Bear Meets Bride (R) - Amy Star Page 0,1
and he stretched his long claws into the mud. That was enough for today.
He slumped out on all fours and closed his black eyes. In his mind, he pictured his human-form again, and slowly his will began to fuse with it. The hair fell off of him, leaving a shaggy carpet of brown and black like a circular halo all around him. Pale flesh began to replace the dark under-skin of a bear. His hair fell backwards, and his face caved in, arching toward a human shape.
He let out a sigh and stood up. At six feet, Dylan Clover was a strapping young man even by his own standards. Although he was humble enough never to point it out. His naked torso shivered, still damp from the plunge into the creek. Have to remember I’m more susceptible to the elements in this form, he said, more to himself than anyone else. He used his right hand to slick back the heavy growth of black hair that caved down over his forehead and gave the creek another boyish grin.
Even though he was only twenty-five, his muscles rippled with promise. His training hadn’t been for naught; his chest was slim, tight and knotted with the hard muscles of an athlete. As he bent over, looking for his clothes he’d stowed in the bushes earlier, his abdominal muscles cramped over, standing out against his leanness. He frowned at a long vertical scar that gashed up the back of his arm and over his shoulder. It was the only part of him that didn’t seem sculpted, a reminder of how hard his training had been. Never underestimate an opponent. That was the lesson.
In human-form, he’d been blessed with incredibly vivid green eyes, and they sat in his skull like emeralds, dancing in the sunlight. His thin hawk nose lifted, breathing in deep, and he pursed his lips, feeling the sharp angles of his cheeks catch a grip of wind, easing in off the coast.
He tugged his pants back on and threw the threadbare T-shirt over one shoulder, eager to let the sun dry him out the rest of the way. It felt good to have the yellow light cascade onto his bare skin and he tied his hiking boots together by the laces and threw them over the other shoulder. He knew that when he returned to the mansion, it wouldn’t seem appropriate to go barefoot. He wanted to relish his time on the island as much as he could, and took off at a leisurely walk back to the cabin.
In the six months he’d been on the island – he could scarcely believe it had been that long already – he had had ample time to explore every square inch of it. It wasn’t huge, five kilometers at its length north to south and about three kilometers wide, but all of it was west coast rain forest, unaltered by humans. Aside from him and Chris, he hadn’t seen another person since they’d arrived, save for a poor lost fisherman that had blown up on the docks during a storm the month before. It was somewhat of a relief. After the crowded life he’d spent at the estate, being on his own for a while had let him appreciate his own inner workings. He’d never been fond of Chris’ meditation exercises but he’d found his own way to pass the time, to settle his mind, to explore the inner bear-thought.
It was like a candle, he thought. Glowing in the darkest recess of his being, a small imperceptible light, shrouded with blackness. But as you focused on it – on the bear – it grew larger, brighter. Filling your vision, until you could not imagine anything but that pure undiluted light. Every day he closed his eyes and let himself grow closer to that imaginary candle, and everyday, his transformation became easier and more uninhibited.
Six months. Soon, his training would be complete and he would return to the mansion and the estate, to his own kind again. But he would no longer be the boy that had left, he would be a man, a true bear in every sense of the word. The thought filled him with a mixture of dread and excitement; excitement because he missed his friends, and especially his sister, Lilah, but dread, because he knew it meant his life would change, for better or worse, and that more responsibilities would fall in his lap. Not the least of which was presiding