Dating Two Dragons (25 page)

Something flickered in John’s eyes. Ursula didn’t know what to make of that. “I always do my best to be careful around here,” he said in his soft, growly voice. “But I’m not really the one that people think is going to get hurt.”

“Am I crazy or do all of you people talk in riddles?” she asked, smiling at him even though she was seriously getting frustrated and annoyed at the way no one seemed to really answer her questions.

John just chuckled. “Let’s go to bed now,” he said. “Tomorrow is when the fun starts.”

The following morning, Ursula woke up with a phenomenal headache. And, even worse, she felt nauseous. She looked at the clock and realized it was four thirty in the morning. But that didn’t stop her stomach from wanting to release its contents. Quickly, she got out of the bed and ran into the bathroom, throwing up into the toilet and feeling all kinds of confused and worried. When she was finished, she flushed and washed her hands, looking at herself in the mirror. She looked like a wreck. Is this what she always looked like early in the morning?

She turned away and started to leave, but then she caught her reflection again as she went to turn the bathroom light off.

No, no, no, this can’t be right!
Her reflection made her appear as though she’d gained at least twenty pounds! That couldn’t happen overnight. She had been watching herself out there so far. She hadn’t been snacking or going overboard with desserts. Nothing like that. She knew she was obese and she was actually trying to use this vacation in the outdoors to fix that.

She went back into the bathroom and checked to see if there was any aspirin or anything. Thankfully, there was. She took some of it and then went back to the bedroom to question John about her appearance.

Only John wasn’t there. Had he been there when she woke up? She couldn’t remember… He hadn’t made a sound when she moved out of the bed, though.

As quickly as she could without feeling sick again, Ursula made her way to the front door of the cabin. Sure enough, it wasn’t locked. John had gone out without telling her. He was gone.

“Shit,” she said under her breath. “Will that boy ever take the key with him?”

Well, it was four forty-five in the morning, but because of her sudden illness and appearance, she definitely did not feel like sleeping. Instead, she bundled herself up in sweaters and coats and waddled out to the inn. She locked the door behind herself.

John could come and find her if he wanted to go back inside.

It was so dark that she had to be careful to stay on the winding path to the Black Bear Inn. When she finally got to it, she went in and warmed up by the concierge desk. No one was around. It was too early in the morning for breakfast. The sane people, who didn’t have to be awake there, weren’t.

Suddenly, the concierge came out of the back room. It was a different girl from the one she had seen there before, but this one seemed to know who Ursula was. The concierge shook her head at her. “Miss Blake, you really should not be here right now. You should not be out of bed.”

Then she noticed the extra bump of (Ursula’s presumed) fat around Miss Blake’s middle. Her eyes widened.

“Oh, you can explain this??” Ursula asked, her voice high-pitched and irritated. She did not want to be awake at this early hour. She did not want to be feeling sick and alone. She didn’t want to suddenly have a bump…

Her eyes became the size of saucers. She hadn’t gained weight from overeating. She had gained weight from…

No, it was impossible!

As quickly as she had come into the place, Ursula turned around and waddled back out into the cold dawn. She had to find a convenience store. A drug store. Anything that would sell pregnancy tests.

“Miss Blake!” she could hear the concierge screaming at her through the front door windows of the inn. “Please come back inside!”

Ursula ignored her advice and attempted to walk along a different trail. This one must lead to civilization. This whole area certainly couldn’t just be woods.

All of a sudden, up ahead, she heard a weird, moan-like noise. She looked up and saw the famous and apparently infamous black bear. He was a little too close for comfort, and he slowly came closer and closer. Knowing that making a lot of noise or running would excite the bear and make him try and chase her, she kept still and quiet, hoping he would just go away.

But he didn’t. He kept coming towards her. And the most bizarre thing was that, as he moved, he appeared to become progressively smaller and smaller. His face took on the characteristics of a human face, becoming more and more human as he walked. His claws turned into human fingers. His black fur melted away and soon he was a naked man walking towards her.

A tall, dark haired man. With light brown eyes.

John Asher.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Ursula said just before fainting.

When she awoke, the sun was shining brightly through the bedroom skylight. She was in bed again. At first, she wondered if it had all just been a crazy nightmare.

But then, when she sat up, she could feel the extra weight on her middle.

John was standing before her as well. He was dressed in black boxers. She could see some cuts and scrapes on his arms and chest to go along with the scars he already wore.

She let out a scream at the sight of him there, no longer a bear but somehow much more frightening.

He knelt beside her. “Shh, it’s okay.” He petted her long, auburn curls. “It’s okay. It’s just me.”

“It is not just you,” she said. “You—you were a bear! You were a bear out there!”

Sighing, John didn’t even try to lie about it. He just nodded. “What you saw is true, Ursula. I become a bear at dawn and dusk. Like my father before me.”

Ursula gasped and shrunk away from him. “And when were you going to tell me this??”

“As soon as the sun was in the sky.” He looked up at the skylight, then smiled at her. “Now.”

She scowled at him. “And can you explain this?” She lowered the sheets so he could see her swollen abdomen. “And don’t try to play games with me and tell me that ‘there’s just more to love’ or any of that bullshit. I was not this huge last night. I did not have this belly.” She brought her hands down to it and felt a sudden movement under her skin. “ARGH!!”

John’s smile ran away from his face. “Oh…” He sat on the bed and brought his hand to her belly as well. “Yeah, this was a possibility. Are you on the pill?”

She nodded, feeling tears fill her eyes.

