Page 10 of Mating Season
“Rowan, you have to eat something.”
“I just can’t.”
He’d wasted away. Finally, when he was near the end and had made the final shift into his bear form, I begged him one last time to eat… to live. For me. Why couldn’t he live for me?
He laid a paw weakly against the side of my face and pressed his thoughts into my mind.Someday you’ll understand, little brother.
“I’m only three minutes younger than you!”
He made a chuffing sound that I could swear was a laugh, and then he was gone. I had to perform the rituals on my own.There was no one left. And now all that’s left of my tribe is a bunch bear skins... and me.
My brother has been gone for five years but sometimes I still forget. Our team will win a game, and I’ll pick up the phone to call him to go out and get drinks to celebrate... and then I remember.
And I’m going to end up just like him if I don’t find Rosalie and get her to accept my claim. Humans are far too fucking fragile. I can’t risk her dying before the claim is complete. I need to make her strong, like me.
8
ROSALIE
Los Angeles. Two weeks later.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I saw Cooper in my apartment building’s parking lot sounding for all the world like he was trying to reason with me—plead his case. But he has no case. I’m not going to become a bear. I’m just not. I have an art career to build, things to do.
He can’t justclaim mewithout me having any choice in the matter. It’s too much like an arranged marriage for my taste. It somehow feels both like yesterday and a million years ago that all this happened, and a part of me is half arguing with myself about if any of it even happened at all. I know I must sound like the dumbest movie heroine in the world right now but really… shapeshifters? Were-whatevers? Vampires?
Those things just aren’t real. They’re fun to fantasize about, but the reason they’re fun to fantasize about is that there’s absolutely no chance some supernatural hottie is going to claim you’re his fated bride or mate and whisk you off to his castle. Because things like that just aren’t real.
But hewasreal. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be hiding out in L.A. right now. Oh, sure, I was meaning to visit my sister anyway, but I wouldn’t have taken a red eye… rushed away from my life… possibly run away from my first big opportunity as an artist if there wasn’t a real thing to run from.
I sigh. He was hot though. And I mean, if it was just a casual fling? I’d be down for it. Aside from the psycho stalking—which maybe he can’t even help under the circumstances—he seemed like a nice guy. In between alternately thinking he was crazy and fearing for my life and future, I felt a spark—that magical zap of electricity that shoots through your body as though you literally just got shot by Cupid’s arrow.
I wonder if those are real, too. Let’s hope not. I’m really not a fan of anybody but me being in charge of my fate. I’m sort of a control freak that way.
Katelin was surprised to see me that morning, bright and early at six a.m. But she didn’t complain when I hobbled over her front door step all injured and pathetic. I kept looking around, afraid I’d somehow see Cooper, but no way could he be there.
Getting on a plane was the best way I knew to keep him from tracking my scent because I’m pretty sure a bear can do that. And I hoped that maybe in a few weeks he would have forgotten it. I mean, we’ve been living in the same city for who knows how long, and if he ever got a whiff of me, it didn’t mean anything to him then.
So maybe he’ll forget what I smell like. Maybe I can go back home, rent a new apartment, and go to my art show after all. I paint forests with sunlight shining through the trees and dappled shadows along the forest floor, waterfalls, bears, wolves. But I use a rainbow of colors in my paintings, not just standard browns and greens and grays and blues.
My sister is an actress. It’s mostly national commercials and small roles in movies right now. A tiny speaking part here andthere. She’s got her SAG card. She’s one of those actresses where you wouldn’t recognize her name but if you saw her you’d be sure you’d seen her in something. And you probably have. Waitress number two. Girl running from dragon. Side character’s baby sister. Fast food worker. And most recently: hotel maid who finds dead body. She had several lines in that one. I’m so proud.
She’s got an industry party to go to tonight. Technically it’s not fully a party, but just some people she’s trying to network with all meeting up at a club, and she’s convinced me to go out with her.
Admittedly I’ve been a little less down to party and go out than I normally am. I think in all the activity it’s really just hitting me what a close call I had out in the woods, and I don’t mean Cooper. But the combination of being attacked—even though that man thankfully wasn’t able to complete his goal—and being stalked by a bear… well I’m not the same Rosalie that walked into the forest that day.
I’m a more cautious Rosalie. A less carefree Rosalie. A bit less innocent. I’d managed to stay off the radar of direct male violence for so long, and now… I don’t know. But it’s not something I want to talk to Katelin about. In the first place, I can’t talk about Cooper, and in the second, if I talk about that man, it just makes it more real. And besides, he’s dead. He’s not a threat to me anymore.
If I don’t tell anyone, it can disappear and fade into the background of my memories and no one looks on me with concern or pity to remind me of it. As far as my sister knows, I got lost and sprained my ankle in the woods, then inexplicably decided that was the time to get on a plane to California.
And my ankle is healed now, so I should go out. If I don’t, Katelin will definitely start asking questions I don’t want to answer.
“You’re not dressed yet?” she says, coming into the guest room. She lives with her boyfriend, but he’s out of town on a movie shoot. He’s a slightly more successful actor she met when she was Waitress number two. You still wouldn’t know his name probably, but you’d definitely know his face.
When they first started dating, she proudly informed me that those are hisreal abs. I’m not sure why she thought I would doubt his abs, but I guess with movie magic these days she just wanted to make sure I was aware.
Tonight she’s wearing a black bodycon dress with gold strappy heels and a gold anklet. A long thin gold necklace disappears into her cleavage. She brushes away sun-kissed blonde hair to put in a pair of gold hoop earrings.
My hair would probably be blonde streaked if I was out in the sun as much as she is, but aside from my forest wanderings, I’m mostly an indoor person, so my hair has gone to a milk chocolate brown.
