The Bear's Desire (Paranormal BBW Werebear Shifter Erotica) by Haley Nix Read Free Book Online Page B

path
through the darkness.
    She couldn’t tell what direction the threat
was emanating from, just that it was close. Another shifter, perhaps? Definitely .
She swiveled her furry head as she walked, shifting her eyes from side to side,
her steps more cautious now, her senses sharpened and on guard against attack.
Her eyes had adjusted to the light by now, but she still couldn’t see more than
twenty feet in front of her.
    The moon was rising in the sky at this
point, adding a modest amount of light to the dark landscape around her. But
the pale glow yielded little in the way of visibility. Instead, it lent the
trees mysterious, bending shadows that seemed to play tricks on Stella’s eyes
as she paced slowly through the fresh snow.
    Around every tree trunk she seemed to
see a hulking beast waiting for her in the shadows. But when she finally
reached each tree, nothing was to be found – not even paw prints. There was
simply no trace of life at all.
    Still, Stella knew someone was watching her. The fur
on her back bristled, her wolf’s body readying itself to fend off an attack.
She would never back down from a fight, but she knew she was at a disadvantage
in these woods; they were foreign territory. The shifter that continued
watching her from some undisclosed location was most likely a denizen of these
woods – it was his territory and he meant to protect it and claim submission
from anyone who dared to walk on its hallowed ground.
    A branch snapped somewhere behind her,
and Stella whirled around, straining her eyes to see the source of the sound.
This was her first confirmation that she was indeed being stalked as she
blindly made her way back to the train station.
    “Show yourself,” she growled.
    But she was only met with silence. She
walked back through the trees, retracing her path, searching for the beast that
had been following her. Mysteriously, no footprints were to be found. Again,
she called into the darkness.
    “If you have any sense of pride, reveal
yourself right now!” she howled into the wind, a biting cold wind that carried
her voice through the darkness.
    If she was forced to fight, she wanted
it on her own terms. She couldn’t afford to be blindsided in some cheap shot
attack. Only when she got the other shifter in view would she feel confident of
total victory.
     
    ***
     
    Stella stood there a moment longer,
looking around, waiting for some movement, some indication that her challenge
had been accepted. When she heard no response, she turned around and bounded
away down the mountain, hoping to get back to the safety of civilization as
soon as possible.
    But as she ran through the darkness a
haunting feeling overcame her. She was so close to this other beast she felt
she could feel his heart beating. He must have a big heart, a strong heart. He
couldn’t be some ordinary wolf, not with the way his presence overcame her like
this.
    Stella was jolted from her thoughts by
the crash of branches. Out of the trees behind her plummeted a gigantic, dark
shape. Its eyes glowed yellow as it looked at her. Stella’s first instinct was
to run. Could this be the first fight she wouldn’t win?
    She dodged trees stealthily as she
bolted from the scene, sprinting through the frosty darkness of the night. An
occasional glance behind her let her know the beast was in hot pursuit. This
was either the biggest wolf she’d ever seen in her life or something else
entirely.
    The creature chased her down into
another ravine. Stella stumbled and scraped herself against a pile of sharpened
rocks. But the instinct for survival made her get up instantly, the pain barely
registering in the intensity of the moment. As she sprinted further, she
realized that her attempted escape was futile. The creature had chased her up
to the bottom of a small cliff.
    Desperately, Stella leaped, trying to clear the edge
of the cliff. She reached the top of it with her front paws, holding onto the
edge for dear life as she tried to pull