The Right to a Bear's Arms (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Wolf Rock Shifters) (8 page)

“All you can do for now is live your life. Where are you staying?” asked Kyla.

“In a tree.” Zoe laughed then, a genuine laugh for the first time in weeks. It was all so ridiculous.

“It’s nice to see yo
u laugh,” said Kyla. “I wasn’t entirely sure you were capable of it.”

“Baby steps,” Zo
e said, wiping a tear from her eye. “But even though it sounds insane I think I’ll stick with my tree for now.”

“Why not? A lot of shifters sleep outside. The ones who are more comfortable with fur, anyhow,” said Kyla.

“I’m just not used to it. Drake—that’s my ex-bastard—was very into his satin sheets and king-sized bed. I always had a bed growing up. But up in a tree, in the woods, I feel safe, somehow.”

“Then stay there. But anytime
you need anything, we’re here,” said Kyla. “And you’re going to want to shower and all that sort of thing too. Why don’t you come with us to the pack’s cabin? You’d be welcome to use it and there’s nowhere on earth that’s safer.” 

“Okay. If you don’t think they’d mind,” said Zoe, hesitant at the thought of meeting a wolf pack. Two shifters had seemed overwhelming just a few minutes earlier.

Kyla read her mind. “They won’t all be there, don’t worry. Probably only a few. And they don’t bite. Usually.”

Zoe accompanied Kyla and Maddox to the wolf shifters’ cabin. The pack, which had once been so secretive about their home base’s location, now welcomed almost all shifters into their midst. The cabin was widely regarded as the town’s epicenter despite its location in the woods, in particular since so many shifters had begun to occupy their own concealed dens in the surrounding acreage.

The only pack members who were home
when the three arrived were Tristan, the alpha, and his mate Nikki, who was pregnant with their first child. Tristan, like Maddox and Colson, was a big man with the bright blue eyes that all wolf shifters had. Nikki was softer; a woman of curves with large, almond-shaped eyes. There was a calm about her that Zoe liked immediately.

“Welcome, Zoe,” said
Nikki, shaking her hand.

“Thanks,” said Zo
e, who felt overwhelmed by the hospitality of the wolves. “Quite a place you have here.”

“
It’s home. And you can see that we’re adding to the pack,” Nikki said, rubbing her belly. She was a big girl anyhow, but the prominent bump made her even more so. She was lovely, Zoe thought, and looked genuinely happy.

“I can
see that, yes. Congratulations. Oh, and thanks for letting me use your shower. I haven’t really sorted out the logistics of living in a forest.”

Nikki laughed. “Yeah, it’s a challenge, I’m sure. But you’re welcome here anytime. Just come by. We’ve got a big bathroom just for you mad forest dwellers.”

“Are there a lot of us?”

“No
, not at any given time. But often when shifters move to town they start off like you; hiding out in the woods. It’s easy and let’s face it: the price is right.”

“Yeah, the rent can’t be beat.”

“Tell me, do you know anyone in town?”

“I don’t, not really. Well, t
here’s a bear shifter…a spirit bear called Colson who drove me here.”

“
Do tell,” said Nikki, sitting down on the couch and signalling to Zoe to do the same.

“Oh, there’s nothing to tell. He’s working as a mechanic. Apparently he’s good with his hands.”

“I’ll bet he is.” Nikki raised an eyebrow.

Zoe thought Kyla was the only psychic around
, but suddenly she got the impression that Nikki sensed a sexual attraction between Zoe and Colson.

“He’s not my boyfriend or mate or any of that. Just a friend. Sort of.”

“The funny thing around here,” said Nikki, is that friends have a way of becoming more than that.” With that, she looked over at Tristan, who was chatting with Kyla and Maddox.

“Well, Colson doesn’t have to worry about me hitting on him.”

“I suspect that
you
need to worry about you hitting on him, though. I’ve seed your Colson, when I was in town having the car’s oil changed the other day. He’s not an unattractive man.”

“No, he’s not. I’ll admit that,” said Zoe, a slight smile infiltrating her lips.

“So,” interrupted Tristan before the conversation could go any further, “if there’s anything you need, Zoe, come to us, day or night. Don’t hesitate. Especially if you’re ever in any sort of trouble.”

Zoe wondered if Kyla had said anything, but she suspected that it was simply the alpha’s nature to look out for shifters in general.

“Thank you, Tristan, I appreciate it. And I will.”

With that, Zoe followed Kyla to the guest bathroom.
After showering gratefully under a stream of hot water which seemed to wash her residual anxieties away, she said good-bye and headed back out into the woods.

Kyla liked Tristan and Nikki, and was beginning to get the impression that each and every shifter she met had a story to tell, and not all of them happy. In fact, she had yet to meet anyone whose life had been simple or easy and she was beginning to wonder if she’d wasted some years of her life feeling isolated
and lonely. She was grateful, in spite of the circumstances that had led her here, to discover such a warm and welcoming environment. She felt at home, finally. That is, aside from the fact that she didn’t have a home other than a branch high up in a tree.

When she’d said good-bye she
made her way back towards her temporary abode, hoping again to spend some time at the fair that night. Maddox and Kyla had arranged to have her come meet the students the following Monday, and to watch some of their work and decide if she was ready to take on the job. She already knew that she was, though. The idea of working with children, of helping people, was already filling her with a sort of calm resolve. The unrest that she’d always felt seemed to be leaving her in this place. Either the mountain air, the community or some combination of all the aspects of Wolf Rock seemed to be dictating what Zoe should do.

“If I can make one child’s life better than mine was, I’ll do whatever it takes,” she’d told herself.
And she meant it.

