My Boss to Bear (Billionaire Werebear Paranormal Romance Steamy Standalone) Read Free Page A

her eyes closed.
     
    As she waited for the shot, she heard instead a mighty
roar, so loud and fierce it shook the very ground beneath her.
     
    In shock, Marissa looked up. She couldn't believe her
eyes. A great bear had appeared, as if from nowhere and it was attacking the
loggers. She knew she should be afraid, but she found herself urging the bear
on. She felt strangely drawn to its power. She felt... safe.
     
    "We're going to be okay," she whispered to
her child. "We're going to make it."
     
    One of the loggers stumbled and fell. Marissa had to
turn away as the bear ripped into him. His screams echoed in the forest where
only minutes before the birds had been singing. How had everything gone so
wrong so fast?
     
    Her eyes flew open in sudden realization. Where was
Russell?
     
    Panicked, she searched for him, but he was nowhere to
be seen. Had he run off into the jungle? The last of the loggers was running as
fast as he could to get away from the bear, and Marissa didn't blame him - and
yet, somehow she felt sure Russell wouldn't leave her.
     
    But where was he?
     
    The bear took one step after the fleeing logger. As
Marissa watched in horror, he growled once, and then fell. The crash seemed to
shake the forest around them. Only then did she see the bullet wound in its
chest, bleeding into its thick hair.
     
    But the bear hadn't  been shot. It was Russell who
had...
     
    Slowly, Marissa took a step forward.
"Russell?" she asked the bear. "Is that you?"
     
    With a groan, the shape before her rippled and changed,
and became the man she knew. The man she loved, bleeding to death at her feet.
     
    "Oh God," she choked out, hurrying to his
side. "Stay with me."
     
    She covered his wound with her hands, desperately
trying to staunch the flow of blood. She could feel the heat of his life
slipping through her fingers. "No!" she screamed. "No!"
     
    Inside her womb, her unborn child kicked as if feeling
her grief.
     
    Russell's breath rattled in his chest, and then he was
still.
     
    Marissa screamed aloud, crying out in anguish to the skies.
The birds and trees were her only witnesses, but they knew the full extent of
her grief. She had only just found him, and they had only now begun to be
together! It wasn't fair to lose him like this. Not now.
     
    Breaking down, she leaned over his chest and sobbed.
Marissa could feel his blood on her chest, but she didn't care. She was too
lost in sorrow.
     
    A s she cried, the forest returned to normal around
her. Birds began singing once more, and she found herself hating them for
continuing with their lives when her world had just fallen apart.
     
    And then a hand smoothed her hair.
     
    Marissa closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of being
comforted for the briefest of moments before she realized what that must mean.
She jerked up and stared, wide-eyed, at Russell.
     
    He was alive.
     
    He was pale and still covered in blood, but smiling at
her with that damn smile she loved so much, and he was holding his hand to the
back of her head and then she was laughing and crying all at once and holding
him tightly. "I thought I'd lost you."
     
    "You did, for a moment." He propped himself
up. "But here I am."
     
    Marissa stared. Where before there had been a weeping
gash of a bullet hole in his chest, now there was only clean pink skin. She
could still see the blood on him, she could still feel it all over herself, but
his skin was unbroken. "How?"
     
    Russell was quiet for a long moment. "You saw what
I became."
     
    The bear, he meant. Slowly, she nodded.
     
    "Along with the power and ferocity of a bear, I
also heal at a greatly accelerated rate." He looked down at his chest.
"I guess that saved me today."
     
    Marissa nodded, still crying. "I'm so glad it
did."
     
    "Marissa?" His gaze turned hot, with a hint
of something she didn't recognize.
     
    "Yes?"
    He reached for her. "I also have the desires of a
bear."
     
    "Oh," was all she managed to gasp before he
engulfed her