“That won’t help when you mate with me,” he said by way of explanation. “The seed is strong. I should have told you that before, but then you wouldn’t have…”

“Oh, you think?!” Ursula started to cry. “I didn’t want any of this! What made you think that I would want any of this? I didn’t want to have a baby!”

John looked like he wanted to correct her and tell her it was technically a cub, but she glared at him, so he didn’t actually say anything.

Instead, he hugged her in his arms and petted her hair. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her. “I should have told you, but I was afraid that you would run away from me like all of the other women in my life. When I saw you at the club that night, I thought you would be different. I knew you were special.”

She wiped at the tears on her face, even though they were still falling. “Because I’m fat?” she asked. Something about the way she said it made John aware that this was something she had more or less felt her entire life, at least ever since she was old enough to feel as though ‘fat’ was a reason to not be loved by people…

“No, darling,” he said, rocking her a little in his arms. “Not because you’re fat. Because you are strong and confident. You are beautiful in all of the ways that matter, and you don’t see it. You are perfect, to me. I know this sounds sappy, especially after what you have witnessed and what you must be feeling right now. But it is the truth. I love you, Ursula Blake.”

How could she believe this man? Was he even a man? She didn’t know what he was, but she was drawn to him inexplicably and unavoidably. She didn’t know if he had some kind of black bear magic voodoo over her or what, but she was not running from him. In fact, when she saw the black bear coming towards her, the first person she thought of trying to run and find was him.

But the bear was him.

“Are you yourself, when you…?” She looked into his eyes. They were so calm and gentle looking. Had the bear had those same eyes, or had that been some trick of the early morning light?

John shook his head, then nodded slightly. “I am and I’m not,” he said. “It is best to not be around me when I’ve shifted. I can get very dangerous very fast. But I am myself in here.” He pointed at his head. “It’s just mixed up with all of these instincts and confusions.”

Ursula began to feel sorry for him and he sensed it.

“Please don’t pity me,” he said. “I am what I am.”

She brought her hand up and caressed his scruffy cheek. “You are,” she said. She brought her face close to his and kissed him softly on the lips. “I think I love you, too,” she whispered. “But I am also so frightened.”

He smiled his smirky sort of smile and rubbed his nose against hers. “You’re human; I wouldn’t expect you to not be frightened. But I promise it will be okay. I will keep you safe, just please heed my warning and stay indoors at dawn and dusk.”

Ursula nodded. Then the realization struck her again. “I’m going to have your baby…”

“Yes,” John said, stroking her belly with his fingertips and looking deeply into her eyes. “And that is another reason why it is so important for you to stay indoors.”

Boy, was she going to have a lot of explaining to do when she went back to The Big Dipper club… “What am I going to tell my boss?” she wondered aloud. “How am I ever going to explain this?”

John rose from the bed. “It’s simple,” he said. “Don’t go back. Stay here with me. You can sing in the inn’s lounge. People will love it.”

Ursula laughed. “Sing to who? The staff? I have hardly ever seen anyone else in that place.”

He shrugged. “So advertise. You’re good at that.” He smirked at her again and padded out to the kitchen. “Do you want anything?”

She carefully got out of the bed and followed him. She wasn’t going to be bound to her bed. “I feel like I could eat an entire restaurant right now, but I shouldn’t. I’ve already become a walrus. Look at me.”

“You are a mama bear,” he replied matter-of-factly. “But you will lose the excess weight once the baby is born. Which will be very soon. Do not fret about that.”

He chopped up a banana, an apple and an orange and put them into a blender along with some ice and a little bit of milk. She covered her ears while it worked to chop up the fruits even more and turn them into a smoothie.

After pouring half the blender’s contents into a glass, he passed it over to her. “Drink this. It will give you lots of vitamins and energy.”

Ursula drank it. It tasted delicious, but she shivered because it was cold and it wasn’t exactly warm inside their cabin. John noticed and went to the fireplace, quickly igniting the logs. He made a disapproving face and went into the bedroom, coming back out a few moments later in his dark jeans and a navy blue button up shirt that he neglected to button.

He went outside, to the side of the cabin where he’d left a pile of tree branches and stumps. She watched through the window while he chopped up some of the branches. His muscles rippled as he swung the axe. She admired his fluid movement and how easy he made the action appear, even though she knew that chopping wood was no simple task.

As soon as he was done, he carried in a pile of wood for the fire and set it on the hearth. “This is for the next round of fire,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm.

They cuddled up together on the couch, alternating between kissing and talking. Every time their baby moved inside of her, she brought his hand and held it where he could feel it. “Is it going to be like you?” she asked softly, in case the unborn child could hear them discussing its possible abnormalities and would take offense.

John nodded. “Yes. It’s genetic. And the ownership of the inn is also genetic. It will be passed on to him or her when I am gone.”

Ursula raised her eyebrows at him. She didn’t want to think about her big, strong John being gone! “But that won’t be for many, many years,” she said.

He chuckled a little, softly touching her cheek with his fingertips. “Let’s hope not. Hunting is no longer legal around here, ever since…”

“Ever since your father died?” she asked, slowly putting two and two together. “He was killed by a hunter, wasn’t he? Oh, John, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

John closed his eyes. She could tell that thinking about it brought him a lot of pain.

“But you don’t have to stay here, John. We could leave this place.”

“Where would we go?” he asked her, opening his eyes and looking deeply into her blue ones. “There is nowhere that is safe for me but here. Here, I have people who know about me. There are people here who do their best to keep me protected. Heaven knows why, but they do. They care about me. They cared about my father, too. I trust them.”

Ursula looked down. She wanted to help him, but she did not know how. He seemed to already have the help he needed, but she wasn’t convinced that he was happy. “You went to Silver Lake,” she said.