She
wandered the woods for a while, getting to know the area, and, hoping for a brief cat nap before heading back to the fair, she returned to her tree at dusk. When she reached its roots, she peered around to ensure that no one was watching her begin the ascent in cat-form. But as she approached the thick trunk, she shifted and caught a now-familiar scent.

Colson
. He’d been there. But of course he had; she’d seen him just that morning, sniffing around exactly where she stood.

She climbed up, using the branches as resting points and to help propel her forwards. But as she moved, the scent seemed to grow stronger. Was he
…? Could he be in her tree? Surely not. She was a panther and as such, a good climber. A bear, unless he was a small and agile one, would not have ended up at the top of her new home. And Colson’s bear was not a small one.

And yet as she went higher, she heard the thud of what sounded like a hammer.

Oh, God. Had he found her money? Maybe that was what he was up to. She began to hurry now, dashing upwards. At one point her anxiousness to ascend tripped her up and she slipped, sliding backwards a few feet until she caught on a branch beneath her.

Finally she saw it above her: a sort of platform
spanning the distance between two solid branches. A large hole was cut in it, presumably in order to be able to climb through to the surface. The platform sat several feet below where the knot was where Zoe had stashed her money. That, at least, was safe.

She eased up
the tree slowly now, tentatively, eventually jutting her face over the edge of the platform and swinging herself up and onto its flat floor. It seemed stable, particularly as a large man was standing on top of it, a hammer in one hand and nails in another. A power drill, wood screws, a saw and other tools sat at his feet.

Colson
was shirtless his tanned chest coated in slick perspiration. He wore loose-fitting jeans that seemed to be slightly falling off, revealing not only a very fit torso, complete with mouth-watering six-pack, but the tease of a pelvis which looked far more alluring than it should have.

Her satchel around her neck, Zoe dropped it on the platform and
extracted the garment she’d need to throw on. Colson turned his back to give her privacy, allowing her to shift without revealing her naked body to him, much as he would have loved to see it.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked
, breathless, as she tied the belt at her waist.

“Giv
ing you a better place to sleep.”

“I don’t need you to make me anything. And now everyone’s going to know where I’m sleeping. Don’t you see that?”
Her voice was panicked and she could feel the animal in her pacing back and forth, angry and agitated at once.

“No one will know. You can’t see this platform from the ground, can you?”

“I…no, I suppose you can’t,” admitted Zoe. “But I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t need it.”

Colson shifted his weight, a quiet anger building in him as well.

“You really are stubborn, aren’t you, Zoe? Is there any part of you that ever says ‘thank you?’”

“You want me to thank you for coming up here, into my space, and without asking me build me this…whatever this is?”

“I want you to acknowledge that I’m trying to help you. That I want to improve your life. That I…that someone gives a shit about you.”

“All right, fine. I acknowledge it. You’re trying to help me. However
, you’re not helping at all.”

“Really? And so what will you do when it rains? Or snows, for that matter? I don’t suppose you’ll come stay with me
in my bed, will you?”

Zoe
blushed at the thought, which infuriated her. She also realized that the platform was just the beginning; Colson intended to supply her with a roof and walls.

“Look,” he said, “I can get you hooked up with all sorts of things. We can even get a generator running. You’re going to need it. You’re going to need water eventually, and we can set you up with that not far from here, on the ground. Zoe, you can’t live in a tree forever without the basic necessities.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said, defeated. She sat down and put her palms on the wooden floor beneath her. Colson sat opposite, studying her.

“I like you, you know,” he said.
“Fuck it, I don’t just like you. I think you’re…”

“I’m what?” she asked, her heart
leaping in her chest.

“I think you’re my mate,” he said.

Involuntarily, Zoe grabbed the front of her dress and held it tightly closed, as though he was staring at her chest. Somehow the intimacy and intensity of the words was too much.

“I’m your mate?
What does that mean? Is this just something you decide?”

“You haven’t spent a lot of time around shifters, have you? No, I didn’t decide. I wasn’t the one who asked you to get into my truck, remember? But when
I first saw you, and then when you touched my thigh that day…something happened to me.”

“Don’t mistake a
woman who gives you a hard-on for your soulmate,” she said, wanting to laugh but knowing that it was too cruel.

“If you think it’s sexual, you’re wrong,” he said. “
I mean Jesus, of course I find you sexy.” Colson ran a hand through his hair, sweat beading on his forehead and chest. “I’d like to do everything to you. I’d like you naked right now, right here, on the floor. I want you.”

Zo
e stared back, shocked by his honesty. But somehow she didn’t feel threatened. It seemed as though he was offering information rather than making a demand. And she was glad to be sitting, since the words made her weak in the knees and caused her head to spin; she felt all but drunk with the thought of taking him, or even better, being taken by him. Internally she understood what he was saying because she felt the same way.

He continued, “
But that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re inside me now, Zoe. You’re a part of me. I can’t get you out of my mind, and believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve done nothing but try to forget you since I met you. And when I saw you come out of that store, looking like a blond super-model, I...I hated it. You have no idea how good you look to me. How much I want the woman who’s sitting in front of me right now.”

She stayed
quiet. There was something in his words that reminded her of Drake. His insistence that she was his, and yet Drake insisted on putting her down and letting her know that she wasn’t important. This was somehow different. She felt like, to Colson, she was everything.

***

Colson sat opposite Zoe, his body beginning to ache again, every muscle taut with tension. His bear had never strained so hard against his human and he felt it wanting to burst forth, claws delicately contacting her white skin, teeth raking her flesh. He wanted to leave a mark on her, to claim her as his own. But in her he saw damage and he knew to proceed with caution.