Read Bear With Me: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance for Free Online Page A

move on. He wasn’t worried about whatever-it-was flapping around hurting him—he was big enough to deal with most wild creatures. But he didn’t want to distress any creatures that could sense the bear in him.
    Too late.
    Mark had a split-second impression of huge wings beating in front of his face. He jumped backwards in shock. His foot slipped on a slippery river-stone and he fell heavily, scraping the side of his face on something sharp.
    He swore out loud and slapped his hand to his face. It came away sticky.
    “Okay, bird! Calm down, I’m leaving already!”
    Maybe he should just go ahead and shift here and now. He could leave his pack and clothes by the side of the river and pick them up in the morning. He was probably far enough from the track now that no helpful hiker would find it and raise a missing person alarm.
    Mark put his head down and charged blindly forward into the night. He started unbuttoning his shirt, ready to shrug it and his pack off as he transformed.
    “Hello?”
    Mark froze. There was someone else here in the forest. Someone who had heard him. And he had been about to shift!
    He quickly flexed his fingers. Fingers, not claws—good. The only thing worse than someone seeing him as a giant bear with his human clothes scattered on the ground around him, would be someone getting a glimpse of him half-transformed. If there were local shifters in this area, the last thing they needed was for someone to start spreading rumors of half-human, half-animal creatures roaming the hills.
    “Is there someone out there?” the voice called again. It was a woman, her voice tinged with uncertainty. Inside him, Mark’s bear twitched its nose, suddenly interested.
    Mark concentrated, sifting through the various scents on the night air. Usually he wouldn’t be able to do this in human form, but he was so close to almost-shifting, his senses were more sensitive.
    Apart from him, this woman was the only human-smelling thing in a few miles. And she smelled … Familiar.
    He shook his head. The important thing was not to scare her. Mark wasn’t stupid; he knew that any woman would feel wary at meeting a strange man out in the middle of nowhere. Especially one as big as he was.
    Mark cleared his throat. There wasn’t much he could do about his size, or, well, the fact that he was probably bleeding all over his face. But at least he could sound friendly.
    “Hello?” he shouted, in the direction the woman’s scent was coming from. “Is there someone there?”
    Following the woman’s voice, Mark walked farther upriver, until he caught sight of an electric light shining through the darkness. The woman was standing at the top of a rocky slope, pointing a flashlight down towards the river. Squinting, Mark could just make her out.
    His heart began to pound as his eyes focused on her. A sudden wild rush of energy filled his veins, as though he’d stepped on a live wire.
    Jamie.
    His entire body ached to be near her. He wanted to see her, to kiss her face, to discover her inch by inch again. To touch her. Run his hands across her body, and hold her close. He wanted to run straight to her—he could easily have bounded up the slope, even with the pack on his back—
    What was wrong with him? He couldn’t go racing towards her. She’d think he was some sort of crazy axe murderer. Even if she recognized him, she’d think he was a psycho.
    And he couldn’t run off, either, even though that might be the best idea, given how crazy his body was acting. Running off into the darkness would freak her out just as much as running towards her.
    He forced himself to walk slowly, one foot after the other. When he reached the woman, he saw that her face was flushed, as though she was the one whose heart was racing like she’d just run a mile.
    “Hi,” Mark said, his voice rough.
    Her eyes were just as he remembered, the vivid grey-blue of glacier meltwater. Around them, her long, pale eyelashes flicked up like delicate fern