian’s face, and he visibly relax
ed. Then he started chuckling. “I take it she wasn’t too impressed with your bear, since you wound up back here wearing nothing but a towel.”
“It’s not funny,” Trevor said, and his voice cracked with emotion despite his effort to remain calm. “I really liked her. I thought she might even be fated to be my lifemate, because I had a strong connection with her that I’ve never felt with anyone else before. But when I told her that I’m a bear shifter, she didn’t even know what a shifter was. So, I showed her. I shifted in the middle of her hotel room. She got really angry and kicked me out, telling me that I’d been hiding my true self from her.”
Ian leaned back and stroked his chin. “Do you think she’ll tell anyone else what she saw?”
Trevor shrugged. “Hell if I know, but my gut instinct says she won’t. She doesn’t seem like the type of person who would go running to the cops, and she doesn’t really have any family or friends.”
Ian nodded, and continued stroking his chin. Trevor tried to keep his mouth shut and wait for his alpha to speak, but his nerves got the better of him and he started talking again.
“I’m sorry, Ian. I wouldn’t have shifted if I thought she was going to react the way she did. I met her through a rescue I did for the Red Valley Fire Department. I’d spent a few days with her, and she seemed to be everything I wanted in a girl. She’s beautiful, kind, and fun…and willing to step outside of her comfort zone. I mated with her, and felt so drawn to her that I’d thought we’d bonded as lifemates. I guess I was wrong,” Trevor said, and looked down at his hands. He could feel his eyes starting to well up again, and he desperately tried to calm his churning emotions. He couldn’t believe how vulnerable he felt right now.
“Why are you so sure that she’s not your lifemate?” Ian asked.
Fire Bear Shifters: The Complete Series Page 33